All posts by The Artist

Computing & Internet

StalkDaily – Twitter Easter Worm Attack

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When I read a couple of sites that mentioned the worm attack on Twitter this Easter by the name StalkDaily or Mikeyy, straightaway I logged into my Twitter account to see if there was anything wrong with my account. You see, I normally only use twitter from my iPhone and only to tweet and do not view any profiles or read other people’s tweets LOL so if my account was infected, I wouldn’t even know.

But then, StalkDaily infected other accounts when someone clicked on the link in a message which would then send out similar spam messages through this infected account. And so the infection spreads this way. It looks like none of my Twitter friends have been infected too.

Apparently, this worm was created by 17-year-old Mike “Mikeyy” Mooney who did it out of boredom. Twitter has hinted that they may take legal action against Mikeyy. Well, let’s just see how Twitter Inc. deals with this and what sort of repercussions awaits Mike Mooney, even though Twitter Inc. has assured victims that their log in details and personal particulars have not been compromised.

General

PC Fair (I) 2009

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In the blink of an eye, PC Fair has come and gone. Did you know that the PC Fair in Kuala Lumpur just ended this past weekend, but we in Ipoh already attended PC Fair last weekend? It is unfortunate that even though I waited for PC Fair to arrive for ages, when it came, I was not able to make it until the last minute, and by then it was too late for me to shop, but just look around since I did not have time to compare prices at all!

My friend told me that I should have made a trip to KL for PC Fair. He must be crazy. I understand that we had to pay to enter the hall and the entrance and the exit doors were miles apart. I was told that even if there was a door, if there was no exit sign, we were not allowed to use it because the organizers wanted to do a head count to see how many people attended the event.

It was basically the same here in Ipoh except that we did not have to buy a ticket to visit the Fair. And there was only one “PC Fair girl” as far as I could see. Also, there were exit signs on both the entrance and exit doors. I don’t think this made any difference to Ipoh folks. Whether there were EXIT SIGNS on the doors or not, we would just come in and go out as we like. LOL

Computing & Internet

Hotmail Outage

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A couple of days ago, I was a little worried when I could not access my Hotmail. Since I access my Hotmail account through various ways from Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express, iPhone and Nokia E61i, at first I thought nothing of it when I kept getting a prompt to ask for confirmation of my user ID and password. This happens sometimes when the server could not be connected but I know that my user ID and password are correct as I could access my mail without problems normally.

After a long while getting the irritating prompt, I went to my Hotmail account directly and was shocked to see the message, “You don’t have an inbox … yet”. You bet my heart fell to my stomach. LOL

Although I use Gmail and Yahoo! Mail too, Hotmail remains my primary web-based email account and I still do receive important email here. I was afraid that I would never see any of them anymore.

Luckily, this lasted for maybe two hours or less, and I was able to access my Hotmail account again. PHEW! Thank God for small mercies!

Computing & Internet

Web Hosting Choices

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Ever so often, my friends, who are bloggers and webmasters, would complain about their web hosts. Our primary grouses include unacceptable server downtime, paying for something that we are not getting and poor customer service and technical support. Technical support is extremely important to me.

I think that all these problems could be avoided if only we had done thorough research and comparison between all the major web hosting companies and most importantly, ask friends for their first hand experience with their webhosts.

Web Hosting Choice has a very good comparison list of major web hosts comparing web hosting packages and taking into account pricing, including set up cost and domain cost, disk space, data transfer and other features plus professional reviews which could be an excellent guide to help us decide on which web host to go with. Compiling our friends’ experiences and checking that against this chart, I believe we would be able to have a fairly trouble free web hosting experience.

I don’t know if you have had a bad experience with a web host before but it could be an awful nightmare. I am sure those of us who have been through it before would never want to repeat the same mistake!

General

Short CNET Asia Survey

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I received an invitation from CNET Asia yesterday to participate in their short survey regarding mobile phones and our usage of it. There is an iPhone 3G to be won. So I participated and the survey questions included stuff like if we read our email on our mobile phone, if we click on links in our email, what is our mobile phone brand and model.

I have a problem with the survey because we are only allowed to choose one option for most of the questions. For example, for the question that asked which mobile phone I am using, I actually wanted to select iPhone and Nokia but since we could only select one answer, I had to do just that. Don’t they know that most of us have two lines, at least here in Malaysia, but not all of us use dual SIM mobile devices?

And then I remember there was a question which wanted to know which email client we are using on our desktop. Again, I use both Outlook Express and Gmail on my Windows XP desktop and both Windows Live Mail and Gmail on my Windows Vista laptop. Again, we are only allowed to choose only one answer. Sigh, they should know that those of us who are chronic web users, and I believe that people who bother to register with CNET ARE chronic web users, would use multiple email clients concurrently.

General

Rare Coin News

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My mother told me that she has been collecting rare coins for so long now but the funny thing is that she doesn’t know too much about that. She does borrow books on rare coins from the library but one could only read that many books.

I told her that with the internet, she could not read up on rare coin news and keep herself updated on anything related to rare coins easily.

My mother used to be afraid to meddle with the computer because she is afraid of messing it up or deleting important files. However, now that she could learn more about her hobby online and keeping in contact with people who share the same interest as her, she has lost her fear, to my delight. I should have introduced this to her earlier!

Computing & Internet

Windows Internet Explorer 8

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I just received a newsletter from Microsoft that their new Windows Internet Explorer 8 is ready for download. It’s a free browser, by the way.

Besides being a faster browser, their claim, they are also safer to use compared to their older version. Also, we could not surf the web with something called InPrivate Browsing where our browsing history will not be recorded.

Another safe browsing feature is the SmartScreen Filter which protects us against deceptive and malicious websites which may look exactly like the real deal making us think that we have accessed the correct website. These deceptive websites will be blocked and a warning message will be shown to alert us.

Right now, I haven’t even have time to download the new browser and explore it. I do need to upgrade my Internet Explorer even if it is not my primary browser.