welo

Welo, I can tell by that kind response to my foolish suggestion that you are either a goodf lady or a good gentleman. It's good to know that I'm not dreaming when I am awake thesedays, and so thanks for the help and I wish you sweet dreams and happy wake up tomorrow. Norn laab faan dee, khap.

That's nice to hear, thank you! I am a married (straight) man though Others might say I should go get a real life, 've been spending too much time on thaivisa lately LOL

I actually switched the close button according to your recommendations, so even though the suggestion to switch browsers was maybe a bit over the top the idea about the close button was definitely a good one! Thank you!

welo

SeaMonkey is another derivative without the X-Close icons for every tab, but just a single X-Close icon on the right-hand side of the tab bar.

I am not sure if this might overcome your typing conundrums, but it is IMHO less error-prone than Firefox.

The other one I found to keep on target using this new 'laptop' gadget is that I have covered the touchpad with a piece of cardboard and have a REAL mouse by my side, so that my thumbs don't stuff me up while I'm a typing hard.

Not sure my disappearing tabs are due to the close button, but I might give it a chance.

Btw you don't need to switch browsers, you can easily configure Firefox to match your needs

Enter 'about:config' in the Firefox address bar.

Enter: browser.tabs.closeButtons

Possible values and their effects

0 : Display a close button on the active tab only

1 : Display close buttons on all tabs (Default)

2 : Don’t display any close buttons

3 : Display a single close button at the end of the tab strip (Firefox 1.x behavior)

I agree that the touchpad can be VERY annoying, I often disable it while typing longer texts, especially if I have my USB mouse connected.

I actually noticed that during the last 'incident' the touchpad was not disabled.

Maybe it's all just a massive conspiracy between my touchpad, the CTRL key, Firefox and thaivisa to steal my precious life time...

Btw: if you don't have a hardware button to disable your touchpad you might check out if the driver supports disabling it.

With my Touchpad driver (ALPS on Windows 7) there are some nice features that can be enabled (goto Control Panel / Mouse Settings).

• Tap off when typing.
  
• Detailed settings on the scroll area for vertival and horizontal scrolling
  
• Touch Settings
  
• Display Icon In the Taskbar (unfortunately no way to easily turn off the touchpad from there)
  

welo

EDIT: found a small tool that claims to support the 'disable touchpad when typing' feature even if your driver does not support it. Anyway, you should check if you have a propert touchpad driver installed on your system if you are running XP. The built-in touchpad driver does not support a lot of those gimmicks.

Seems I'm getting lazy on my old days. Did search again for a Firefox addon and found Lazarus which also works with the thaivisa message board. Hurray!

I can say with absolute certainty that this has never happened to me.

Well, I reflected on possible reasons for those tab closing phenomenon. I have 'Client for Google Translate' installed which activates on pressing CTRL twice. Sometimes I accidentally activate that window, not sure why (clumsy fingers!?). The tab proglem is always related to this 'incident'. I noticed that sometimes after closing the translator window the focus would not return back to the edit pane inside the browser but jump to the tab frame.

Whatever, I understand that maybe this problem is very specific to me and my clumsy fingers I will keep searching for this auto-save feature for form inputs and editor panes, since it would be a nice feature anyway, no matter why the tab is being closed.

Let's see whether disabling CTRL-W actually solved my issue or not, it's not too long ago that I changed this setting, too early to say if it helped or not.

Thanks to all for the input.

welo

Isn't Mac OS X a UNIX based OS that was built on NextStep, a company bought in 1996? So much about copying.

But did MS ever be truly innovative? Cannot really answer that question. I wonder whether global companies that size can ever be... I guess it's more a question of buying the right startup company that came up with an innovative solution.

I never bothered to find out how Apple actually came up with their innovations during the last years (iPod etc).

And I wouldn't bet on Apple being the company that would NOT abuse their monopoly if they had a bigger market share. I mean look at what happened to the Apple clones in the mid-1990ies.

Interesting to hear the comment from Steve Jobs on the Mac stagnating - interestingly none of the Apple fan-boys during that period would admit to this...

If you are interested in another story of missed opportunities and bad company management, check out the Amiga story...

welo

Try to wipe the cookie cache with CTRL-SHIFT-DEL or better the whole temporary files cache just to be sure.

Had a different problem with GMail once where it kept redirecting/reloading, and this solved it.

welo

Thanks to all for your comments!

RKA, but that's exactly what I said I sometimes do (using an external text editor) and don't find really satisfactory

Tywais, that's actually one of the addons I have currently installed. Doesn't work with the thaivisa forum software though. No idea why.

Furthermore, it's still only a small improvement on doing a copy/paste.

I would rather like to use the editor inside the browser, and just have an auto-save feature that allows me to recall the typed text from the context menu or a special dialog in case something goes wrong.

I remember testing a form field logger addon that would exactly do this, but it only worked for simple text input fields, not for the editor pane that more complex editors use (there is actually a difference in the HTML component used and the addon only supported simple <input> fields

Or, I save it on the edit bar at the top of my browser.

What do you mean by that?

Still hope somebody found something that I have missed.

welo

I assume you're referring to the "Up One Level" toolbar button like in XP? Try this.

This will just add an entry in the context menu, not a toolbar button. 2 clicks instead of one, not really convenient

I used to use the Up button excessively in XP, never liked the history back button, never liked the directory structure pane, not sure why, probably just a habit. However, in Windows 7 I just use the path in the address bar to navigate.

What I never understood is why is it so difficult to make the Explorer toolbar configurable like in other applications (Internet Explorer, Office, etc).

welo

I often type longer posts on message boards and numerous times I've been extremely frustrated by the current window (tab) just disappearing/closing for no apparent reason.

I am using Firefox. I think I found the culprit now. Firefox has a shortcut to close the current tab, and this is what happened: when typing fast on my Laptop keyboard I unintentionally hit CTRL-W closing the current tab. Bang! All the text gone and mostly no way to recover if the forum software doesn't support it.

Solution: Use the 'keyconfig' addon to disable this shortcut.

My question to the respectable thaivisa community:

Sometimes I would type my text in a text editor and then copy/paste into the forum software when finished, but this is not really a satisfactory solution IMHO.

Do you know of any Firefox addon that can auto-save the contents of editor panes in case something goes wrong? I used addons that can restore a closed tab, but those wouldn't restore the text contens of an editing pane.

I also looked for addons that store data entered in forms, but those wouldn't work with the editing pane of some/most forum software.

welo

Article from the New York Times from Feb 4th 2010

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

A comment by Dick Bross who was vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html

As proud owner of a HP TC1100 tablet PC, one of the rare slate type tablet PCs available back then, I had always hoped MS would continue developing this platform. Windows Tablet PC edition kept improving with Vista (the tablet PC specific components only obviously), but no innovative hardware kept coming up.

Another example: When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn't like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet.

[...]

So once again, even though our tablet had the enthusiastic support of top management and had cost hundreds of millions to develop, it was essentially allowed to be sabotaged. To this day, you still can't use Office directly on a Tablet PC. And despite the certainty that an Apple tablet was coming this year, the tablet group at Microsoft was eliminated.

welo

http://internet.nectec.or.th/webstats/home.iir?Sec=home

Nice statistics. Is the chart still maintained? The line is going steep off the charts in 2009-09...

The other link is broken, the site structure has changed, here is the new link to the article on the $500M undersea cable.

My TOT line seems to perform better since about 1 month, but I didn't run any tests yet to back up that impression I got.

welo

Not sure you are correct about the complete inefficiency of UAC. But I don't have enough knowledge or data to back up a position either in favor or against UAC. I doubt the issue is not of the black or white kind.

If you like to toy around with your PC you might want to check out running XP on a Virtual Machine inside Windows 7. Microsoft offers 'Windows XP Mode' which is actually VirtualPC running a XP harddrive image which contains a free XP license if you own Windows 7 (Ultimate and some other versions). USB support is said to be pretty good in this version of VirtualPC, performance however is said to be inferior to other virtualization software - I am running VirtualBox. Of course you will require some extra RAM.

There is a nice 'Undo Disk' feature in VirtualPC, and VirtualBox supports 'snapshots' of the virtual machine (and its harddrives) that you can easily rollback to.

I guess you are not that wrong about virtualization playing a bigger part in the future. I heard many voices echoing that and it makes absolutely sense to me.

welo

This one has an 8cm! fan slot in the enclosure, I've never seen it "live" but usually the bigger the fan the less noise it makes.

Nice one!

Link is broken though, here a tiny url redirect. That fan makes definitely sense.

I wonder about the fan efficiency of enclosures like this

welo

sorry dont even know what a text file is dumb arnt i?

1. Download and run the program
   
2. Press CTRL-S or the floppy symbol in the toolbar
   
3. Change 'Save as type' to 'Text (.txt)'
   
4. Your 'documents' folder should be selected. Choose any folder you want to save the file, just remember where.
   
5. Click the 'Save' button
   
6. Open the folder (maybe start menu -> my documents) and find the file 'autoruns.txt'
   
7. Double click the file. Notepad will start and display the contents of the file.
   
8. Press CTRL-A or from the menu 'Edit / Select all'
   
9. Copy the text and post it into this topic
   

Also consider:

Backing up your all your data (pictures, favorites/bookmarks, everything) and have your system wiped and re-installed by a professional. Make sure it's a good one otherwise you might end up with more problems than before

welo

http://www.youtube.com/user/PCMichiana#p/c/BBD0B6ACC8EF8107

Not exactly matching my recommended tool set but some tools are interchangeable anyway.

welo

Did a search on the Olmarik trojan and it actually confirms my assumptions:

• What is named Win32/Olmarik.D trojan in the ESET database is known as DNSChanger.f.gen.a!e770f528fd79 at McAfee's virus info website (reference). Well, maybe it is not exactly the trojan variant that you've got (often there are many different variations), but it tells me that it might very well have changed your DNS server settings. This can cause 404 errors (and might as well used for more serious things like redirecting you to a fake internet banking website and such).
  
• The Olmarik trojan is one of the annoying kind and hard to get rid off. Just be prepared that you are only half way through getting control back over your PC.
  

If you don't get rid of Olmarik, you'll be back where you've started from very soon. The trojan will download other trojans and cause more troubles. I recommend keeping your computer disconnected from the internet and only connect if you absolutely need it.

If you have a second computer this would be ideal. Read forums and download software there.

You might also consider:

• asking a professional to clean the PC for you
  
• consider reinstalling your OS from scratch, maybe you've been thinking about a 'fresh start' anyway. Maybe upgrade to Windows 7
  
• or you keep fighting and beat that bloody bastard yourself
  

Before you continue another question: Did you run ESET in Safe Mode (F8). If not, do so! It is very likely that it can remove the virus in Safe Mode! If yes,keep reading...

Just keep shooting at the bastard, but get some more guns...

Do all scans in Safe Mode (F8 on startup) AFTER you installed the program and used its update function.

1. Never used it before, but this tool makes very much sense to me.

RKill http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/rkill.com

Will try to kill any malware processes, thus disable any measures of self-defense the trojan might implement.

Tutorial here, scroll down until you find the section explaining RKill. Then continue with...

2.

SuperAntiSpyware http://download.cnet.com/SuperAntiSpyware-...4-10523889.html

(Follow this guide to get detailed instructions)

3.

Kaspersky Removal Tool http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Kas...oval-Tool.shtml

(This doesn't require an update and therefore no internet connection. It's virus database is limited but focuses on stubborn viruses/trojans)

4.

I can also recommend Kaspersky's rescue CD. You can download the ISO image here and burn it on a cd. Then boot it. The advantage is that since Windows is not running there is no way the virus can protect itself, because it is not active. This is even better than doing a scan in Safe Mode (F8).

Unfortunately you will need a cable (ethernet) connection to your router in order for the program to get the latest update, wireless is not supported. Both update (only the first time) and system scan will take quite some time.

Sure you won't be bored for the next hours or days

welo

If you're able to access *microsoft.com, anti-virus/malware sites, you should be in the clear.

I agree.

I would still check the DNS settings just to make sure.

However, if repeated scans bring up infections again and again there is the risk that you've got a nasty trojan hiding in your system that keeps re-infecting your PC with other trojans and viruses.

The question is whether you eventually find the evil mastermind

Of course there is always the hope that the one you just found was the last one.

You also have to distinguish between minor infections (cookies, infections in the browser's temporary files folder, etc) and the heavy stuff such as real trojans actually still running in the background. So if some minor infections show up again and again this is nothing to worry about.

Keep up the repeated scans, best to run them in safe mode, if you are eager to try new stuff you might even boot from a rescue CD, e.g. Kaspersky's rescue CD.

On the issue of your DVD writing software. Best to re-install those tools, maybe some of the program files were infected and have been removed. Maybe the issue is not related.

welo

There is malicious software that actually manipulates your browser or other network settings to make it difficult for you to download security related software.

But let's not jump to conclusions, it might as well just be a problem with your provider or something else.

Please answer the following questions carefully.

1. Do the following links work?

a. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-remo...t-security-2010

b. http://tiny.cc/Zw5gg

c. Copy past the following URL to your browser's address bar

www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-internet-security-2010

d. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com

2. Can you give some of the other URLs that do not work?

3. Did you try reloading/refreshing the browser when a URL would not load correctly? Did the page then load or not?

4. Can you check your DNS settings. What is your current setting? 'Obtain a DNS server automatically' or 'Use the following DNS server addresses?

Please write down any DNS server address that is configured.

You can follow this guide to check and also to change your DNS server settings to openDNS (which is basically a good thing to do with many Thai ISPs anyway): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/15037...indows-7-a.html (if the URL is working for you LOL), you can also use this tiny url.

5. Start your computer in SAFE MODE (tutorial) and do a full computer scan with Malwarebytes again. Disconnect your PC from the internet during that operation.

welo

On the fan issue:

I've been some reading on that matter and didn't find any conclusive article.

If the noise doesn't bother you a fan is surely a good thing in a hot climate such as Thailand's. Overheating can definitely decrease the life time of many PC components. If the fan really bothers you later you could probably disconnect its power source and see if the harddrive gets too hot

However, I wonder whether the cases with fan are constructed in a way that the airflow can actually go around the whole casing, not just blow at one end.

Btw many of the cases sold do not have a fan, neither has mine and never had one with a fan ever.

welo

Follow supernova's advice!

If you don't know what startup processes to disable, use autoruns to save a text file and post it here.

About Accurate Shutdown.

Accurate Shutdown seems to be a valid program, it's listed on download.com and softpedia.com. It doesn't seem overly popular though, probably because it has only a 7-day trial phase and then requires purchase at 25 USD.

Manufacturer's description:

Accurate Shutdown is a powerful automatic software that turns off your computer and at the user-specified time. It can turn off / reboot / logoff the computer, turn off the monitor only, disconnect from the Internet, and execute one or a group of programs. It can synchronize your PC's time to atomic clock servers in world. This application has many timer options that will meet the needs and requirements of all kinds of users on various occasions. This version is the first release on CNET Download.com.

I recommend you uninstall if you don't need it, or don't want to pay. I'm sure there are free solutions to achieve what you need.

Btw there seems to be a workaround to run a program as administrator from a simple shortcut (that you could also place in the startup group I guess).

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...-windows-vista/

Glad it worked out for you!

I recommend to just forget about the ACU.exe. My guess is that you don't need it anyway.

acu.exe is a process belonging to the Atheros Client Utility (ACU) which is a program that allows additional for configuration and diagnostic functions on HP and Toshiba's range of wireless communication devices.

Since Windows XP days all wireless card drivers conform to a unified model in order for Windows to be able to use and configure them. This includes connection management, profile mgmt, entering and storing passwords for encryption, choosing the order of preferred networks, and maybe a few things more.

The client specific tools usually offer the same functionality in a different or maybe more sophisticated way, and sometimes additional options that are not part of the unified driver model, but as an ordinary home user I dare say you don't need those. I personally never use them and deactivate them to save resources and keep my systray clean

I do NOT recommend to switch to the built-in Administrator account, mainly for security reasons. I told you we had a discussion about this the other day here on the forum, and it seems not entirely clear what the exact differences are. On the net you will find a lot of buzz and fuss around this account, mostly people post how you can activate it, but only view talk about what is actually different with this account.

My knowledge so far: the built-in administrator has UAC disabled (completely, not just set to the lowest notification level). Of course this avoids problems related to old software not compatible with UAC. However, this is actually not a weakness of Windows 7 but of the software component that causes the troubles. The whole concept of UAC was introduced to make applications behave better and not require full administrator privileges all the time even for mundane tasks. This was one of the main reasons why it was difficult to implement a good user and permission based security concept on Windows XP, because many apps would just not work on a non-Administrator account (been there, tried that).

While UAC is sometimes annoying, I personally like to know what is going on security wise. It informs me when applications request permissions to change the system, and - having a background as programmer and administrator - I support MS' efforts to introduce a tighter security concept and impose stricter rules on applications and application developers.

Btw, if you really don't like UAC you can have it disabled for all administrator accounts, not only for the built-in one. I guess your coalminer account will then behave the same. But again, I don't recommend it. Since you had a virus infection a couple of months ago, you might want to re-think whether you really don't need that extra bit of security

And another sidenote: for UAC to be of real use you HAVE to set it to the tightest level, otherwise it opens a door for malware to work around it.

welo

Well, not too strange.

We've just had a discussion about the differences between the built-in Administrator account and the standard account with Administrator privileges. (At least) one of the differences is that UAC is disabled with the first.

Considering the error message it might just be that this one application, ACU.exe, is not compatible with UAC.

I just googled ACU.exe and I wonder whether this app is necessary for getting the wireless card working anyway. Usually wireless cards come with the bare driver plus additional software, mostly a tool for managing connections. Under XP the latter would replace Windows' own Wireless Zero Config Service. Maybe ACU.exe is non-essential and you should just not start it (see below)

From here I cannot give you detailed instructions, just a general direction where to go.

I would make sure that any previous software and driver is uninstalled, and then maybe try to install the new driver again.

Also check when this ACU.exe is run, maybe it's just a normal application that runs on startup - run msconfig.exe and search in the 'startup' panel for a matching entry, then remove it.

Did the installer actually do something? Did it have any options to install the driver only without a client tool?

Did you see whether it copied the driver files somewhere, maybe it didn't really install the driver, just copy the files.

welo

PattayaParent, please tell me how one would connect a 3.5" Sata HDD to a USB port using a 100b Y-Cable ???

...and so that it actually works

Sorry, my bad. Here is the link.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-remo...t-security-2010

You might wanna watch your computer closely for the next view weeks. Run full computer scans regularly (weekly) and keep the programs up2date. You might want to download yet another app to scan your PC, e.g. ESET NOD32 free online scanner (direct link to the installer, this one is safe, trust me ), and SuperAntispyware .(freeware edition).

What you have to understand is that trojans and malware often download updated versions of malicious software from the internet and try to install those on your system. Therefore it is possible that only those parts of the malicious programs were removed that the antivirus or anti-malware software already knows about.

Quarantine is fine. If you are sure the file is 'evil' you can delete it right away. But usually it is safe to keep files in the quarantine. If the scanner had a false positive (happens) you can easily get it back from there, if you delete files the files are usually lost.

The files in the quarantine will be renamed and cannot be executed anymore. When running more than one anti-virus or -malware scanner then sometimes one program picks up files from the quarantine of the other program, but this is no problem.

Stay away from torrents that contain executable files (programs, keygens, etc). Movies and music are OK, as long as they are not fake and lure you into running an executable. Never download any missing 'CODEC' online. Get the K-Lite package if your PC cannot playback a movie or sound file.