Raymond.CC Blog

I really appreciate people who provide screenshot together with an explanation of the problem that they are experiencing when they get help from our forum. This enables everyone at the forum to understand the problem better and provide a more accurate solution to solve the problem. Since ImageShack is one of the most popular image hosting website where anyone can upload images for free, most of the time the screenshot ended up being uploaded there. You may have noticed that there are times you see an image of a frog being stuck in an ice cube with the message Domain Unregistered. To view, register at: bit.ly/imageshack-domain. Even if you copy the direct link and try to open it on your web browser, the same image will appear and auto forwarding you to the blocked_login.jpg image.

In order for ImageShack images to be displayed when embedded to a website, the domain will have to be registered with ImageShack for manual review and approval. I registered long ago and the restriction has been lifted on raymond.cc. I just tried visiting the ImageShack domain registration page and all I see is 403 Forbidden error. For a normal user, if someone sends you an ImageShack image in direct link, you will have to be a registered user in order to view it or else you’ll be redirected to the blocked_login.jpg image. Good news is I’ve discovered a simple trick to bypass this restriction so that you can view ImageShack direct link images without an account.

Many Malaysians are unhappy with the expensive Streamyx broadband charges offered by TM (Telekom Malaysia) because other countries offers faster connection for a cheaper price. As for me, I am just happy that we have broadband and is fine to me as long as the connection is stable. From time to time we will experience slow browsing while accessing international websites because of some line broke down and they had to reroute all traffic through another link. Another common problem with Streamyx is some users is unable to connect at all which can be either caused by some glitches on their system or probably someone is illegally using your account.

The fact is a Streamyx account cannot be used simultaneously. So if you are already connected to Streamyx broadband, someone that knows your account username and password won’t be able to connect using your account information. When you are in a situation that you cannot connect, dial 100 from your landline and ask the customer service person to check if the account is currently being used. If yes, I would advice you to change your password at TM’s Selfcare website rather than asking the customer service person to change it for you.

Recently one of our forum member created an interesting thread in our forum saying it seems that the flight number from one of the planes that hit one of the two World Trade Center towers on 9/11 was Q33N. If we type the 4 characters Q33N in Notepad, increase the font size to 72 and then change the font to Windings, we will eventually get the following freaky image that shows a plan crashing two towers leading to death. I thought it was real for a second until another forum member Funkysourav said that it is a hoax as there was no plane by that name.

All is good until I open other text files that I used to note down stuff and all I see is some high tech encrypted codes which seems to require deciphering. It could be a virus that caused this, or the file simply got corrupted, or actually I changed the font and forgot to set it back. I went to the Font settings in Notepad and there is no option or a button for me to reset it back to the default font. I didn’t know what is the default font so I tried using Times New Roman but somehow I still prefer the default Notepad font.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish every one of you a very happy new year. Thank you all for your constant support even though I was slacking a lot for the past 2 years. 2011 was a very busy and tiring year for me and I am glad that we’re moving forward to a new year today. New year means new hope with new resolutions. I promise you that improvements will be made and more effort will be put to this website so that we all can “learn from each other”.

Cheers!

Earlier this month Microsoft has announced Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper in beta, a recovery tool that can help you start an infected PC and perform an offline scan to help identify and remove rootkits and other advanced malware. Basically it is similar to what Kaspersky Rescue Disk and Avira AntiVir Rescue System does which is to boot up the computer with it and scan the computer without Windows being loaded. The good thing about using a rescue system is no matter how powerful or smart the malware is such as a MBR rootkit, it cannot do anything to hide its presence from security software because it is inactive.

There are 2 versions of Microsoft System Sweeper, the 32-bit and 64-bit. If you want to scan a Windows system that is 32-bit, you will have to use the 32-bit version of Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. If you attempt to use the 32-bit version of Microsoft System Sweeper on a 64-bit Windows, you will end up with an error saying “Windows Defender Offline cannot be started. The media you are attempting to run is for 64-bit operating systems and is not compatible with the 32-bit operating system on this computer. Error Code: 0x8004cc07.” So if you are a computer technician, you may need to have two versions of the Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper in hand because it is impossible to tell without booting in to Windows and check from System.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is the latest web browser by Microsoft which was released about 9 months ago. As a general rule we should always keep web browsers up to date unless you have a specific software that you use which requires an older version of the web browser. An updated web browser normally offers faster browsing experience, contains additional features and also more security against web based exploits. Internet Explorer 9 comes with a new feature called ActiveX Filtering which allows you to browse the Web without running any ActiveX controls. ActiveX controls are actually plugins like Adobe Flash Player, Apple Quicktime, Silverlight and Java that enable many rich web experiences but they can cause your computer to get infected if you are using an older version of the plugin that is vulnerable to exploits.

Hence, the ActiveX Filtering feature which is disabled by default offers you an easy way to help keep your web browsing activity safe. When ActiveX Filtering is turned on, visiting websites such as YouTube that requires Adobe Flash Player will show you a red bar on top saying “You need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. Download it from Adobe” and at the bottom “Upgrade to Flash Player 10 for improved playback performance. Upgrade Now or More Info”. The error message will not go away even if you upgrade to the latest version of Flash Player because ActiveX Filtering is enabled.

There are times when we need to perform a task over and over again which is very time consuming and boring. For example you are given a text file containing thousands of lines and you need to remove a couple of random characters at the end. The easiest way to do that using the keyboard is by pressing the End key, followed by the backspace key and finally the downwards key to start working on the next line. Imagine doing that for a thousand times… If you are a programmer, you could have easily coded a simple tool that automatically does all that by loading the text file into the tool. If you don’t know anything about programming, you will have to rely on “macro” to automate the task for you.

There are tons of macro software out there which I have reviewed a couple of them many years ago and some could be too advanced for you as they support simple coding. If you just want a plain and simple record and playback, then you should definitely give TinyTask a go.