PS3 Device ID Key Generator

We all know that the PS3 is now broken into and the Master is know. Here is a small program which uses the Master Key and with a given Device ID (0x????), will generator the Device ID Key.

This is the linux version, so just untar zxvf to extract and run the ELF binary.
http://www.fileserve.com/file/E7Ek2nK

If you like the Fileserve service, you can sign up via:
SignUp

Uninstall Apple Crapware

At some point of time, I must be mad to install that Apple iTunes which is 300MB... Then I decided to remove it. And the crap it left haunts me till today. Every so and then, Apply Software Update still pops up, trying to connect to the Internet which my firewall had blocked. Why is there still Apple Update when Quicktime, iTunes and all other crap from Apple had been removed? Are they sending some information to Apple or downloading some adware to my PC. Its up to your imagination. To me, it is a total nuisance.

It does not pops up all the time shows that it is a scheduled task. Opening Scheduler will reveal a whole tab for Apple. Well, its simple enough to disable it here. But for my case, I want it out and clean from my PC. So, you should go look at the Program Features and locate the 2 Apple crapware. Use the search with "Apple" and you will find it. One of them is the Apple Software Update obviously and other Apple Support . Both should go to trash immediate (without passing recycled bin or collecting $100). 

Some more unfortunate people I heard had problem removing them because the uninstallation of Apple iTunes or Quicktime had screwed up and left the installation in a unclean state. In that case, we can always try Microsoft Windows Installer Cleanup at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

You should double check on your Scheduler to see if the Apple task had been removed. 

Autocomplete in Windows 7

It is sometimes so often that we forgotten the good stuff in Windows 7. UNTIL some other application decided to cripple it. Among those are the antivirus and the privacy tools. One of the very useful feature, well at least for a home PC, is the autocomplete. It certainly save time and typing to locate files and avoid typos.

Recently, I had one of my machine locked down to the state that this feature is actually gone. You won't miss it until you no longer have it. So poking around, I found a solution to re-enable it.

Simply open regedit (UAC prompt) and do this:

1. Goto HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > AutoComplete
2. On the right, you will see 2 obvious options. But here is the explanation anyway...

• Append Completion set to “yes” will automatically append or complete the file name as you type, if there is a file that match.
• AutoSuggest set to “yes” will automatically suggest a list of files in the folder that match what you had typed so far in Save As Dialog box.

Simple enable one or both of the option to turn Autocomplete back on.

Gatchman 2011 New Trailer

Gatchaman Movie
Uploaded by teasertrailer. - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

One Night In Tampines

Yesterday, I went to Tampines, which I had not been to for quite a while. There were many changes that I did not know...

Firstly, my favorite beef noodle is not cooked by different aunties. I used to be able to get lots of beanstalk in an extra bowl of soup, but obviously the aunties cooking now are different and it is just the normal stuff. Not that it is not nice or anything, just nothing special. I did not try the prata there which I used to because I was quite full after the beef noodle and there were lots of people queuing for the prata. It looks like they made it big now.

I knew that Popeye Chicken is there in Century Square, but now even Texas Chicken had opened in Tampines Mall. This is something new to me. Looks like there is going to be competition. OF course, along the way, I had to get through a crowd with the 3 Pokemon stuff life size mascot. There were cute, but I did not have a camera to capture that moment. I took a quick visit to the Pet Lover Center in the basement and it had grow larger in space or at least they organize stocks in a much better way. I enjoyed my short stay, but did not buy anything because I could not find a suitable bath sand for Onee. However, I did saw quite some pudding for sale now. Looks like there are a big quantity of them now. I wonder if it would be the same in PetStation.

I tried to go to Old Chang Kee to see if they have my favorite Yam K8 snack, but if had already been sold out by the time I got there. I remember I need some of those microwave container and I managed to find them at Cold Storage. However, I guess I was unlucky to be on a queue with a trainee cashier. There were problem with a previous customer as there is no barcode and price. Then she had problem sweeping my card. Well, lesson learn, you cannot sweep it too fast. In any case, I finally got my stuff and made quite a few enemes behind me.

I proceed to PetStation in Tampines One and sure enough, quite some pudding and winter white. They were cute of course. I took a quick look as time was critical and managed to buy the Delikate Snow White Sand. I can't wait to give some to Onee this weekend. Also, I pick up a packet of Delikate snack since I do not see them often outside. I hope he love it since I had not given him soft and sweet snack for a while.

On my way back, I saw TS playing Detective Dee and the Mysterious Flame in Cantonese... Oh man, I wished I had waited. But it is a great show. I went to the "hidden" food court there and pick up a pack of prawn noodle to pack back home. Of course, my sister took some of it. Poor thing to have wisdom tooth extraction. I already went through that luckily.

Ship from US and UK to Anywhere

So Amazon won't ship to you or some sites simply doesn't send stuff to your location. Well, that worry is over, at least for US and UK. If they ship there, then you can get your item via this mail forwarding service.

http://www.thechicfashionista.com/mail-forwarding-service.html

How good is it? I don't know yet. And I am also not encouraging you to ship illegal stuff since its illegal, its illegal anyway you ship it. Full stop. But maybe this will help you save some hair tearing woes for your Xmas shopping. Now, you do realized that Playboy just recently release a pretty good looking HDD...

http://www.playboyarchive.com/shop/HardDrive.htm

Facebook Disaster

This is probably old news, but I just needed to show somebody so here it is...

Alternative Route of Getting Home

Ya, for a while, maybe I should stop blogging tech. Anyway, I used what I learned from a recent class and ask myself some questions about how I used to get home. Actually I had tried pretty much all possible routes. OK, wrong assumption again, its more like pretty lots of routes.

Here are some of them:
1. Take company bus (Additional $0.80) to HarbourFront. The bus is fast as it is direct, non-stop. But it starts to jam at Pasir Panjang sometimes and by the time I reach HF MRT, its already 30 minutes gone. Then I have to take MRT to Outram Park and change another MRT to Bedok.
2. Same as above, but instead of company bus, take a public transport. But I will have to walk down a long flight of stairs and it is not the greatest idea in the thunderstorm as there are huge tall tree along this area. On the plus side, I save a bit on $$ because of the rebates.
3. Same as aboves, but instead of changing MRT at Outram, I change at Dohby Ghaut to Circle Line and change again at Paya Lebar to Bedok. I will probably get to sit a bit on this because Dohby Ghaut is the first stop on Circle Line. The down side is a lot of changing of train and of course a lot of waiting for train.
4. Another way is by bus only. I can try to take 30e Express which is about 20 minutes each. It takes about 55 minutes to reach Bedok. That is provided it doesn't get stuck in a jam on ECP. Which usually does if I am late.
5. Another yet even more stupid method is to take the normal 30 bus. Being non-express means more stop, the driver will drive slower etc. Take a long time to reach home. Only good point, I get to sleep all the way. If lucky, I can catch another 1.5 hrs of sleep. But do you really want to sleep on the bus, especially after work?
6. There are other routes to go further west, for example to Bukit Batok and then the super fast 506 Express... The cost and time is probably not worth it.'

I did not tried one of the methods which involve taking bus 200 to Buona Vista MRT. Well, that totally slip my mind and I always thought since Buona Vista is 5 stop further west than Outram Park, it will never be possible to be faster. I was wrong. And I question myself : why not? So I tried. And bus 200 is a super long wait if you missed it, but if you do catch it, the whole journey from 300 at LPxx (LampPost?) to my front door takes only about 1 hour.

Yes, that is amazing and all it takes was to ask myself : Why not? Just because I took a bus to a stop further West, does not mean I would reach my place later in the East. The secret is because of the jam. Taking 200 avoids all that and it is just a few stops to Buona Vista. Further more, I will no longer need to even change any train once I get on to Buona Vista. That save times. Both walking and waiting.

So, moral of the story. Ask youself : Why NOT? And try it. Hopefully you will find a better solution than me.

BackTrack 4 R2 is released

BackTrack 4 R2 had been out for a week. I heard good news and great review of it. For those who do not know what BackTrack is, basically its THE distro to load when you are doing hacking, penetration test etc using Linux tools such as Metasploit etc.

Its 2GB in size for both favors of ISO or VMWare. VMWare had some shortcoming in Wifi testing obviously...

Grab it:
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/

義海豪情 (電視劇 "巾幗梟雄之義海豪情" 主題曲) ~ 古巨基

古巨基 - 義海豪情 (電視劇 "巾幗梟雄之義海豪情" 主題曲) 







作曲：鄧智偉／葉肇中
填詞：陳詩慧
編曲：Johnny Yim
監製：鄧智偉

未懼身上被子彈留痕　維護妳我卻甘於捨身
站在風浪下對抗黑暗　而為妳　是毫無疑問

烈火熊熊升起　圍牆徐徐倒地
嗅著漫遍夜空血鏽味
蝴蝶長埋土地　情愫長留於天地
亂世中煙火　摧毀不了傳奇

漫天的炮火混亂地湧起　處身危城可不理
為只要捍衛　驚恐的妳　就是未怕死

*
未懼身上被子彈留痕　維護妳我卻甘於捨身
就讓天下在見證足印　誰為愛活過而無憾
*
漫天的炮火混亂地湧起　染污無瑕的手臂
在這裡抱著　驚恐的妳　就是未怕死

Repeat*
遇著苦難亦堅守同盟　情義不會淡　即使地陷
就讓天下在見證足印　誰為愛活過而無憾

Drive Extender Technology will be gone for newer Microsoft Server OS

And you read right... And we all thought that was what brought WHS to its heights. And *poof* its gone. That includes the upcoming "Vail" aka WHS : The Next Generation.

Read about this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20101125/tc_zd/257392?

Adobe Reader X Finally With a Sandbox But Turn OFF Your Antivirus???

Adobe had tried pretty hard to improve their security image with the new Adobe Reader X (now with kinda sandbox). But take a look at this...

Its a bit small, but the line highlighted in yellows says "You may have to temporarily disable your antivirus software". Suddenly I feel so safe... Don't you? Why would a software like Adobe Reader requires the user to turn off their Antivirus? This is only typical for installation of malwares! 

Ted Bear ~ Cyanide and Happiness

This is a very funny animation from Cyanide and Happiness.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Manual Update of Flash

As much as Flash is very vulnerable, we probably still needs it around for a while. But that doesn't mean that there is nothing we can do about it. At least, we can update it regularly to ensure we have a updated copy.

However, the update process often fails due to network, firewall, proxies etc And it becomes very frustrating to keep doing it over and over again especially in IE where the download manager is some kind of ActiveX. But there is a easier way, and you wonder why Adobe wants to complicates a simple solution.

Download Flash manually from the following URL and run it for update.
Firefox:
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe

Internet Explore:
http://www.macromedia.com/go/full_flashplayer_win_ie

And if you need for whatever reason, the Uninstaller:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player.exe

Trend Micro Titanium Internet Suite 2011 1 Year Trial

Yes, there exist a 1 year trial by courtesy of some China promotion. Simply grab the file from:

32 and 64 bits:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/VmmZzUT

32 bits only
http://www.fileserve.com/file/VmmZzUT

The catch is that the interface is in Chinese though. If you want interested to change the interface to other languages, do this:

Right click tray icon. Exit (Last option).
Open UIProfile.cfg from\Trend Micro\UniClient\UiFrmwrk\

Patch : Line 75, 85
"ZH-CN" -->  "EN-US"

PSP 5.50 Prometheus 3 v2

This had been released for a while and I had tested it with a PSP Slim. With no new firmware, sticking to 5.50 will means you cannot play many games which requires 6.x firmware. This is where the Prometheus patch comes in. It enable the 5.50 Firmware to run 6.x required games.


Prometheus 3 v2 fixes some bug with the XMB return. Just copy my archive to the root of your PSP memory stick and execute the patch from XMB. You most likely needs a reboot.

Grab it from:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/8EPmXeh

A brief history of XCP and Sony / BMG DRM Rootkit

I found an article which details the whole incident from the start:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/20244

That turns out to be a pretty good read and therefore I am recommending you go take a look and understand what the big fuss it was all about and why we should not allow companies like Sony install rootkit on our PC.

Most classic quote:

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" Sony BMG's Hesse

Format FAT32 on big partition

Ever wanted to format a huge FDD like 500GB in FAT32.. for whatever reason. It is not that it is not supported, but the support gets complicated. Windows introduced FAT32ex, but some device like Playstation 3 for example will not recgonize this.

So, I have found this file from a Japanese site that does the trick. Format any partition as the vanilla favor FAT32. Grab it via:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/uqEVsEx

Yet another Thunderbird and Firefox Update

Within days of the previous updates, the 2 Mozilla applications are now at:

• Thunderbird v3.1.6
• Firefox v3.6.12

I guess we can say this is an excellent example of instant patching or simply a case of bad QA test for patches and need to re-patch. I feel it is likely the second case. But look at the case WHY Firefox is patch...

It is a CRITICAL security issue that allows remote code execution. 

Now, I think many people will understand the reason why I banned Firefox for home use.

Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Released

The next Ubuntu had been silently released with no big party. Now it is available for download via:

http://se.releases.ubuntu.com//10.10/

There are many favors available as usual, but do not forget to download the Alternative version if you need to upgrade from an older version of Ubuntu.

Firefox and Thunderbird Update

There is yet another update from Firefox and Thunderbird silently being released. I did not get a update prompt on both the applications. That bring their versions up to :

• Thunderbird 3.1.5
• Firefox 3.6.11

Honestly, I had lost faith in these applications. I had already made decision to ban them from my home network because of security issues. It is just not sustainable to keep manually updating them and the windows between release and actual updating can be quite large because now I do not even get a proper prompt to update. The only worries will be having Firefox on the server... That is a real issue because I do not think people will wake up middle of the night to upgrade your server... So that gives at least 12 hours or so. 

Why can't Firefox just do a force upgrade like Chrome?

PS3 JAilbreak won't last unless 3.50 is broken

We all know that PS3 had been jailbroken, giving it access to run 3rd party applications and, of course, bootleg games. However, Sony had now mandated that all games release after 1 Oct 2010 to only use firmware above 3.50. What this means is that if you stick to the 3.41 JB firmware, you simply can't play all the new games.

The way I see it, 3.50 may patch the bug, but hackers can probably work towards restoring the bug back into a custom 3.50 firmware. Something along the Wii Trucha Bug restorer. We all know that the 3.50 firmware can be download and there is already a firmware uploader, although there is no custom firmware. What is required to break the PS3 is a custom firmware. I can only wish there are people like DA working on the PS3.

And lastly, even though if JB is to work, I seriously do not see piracy as a big issue. Imagine downloading 50GB for 1 game. I wont mind spending the $80 to buy it, finish it within a week, then sell if off at $60. The size for a Bluray game simply does not meet the quota for PS3 games to be pirated widely. Moreover, just imagine the face on the downloader if the 50GB actually did not work. I am sure Sony will LTFOL.

But I do support the JB. Simply because it opens up the full potential of the PS3. Imagine applications like Instant Messagers, BT Clients, EBooks Readers or even sims like Hobo. All these CAN be possible only if PS3 is jailbroken because nobody will buy and I don't think Sony will license such applications.

All I can see, go for it. Break 3.50 and make my day.

匿名遊戲 / Short Film "INTOXICANT" (ENG sub)

This is a short film about hacking, BBS etc... Probably meaningless to other people who do not know what is going on...

Saving Private Hard Disk

Today I am going to talk about something which gives us nightmares. Yes, even with the most sophisticated preparation, it is still bound to happen sooner or later - Hard Disk Failure. Let start this a few weeks back. While slipstreaming a XP Disc, I found that my hard disk was particularly slow. In fact, it even stalled at some point. I know I had a WD Green HDD which is not really state of the art in terms of speed, but I should not be expecting the HDD to stall anyway.

So, I check my SMART statistic via my Hard Disk Sentinel. While this program doesn't fix anything, it does tell you what happened on your HDD on the hardware level. In this case, I see a huge number of bad clusters detected and there had been a lot of relocation as a results. This is a good tell tale sign the HDD is going to fail or at least you will lose data if you do nothing about it.

If you are interested in getting Hard Disk Sentinel, it can be purchased here:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

Now, I am going to talk about 2 tools which I have in mind. They are :

1. Spinrite 6 ( http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm )
2. HDD Regenerator 1.7.1 ( http://www.dposoft.net/ )

Spinrit 6 is the latest version, but for HDD Regenerator, there is a 2011 version which actually works in Windows. Since I did not have that, I have to fall back to the good old DOS version 1.7.1. The main differences for these programs are as follows:

1. Spinrite can process ONLY your data area and leave those empty spaces alone. This is good enough if you want to recover the data and go RMA / Exchange the HDD.
2. HDD Regenerator processes ALL of the HDD area including empty spaces. This is good if you plan to KEEP the HDD since checking the empty space will preempt any possible failure in the future in those area.

I prepared for the worst and go for option 2 anyway although it took much much more time. Also considering that HDD Regenerator saved my ass once in:

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2006/12/hd-regenerator-vs-spinrite.html

HDD Regenrator will take a considerable time, but here is where paying for a Raptor pays out. The RAW speed of your HDD is what counts here. It is also rare that HDD Regenrator cannot read out and relocated the data unless the HDD is really gone BAD in a very bad way. In which case, you should savage whatever you have and RMA the HDD. 

Needless to say, the HDD was saved, and the bad cluster counted also return to normal as checked in SMART. It could be just magnetic retention problem. But I guess I was lucky. But in this case, maybe using Spinrite would had saved me some time. 

I would know many readers will think that it is really expensive considering they cost about USD$80-100 raw. And I also know that there are many so called "cracked" editions of these software floating around. You know that I do not encourage piracy and I won't here. Think about this. It is your data which matters. Will you trust a "cracked" version of the program which may have a chance that it is damaged or even worsed trojanized. Instead of saving your data, it can corrupts it or send it out somewhere. I think I will not take the risk even if it is slim. When it comes to data, I will deem it as priceless, so USD$100 is nothing compared to it. Well, if you really want to be cheap about it, you can share it with a friend or even better, buy a different one each so that you can compare. 

These tools are life saver when shit happens. And all we can hope is that day does come (too often).

Custom Firmware 5.50 Prometheus-2 for PSP-2000 and PSP-1000

If you had been following my PSP update, it is finally time to put in a new firmware to support those games that requires 6.30+  firmware. In any case, you will need to have 5.50 Gen-D3 in order to upgrade to this firmware.

You scan grab 5.50 Gen-D3 from here:
http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2010/01/psp-firmware-550-gen-d3-final.html

Grab 5.50 Prometheus 2 upgrade here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?f4oy2dn4vq4vc

Skyfire 1.x Sucks, but so does 2.x

Skyfire is a browser. See the site above, there is 2 things to note. Officially,
http://www.skyfire.com/focus-geography-and-skyfire-1-0/

1. Skyfire 1.x does not run on other regions except north USA and western Europe, which about leaves the whole world out...
2. Skyfire 2.x is only for Android.

This almost sound like a conspiracy. Suppose Google sponsored this and wants to force everyone into using Android, this certainly fits the bill. While Skyfire has its glorious days, I think with this move, it will begin its path into the history just like Netscape... By forcing people into a certain OS is definitely the way to do this. That leaves out the Symbian, windows mobile and AppleOS users, which I dare say takes the majority of the market.

Anyway, I was at first keen to look out for a way to hack out of this using 1.x on my wm6.5, but why not just let it go... After all, there are plenty of choices for the wm6.5 users from IE, Opera to the infamous porn browsers. Skyfire is a good to have, but not dying to have. 

And why doesn't Skyfire support area such as china, japan or eastern Europe? It sound like a lazy way to say "Sorry, English only". If they leave these region out, they can heck away with the language support. This does sound logical?

BTW, if you are on Android, do you really want to use Skyfire? 

USB Loader GX Black Screen on All Games

I had recently did my first virgin softmod on Wii. I might blog about that in details later, but one thing I came across which I think is worth sharing is the problem of black screen on loading games from HDD using USB Loader GX.

I had checked many forums and also nothing really work. But I managed to solve it. So here it is. Before you go further, ensure the following:

1. Your Wii is properly softmodded. All steps works according to whichever guide you followed.
2. Your HDD is using WBFS file system.

I know many will disagree with point 2. But that exactly what happened to me. I was told NTFS works. So I copied a few games onto my NTFS drive using Wii Manager. Black screen. What I eventually did was to format it as WBFS. Load games using the WBFS Manager 3.01. Tada! Works like a charm.

I hope this is useful for you.

A Dangerous Bus Ride

I notice this will never occurs to anyone when they step up the bus: This could very well be your last ride!
Well, I am not trapped on the Philippines bus, but it was a close call anyway. This was what happened:

I was on a typical bus ride on 5xx which passes through many freeway to reach my destination. It was suppose to be a fast ride since its the bus usually travels quickly on the freeway. However, I failed to realized this because I was reading. The bus was, in fact, travelling quite slowly and was doing zig-zag movement like a snake. I suddenly realized this and I took a look at the driver through the back-view mirror. It was a sight of horror! The lady driver's eyes was a thin slit of white. I could even see her purple! It was as if she was a zombie who just step out of some horror movie!

Now, we all know what actually happens. Hot afternoon. Cool air conditioning. Riding fast on the freeway. Its a good time to doze off. And that's precisely what I thought I saw. My mind raced quickly. OK, I grab my phone and SMS J. I was just worried that this will be my last SMS, so I better make it count. After the SMS, and realized I am still alive. I move myself to the "safest" seat I could get to, just in case of a crash. I do not want to be near the side windows or being throw out of the bus.

Now its time to act. I could wake up the driver and give her a good scolding, but knowing how people in this city acts, I pretty much am sure that she will deny everything. Of course, I also did not want to wait until the buss crash and maybe flip a few turns to prove her wrong. I look around to see if there was anyone else who might help me. No luck. Opposite me was a mother and his son sleeping on her lap. And behind us, almost everyone else was asleep. So, I guess its me. If I did not have to risk walking to the bus driver, which if an accident does occurs before I reach her, I am sure my fatality rates shoots up be a few hundred percent.

The buzzer. That could work. Even when I look stupid to press the bell on the highway (And I did not want to alight anyway). Actually this was quite a good idea. But instead, I thought of a better one. I just flip my phone out and blasted it with some MP3. That should be enough to wake her up. Of course, I do realized that I cannot do it so suddenly that it give her a shock and swing the bus 180 degree around.

In any case, I was lucky. She regain control and exited the bus from the freeway. Because it will be all slow and traffic lights, she had to kinda wake up. I sweat I almost felt as if I survived a plane crash or something. The rest of it is nothing special. But I just wonder how many people actually realized how close they were to the final gate in that journey. But I remind myself that I should watch the driver before I decide to sleep on these journey.

Hacked my HDB Lift

For most lift out there, there should be some way to cancel a command (floor button). Some of them uses double press, other just hold and it will cancel that button. But the current HDB Lift I have from EM (I think) took me a while to figure out. Basically, in the end, it is just a simple press and hold any 3 buttons and all commands are cancelled.

Well, some of you will tell me to go RTFM. IF only the manual is that easy to find. :)
Anyway, if your HDB Lift is the new generation one, this may also work for you. Don't need to endure those empty floors if you make a mistake and press the wrong one or some bloody kid press all the buttons.

Triceratops is actually baby Torosaurus!

Rather sad that one of my favorite dinosaur never really exist ( as a distinct species ). Triceratops was in fact the baby version of another dinosaur called Torosaurus. Well don't be too disappointed yet, Torosaurus actually looked pretty much like Triceratops.

Read more about it:
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=6950

Alisan Express is finally fucked!

Its not that I have no faith in the old man up there, but divine retribution is simply taking far too long...
If you recalled, Alisan had really pissed me off in a previous holiday when I blogged in:

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2010/02/xmas-getaway-09-epilode-really.html

Now it is about fucking time they close shop, but not in a good way. Apparently, the boss had ran back to Malaysia with all the customer's money leaving them with no coach, no money and a wreaked holiday. Totall sucks, man.

Details:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1074007/1/.html

I hope they get the bastard for it. See, thats why I do not believe in divine retribution.

CVE 2010-2568 is finally patched

This is the LNK vulnerability or aka MS10-046. Full information:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS10-046.mspx

Basically, the vulnerability only requires the user to render the icon of a specially created LNK file. This file will point to a DLL on local / remote or possibly over internet via WebDAV. As far as exploitation is concerned, I find that the follow is possible:

• Embedded in Real-media files. This opens up possibility that it can be done in Quicktime, AVI as well if they uses the same vulnerable routine.
• Embedded in Microsoft Office documents of a certain variants.
• Deployed on USB device. Well, unless the user do not open USB device using Explorer, but let's say, DOS prompt.
• Transmitted over email in certain email clients. This has not been tested. Just a theory. If this is possible, it will be disastrous.
• I tried 7zip and WinRAR. Not possible. Likely they uses the standard Load Resource instead of the vulnerable routine. However, there are hundreds of unpacker out there. Who knows, maybe one of them gets it.
• Any other way you can think of to get the user to render the icon.

Of course, I will not reveal how it will be done for security reasons.

Well, what are you waiting for, go activate your Windows Update and get it patched. BTW, if I do not recall wrongly, WinXP SP2 will not get this patch. If this is the case, ALL the Windows XP SP2 and below are sitting ducks out there, just askinig to be hacked times after times.

Many new updates

There is a bunch of updates for free software this week.

Firefox has been updated to v3.6.7. There are 14 vulnerabilities patched:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6.7/releasenotes/

Thunderbird has been updated to v3.1.1. See changes:
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/3.1.1/releasenotes/

And Truecrypt v7.0 is released. See updates:
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=version-history

I guess thats a whole lot to download and patch this week.

The Official Home Kong Tour Promotion Video

Tell Me Now (What You See) King Arthur 2004 SoundTrack ~ Moya Brennan

Long Ago,
Your name a shadow,
In my dreams, the white,
Brave still searching,
Raining Winds, fall apart.
I believe, your heart.

Tell me now,
What you see.
Tell me what you feel,
Now you're here.

Tell me.
Tell me now,
What you know.
Never let me go.
Tell me now,
What you see.

Who Cries from the hill?
The mist creeps from your eyes,
Your banner will promise,
Let's remember the start,
I believe, your heart.

Tell me now,
What you know.
Never let me go.
Tell me what,
You see.
Tell me now,
What you see.
Tell me what you feel,
Now your here, tell me,
Tell me now.
What you know,
Never let me go.
Tell me now,

Long Ago,
Your name a shadow,
In my dreams, the white,
Brave still searching,
Raining Winds, fall apart.
I believe, your heart.

Tell me now,
What you see.
Tell me what you feel,
Now you're here.
Tell me.
Tell me now,
What you know.
Never let me go.
Tell me now,
What you see.

Who Cries from the hill?
The mist creeps from your eyes,
Your banner will promise,
Let's remember the start,
I believe, your heart.

Tell me now,
What you know.
Never let me go.
Tell me what,
You see.
Tell me now,
What you see.
Tell me what you feel,
Now your here, tell me,
Tell me now.
What you know,
Never let me go.
Tell me now,
What you see.
What you see.

Windows XP SP2 End of Life on 13th July 2010

It had been a long 6 years and XP SP2 can be said as one of the longest lasting OS from Microsoft. But still even today, many will still clinge on to SP2. What actually happens when Microsoft says it is end of life for support?

Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?alpha=Windows+XP

Basically, you will not get patches anymore from Microsoft that support Windows XP SP2 32 Bits specificly as well as its other component including media player, IE, Outlook Express etc. Wait, you will notice that I mention 32 Bits, that is because 64 bits is still support as there is no such thing as SP3 for 64 Bits.

Some people may decide to hang on for whatever reasons, claiming that if they drop IE and uses Firefox, Outlook Express for Thunderbird and WMP for VLC, they will still continue to get updates. True. But do not forget that some components are still presents, especially those of IE, which arguablely is part of the OS.

Why not simply live a better life and have some peaceful sleep by upgrading to Windows XP SP3? Or even better to Windows 7? Let me know the reason if you happen to be one of those who still need to hang on with XP SP2...

Citibank forces clients to use older (vulnerable) version of Java Runtime (JRE)

Source :

http://packetstormsecurity.org/1007-advisories/citibank-java.txt

Basically in short, Citibank forces their client to use a vulnerable JRE because only that version is compatible with their application. No wonder Citibank is always on the frontpage getting hacked for at least a few times per year. Why doesn't Citibank upgrade their application? Lazy programmers? No budget? To pentest it (again) is too expensive?

Well, its all up to guesses, but seriously, to protect yourself, it is extremely important to uninstall all older version of JRE (btw, in case you did not know, upgrading doesn't really remove the older version in some cases - flagged as vulnerability in 07) so that application such as the above will not work (without telling you).

Also, as a side note, there is also a simply utility called JavaRa to remove older version of JRE:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javara/

ALZIP 8 and its time to say good bye to another junkware

While ALZip looks cute, there is absolutely nothing that freeware like &-zip cannot do except the special ALZ format, which is in no way faster ot compress better as compare to other formats. The other possible reason you may want to use this may be the cute icons.

So, it finally upgraded to v8.0 and suddenly my license is no longer valid. Naturally I will not pay another $30 for this crap since 7-zip (which is free) does all the same and I had actually never encounter another ALZ files since then.

So, it time to say goodbye and uninstall another piece of software which is basically wasting space and slowing down my PC in the right click context menu. Moreover, it did not really work well,. Often I get files extracted to the wrong places and all over the places actually when there are nested directories. Well, but thats my opinion, you can still give it a shot and buy it if you like.

Stealing information via USB devices

I know it had been known for a long time. But does anyone cares? You should. That innocent looking China-made hello kitty cup warmer or the free thumbdrive from some company in Blackhat. Are they really as innocent as they look? How can you be sure that those are not just means to obtain information by other entities?

In short, devices can "mimic" any other devices by coding in the ID into ttheir chip while in fact they are totally not that device and can be performing other functions such as storing keystrokes or send out files to nearby wifi devices etc. Its all up to the maker to create.

Read about it at:
http://gizmodo.com/5578183/usb-coffee+cup-warmer-could-be-stealing-your-data

D-Link from Starhub will NEVER fix the HNAP vulnerability?

Earlier this year in Jan, SourceSec Security Research published a exploit which in fact is just a SOAP packet which allow users to set admin passwords (in the LAN, unless someone finds a way to use HNAP over WAN) on some of the routers. I have reasons to believe in fact it is all routers supporting HNAP.

The details:
http://www.sourcesec.com/tag/hnap/

D-Link replied and stated somethings which I think was stupid such as it can only be exploited with the software (which I see is nothing more than injecting a SOAP packet because there is no authentication). I believe anyone with some SOAP knowledge is able to just send the packet over or simply run the bash scripts available on the website.

The argument about which firmware is probably some overlook by the security researcher, but D-Link should spend more time checking which are the affected firmware instead of check out which of the listed firmware did not exist!

BUT, this is the best part. Singapore telco Starhub has some promotion for their users to get D-Link products (for free I guess) and D-Link has even created a special page for Starhub users.

Here is the "Download" page for the Starhub equipment on D-Link:
http://www.dlink.com.sg/Starhub/downloads.asp

The best part is, look at those firmware. They are ancient! The link still works though, but it seems like this page is totally forgotten and they will probably not update it any further. What this means is that all Starhub users who follows this link will believe that this is the latest firmware available for their routers. And take for example DIR-655. The vulnerability is only fixed in 1.33NA which has the following update notes:

¤ Fixed: Correct HNAP issue.
¤ Fixed: DNS relay issue ( WAN Slowdown )
¤ Added: Advanced DNS descriptions

And we still have 1.11 on the Starhub page. To add some damage to this, 1.33NA is essentially for North America. I had tried looking for 1.33WW (world Wide) and this only thing that came close is from the Russia FTP which may very well end up giving you a Russian web interface (unconfirmed).

Has D-Link forsaken the rest of the world on DIR-655? Well share your thoughts here in the comments.

Disciples 3 Renaissance Gameplay

It is finally released and available for purchase. Hope they dun screw it up like the HOMM series.

Gundam 30th Anniversary Special MTV 高達30週年紀念_MTV

Reverse...

There is a reason why sometimes you need to press the horn (loudly). And this is one of them:

心竅 -《蒲松齡》主題曲 ~ 馬浚偉

《蒲松齡》主題曲：心竅-馬浚偉

作曲 鄧智偉
填詞 張美賢
編曲 Johnny Yim
監製 鄧智偉

迷惑太多 能望見太多 明白太少
預計長夜深 終於天曉
暗黑的心 才最叵測 難料

雲象太多　而道理太多　提示太少
直到長夜深　星光普照
聽風的笑　能盡世間　奇妙

如夢初醒　無言才動聽心的呼叫
鏡中緣　霧裡花　在美好　從未需要
如夢不醒　芒然流淚過荒島身照
愛很長　夜再深　還有破曉

迷惑太多　能望見太多　明白太少
預計長夜深　終於天曉
暗黑的心　才最叵測　難料

同伴太多 沿路過太多 留下太少
別算人或妖 鬼影 心竅
有酒今宵 讓最困擾 忘掉

如夢初醒 明明還在笑怎麼哭了
鏡中緣 霧裡花 最假的 才越心跳
如夢不醒 明明流淚了怎麼失笑
怨很長 恨太多 唯愛太少

Onee and his house

Onee is not much of a home maker and actually make a mess of it. Well, this one is taken BEFORE he messes it up.

Onee loves Grasshopper

Onee simply loves grasshopper. Here is the proof:

Flash Flood in Orchard Road

Zebraman 2 - Zebra City's Counter Attack Released in Tokyo

Its been like 6 years since we had Zebraman in 2004. It is a funny comedy directed by Takeshi Miike. Here is the trailer if you had missed it:



And now, in 2010, we finally get a sequel. Here is the Zebraman 2 Trailer:

13 Assassins (2010)

This is a remake I will look forward to, especially since it is directed by Takeshi Miike.

How to install Nessus on Backtrack 4

Things has not changed much in the previous versions, of both BackTrack (except it's now Ubuntu) and Nessus. However, it is always good to post something here so that I can refer back to it when I need to.

What you will need is to Download Nessus via:
http://www.nessus.org/download/

The version I get now is 4.2.2. You probably want the GUI as well, which I am not very sure if it is still supported since the version is still at 4.0.2:
http://www.nessus.org/download/index.php?product=NessusClient

In your BackTrack, open a command prompt (or shell) and run:
dpkg -i
for both the Server and the Client (if you want the GUI).

For Nessus Server, the following steps are required:

1. 1. Make the certificates
   
   

   /opt/nessus/sbin/nessus-mkcert

2. Register the scanner in order to download update
   

   /opt/nessus/bin/nessus-fetch –register XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

   Nessus will fetch the update once it finish register. Btw, I presumed you know how this works, if not, you can refer to: http://www.nessus.org/register/

3. Create a Nessus User
   

   
   /opt/nessus/sbin/nessus-adduser
   
   

4. Start Nessus Server
   

   
   /etc/init.d/nessusd start
   
   

5. Start Nessus Client
   
   

   Backtrack -> Internet -> NessusClient or from CLI: /opt/nessus/bin/NessusClient

That's all to it.

Apple refuses to fix Safari on OSX even after it had been fixed for 2 years on Windows

Source:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/052510-two-years-later-apple-still.html?source=nww_rss

Still remember the carpet bombing attack on Safari? Well, it is still not fix on OSX simply because Apple did not find a way to exploit it. Bottom line, the file is saved automatically on OSX in the download directory, but it is still not yet possible to exploit it (yet).

Guess this will be a ticking timebomb. As soon as a remote binary execution exploit is found for OSX. That will either be the day some guy get famous because of this combine attack or the day that many Mac get compromised.

Well, remember that you heard this first from me. And do not come banging my wall when it happen. It ISNT me!

Power Supply Calculator

Asus has a Power Calculator that never seem to work for me:
http://support.asus.com/PowerSupplyCalculator/PowerSupplyCalculator_right.aspx

It is probably designed for a very old version of IE or something.
But what I want to introduce is this:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

This page has a good inventory to take into consideration all type of CPU, Graphics card etc. It is always good to calculate how much you need before you go ahead to buy your PSU.

IBM free thumbdrive comes free with malware!

Yes, the title says what happened, except it is not ONE, but TWO malware which were detectable since 2007.

IBM security. What do you think of them now?

Read about it:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/052110-ibm-red-faced-after-handing-out.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_security_2010-05-24

8 Steps to remove a generic malware

Here is a link to an article which shows 8 basic steps on the removal of a malware.
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic58138.html

I guess it is good to have it printed out in case of a rainy day.

Metasploit 3.4.0 Released

After the long wait, Metasploit 3.4.0 is finally released as final. However, if you had been on the trunk branch, you will be able to get 3.4.1-dev by now via svn.

Changes in Metasploit 3.3 to 3.4:
http://www.metasploit.com/redmine/projects/framework/wiki/Release_Notes_34

IE 6 Must Die!

Yes, IE6 is way expired, sour and smells funny by now, but suckers (aka banks) still love it. Why? Because they have developer who can only develop applications that only works in IE6. When challenged , they will bring out the dusty old paper stating the bank supports IE6 which was written years ago. Whose fault? Everyone! And that include you, if you are still using IE6 to access your banking application. In short, IE6 Must Die!

Read more from the IE6 developers:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20004987-264.html

Why many of my friends are in Medical School...

When will you patch?

This was a poll I ran sometimes back to see how fast / slow will the reader patches and here is the results:

《我愛雨夜花》~S.H.E

《愛就對了》 ~ S.H.E

《SHERO》 ~ S.H.E

《你不会》~ S.H.E

Analyzing Malwares Using Microsoft Tools

This article is very technical, but nevertheless shows that even with simple (ok, but not so simple) and free tools from Microsoft, we can begin to do some malware analysis on our own.

http://community.websense.com/blogs/securitylabs/archive/2010/04/29/analyzing-malwares-using-microsoft-tools.aspx

Beware, the Windbg package includes the WDK (which had just been updated and is of Apr 2010 instead of March 2009 as mentioned in the article) is quite big (700MB).

Keyboard Problem in Vmware running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

It seems that the default keyboard was setup wrongly for use in VMware for the Ubuntu 10.04 release. What actually happens is that at the boot up, the keyboard completely did not work. If this is your problem you are at the right post.

Here is the step by step on how to fix it:
1. At the login screen, click on the little man in circle icon below to enable universal access preferences. Check the first option for a virtual keyboard.
2. For some users, there is just a flash and then nothing happens. If this is the case, simply click on the reboot icon at the bottom to reboot.
3. Once the Virtual Keyboard is up, use it to login.
4. Once inside Ubuntu, the keyboard will work. Open a shell and get to /etc/default. Edit this file with whatever you prefer (pico, nano, vi etc)
5. Find the following right at the end:

XKBMODEL="SKIP"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT="U.S. English"
XKBOPTIONS=""

This is where the problem lies. You need to edit it to:

XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""

The "pc105" is the most important line. After which, reboot if you feel like it and the keyboard will work.
6. If you hate the Virtual Keyboard, simple disable it at the login screen.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is released!

Grab it at:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

ATI Catalyst 10.4 Released

After some BETA and testing from various parties, Catalyst 10.4 is finally out for all cards. At the moment where I am writing, there are some errors with the asp scripts on www.amd.com which prevents some users from accessing the drivers. But fear not, I have a working link here:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

Just choose the version you require to download. Hydravision and other utilities has also been upgrade to 10.4 here.

OWASP Top 10 2010 FINAL has been released

The finalized version of OWASP Top 10 2010 is out at:

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project

OWASP Top 10 lists the 10 most common web vulnerability and how to address these problems.

New HTC Maple 3VO ROM V3VO.3.00.041010

A new version of the Maple 3VO ROM is out. The version is now 3VO.3.00.041010!

Grab it via:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551642

Post Javascript, HTML or other codes in Blogspot

There is a automated convertor that haves to encode the codes into postable format for blogspot.

The tool is available via:
http://www.psd2markup.com/display-html-php-javascript-code-in-blogger.html

Getting the code for the HTC Accuweather Control on Windows Mobile 6.x

After the ROM upgrade, I realized that the localization of the weather is gone and I have to set a new code to receive weather for my region. After some tough luck asking and searching, I found many wrong direction (outdated perhaps). But here is the current solution that works.

Go to:
http://www.accuweather.com/world-index.asp

Enter your country and search for it. After you find some entries, copy the shortcut of the link.
For example, I search Singapore, and it gives the following link:
http://www.accuweather.com/world-index-forecast.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&loccode=ASI|SG|SN---|SINGAPORE

What you are interested is the loccode in RED above. If you just close this windows and think you got it, sorry, you will be wrong. The code somehow does not work. That's because you need to add a "|" at the end of the code. So the correct code should be:

ASI|SG|SN---|SINGAPORE|

In any case, good luck looking for your code. You may want to share some code with other in the comments here.

PS3 V3.2.1 Custom Firmware makes Linux possible again

I guess its no surprise that a custom firmware hack gives hope to installation of Linux on the PS3 again. All we need is a custom firmware to run ISO... Just like on the PSP...

Lose a friend for a LV Bag. Block, ignore and delete off your life. How many will you lose?

I ran this poll sometimes back and here are the final results:

None! Those guys better buy me a LV for my birthday! 4 (36%)

1. I guess it doesn't hurt... 2 (18%)

A few. Who cares? Its a good time to lose some of them. 3 (27%)

ALL OF THEM!!! Who needs friend when you have LV!!! 2 (18%)

Votes so far: 11
Poll closed

Modding the HTC Snap into HTC Maple 3VO ROM

From the last post regarding the installation of the Hard SPL on the HTC Snap:
http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2010/04/flashing-htc-snap-s52x-maple.html

I guess everyone saw this one coming. The whole point of modification of the SPL is to enable you to flash custom ROM. However, before we even go about talking about the ROM, there is one more piece of software which some people recommend to install. This is the SDA Application Unlock. What this piece of software do it it enable you to install unsigned applications smoothly. However, there is also a security risk that it can allow bad applications like dialers etc install on your phone. So, its entirely optional and you better know what you are doing. The link for this application and the ROM are both listed here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551642

Follow my previous instruction to install Hard SPL v1.1.9 and/or SDA-ApplcationUnlock. Do a backup as well since its likely you want to restore all your contacts etc. Then:

1.Remove the battery and the SD Card--> Put ONLY the battery back in.
2.The flash will take about 5 minutes (Although it says 15, mine took last then 2 minutes only)
3.If your device is already HardSPL, simply run RomUpdateUtility.exe and follow the prompts
4.Upon first boot, it will seem frozen for a few minutes, maybe even go black. This is NORMAL! (After which you can sync your new ROM wiht your PC)

For me, I use SPB Backup 2 and all I needed to do was to restore all my information in ROM Update mode and its all done. Well in case shit does happen:

1.Remove the battery and the SD Card--> Put ONLY the battery back in.
2.While holding the volume down button, press the power button
3.The multicolor bootloader screen will come up
4.Plug in the USB cable and flash back your original shipped ROM
5.Find out what went wrong and reflash this ROM properly

Here are some screenshot of what Maple 3VO looks like:

To me, there are some improvements like Opera is out (waste space) and auto locking etc... Try it out and let me know what you think.

Flashing the HTC Snap S52X Maple

Before the HTC Maple class can be flashed to a custom firmware, the Hard SPL need to be installed. However you can check the SPL version by holding [Volume Down] and doing a cold boot. Mine says 1.24. But I found a way to flash the Hard SPL down to 1.19.

Below are the original instructions:

1. Removed SIM and SD card
2. Connected, established a sync connection w/ActiveSync
3. In JockyW's folder; open "SSPL"
4. Run SSPL.bat
5. If you have a firewall or anti-rootkit running ie. COMODO Internet Security, disable those and the sandbox if your security software has one. I left Bullguard on.
6. Follow commands in command prompt
7. Pop up should show on your device's screen. You may need to dismiss those messages about no SIM cards etc first.
8. The "OK" option is outside of the screen's viewable area, press the trackball or press enter.
9. The phone's screen will shut off but the keyboard will remain lit
10. DO NOT DISCONNECT (Yes, I know there is nothing on the screen)
11. LEAVE ACTIVESYNC ALONE
12. Return to the JockyW folder
13. Run the ROMUpdateUtility
14. It will complete HOWEVER when you start your device, it will stay at the T-Mobile splash screen, but that's okay, given that your device should now be hardSPL'd and you are ready to get a new ROM to install and enjoy, because we know just how much the OEM ROM sucked. For me, the T-Mobile did not turn up.

You need to download the Hard SPL from xda-developer via:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=550620

Pictures.library-ms / Music.library-ms / Video.library-ms / Document.library-ms is no longer working

It sound crazy, but there is a very simple solution to this. Basically, open up your explorer and click on "Libraries" on the left side menu. Now you should see the four links on your right. Hightlight them and delete them away.

Oops, all gone. Do not worry, the content is safe. It just remove the link away. Now highlight "Libraries" on the left again and right click. Select "Restore Default Libraries".

Thats all to it. Restore any other links in your libraries if you have them.

ATI Catalyst 10.1 10.2 Control Center does not work

After some digging and checking, I found out the real cause of one of the machine where the following symptoms exist:

There is no errors in installation on Catalyst 10.x. There is a Catalyst Control Center shortcut when you right click on desktop, but when you click it, nothing happens.

If you have the above, you may have the same problem as me.

Are you using a 64 bits OS? Have you previously installed a lower version Catalyst, such as 9.x or below?

Well, if your answer is yes to the above, it is VERY likely you have the same problem as me.

The problem lies in the bad uninstallation. In drivers before 10.x, there drivers were not properly written and installed as 64 bits software. Therefore, you will see some ATI folders and files in the "Program Files(x86)" directory. Inside there includes the faulty Catalyst Control Center. No matter how you reinstall your 10.x driver, it will go to the 64 bits directory "Program Files" instead and is never properly registered to run.

In case you still have no idea what I am talking about. You can do this to solve the problem:
1. Uninstall Catalyst completely.
2. Boot to saf mode if necessary
3. Remove the ATI directories in Program Files(x86) and in Program Files.
4. Remove ATI registry entries from both HKLM and HKCU.
5. Reboot and reinstall.

I can't believe it is such a screw up that had wasted so much of my time trying to troubleshoot this. I suggest a more through testing from ATI part for different scenarios for this installation which in the first place is already not a very clean solution and is often broken...

ATI Catalyst 10.3 is released

At the same time, for those using HD 2xxx, 3xxx and 4xxx card, you may get a "No compatible hardware found" error during the installation of the original driver. In this case, you will need to download the "hotfix" from:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/CatalystAGPHotfix.aspx

The other users can download the original driver from:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

The changes made for 10.3 includes:

Performance improvements

Aliens vs. Predator

Overall performance increases 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Battleforge

Improves up to 8% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Call of Duty: World at War

Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Company of Heroes

Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Crysis and Crysis Warhead

Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Devil May Cry 4

Improves up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

DiRT 2

Improves up to 30% on ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
Improves up to 20% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
Improves up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Far Cry 2

Improves up to 6% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2

Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Call of Pripyat Benchmark

Improves up to 10% with Anti-Aliasing enabled on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Clear Sky

Improves up to 2% with ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
Improves up to 2% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products

Resident Evil 5

Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Improves up to 15% with ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics products
Improves up to 20% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Unigine Tropics

Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products

World in Conflict

Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series products
Improves up to 3% on ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series products
Improves up to 5% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

Wolfenstein

Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series products
Improves up to 4% on ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series products

New Features

ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium Graphics solutions

This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Windows® 7 and Windows® Vista for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility™ Radeon HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of products.

Supported by most major OEM and ODM notebook manufacturers

ATI Catalyst Control Center - ATI Eyefinity technology enhancements

Display Bezel Compensation

Easy-to-use wizard shows users how to adjust their display layout to remove the pixels occupied by their display bezels
AMD has updated it’s Direct3D (Quad buffer support) driver to enable 3rd party middleware vendors such as DDD and iZ3D to output stereo L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye)

Per-Display Color Adjust

Individual Color, Brightness and Contrast controls
Multiple ATI Eyefinity Groups

Create more than one ATI Eyefinity group from multiple displays
Improved Display Configuration switching

Support for ATI Eyefinity groups and the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center profile manager
Easy to toggle between cloned and extended desktop modes
ATI Catalyst™ support for 3D Stereoscopic

Western Digital Advance Format Drives

Recently I had the wall with a new technology from Western Digital known as "Advance Format". Well, hit the wall as in I do not think my HDD is performing as it is suppose to be and in fact doing pretty badly at it. The HDD keep chunking and I had been checking for signs for malware or background process. I did not have this issue when I was on my previous Seagate 7200.11. In any case, you will notice what I have here is basically just a string of bad luck.

Firstly, what is Advance Format. It may sound deep, but basically all it means is that it is using 4K cluster instead of the legacy 512bytes which has been like 10 years or so... Thats all to it. Well, if you want the details, AnandTech did a good write up to explain how this will open the door for further larger capacity drives as well as how this can save some space because of using 1 ECC for a 4K block instead of like 8 ECC for 8 x 512Bytes block.

AnandTech on WD Advance Format:
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3691

OK, strangely, this is already supported in Windows Vista, 7, 2008 but not the older legacy OS based on the Windows 5.x core like Windows 2003, XP etc. Please do not even ask me about Windows 2000... So that means somehow you get very bad performance (due to misaligned sector all the time) or it simply doesn't work at all. WD had came up with a utility (together with Acronis) which in my opinion is nothing more than a tool that checks for 512bytes clusters and basically convert the whole partition to 4K cluster. There is also a version that works in Windows (with Paragon), but it can be 3X slower as indicated by WD. In addition, you can test out your scenario to see if you need to run this at all using the wizard on the right here:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/advancedformat/

So far from what I see so far, the only affected range of HDD which has the Advance Format functionality is those ending with EARS. I have another drive with EADS, but according to sources it should not be affected. Maybe I should send WD an email to confirm this. Another pressing problem is that Windows 2003 is not affected or supported.

Update : OK here is what I think and understand so far. I had send queries to WD, hope they will give a solid answer.

• Jumper 7-8 : Only if you are using the HDD as 1 partition. >1 partition, you can forget about this.
• Windows 2003 : Supported using the Acronis Boot CD. But to what effects, I am not sure. I suppose it will behave like Windows XP
• EADS drives : Not supported by AF. In short, does not apply to you.
• WHS : See Windows 2003 above. Also note that because of the dynamic disk, high chance of screwing this up...

Bullguard FakeAlert.5 Remedy if your PC is still running

If you have not rebooted and the PC is still running with the bad signature, there is good hope you can save it (with my experience).

1. Do not click on the prompts which indicates files to be quarantine. Just fire up the Bullguard GUI and disable the antivirus component. (YES, this is a REAL bad thing to do...). The prompt will all disappears but the remaining files will NOT be quarantine.

2. Open up your quarantine folder and restore all the files (PLEASE, I DO NOT MEAN THE FILES! JUST THOSE WITH INFECTED BY FAKEALERT.5!) before its too late. Some people claim you can still run a update and get the "patched" signature. For me, it did not work. Check to see that the time of the signature did not change.

3. Now think of any other things you would want to do including backup of important files etc before you go ahead and reboot the machine. Notice I did not use the "patch" issued by Bullguard? You may want to uninstall Bullguard now, but I leave it for now, hoping I can do a update after the reboot so that things goes back into places.

4. Sad thing is after the reboot, most is saved, except Bullguard itself. I am no longer able to update. So its time to finally uninstall it. Do check that there is no more entries in the quarantine that is affected by FakeAlert.5. Do take note to save your settings during uninstall. The only thing that went bad was the antivirus signature, so you can still save your rules etc (IF you still want to use Bullguard...). Reboot again as required by Bullguard. But perhaps before that, grab the latest version of Bullguard (9.0) from their website first so that you can reinstall immediately after reboot.

5. Yes, everything should still work. Reinstall Bullguard, reboot (yes, again), and update the signature again. Everything should work this time.

Now, for me it wasn't so bad. I guess its all about keeping your cool and planning this just like any other disaster recover process.

I just hope everyone was so lucky...