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Monday the 3rd of November 2008

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Monday the 3rd of November 2008

1. Virus Warnings
2. Daily Technology News
3. Latest Shareware and Freeware
4. FAQ for the day
5. Advice of the day
6. Internet Advice

This is a free service provided by Helpforce.com, to unsubscribe please visit http://www.helpforce.com
For free technical support, visit us at http://www.helpforce.com

1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Troj/Agent-ICW on 3 November 2008 09:45:13 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagenticw.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PWS-AVO on 3 November 2008 09:45:13 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpwsavo.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-ICV on 3 November 2008 07:50:35 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagenticv.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/BHO-FY on 3 November 2008 07:50:35 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbhofy.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PWS-AVK on 3 November 2008 07:50:35 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpwsavk.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PWS-AVL on 3 November 2008 07:50:35 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpwsavl.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Zlob-ALO on 3 November 2008 07:50:35 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojzlobalo.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Mdrop-BWO on 3 November 2008 05:05:03 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojmdropbwo.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Rootkit-EB on 3 November 2008 05:05:03 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojrootkiteb.html?_log_from=rss
W32/Autorun-NM on 3 November 2008 05:05:03 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32autorunnm.html?_log_from=rss

2. Latest Technology News From Slashdot
-----------------------------------------------

-- How To Make Money With Free Software
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XNbB592wQ44/article.pl)
bmsleight writes "The Dutch Ministry of Finance organized an architecture competition to design not a building, but rather the new 5-Euro commemorative coin. The theme was 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winning design was made 100% with free software, mainly Python, but also including The Gimp, Inkscape, Phatch, and Ubuntu. The design is amazing — the head of Queen Beatrix is made up of the names of architects based on their popularity in Yahoo searches (rendered in a font of the artist's own devising). In the end the artist, Stani Michiels, had to collaborate closely on location with technicians of the Royal Dutch Mint, so all the last bits were done on his Asus Eee PC. Soon, 350,000 Dutch people will use and enjoy the fruits of free software."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- In UK, 12M Taxpayers Lost With USB Stick
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/QAkE3CWgWr4/article.pl)
An anonymous reader tips a piece from the UK's Daily Mail that recounts another sad tale of the careless loss of massive amounts of private user data. "Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets. An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, came to be lost."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Netflix Extends "Watch Instantly" To Mac Users
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/nrsIi8pDjiY/article.pl)
CNet is reporting that Netflix has opened up its "Watch Instantly" feature to Mac users (here is Netflix's blog entry). They accomplished this by using Microsoft's Silverlight technology on both platforms, abandoning the Windows Media Player solution that had been employed in the first, Windows-only, version. Silverlight's DRM capabilities meet Netflix's needs, apparently. Netflix warns that this is beta software. Mac users can opt in here, then watch instantly with Safari or Firefox 2+, with the Silverlight plugin in place. Movie selection is somewhat limited.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- 1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/BPiBDQXfgKs/article.pl)
Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- D.I.Y. Home Security
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/WF7wieWiBIw/article.pl)
theodp writes "The NYTimes reports that pre-wired home security installations by alarm companies are on the way out. Thanks to wireless window and door sensors and motion detectors, installing and maintaining one's own security system is becoming a do-it-yourself project, with kits available from companies like InGrid and LaserShield. Time to start cranking out some new iPhone and Android apps, kids?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Behind the Cogent-Sprint Depeering
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/56dahw2eimo/article.pl)
An anonymous reader brings an update to Sprint's depeering with Cogent, which we discussed a few days back — namely, Sprint's side of the story. According to them, no free peering contract had ever existed, Cogent refused to pay the bills to exchange traffic, and after a year Sprint gave Cogent 30 days notice of their intent to disconnect. During this 30-day period, when one or two connections (out of ten) per week were shut down, Cogent made no alternate arrangements to alleviate the impact on their customers — but they had a press release ready when Sprint snipped the final wire. It will be interesting to see how Cogent responds.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Google Apps Gets a 99.9% Guarantee
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/H8DL9NPAkkc/article.pl)
David Gerard passes along a posting on Google's official blog announcing that they have extended the three-nines SLA for the Premier Edition of Google Apps from Gmail alone to also cover the Calendar, Docs, Sites, and Google Talk services. 99.9% uptime translates to 45 minutes a month of downtime, and the blog post puts this in context with Gmail's historical reliability, which has been between three and four times as good over the last year (10-15 min./mo.). It also claims, based on research by an outside group, that Gmail's historical reliability beats that of in-house hosted solutions such as Groupwise and Exchange, on average. Reader Ian Lamont adds an article in The Standard that digs down into the details of the SLA, revealing for instance that outages of less than 10 minutes aren't counted against the monthly 45 minutes.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The Gym Arcade
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YrXg1X724gk/article.pl)
theodp writes "Cross Halo with an exercise bike, and you get Expresso Fitness' S3, which lets you blow away dragons by squeezing handlebar-mounted triggers as you pedal hard through the Chinese countryside. Portfolio notes that a new generation of Wii-like workouts is hitting gyms and homes, with companies like GameRunner incorporating treadmills into First Person Shooters and Kickstart offering mini steppers and cycles for popular game systems."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- OpenBSD 4.4 Released
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/keCdyj9TH9g/article.pl)
Linux blog writes "The new version of OpenBSD is available for download. There are lots of nifty new features to try out including OpenSSH 5.1 with chroot(2) support, Xenocara, Gnome 2.20.3, KDE 3.5.8, etc. Machines using the UltraSPARC IV/T1/T2 and Fujitsu SPARC64-V/VI/VII are now supported. It seems amazing to me that they keep delivering these new results on a six-month release cycle."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- How We Used To Vote
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/S2vRZM6Gfwk/article.pl)
Mr. Slippery writes "Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad? The New Yorker looks back at how we used to vote back in the good old days: 'A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. The Democratic candidate for Congress, William Harrison, lost to the American Party's Henry Winter Davis. Three months later, when the House of Representatives convened hearings into the election, whose result Harrison contested, Davis's victory was upheld on the ground that any "man of ordinary courage" could have made his way to the polls.' Now I feel like a wuss for complaining about the lack of a voter-verified paper trail." The article notes the American penchant for trying to fix voting problems with technology — starting just after the Revolution. This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Asus To Phase Out Sub-10" Eee PCs
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OZE0kD8DcEA/article.pl)
jeevesbond writes "The Register reports that Asus president Jerry Shen has revealed his company will be phasing out all sub-10" Eee PCs. According to Shen, the 'standard' netbook next year will be a 10" model with a hard drive running XP. Shen also said XP is outselling GNU/Linux on netbooks by a ratio of 7:3. This is somewhat contrary to news from the UK earlier in the year that GNU/Linux units were out of stock while XP machines sat unsold. Are Brits more open-minded than the rest of the world when it comes to choosing an OS?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- 10th Year of the International Nethack Tournament
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/quef3x4beIQ/article.pl)
Dr. Zowie writes "The 10th annual Nethack Tournament just started over at nethack.devnull.net, so put on your Hawaiian shirt, grab an expensive camera, and head for the dungeon. The tourney runs through the month of November each year, with volunteer game servers dotted around the world. Fewer than 1% of contestants actually finish the game by retrieving the Amulet of Yendor and ascending to demigodhood, but take heart: there many prizes for intermediate goals, and prizes for team effort. For those too young to remember games older than Halo, Nethack is the apotheosis of the Roguelike genre of role-playing games, rendered in ASCII. Gameplay is phenomenally complex, and the game is somewhat sadistic; there are no 'checkpoints,' so if you manage to kill yourself somewhere in the dungeon you must start over from the beginning. The dungeons are quasi-randomly generated, so every game is different."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- French Senate Passes Anti-Piracy Internet Cut-Off Law
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/KezkOaiBxCQ/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "The French Senate has approved a three strikes law for Internet users who download copyrighted entertainment media without paying for it. If, after two warnings, a person continues to download pirated music and movies, the internet service providers would cut off access for a year. Quoting: 'The legislation passed with a massive cross-party majority of 297 votes to 15. Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained. In passing the bill, the senators rejected an amendment proposed by senator Bruno Retailleau of the right-wing MPF party replacing internet cut-off with a fine. ... The bill sets up a tussle between France and Brussels. In September, the European Parliament approved by a large majority an amendment outlawing internet cut-off." We discussed the introduction of this legislation several months ago.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- New Class of Pulsars Discovered
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/NPEG9z2Sc7E/article.pl)
xyz writes "NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a new class of pulsars which emit purely in gamma rays. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star, and of the nearly 1,800 cataloged so far, only a small fraction emit at frequencies higher than radio waves. The gamma-ray-only pulsar, which lies within a supernova remnant known as CTA 1, is silent across parts of the electromagnetic spectrum where pulsars are normally found, indicating a new class of pulsars. It is located 'about 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. Its lighthouse-like beam sweeps Earth's way every 316.86 milliseconds. The pulsar, which formed in a supernova explosion about 10,000 years ago, emits 1,000 times the energy of our sun.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- How China Will Use Cyber Warfare To Leapfrog Foes
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/EDXWwOEccLE/article.pl)
The Walking Dude writes "A lengthy article published in Culture Mandala details how China is using cyber warfare (PDF) as an asymmetric means to obtain technology transfer and market dominance. Case studies of Estonia, Georgia, and Project Chanology point towards a new auxiliary arm of traditional warfare. Political hackers and common Web 2.0 users, referred to as useful idiots (PDF), are being manipulated through PSYOPS and propaganda to enhance government agendas."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3. Latest Shareware from Planet-Shareware
-----------------------------------------------

-- SpiceLogic Document 2 Text Converter
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SpiceLogic_Document_2_Text_Converter.htm)
SpiceLogic Document 2 Text Converter is a Windows software that provides you an efficient way of converting your document files from various types to plain text The supported conversion types are MS Word doc MS Excel xls PDF HTML and RTF It allows you to convert a lots of files as BATCH PROCESSING by a single mouse click You dont need

-- Hide My Files
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Hide_My_Files.htm)
Hide My Files is an easy to use folder lock used to hide files and folders from unauthorized use This file and folder security software provides an easy to use interface that allows you to choose the files by selecting the directories in which you choose to block users from viewing

-- NET Document 2 Text Converter DLL
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/.NET_Document_2_Text_Converter_DLL.htm)
NET Document 2 Text Converter DLL is a NET class library that provides you an efficient way of converting your document files from various types to plain text Recommended for Windows application only Not for ASPNET The supported conversion types are MS Word doc MS Excel xls PDF HTML and RTF You dont need MS Office installed to r

-- SPYWIPE
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SPYWIPE.htm)
SPYWIPE is the fastest scanning techniques in the market It will protect your PC from the thousands of SpyWare and AdWare internet surfers come across In addition SPYWIPE have the ability to manage the infected lists so the user can take an action later without performing a new scan A set of scan options is proviided so the user can highly custo

-- SPYWAREWIPE
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SPYWAREWIPE.htm)
SPYWAREWIPE is the fastest scanning techniques in the market It will protect your PC from the thousands of SpyWare and AdWare internet surfers come across In addition SPYWAREWIPE have the ability to manage the infected lists so the user can take an action later without performing a new scan A set of scan options is proviided so the user can high

-- Flowers Screensaver
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Flowers_Screensaver.htm)
A Screen Saver with pictures of different flowers in nice colors It has a black background and the pictures of the flowers change every five seconds This Screensaver can be installed with one click A nice Screen Saver for spring dreams at the computer

-- ReplaceMagic ExcelOnly Standard
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/ReplaceMagic_ExcelOnly_Standard.htm)
Have you ever been in situation that you need to change text header footer comments OLE object links hyperlinks or even more in thousands of files and you had to open each file manually to make changes? With ReplaceMagic you can scan folders for files and by entering search and replace strings let application to do all changes automatically fo

-- Easter Bonus
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Easter_Bonus.htm)
Love match-three games? Spring into action and play Easter Bonus Slick and addictive and really really cute; this is the latest game from the Xmas Bonus team Fluffy chicks chocolate eggs and the Easter bunnywe know you cant resist A calorie-free treat for players of all ages

4. FAQ of the day from Helpforce
-----------------------------------------------

-- My right-click "send to desktop as shortcut" has dissapeared
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: My right-click "send to desktop as shortcut" feature has disappeared. How do I get it back?

Answer: If you can’t find the Send To...Desktop as Shortcut option on your Send To menu or if you accidentally delete its shortcut from the SendTo folder, here’s how to get it back:Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the SendTo (in windows 98, this is in c:\windows, but may be hidden) folder. Right-click in an empty space in the SendTo folder and select New, Text Document from the pop-up menu. Name the newly created text document:Desktop as Shortcut.DESKLINKand press Enter. You’ll be warned that changing the file’s extension may render the file unusable. Click Yes to change it anyway.

5. Advice of the Day from ask-leo
-----------------------------------------------

-- I have an old, old program I need to run in Vista, but it won't. Is there a way?

We use Visual BASIC for DOS, ver 1.0, to compile BASIC programs on
Win 98SE and Win XP computers. The compiler doesn't work in Vista. Is
there some way in which we can get the compiler to work under Vista? If
the programs are compiled in XP, the programs run on Vista.

Boy, now there's a blast from the past. It's quite possible that you
might actually be using software that I had a hand in creating, many
years ago.
I can't guarantee that this will work for any specific program (like
VB-DOS), but Vista does include some compatibility tricks that may be
able to help.

6. Internet Advice
-----------------------------------------------

-- What is an Internet 'Mashup'?(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/a/257566.htm)

You hear this "mashup" expression being used by techie friends of yours. They talk about "oh, that is such an awesome mashup", or "you have to check out this mashup...

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