There is a new one according to a report from Symantec called Ramvicrype Trojan that well encrypt your files and then when you are search for a fix you find yourself directed to a website that will sell you some software to fix the problem. The search will yield the expected results because of the unique file extension the malware uses on the encrypted files.

Using the file extension – *.vicrypt it takes short order to find the solution but Symantec has published a specific utility program to help any victims hit by this trojan.

Symantec virus researcher Shunichi Imano said in a blog entry that Ramvicrype victims will see some files on the computer with a vicrypt extension.

Entering the term ‘vicrypt’ into a search engine leads us to a company offering a fix, which of course is a charged service. So, there was a reason for that file extension after all.

The security vendor has developed a Symantec Ramvicrype removal tool for victims to decrypt the files.

The one other solution is to make sure you have a current image file of your system and then restore if hit by crippling malware such as this one.

hat tip to the Security Bytes team.

Sony starts eating its own fresher dog food. Still won’t make Blu-ray any less of a fleeting tech (and they’re offering it over the Internet to their equipped TVs too).

Yep.

“The thing is, the Droid is Windows 3.1. It is showing the momentum is shifting but now Google has to ship their metaphorical equivalent of Windows 95. It isn’t this phone.

via The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone »

Some good real-world thoughts on the new Droid phone (rather than another by-the-book review).

I still have yet to use the Droid, but just from seeing one, I already agree with Scoble on the design, I just don’t think it looks great at all.

Also the keyboard. I just know I’m going to consider it a huge waste of space — as I do with all physical keyboards. I know some people cannot live without them. I am not one of those people. I don’t anticipate ever buying a phone with one. The G1’s sucks. The Pre’s? Possibly even worse. Give me thinner any day of the week.

Though I have yet to use one, I’ve talked to a few prominent mobile developers about the Droid. Their reaction? Meh. Basically they like somethings, don’t like other things. The one constant: They all agree it’s not in the same class as the iPhone.

Hard to argue with the constant glowing reviews of Verizon’s service compared to AT&T’s though.

I found it brilliant for few reasons. First, for the first half I found myself disagreeing with Paul, and leaning more towards what Mathew Ingram has to say about the role of “citizen journalism” in society. Paul makes solid and interesting points about citizen journalism’s lack of effectiveness in some high profile examples, but I tend to side with the idea that the free flow of information — yes, even when some of it is false information — is a good thing. That’s just my opinion.

But when Paul’s post shifts to be more of a point about the degradation of our society as a whole, I’m 100% with him. That’s why his post is great. I don’t necessarily agree with his set-up, but I absolutely agree with his conclusion. And because of that, I find myself now thinking more about what I disagreed with. As I said, I have my opinion on it, and I came into reading his post with that opinion. But good writing should be able to shake you out of your preconceived opinions. I’m not saying that I agree with Paul now, just that I’m thinking about it, whereas with most posts, I would simply disagree and not think twice about it.

Okay, enough gushing about Paul’s post.

I do believe that our society as a whole is gradually going down the tubes. I say that as someone who, in many ways, is just as much to blame as anybody else. Human decency is dying. Yes, there are plenty of examples that you could claim disprove that, but I’m talking as a whole. And sadly, I believe there’s no way to fix it. A world-changing event might temporarily shift things, but I believe that degradation of the human race as a whole over time is a part of our nature. It’s a sad and very cynical view, but that’s my feeling about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I think life is great. But that’s me saying I think my life is great. In the end, we’re all fucked. The movie Idiocracy is far from a great one, but it’s overall theme is so dead-on in my mind. That will be us in a few hundred years.

Still, it’s important to think about ideas like this, and to debate it. Hopefully someone better than me can come up with a way to prove me wrong. Or a group of people.

And on a smaller scale, that why it’s great to see some insightful posts, even just about the citizen journalism aspect, that both agree and strong disagree with Paul. This is Bitchmeme at its finest, because it’s an important topic.

Then there’s one post that absolutely takes a shit on Paul’s post. This one — which I only link to so you can read it yourself and see how ridiculous it is.

Dave Winer calls Paul’s post “rubbish” and claims it’s simply traffic bait. That’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Traffic bait is easy. Write a post called “Top 10 Ways To ______” and you’re fucking set. The shorter the list, the better. Paul’s post could not be any more the opposite. It’s very long and densely packed, and most people probably (sadly) won’t read the entire thing (which is why I noted that you should do so along the top).

In fact, it would seem that Winer didn’t even read the whole thing. As he writes, “Of course what the nurse at the hospital did, according to his account, was horrible.” Who the hell is the nurse?

Winer has a point buried in his bile: Basically, that you shouldn’t stereotype based on a few examples. Not a bad point, but he’s wrapped in his bullshit attack on Paul and TechCrunch.

Obviously, I both work at TechCrunch and am friends with Paul, but it should be easy for anyone to see that Winer is out of line. He’s doing the exact same thing that he’s accusing Paul of: Writing something stupid, so others will write about it and link to him (like me, here, sadly).

This is hardly new from Winer. Come up with some ridiculous accusation of TechCrunch of doing something which isn’t true, write about it, tweet about it, etc. Mix. Repeat.

You’ll notice that after months of implying that TechCrunch had some sort of business deal with Twitter to be on the Suggested User List, that came to a screeching halt when we got booted off of it post-Twittergate. Did Winer bother to admit he was a dumbass for saying that over and over again? Nope. He just stopped saying it. Shhhhh.

After a few commenters disagreed with his rubbish (no quotes needed there) today, he shut the comment section down. Shhhhh.

Okay, enough about that garbage. Read Paul’s post.

If you're keeping track, you know I am working on an open source software site, and I plan to catalogue a bunch of apps in advance; my first idea was to use an SQL database. It is quicker to quickly write an HTML page where I can enter each software in a form, but as my requirements grew, this became more and more work. I have to have the flexibility of a dtabase, but it's not a hugely important task, so I don1t want to spend ages and ages on it. Access can help you a lot in this.

Since it's more user-friendly from a user interface point of view, you can create some great tables very quickly, along with a form to input data into them. If I want a really good form in an HTML page I need to write a lot of queries, populate select boxes and so on, and any time I think of a new feature, I need to do some coding. This takes me away from my real task, which is to just build a list of apps.

If you're looking for a quick way to store data in a structured fashion, I would advise using Access since it's much more "plug and play", and when you're done, just convert the whole thing to SQL as needed. You can find how to convert the databse in the Microsoft Knoweldgebase.

Most, but not all, of these shops are held by Chinese people from the same region in China. Some of the shops are very small (hardly more than a piece of corridor), some are respectably large. Some of them are very reliable – that is, they respect the prices they publish on the site and update the products’ availability at least once a day – and some of them will try to cheat you by offering more expensive substitute items, or the items of your choice at a higher price than publicized.

Some will give you good advice as to whether your choice of parts is consistent and efficient, and some will let you fend for yourself. Some (many) of these shops also sell complete systems, and almost all will assemble a system according to your specs at no extra cost – provided you purchase all the parts from the same shop, of course.

So, how do you take advantage of this? Browse the site for the parts you need/want, print out the results, and go there, trying not to get sidetracked by the other shops’ window displays

Once you get to the selected shop, get the page you printed out and try to get the exact part at the exact price. Most of the time it works (often you don’t even need to pull out the printed page). There’s a reliability index on the site, with user comments, so you generally avoid the shops with fewer than 3 stars unless they’re the only ones with your object of desire.

Just a word of warning: if you expect a full warranty, don’t go there.

In spite of French law, the rue Montgallet shops will only grant you “manufacturer’s warranty”; i.e., if the component you purchased fails, you’re on your own trying to get an RMA from the manufacturer, if at all possible. A very few of the shops will handle it for you – generally for a fee and often with poor grace.

If you’re squeamish about warranties, there’s also a more “traditional” computer shop (a large one, akin to CompUSA and NewEgg outlets) within the area, where they’ll make you pay regular prices but provide the legal 1-year warranty on parts and systems and handle the return procedures for you. They too provide online order and delivery.

Another word of warning: despite the fact that personal checks are still a common means of payment here, the rue Montgallet shops will only take cash or credit cards – but they’ll give you a bona fide invoice even if you pay cash.

One last word of warning: if you intend to purchase big or heavy components, such as a computer case or a complete CPU or a multifunction printer, don’t expect to park your car nearby. Rue Montgallet and all the streets around it are narrow streets, with no available parking lot closer than 500 meters (1,600 ft). The only wide avenue in the area is strictly no-parking.

You’d better come prepared, with a foldable trolley, or arrange for someone to come collect you and your errands upon a phone call (this is where cell phones can be really useful). Of course the shops will not deliver, except for a few of them, and for a price. These usually also have a dedicated web site with remote-order facilities.

Once you’re familiarized with rue Montgallet and its surroundings, you can expect savings of up to 20% compared to more “traditional” computer shops. That’s where I’m going to purchase the parts for my computer upgrade overhaul next Xmas … if my wife and my banker agree, that is.

If you ever decide to come shop for computer parts in Paris, be sure to let me know about it. We can have a coffee (or some other drink) together, and I can guide you to the most reliable shops.

While the jury is still out regarding Windows 7 there has always been this standing joke about having to do a fresh install of Windows every six months or so because how unresponsive it could be. This isn’t a problem cause completely by the operating system itself but rather by all the crud that ends up in there from other applications.

It is also a problem that is exasperated by lazy developers who don’t include simple registry clean up routines in their uninstalls for their applications. So this means that after time, especially if you like checking out a lot of programs, the registry can grow to almost unmanageable size.

There’s been a lot of discussion over the years, mostly among power users and tweakers, as to the benefits – if any – of using registry cleaners. Myself I tend to fall on the side that as long as you know what you are doing by using these utilities it can’t hurt. However that is a problem in itself as not all reg-cleaners are easy to use or to understand the damage that can be done when using them.

I know that even with all my years of using computers mistakes can be made and painful ones at that. Like the time back when I was still developing software I ran a reg-cleaner and not heeding my own advise I blindly accepted all the supposed dead items that had been found and hit the Fix It button. When it completed it jobs I figured everything was nice and safe only to have Visual Studio throw all kinds of errors when I tried to start it up.

It turns out that among the registry items I had selected to fix was a whole slew of reg-keys that dealt with Visual Studio. I ended up having to re-install the program before being able to get back to work on a project.

Experiences like that one however hasn’t stopped me from checking out new utilities that work with the registry. So with that little bit of history and caveat I have a couple new registry related utilities to offer up for you to check out but with one really BIG warning – if a program that deals with the registry lets you create a System Restore point let it. As well even if it has this option you should always backup your registry before screwing around with it.

So first up here is a new reg-cleaner that I have come across – and used – that appears to to a really good job as it found dead settings that another reg-cleaner I was trying out the other days seems to have missed. The utility is called Free Windows Registry Repair 2.0 from Regsofts.com

It’s a pretty basic UI – nothing flashy or over done in the eye-candy department which really it doesn’t need to be. As you can see by the option buttons the available commands include the usual type of thing of which Restore – create a new System Restore point. Now you can use this option at anytime but the program will also create one automatically before starting any repairs.

Once you have run either the Full Scan or the Custom Scan you will end up with a pretty comprehensive list of dead reg-keys as you can see here

As always when dealing with utility programs like this that let you play around in really sensitive parts of the operating system I can’t stress hard enough – be careful. Once you have gone through the list and unchecked any items that you know are wrong or even not sure of you can click the Fix Errors button. In short order the program will remove any of the remaining checked items in the list from your registry.

Now this next utility can draw even more heated discussions among Windows users and that is the idea of optimizing your registry once you have fixed any errors, or you can even set up running it as a task to be run on a regular basis.

The utility I am referring to are those that you can use to optimize your registry. It is one thing to clean out all the garbage that might collect there over time but that really doesn’t remove the space those settings may have occupied in the registry. This is the idea behind the class of registry utilities called registry optimizers.

The one that I tested as a follow-up to the registry cleaner is called NTREGOPT by Lars Hederer and like the registry cleaner is pretty plain and straight forward. Once you have installed and run the utility you will be presented with a information dialog letting you know how much space has been saved as well as an option to reboot your computer so the changes can take effect.

I just want to end off this post by saying once again – before messing around with your register make sure that you create a System Restore point and backup your registry.

Well I would imagine that like most people, myself included, we tend to click the Next button during install once the shakes from seeing all that legalize settles down. While there is some ongoing debate over just how legal those documents the one that comes with the different flavors of Windows can be the most daunting and obtuse of them all.

So any help we can get to try and make our way through understanding the nuances of the minefield known as the Windows 7 EULA and to this end Ed Bott has spend a lot of time trying to make the obtuse a little easier to follow along with.

I have been studying the topic of Windows licensing for many years. As I have discovered, Microsoft does not have all of this information organized in one convenient location. Much of it, in fact, is buried in long, dry license agreements and on sites that are available only to partners. I couldn’t find this information in one convenient place, so I decided to do the job myself. I gathered details from many public and private sources and summarized the various types of Windows 7 license agreements available to consumers and business customers.

In his post Ed also provides a graphic breaking down the various flavors of Windows 7 and what the various licenses allow you to do [click on image for bigger view].

So if you are the least ways curious as to what you are getting yourself into when you click on the “I have read <blah><blah>” button then drop by Ed’s post and have a read through. I am sure it won’t be time wasted.

First of all, the most important thing to do, is to sit down and "research your research". In some areas they call this meta-planning, basically you stop and think about how you are going to research things, what tools/methods to use. In my case I wanted to research at least 4 other big blogs, take a look at how they do things based on a list of properties. This immediately gives me at least 3 areas to plan ahead on. First of all, I need a tool to write down the information, secondly, I need to choose the blogs, and last, but not least, I need to think about the properties I am going to base my research on.

I actually started by picking out four blogs, since I have been blogging for a while, this was not hard. I then sat down, and wrote down 20 different properties I wanted to check out on these blogs (things like ad placement, titles, categorization, general design, etc). This list has since grown to 30 items, and I anticipate it will go up to at least 50. Now all of these items generate at least a few paragraphs of text, so the body of imformation will be pretty big, hence the bigger problem, how do I organize all this info?

Choosing the mode of recording my findings was the place I needed to think most, and I suggest you do the same. The method you choose will influence how effectively you can actually use your data, since if you write everything down really well, then completely fail to retrieve info from all of it, you basically didn't do any research. In my case I wanted to be able to list the results by blog, but also by properties. In other words, I might want to see the full report for one blog, but I might want to see reports for all blogs concerning the general design.

After going through a number of applications, I went for TiddlyWiki, which is a self contained Wiki notebook. This allows me to tag my notes very well, and then list them in any way I want, so it's perfect.

So, if you are starting on some research, I strongly suggest planning the actual research methodology. In controlling, this is pretty standard, and without it, even the most simple research tasks can utterly fail, not because of the actual research, but failure to retrieve the results properly.

To say this is an improvement is an understatement. The old MSN homepage looked like it was designed in GeoCities.

It’s still a tiny bit too cluttered I think, but the Twitter and Facebook implementations will be very nice for people who actually want to use this as their homepage.

Too bad the only email option is Hotmail. And I still can’t figure out what the hell Windows Live actually is.

It’s fairly hilarious that Apple was using those Windows CE-based payment devices for so long. Apple controls the appearance and image of its stores so tightly — except when it came to those bulky checkout devices with shitty styluses running software from their enemy.

This seems like a much better (and obvious) solution. (Though it doesn’t look as elegant as the Squirrel/Square thing.) You know, eating your own dog food.

The only problem is that this is a fake online scanner virus warning notice being displayed in a browser window. According to the guys over at Sunbelt Software this is one called BlockScanner and is a variation of the Winisoft family.

Thanks for the memories Alex – I think

As the frustration mounts you wonder what could be causing the problem so you fire up Task Manager to take a look (Windows 7 users will have to click on the Show processes from all users). As you scroll through the list you suddenly spot the culprit that is jacking your CPU up to a 100%.

It’s a Windows services called Svhost.exe and it’s acting like a drunk at a free bar but the problem is that this is a required service in Windows and is actually a number of Svhosts processes all rolled into one. So how does one find out which Svhost.exe is causing all the grief and then fix the problem.

Well thanks to the crew at Addictive Tips you can now use a nice little util called Svhost Viewer (which you can download here). With the utility program you will be able to find out more information about which Svhost.exe is causing the grief and then turn it off.

As an added bonus the util is portable so you can add it to your USB tool chest of handy dandy utilities.

One reason I would do this is that I actually love applications, especially the quality open source ones. There are so many out there, among them a lot of hidden gems, so I hope I can bring something new to the table. I would not restrict myself to desktop apps, the only consistent quality of the apps Iwould review is that they should be either open source or free.

My other reason, which is way smaller, but convenient, is that this way I do not have to write 20 articles a day to compete with other blogs. There is no way I have time to spend the 3-4 hours a day I would need to research things for you guys which would add significantly to other, already wonderful blogs like Lifehacker or gHacks.

I will do some articles like I used to on gHacks most probably, but Iwould like Hack Your Day to become more of an Open Source Repository and Blog, than a day to day tech blog.

Do you guys agree, do you welcome the change, do you like the old stuff better? Let me know, i'm interested to see what you think, as always, you can drop me a line personally via contact(@at sign)hackyourday(dotsign.)com.

Ciara Byrne, who I don’t know but apparently writes occasionally for TechCrunch Europe, has written a post “uncovering” TechCrunch as “one big frat party.” Her rationale is that posts like the one I wrote last week about “Asian Boobs” (which is, by the way, the name of the actual app in the App Store) was simply to be able to post pictures of scantily clad Asian women on TechCrunch.

Frankly, that’s bullshit. It’s bullshit and it’s laughable.

There was exactly one point of the post in question: To call out Apple’s hypocrisy with regard to the App Store approval process. Regular readers of mine will know that I have done posts like this for months now. There must be a dozen of them. Maybe more. I point out Apple’s hypocrisy in a number of different ways in these posts. Byrne completely glosses over that point and doesn’t mention any of those. Instead, she lazily states as a fact (again she doesn’t know me, didn’t ask me, etc.) that I simply did that post to be able to post those pictures.

Did I have to post 4 pictures of the Asian girls? No. But I was proving a point. Sometimes proving a point shocks some people, but it gets it across. To those I offended, I’m sorry I offended you, but I’m not sorry for the post. Every single one of those pictures are ones that Apple approved and are live in that app. They have no problem approving those, but will not approve a satirical picture (which is really just text because the pictures are generic) making fun of Hitler, for example.

That too, is bullshit. But apparently, I’m not allowed to make that point because Byrne will make an assumption (again, without ever having met me) that I’m sexist. Oddly, none of my female friends or co-workers appear upset with me about this. But what do they know — besides, you know, me?

She goes on to call out my colleague Paul Carr for no apparent reason other than she doesn’t like his writing style. I won’t defend Paul here because there is absolutely no need to — and I think he’s going to speak to all of this on his own anyway.

Though she buries it under the outrage about my post, Byrne is apparently most upset because she was at the TechCrunch office last week when my post went up and some of the guys there were joking about it. I wasn’t there, so I can’t speak to what was said. But there were other women there, and they don’t appear to be upset about this. Based on conversations I’ve had about the day, I’m very much left wondering if this sexism argument isn’t just a crutch for someone who felt slighted for not being greeted at the TechCrunch office with pomp and circumstance. If that’s the case, it’s sad, pathetic, irresponsible, and much more of a hindrance on women’s rights than any “3 sentences” I could ever write.

In her last paragraph, Byrne writes, “The signal being sent here is that women have no place in TechCrunch, and by extension the tech industry, except as a commodity as in the Asian Boobs app.” I have to believe she knows that the brilliant Heather Harde, a woman, is our CEO. But who knows, Bryne clearly didn’t feel the need to do much research here, so it’s possible she doesn’t know that.

While it’s not up to me, the signal I would actually send is that one woman, Ciara Byrne, has no place at TechCrunch. Not if she’s going to try to shit on our brand to leverage herself by creating false controversy and calling out people she doesn’t know.

My colleague Greg Kumparak at MobileCrunch does the comparison everyone wants: iPhone vs. Droid.

His conclusion is what any rationale person would expect: Droid is better for some things, iPhone is better for some things. Seems obvious but with so much “iPhone killer” hype (partially Verizon’s fault), Kumparak’s review in great in that it takes the time to break down and talk about the stengths of one versus the strengths of the other.

I haven’t had a chance to play with a Droid yet; hope to in a few days. But I’ve heard nothing but great things and I think it’s great that someone has finally built a piece of hardware to realize Android’s promise.

That said, I can tell already that I will think the physical keyboard is useless. That’s just my preference, though.