Windows Shell/User (MSN & OneCare Too) : Rants

Facebook widgets try to install spyware - heise Security

ericvogel — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:48:06 GMT

Facebook widgets try to install spyware

Facebook widgets try to install spyware - heise Security

Another reason I should remove more of them or all or shut down my FaceBook account.

BetaNews | Loss of HP puts end to Wal-Mart's video download store

ericvogel — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:41:09 GMT

December 28, 2007, 12:10 PM

The retailer decided to silently walk away from its planned video download service after HP ended its participation.

BetaNews | Loss of HP puts end to Wal-Mart's video download store

Look, another video service going down and once your computer crash's or you format, your videos are lost forever. Your stuck with multi-gig files (from backup) with no key to run it.

Never again will I buy Movies off the Internet. (Part 2)

ericvogel — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:40:00 GMT

I just wanted to post my comment to the person who said I should not have used AOL:

It is not just AOL, it is who ever buys a company who or goes out of business or switch to a new DRM provder. I have issues with my MSN Music WMA-DRM. But obtaining "Free" replacements in same high quality are quick and easy.

Here are some WMA DRM Providers that went down:

- MusicMatch bought by Yahoo! (You must install old MM software to get it to work)
- MSN Music Gone. Lucky if you get it to work.
- URGE by MSN and MTV MSN is now gone and MTV is moving to Real Raphsidy Servce.

So the question is, is DRM a easy viable solution for people who want to be law abiding citizens?

Never again will I buy Movies off the Internet.

ericvogel — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:00:41 GMT

I think one I got for free and the other one was cheap. But this goes for the same if you paid full price and use AOL Videos

Dear Eric,
Thank you for being a customer of the AOL® Video store. We have an exciting update for you on our service: to continue to bring you an industry-leading purchase experience, we have partnered with Amazon.com®. Going forward, Amazon.com® will power our video download service.
What does this mean for you?

Videos you have already purchased from the AOL Video Store will stay on your computer, and continue to work on that computer as long as you want them.
If you don't already have the version for use on portable devices, please download any you need today by going here. The portable device versions won't be available for download after December 31, 2007.
If you want to transfer your video to any other computers, please do so today. You will not be able to move your video to other computers after December 31, 2007.
Through the Amazon.com® service, we are able to offer you even more titles for purchase and download, and more options, such as video rentals

We are substantially changing our service, so please note:

Going forward, to find the videos you already purchased, use these step-by-step instructions:

Go to "My Documents" and click on "My Videos"
Click on "AOL Video"
The files ending in ".wmv" are your videos. Double click on the icons to watch your video anytime. If you need help, click here.

We hope you will continue to enjoy all AOL Video has to offer.
Thank you!
The AOL Video team
Amazon and Amazon.com are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. AOL is a registered trademark of AOL LLC.

Ok, my PC crashes or I buy a new one. I will lose them forever. I assure you AOL and Amazon I will NEVER buy DRM content from you again!! Once again another service treats people who LEGALLY purchase their content like crap. Of course it would be two expensive to leave a few servers up to allow authentication and de-activation and re-activation of DRM Movies? I think not. These are greedy companies. Heck, why doesn't Amazon take it over and AOL transfer their certificates and keys over. That's right, it costs time and money. It is their problem and they make it mine. Now only if there were a way I could illegally remove my DRM protection on my WMV files I LEGALLY own to keep for ever. Another idea, allow us to remove the DRM legally from our purchased files.

I just thought of something! I am gonna write a complaint letter to the Attorney general!

For Sale: Phishing Kit - Security News Analysis

ericvogel — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:14:26 GMT

RSA this week said it has discovered what it calls the Universal Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Kit, an all-in-one package that provides the raw materials to launch sophisticated phishing exploits that appear to be operating on legitimate Websites.

Source: Dark Reading - Desktop Security - For Sale: Phishing Kit - Security News Analysis

This is what is worse than exploits and such. People who make it easy for the average person to do.

WARNING: Phishing Scam on MySpace. Test your profile themes!

ericvogel — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:20:00 GMT

I went to post a comment on a friends MySpace profile tonight, and I clicked the top navigation banner to go Home to my main screen. I could have chosen Mail or Bog does not matter. Instead I got re-directed to a login screen and thought it was a corny flaky MySpace server. It was not, I looked at the URL and guess what? I had been phished. And IE7's Phishing filter does not even have a clue (Nor does the latest version of FireFox.). I had to report the profile to MySpace saying I think the user did not know and I told my friend his theme is phishing people for passwords. I know my friend would not do this, so what is the point?

When you apply a theme to MySpace from a theme site, test out the MySpace links and if they try to phish someone, report them to MySpace and get your theme from another site.

How do you know if you maybe phished?
Your in the middle of doing something and your asked to login. I know MySpace does this on occasion due to a server hiccup or an expired cookie, but if Internet Explorers password fill-in does not work or just look up the the URL is www.cake.fi with a MySpace login. Immediately let the user know and go directly back to MySpace by typing www.myspace.com.

If, like me did not catch it change your password. Here is a catch, cannot be more than 10 characters long. Kinda hard to make one to remember and be secure? Why are there these limitations on services, if your gonna put one on make it 25 characters or something.

Update: The website takes your login info, runs a script on myspace and it will add the phishing info to your profile. It sticks the code at the end of your About Me section so look for foreign code and you can then remove it. Like mine I saw Cakeit in it so I deleted all that plus up to the <Style and then I saw I lost the nav bar, so I went and deleted to the next <style and it was back to normal. Please check back, I may edit / add more later.

Microsoft admits WGA failures “coming up more commonly now”

ericvogel — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:30:00 GMT

Here is some more info about WGA issues for valid legal customers:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=142&tag=nl.e540

Susan Bradley states Microsoft snuck us a WGA update without stating so or the changes:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2006/09/27/Communication-101.aspx

Microsoft Auto Update Causes Issues

ericvogel — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:03:00 GMT

I posted this comment on Susan Bradley's SBS Blog (Patch Status Report - April Patches) , so I thought I would post it here too:

My work computer, home laptop (Desktop does not have office on it mainly MCE), Mom's Laptop, Friends Desktop and Fathers Desktop and possibly' bosses laptop. All have the Outlook Junk Mail filter not install. Seems the best thing to do is to remove, install and replace the OSE.exe from the CD.

I removed office, installed it with all updates still happened.
then:
Step 1: Tool does not work.
Step 2: Was fine
Step 3: Replaced OSE and it worked. Seems my laptop and friends did not work with this step because Office was not removed. The fathers computer was fixed by PSS do not know what they had him do other than remove office.
Step 4: Seems the only fix (Then do step 3) and to be honest with you, these Auto Update's breaking is happening too much. Before this I had it break other ways at work, home and friends house causing nightmare repairs. I do not know what happened to the quility of the updates and AU.

-----PSS----
Step 1: Disable Local Installation Source ===================================
1. Download the Local Installation Source Tool from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=10FA7AA3-695B-4
2C3-9045-B812BA0FED3E&displaylang=en

2. Extract LisTool.exe and LisTool.chm to some location.
3. Run the GUI tool (LISTOOL.exe) and choose the Disable LIS option.
Click next. Select all the check boxes in the subsequent dialog. Then proceed to Finish.
4. Check and install Office updates again.

What is the result? If this does not fix the problem, then move onto the next steps. They are taken from the following KB article to fix similar issues.

903772 You receive an "Error 80070643" error message when you try to update
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=903772

Step 2: Determine the status of the Office Source Engine service =====================================================
To determine the status of the Office Source Engine service, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
2. In the list of services, double-click Office Source Engine.
3. View the Startup type list.
4. If the startup type is set to Disabled, change the startup type to Manual. To do this, click Manual in the Startup type list, and then click OK.
5. Try to install the Office update again.

Step 3: Repair the Ose.exe file
=========================
To repair the Ose.exe file, copy the Ose.exe file from the Office 2003 CD. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Determine where the Ose.exe file is located. By default, the Ose.exe file is in the following location:
path:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Source Engine\ 2. Insert the Office 2003 CD in the CD drive.
3. Right-click Start, and then click Explore.
4. Use Microsoft Windows Explorer to locate the following folder on the Office 2003 CD:
path:\Files\Setup
5. Right-click the Ose.exe file, and then click Copy.
6. Locate and then click to select the folder in which the Ose.exe file is located on the computer. For example, locate and then click to select the following folder:
path:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Source Engine 7. Right-click the Source Engine folder, and then click Paste.
8. If you are prompted to replace an existing file, click Yes.

Step 4: Remove and then reinstall Office 2003 =====================================
To remove and then reinstall Office 2003, follow these steps.

Note: Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.
1. Insert the Office 2003 CD in the CD drive.
2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
3. Click Add or Remove Programs.
4. In the Currently installed programs list, click the version of Office
2003 that is installed, and then click Remove.
5. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm that you want to remove Office 2003.
6. After Office 2003 is removed from the computer, click Add New Programs.
7. Click CD or Floppy.
8. In the Install Program From Floppy Disk or CD-ROM dialog box, make sure that the Office 2003 CD is in the CD drive. Then, click Next.
9. Click Finish. Then, follow the prompts to complete the installation of Office 2003.
10. Click OK when Office 2003 Setup is finished.
11. Remove the Office 2003 CD from the CD drive.

Does it help? Please understand that if none of the steps work, I would suggest that we completely remove Office 2003, including deleting the related registry keys and files, and then install it again to resolve the issue. It will be recommended since I find many Application Failures related to Outlook in your system information. However, this process will take some time. It will be used as a last resort. Thank you for your understanding!
-----------************-------------

More than half of Microsoft Vista needs re-writing

ericvogel — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:54:00 GMT

And this explains why I wiped Vista of my Media Center and went back to MCE 2005. Record TV split The Simpson's into to files. I could not watch recorded content. BSOD on shutdown among other things. I will either wait for todays build or wait for one more build.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30516

Microsoft buy comes with strings attached

ericvogel — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 03:47:00 GMT

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+buy+comes+with+strings+attached/2100-7350_3-5495994.html?tag=nefd.top

Sad. I wonder what GIANT Software was thinking when they inked the deal with Sunbelt?

One in five buy their software via spam

ericvogel — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 15:14:00 GMT

One in five buy their software via spam
You probably weren't expecting this
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20152

Usually when buying software via SPAM, you are buying pirated/bootleg software. None of the money goes back to the company. This is what pays the programmers and allows them to improve the software. You can report Microsoft Piracy to piracy@microsoft.com or www.microsoft.com/piracy. Want to know if your license is valid? Go to www.microsoft.com/howtotell. I once bought off of Amazon Marketplace 2 CD's which I thought were retail versions, but were bootleg ($10 a piece did not sound un-reasonable). They were not. I got Amazon.com to give me the money back on one, then I had to call my credit card for the other since Amazon.com was un-responsive. I then reported the seller (Not Amazon.) to the RIAA and the NY PD who refereed me back to the RIAA.

Other software companies have similar reporting e-mail addresses and websites. Please visit their websites to see about reporting or seeing if you product is legal.

Michigan State Parks to get Wifi.

ericvogel — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 02:46:00 GMT

I do not care for paid hot spots, but rather SBC install and up keep than the State of Michigan. They will have SBC's Speedlink. Daily charge is $10 with other monthly options for all Speedlink locations. Now if someone goes to a state park, why would you need Wifi? I thought the point was to go see deer, bear, eagles, trees, lakes nature not websites. I vacation up north with my family without Internet and TV. Please slow down and take a break. :)

MLB.com is using Phishing like activities. Part 2.

ericvogel — Mon, 31 May 2004 00:58:00 GMT

Ok, This is what it must be. They want to verify your zip code to keep with the standard blackout's. If they need my real zip code, they can pull it from my account at MSN. Why would I give my CC to another company that does not charge me?

MLB.com is using Phishing like activities.

ericvogel — Mon, 31 May 2004 00:56:00 GMT

I am a MSN Premium 9.0 user, which allows me an all access pass on MLB.com. I went to sign in to watch a game via Internet Explorer without being in MSN software. I went to pull up a live game and was told I need to enter a credit card for verification purposes and I will not be charged. I do not recall entering one as my access would be verified by MSN. So I close out, login to MLB via MSN 9.0 software and the same thing. Do you think that maybe they should use passport to verify my access? MSN Premium comes with McAfee Anti-Virus and Firewall. How so they know I am really a MSN Subscriber? You guest it, you have to sign in with your Microsoft/MSN passport. If you read the light grey text on the white background they will add an expiring $1 hold on your credit card. I hope MSN steps in and forces them into using passport for MSN users. I have faith MSN will come to their users rescue.