Apple’s leftovers.
I recently went on a hunt to increase drive space. I cleaned up all of the the normal locations, and I also used an application called CCleaner. It's a popular application. It's free, however I recommend a donation to it's maker to keep it avalible for others. It also helps it's writer to keep making updates, that really keep your system cleaned up and it's quite fast. What it does is clean up? Well a lot of common ophaned files from installations, and internet temp files. Plus a little more...
Now back to the point of this article. During the cleanup I discovered a directory that seemed rather large. 228 MB. It was an installer cache in the iTunes and other Apple applications directory. For Vista 32bit it's located under "C:\ProgramData\Apple Computer\Installer Cache\" On a 64 bit systems, it's "C:\Users\All Users\Apple\Installer Cache." Warning, do not delete the latest or only remaining folder of a single name. In my case I paid for the Quicktime Mpeg decoder, and if I deleted it, it could potentially cause a problem if I wanted to perform an application repair later.
Basically what you want to do, is look at the date of each redundant folder, each should also have a version id in the folder name. So if I have Apple Mobile Device Support 3.0.1.3 and 3.1.0.62 I should only delete the one with the leastrecent revision change. That would be 3.0.1.3 in this case. You really only need these if the latest version is really buggy and nothing works like it should. But weeks or months later (even years in my case) you won't need the multitude of left over version changes unless your writing the application. Now with this knowlege in hand, you can navigate to the locations as indicated above, and delete directories that are wasting space on your drive.
Any questions? feel free to contact ITi on facebook.
Examples:
Obfuscated ?
What's that mean? Well in simple terms it basically means to make computer programming look like gibberish. It's always on purpose. It's intention is to hide the real use or code that makes a program tick. It keeps other writers from basically stealing code from other programmers. The other simple purpose could be used to hide information from just a casual web user. Like information that is collected from your browser or computer, or an other web based application connection. Not all obfuscated code is full proof, but works rather well. The only unwanted effects I've see is when you have a social networking application such as face book or twitter open in your web browser. It tends to be available though plug-ins to other sites. I found this out recently, through www.life.com. the comments section had my FaceBook account ready for comment. I found this an unwanted side effect. Fortunately though obfuscation of code, I can't tell where the connection is completely made. It's probably an API ( Application Programming Interface) or plug-in, or even a script in combination on the life.com site. Now with life, I'm Likely safe with this. But if I went to another site in the open world, there's a potential for a high risk of information theft. Such as obtaining my FaceBook name, and other information from my computer to build a profile. Add an e-mail address and then you've built a recipe for eventual information theft. So to play it save, log off FaceBook before you surf anywhere else, unless it's your intention to leave comments on sites such as life.com.
New Audio, Video, Controller connections standard
I really like IT, and I also dig the gadgets that move to the AV feild. Such as Apple TV, Tivo, etc... I learned recently that the http://www.hdbaset.org/ including Sony, Samsung, LG and Valens semiconductor have moved forward with looking to standardise 10base T ethernet cable as a single point of connection. To me that sounds excellent idea that always lingered in the back of my mind. I actually even use ethernet now for some old analog connection plates in my home. IT would remove so many cables in the already spiderweb of cables used with AV equipment. I look forward to this technology in several ways.
Penny Auctions
So I took a look into penny auctions, and quickly figured out each bid you and anyone else makes costs 1.00 per each bidding. The price is raised a penny per bid, by every bidder and the time ticks up a few seconds. The cost might appear to be 380.00 for a laptop, which if you won, would be the final price you pay. But here's the sad side. You might pay that cost, but the bidding company actually just raked in tons of cash. $38,000 + your paying the winning bid price 380.00. + shipping and every $1 you spent to get that winning bid. So who's the real winner? The penny auction company of course. It's a fantastic deal for them to have spent 4000.00 on a laptop, and turn it into a huge profit. Nearly 10 times what they payed is returned! So really is it worth it to try it? . . . It could be if you can wait it out long enough to win.
Cover letters for IT jobs
Things have really changed in the world of hiring IT professionals. It's probably true of many professions these days excluding CEO, CFO, CCO, CIO, etc. So do you really need a cover letter in the IT world, the answer is no, you really don’t need a cover letter.Cover letters have become passé. They really are no longer read by hiring managers is the sheer volume of people applying and the hours it would take to direct personal attention to each and every person’s cover letter would be preventative to finding the candidate with the skills wanted.
A call an e-mail these days would allow a prospective employer to dig up more information before moving forward with an interview. Additionally sometimes they look for a public facing social channel such as facebook, myspace or personal websites. So before you apply, leave a note that a cover letter is avalible per request. In most cases, it won't be asked for.
My thanks to a recruiter for this info.
Dell to release a new smartphone?
Could Dell be releasing an iPhone killer? It's possible, but contrary to my previous post "Smart Phones" this one is more of a moderate sized tablet / Phone that's looking to be even more of a portable desktop type device. To Quote a Dell employee "The Dell Streak is a hybrid device that lives in the space between a smartphone and other larger tablets or netbooks that you might be using right now." As I see it, there's a pro and con. Pro It's larger than an iPhone at 5 inches but it's con, it's smaller than the iPad. However, it makes it perfect for the road-warrior who wants to travel light. It's clear not everyones going to find a use for the streak. Anyone using an iPhone or die-hard Blackberry owners likely won't make the jump. Owners of the the newer HTC HD2 won't see much of an advantage, other than making a switch from Windows Mobile to android, and getting a bit larger screen.
The Streak is due to be released in the UK this month, and the US by the end of July. The cost is near $500 from Dell direct, and it looks like 2 year contracts with Telecom providers is still open.
the primary OS is Google Android and it will have full access to the Google 38,000+ Application store.
Dell Streak features the following:
- A sharp 5-inch capacitive multi-touch WVGA (800x480) display for a great full-screen experience watching video or browsing the web
- Fast 1GHz Snapdragon ARM-based mobile processor from Qualcomm
- 5 MP autofocus camera with dual LED flash that offers easy point & shoot capability and quick uploads to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and more
- VGA front-facing camera enables video chat functionality down the road
- A user-removable (and replaceable) battery
- A 3.5mm headphone jack means many of you can use the Dell Streak as the music source (and more) in your car
- Integrated 3G + Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + Bluetooth 2.1 (think headsets, external keyboards, stereo headsets, etc.)
- UMTS / GPRS / EDGE class 12 GSM radio with link speeds of HSDPA 7.2 Mbps / HSUPA
- A user-accessible Micro SD slot expandable up to 32GB. That means you can store lots of movies, music, photos or other kinds of files.
I'm looking forward to checking this one out, but I'm leaning toward the soon to be released Sprint HTC EVO 4G. Smart phones have come along way since the Palm 300 series. I still remember my Treo 600 being top of the line only 4 years ago. How things have changed.
-+] U P D A T E [+-
T-mobile plans to carry thhe Dell Streak. Now if Dell can just come up with a better name.
It looks like AT&T beat them to a contract deal. The phone is being offered as a 2 year contract deal now.
Smart Phones
Here's an interesting read on smart phones. (click here: link ) The author talks about Windows Mobile, BlackBerries, iPhone and Android based phones. It's partly about the disconnect between them and desktop computers, rather how they try to much to be like a desktop in a phone. The majority of the topic is how Microsoft should be the defacto standard for professionals, but it missed the boat. I'm certain the next year will start to change the way smart phones are developed, and used in the corporate world. But during this change, the standard consumer might be left at the dock if they switch development gears to far.
Antivirus Comparisons
We'll it seems that the Virus threats have notched up a little more with the BOTNETs being more active. So it made sence to head over to AV-Comparisons.com and see what they have to say about the 20 most used AV's. We're only going to focus on 9 of those that are the most popular in the US.
Here's the list.
| The 9 AV Choices | |
| AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 | PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AV 7.0 |
| McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2010 | Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010 |
| Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 | Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware 2010 |
| Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 | Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 |
| ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.0 | |
Here's a simple table format of one of the most used testing
| Performance Test | Total Viruses tested against1,211.42 | |||||
| Product | Speed | Score % of found | Found | False Positives | Award | Comment1 – 10 scale 1 being best. |
| AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 | Average | 94,2% | 1153.72 | Few | Advanced | 6. Many missed but less false positives. Free and paid versions. |
| McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2010 | Slow | 98,9% | 1,211,42 | Many | Advanced | 4. Slower with many false positives. |
| Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 | Slow | 96,3% | 1179.75 | Very Few | Advanced | 4. New to the market, slower missed viruses, but rare to have false positives.Bonus: FREE |
| Panda Antivirus Pro 2010 | Fast | 99,2% | 1215.18 | Many | Advanced | 5. Fast Engine, Found many Viruses, but had too many false positives. |
| ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.0 | Average | 97,7 | 1196011 | Very Few | Advanced+ | 3. Average engine, found majority of the viruses.Infection chances low. |
| PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AV 7.0 | Average | 98,7% | 1208.26 | Few | Advanced+ | 2: Average engine, found majority of the viruses.Infection chances low. |
| Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2010 | Fast | 98,6% | 1207.39 | Few | Advanced+ | 1. Fast engine, found majority of the viruses.Infection chances lowest. |
| Trend Micro AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware 2010 | Average | 90,7 | 1110.75 | Many | Tested | 9. Very poor. Missed many viruses, as well gave many false positives.Infection chances high. |
| Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 | Average | 91.10% | 1188.87 | Few | Advanced | 2. Average scan time can take hours for the initial scan. The files are marked in file header for change detection. It has few false positives. To be fair the definition files are updated every few hours. |
The Original report can be found here, with much more detail.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report25.pdf
From experience I've found Trend Micro prone to infection, and usually used in Corporate offices, further advancing the potential of other users to pickup the same virus. Symantec and McAffee used to be in the same position. They've really turned around. But McAffee's still lagging quite abit. Microsoft has entered into AV a couple of years ago with a former product called Microsoft Live OneCare. It was a purchase subscription. It's now free with verification of your windows product though an on-line check. For being Free and reaching such marks it show's Microsoft seems quite committed in protecting your O/S as well trying to restore their faith in Windows O/S's. I personally have not tried Panda, Nod32 or PC Tools. I'll probably take a look at them with a virtual machine sometime in the future, but I've yet to find a user out there with it. My Favorite choice over the years Kaspersky has provided a more linear form of protection, as well machines that had been protected with McAffee or Norton we're scanned with Kaspersky and found them flourishing with Spyware, malware and a few trojan's. Where as when the infected machine was scanned by Norton and/or McAffee declared the machines to be clean. Even though it's performance is a tad lower on the tests I still have more confidence in Kaspersky.
The one thing to think about though, it sometime a keylogger or other application can slip by any of these. Especially if it's a one off or custom built one that's not yet been noted by any anti-virus company. For the best protection method, just be careful on-line. Don't do any Willy Nilly web sharing though Torrents, or Limewire. Follow save surfing and caution while clicking away on pop-up messages and you'll be better off in the long run.
Something to take away from here is to compare your current product, review more than one opinion and factor in the cost of a product Vs. A support call. Buy a cheap product, and you'll probably going to spend a lot to have your computer saved from a disastrous mess. Not that I mind earning money from saving it, I'd rather help you with other non-stressing issues. There's nothing like worrying you've just had your Credit Card or other information stolen from your compromised computer.
In the alternative resources corner, Linux and Mac have something called ClamX and ClamAV which is also free for either of those operating systems, which are not subject to windows virus issues. It also makes a great double check for external windows formated harddrives. Why? we'll windows viruses won't infect the linux or Mac. (Exclusion: Some Linux machines run WINE for windows application use.)
So in final, you should really look carefully at your choices for AV and don't fall for some pop-up that says your computer is not protected properly, "Buy this to fix it." usually causes most of the viral infections and system compromises out there. Not to mention credit card theft.
If you have questions? Feel free to contact me. See the contact page.
LimeWire loses filesharing court battle
A judge with the U.S. District Court in New York ruled this week that the company and its chairman, Mark Gorton, were liable for inducing copyright infringement.
The decision in the case, which began in 2006, doesn't mean the site will shut down right away. The record labels and LimeWire are to meet with Judge Kimba Wood on June 1 to determine the next steps, such as a possible deal to work together going forward and a potential award for damages.
Lost sleep due to ipad and other similar devices
CNN is reporting on a growing problem with use of computers, smart phones and ipads. Pretty much anything that emits a really bright light. This could include your large LCD tv placed in your bed room! So pickup a book instead before bed.
Read the details here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/sleep.gadgets.ipad/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
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Thanks so much for saving my Thinkpad (T60). Bad habits get you in trouble. Not backing up and having crappy anti-virus taught me an unforgettable lesson. You brought is back up and I’m off that piece of crap Dell. Thank god.
I will call you when I have my next technical debacle.
Thanks,
Christian
PS .. my enter key is starting to go .. will call you soon.
Christian S
Pir Group Inc