Author: H0rs4B@lls4210

CheckPoint/Zone Alarm Lose with fake threat

I’ve written about this tactic before – using ‘rogue/fake’ threat or infection warnings to distribute REAL malware. This is one very effective way to get unsuspecting or untrained people to accidentally actually ‘infect’ themselves.

It now appears that a legitimate (using that word lightly now) company – CheckPoint, makers of ZoneAlarm is using the same tactic to ‘up sell’ their products to unsuspecting consumers. I hope others do not follow.

Please take the time to read this very short article.

At one time I used and recommended their products and most were quite good. In fact ZoneAlarm was one of the first ‘software firewalls’ I every used consistantly – over a decade ago.
However………

With this move CheckPoint has assured itself that it will be uninstalled and/or blocked on ALL of the machines (hundreds) I manage or have any influence upon.
I am passing this information to EVERYONE in my sphere of influence and I hope they do the same. Maybe even demand a refund pro-rata on any products they have installed.

Real D*%k move CheckPoint. See you later.

Microsoft Windows 7 and Office Deals

Once again Microsoft is offering a super deal on their desktop Operating System Windows 7.  It’s called the Windows 7 Family Pack. It will be available on October 3rd in the U.S. and soon afterward in the rest of the world.

Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three (3) upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for the low price of only $149.99. Here is some more information.

Now if you have or have access to a ‘.edu’ address, those associated with institutions of high learning, you can get some deals that are even more incredible.

Right now you can get an electronic software download of Windows 7 Professional for only$29.99 with a .edu address!! Windows 7 Pro Student Upgrade.

AND you can get Office Ultimate (with a valid .edu email address) for only $79.99!! Office Ultimate Steal.

Also take note if you purchased, installed, and activated a qualifying Microsoft Office 2007 product between March 5, 2010, and September 30, 2010, you are eligible to download Office 2010 at no additional cost. Office Tech Upgrade guarantee.

Some of my previous Windows 7 tips which may be helpful.

How to create a bootable upgrade or installation USB thumb drive to install Windows 7

All kinds of Windows 7 info

You can download the 90 day trial/demo and give Window 7 a spin too.

Then

Upgrade Windows 7 from Release Candidate or RTM version

Vibram FiveFingers Info

A couple of years ago I was looking for a way to improve my physical fitness routines with out causing more injuries to my knees, back and ankles. I mountain bike, hike, walk/jog a little, weight train, swim, scuba and play sports (when I can, currently very time limited). Also, as most of my readers and friends know I have also been a martial artist for over 3 decades and wanted footwear I could use in that respect too. I was on a mission to find ‘some kind of performance’ footwear that would enable me to do most of these activities and improve my joint strength and at the same time provide me with comfort. I’ve had numerous surgeries on my lower limbs; knees, ankles etc.. [Actually my whole body – but that is a result of  an overly adventurous mindset and fodder for another post(s).]  I was looking for some type of footwear that would not aggravate or cause greater pain to my knees, back and ankles.

After spending months doing research and loads of reading I found Vibram FiveFingers! 

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They were recommended by runners, hikers, climbers and many other enthusiast magazines and blogs. I looked at the science behind their design concept and production and I was sold. I have been wearing them for a couple years now and absolutely love them! I have worn them all over the Pacific Northwest, in Moab Utah and all though Yosemite. I wear them when ever and where ever I can.

From Vibrams site:
"The typical human foot is an anatomical marvel of evolution with 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments. Like the rest of the body, to keep our feet healthy, they need to be stimulated and exercised.
Many experts believe the shoes we wear not only cast the foot in a protective form, but also weaken our foot and leg muscles, leaving them underdeveloped and more prone to injury. And while there are many occasions where traditional footwear is essential for protection, safety, and security, it is equally important to stimulate and exercise the foot in a more natural state on a regular basis."

Since FiveFingers are quite unique they often elicit impromptu queries and conversations. If you are in anyway afraid of having people speak to you don’t get these; everywhere you go people will ask you about them.

Okay so now some information and details.

There are many, many sites with great information about this footwear. I certainly don’t have the time or resources some of these people do. But I am grateful someone spent the time. First place to start is of course the manufacturer’s site linked above and here.

Here is a great site by Justin Owings with WAY more stuff than I could put together. Probably the best site I’ve come across with regards to these footwear.

I chose the KSO models off the bat because of their very ‘tight’ fit. Meaning I could pivot/rotate and move without coming out of my shoes. Something that has happened even with TKD shoes. I also like the actual ‘keep stuff out’ part. There are loads of loose pebbles and stuff where I walk and hike and few things are as annoying as rocks in your shoes.

Check out Justin’s e-book "the beginner’s guide to FiveFingers.


the [beginners guide] to Vibram Five Fingers shoes!

This site is loaded with phenomenal information and links about the whole barefoot shoe theory and practices. There are guides here and here. After seeing some of the new designs and seeing a guy skydive with these (Bikila LS) I am most definitely getting a pair of these too.

Some other reviews here:

A simple review video

Here is a great review from CrunchGear

You can find hundreds or even thousands of articles and reviews if you just Bing or Google yourself away.

I’ve taken all my previous personal emails and tips about this subject and put them here for you all in the hopes it helps you.

Be well, peace.

Gmail Integrates with Google Voice for Free Calls from Your Inbox.

Gmail is integrating Google Voice, bringing free calls to the U.S. and Canada and cheap international calls to Gmail—and it’s available today.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan-and many more countries-for as little as $0.02 per minute.

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As soon as it’s available in your account, you’ll see a Call phone link in the Chat sidebar of Gmail. Click it, search for a contact or dial their number, and voila—phone call. If you’ve already got a Google Voice number, calls you make from Gmail will show your Voice number in that person’s caller ID. You can also receive calls (if you choose) made to your Voice number directly in Gmail—making it a fully legitimate VoIP solution.

Google’s rolling out the feature over the next couple of days in the U.S., so keep your eyes open. You’ll need to have installed the Voice and Video plug-in to use it. It’s not available on Google Apps accounts (yet), but Google says they’re working on it.

Here is the rate chart for international calls.

With the great quality of voice and video chat already built into Gmail/GChat I think this is a killer solution.

Get Caller ID from Your Computer

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Let’s say you’ve got a landline set up with Google Voice and you don’t want to pay for caller ID. Or you just spend a lot of time staring at your computer. If you’re logged into Gmail, and someone rings up your Google Voice number, you can see who’s calling on your computer without digging your phone out of your pocket.

Transfer Calls to (and from) Your Computer to Save Cell phone Minutes

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Assuming you’ve already added your Gmail Chat account as a number that can be reached through Google Voice (which also assumes you’ve signed up for Google Voice), you can transfer calls from your phone to your computer to save cell phone minutes. Here’s how it works:

1) If you’re logged into your Google account, go to the Google Voice phone settings page. At the bottom, you should see a new option for Google Chat (like in the image). Make sure it’s checked.

2) Now, when you’re in the midst of a call on your cell phone—let’s say you were talking to someone in the car, and now you’re home—just hit the * (asterisk) on your phone’s number pad to send the call to another Google Voice phone. If your Gmail account is open, your inbox should start ringing. Pick up in Gmail and hang-up your cell phone.

The opposite works, as well—i.e., transferring calls out from Gmail to your cell phone. Oh, and remember: If you’ve got a decent Bluetooth headset, you should also be able to stay relatively mobile, even if you’re talking from your computer.

Find Your Misplaced Phone

Misplace your cell phone under a pile of clothes or deep in your couch cushions? If you left your ringer on but don’t have another phone on hand, just log into Gmail, dial your cell phone number, and follow the faint sound of ringing.

Use It for a Quick-and-Dirty Speakerphone for Group Calls

Google Voice is already pretty good at setting up conference calls (demonstrated in the video above). Now that you can call from your computer, you’ve also got a quick-and-dirty speakerphone perfect for the group of people sitting around a table on your coast.

Make a Quick Follow-up Call in Response to an Email

This is less of an "amazing new thing" than a nice, practical side effect of having one more thing integrated with your inbox. Say you get an email from a colleague. You want to send a quick follow-up, but it’s going to be a lot more appropriate talking than typing a reply. Dial the person up in Gmail and talk it out without disrupting your workflow.

Secretly Record Calls

Google Voice has handy recording function, but whenever you enable it (hit 4 to start and finish recording), Google Voice announces "This call is now being recorded." Prefer to record a conversation surreptitiously? Calling from Gmail puts the audio on your computer, where you can use any number of tools to record your system audio on-the-sly. (For example, despite what I thought at the time, Whitson later told me he wasn’t aware I was recording the call in the video above.) File this under the know-your-state-laws category.

Gmail Integrates with Google Voice for Free Calls from Your Inbox.

Gmail is integrating Google Voice, bringing free calls to the U.S. and Canada and cheap international calls to Gmail—and it’s available today.

Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan-and many more countries-for as little as $0.02 per minute.

500x_screenshot2

As soon as it’s available in your account, you’ll see a Call phone link in the Chat sidebar of Gmail. Click it, search for a contact or dial their number, and voila—phone call. If you’ve already got a Google Voice number, calls you make from Gmail will show your Voice number in that person’s caller ID. You can also receive calls (if you choose) made to your Voice number directly in Gmail—making it a fully legitimate VoIP solution.

Google’s rolling out the feature over the next couple of days in the U.S., so keep your eyes open. You’ll need to have installed the Voice and Video plug-in to use it. It’s not available on Google Apps accounts (yet), but Google says they’re working on it.

Here is the rate chart for international calls.

With the great quality of voice and video chat already built into Gmail/GChat I think this is a killer solution.

Stimulating YOUR nervous system

If you turn to tea for a healthy dose of antioxidants, keep in mind that the antioxidants, or polyphenols, found in commercially bottled tea is up to 20 times less than you’ll find in homebrewed tea. Not to mention the amount of sugar.

Me, I like good coffee and iced green tea. I drink plenty of both daily. I brew both very strong for two reasons. First and foremost I am all about ‘effect’. I want my chemicals in as concentrated form as possible. Second is flavor. I enjoy hearty flavors. I am not one taken by subtlety.

If you were ever wondering about caffeine content and what products give you the biggest bang for the buck check this out.
Over at the frugality centered blog Wise Bread, they crunched the numbers on the caffeine content to cost ratio of 22 common caffeine sources. The king of the caffeine castle isn’t actually a drink. No Doz pills have a caffeine content that breaks down to a mere 0.0008 cents per mg.

Uncomfortable outright acknowledging the necessity of your caffeine habit by turning it into a pill-popping habit? Fair enough, you’ll want to start drinking the runner up: Tetley’s Black Tea.

Some other graphic numbers
Caffeine01

Another reason to use Firefox and Add-ons/Extensions

As I’ve previously written more than a few times I use Firefox as my primary Internet Browser because of extensive amount of add-ons and scripts available. This helps to make the browser a ‘super tool’ for me. With Firefox I can block unwanted adds and scripts, stop annoying ‘auto play’ music and videos, download just about any video, picture or file, FTP from within my browser, download/convert to PDF nearly any web page and many other cool and productive things.

Now I can add virus scanning files BEFORE I download files to that list.
The VTzilla Firefox extension adds a Scan with VirusTotal option to Firefox’s right-click context menu and file download dialog that allows you to scan any file for a virus before you commit to downloading it to your computer.

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, trojans and other kinds of malicious content detected by antivirus engines and web analysis toolbars.
It’s a brilliant web service that scans any file you send it against 42 of the best malware scanners available.

They now have an add-on for Firefox that let’s you scan via a simply ‘right-click’ on a file you intend to download.

Get Started

The first thing you must do is to install the add-on itself, you can do this by RIGHT-clicking on the following this link while visiting this site with Firefox and choosing ‘Save Link As, then save it to your desktop or where ever.

saving

Then simply drag the file (.xpi) into an open Firefox browser window and it should start the install process. Make sure to choose to ‘Allow’ and install.

Note: By default, VTzilla turns on a new toolbar in Firefox. To disable it, navigate to View -> Toolbars, then uncheck VirusTotal Toolbar.

After installing the component you will have to restart Firefox to start making use of it, below you can find some examples of use.

Scan suspicious links with VTzilla

Imagine you have logged into your Gmail account and you have received a suspicious email from your bank. The email is informing you about an unauthorized access to your account and is asking you to follow a link and provide your credentials to view the account access log.

Since you are a smart guy, you know that this mail is probably a phishing case. Even though you know that this is a scam, you are committed to help others, hence, you right click on the suspicious link and select the Scan with VirusTotal option from the context menu:

This will open a new tab in the same browser window, such tab will show the report for the requested URL scan. Note that the scanning process will also download the file/site of the target link, so do not forget to click on the View downloaded file analysis link.

Scan downloads before storing them

Let us suppose your good friend John Doe has sent you an email with a slide presentation. You know that very often these slides contain exploit code that will compromise your computer. When you click on the slide presentation in your webmail a download dialog appears, you are a cautious user, you therefore decide to scan the file first with VirusTotal:

Once you have checked the file, you will decide whether or not to download it to your PC.

Simple.

Warning!!: VirusTotal is not a substitute for any antivirus software installed in a PC, since it only scans individual files on demand. It does not offer permanent protection for users’ systems either.

Little-known fact: Obama’s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war

I know some people just can’t handle facts – they are corrosive to the leftist ideology and so they are ‘shouted down’ as racist, lies, bigoted or worse. But facts are that – facts.

So here are some more handy facts to recall during coming weeks as Obama and his congressional Democratic buddies get more desperate to put the blame for their spending policies on Bush and the war in Iraq.

Please read this article and get informed so that when someone utters the idiot mantra the left publishes daily that ‘Bush’s war’ is the reason we are in such terrible economic times you can be armed with facts.

Another reason to use Firefox and Add-ons/Extensions

As I’ve previously written more than a few times I use Firefox as my primary Internet Browser because of extensive amount of add-ons and scripts available. This helps to make the browser a ‘super tool’ for me. With Firefox I can block unwanted adds and scripts, stop annoying ‘auto play’ music and videos, download just about any video, picture or file, FTP from within my browser, download/convert to PDF nearly any web page and many other cool and productive things.

Now I can add virus scanning files BEFORE I download files to that list.
The VTzilla Firefox extension adds a Scan with VirusTotal option to Firefox’s right-click context menu and file download dialog that allows you to scan any file for a virus before you commit to downloading it to your computer.

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, trojans and other kinds of malicious content detected by antivirus engines and web analysis toolbars.
It’s a brilliant web service that scans any file you send it against 42 of the best malware scanners available.

They now have an add-on for Firefox that let’s you scan via a simply ‘right-click’ on a file you intend to download.

Get Started

The first thing you must do is to install the add-on itself, you can do this by RIGHT-clicking on the following this link while visiting this site with Firefox and choosing ‘Save Link As, then save it to your desktop or where ever. Then simply drag the file (.xpi) into an open Firefox browser window and it should start the install process. Make sure to choose to ‘Allow’ and install.

Note: By default, VTzilla turns on a new toolbar in Firefox. To disable it, navigate to View -> Toolbars, then uncheck VirusTotal Toolbar.

After installing the component you will have to restart Firefox to start making use of it, below you can find some examples of use.

Scan suspicious links with VTzilla

Imagine you have logged into your Gmail account and you have received a suspicious email from your bank. The email is informing you about an unauthorized access to your account and is asking you to follow a link and provide your credentials to view the account access log.

Since you are a smart guy, you know that this mail is probably a phishing case. Even though you know that this is a scam, you are committed to help others, hence, you right click on the suspicious link and select the Scan with VirusTotal option from the context menu:

This will open a new tab in the same browser window, such tab will show the report for the requested URL scan. Note that the scanning process will also download the file/site of the target link, so do not forget to click on the View downloaded file analysis link.

Scan downloads before storing them

Let us suppose your good friend John Doe has sent you an email with a slide presentation. You know that very often these slides contain exploit code that will compromise your computer. When you click on the slide presentation in your webmail a download dialog appears, you are a cautious user, you therefore decide to scan the file first with VirusTotal:

Once you have checked the file, you will decide whether or not to download it to your PC.

Simple.

Warning!!: VirusTotal is not a substitute for any antivirus software installed in a PC, since it only scans individual files on demand. It does not offer permanent protection for users’ systems either.

Another reason to use Firefox and Add-ons/Extensions

As I’ve previously written more than a few times I use Firefox as my primary Internet Browser because of extensive amount of add-ons and scripts available. This helps to make the browser a ‘super tool’ for me. With Firefox I can block unwanted adds and scripts, stop annoying ‘auto play’ music and videos, download just about any video, picture or file, FTP from within my browser, download/convert to PDF nearly any web page and many other cool and productive things.

Now I can add virus scanning files BEFORE I download files to that list.
The VTzilla Firefox extension adds a Scan with VirusTotal option to Firefox’s right-click context menu and file download dialog that allows you to scan any file for a virus before you commit to downloading it to your computer.

VirusTotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs enabling the identification of viruses, worms, trojans and other kinds of malicious content detected by antivirus engines and web analysis toolbars.
It’s a brilliant web service that scans any file you send it against 42 of the best malware scanners available.

They now have an add-on for Firefox that let’s you scan via a simply ‘right-click’ on a file you intend to download.

Get Started

The first thing you must do is to install the add-on itself, you can do this by clicking on the following this link while visiting this site with Firefox.

Note: By default, VTzilla turns on a new toolbar in Firefox. To disable it, navigate to View -> Toolbars, then uncheck VirusTotal Toolbar.

After installing the component you will have to restart Firefox to start making use of it, below you can find some examples of use.

Scan suspicious links with VTzilla

Imagine you have logged into your Gmail account and you have received a suspicious email from your bank. The email is informing you about an unauthorized access to your account and is asking you to follow a link and provide your credentials to view the account access log.

Since you are a smart guy, you know that this mail is probably a phishing case. Even though you know that this is a scam, you are committed to help others, hence, you right click on the suspicious link and select the Scan with VirusTotal option from the context menu:

This will open a new tab in the same browser window, such tab will show the report for the requested URL scan. Note that the scanning process will also download the file/site of the target link, so do not forget to click on the View downloaded file analysis link.

Scan downloads before storing them

Let us suppose your good friend John Doe has sent you an email with a slide presentation. You know that very often these slides contain exploit code that will compromise your computer. When you click on the slide presentation in your webmail a download dialog appears, you are a cautious user, you therefore decide to scan the file first with VirusTotal:

Once you have checked the file, you will decide whether or not to download it to your PC.

Simple.

Warning!!: VirusTotal is not a substitute for any antivirus software installed in a PC, since it only scans individual files on demand. It does not offer permanent protection for users’ systems either.