Interesting on Omid Farhang

A Valentine’s Day Sweepstakes: Win a Pink SONY VAIO Y

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:56:00 +0000

Windows Experience Blog wrote:

If you’ve been reading the blog lately, you know that I’m trying to bring back Valentine’s Day as a cool hip holiday. It’s not my fault; really, I’m just a sucker for a love note. The best thing about a Valentine’s Day card, to be honest, isn’t the words (they are always cheesy) – it’s the thought. With that thought in mind, we headed to the wilderness to create this card for you.

US vs Rest of the World

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Really why?

Click on image to see full size

No one can see

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:33:00 +0000

…Und der Haifisch, der hat Tränen
und die laufen vom Gesicht;
doch der Haifisch lebt im Wasser –
so die Tränen sieht man nicht…_

…And the shark, that has tears
And they run from the face
But the shark lives in water
So no one can see the tears…_

Today's Tip: Smile Always

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Today’s Tip:

Smile Always….

Fake Certificate in Malware – with Message

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:23:00 +0000

Avira TechBlog: The malware authors every now and then send us virus researchers some messages. For example in the compiled binary itself, or as debug output. Now we found a Zbot Trojan variant which tries to evade detection by carrying a digital certificate and therewith looking more legitimate. And this certificate is registered to “DetectMe! 🙂 ”, also adding random data behind the certificate.

We see hints like these regularly – malware authors proposing names for their malicious creations or suggesting a place where a signature based detection would be suitable. Of course, such hints are ignored by us for detection but make us smile for a short time.

Gmailers: Skinnier and smartier than Yahoo! users?

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 09:58:00 +0000

A new study shows that Gmail users are more likely to be young, thin, career-minded men, while Yahoo! is more typically home to overweight, older women

Web curator Hunch.com asked its 700,000 users which email service they use, as well as a series of questions about their lifestyles. With 75 million answers to work with, the site was able to discover some striking differences between users of Gmail, and those who have stuck with older web clients like Yahoo!, Hotmail, and AOL. For instance, Gmail users are more likely to be young, Yahoo! users are often extroverted, and AOL users have typically been in a relationship for more than ten years. Here are four other takeaways from the study:

Windows Phone 7 outlasts iPhone, Android… on a BBQ

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:11:00 +0000

Todd Bishop, TechFlash: Not sure if this will factor into anyone’s purchasing decisions, but it looks like Windows Phone 7 is the smartphone for you — at least if you have a habit of leaving your smartphone unattended on a flaming grill.

EZ Grill, a Bellevue-based disposable BBQ company, worked with Seattle-based social media agency Banyan Branch to pit a new HTC Surround, running the Microsoft operating system, against the Android G2 and iPhone 4 in a test of endurance on the grill. As you can see in the video above, Windows Phone won easily.

This Posters shows, how many floppies are…

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 14:20:00 +0000

This Posters shows, how many floppies are enough for current softwares. Result (Approximate) 46 disk for iTunes 8.02, 358 disk for Adobe Photoshop CS4, 1760 disk for the Sims 3, 12 disk for Firefox 3, See the main story here: http://www.behance.net/gallery/3_5-inch-poster-set/164212

With the Jack PC, the computer's in the wall!

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:39:00 +0000

The Jack PC from Chip PC Technologies offers a neat and novel thin-client desktop computing solution where the computer doesn’t just plug into the wall, it is the plug in the wall. Running on power provided by the Ethernet cable that also connects it to the data center server, the computer-in-a-wall-socket supports wireless connectivity, has dual display capabilities and runs on the RISC processor architecture – which gives the solution the equivalent of 1.2GHz of x86 processing power… Continue Reading With the Jack PC, the computer’s in the wall!

When technology fails

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:21:00 +0000

I love computers and technology in general. Actually, I am an advocate of technology and I try to push high tech solution whenever that makes sense.

But, what happens when technology fails?

We have seen many movies with various apocalyptical scenarios where one or another technology fails on us: computer systems in nuclear power plants, satellites, ground or air traffic and so on.

The picture below were taken by me with the mobile’s phone camera in two airports in Europe.

Are You Smarter Than John?

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:13:00 +0000

How not to manage your passwords…

John, and his unique approach to security is part of an F-Secure Internet Security 2011 campaign.
You can find more at besmarterthanjohn.com.

Thief Steals Laptop, Returns Data on USB Stick

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:41:00 +0000

A university professor in Sweden has “hope for humanity” after the thief who stole his laptop backed up all his data and mailed it to him on a USB stick.

Having your laptop stolen sucks, but what really hurts is the loss of everything on it. Whether it’s family vacation photos or the sum total of your life’s work, that’s stuff that you just can’t get back unless you’re seriously conscientious about making backups. And come on, who does that? So when a Swedish professor discovered that somebody had swiped his laptop, he was understandably crushed.

Implantable LEDs Can Really Get Under Your Skin

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:18:00 +0000

Maybe your main problem with tattoos is probably the fact that you’ve never been able to play Pong on them. But those problems seem to be over now that an international team of researchers, led by John Rogers at the University of Illinois, has developed a new flexible array of LEDs that can be implanted under the skin.

The researchers managed to make the LED matrix implantable by encasing the electronics in a thin layer of silicon rubber that makes the whole thing functional even when exposed to biofluids. Mc10, a new company founded by Rogers, hopes to commercialize the new technology over the next few years.

Avira know better what to put and where

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:40:00 +0000

Sometimes we encounter childish messages from the authors in the body of malware. A variant of the TDSS family we got recently is even going a step further by offering a convenient location for a malware signature. The samples include the message “Put your signature here”, which is shown when run inside a debugger.

While in many cases signatures could be still useful for detection, Avira prefer to use other technologies which are more generic and proactive. This is especially the case with malware families like TDSS/Alureon, whose authors continuously adapt their creations so they are able to work around even proactive detection in a short time. This variant is detected as TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen3.

Google's First Personalized Doodle

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Google found a nice way to wish you Happy Birthday. If you visit Google’s homepage when you are signed in and it’s your birthday, you’ll see a special doodle that links to your Google profile. When you go to your profile, you’ll find colorful confetti and a Happy Birthday message, but that’s not new.

“Because doodles are such a fun part of the search experience, we thought we’d share a fun little way Google will help celebrate your birthday. When you include your date of birth on your Google profile, you may notice a special treat on the Google homepage on your birthday (be sure to sign in). Click on the doodle for another birthday surprise,” informs the Google blog.

Messages from Malware authors in Malware

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:22:00 +0000

During our analysis of the different malware families we sometimes stumble upon some messages inside the viruses placed there by their authors. For example, the TDSS Trojan family is known to contain random strings from “Hamlet” and from the Bible. Also there is the Koobface family which contains random sentences – mostly taken from Wikipedia articles, like in the last variant we discovered, about the Tower of London.

TDSS:

Alyssa Milano Teaches Jimmy Kimmel How to Use Twitter

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:42:00 +0000

On Jimmy Kimmel Live 2 nights ago, Jimmy asked guest Alyssa Milano to explain Twitter and hashtags to him. In the video below, Alyssa explains that she tweets 12 to 22 times per day, that she likes to imagine Jimmy Kimmel naked when she’s nervous and that she uses a lot of hashtags — a big plus in my book.

A closer look at the actress’s Twitter stream reveals that she uses TweetDeck, an app she likes so much that she asks Twitter “not to kill TweetDeck.” The acquisition of Tweetie has made the future of other third party Twitter clients a little uncertain, but with support like this, the folks at TweetDeck have nothing to worry about.

The goats are baaaahk!

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:48:00 +0000

Taken from Google Official Blog:

Last year, in our quest to minimize our carbon footprint (and keep people on their toes), we turned to an unlikely solution for mowing an overgrown field: goats. More than 200 goats from California Grazing have once again arrived at our Mountain View headquarters where they’ll stay for over a week chomping away on grassy goodness. The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the green benefits are clear: the goats eliminate mower emissions, reduce noise pollution, restore plant species and fertilize while grazing.

RIP Windows Vista RTM

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Avid readers of the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Blog (and really, how can you not be?) know that yesterday, April 13th, marked the end of support for Windows Vista RTM, also known as Windows Vista SP0.

We’d like to say that we’ll miss Vista RTM. We’d like to say that… but, well…

Ctrl+Alt+Del

On a related note, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) will reach its end of support this summer on July 13th. There are more positive memories of XP SP2, largely because of its emphasis on security.

Malware humor

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:08:00 +0000

Every once in a while, you find some odd piece of text in a piece of malware.

Debugging the TDL 3 rootkit yields some interesting results. Here are messages that dump in the debug window at various times:

Fri Apr 9 09:02:37.495 2010 (GMT-4): You people voted for Hubert Humphrey, and you killed Jesus
Fri Apr 9 09:03:01.900 2010 (GMT-4): Ah Lou, come on man, we really like this place
Fri Apr 9 11:53:08.715 2010 (GMT-4): Dude, meet me in Montana XX00, Jesus (H. Christ)
Fri Apr 9 12:18:27.522 2010 (GMT-4): I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn’t screw to save it’s species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all those french beaches I’d never see. I wanted to breathe smoke