Before continuing, let me be clear: the fact that you have acquired such a system attack does not mean that you were looking up anything questionable or suspicious. These types of attacks do not only happen to people looking up pornography and internet memes anymore. It can happen for looking up the latest Miley Cyrus scandal video or the video of the twin baby boys having a seemingly humorous conversation amongst themselves. This friend of mine supposedly got it looking up information regarding the latest Vanessa Hudgens photo scandal- not photos, mind you, just articles relating to the topic for informational purposes, or so he says, and I believe him.  A lot of legitimate internet searches can land you in virusville, where my friend, until Saturday afternoon, was the mayor. This emphasizes the need for proper computer security in the form of active virus protection and legitimate anti-spyware programs that run in the background and provide good active defenses, blocking such programs from installing themselves.

This “program”, though it can barely be classified as a “program”, invents pretend security breaches in the infected computer and then requires a purchase to “remove” them. It also does a fantastic job at disabling every legitimate program installed in the computer from running, disabling access to the internet from the infected machine, and basically bringing every function of the computer to its knees. Do not be fooled by the legitimate appearance of the software. It is not legitimate, nor is it helpful to you in any way. Do NOT buy the full version of this software, as they do not deserve your money, it is the only purpose for the existence of the program, and it does not even help your cause. Your computer is essentially useless until it is removed as forcefully as it arrived.

I did an internet search and found a lot of useful information, including active codes to register and activate the full version of the “software”, but I was not able to get full functionality back to the computer. I also found lots of helpful information, including a registry fix and a possible spyware removal tool that is deemed effective for removing XP Internet Security 2011. Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned repair efforts worked. I have discovered my own fix, and I would like to share it with you now.

The program has one fatal flaw that I was able to expose. If you open the “Run” capacity from the Start menu, found different ways depending on your operating system, and type in ‘command’ without the single quotes, you open a DOS-like window that can run an array of commands. On another computer, download Malwarebytes. (Click the link from cnet/download.com.) Next, upload it via flash drive to the main user directory. This directory is slightly different depending on the operating system, but locate whichever directory the command structure of ‘command’ is pointed to, and upload the installation file to that directory. Type the installation file name, which should be ‘mbam-setup.exe’, and hit enter. It should run, install, and give you an option to open it from the installation window, rendering it unblocked by Internet Security 2011. Since Malwarebytes was already installed in the computer we were working on, I had to copy ALL Malwarebytes files from the default program directory to the root directory. If this is your predicament too, go to your Program Files directory, locate the Malwarebytes directory, and copy all files in that directory to your root user directory, or whatever directory ‘command’ is pointed to. Now type in ‘mbam.exe’ without the single quotes, and hit enter. In either direction, running a program through ‘command’ bypasses the registry and the normal file opening procedure, essentially creating a back door through which to open programs and files that is not blocked by the rogue software.

Once your main Malwarebytes screen is open, you are home free. Run a full scan and then make a cup of coffee or your favorite replacement beverage. It will be a while. When the scan is done, remove all malicious files from your computer, and XP Internet Security 2011 should be one of the affecting software removed.

Once it is removed, I would suggest backing up all files, browser bookmarks and settings, user files, and e-mail settings from Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express), Thunderbird, or whatever e-mail client you are using, and restore the system to either factory default (my favorite option), or an applicable restore point for good measure. I always do that after I have a significant security breach in my system. It removes all possible residual effects from the former threat and restores the computer to the best possible functionality.

However, this fix may not even completely work for you, but I have even more alternatives. If the repair I detailed does not take care of the problem, we have a few more possibilities:

1. Repeat the steps I detailed with a different anti-spyware program. Spyware Doctor has been reported to work, as well as some others.

2. Repeat the steps I detailed with different virus removal software, such as Norton by Symantec, Kaspersky, or McAfee. Something should detect this software and properly remove it.

3. If nothing works, locate all the programs that you need data from, copy ALL program and system files related to the program (normally found in the program folder only) to the root user directory that ‘command’ points to, and use those ‘command’ instructions to open each program (browser, e-mail client, etc.) long enough to save all data and settings needed. Once all necessary files, data, and settings are backed up, restore the computer to factory settings or to an applicable restore point. I prefer factory settings, but that is only my preference.

To be completely honest, I had to go with number three. I am not sure if this rogue software is just smart enough or if the anti-spyware and antivirus software I used is just dumb enough, or if the operating system is old and antiquated enough, but nothing located and removed XP Internet Security 2011. I just had to save all files, data, and settings manually and meticulously, and then restore the computer to factory settings, but that final attempt did work.

Lastly, as I always like to do when I have climbed a mountain in life, stop and appreciate the view from the top of the mountain. In life, there is lots of rough terrain ahead of you, but just stop and appreciate what you have done so far before you keep moving. The view is beautiful.

Nobody knows when, why, or how it appeared, but a few things are for sure. First and foremost, due to how fast this piano has captured the world, we all find it funny, or at least amusing. Secondly, on a legal level, whoever put it there did not ask the proper authorities. Third, and most amusing, the proper authorities are relatively amused.

The piano first gained exposure on January 18th on National Geographic’s website. At that point, a small bench seat sat in front of it, pelicans were hovering overhead, and it was sitting in water. Now it rests dry and alone on the sandbar. The sandbar is a few hundred yards east of the north end of the Miami beaches near some condominiums.

Suzanne Beard, who took the original photograph, said it was left there after a music video shoot, but the Miami Herald has attempted to locate her for confirmation to no avail. Unless she comes forward with more information, the piano will go unaccounted for eternally.

I am amused that Miami-Dade officials have left it there for so long, and I am even more amused that it has grabbed this much attention. The most amusing thing would be if they leave it there for so long that it is picked up on satellite imagery used for maps and Google Earth. This would be rather similar to the humongous Maxim cover the magazine built in the Las Vegas desert, that for months was visible on Google Earth, and all the other humorous things we have come up with on satellite imagery of the earth in years past. I would laugh… a good hearty laugh.

It seems that Bears fans take their football very seriously, as 34-year-old John Stone, who had been working at Webb Chevrolet in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn for a month, was warned to take off his Packers tie or be fired. He indicated on Good Morning America that he thought his boss, Jerry Roberts, was joking about removal of the tie, but then after what seemed to be two warnings, was fired. Stone says he wore the Packers tie to work on Monday to honor his late grandmother, a Packers fan, that his family laid to rest the previous Friday.

Roberts has indicated that he did, in fact, terminate Stone’s employment due to the tie. He also stated that it was because he did not want to alienate Bears fans, as the dealership has done promotions involving the Bears in the past.

Stone said he was never informed about any promotions involving the Bears, and indicates no regrets about wearing the tie. “If I had never worn this tie, I would never know his true feelings about me,” he said.

There is some good news emerging from this, however. As of Wednesday morning, Guy Cesario, general manager of Chevrolet in Homewood, has indicated he would be interested in taking Stone from Roberts. He stated, “We’re always looking for good sales value and John strikes me as someone who has really good family values and he’s excited to work.”

Editorial:

I have been watching this story since it began, and I must comment on how absurd it is to get that personal over a sporting event or a sports team. I have known a man who drove to New York in 1996 to watch the Baltimore Orioles take on the New York Yankees in the 1996 ALCS, game five. I believe this was the game when a kid reached down and caught a ball hit by Derek Jeter, causing it to be ruled a home run mistakenly. Upon the finale of the game, the man went to his car and found bunch of Yankees fans beating it up with baseball bats because he had a Maryland license plate.

I am a big sports fan too. I personally support a number of my local teams: the Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore Ravens, Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, and University of Maryland College Park Terrapins sports. Despite this fact, I would never get that personal over a game or team. I have friends who are Yankees fans. I have friends who are Washington Redskins fans, Kansas City Chiefs fans, and Buffalo Bills fans. I have friends who are New York Rangers hockey fans. I have a friend who lives in British Columbia, Canada, and is a Vancouver Canucks fan. The Ravens have a major rivalry against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I find myself with Steelers fans. I will have a pretend argument with them over sports, but I will never get that serious about it.

To fire someone because their tie depicts a team you do not support is completely outrageous. To say that no personnel can be permitted to wear ties deemed unprofessional and ban all sports teams and cartoon characters from ties worn by staff is one thing, and to ask them to come back to work the following day with a more fitting tie makes sense. To fire someone over the specific team depicted on the tie, though you may not particularly care for the team, is petty and stupid. Jeers to Jerry Roberts for firing Mr. Stone, who seems to be a rather genuine, hardworking fellow over such a petty conflict and sending him to a competing dealership in the process. Nice work!

I know what you are thinking. I am extremely busy and barely have time to update this blog a few times a month. How am I ever going to find time to read a 600 page book? I make time. As a writer, which is what I am above anything else, one of the best things you can do is keep that cognitive wheel turning and keep adding fresh perspective to your creative palette by reading. Never stop reading and always make time to turn a few pages, even if it is just a few minutes before bed or while taking care of business, so to speak, in the restroom. You should always be reading.

When I receive a book, whether as a gift or my own purchase, I like to skim a few portions. As I was skimming through Decision Points and thought about how I will be glad to sink into this book once I get a few moments, I thought about people who might not have their reading list together, and I decided to share with you what some of my recommendations are for top books and reading material in 2011. This comes from my own personal reading list, of books I either just recently read or plan to read soon. I will count down to the top book on my list. This is fiction or entertaining non-fiction, not books geared toward business or academia at the current time. I will focus on them in a future post.

10. Room- Emma Donoghue: The story of a son whose mother’s prison is all he knows.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- Rebecca Skloot: The story of a woman in the 1950s whose cancer cells were harvested without her permission.

8. Freedom- Jonathan Franzen: A story about a Minnesota family and what it means to have lived through the first decade of the 21st century.

7. Sh*t My Dad Says- Justin Halpern: A memoir off of the comedic ramblings of Halpern’s peculiar father that were compiled into the famous Twitter feed that inspired a CBS primetime comedy. (I enjoy a good laugh now and then.)

6. House Rules- Jodi Picoult: A young adult with autism is accused of murder.

5. Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters- President Barack Obama and Loren Long: The current President of the United States writes a tribute about 13 Americans who changed the nation.

4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians series- Rick Riordan: A young adult series about the adventures of the son of Zeus, born by a human woman. The first of this series was turned into a rather entertaining movie, so I am interested to read this series.

3. Decision Points- President George W. Bush: President George W. Bush reflects on his life, his eight years as president, candidly discusses his successes and failures, and his plans for post-presidency ambitions. Like him or hate him, it is so important to review the path of the country from 2001-2009, and to see it from President Bush’s perspective is not only fair, but also important.

2. Man in the Woods- Scott Spencer: A protagonist happens on a chance encounter at a highway rest stop and lands in the third circle of Hell.

1. Safe Haven- Nicholas Sparks: A woman mysteriously arrives in a small town in North Carolina, raising questions about her past.

In the near future, I will put together my list of the top ten business and academia focused books to read in 2011.

What is on your reading list for the coming year and why?

Let me tell you how this blog entry began, before I get into this a little further. I just switched banks to PNC Bank, a local bank that runs down the east coast of the United States and into the Bible Belt (southern US).I was at the local convenience store picking up some supplies, and their credit card system was down. I was paying with my PNC check card. In a fit of brilliance, the cashier asked me to wave my card in front of this machine that had several logos on it, including a logo that my card has. It is the express payment machine, and it accepts Visa’s own PayWave and the American Express version ExpressPay, among others. It seems that every major credit card version (V/M/D/AMEX) all have their own version of this now coming out on new credit cards and bank cards. (See the photo on the right, depicting a standard machine accepting these express payment options, courtesy of identitytheftpreventionus.com.)

This, I think, is a wonderful thing. We all work hard for our money, and identity theft is everywhere. How many times have you cringed handing someone your credit or check card, knowing you are trusting them with every dollar on that account? I know I have. My friend Adam was the victim of a minor case of identity theft in the last couple of months. It seems that his banking information was stolen and able to be used against him. Someone with his banking information was good enough to withdraw money from his account at an ATM without having his actual card. When I switched banks to PNC, they informed me that one of the tools crooks are using now is an electronic piece that slips over the card reader at an ATM, coupled with a small camera, transmitting the card information and essentially your user entered PIN to the crook. It used to be that to steal someone’s identity or money, you had to drive to their house, steal their mail, rifle through their garbage, find their bank statements and social security number, and make sure you know their mother’s maiden name. Then, in a fit of brilliance, you had to find a way to obtain a driver’s license from the local Department of Motor Vehicles with their name and address and your picture. Why go through all that when we have ATMs and the internet?

Okay, so I just went on a handy little rant there, but you get my point. We combat potential identity theft every single time we take out or wallets, or even our trash. In a small way of being able to combat identity theft, you do not even have to hand anyone your card anymore. If your card has one of these handy little logos on it, and your merchant has this machine or one like it, just swipe it in front of the machine, smile at the clerk, and know that you just took a small step at protecting yourself and your money. Additionally, at the very worst, it is convenient. Some companies have been doing this forever, like Exxon Mobil. Most of us have filled a vehicle’s fuel tank up with fuel at an Exxon station. If you look at the instructions on the pump, it gives instructions on how to pay if you have their electronic payment system that only requires a swipe of a key card. I believe they call the system Tiger Pay, but I might be wrong.

This brings up an interesting question. Is this the wave of the future for making payment electronically, or is this just a neat little option? My mother told me that she looks forward to the day when every card everywhere has this option, and you do not have to swipe it anywhere, do anything with it, or even hand it to anyone. Her reasoning, though, is a little more selfish and petty than that. She just hates getting her cards dirty or scratched. She treats her card like a piece of furniture. I think that is a little silly, but she brings up an interesting point. Maybe this was the reason for the express pay brain child: to replace credit card processing units with a little express payment machine that picks up your account information via radio signal in the air. It sounds fool proof, but I am certain with a little ingenuity, crooks will still find a way to thwart this plan too.

What do you think? Does this really protect us from identity theft? Is this the wave of the future for credit card processing?

Why will they not be releasing it to North America? America is where pickup trucks are most popular, and the Ranger has always been a best seller here. I doubt that is a very good business decision on the part of Ford Motor Company. What do you think? Do you think this will hurt their business, or do you think they will be able to get by okay in spite of this decision?

As we all know, the World Trade Center site is one of the most patriotic sites in America. In the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, a total of four domestic, commercial airlines were hijacked and flown in a suicide mission by Islamic terrorists into the two World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. The plane that went down in Pennsylvania was spared from further terror due to the heroic acts of some Americans who did not want it to hit another national landmark, and its originally planned trajectory is still unknown to this date. The tragedy that happened there is the subject of hundreds of songs, several movies, the ongoing patriotism of millions of Americans, and the event that changed every American’s life forever, especially those who lost loved ones or their own lives in the attack.

Due to Muslim extremist influences in the attacks on September 11, 2001, the proposed mosque has gotten a lot of opposition, from Americans and politicians alike, and upon first glance, rightly so. (No, I am NOT taking a pro-mosque stance here, so you can all go ahead and relax.) First, remember that thousands of Islamic believers have come out in opposition of such terror acts. Conversely, it is true that a good portion of Muslims actually support terrorist acts, and the Qu’ran actually discusses death to the infidels. It is truthfully unclear where the fundamentals of the Islamic religion actually stand on acts of terrorism, such as the 9/11 attacks, and large amounts of believers stand on both sides of the issues. It is clear, though, that there is no transparency has to what countries or what factions of the religion will actually be supporting the mosque. Will it constantly be a place where they worship the terror their brothers inflicted on us there, or will it be a place they legitimately plan to worship? We do not know.

Now remember what America stands for. America stands for many freedoms, and in the first ten bills of the Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, we are given the freedom of religion. We have the freedom to worship whichever god we choose, or not to worship at all. It’s that simple. To tell followers of Islam that this mosque cannot be built there is to tell them that they do not have the freedom to worship in America. However, to let them build it there tells the victims of 9/11, the families of the men and women who lost their lives that morning, and the American people that we have forgotten, less than ten years after the tragedy, what it was like to watch our country under attack, our people blown to pieces, and our buildings turned to dust and rubble. (As you can likely tell, I have not forgotten, and I will never forget.)

There is only one logical answer to this problem that I can come up with. Instead of allowing them to build the mosque there, as it is irresponsible and wrong to allow them to do, and it is also irresponsible and wrong for them to want to do, instead we propose a different location. Find them a place in New York where they can build their mosque that does not interfere with the memory of what happened there nearly nine years ago and appeases both sides. Take the original property from them, and give them the replacement property in its place. They will be a little upset, but it is better than taking the property from them illegitimately, and most Americans will be reasonable about the situation and live with the result.

However, for vehemently supporting the building of the mosque in the location it is in with no true regard for the feelings of millions of Americans who are angered and saddened, President Obama has lost a lot of my respect, and will absolutely not have my support for reelection in 2012. I not only think it will be an election debate topic and may help to choose some Congressional elections this fall, I also believe it will come back to bite the President, especially if the mosque is built there. I think the 2008 allegations of his supposed Muslim roots and allegiance will come back at him very harshly and will affect his reelection. Whether he has Muslim roots and allegiance or not, he has handled this situation very poorly, as he has handled almost every decision that has crossed his desk or teleprompter, and I think we will remember this come election time.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Please give feedback by leaving a comment toward the bottom on this post.

Every question has an answer, and scientists have discovered the answer for this one. I was watching Fox News last night. (I watch all sorts of local and national news, so I can get all sides of a story before making a decision or considering something truth.) Sean Hannity broke the story, albeit probably not first, but I heard him first. According to researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England, who laid out their findings in the paper, “Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein,” there is a protein found exclusively in the ovaries of a chicken that is responsible for the formation of the shell of the egg. This protein, called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17), is specifically made to expedite the formation of the shell of the egg. They apparently used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the OC-17 protein speeds up the crystallization process, essentially converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell.

This is where it gets humorous, if it hasn’t already. Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, baffled me by saying, “it had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first.” Really? The egg was suspected to have come first? Please explain that, because I do not get it. Here is my theory as to why that is completely idiotic: The egg has to be formed and laid by a creature. I knew that when I was a child. It also needs to be fertilized by a rooster. You need TWO creatures to actually lay and hatch an egg. The chicken lays the egg. The rooster comes around behind her, and fertilizes it, by whatever method the rooster uses to do the task. (I do not desire to learn any more about the fertilization process, nor would I publish it. I pride myself on being family friendly, in case of necessity.)

Common sense always told me that the egg has to come from somewhere. We have two theories on the orientation of the world and all the creatures in it, creation and evolution. Both of these theories provide for the creation of many of the creatures on this planet, but not for the creation of fertilized eggs, ready to hatch. However, there is one last point I have not heard anyone make: how stupid this study is. I just hope that nobody’s tax dollars paid for this study.