Racist Spam

Got to the office, sat at the comp, checked office's e-mail... then checked my own private e-mail and there it was: Spam.
Two messages had arrived into my inbox from someone I don't know, with a subject line that surprised me "Trotz Stellenabbau".
It's been some (long) time since I had to give up my German classes due to lack of money but I still remembered enough to understand it, and I did know it was nothing I could be mailed about.
This is a virus's doing.
Actually, the message itself isn't a virus, but this is the result of viral activity.

You can read more about it here. Basically, this is malware that, behind your back, starts sending spam e-mail. The virus spoofs the sender email and uses a random address from a list of e-mail addresses it has retrieved from an infected computer. So, in simple words, the mail looks like it's been sent by someone that you might know (or not) but in truth it's been sent by someone else.
For this reason just blocking the sender's address (like Yahoo! mail lets you do) will just not work and you will be probably blocking out someone who has nothing to do with this. Their e-mail address just happened to be in a list some spammer happened to come by; and now it's being used to make it look as if they were sending spam, which they probably aren't.

Read the article I linked above, and if you are using an e-mail application such as MSOutlook go shoot yourself in the head follow the instructions here to block the real sender of such spam. After you've done so, please do yourself a favor and download a better tool for reading and sending pop3 email: Thunderbird. Thunderbird will import your address book and old messages, so that you can seamlessly switch.

Aside from this, remember to keep your antivirus updated. If you think an antivirus application is too expensive, you can always use free alternatives which are just as good and effective.

Avast!
AVG antivirus
are two good examples. (there are others)
Additionally, you might want to try free online-scans services that both panda-antivirus and symantec offer in their websites.

You know this is important because of many reasons:
1) Viruses put your privacy at risk. A virus can not only wreck the data kept in your computer, it can also "steal" sensitive information about you and steal your identity. After it has done so, it can go and put your home on a mortgage, buy an expensive car at your expense, or commit online crimes that would all point towards you. You will have a VERY tough time trying to prove it was not you who did these things and chances are you/your family will lose a lot of money while at it.
2) Viruses attack your friends. If you don't give a shit about your personal security or finance, you might perhaps care about your friends.
3) Your computer being a zombie means your computer no longer belongs to you. Since your computer is in your home, it means you have just let someone in.
4) Your ISP might trace malicious activity to your zombie machine and decide they no longer want to give you internet access. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) might just decide to take their service away from you and you'll have no way to go online.

Existencialism...

If you fancy yourself at least slightly geeky you should definitely read this. Heck, even if you don't think you are geeky you should still read it. It's a comic strip and it's crack funny.

Yesterday I've been trying to build a comp out of a very old/very crummy PC-Chips MoBo and an equally dated PentiumII processor. It was fun. Since this MoBo model is not being manufactured anymore I had to look up a bit to find some way to flash its BIOS and make it "see" a 20GB HD... I managed to flash it but it still didn't see the HD correctly (well, at least I didn't ruin the MoBo for good!). I might try again tomorrow with Maxtor's software... my goal is to install FreeBSD on it, but when I try to it keeps giving me DMA-related errors. Debian just hangs while trying to load Linux-IDE drives.
It was pretty uncomfortable to flash the MoBo's BIOS without having downloaded it from the official site, and flashing only updated it to a 2001 version, but darn, I'll keep looking. I'll be contented if I can find a 2003 version of it (which I doubt) because I think it'd be easier for it to "see" the HD in its full size and work the DMA right (tbh, I suspect the DMA is to blame for all the headaches this MoBo is giving me). Anyway, it's been fun... makes some underexercized areas of my so-called brain work.
In other news, my sister's comp (running Win-ex-pee and AVG antivirus) claims to be infected by a certain trojan horse virus (dropper.small.24.L) that no antivirus except AVG can detect. (Trust me, I've run several online scans last night trying to confirm the trojan horse's existence.)
If any of you are having a similar problem, I'll recommend you to Not do anything, since this small.dropper thing sounds a lot like a false positive. The infected file is part of the OS and makes the language bar work, remove it and you'll lose the functionality.

Debian Updates at last

Hell has officially frozen over. Debian has updated.

OK, I know those of you who aren't Debian fans (that is, each and every one of my friends) won't find this to be the least interesting or even comprehensible, but... DEBIAN HAS OFFICIALLY UPDATED!!! OMGWTFBRBBBQ!!!!!eleveneleven

Read it here. or here.

Right now I'm feeling a little like nothing goes my way, and it occurred to me that if I was to switch to macs, Steve Jobs would associate Apple with intel.... oops! =P

Del.icio.us - Portable Bookmarks

Oh, I would like to mention something about del.icio.us ; Think about it as "portable bookmarks" combined with "social bookmarks". Since I don't have a computer* I'm using it a lot lately. If you are interested you can check my del.icio.us bookmarks here (I doubt anyone is, though). I think it is particularly convenient when you want to bookmark a site for further reading but you are not at your computer (for example: work, school, public internet, etc.) and also in order to share interesting articles or sites with friends or colleagues.

Well, gotta stop babbling and do something to justify the monthly pay... that is, I gotta work. =p

* my computer was stolen. Burglars broke into my father's office at night and took it among other things. I had taken my computer there a few days before because I was planning to fix some stuff in it. Yeah, it sucks. Life goes on.