MS Security Essentials - first missed virus

So it appears MS Security Essentials is just as good as all the other antivirus products out there - a client came to me with "Windows XP Antivirus 2010" on her laptop - this is a virus (see end of this post), and Security Essentials completely missed it, this new variant is a killer, not even Combofix could remove it (that's why people hire us).

Why continue to use this AV product - well, this is about the same grade of service you would get from any other Antivirus product out there paid or free, with the exception that it does not feel like your PC is trying to pull a bull dozer. So why buy Norton Internet Security and slow your brand new super fast computer down like it was a 1979 Ford Pinto?? - when chances are high that some virus will still get past it

THERE IS NO 100% EFFECTIVE ANTIVIRUS!!!!

If I had to choose a paid product I think it would be NOD32 from Eset - although it seems to slow bootup time to about 3-4 minutes on a fast computer while it does its initial scan, after that its pretty much smooth sailing and almost as efficient (CPU wise) as MS Security Essentials.

If it resembles this in anyway - its a fake:

UPDATE: Found the source of the virus - a web site that shows videos of popular TV Series - it was attacking via an Active X control - avoid active X threats by using Opera (safest) or Firefox - havent heard of Opera - well there's tons of great products that dont have great marketing campaigns - they have actually been around longer than Firefox, and chances are if your mobile phone has a browser, it was built by Opera.

New eeeBox with HD

The new eeeBox from Asus is really packin some punch in a tight box - full 1080p HD playback, slot load DVD player and HDMI onboard, near silent running - this thing is a sleeper!

It's all because of Nvidia's new ION processor platform (based on Intels Atom), Nvidia has taken it one step further and integrated a high end graphics processor right into the southbridge chipset (a very new concept), which reduces the amount of components on the board, and reduces the overall power usage dramatically - this system uses 70% less power than todays typical PC (many of which are already low power). Less power = less heat = more processing potential.

No I dont have one yet, but I plan on getting an ION package in some form pretty soon.

Imagine your plasma slapped to the wall, and one of these guys slapped to the wall right next to it - what a duo!

Nice to know the president uses Aastra for his hotline to blow up the world

Just stumbled across this article (humor) - http://nose4news.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/obamas-daughter-almost-causes-armageddon/

Its interesting that the president's hotline to blow up the world is an Aastra IP phone, disappointing that its a measly 51i.

Google Voice treatin me bad today

Just had a few calls with severe jitter on goog voice today, looks like they are having some load issues.

Some router throughput reviews

Just picked a few popular routers to look over, some of the results are surprising and disappointing:

• Linksys WRT54G2
• Linksys WRT54GL
• Linksys RVS4000 Security Router
• Netgear FVS318G
• Sonicwall TZ190
• Smpl Route SR3L1W

It seems when I come into a clients small office and they say - ya I set it up, I hooked up the WRT54G2 - I say newer is not always better, looks like its only optimal at 8 simultaneous connections - although I doubt I would find an ISP with 70mbps throughput anytime soon, but it appears throughput problems start around 25 mbps. Quoted here:
"I did some additional investigation into the G2's simultaneous throughput problem and found that if I limit its data send rate to around 20 Mbps, I didn't see the throughput battle. But with a send limit of 25 Mbps, the problem reappeared."

It appears the WRT54GL is a pathetic example as well, completely dropping all communication at around 8-16 simultaneous connections - see the chart here. On a single download the GL appears to provide a very unstable 30-50mbps of through put.

Another sore looser from the bunch - Linksys (by Cisco) RVS4000 Gigabit Security Router with VPN, coming in at a blazzzing 14mbps max download (yes its gigabit) - its sad to say that this would not be sufficient for most cable modem connectons. But they call this a professional grade router - this is designed for the office?? - some smooth marketing pulled the wool over your eyes.

Netgear has some nice ones, but a popular one I often see is the FVS318G Gigabit VPN router. This guy can push about 22 mbps of raw throughput with about 200 max connections - not bad, not great.

And what about the resellers delight (Sonicwall loves a good reseller romance) - the TZ190, touted as a true enterprise product for the SMB, with 128mb of RAM, 16mb flash a 433mhz cpu and a dedicated VPN processor, it can provide a blazing 1.5 mbps of VPN throughput using 3DES. Such a deal at $1300 for the TZ190 with wifi, and annual support at $150 for basic and upwards of $800 (annually) if you get their full security suite (sweet reseller delight). Oh and the VPN is also another annual license cost - go figure, oh and not to mention if you need more than 1 office-2-office VPN - yes you need to upgrade to Enhanced OS, like routing packets with an elephant - bulky. Well their pure routing performance is about 25-26mbps of throughput - good for most cable modem connections (some max at around 30mbps).

Smpl Route's SMB SR3E1W router (by Simple Technologies), comes in at a blazing 88mbps of throughput with 2000 active connection states in the firewall. With a 500 mhz processor, 256mb RAM and anywhere from 1-8gb of flash it can provide 30-35mb of VPN throughput. With no annual fees, anything less than $1300 would make this thing a smokin deal compared to a Sonicwall. We size the hardware based on your feature requirements, why would a basic small office router be suited to do complete antivirus, website, and spam filtering - this is like hauling a choo-choo-train with your F350.

SBS 2008

While Small Business Server 2008 is really getting pushed hard these days, after dealing with it I would stay away as much as possible unless you know there is a feature there that your users would value greatly - just for the mere convenience of having new software is not a good excuse. SBS 2003 is still an excellent product, and will run on far less expensive hardware, and also allows an additional member server to add extra capacity - great for any small business from 2-40 users with outsourced IT. I know there are several great features in 2008, but some of my clients dont even use the features of 2003 - why push something that is going to cost more in hardware and maintenance in the long run (more importantly - try not to call me when its broke).

If you have full time in-house IT staff and a larger small biz (SBS has a 75 user limit) then moving forward with 2008 is probably in your best interest to minimize future upgrade needs.

We have visited server 2008, and have a few clients on SBS 2008, so I have been waste deep in it so far battling some issues that have thus far been no easy fix for myself or other MS experts that we have consulted with.

So just as a pointer my fellow "techies" that do dabble in the dark territory - the SBS2008 Newsgroup is an excellent resource (I know - ewww a newsgroup, but its web based also):

https://connect.microsoft.com/SBS08/community/discussion/richui/default.aspx
Open for viewing, register your Live ID (eww) to post.

And the SBS2008 repair guide:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sbs-2008-repair-guide(WS.10).aspx

Rant on Google and another reason why they just plain suck in laymans terms

Hail Google

Google has been like a blessing in so many ways - however not to be ungrateful but they have done some stuff that just plain sucks lately. Today (to pick out a point in time), they have removed FTP access to blogger articles (in case you didnt know Goog realized Blogger had a big audience and bought them up some time ago).

This may not be that big of a deal - but it was my "door out" - my plan was to FTP copy the blog to a blog on our new website when its done.

Blogger just plain sucks for an editor - adding images and other content is like jumping through the fiery hoops at the circus - if you dont do it right, just forget about it. It does not support linked video like so many other blog system do so simply. Formatting is kind of "at their mercy", you have a real hard time making paragraphs flow in a way that is easy to read.

If you try to edit in raw html (they think they are being so accommodating by giving you this option), blogger will reformat your html to best screw it up for your viewers.

I guess I missed the boat on the announcement (as a blogger customer you would think they would email me directly), last week they completely removed the FTP option from the control panel. There is a nifty export feature - oh so cool - it exports your blog to an xml file - doh! wheres all my pictures - oh, well those are conveniently left linked to the blogger image links in the xml file. How about all the links - well we ruined any links you put in your articles by not spacing them correctly in the xml file.

Their excuse was that FTP just took up too many management resources they just realized this after over 10 years of Blogging and 10+ million users - isnt this a design flaw you would notice in the first 2-3 years / 1 million subscribers?

This doesnt even get into their buyout of Gizmo5 which is burning me at the moment.