I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Thank you all for your support and kind wishes.

Perhaps you are wondering why haven’t I wrote anything on the new Returnil Virtual System 2010 which was released 2 months ago? The simple reason is I was very disappointed with their version 2008 because it failed to protect the computers from certain virus. This is the story…. I wanted to propose to one of my customer to use Returnil because the computers in the lab has never ending computer virus infection problem and I had to look for another technology that might be better than the traditional antivirus. Of course before doing that I need to do a test run to make sure it can really protect those computers from being infected by virus or else my customer would be wasting his money and I am definitely going to lose my job.

I installed a trial version of Returnil 2008 on a computer lab with 40 computers and within a few days, at least half of them ended up unable to boot in Windows which I am pretty sure it’s caused by virus again. I wished I could get a copy of that virus but I couldn’t since I can’t boot in to Windows in both normal and safe mode. Even if I can use Windows PE to boot in, I wouldn’t know where the virus is hiding.

Then when the 2010 version came, I wasn’t really excited about it since I’ve already found an alternative called Shadow Defender. Anyway, for this past 2 months Returnil has been promoting their new 2010 version very aggressively by giving out free license all the time. The giveaway was published in GiveAwayOfTheDay, FaceBook, DotTech and now Softpedia. Maybe there are more which I am not aware of but we can definitely see that Returnil wants everyone to use their software.
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Fast broadband internet connection is quite common nowadays whether it is wireless or wired. With more and more people able to download at super fast speed, sometimes a website can’t even cope up in serving a file for people to download with maximum speed. For example, let’s say you have a 1Mbps connection which gives you the capability of downloading at 128KBps max. Sometimes you end up downloading a file at only 40KBps from a website because the server limits you to that speed. The only way to overcome that is to download using multiple threads with a download manager.

With so many download managers nowadays, I’d say that Internet Download Manager or often shortly called IDM is without a doubt one of the best. I used to be a hardcore FlashGet and Orbit Downloader user but when I started trying out IDM, I pretty much got hooked to it and never use back what I used before or even want to try any other download managers. Believe it or not, IDM is even able to help you finish your download slightly quicker than other download managers (yes I’ve timed it).

Internet Download Manager is a shareware that cost $29.95 for a single license. Thanks to IDM’s company, Tonec Inc, they are very kind to sponsor 30 lifetime Internet Download Manager license to Raymond.CC readers as Christmas giveaway.
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Last year there was a lot of automated MSN messages that leads you to PICS FOR MSN FRIENDS phishing website. It has now died down but here’s a new wave of MSN phishing sites. Two days ago I received an email from an old friend which we have not kept touch for a few years. The subject of the email is “hi o_O?” which doesn’t look like I should suspect anything because I know that my friend likes to use these kind of winking emotions. After opening the email, here is what it says:

hiyaaa!
Howdyy? had a damn boring day today :s
whats up at your place?
Anyway, i can bet you’re going to smile after reading this…
It’s Easy, Secure and Free!
Try it Now, Click Here
Thanks

Upon clicking on the link, you will see a page with the title “You’re Blocked :: MSN Messenger Block Checker – MSN Messenger Stats Checker” that allows you to verify who blocked you on their msn contact list. Bu before you can use the free service, you’ll first need to enter your MSN login and password.

I know most of you probably won’t fall for this but some of you will. Most of the time people disclose their sensitive information to a phising site is because the link came from a trusted friend who also got phished in the first place. Secondly the website has a nice looking login screen where some people will automatically enter their username and password. It’s a common mistake when people are not careful enough.
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Downloading a file using Internet Explorer and playing an online FPS game such as Counter-Strike: Source simultaneously is not really a good idea. Reason is Internet Explorer will take up all the download bandwidth making the CS:S game nearly unplayable with a huge increased of ping causing it to lag. Moreover a lot of servers implements ping limits and if you go over it, you will be automatically kicked out of the game. The best way is to limit the internet download speed for the Internet Explorer process so that it doesn’t hogs the whole bandwidth.

Early last year I’ve written an article on how to restrict or limit internet download and upload transfer speed. I’ve featured both Shunra Nimbus and Traffic Shaper XP because they are free but both of it is pretty outdated by now. Today I stumbled on software called NetBalancer which is in constant development and it has a special internet speed priority feature.
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Did you know that MalwareCity, a community website set up by BitDefender is having a contest where you have to prove yourself as the best malware catcher to win a free legal BitDefender 2010 license for 1 year? What you need to do is browse through MalwareCity’s website and try to look for the “Catch Him” image which you can click on it to submit your entry. The contest starts on 14 December, and ends on 21 December 2009. Now if the website has tons of articles, it’d be time consuming and tedius for you to browse through every article just to look for that image.

Fortunately I know of a method that can help you automate the process of searching for that image. It took me less than 5 minutes to search where the “Catch Me” image is located at. I personally don’t think this is cheating because I am using my computer knowledge and skills to be the best malware catcher!
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Yesterday I read a post in forum saying that the free and paid version of Rising Antivirus 2009 is exactly the same. I second that because I did a quick comparison a few months ago and found that they don’t have much differences. If you go to the RISING FREE Antivirus homepage, it says that the latest Rising Antivirus Free Edition has the same service and function as Rising Antivirus 2009 paid version, but there are some four differences which is:

1. Information centre service: The free edition has an information centre window in its main interface where it displays the latest news of company. As for the paid version, there is no such window.

2. Update Service: RISING paid version product gets update through high speed update server each day, but Rising Antivirus Free Edition product does not.

3. Fast response technical support for paid version and limited support for free edition.

4. Licensed users gets Rising Firewall for free.

Basically only the first two points are the differences in the software. The third and the fourth point are extra benefit/service offered by RISING to their customers. The paid version of RISING Antivirus cost USD$19.95 per year and let’s see if it is really worth the money or not.
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