Thursday, July 5, 2012

Prevent or get an internet shutdown!!

Note : Please share this critical information with all.

Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook have undertaken an effort to notify millions of users that they could lose their internet connectivity after July 9th , 2012 due to a computer malware and this post is just about that.

This all began when a widespread malware called DNSChanger hit millions of computers as hackers used it as source of advertising scams.People in the world are usually unaware of this but those who are aware are taking all possible preventive measures against it.The Domain Name System(DNS) convert web addresses like google.com to numeric addresses for traffic relay among servers and clients.DNSChanger is a Trojan horse that changes these DNS setttings to redirect users to fake sites and other harmful locations and just to imagine how powerful it is it does not spare home routers as well.!



"Your computer seems to be infected ..." If this kind of message appears on the top of your google searches then you are a victim for sure and you are gona lose your internet connection after 9th July.Since FBI and other law enforcements in the world started arresting people indulged in spreading this malware in November 2011,several ISPs' have been noticed to spread awareness.DNSChanger affected devices will experience slowdown or shutdown of connection after July 9th. Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their anti-virus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.This effect of this malware is so severe can even burn your hard drives or other hardware components.!


Preventive Measures :

  • Keep the virus definitions of your Antivirus up to date.
  • If you experience sudden slowdown in browsing contact your ISP provider.
  • Cross check the authenticity of any unknown link before clicking and being redirected to it.
  • Visit this site dns-ok.lu or dns-ok.gov.au which automatically check your DNS settings to see if you are affected.
  • Manually check if you are affected by visiting checking-windows-7-for-infections or checking-for-dns-changer-on-windows-xp depending on your OS.
  • Read carefully the pdf issued by FBI dns-changer-malware.pdf for further information on how to know if you are affected.

What if you are a victim ?
  • Visit this site immediately for a fix www.dcwg.org/fix
  • May contact a computer professional.
  • Users may use software and tools from McAfee, Kaspersky Labs, Microsoft, Norton, or Trend Micro to clean the infection.
  • Format hard drive and reinstall OS.
I have served my part in creating awareness.I hope you do the same.. :)

Friday, April 27, 2012

Google's humor at its best

Google has always been great at creativity and humor and now a new easter egg called "Zerg Rush" adds more to it.


For those who are not familiar what zerg is , here is the information :

Zerg Rush easter egg game has been inspired by one of the best games Starcraft 2 by Blizzard Entertainment .
There are three fractions in StarCraft 2: Protoss, Terran and Zerg. Imagine the Zerg like aliens. Zergs have a unit called "the Zergling" which is a small creature that usually attacks buildings and enemy units in groups. If you have a lot of Zerglings and run to your opponents fast this can be called "a Zergling rush". There are also custom maps that you can play that are called Zerg Rush: You are in the middle of the map and Zerlings are streaming to your bade from all sides. You have to defend it like in the easter egg..!

Searching for the phrase "zerg rush" in google not only displays the relevant search results but also turns this game on and an army of o's (it is one from the word "google") attacks browser page from all sides eating away those search results.You basically have to make a couple of clicks on each one of them in order to kill them..!

Google will keep the count of your killed zerglings and the number of clicks to kill them till your whole page is destroyed. Saving your page from being eaten is inevitable.! Once the search items have been eaten they crawl back up and gather back to form a figure that reads "GG" (good game) :D


So try it out and make your high-scores to submit to Google ..!!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Backmasking

Backmasking or Backward Masking is a method wherein a message is recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards..! Cool....isn't it?

This technique of encryption was popularized by famous rock band The Beatles in their album Revolver and since then artists have been using it for humorous and other artistic effects.It is also used to censor some phrases for a 'clean release' of a song....!

Here is a video to illustrate this technique.
Pink Floyd has himself used this technique in his song Empty Spaces from the album 'The Wall'


This technique has been linked with controversies like musicians promoting Satanism and all but nevertheless this is a great recording technique.....!

Monday, January 2, 2012

New Facebook Easter Egg

Google has constantly come up with easter eggs like 'Do a Barrel Roll' or 'Let it snow' time to time . This time Facebook has introduced an innovative easter egg for its users which basically allows you to use profile photos of your Facebook friends as emoticons ..!
And this is not all. This feature works for all the Facebook Pages and Groups..!
This would now look as what is displayed in pic below :







There are three ways how to do it....Follow these steps
  • Simply write the name of the friends whose profile photo you want to use squeezed between [[ and to look like [[your friends name]] and simply press enter to transform it into emoticon.
    Eg : [[John]]
  • If above doesnt work and shows blank profile pic just visit the profile of friend whose image you want to use as emoticon and then look for the url in your browser .
    • If the url looks like something like this 'https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001424013536&ref=ts' where the number in bold after id varies with user. Use this number instead of your friends name now .
      For Eg. :  to use image of user whose url looks like above type [[100001424013536]]
    • If the url contains username of the friend instead of number like 'https://www.facebook.com/SkyriderAJ', simply use the username in bold(ignoring uppercase).
      For Eg. : to use image of user whose url is as described type [[skyrideraj]] 
    • If you want to use the profile image of some group or page on facebook like the 'https://www.facebook.com/CountersXe?ref=ts'  where we use the bold letters to make a emoticon of it . [[countersxe]] or [[CountersXe]]



Thats it..! Now enjoy by sharing it with friends...and a very Happy New Year..! :)