7 Steps to keep your computer protected from a USB autorun virus

virus infected PCIf you are like me then you probably avoid having any antivirus or antispyware installed on your PC/laptop because it renders it slow or cumbersome. Instead, you install stuff from only trustworthy sources. And you have this innate ability to tell a malicious site, software, download, ad, link from a good one.

But one day all of that changes, when you let someone else use your computer for a while. Your PC gets infected!

Badly!

That is exactly what happened with me: After 1 year and 8 months of getting my laptop (an HP 6000 series), having it run without any antivirus, without any formatting or reinstallation of Windows, my Windows Vista OS just stopped working, except for the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD)! The culprit? Some “autorun” virus that infects USBs! It was my brother’s USB and although I had told him so many times (whenever his PC gets infected) that he should be careful of these autoruns from USBs and cameras, but, it had to be my laptop this time!

Unfortunately, the DVDRW of my laptop was also not working (I wish they were any better from HP)! So I couldn’t get to boot to DOS, with a bootable CD, and install some antivirus or backup software. So I ended up reinstalling Windows Vista with the inbuilt setup that came with my laptop. Thus, ended up wiping out everything that was on my C drive, including the My Documents and Desktop folders. But I didn’t lose much data since I keep most of my data on other drives/partitions. I also lost my WMP Media Library, specifically the play count of songs (yes that’s important to me). Saved passwords in Firefox and other little details were lost too. Though I was able to recover some of my wiped out files through a recovery software – Easy Recover Professional.

Checklist to save yourself from such a fiasco:

  1. Do NOT trust autoruns on USBs, cameras, media/mp3 players
  2. If multiple people use the PC/laptop, completely disable autorun on USBs and other devices
  3. Install an antivirus and keep it updated
  4. Keep as much of your data on other partitions as possible
  5. Have a working DVD drive, in case you need to boot into DOS and run a virus check or recover data from there
  6. Keep backup of your data on DVDs/BluRays
  7. Also get a backup external hard disk, it will be much convenient

I will post on the above steps in detail in later posts. Please post any queries in the comments.

The Story of Wateen’s Billing Screw Up!

It has been some time since I blogged. There are a couple of reasons for my absence and lack of posting. The most important one being: Wateen’s screw up!!

Wateen, the only WiMax operator in Pakistan, had been working quite well for me since I subscribed to their services at the start of this year, so much so that I had been all praise for it off and on amid a plethora of criticism against them. But all of that changed come 6th of September.

I was out of town from the eve of 5th September till the eve of 7th September (weekend). Upon my return, when I tried to get back on the virtual world from my home through Wateen, I started getting “User is Invalid” message. That marked the start of a 5 weeks period, during which I called their support center so many times and was only given complaint #’s after complaint #’s (with a few reassuring words) but without any solution.

The problem was: A humongous telephony bill that was laden with a three days spree of bogus calls amounting to a whopping 12000 rupees!!

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Upload and Play Media Files in Drupal with CCK, Filefield and jQuery Media

Sean Effel  from Drupal Therapy has an excellent screencast on how to utilize the CCK, Filefield and jQuery Media modules to upload and play inline media files attached to a node.

List of Drupal Modules Used:

  1. Content Construction Kit (CCK)
  2. FileField
  3. JQuery Media

More to discuss at the original post.

Pencil Maker’s Five Important Lessons

A Pencil maker taught the pencils five important lessons:

  1. Everything you do will always leave a mark.
  2. You can always correct the mistakes you make.
  3. What is important is what is inside you.
  4. In life you will undergo painful sharpenings which will make you a better pencil.
  5. To be the best pencil you can be, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the Hand that holds you.

The pencil is you and the hand is that of your Lord.

[Received as a text message.]

Firefox Stops Responding to Pressing Enter in the Address Bar

Problem:

There’s this annoying little bugger in Firefox, where, out of the blue and just so randomly, the address bar stops responding to the Enter key after you have entered the website’s URL!

No matter what you do: press Enter, Ctrl + Enter, click the (Go) Arrow button … Firefox would sit there idle, as if it’s ignoring the Enter key, while the cursor keeps on blinking in the address bar as it is.

Read the solution after the jump.

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Web Frameworks: Which one to learn?

Being in the field of IT (Computer Science), it’s necessary to keep pace with the changing landscape, otherwise you would end up rendering yourself obsolete. It’s no different with web development/programming: The landscape keeps changing, either on the user interface front or the browser side or the website back-end.

As of now, we are moving through the era of web application frameworks. That’s the landscape we are surrounded with. Plenty of frameworks have been built during these years broadly categorized under software frameworks, web application frameworks and JavaScript frameworks (or libraries), and plenty more are being developed.

So better learn one now, before you are rendered obsolete.

I am considering the following frameworks:

image image image image Djangoimage

Read more about the most popular web frameworks that I am considering after the jump.

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Add to Google Button

Ever wanted to have an “Add to Google” button like for your blog or website so that your visitors can easily subscribe to your RSS feed through Google Reader or Google homepage?

It’s actually quite simple. Simply head to Add to Google Button – Information for Publishers and follow the simple wizard: choose the type of content and button style, and provide your feed URL and generate the HTML code. Viola!

I just got mine! Go ahead, try out how it works by adding my feed to your Google Add to Google.

Or get your own: Add to Google Button

Silvermel: The Best Theme For Firefox (and Thunderbird) Yet!

Finally, there is a Firefox theme, which is not just pleasing to the eye with its subtle color theme but also, everything in the theme, every detail of Firefox has been worked upon with outstanding finesse.

The theme is called Silvermel. Here are two screenshots from the official site, showing Firefox and Thunderbird versions of the theme:

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Looks great, no? The Silvermel theme fits perfectly on Firefox 3. Download it from here.

More screenshots after the jump …
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