28
Greg Moreno: Interruption is Your Enemy.
Amen.
Sometimes it even takes weeks for me to get into the zone. I received a Level III certification on the pretending-to-be-working skill seven years ago.
I don't agree with the Josh Groban part though... : )
Related link: (Music... war... and neurons, baby.)
28
Here are some links to compensate for that vircrash blogblabbering... the Top 10 Windows XP Tips of All Time. (via GeekPress.com)
Here are two more signs of alien invasion: subliminal advertising and an invention machine.
And here's an artwork you can post in your door to drive those aliens away.
28
VirCrash.Part.003.0427
The real headache though lies not in the detection, removal, or the existence of the virus. MY real problem is this which-shall-remain-nameless virus tends to have the power to control negative forces.
The CPU fan started malfunctioning after the virus was detected. Then there goes the never-ending orphaned file/link error messages. The fourth partition of hard disk 01 couldn't be seen afterwards. Then partition 01 of hard disk 02 followed. Even my reserve hard disk 03 encountered problems of his own and a clean Windows XP refused to be installed on my reserve-and-fresh-from-the-cabinet hard disk 04.
I do back things up often, but there are files that are still to be backed up which I placed on what I thought would be a secure partition which ended up doing that now-you-see-me-now-you-don't dance.
I'm scribbling this part 47 hours after the problem manifested but imagine the suffering in real time. Even IKIA started kneeling, calling the gods of thunder and the names of celestial beings in between cursing and yelling indescrible things to some innocent ants.
This scribble is getting longer already... if you're still reading this you could consider yourself as belonging to a small fraction of humankind whose attention span has not yet been affected by the second wave of the upcoming alien invasion.
28
VirCrash.Part.002.2006.0426
Ah... CATALYST (TheOffice.PC.02) was infected, my laptop as well. Qsez two computers are clean even if her virus definitions are months late... ah.. talk about a fair life.
(A woman's intution is indeed far more powerful than the arsenal of tools I have.)
The info I have gathered online is not that accurate, or probably I am holding a mutated/evolved copy of that virus. It infects .exe and .scr files, but it also seems to have a target-list-of-to-be-infected-exe-files in its code since some .exe files that I haven't run nor touched for quite some time (and I'm pretty sure these are not system files) were infected too. Something online virus encylopedias from av sites are not stating.
It also hides its code in running processes which makes it hard to detect and manually remove when active. Process explorer tools are useless at this point.
But just because this was my major virus hit for quite some time means I don't deal with them regularly. In fact we see them during every client visit we have... to the extent that our first routine on site is to backup and scan files before installing our updates.
Add the fact that one of my bosses in my 'regular job' has this eternal fascination for porn sites. Even brought a couple of friends for some porn-fest, probably, months ago that produced the 10092 pop-ups the following day.
I hold him and them responsible for my constantly improving anti-spyware/virus/worm removal commando like skills... : )
Now off to clean this PC. I am now hearing the linux users cheering in the background.
28
VirCrash.Part.001.2006.0425
PARCEL... MY home PC got infected with 'that-which-I-would-not-speak-of' (/that-which-I-would-not-hyperlink) computer virus.
This would be the first MAJOR infection of one my drones since 1996. That was ten years ago. College days... just months after I was given a PC I could truly call mine.
Yes... that experience was terrible enough that it caused me to religiously install/run/update five tools for protection. Along with a truckload of common sense (You can buy a dozen at a discounted price at Waltermart), cybernetically-enhanced instincts and paranoia.
(Of course a pet tiger who could sniff computer viruses/worms when hungry. (And this one's hungry all the time.))
A reliable anti-virus application, a paranoid 'stand-alone' firewall (no... not the one that comes bundled with SP2), an all around ---ware immunizer/remover, and a couple of 'top secret' tools were there for me all these years.
(Except for the ---ware tool since these SPY/MAL/ETCwares just went fashionable a couple or more years ago but vhoi their growth almost made me forget the existence of 'old school' computer viruses.)
What makes things more ironic is I got infected when I was downloading an update to one of my protection tools from a respectable site.
Just like ten years ago when I was infected upon bringing home a copy of an infected set of virus definitions from our computer lab.
(Edit... apparently judging from the trail of infected files after SEVEN HUGE hours of scanning, I got this days before... which makes the virus a 'that-which-I-would-not-speak-or-even-think-of'. It might try infecting brainwave frequencies too.)
I don't have an internet connection at home so I depend on downloadable manual updates. (And probably CATALYST (the office PC) is not infected after all since it updates automatically but I'll find out once I'm there.)
It infects 32-bit .exe files. And I probably felt the symptoms before when it would automatically rename the files I am copying to lowercase. I did suspect but seeing the dates and byte sizes to be what they should, and the processes panel showing no hoodlum-looking process, and items being intact after MSCONFIG-in'... I chose to ignore.
As of now I'm not yet sure of what the root cause of this one is... let me waste my time and investigate further.
25
24
Pixelcatalyst.Lair's regular splash cover transition.rotation.update resumes. The pixelnews will follow and a new creation process section, as well.
Even when I'm working on GFX, it seems FoxPro is still influencing me... subliminally. The background colors say it all... : ]
3:30AM. That's the average time I merge myself with the bedsheet in the previous three days. It was even around 4AM yesterday. I'm now working on a new website interface... which if a month from now I'm still infected with this current mindset, PXLCTLSTv7 will have a punish-the-user-abuse-the-bandwidth approach.
Hey... the 'net wastes a huge amount of bandwidth because of spam. Why not use those resources in visiting graphics-intensive sites instead..? (Who gives a damn about enhancements.. : ])
Every now and then, I tend to move boundaries that limit creativity when I'm handling TheLair. Probably I'll do that once again when V7 comes out.
But then again I would probably end up chopping and tweaking after I have fully converted the .psd file to it's HTML version.
Also, I created a different behind-the-scenes scribbles section for the creation process involved in V7. Once uploaded I will link it here. Stay tuned.
24
Doug Hennig: Forget TXTWIDTH - use GdipMeasureString. (No direct links..? Hmmm... : )
 |
FeedForAll.com. Found this site while I am gathering 'resources' for the next version of Pixelcatalyst.Lair.
Yes you're reading it right. That site of mine will be updated after dwelling in the realm of idleness for more than a year. TheLair still gets quite a number of visitors, around 436.75 per day last February 2006, (down by half since 2003 when it was updated almost every day). Went down even more last March (273.87 visitors per day)). I'm using an old perl tracker that monitors the splash and the main page so there could be more. |
It went up slightly though these first few days of April to 616 vpds to about 1022 vpds for the past five days. Perhaps it has something to do with the 'UpdateTheLair' force that has been whispering in my mind lately.
TheLair will turn 7 YEARS old this May. Even my pet tiger thinks it deserves some love and attention. So probably I'll be spending some time after coding hours (or during coding hours) whipping some stuff for the site's version 7.00.
No there won't be a VisualFoxPro backend for that site for now. But I am creating some parsing tools for some parts of the site, which includes the site links database section.
HTML as always... when other pixel-friends were firing up flashy flash files years ago, I declared my eternal love to HTMLs-sans-swf files.
20
NetGear. Neat.
17
Calvin Hsia: SQL Server Interpreter Sample.
17
The FoxPro Show 37: Interview with Rod Miller of dbi-tech.com (Here's a direct link to DBI's Visual FoxPro Sedna Community)
Happy Easter!
12
Rick Schummer: FoxPro Rocks Parsing Data. (with source code (via akselsoft))
FoxPro rocks [- insert choice of verb in here (insert optional conjunctions) -] data. Period.
If you search your dictionary it has been there underneath the words 'speed' and 'data'.
If you can't see it there, GOOGLE this phrase: howto fix alien mindwiped human brains.
One of these days I'll add a FoxPro icon inside wikipedia's speed entry.
10
07
April 2006 - Letter from the Editor.
There... my chipmunks are chanting 'More more more' in the background.
07
Here... something to lighten your week... from Steve Jobs.
Unless you plan on spending the weekend with this kind of experiment.
06
Start with this... Doug Hennig: The User is Always Right.
Then proceed here... Craig Berntson: Complexity and Experience.
While I do agree with almost all the points stated in those blogs/articles, the 'User is always right' mindset does not appeal to me that much.
User is always KING. Insert fat/lazy/abusive/bum KING... but that doesn't mean he's always right.
Probably one of the reasons, I studied mind control and hypnosis before I studied coding.