Today, from Fastech Systems, Valanchery, I caught a virus which blocks usage of Mozilla and display a message while Orkut or YouTube is opened and makes the window close automatically. The virus affects only windows and works by deceiving the users by the name svchost, which is a system process run by the network or system. Where as this virus program is run under user and can be found in the task manager.

Here are the messages which come when Mozilla is opened and when Orkut is typed in the address bar of Internet Explorer.

Use Internet Explorer you Dope - Virus

Orkut is blocked - Virus

A similar message is displayed when YouTube is opened and a laughing sound is played with all the messages. Most of the antivirus programs were not able to find this virus(heard that the latest updated version of avast can heal it).

It can be easily removed manually.

First stop the two svchost processes from the processes tab, run by the user from the task manager. Don’t remove any other svchost processes as they are important for the system. While removing, a message will appear telling you its very important and all. Press “yes”. Now, you can use Mozilla, Orkut and YouTube. But, the virus is not removed completely. It ‘ll get reinstalled the next time when you restart the computer. To remove it completely, open “My Computer” and type “C:\heap41a\” and press enter. Now, you will be in “C:\heap41a\”, a hidden directory which cannot be accessed directly from windows explorer. Now delete all the files inside the directory. Then, type “regedit” in the “Run” option accessible from start menu or by pressing “windows + r” key combination. Find for “heap41a”. You will find some strings with the word “heap41a”. Delete them all. Use the shortcut key, “F3” to search for the next one. After deleting all, restart the computer. Now you can use Mozilla, access Orkut and YouTube.

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Added on: 18-09-2007

Today, I heard that some people working in shops are in much angry with their boss as they couldn’t access Orkut from the computers. Every time they open Orkut, the browser get closed and a window saying “ORKUT IS BANNED” is coming. They thought that their boss blocked Orkut…! They don’t know that its just a crazy little VIRUS!

Today is the Free Software Day. The Swathanthra Malayalam Computing group had arranged a program in Trichur corresponding to it. Its for the first time, I am attending for such a function. Thanks for Shyam for telling me about SMC group, by joining which, I had the opportunity to attend this function. My friend Krishnaraj was also with me.

It was an informative one. I could know more about the history of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing and about the ASCII and Unicode fonts. There was also an exhibition of Swathanthra Malayalam softwares, for studying Malayalam typing, Spell Checking, and many more. Shyam also had a project related to speech recognition.

I was glad to hear that about 80% of words in Linux has been translated to Malayalam. I do installed the latest version of IT @ School GNU/Linux last day and thought it would be better if I can change the interface to Malayalam.

May be some day I can also contribute to them…

For photos of the function at Trichur, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/santhosh00/SMCSFD07

Project Site: https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/smc

Wiki: http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/SMC

Mailing List: http://groups.google.com/group/smc-discuss

Its only after the orientation class start, I came to know what orientation means. Its something like making the student aware about the collage, its history, facilities, rules and all. My friend Nikhil is also there, but for Electronics and Communication and I am for Computer Science.

The authorities said that the classes start on 26^th in full swing and even gave the Time-Table. I don’t know whether I will be a student there. They showed us the facilities for lab and all.

There was a little commotion regarding the bonds, which government has specified. At last, we gave both the bonds there.

Today, I got the chance to install two new OS’s. One is the 3.0 version of IT@School GNU/Linux(2007) and the other, proprietary OS, Microsoft Vista. As, I decided to shift completely to Linux, Vista was not installed in my system, but for a customer of my relative’s computer shop. Also, I was happy to get it cracked. The crack works by resetting the timer which count down the activation time and every time it will be the same as 30 days. More details regarding it can be found here:

The IT@School GNU/Linux uses the Linux kernel – 2.6.18-4-686. Even after installing about 930 packages, including all the default packages like OpenOffice, Gimp, etc it took only about 2.9GB, which is about quarter of the space used by Vista OS basic home edition itself, without any extra softwares. Linux has developed much as the installation is much faster, the boot up time is about 40 seconds only, mounts partitions automatically – including FAT32 partitions and has much more tools.

Even though its better than Windows, I do have some problems in it. I am unable to configure my modem properly. I have been to configure it for about two years, since I first installed Linux. Only Linspire was able to automatically detect and configure my internal dial up modem. Another problem I face is that only root has got the permissions to edit the files in FAT32 partitions. I tried many ways, still I couldn’t make other users too to do so. May be some day near, I can fix these…

I also got three DVDs, full of Debian softwares (I think I don’t have that much Windows softwares with me). Thanks for Shyam for giving them to me.

In the engineering first allotment, published on September 1^st, I got AWH Calicut (Exact place is Kuttikatoor, near my earlier Maths teacher’s house) for Computer Science Engineering.

Today morning 10AM was the time of admission for me. I went there with my parents. The collage is a new one which started in 2001. So, the construction works are still going on but, I think it has got all the facilities. I was asked to attend the orientation class on 13^th(Don’t know what it means). May be I’ll get a good idea about the collage and facilities.

Its about a 2Hr, 30mts journey from home by bus. So, it’s hard to travel to collage and back everyday. But, I like more to stay at home more than staying in hostels. Still waiting for 2^nd allotment which is on 18^th. Hope I’ll get a seat in MES for CS.