Still alive, still making art, etc, etc. School is keeping me busy, I have no idea why I'm posting a journal right now when I should be getting ready for and leaving to class soon.

W/e

till next time

ras out

Finished the game, worked on a few patches for it, celebrated by bday (it was on July 10th), found out the host we have doesn't allow file hotlinking in the free accounts, went to YasumiCon as a vendor, started classes at MIUAD, got a thumbs up on the game from www.destructoid.com 's founder/publisher, was invited to Miami's first VIDEOGAME CONVENTION, Infinitebits, and am right now just dropping a few notes in here just to sumarize things from the past two months when I really should be either sleeping or working on one of two big projects which are due next week.

Oh yeah, minor sidenote, Team Fortress is chaos with good friends in there and good adversaries

How I be: sleepy

This is still very raw, there are still quite a few things left to do, and there is a whole of coding left to be done, but I think that the site can at least be shown for the time being, if not the whole shebang.

http://studiomunchausen.freehostia.com

Mind you, there are still a few pages that need code content (namely the ones under "about us), but for the moment, I think this is a good insight into a project that has been consuming my life since graduation.

For a while now, I've been worrying about my classes, mainly my biology one. However, after some news I recieved earlier, I am no longer worrying about it. In fact, I am not worrying about MDC at all any more. All the crap, worries, shit, advisors, and other miscelaneous garbage they have been shoveling down my throat, all not going to bug me anymore.

The reason?

I'M OFFICIALLY OUTTA THERE!!!

That's right, I'm done, finito, over, finished, completed, at the end.

I just checked my grades today and was surprised by getting an A in Physical Science and Creative Writing, and a B in Biology. The Biology grade was the real shocker. I expected at the best to be getting the lowest C you could get before it becomes a D. I had been sitting on a low D since the last test and was bracing myself for the worst (having to repeat Biology and royally screwing up my chances at AI with a small scholarship and with the tuition for the first semester cut down by about 5,000 due to the early payment program). A B in that class wasn't outside the realm of possibility, but it was at the edge of it.

Jinxes, curses, and Murphey's law can't mess up the grades now, I'm in the clear and my way out of MDC has a nice, shiney green light above it.

Now that that messy business is out of the way, I can concentrate on more important things, like a particular project that I can now focus more on and on commissions.

Yeah, it is some big bad new worm.
Yeah, there may be quite a few people out there with it.
Yeah, they have determined that the latest variant should go off sometime in the next 24 hours.

However, as long as you have done the following, you should be good and ready for the "apocalypse" some people are predicting for tomorrow.

1: Keep your antivirus up to date (I honestly shouldn't need to say this, but I know how some people can turn off auto updates)

2: Keep your computer updated with the security updates (Personally, I could care less about the tweaks, bells, and whistles that Microsoft spits out on a seemingly weekly basis. Instead of letting Automatic Updates instantly update my PC, I have it set to alert me about them but not download or install them. Then I right click the icon to see what they want to update and pick and choose the security updates only. Takes about 5 minutes at the most to do and keeps them from putting some crap that I know I'd never touch on my computer)

3: Keep an eye open for things that act strange (This should also be a given. A good indicator that there is something possibly malicious on your computer is when things slow down all of a sudden. A gradual slowdown is what happens to every computer, regardless of what is on it. This happens from gradual wear and tear on the computer. However, should your computer experience a sudden slowdown mid program or something and your computer doesn't recover out of it, there may be a problem.)

4: Perform regular back-ups, reformats, and reinstalls (I expect to get some flack over this one since I don't keep up with part of this one. I do back up my stuff onto an external harddrive, but the reformating the main computer harddrive and then reinstalling windows and all your standardly used programs afterwards can be a pain. However, consider the pros of doing it; Your PC will have a nice and fairly empty harddrive, It will boot up and run almost like the day you bought it, and, providing you keep making backups, you will never lose anything to malware.)

Now, lets say you have something going on or suspect there may be an issue and your antivirus can't find a problem. There are things you can do at this point that can help indicate if there is a problem.

Test 1: Try updating your antivirus (I know, I know. The antivirus seems to be updating itself automatically so this couldn't possibly a problem, right? Wrong! One of the first things that usually get attacked by this crap is the automatic updater. Send it to do a manual update and, should it be unable to connect to the server [providing you are connected to the internet] there is a problem.)

Test 2: Go to ANY legitimate antivirus homepage website [IE: http://www.symantec.com/index.jsp or http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah or http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html ] and check to see if you can still access the sites on your main browser (Odd test, I know, but it is actually fairly accurate. See, these things usually have redirect codes that tell standard and well used web browsers [IE: Interet Explorer and FireFox] to redirect you to some of their own malware sites or to block the sites altogether. This redirect can be overridden by the user, but can be fairly hard to do for someone that hasn't done it before. I'll be getting back to back doors to this problem later in this journal, but for now, just keep this test in mind.)

Test 3: Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, go to the "Processes" tab and check to see if there are any odd programs running (It is usually fairly easy to tell the processes that shouldn't be running from the ones that should by how they are spelled. If a program is all in caps like some idiot 5 year old wrote it, then that might be the problem you are looking for. Another thing to keep an eye out for is too many copies of the same process. This can be a bit hard to figure out though if you don't open the task manager that often though, so don't go ending any processes that are on there two or more times or you might just see a blue screen of death. However, this test is rather limited in its effectiveness from some viruses, worms, and trojans because they sometimes disguise themselves as required processes. Take for example the Conficker or Downadup worm, it will usually look like an extra network/local service known as scvhost.exe)

Test 4: Run a Scan (This is where the palms should be hitting the faces because of how obvious a test this is. If you can't run a scan or the scan turns up something that you can't get rid of, there is your sign that there might be something seriously wrong with your computer)

Alright, you've run the tests, and found out that you have something horrible sitting on your harddrive, eating your much needed system resources and preventing you from going online. Now it is time to fight back and the first thing you should prioritize is getting access to security websites online, then updating/reinstalling an antivirus/antimalware product, and finally cleaning your PC. I know, this sounds redundant or hard to do, but, with the assistance of a buddy's computer, you can get it done.

Step 1: Get a new web browser (Remember that nasty redirect protocol I mentioned earlier? Now it is time to use the almost stupidly simple back door to it, which is get a new browser. I don't mean reinstall Internet Explorer or Firefox either, I mean download and install a completely new browser to your PC. See, the redirecter protocol sets itself up when it first visits your computer and, at that point, screws around with everything and leaves the code for redirecting all over the place in the programs. However, this malicious code is usually only programed for the two main browsers that are used. Other browsers aren't usually programed the same way as either of those two, so they remain relatively pure. I say relatively because, like everything else that can connect to the internet, it can be corrupted. A few good alternatives that I have come across are Opera www.opera.com/ Safari http://www.apple.com/safari/ and Google Chrome http://www.google.com/chrome)

Step 2a: Now that you have your new browser, use it to go to some of the antivirus homepages I mentioned earlier and see what news they might have on new viruses (This seems stupid, but is actually fairly useful. Some of these antivirus websites out there have virus databases that can scan your pc, sometimes for free, and tell you what you have. Some of them even try to help you by trying to remove the malware for free)

Step 2b: Lets say you couldn't find anything on the antivirus sites, now you must either find it yourself or find someone techyish to find it for you (This is the hard way of going about it, but it is better then the above alternative. See, the one above can and will sometimes leave you back at square one. This is where special software comes in like HijackThis http://download.cnet.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html , Spybot Search and Destroy http://download.cnet.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html , and Malwarebytes http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html?tag=mncol;pop come in handy, expecially the last two. The first tool, HijackThis is a active registry scanner that checks for all recent registy keys that have been loaded and can delete or remove them. Entries that are blank or have "blank" somewhere in the name it lists are usually quite evil things. It is always a good idea however to search for the object you are about to delete online to make sure it is truly evil or if it is harmless. Spybot S&D and Malwarebytes are both searching agents and cleaning agents and usually work very well on most problems. There will be stuff out there that they can't get rid of, so be prepared to start seaching online the stuff they can not get rid of, and this leads me to...)

Step 3: Time to start going into the end game of this fight and call in the antivirus programs. (Using the research you just performed on your particular infection, it is now time to get rid of the problem. On quite a few of the sites out there, you will find hints, tricks, and programs that will help get rid of viruses, worms, trojans, adware, and spyware. Take for example this Conficker worm. Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, AVG, and a few other antiviral programs out there have already developed programs that can remove or neutralize the threat.)

Step 4: If you have the capacity to do so, restore your computer to a time that you know should be well before the virus was installed, if not, skip to Step 5 (This is the holy grail move because malware automatically changes your system settings to something more cozy for the malware. Doing this not only restores your best previously working setting, but also disables most reinstallers that come with these devices. However, you should do this step with caution because you CAN INADVERTENTLY REINFECT YOURSELF should you pick a point that was not before the virus.)

Step 5: If you have been successful in removing the evil little bug from your digital domain, it is time to pat yourself on the back and consider it a job well done, if not, it may be time for extremely drastic measures (And by drastic measures, I mean it may be time to either bring your computer to a professional or time to consider a fresh install of windows after reformatting your harddrive. This should only be done as an absolute last ditch means. Should you bring it to a professional, there is a good chance they will either overcharge you for doing something that, after following the previous few steps, you could have done yourself  or they will reformat your harddrive usually without a second thought as to what else might be on there that you might have wanted to keep. If they say that it needs a reformat, DON'T LET THEM DO IT. THEY WILL USUALLY CHARGE YOU FOR A FRESH COPY OF WINDOWS, A LABOR FEE, AND A SERVICE FEE AND IT WILL BE OVER $200.00 American. Instead, bring it home, find the original discs that may have come with the computer if you bought it from a store or get out your copy of windows if you built it yourself and, after backing up the files you may consider to be important like your music files, rough art files, and a few others, use your disk to wipe and reinstall. Almost all computers bought from stores have some kind of back up drive built into them and, since they are not hard coded into the running operating system, are safe to use to restore your computer to factory settings.)

Alright, now to really hold your hands, I've got a couple of suggestions for good FREE alternatives to some of the realy expensive antivirus software out there should you not have the (bare minimum) 40 bucks to fork over for the cheapest pay for use ones.

AVG FREE http://free.avg.com/

This little guy I've been using for the past few years and it has helped me out in many a sticky cituation. It autoupdates on start up and you can set it to scan once a day. Granted, it doesn't have all the nice fancy feature of some of them out there, but AVG FREE is a extremely good value for being the free version.

Avast! Home Edition http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Last time I used this one was a while ago, so I don't have much to say on it from personal experience. From friends though, I've heard really fantastic reviews and it is actually something I am considering to install and try out on an acting server pc (it currently has Norton 360 2.0 and the thing slows EVERYTHING down too much. I like UT2004 without bullet time please)

Well, that should be everything that should be said for the moment. If there are any questions about anything I have posted here, feel free to ask.