Posts by happygeek

Nope. Are you the author, by any chance?

Welcome Michael.

I know nothing. And I am sticking to that line...

There is no FAQ regarding the user rankings, it's meant to be kind of a surprise when you get upgraded to the next level :)

That said, I'm sure someone has probably worked out a rough guide as to how many posts get you what attribution and will be along in a bit to share it with us...

IT Security experts Barracuda Labs recently researched the business of selling Twitter followers to those companies which cannot wait to build organic follower growth. Despite the purchasing of Twitter followers being an explicit breach of the Twitter terms and conditions of use, punishable by the deletion of the account concerned, the lure of instant followers seems to appeal to what you might call the 'lazy SEO' demographic.

Interestingly, the accounts used to sell fake followers are usually fake themselves. As was the case with the more than 70,000 such randomly sampled accounts analysed by researchers at Barracuda Labs. The study revealed that, on average, a fake Twitter account will be following 1,799 people and have 48,885 followers. Impressive numbers, especially on the followers front, until you realise that the vast majority are fake accounts themselves. If you are buying followers then one has to assume you are doing so to gain 'instant exposure' to a large potential customer base for whatever you are selling, be it product, services or just brand awareness. However, if those followers are faked then all you have bought is snake oil. You cannot expose anything to something that does not exist, after all.

Yet the trade continues, which is hardly surprising when the average asking price per thousand followers is just $18. Prices can be as low as $2 per thousand where the faked accounts are easily detected, up to $55 per thousand for those accounts which are well disguised …

Go to the Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview site and follow the download instructions.

Then you need to go to the Hotmail sign-in page and click on the 'Can't access your account' link from where you will get all the help you need to recover your account, assuming you can prove who you are. If you cannot prove who you are, then quite rightly you cannot expect to get access to that account as you could be, and are likely to be, anyone...

The moral of this tale? Don't 'forget all your information' as it often causes problems if you do. I forgot where I lived once and couldn't get in my house as a result. See what I mean? ;)

Remember when you had to use a whole host of 'utility downloads' just to keep your PC running smoothly? Windows has had optimization tools built in for ages now, so surely the days of PC optimization suites are long over? Not so according to iolo, which has just released System Mechanic 11 - the latest suite of such tools to hit the market since it first launched way back in 1998.

With over 40 million users since those early days, System Mechanic is certainly the best known of the tune-up suites for Windows. Here at DaniWeb we last reviewed the software more than two years ago now when version 9.5 had just been released. Back then I tested it on a six month old Windows 7 powered netbook and was quite impressed with both the ease of installation and the ease of use. But not as impressed as I was with the amount of hard drive data debris it uncovered and the performance improvements it brought to my day-to-day work machine.

System Mechanic 11, on the other hand, is very different. Instead of being 'quite impressed' I have to admit to being very impressed. Starting with the installation which, a couple of years ago, took 15 minutes of my precious time but with version 11 was done and dusted within five minutes of starting the download.

I was equally 'very impressed' with the new interface which is not only much slicker looking and …

Welcome to DaniWeb. Sorry, but the links were deleted though; see the rules regarding self-promotion/advertising in the forums.

I am still getting the security updates

AIUI even the XP SP3 updates will finish soon (2013/2014) and the SP2 updates have gone already.

It does seem to be caused where spammers have commented to a long dead thread and that spam posting has then been deleted by the mods. I will leave it to Dani or deceptikon to explain whether it is possible/feasible/likely to make any changes to how this works.

Welcome to DaniWeb :)

China may be odds-on to top the medal table at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with less than a week to go, but according to a new report South Korea has the Chinese well and truly beaten as far as malware infected PCs are concerned. And unlike at the Olympic Games where the USA and Great Britain are ahead of Korea in the medal tables currently, both America and Britain are nowhere to be seen in the top ten most malware infected countries, and the UK actually makes it into the 'least infected' listings.

The latest Panda Security antimalware labs quarterly report reveals that, for the first time ever, South Korea is top of the medal table when it comes to the numbers of malware infections per country. The report, covering the period between April and June 2012, shows that while the average number of infected PCs globally speaking is down by nearly 4% at 31.63%, the number in South Korea is a staggering 57.3% which is up by nearly 3% on the previous quarter. It is also head of China on 51.94%, with Taiwan and Bolivian some way behind these two in third and fourth places respectively. The least infected country is Switzerland with an average of 'just' (and I use that word with my teeth gritted as it is still way too high) 18.4% followed by Sweden on 19.07% - sadly no other countries could manage to drop below the 20% …

It's called 'signature spam' where someone posts to anything just in order to expose the advertising links in their sig - we see it all the time...

Contact technical support at Wondershare. If you are a genuine customer/license holder for the product and can prove that to their satisfaction, perhaps they will be able to help. However, generally speaking, the rule of thumb is do not forget your encryption password...

A DaniWeb rule, though, is not to ask for help to pursue 'any illegal activity including, but not limited to, hacking and spamming' - and getting access to encrypted files for which you do not have the password could fall under the hacking bit as we have no idea if you are actually the rightful owner or not.

I like to think of it as evolution in action. Hmmm, wonder whatever happened to the Darwin Awards? Aha, still going strong here

Don't encourage him. He's not new here. This isn't his first post. He is however a spammer who has stopped breaking the rules and started bending them, creating multiple accounts (from the same IP) which post one or two times - always with an advert link in his sig.

New huh? Then how do you explain the numerous other postings by you, from the exact same IP address, stating 'I'm new here, this is my first post' and then posting one or two messages somewhere with an advertising link in the signature.

I'm starting to get really bored with you now...

WHAT???

And you are not worried about the total lack of support including OS security patches with XP?

And now Microsoft has reverted to type with Windows 8 which is to Windows 7 what Vista was to XP: a pile of stinking crap. Seriously, what was Microsoft thinking? Roll on Windows 9 which will probably be another useful leap forward...

There's nothing we can do to stop people voting for themselves, and nobody but Dani will know, so knock yourself out :)

Mobile malware has moved from the security vendor testing labs, out of the realms of marketing hype and FUD, and firmly onto your smartphone. The main target for the malware distributors would appear to be the Android platform, which is not surprising given the rapid growth in the userbase coupled to the 'open to all' nature of the Android app marketplace.

Up until now, the usual method of monetizing Android malware had been to subscribe to premium SMS text message services owned by affiliates of the cyber-criminals. Other than this, monetization of malware on the smartphone platform had been rather difficult. Data can be stolen, but has not proven to be deemed as particularly valuable in the dark markets where such information is traded. It should come as no surprise, as users and security vendors alike start to wise up to the SMS dialling scams, that the bad guys should look to come up with something new.

And something new is exactly what has emerged in the MMarketPay.A Trojan which is currently circulating throughout the Chinese online Android markets. According to G Data Security Labs experts who discovered the malware, it is concealed within fake versions of apps such as the E-Strong File Explorer, GO Weather and Travel Sky. It would seem, for now at least, that only users in China are actively at risk, but that could change soon enough as other groups jump on the new mobile malware monetization bandwagon.

So what does MMarketPay.A …

You can only make a single voting submission, with one vote being allowed in each of the three categories within the single submission. If you see what I mean? :)

The queenbaby and queenjobe accounts are now banned, many apologies to everyone who has been bothered by this spamming moron. Hopefully the new measures we are bringing in will prevent this kind of spam/scam by PM from happening.

Daniel, see our review for the best iPad keyboard case ever. It got a pefrect 10/10 which was really well deserved. I have tried a lot of keyboard cases, and this one is head and shoulders above the competition. I should point out that I am a professional writer, have been for the last 20 years or so, and as such a keyboard has to be more than just sort of usable in order to get my recommendation :)

Please note, when reporting a PM scammer to me or the other admins, can you include a link to the member profile of the person sending the scam PM as well as quoting the message itself. This makes it quick and easy to get them banned...

The UK-based Surrey Police Force has long since embraced Internet culture as being a way to help fight crime. It has an online crime reporting tool, active accounts on Facebook and Twitter, as well as a video channel on YouTube. But now it has moved into smartphone territory in order to entice members of the public into identifying suspected criminals by looking at CCTV mugshots using an app called Facewatch.

Available for free on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry platforms as well as on the web, Facewatch lets the would be home-detective input their postcode and a distance radius of between half a mile and five miles before then displaying all the CCTV images 'connected to crimes' within that area. If the user recognises anyone in the images, they can quickly and anonymously send the name and address information to the police from within the app.

Surrey Police is quick to point out that the app is designed to "help identify people caught on camera" who "may be responsible for a crime" but may equally well just be able "to help with an active investigation". The company behind the app, Facewatch Ltd, is equally quick to try and remove itself from any potential legal liability should an entirely innocent member of the public feature on Facewatch and, by association, be wrongly thought of as being a criminal. The following disclaimer appears when the app starts:

"The police are seeking to identify …

Welcome to DaniWeb, here's hoping you gain the knoweldge you seek and then share it with other members of the community in return.

Welcome (again) to DaniWeb :)

I first started writing about the 'coming soon' Xbox 720 way back in 2008 if my memory serves me well. Every now and then another rumour emerges, supposedly from 'a reliable source within Microsoft' and confirming that the release date has been fixed or announcing the final hardware specification for the latest next-gen-next-gen games console. So far, all of those dates have passed and none of those hardware details have proved to be anything other then specification speculation syndrome.

So why should this story be any different? Good question, and one that I have to admit I cannot answer with any guaranteed authority. I don't work for Microsoft and I don't have any insider contacts within the Xbox division either. However, there has been a persistent rumour for the last year or so that the Xbox 720 will be released in time for the 2013 seasonal rush - which means it should be on the streets sometime around the end of October or start of November 2013. What makes me think that this date isn't just more smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that Microsoft is considered by many to be a spent force in the gaming world, sitting on its laurels with the Xbox 360 and Kinect? Actually, it's a who and a what: the who is known only as DaE and the what is claimed to be a prototype Xbox 720 developer kit.

Over the weekend this user posted images of what …

An SEO company asking for tips on how to do SEO. Priceless :)

Five more words: You Cannot Trust Google Search

Just becuase a site gets a high position does not mean it will stay there if it is, indeed, crapola on a stick. The wisdom of crowds effect will kick in eventually and the detritis will sink to the bottom while the cream floats to the top. Or at least that's what I hope will happen :)

I think we may need a context diagram for your question. Care to try again?

The iPod Mini is a Digital Audio player designed and marketed by Apple. It was the middle Range model in Apple's iPod Production and it was released in 2004. But now a days Apple releasing the newwst model with stylist look and also good features compare to iPod mini. So, at this time iPod mini is not too good. But i must tell one thing iPod mini is the !st step of iPod Production.

iPad not iPod...

I used XP when it was the Windows OS of the day, but that day has long since passed. I come at this from the perspective of someone working in and around the IT security industry (take a look at my profile if you want to know in what context) and the simple fact of the matter is that using an OS that has long since stopped being supported by the vendor is crazy in terms of keeping secure. Your 'security suite' will not help you when an unpatched vulnerability gets exploited, as it almost inevitably will (and you will probably not even know it has happened), and unpatched it will remain as Microsoft hasn't been releasing any since July 13th 2010. A week is a long time in security exploits, two years an absolute age.

Seriously, I think you need to sit down, take another look at that, and then post again with a question that makes enough sense for people to be able to answer it without having to guess your meaning.

That said, any 64-bit version of Windows is much less of a target (it would seem) for the bad guys anyway. Certainly that appears to be the case as far as Windows 7 is concerned.

Your school admin disabled it for a reason, I suggest you don't try and circumvent this ban but instead ask your admin why it was disabled and whether he could allow you to temporarily use the function.

Well good luck if you seriously think that an unsupported OS, which means no more security patches for vulnerabilities from Microsoft, is going to be secure. I have news for you, it isn't. A 'good' security suite (and good is very subjective in this context) and common sense will not help you when a zero day hits.

The Kensington Folio Trio Mobile Workstation for new iPad and iPad 2 is rather a large title for what is actually just a case. Mind you, it's also rather a large case. This thing is absolutely huge. No, seriously, it's actually bigger in all dimensions than my laptop. This thing is 14" by 11", and 1.5" thick with an iPad in. Throw in a pen, some paper and a few documents along with that iPad and I found myself with something weighing more than 5lbs to lug around. Compare that with the perfect 10/10 Kensington KeyFolio Pro case which I reviewed for DaniWeb a month ago weighing just 2.1lbs with an iPad and a keyboard inside. The Folio Trio weighs more than that when it is empty! It's also faux-leather, which I approve of being vegan myself, but unfortunately faux-leather which feels (and smells for that matter) rather cheap.

The Folio Trio is, then, certainly no thing of beauty. However, the fact that it is marketed as a mobile workstation for your iPad 2 or 3 does rather suggest that it is the function rather than form that is important. Which begs the question, what's it like from the functionality perspective. I know, it's a bit weird talking about functionality when the object is just a case, but perhaps that's the point: is this more than just a case to carry your iPad around in? The answer is a bit yes and no …

Let's hope you don't, eh? :)

Another two of "her" accounts now banned...

We can, but we only do so in exceptional circumstances such as when we came under a prolonged spam attack last year and even then it was a measure of last resort. The trouble with banning by IP is that it's all too easy to then block perfectly genuine members and potential members as well as the perp. Which is what happened during that prolonged spam attack last year and into this, despite our best efforts to check IPs before implementing any ban.

The other point being that many of these scammers and spammers use proxy services and the IPs change from account to account. The safest option is to ban by account as soon as a perp is spotted, and eventually they get fed up and go somewhere which doesn't have the dedicated and efficient moderating team and a community that cares about the system such as ours.

Same person back again as 'babyluv2' doing the same PM scam thing. That account also now banned, but apologies if any of you got the message before I could ban the person.

member babyl is now banned after sending numerous scam PMs

Scorpiono, as Rash has pointed out, the bad guys don't attempt to crack individual passwords from your login screen online. They use these tools to crack already compromised/stolen password hashes offline where they have all the time in the world to do so. The point of the article being, that all the time in the world can eqaute to no time at all given the right equipment (which is now dirt cheap to put together) and the wrong passwords...

I did, indeed, mean hashed and not salted. Damn my eyes, and thanks for spotting the stupid typo which is now corrected. Oops :)

The primary suggestion would have to be posting this question in an apprpriate forum where you will likely get the help you are after. Somewhere within the software or web development sections I would imagine...

No you are not new here and this is not your first post here. What you meant to say is "I am that spammer who keeps creating new accounts, posting something saying I am new here and this is my first post' quickly followed by some cut and pasted wordage from other sites that 'shares some of your views' (actually not your views, of course, as you've copied them from somewhere else) about everything from air conditioning to online business - the what rather depends on whatever it is you are trying to advertise in the signature attached.

PLEASE STOP IT, THIS IS GETTING OLD VERY QUICKLY. YOUR SPAM POSTS ARE BEING DELETED AND THE ACCOUNTS BANNED, SO WHAT IS THE POINT?