The internet’s under attack!

Wow, thank god it’s the end of National Gremlin Week! What? You’ve never heard of it? That’s cos I just made it up, but remember you heard it here first, OK?

I’ve never in my life spent so much wasted time because of so many virusses! The number this week is so high I actually lost count – not just of the number of infection instances, but the different types too!

Nimda
Backdoor
BugBear
W32/Sobig
W32/Lovsan
W32/Blaster

Plus various trojans have all made a seriously heavy appearance this week and if you don’t have a virus checker on your machine, I really recommend getting one now!

The biggest problem was found on machines with Norton Antivirus with the auto-update turned off or the subscriptions run out – These new bugs can slip right through Norton’s old defences without a blip, so make sure you stay up to date!

I’m using a combination of McAfee 7 and NAV 2003 on my machines – Not both on the same machine, I mean on different machines on the network – can’t say which is better; they both seem to do the job just fine, if they’re kept up to date.

Yeah, this isn’t a very technical document, considering I’m a programmer and boss of an Internet Software/New Media agency, but it’s Friday, and it’s been a very, very, stressful week!

So get yourself protected, OK?

Norton Antivirus 2004
McAfee VirusScan 7
Sophos Anti-Virus

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Up and running

Finally got my PC up and running at last – installing windows 2000 instead of XP got rid of the strange IRQ error – no idea why – And apart from a wierd problem where the PC only stayed on for about 5 seconds and then turned itself off again (turn the heatsink around 180 degrees to fix that!), it was plain sailing from then on in.

I plan to upload a few of my tracks over the next few days, so that this becomes more of a proper representation of me, instead of just my thoughts and ramblings – it’s all about the dubplates, after all… Been chatting with Morph – He’s made three tracks already with the new PC I built for him – good on ya mate, can’t wait to hear them tomorrow.

Off to the South of France with the family at the weekend – should be great, despite it being 40 degrees at least down there! Can’t wait for the break!

36 degrees and rising

Man, it’s hot! Sleepily trying to concentrate on coding vb.NET – this heat makes deadlines disolve into hazy mind wanderings and wonderings about whether anyone’s actually found my weblog yet.

It should be illegal to have to work in a hot office in from of the computer when the humidity’s at 200% and you were up late last night at a dinner party with too much wine and then you were up early because of the heat and the dryness and the curry and the hangover….

Took yesterday off though, so I shouldn’t be complaining – Took my daughter to an historic working farm – watched a woman make butter. It took bloody ages – I shouldn’t complain about my job! The cow milking looked no more fun.

I absolutely wouldn’t have survived in the 1920’s – No Internet? No electricity? Jesus, I would have spent most of my time sitting around wondering what was missing…

The birds who tried to fill the sea in

Once upon a time, there were two birds, who laid some eggs on a high rock on the beach.

The spent their time looking after the eggs, keeping them warm, and making sure they were safe from harm.

Once day, a freak wave came right up the beach and washed all the eggs into the sea.

The birds were frantic, diving into the sea, and looking for the eggs, but to no avail – they were lost and taken deep into the sea by the current.

From that moment on, the two birds made a resolve – They would fill the sea in, as a punishment for such a cruel and unprovoked attack.

They picked up a small amount of sand in their beaks, and dropped it into the sea. After that, they sipped up a tiny bit of the sea, and droped it on to the land.

This they did over and over, for days and days, tireless in their resolve to fill the sea in, stopping only for a little food and sleep when they really needed it.

After a long time, the absolute saw what the birds were doing, and as a reward for their ceaseless determination, ordered the sea to return the eggs, unharmed.

That is the power of determination.

HH Santanand Saraswati

If you really want something

I’m sure someone said that if you really want something, you’ll have to prove how much you want it – There will always be some kind of obstacle put in your way to test your resolve.

So what fucker decided that rule of natural law then?

There’s got to be a god – random chaos couldn’t possibly have this type of sense of humour – Been working all evening on getting my new machine up and running, and nothing but the Blue Screen Of Death – constantly, over and over telling me that there’s something wrong with a bit of hardware – “If you’ve added something new, try removing it and see if it solves the problem”…

Added something new? It’s a new machine!

Oh yes, I want to make music, and I’m properly being tested. 5 to bloody midnight and I’m out of ideas.

Anyone any idea what “DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL” means?