Obscure Mania

The CompTIA Security+ exam everyone says is one of the harder certifications to pass. It is, mainly because of all of the acronyms, a lot of the questions are kind of vague and unlike other CompTIA certifications you can take by themselves,  for Security+ you really need a networking background and preferably Network+.

I took a semester long course for Security+ at the local community college. I needed the credits and might as well add to the certification list. The class used the Microsoft textbook with a lab only because that’s what the instructor based all of his lectures on. It’s a good textbook, but a little outdated since the Security+ exam changed for 2008. He updated the material in his notes and we did a ton of lab exercises which gave us hands on configuring Windows 2008 Server, using Wireshark and installing and using certificates for digital signatures and encryption. This instructor had a practice exam for each chapter and also about a dozen practice exams for the certification which I’m sure helped a lot. The exam questions can be vague and multiple answers appear to be correct. You can usually take out two of the four as being totally wrong and decide between the other two. Rereading the question and paying attention to what the question is really asking will help also.

During the last two weeks before the actual certification I read Security+ Get Certified, Get Ahead by Darril Gibson. Mainly because it is up to date and I always have more than one source for my certifications to give a broader understanding and in case one source misses something. The Gibson book was really good. Easy to read with larger print than most, easy to understand and I especially liked the “Remember” boxes on every other page to highlight points in the chapter. It made for a quick review the last day, I read over the the Remember boxes, the sample questions in the book and other practice quizzes I had the instructor gave me. The Gibson book actually covered a few things the class missed that were on the test, not many, but I know  it helped on one question.

It’s a good book by itself, but I’m glad I had the other class and practice exams. The only bad part of the book is there was no CD, so the chapter quizzes were only on the hard copy in the book.

Security+ is a tough exam only because you need a networking background and you really need to know all of the acronyms regarding security and encryption and it’s a tough subject to begin with.

This is such a cool android app. It shows all the apps I have installed on my G1 and will remain updated any time I install or uninstall anything else. You can share your apps with this cool widget in your blog or by URL http://www.appbrain.com/user/wayne318/apps-on-the-phone This can be either private or public. Too cool. H/T to TWIG (This Week in Google) Leolaporte’s list and Gina Trapani’s list. Now that android is growing, this is a great way to share cool apps among your android friends. Smarterware.org Names are mainly for my own personal notes since I can’t figure out how to search for people on App Brain yet. Link for my list.

I’ve been using Crossloop for my remote control access software for a long time, but I’ve switched to using Team Viewer. It not only does remote support, attended or unattended support, I can switch to meeting or presentation mode, file transfers and a lot of other features all in one program.

It seems to be fast and secure. Remote sessions can be one way with the remote keyboard locked or not. Remote sessions are fast and just like being there. It’s comparable to Crossloop with secure remote requests, you can ask for support give your support person the id and password and not have to worry if he can log back in later when you’re not there. Team Viewer not only does support requests with id and password, but I can set computers for remote unattended access and have all my computers available online from anywhere.

I can get rid of two tools and only use Team Viewer. Crossloop I can drop and I can uninstall Logmein from all of my computers and friends’ computers. I can also not worry about getting something like Go to Meeting, because I can do presentations as well and have complete control who can participate. Team Viewer is a great program, so anyone asking me for support will be asked to go to TeamViewer.com and download the small program. After downloading, you don’t have to install permanently, just run the program and no administrator privileges are needed.

Simple, easy, fast and many tools in one program, no monthly fees like a lot of remote access, support and meeting programs. I’m still exploring all of the features, but so far, it’s an incredible program.

Made by a friend of mine showing how to disassemble, test and repair a hard drive. Not responsible for any data loss.

I was going to twitter or facebook this, but it became too long. My wife wanted to go and it’s her birthday this weekend, so we went early on a workday for most. I could have gone or not even though I’m the same age as Michael and listened to all of his music growing up, I wasn’t emotionally attached to what became a spectacle.

The theater had about a dozen people in it, perfect timing for us. Hopefully the weekend will have more people, other wise it will be on DVD next month, but it really is worth going to see. Micheal Jackson was such a talent on stage and an incredibly talented creative genius, no matter what you thought of him.

That would have been the concert of the century and hard for anyone to beat. The footage is from the rehearsals, but the only thing missing was the audience. You see different costumes and sometimes everyone is in casual clothes, but the talent and the show is still definitely there.

Throughout the entire movie I was thinking about what a waste his death was. Wasn’t there anyone that could have said something? How about someone saying, “No more!”  How about, “Look what you’re doing to yourself?” How about just being there for him and not being the leech everyone around him seemed and still seems to be. Seeing Joe and the brothers on TV now makes me so angry I either have to throw something at the TV or change the channel. Talk about disgusting leeches, and now the brothers are going to go on tour? That’s got to be the sickest sort of profiteering there is. His entire family could have died and no one would have noticed and now they think people will pay attention to them now because Michael’s gone? Or even because they happened to be related to him? Absolutely sick.

Granted, an addict is going to do what they want and not always listen to those around him. From what I’ve heard, he shut out those that did try and help. The doctors he went to should have said no, but someone else would have said yes, so it might as well be them profiting.  What is it with doctors that can’t or won’t say no to celebrities. All of the doctors that wrote ‘scripts for Anna Nichol Smith knew they were doing something wrong as well.

Except for highlights you couldn’t escape from, I didn’t watch the funeral because I knew it was going to be such a freak show. It is incredibly sad that things had to end like they did. The man must have had some serious demons to deal with. Can you be that talented and not be seriously eccentric.

Back to the movie -They were filming rehearsals anyway at Michael’s request, probably for the DVD extra so a lot was available. All the great songs from Billie Jean, Beat It, Man in the Mirror, a few new ones and a stage production of Thriller. Incredible talent everywhere from the band and dancers to the man himself, it would have been a heck of a show. Great, great stuff.

This is the documentary about the “Atomic Age”. The beginnings of the Atomic bomb testing, deployment and how it changed the lifestyle of the country. It includes all of the newsreels and propaganda films of the era. My question after watching it was after dropping the two bombs on Japan, why was more testing needed? Purposely putting soldiers and civilians in harms way telling everyone there’s nothing to worry about.

Testing in the middle of the Pacific around the Bikini islands, the wind shifted unexpectedly and other inhabited islands were affected. Of course the Army sent a response crew to take care of the natives all the while explaining how there were only minor injuries while the film was showing sores and rashes but everyone is fine except for any future illnesses they might encounter and quote, “the 236 natives appear to be well and happy” as a medic is pulling hair out of a guys deformed head.  Nothing to worry about except in Japan where they threw out and brought fish back from market that had radiation, but I’m sure people were fine.

A military exercise outside Las Vegas that sent troops into an area just after the bomb blast to see how fast troops could get in and secure the area if they had to. Watch the military telling troops there was nothing to worry about and watching those troops running toward a mushroom cloud. What’s worse, who knows how many of those troops died years later from the fallout they received?

One odd thing (among many) was that there was an MP (Military Police) standing next to the interviewee while he was telling the reporter what he went through and showing his radiation detector and then the news report how the wind shifted and now Saint George was going to get some fallout, but there was nothing to worry about. The winds shifted again? Darn the weather.

Earlier a news conference reporting about the senseless execution of the Rosenbergs and how Ethel Rosenberg was still alive after her first electrocution and needed two more was really sad.

It’s edited showing newsreels and the propaganda films put out back then showing what we know now is the silliness of bomb shelters and radiation suits for kids, it also shows the ignorance of the government wanting to test something they knew nothing about on innocent soldiers and civilians and telling everyone there was nothing to worry about.

The cover of the Atomic Cafe listed on Amazon says it’s a comic horror film. Yeah, kind of. It’s comical in that we really lived like that and it’s a horror film from what the government was trying to convince us of. What was a little sickening was how the politicians and others said God was on our side including all of the pastors and reverends interviewed.

I had to watch this for the history class I’m taking and was going to leave the link but it’s behind a user id, so probably shouldn’t. It’s available at Amazon and probably most public libraries. I checked and it’s definitely in all of the Las Vegas libraries.

Update: Found on Youtube and Google Video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUtZOqgSG8
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1126269724766604475#

It’s what I was trying to point out in my last post, My PC Has Virus. You can have a bullet proof system with a great antiv-virus program, but if you download something you could be toast.

Trend Micro CEO: hackers hitting AV infrastructure
By Robert McMillan
October 23, 2009 06:28 PM ET
IDG News Service – It’s become an all-too-common scam: A legitimate Web site pops up a window that looks just like a real security warning. It says there’s something wrong with the computer, and click here to fix it. A few clicks later, the victim is paying out US$40 for some bogus software, called rogue antivirus.

The rest of the article is worth a quick read. What happened to my virus? I did it on virtual machine so it didn’t really affect anything real. Between school and work, I’m still playing with it.

The Real Fix

For an ordinary person is to backup your data and reinstall Windows. If you don’t already have a backup, it’s usually safe to backup only your Document folder, just none of your program folders. Reinstall with a quick format should do it. If not you don’t have a backup or your backup is infected, then you’re getting into the paid part of the program and finding someone that can boot into Linux or a specialized program on CD or bootable USB and cleaning it that way.

I went and got my PC infected on purpose. It was not hard at all, I clicked on a link in my spam mailbox and it went downhill from there, these things can be nasty!

How Did I Get Infected?

When I clicked a link it sent me to a website to watch a video and I was told I had to download something to view it, that’s the first clue. If you change your mind, it won’t let you cancel. It’s getting serious now and you should turn off the machine immediately because that’s the only way you’re getting away from that website.

So, I downloaded what it wanted and nothing happened, I still couldn’t watch the video. It was supposed to be good too! So I downloaded it again and again and still nothing. What did happen, a strange program popped up in my task manager as “a.exe”, I killed it, but I still had problems. Even if you kill every single process you think is a virus, it’s not enough and they’re only going to come back alive anyway.

If I did a search, either a different search engine would pop up or when I clicked a link, I went to a completely different website than what I clicked.

These programs are really helpful when they tell you you’re infected and they send you to a site that will scan your PC for free, then the scan tells you your PC is infected with 54 viruses that sound really nasty. Of course you want to get rid of them, but you have to pay $49.99 to download the anti-virus. And not just any anti-virus, their anti-virus, because it won’t let you go to any other site and download any other anti-virus.

Now What?

I tried to download a real anti-virus and I was able to download it, but every time I installed it, it would disappear. I couldn’t open a Command Line to run Microsoft’s MSRT program. Every time I would open a CMD window, it would open for a second, then disappear.

I tried going to legitimate sites that had virus scans and sometimes I could go there and start the scan, but it usually hung the system or got worse. Now I can’t start Internet Explorer or even another browser I downloaded earlier, it keeps bugging me about buying their protection and it won’t let me do anything else.

I also had something called “Spyware Doctor” that kept popping up too.

Every time I try and start a program a balloon pops up and tells me a program is a keylogger and it trying to steal my identity and sometimes it would throw in credit card information or equally scary stuff.

The program that kept bugging me to buy to fix everything was called “Security Tool” for $49 or for a lifetime of grief I could pay $79. Any time I would try and do something it would pop up and tell me something bad.

Going into control panel and clicking Add/Remove programs was when it would tell me it “detected harmful software” and they strongly recommend buying their crap to fix it. I couldn’t open the Properties of My Computer to go back to a Restore Point, this PC is really hosed.

I really feel bad for people that don’t know what to do, because even though I know what to do, it won’t let me.

What Did I Do?

To be continued…

My first thought, perfect… Following in the footsteps of the worst American President, Jimmy Carter. His fate is sealed. Even CNN has reported how ridiculous this is. Maybe it was his indecision about Afghanistan, but that can’t be, because his nomination had to be into the Nobel committee only two weeks after he was elected. Most of the comments about how he deserves this honor were about his good intentions, his hope for peace in the Middle East and of course, how well he spoke about peace.

When did the Peace Prize become a participation trophy? It wasn’t today, it became irrelevant awhile ago, but it was too irrelevant to even write about till now. The Prize has been awarded based on Hope and Change. Anyone else would see how silly this is and decline the award, but Obama is so arrogant he is going to accept this and probably even keep the money. He might say he’s giving it to a charity, but it will be his charity foundation.

I actually had to listen to his speech because it was carried by everyone. An arrogant man trying and failing to be humble and no mention of what he’s going to do with the money. What a crock.

Can we survive another three years? It’s only a year till 2010 when people can show they have woken up and replace some of the idiots in Congress. With some sort of stalemate in the government, maybe the left agenda will be on hold for awhile like what happened to Clinton. He had to come center right to get anything done. Putting some reins on this administration and this government as a whole is needed.

With this President following in the footsteps of Carter, who will emerge as our next Reagan. Sarah Palin? Probably not. She would be a good VP again, but she doesn’t have the leadership or the experience to pull us out of this mess, let alone the mess this country will be in several years from now. And the press will bring up the past when McCain threw her under the bus, let alone every other press fiasco, so maybe even VP wouldn’t be such a good choice. My vote is on Romney right now, but because of the chaos and disaster that may be upon us if this agenda goes any further, the pendulum will have such a wild swing the other direction we could be looking at someone like Ron Paul.

I’ve been approved as a Crossloop Certified Helper. What the heck is that?  Crossloop is the program that allows remote access to someone’s computer. You are completely under control of when and who connects to your computer. When you need help you start the Crossloop program and it generates a code you give to the person you want to give access to.

You can disconnect any time and they can not log in again with that same code while you’re not around, even if the program is still running. It’s a very secure way to grant temporary access to your computer while you sit there and supervise.

A Certified Helper has gone the extra step in receiving an independent background check, has been personally interviewed by Crossloop staff. The Certified Helper is familiar with the ethics, guarantees and the professionalism Crossloop wants to convey to the helpers customers.

If you need some help with your computer, I can be trusted to be ethical, honest, I passed a background check and Crossloop.com has put their trust in me to represent them professionally.

See the post that will explain Crossloop in more detail and watch the little video that explains the CrossLoop System.