Warning: Blogger.com Virus

Man this is Scary Stuff. I was surfing the BBC's website's tech page when I noticed this rather scary update on a particular virus targeted at bloggers using Blogger. You can view the webpage here .

You have been warned.

Below is a short extract from the webpage:

Google's Blogger site is being used by malicious hackers who are posting fake entries to some blogs.

The fake entries contain weblinks that lead to booby-trapped downloads that could infect a Windows PC.

Infected computers are being hijacked by the gang behind the attacks and either mined for saleable data or used for other attacks.

The Blogger attack is the latest in a series by a gang that has managed to hijack hundreds of thousands of PCs.

Driving! + Creative Zen launch at Geek T

Aaah, the joys of driving.

Or attempting to, that is.

Today saw the first of my many upcoming driving lessons. And boy did it go well. I'm sure I impressed the instructor, with my smooth handling and innate ability to go off-road at the slightest sight of a kerb. Obviously he was impressed with my rather sporty handling of the vehicle too, with me violently hard on the accelerator at any given instant. I swear Honda's engineers who did the NSX also had a hand in the stone age Civic too. Feathering the throttle, I desperately tried to keep the revs at 1500rpm but oh no, the pedal would have none of it. Owing to the crackpot engineers' meddlesome meddling, presumably - or it could just be my lead foot - the revs jumped all the way up to 4000rpm. I swear if I had lifted up my left foot from the clutch at that moment, we would have had wheelspin.

As expected, I also tried vainly to not stall the engine and set a new world record for an L-plate driver to have not an engine stalled. But no it wasn't to be. Rounding a corner, I deftly turned the wheel back to center and promptly tried to engage second gear. A slip, a far-too-fast unclutching and before I knew it the whole damn car was dead. This happened a grand total of 5 times. So much for world domination.


Minor problems aside, I think I performed rather satisfactorily on the whole. A light note was when the instructor asked me whether I had driven before, and wasn't too convinced when I told him I had never touched a car before (bow to NFS and Top Gear!), just that I was deeply passionate about them. Exciting, really. I shall be looking forward to my upcoming lessons.

Before driving, I went down to Geek Terminal at 8am to witness the launch of a new Creative player. Apparently it was 10am and we, Tech65, had to wait patiently till 10 where we then told it was an invitation-only event and that kiddies weren't invited. Damn you, Creative. Nevertheless after the event Farinelli went up to ask and apparently we could have just told them we were from a tech website and they would have let us in. Well, we all got what we wanted in the end: a video interview, and free Creative earbuds! Yay!

We spent the time before 10am looking up websites and what we thought was a product leak actually wasn't. The Creative Zen mp3/mp4 player was already launched at 530am the previous day, and it was all over the news already.

The Creative Zen - yes, simply Zen - is a really good looker of a player, a smaller, flash-based kiddie brother of the larger Zen Vision: M/W. The 2.5 inch screen is fantastically brilliant with 16.7 million colours and has solidly-built, intuitive buttons on its right side. It's slim (about 6, 7mm?) and boasts an FM radio, mp3, AAC, WMA with DRM, WMA and some other formats I forgot. Video playback and photo viewing round off the device's cool features and do show off its screen exceptionally well. Battery life is 25 hours (audio) and 5 hours (video), very respectable indeed. I can't remember much of its tech specs so I'll direct you here - Tech65 - for the whole writeup and a video interview.

Very, very exciting indeed.

The Curse of Nothingness

Well it is sad, really, to have nothing to blog about. Time seems to move at a crawl when you're having holidays. Bad if you want to blog, but nonetheless the perfect excuse to sneak off to the Caribbean or Morocco or some exotic country for a bit of R&R. Me, I'm staying put in dear old Singapore.

Holidays are always a bore, aren't they? Especially if you have a month-long vacation with nothing but a small island country to spend it on. A trip to our northern neighbor doesn't sound half bad, except that 1. I haven't any idea where to go and 2. I don't know how to get there. So that rules out overseas jaunts then.

Mulling over it, I finally decided to get a good book or two to pass the time with. Which was how I ended up reading the very humorous, witty and pointed Jeremy Clarkson's The World According to Clarkson. For non-petrolheads, Jeremy's one of three presenters on the British motoring show Top Gear, on which he made his claim to fame. The other two presenters are Richard Hammond - whom you might have seen hosting Art Central's Brainiac on Tuesdays - and James May: a tousled-hair, placid, pedantic man who drives "at the slowest speed ever recorded by man", according to Hammond. Combined, those three have one of the best on-screen chemistries ever on any TV show.

I like Clarkson. In spite of his pointed, left-wing and very, very unhumble views, he is a man worthy of respect. He has the innate ability to look at things in the world and relate them to our everyday life, with a good dollop of typical British humor thrown in to keep the fun going. I have yet to meet someone else who can conjure up as many metaphors and similes as he can. Brilliant stuff indeed.

Ah all very well then, about Clarkson, but none of Kai Yi so I shall proceed to tell you more about him. First driving practical coming up (yay!), lots of books to keep him company (double yay!) and lots of activities lined up to keep him happy (triple yay!)

I wonder how Amy's getting on with her new Crumpler. She keeps complaining that it's enormous.

Randomity and my addiction

Finally, finally, finally.

It's the 24th of August and a holiday. Ok 25th, by the time I've finished with this entry. But it's all irrelevant.

Remember, remember, the 23rd of August, the stress, tribulations and many a test. I see no reason why the stress, tribulations and tests should ever be laid to rest.

Uh ok tried to mimic V for Vendetta's tag line but failing spectacularly. Point is, the exams are ________ (insert favourite demolition word here)! Happy as a bird, but for some reason I cannot shake off this persistent sense of unease. My friends are all jubilant and ecstatic, but I still feel a certain heaviness. Is that guilt I'm feeling? For knowing I didn't study hard enough? Fatigue? I haven't the foggiest idea but well, the results will speak for themselves. I know I will not do very badly, just not as well as I wanted to. Remember what I said about beating that guy? That challenge is still on.

Meeting up with Amy again, finally. That woman can never make time for her best friend. Tsk. At this rate, woman, YOU should be buying me shitloads of gifts :) just kidding. You'll be receiving that Crumpled of yours in no time at all.


I have a confession to make. One that I've been holding inside for a long time, which I now think the time has come for me to reveal.

I'm an addict.

Yes, I'm an irrecoverable addict. I cannot resist the temptation, the tantalizing allure of it all. Yes, I am hopelessly in its iron clutches, its iron-fisted grip, unable to tear myself away. The hypnotic pull of it is too much to bear sometimes. It is a black hole, pulling in all who come too near, sucking them into a vortex, into a time or place which they cannot hope to understand or fathom, ergo their hopelessly powerless minds and bodies.



Top Gear on Youtube is amazing, isn't it?

Randominity and Caltex National Karting Challenge

Wonder of wonders.

My laptop has finally come back to life! After nearly 2 weeks without it I have started to feel a bit lost. And now when I look at its 15" screen it does feel small compared to my 17 inch Dell monitor I've been using for these past few weeks. What I did to revive it wasn't difficult. I suspected that it wasn't actually the virus causing it to freeze upon boot, but rather the new antivirus program which I had installed prior - PC Tools Antivirus - whose high regard on CNet.com led me to download it. I had installed it in school, and tried to scan my computer, but realised it kept freezing on boot. Glum, I thought that the virus had even killed off the antivirus program and I had no choice but to cold turkey the damn thing.

Last night, I had a brainwave while studying math (yes yes, I wandered) and decided to do a bit of DIY servicing. I logged on to Google, found out how to start the computer up in safe mode and did that to my laptop. Immediately I uninstalled the antivirus program and rebooted the computer, holding my breath.

It worked.

I had never thought I was so happy to see a boot screen but by god I was. Icons could get selected again, the start menu could pop up and everything just worked to my utter relief and jubilation. Now I can save on that 7-hour trip down to school for a reformat. My laptop vivified! Whoda thunk it huh.

The Caltex National Karting Challenge is coming up and I want to join it. Unfortunately I've just logged into the page and it says I must form a group of 4+1, the extra being a reserve driver. I'm wondering...if anyone would like to join me? One day out together, fun with cars in the sun.

Come on guys, it'll be fun. Anybody?

Train of thought

Well it's the second week of my exams and I thought it would be good to update this blog of mine for some of you faithful readers out there.

2 papers have gone by, 2 more left, with Maths tomorrow. And shh, not a word to anybody, but I'm dreading this module to my bones. I admit that I haven't done my best in Math, which is why there is a slim possibility that I might repeat this module in the next semester, which definitely does not bode well for me. I put forth no excuse for my lackluster behavior toward this module, in which I definitely should have put more effort in. The hour is late but I still am pushing for a decent grade. No letting up next semester. My target? Somebody in my class whose grades are obviously much superior to my current crop of rubbish ones. Whatever he does, I'm going to push to match, or even beat. My grades now are simple passes or scores just above average which obviously are nothing to boast about. A clear mind, rational thinking and above all, the determination to win must be some of the nuances of the human psyche that I need to master in order to run this long hard race.

I think I learned something from Patrick there.

Meeting up with Amy on Saturday to get her her birthday present, a red Crumpler tote. You won't even wanna know how much it costs.

For the sake of Updating

For the sake of updating, I shall now provide you with the juicy stuff that is going on/will be going on.

=D

Hmm, exams in the next few weeks, so not much blogging will get done. Hopefully I can squeeze in an entry here, a blurb there at times. MCT tomorrow, Servo Thurs, Maths next Tues and then AEF on Fri.

Cue frantic praying to any and all gods for luck to be bestowed upon thee.

Hope to return to podcast on Sunday. I didn't appear in Saturday's one at Geek Terminal about Apple's new products cos I was so wrapped up in my exam preparations, a big sorry to you guys. For those of you who don't know, I do appear as a guest host (yeah not upgraded to pro status yet) on Tech65's weekly podcast which can be heard here. Basically we're a bunch of tech-crazed guys who do a weekly podcast on product updates, launches and generally everything tech. I'm honestly not a very good podcaster but I try my best. Hope to add some car stuff into the podcast - tech-related of course - in the future, seeing that cars now are far more powerful than our PCs. No kidding.

Gosh there are so many birthdays coming up I think I'm going to go broke saving up for all. ESPECIALLY MISS LING'S ONE. List of things she wants...:

1. Gucci bag (don't tell her I'm getting the pasar malam one)
2. Crumpler (ditto)
3. Large meal at large restaurant, preferably with large bill (ok that's my idea actually :D)
4. Tee shirt with "I molested myself last night. I said no but I knew I wanted it".
5. Lifetime of Ben & Jerry's

God this is a long list isn't it. Anyone know where else do they do tee-shirts besides Beach Road? That's the only place I know. Gotta find a place soon or I'm not going to get it to her in time, lol.


-If there's a dream in your life, don't let anyone take it from you. Do whatever it takes to live it.

China copies the iPhone

I am speechless. I have been stunned into silence.

I might be outdated, but this is the first time I'm hearing anything as blasphemous as this. China has copied the iPhone.

To be honest, the phone's hardware works. I have no idea what the software is, just by looking at it, but I guess it's some sort of proprietary software developed by the maker/copier/cheater/antichrist.

Watch the video and read the article here

Comments?

MSN Messenger Virus Part 2

Sigh. I guess no more amount of ranting will bring my dear laptop back to life. For those who have yet to experience my horrific and utterly painful loss, my laptop was infected by the MSN photo album virus yesterday, through some complete and absolute pig-headedness on my part. You see, in addition to downloading that file from my friend, I also unzipped it, leading to a tragic loss of every byte on board the laptop. It was working fine yesterday, after a thorough scan with AVG and McAfee gave the all-clear. But sadly the heroic antivirus programs did not live to see the fruits of their triumph, however short lived, for today changed everything. I was in school using my laptop and I realised it was getting slower...and slower...and slower. Scanning with my antivirus program yielded yet nothing.

Things got to a head when I tried rebooting my laptop and realizing that...it had stopped working. It would load right up to the desktop screen, taskbar, icons, etc - and stop right there. Frozen bytes in a macabre stare grimaced at me through the screen, and I realised that my Acer 4150, which already had gone through a previous reformat, had died a sudden, instant, quick and painless death. Oh the humility, the sadness, the shame. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Nothing is left except to head down to school on the 27th where I have already booked a slot for reformatting and try to CPR my dead electronic wife. How I will live without her for the next few weeks is a thought I dread and which should rightfully be banished to the depths of hell. A faithful companion, she accompanied me through my daily grind - an oasis of respite and relief. Oh, though how she suffered at my hands - the constant hard knocks, the painful bumps - never once did she complain, soldiering on and keeping my MSN Messenger locked on to wireless@sg - an irony which would soon manifest itself in the most unexpected of ways.

Shit la.

If any kind soul out there could enlighten this poor deprived guy on what to do, please by all means do so. A geek like me should never have his hands leave any sort of keyboard for any period of time no matter how short.

Oh...and...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!!

MSN Messenger Virus

Damn it all. I got hit for the first time by that stupid MSN Messenger photo album virus. My friend's window popped up, with a link for a zip file download, and I happily clicked it, then unzipped it.

"Hmm that's strange - image files usually don't come with .scr as a file extension. Oh well never mind. Nothing harmful."

boom.

In the next few minutes ensued complete pandemonium. IMMEDIATELY around 50 message windows to different contacts started popping up, all consisting of me sending that file to them - with my hands off from the keyboard. It was like some kind of horror movie, watching windows automatically pop up and the poor souls on the other end having no clue that they were in fact receiving a piece of malicious software. I promptly used AVG Free to scan, which turned up nothing. Disgusted, I turned to downloads.com where I found this antivirus program called avast! Anybody heard of it before? It's got a really good rating on the site from editors and users alike, but it's subjective, so if any of you have alternate views, I'll be pleased to hear them.

Anyway, I realized that although AVG is widely recommended, it's not exactly stellar quality, judging by the number of 1-out-of-5-stars rating it was given. I'm not too sure why it is so, but I think it has to do with the ability to detect potentially harmful software on your computer. So I'm using avast! now and hoping to see how it'll turn out. Avast! has really good ratings: 4/5 from user and ditto from the editors. So far so good. Strangely enough, the virus hasn't come back. I've deleted the zip file and whatever I had unzipped and it's looking up so far.


Cross fingers really

Lewis Hamilton And The Order Of The Team

What happens in Formula 1 now, we will never know for sure.

At the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend, Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was denied a start to a qualifying lap because of the antics of his Spanish teammate Fernando "The Loser" Alonso, which resulted in a furious row between him and team boss Ron Dennis on the radio. What happened was that Alonso had apparently stayed long enough in the pits to deny Hamilton from crossing the start-finish line of the track to start his flying lap - the demarcation which allows for the start of a qualifying lap. Cars which have not crossed the line once the timer has stopped counting down will not have that lap taken into consideration, whereas cars which have already crossed that line are allowed to complete their qualifying lap even if the timer has stopped, and their times taken into consideration. Not that any of this mattered to Alonso.

The two-time world champion - who won't be for longer, I think - apparently was on some sort of strategy which was quite different from Hamilton's, as can be seen from this excerpt from Top Gear's website

"....may never know the truth about what happened next - did the team hold him back or was it solely Alonso's decision.

The stewards looked at the incident closely before throwing out McLaren's claims that the delay was merely due to a communication occurring between the team and Alonso."

The question here is: was Alonso putting Hamilton in a box on purpose, or were team instructions really as such to hold his position in the pits? That will be stifled internally at McLaren, you can bet on it. We'll never know for sure.

What I think the reason is that Alonso forcibly blocked Hamilton could be due to two things here, being
a) the most obvious one, in that Alonso had knocked Hamilton off his pole qualifying position by just 0.1 of a second and was determined to keep P1 at all costs, or

b) it was a tit-for-tat maneuver.

To be honest, Hamilton wasn't a good boy either. He had knowingly disregarded team instructions earlier to let Alonso through during qualifying laps, which in other words means he blocked Mister Spaniard on-track during their earlier qualifying attempts. But unlike Alonso, Hamilton did apologize for his misdeed and made up for it - apparently by talking to every person in the garage and to Ron to diffuse the situation. To cut the long story short, race stewards promptly investigated and found in favour of Hamilton. They wasted no time in kicking Fernando out of pole position back down all the way to sixth in the starting order, letting the Brit take pole.

Fernando, Fernando, Fernando. You really need to get off your high horse and stop wanting people to treat you like a sort of semi-god over at McLaren. We all know that you're a fantastic driver, a two-time world champion and a damn well paid one at that, but this is ridiculous. You have to accept that you may be good, but there are people who are most visibly better than you at the moment, i.e. a certain Lewis Hamilton. Dreaming up a Machiavellian scheme at this point in time isn't going to help either, with the crap McLaren is going through, what with "spygate" and all. Apropos Hamilton is really much more capable than you now, so why don't you stop whining and bitching about "not being treated as I would like to have been" and race like a real man? Concordantly Hamilton - in an era where Formula 1 drivers don't speak very much, if at all - is being very open about the whole situation. Kimi Raikkonen needs subtitles when speaking, Felipe Massa needs a longer tongue, and YOU need a proper seeing-to.

My dear conquistador, if you really want to live up to your forefathers' daring, you need to start showing some professionalism instead of resorting to ridiculous means to win. Don't say you haven't been warned.

I hate being Messed with

I am so unspeakably annoyed and angry.

I really am.


Shouting at somebody on the train so loudly until half the people in the carriage go deaf doesn't help either.

So how?

Terrible, Torrid, Turbulent Thursday

hooked on to: Requiem For A Dream -- Clint Mansell
On a Night Like This -- Kylie Minogue

I hate doing emo posts, and I avoid writing them assiduously. But I've got to let this one out.

I have no idea what's bitten me for the past two days. I still go to school, still do all my things, but I keep having a feeling that a cloud's hanging over my head. It's a storm cloud. I feel tired, worn out, lethargic. And it's also not helping that I still have my programming project to complete, on which I shall elaborate later. It's not like me to act like that, I know, but sometimes it all get so...overwhelming. I feel like Jason Bourne - whose memory is lost, whose existence is the very bane of the people who are hunting him, fighting back with the skills he possesses, the cunning, the stealth to regain his right to live.

Sigh. Except that I have neither his skills nor his looks.

Yes. The programming project. To cut to the chase, I feel that Audrey's been doing nearly all the work and that I'm merely a passenger. It's no fault of hers but mine. I do well in tests, quizzes, lessons; but when the project came along, I was totally stumped. I couldn't even begin how to do it. We've switched topics for the project to an easier one, infinitesimally easier though it is. And still she gets the codes right while I sit there like a damn f****** fool flicking through my papers finding out how to start. God I really feel damn stupid sometimes. I really want to add something to it and not just let the project go to the dumps, which is my last resort. :( I feel that I've really let her down.

Carrying on with the emo mood, things still aren't looking up. I have had several quizzes and tests recently. Make no mistake, I'm pleased with what I've achieved, but I'm still really frustrated with myself. Every test that I've done so far, there's always that element of "Shit, I KNOW how to do that but HOW?!". Take my programming lab test for instance. There was a section which I was positive I could score, but when I came to it, I hit a brick wall. I managed to lose a total of 12 marks thanks to that brick wall. No guesses as to how I felt afterward, but I swear that hole in the wall isn't my doing.

Exams are in a week's time. Studying under way, thankfully.

Still haven't saved up for someone's something. Crapcrapcrap.