Interesting Facts from U.S.A

6/24/2009 07:50:00 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

  1. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.

  2. On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.

  3. One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.

  4. In Los Angeles, there are fewer people than there are automobiles.

  5. The United States Government keeps its supply of silver at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.

  6. The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used.

  7. 52% of Americans drink coffee.

  8. 27% of Americans believe we never landed on the moon.

  9. A Californian doctor has set the record of eating 17 bananas in two minutes.

  10. Approximately 35 million Americans are linked by blood to one (or more) of the 102 pilgrims who came to America on the Mayflower in 1620.

  11. There are five US states with no sales tax. They are: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.

  12. Alaska is the state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work.

  13. It was once illegal to take a bath in the wintertime in Indiana.

  14. Ohio is the birthplace of more Presidents than any other state - eight

How to fix USB device error “This Device Cannot Start. (Code 10)”

6/23/2009 05:29:00 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

To fix this kind of problem follow these easy steps to make your USB device work again.

1. If you are using cable to connect your USB device to your computer, check the cable to make sure it is compatible and matches up with the speed of your device. Swap cables and check the device, if this does not work, proceed to the next step.

2. Open your Device Manager, look for USB Serial Bus Controllers. If you find a device with a yellow exclamation mark next to it such as USB Mass Storage Device. Check the device status by Double-click on the entry. If it shows something like “This device cannot start. (Code 10)” then proceed to the next step

3. The easiest way to fix a Code 10 error is to remove and reinstall all USB controllers, Here are the ways to do that:

  • Click on Start
  • Right Click on My Computer, Then select Properties
  • Click on the Hardware tab
  • Click the Device Manager button.
  • Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers section.
  • Right-click every device under the Universal Serial Bus controllers node, and then remove them by uninstalling them one at a time.
  • Restart your computer, and allow your computer to reinstall the USB controllers.
  • Plug in again your storage device, and then test to make sure that the problem is resolved.

How to Troubleshoot a Dead Network Connection

6/23/2009 05:23:00 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

1. Check your Network or DSL router, they may have a bad or missing information. Powercycle your router and rebuild your routers configuration.

2. Triple check check your network cabling to the computer. Try another cable or test the cable to make sure its working properly.

3. Check your Network card or LAN card and make sure it is working properly. Most of the times setting your network card to 10Mbps/Full Duplex will solve this issue. To do this, open your Control Panel then go to System then Device Manager. Go to the properties of the Network card, click on the Advanced tab and find the Link Speed and Duplex section. Change it from Auto Detect to 10Mbps/Full Duplex.

4. Check and test on your firewall. Your firewall could be blocking your your connection. Try to disable your firewall and test the connection.

5. Check your IP address assignments and also your workgroup settings. You may assign static IPs to the computers in your network.

6. Reset your TCP/IP stack. You can use this tool WinsockXPFix.exe to fix corrupted TCP/IP issues, host file problems and a variety of other connectivity issues.

The next time you encounter this problem don’t panic, don’t scream, don’t scare the neighbors. Just calm down and troubleshoot step by step.

How to Remove Happy99.exe (ska)

6/22/2009 09:32:00 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

These are the steps you can follow to remove Happy99.exe

Steps marked optional are not absolutely necessary and are completely safe to skip. If you’re not comfortable with DOS, get someone knowledgeable to help you with this. I cannot make guarantees of perfect safety since its a manual removal, Perform these at your own risk. If you have Windows NT, you don’t have to follow the removal steps.

1. Click Start, then Shut Down, then “Restart Computer in MS-DOS mode”, then click Yes. It’s important to exit Windows in order to be able to replace the file WSOCK32.DLL which Windows normally has in use.

2.At the DOS prompt type this exactly and press enter at the end of each line:

CD \WINDOWS\SYSTEM

3. Delete SKA.EXE and SKA.DLL by typing

DEL SKA.EXE
DEL SKA.DLL

If you get “File not found” you’re either not infected or in the wrong directory. Make sure you’re in your Windows System directory; check to see if you followed step 2 exactly.

4.Copy WSOCK32.SKA to WSOCK32.DLL by typing

ATTRIB -R WSOCK32.DLL
COPY WSOCK32.SKA WSOCK32.DLL

Answer “Yes” if it asks if you want to overwrite WSOCK32.DLL.

WSOCK32.SKA is a backup of the original WSOCK32.DLL. You are replacing the modified DLL with the original. If you get a “Sharing violation” make sure you followed step 1.

5.Optional Delete WSOCK32.SKA by typing

DEL WSOCK32.SKA

You can leave WSOCK32.SKA on your system. It is a copy of your original WSOCK32.DLL Do not delete WSOCK32.SKA if you are unable to replace WSOCK32.DLL with WSOCK32.SKA.

6.Return to Windows by typing

EXIT

7.Optional Delete Windows Registry Key.
Click Start, then Run, then type regedit in the text box, then click OK. Click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then Software, then Microsoft, then Windows, then CurrentVersion. Under RunOnce check for SKA.EXE and select it if it is there. Press delete and then click Yes. Close Regedit. Don’t change anything else without making a backup of the registry first. If you don’t find SKA.EXE in the registry, it doesn’t mean you’re not infected. SKA.EXE is only added to the registry if HAPPY99.EXE is unable to modify WSOCK32.DLL when you run it. Also, you’ll only find it in the registry if you haven’t rebooted since you ran HAPPY99.EXE.

8.Optional Choose Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad, choose File, then Open then type C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\LISTE.SKA in the File Name box. Warn the people on the list, then delete LISTE.SKA. Make it clear to the people you warn that they won’t be infected unless they ran happy99.exe, to avoid alarming them unnecessarily. If you haven’t sent out any infected e-mails, there won’t be a LISTE.SKA.

9. Optional Delete the HAPPY99.EXE file. The location of HAPPY99.EXE will vary depending on where you saved it. You can delete it simply by dragging it to the Recycle Bin from within Windows or whatever method you prefer. You may still have some messages with HAPPY99.EXE attached in your mailbox. These cannot do anything unless you run them. You can delete them if you want to or just ignore them. 10.Optional If you aren’t sure whether WSOCK32.DLL is infected, choose Start, then Find, then “Files or Folders”. Then type WSOCK32.DLL in the “Named” box. In the “Look in” box choose drive C: or whatever drive you have Windows on. In the “Containing Text” box type “ska.dll” without the quotes. Then click “Find Now”. If you don’t find any files, that means that wsock32.dll isn’t the modified version. If you don’t have the modified WSOCK32.DLL, the virus has no way to attach to e-mails, even if you have SKA.EXE, SKA.DLL, and WSOCK32.SKA in the Windows System folder. If you have SKA.EXE in the RunOnce registry section, and you haven’t deleted SKA.EXE, then the virus will try to modify WSOCK32.DLL the next time you restart the computer.

Very Cool Mozilla Firefox Tricks

6/22/2009 09:28:00 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul – Opens another Firefox inside a tab in the the existing Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/preferences.xul - Opens the Options dialog box inside the Firefox tab.

chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksPanel.xul - Opens the “Bookmarks Manager” inside a tab in the Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/history/history-panel.xul – Opens the History Panel in the Firefox tab.

chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul?type=extensions - Opens the Extensions window in the current tab.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/cookies.xul – Opens the “cookies window” inside a tab in the Firefox window.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/sanitize.xul – Opens the “Clear Private Data” window inside the current tab.

chrome://browser/content/aboutDialog.xul – Opens the “About Firefox” Dialog box inside the tab.

chrome://browser/content/credits.xhtml – Opens a scrolling list of firefox contributors. The one’s who we must thank for creating Firefox

chrome://global/content/alerts/alert.xul - Dancing Firefox.