Then there are 2 other models : regular Kindle without keyboard present and Kindle Touch with infrared based touch screen. It is obvious that the last model is my total favorite. The reason is following: I love both touch screen and e-ink for my reading device. Button based interface is clumsy for my tastes and I do not use keyboard that much.
Thus my choice is quite obvious. I am planning purchasing Kindle touch when it will be available in Baltic countries (only regular Kindle is), and for media consumption I will use my laptop or maybe Ipad.

Head of ChronoPay

Several botnets were shut down and the CEO of rogue parmacy and fake antivirus credit card processor was  arrested recently. This resulted in the significant drop of malicious software activity in August. Many took time to celebrate and rightfully so. However, I do not think this is the end of Fake AVs or malware in general.
First, some background. The days of malware made by computer nerds for fun are long gone. The most of malware is created for profit, and as long as you see something on your PC, you can safely assume that it is for profiting. Fake AVs are best known and annoying nowadays as they collected payments directly by asking to pay for non-existing full version.  To make you pay, they scare you with non-existing threats for your PC. There were some variations with this, like recent PC Repair malware that scares with hardware errors instead of viruses, but the way they collect payment is the same: They ask for you to pay directly.

These payments cannot be processed easily, as every bank, Visa and Master Card looks for scams. Thus payment gateways are major bottleneck and risk point for malware makers. And taking even single of them down (not the website, but the company itself) hurts each of them significantly. Differently from malware skins and websites, it is more complex and costly task.

So, what will happen once the payment gateway gets down? There are many ways malware makers can still make money, and our experience shows that they do exactly that.

For example, we see a rise of clickjacking attacks, which forces user to click on their affiliated links that might not be harmful per se. The user is redirected from “real” websites or search results to the websites malware makers insert. The owners pay malware makers for traffic or sales.  Some of them are innocent, some just do not care about the source of the traffic. The famous google redirect virus, though there are other implementations as well.

Another possible way to make money for malware makers is distributing legal anti-malware or anti-virus programs instead of fake ones. This is illegal according to affiliate guidelines of all legitimate affiliate networks, but they might hope not to be caught. While there are various opinions which software is more likely to be distributed illegally, I would say this is not important at all. This can happen and will happen with all legitimate malware removal programs.  We have seen such things in the past as well.

Thirdly, one could spice up things with using other, non-security related programs that will require payment. This is already happening with VLC, which “paid version” is distributed by malware makers. There are affiliate programs for various codec packs as well, which are distributed by malware makers.

And lastly, they could return to adware or spyware model of operation, which pays less than others, but has less risks as well.

Thus it is highly obvious that we will not see less infections in the long run. What we see is the result of both some security program makers and PC owners focusing on visible forms of malware and judging amount of infections from that.

1. Add the site to Google Webmaster tools

Obvious, huh? However, this allows tracking of Google+ button clicks easily and produces valuable data about click profile changes. This should be a basic step for each larger website anyways.

2. Fix the Facebook open graph tags.

Facebook’s open graph like buttons do not work properly “out of the box”. There are couple tags required for them to become useful and traceable. You will be able to contact page liker’s from within FB after the fixing the tags for home page. You should not forget to define facebook admins for the site in the web page headers. Then you will be able to add and monitor your webpage in Facebook’s business insights.
This tool will allow easy validation of each page: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint/

3. Add social events tracking to Google Analytics

This one is very important if you are using Google analytics. Although GA tracks Google+ clicks out of the box, it does not track other social events. So, you should add some custom JS in the page code to launch specific analytics events on social button actions. The generic code is to launch trackSocial method in Javascript:
_gaq.push(['_trackSocial', network, socialAction, opt_target, opt_pagePath]);
Only the network and action are required and they are passed as custom text. The opt_target parameter is useful when one uses like button for other page than default one. This page offers the best explanation how to implement facebook likes and tweet tracking : http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSocial.html
Note, that this code is for asynchronous tracker. It will require some modifications if you use synchronous tracking, and you should probably switch to asynchronous tracker anyway. Also, you should switch to new Google analytics interface to see the tracking results.

Fix the JS of sharing buttons to track social actions as well

The code above is not universal. It tracks clicks on the default sharing/like buttons only. However, you will not be notified after shares resulting from social sharing plug-ins like AddThis or similar. However, as long as you have access to API or can modify JS, you can track these events as well:

<script type="text/javascript">

var addthis_config = {
data_ga_property: ‘UA-xxxxx-xx’,
data_track_clickback: true,
pubid: “addthis-id”
};

</script>

This configuration is enough to start tracking social Addthis actions in google analytics. Similar approaches might be applicable by other social sharing services.

5. Consider installing Seevolution or other JavaScript heatmap tool

Some services cannot be tracked easily. In such cases there are one option only: track clicks directly. And the best tools for that are javascript heatmap trackers. There are some choices there, though Seevolution ( http://seevolution.com ) is great and allows tracking several sites for free.

6 (bonus). Add google Alerts for tracking your website name and brand names over the web

Not every social interaction originates on your site. You should monitor your mentions on google alerts and some other services as well. This might lead to perfect opportunity to get more exposure and new visitors.

Will these 6 things cover all social interactions about your website? Definitely not. However, implementing these steps will result in much better understanding of what is happening around your site.

Any additional ideas or comments?

• Learn Chinese (long term goal)
• Improve English (permanent task)
• Improve Link building and other SEM skills
• Learn coding for Android (this year goal)
• Attend at least one conference and find more like-minded people

So, that is my top goals for year 2011.

Now worst thing one can do is purchasing fake AVG antivirus 2011. Even if one agreed to spend some money on antivirus, the credit card details are likely to be misussed by the makers of the fake antivirus. Thus it is best to change compromised credit card in your bank.
If you look for solution for Fake AVG Antivirus 2011 problems, try my guide at 2-viruses.com. Alternatively, Malware researcher Xilibox created a tool to help register this rogue for free. However, whatever way you choose, scan your PC with decent anti-malware tools afterwards. Do not leave trojans around, or you will see new skin of this rogue family again.
Funnily enough, this is not a sole rogue that impersonates AVG these days – Here is MCAVG too. AVG is doing something right, I think.

Why Bitnami is useful? I see three main reasons: solving dependancies for launching simple applications, speeding up installation process and keeping system secure from the possible bugs in application. Lets tackle all of them.

Firstly, launching some web applications might be a nightmare. This is especially true if the application has specific requirements for software versions and modules. One might need to install particular version of Ruby, rails or php. one would need to install proper apache modules, etc. Bitnami makes it simple – just one install for everything required.

Next, is the speed of the installation and security of this approach. To install and make everything work one would spend more than couple minutes that Bitnami installation takes.  And the best of it – it can be run at user space by non-administrative user, which would limit damage if something really wrong would happen. You will not have to install additional modules to your webserver, or install something into existing software to make stack work. You will not have to doublecheck if other applications are running properly after the installation.

I use Bitnami to get all Ruby dependancies for redmine installation of mine. While I do not need a custom webserver and separate mysql process, Ruby installation had paid off. If you do not want run separate apache process listening to specific port, you have to remove the apache ctrl files in Bitnami installation and change the configuration for virtual you reserved for the application. Just copy the information from application config file available in application folder (apps\redmine\conf in my case) into the virtual configuration and restart your main apache. The same way I turned off svn and might turn off separate mysql process as well.

More info about bitnami is available here.

Hi,

I set up a profile where I can post photos, connect and share.

Do me a favor and confirm our relationship here
.

Thanks,

Notice how personal it look? But it is not personal – both my mother and the person sent this email are not english speakers. Still, she got convinced that it was the senders intention to invite. When clicking on the link, account is created.
Another email example :

xxx xxx wants you see this tiny youtube video. Launch

The link opens a page with a big button and checkbox that you agree with the rules. When pressing confirm you are sent to a page where you see no video, but can send something back to the person… What you do not know, your account is already created: The links have your emails encoded and you do not need to provide password ( although you are asked to enter it later). This is deceptive from FANBOX.
The worst is that from these points onward people are pushed to provide fanbox with gmail account details to import and spam contacts. They understand what they have done only after their contacts start getting multiple spam messages like the ones above to join (and help spreading) this spam site.

The company behind this runs SMS.ac. They are known about their spam tactics before.
I would recommend staying away from FanBox and never providing mail account details to any 3rd party service you do not know. It is best to use separate password for gmail account as well. If you have registered an account, or know someone who was careless enough, please warn them to delete the account. It can be done by going to account settings menu (skip every step) and choose delete account. You will have to enter a reason for that.

• “Drive C initializing error” – You would not be able to load OS on such corrupt Hard drive
• GPU Ram temperature to high – it would require either stopping graphically intensive operations or installing a hardware cooler, not some sort of software
• “Hard drive doesn’t respond to system commands” And how do that software gona fix this?

To make a point, Ultra Defragger tries to simulate system malfunction. It will stop programs and files from execution couple times before you will be able to lauch them. Good thing this is not permanent and you can execute almost any program despite Ultra Defraggers scare tactics.
However, if you think everything Ultra Defragger does are harmless, you are wrong. Its makers are out for money, and they infected your PC. They might have opened way for other parasites that might be loaded on command, or Ultra Defragger might get more nasty with time. Thus you should remove Ultra defragger as soon as possible.
The best way to remove ultra defragger is cleaning up TEMP folders in safe mode. That is where it resides. Read my full manual removal guide on 2-viruses.com and do not forget to scan with good malware removal programs afterwards to make sure you got every piece of this malware out.
It is very likely that you would not had got Ultra defraggers infection if you got Spyware Doctor, full version of Malwarebytes or full Internet Security Suite from one of major antivirus vendors.

First of all, many people believe that it is more than enough to use one security program to get rid of rogue anti-spywares. Basically, they believe that “out of sight” is equal to “out of the system”, which is not true. In many cases a particular anti-spyware may seem to have removed a rogue anti-spyware, but it might leave traces – files, registry entries and so on, but most importantly rootkits and trojans. For those who don’t know what a rootkit is, in layman’s terms, it’s a process that hides from other processes on an system. This process can do a lot of bad things, even allow hacker to have privileged remote access to the system, or download other programs on command. So, basically, if your fail to remove rootkits after an infection, your system might still be part of a botnet, and it might get reinfected.

Multiple security tools generally solve the problem: there are ones that are better against malware, and then there are those, which work better against rootkits – do your research and choose accordingly. The most prevailing rootkit family today is TDSS. These are often the culprit behind browser redirection on systems that have no other infection signs.  At the moment good choice of tools would be TDSS Killer together with couple anti-malware tools like Spyware Doctor or Malwarebytes. I have good results with Hitman Pro as well.

This, however, is not the whole story. Another important thing you have to make sure of is that you update your software. Not just windows, but also your other software, especially your browser and browser plug-ins – these may be exploited to infect your system. Keep your system up-to-date and protected, so you will not need to spend long hours repairing it from infections.

Meet ThinkPoint – a new fake Antivirus that is spread by the same set of trojans originally focusing on Antispy Safeguard. Now you do not have to download one of five rogues. You get ThinkPoint silently installed by default.
First thing you see is a fake Microsoft Security Essentials window that starts scanning your PC. It will state, that your PC is infected with Trojan, for example Trojan.Horse.Win32.PAV.64.a. It will ask for reboot to finish removal procedure. After a reboot you get a completely new fake AV window instead of MSE.

Thinkpoint will claim that it restored some infections, but restoring infected “browsers” requires a heuristical, paid module. It will not allow you to uninstall the “antivirus”, as your settings do not allow “unprotected” startup, and it will block execution of majority of legitimate programs claiming that you are infected.

It will also show various warnings about hackers attacking PC. These messages can be discarded, however it will not allow you launching them. In fact, it might even change permissions to stop execution of legitimate programs when virus is inactive.

The best way to stop thinkpoint and remove this scam is to stop its processes by pressing ctrl+shift+esc and stopping process hotfix.exe. Afterwards, launch explorer.exe as a new process and download a good malware remover like Malwarebytes or Spyware doctor. Check our Thinkpoint removal guide for full file names and removal instructions.

You should never Pay for rogue antivirus programs like ThinkPoint. You give away your credit card details to scammers that way.