Windows 7 to include Virtual Windows XP

Software No Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott have revealed on the Supersite Blog a new Windows 7 application compatibility feature called Windows XP Mode.This has been confirmed on the Windows Team Blog.

Many businesses have not upgraded to Windows Vista, partly because of compatibility concerns for their legacy applications. Windows 7 (Enterprise, Professional and Ultimate editions only) will ship with a licensed copy of Windows XP with SP3. You can install a legacy app within this XP environment.

There is a catch.

Of course, there’s always a catch. Not all CPUs will support this mode. You need hardware-based virtualisation (go and check your CPU specs now). Intel and AMD have CPUs that have this feature but don’t assume all recently purchased CPUs support hardware virtualization.

My PC is about six months old and has a Core 2 Quad processor – the Q6600 chip. I checked this Intel page to confirm that I’ll be able to test this feature when I get my hands on it:

The next thing to check is for BIOS support on your motherboard. I have an Asus P5K SE/EPU and its user guide mentions Vanderpool support is enabled by default (you can turn it off). Vanderpool was the code name for Intel Virtualization.

Looks like I’m all set. Roll on, Windows 7.

Firefox 3.0.9 crashes when view source – solution

Software No Comments
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I installed Firefox 3.0.9 because it fixes some security vulnerabilities. Next I got on with my usual snooping, i.e. View Source. Crash! No matter what site I looked at, it crashed. Luckily, someone had posted a solution at Google Groups and it is simple.

The problem lies with the HTML Validator add-on. It has been updated to version 0.8.5.6. Update your copy at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249

Beware of MS Antispyware 2009

Anti Virus SEO No Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

A few people are getting sucked into installing MS Antispyware 2009. They go to some site and get a popup offering to install this program. Think about it. Normal websites don’t offer antispyware programs through a popup.

What’s wrong with this program? It contains a virus and the victim actually consents to install it. Sean-Paul Correll has provided an excellent video and a write-up at the PandaLabs Blog about this menace.

What is different about this exploit is the use of hundreds of SEO pages targeting major brands such as Ford and Nissan – search for some specific model or a car part and you will find links (mostly in Poland – .pl) that include dangerous infections as reported by Norton Internet Security.


Targeted Blackhat SEO Attack against Ford Motor Co. from Panda Security on Vimeo.

The following Google search “site:.pl nissan” has a few normal results at the top of the page, but then you get dozens of weird subdomains such as (don’t go there):

  • 347.aw.lubomogo.az.pl
  • 666.oo.mrfehz.wroclaw.pl
  • 872.zw.owncav.warszawa.pl

All of them are marked noarchive, hence you won’t see a Cached link. Most of these are doorway pages to p0rn sites but some also include infectious content.

Reputable sites infected by viruses

Anti Virus No Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

I can’t remember getting spam from a suburban motor vehicle dealer, at least not from one based in Dubai (I am in Australia). Western Auto LLC part of the Western Group wants to sell me Chinese-made Foton brand 3 Ton Pickups with free insurance and registration.

The sender used the IP address 91.73.188.181, which is allocated to Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company in Dubai, probably their ISP. So it’s a genuine email probably sent from their office. A sentence in the spam email caught my eye:

Western Auto LLC is part of the renowned ETA Ascon group (www.etaascon.com) of companies, a diversified conglomerate, belonging to the Al Ghurair group of Dubai.

ETA Ascon

I have removed the link for the above site but when I clicked it to check out the parent company, Norton Internet Security 2009 flashed a warning. (See image on the right)

65 pages on the ETA Star Group site are infected! An example of a problem page is:

Threat Name: Downloader
Location: http://www.etaascon.com/ascon/article_display.asp?cat_id=92&sub_cat_id=153&art_id=155

The link “Downloader” above tells us that this is a “low-risk” threat because it merely “connects to the Internet and downloads other Trojan horses or components.” I did not explore the site but it is troubling that a corporate site has been infected in this manner.

While searching for this site in Google, the results page displays the same warning symbol next to ETA Star Group and also further down the page next to Business.Maktoob.com (do not go there). The latter has only six infected pages but they are more ominous:

I decided to explore other sites in Google and Norton Internet Security found a few infections:

  • Dubaicityguide.com – 1 drive-by download
  • Drypen.in – 4 drive-by downloads
  • Visakha.in – 3 drive-by downloads
  • Syscontech.in – 3 drive-by downloads (also marked “This site may harm your computer”)
  • YRU.ac.th – 1 phishing attack
  • Dopa.go.th – 1 W97M.Babals virus (also marked “This site may harm your computer”)

I noticed that some of the above sites run the Windows operating system, so it would be easy to infect the web server compared to a Java or PHP based web server. I used the site: operator in Google to sample random TLDs, e.g. site:.th for Thai sites.

Intrigued, I checked out the Western hemisphere and found fewer infected sites:

  • WDR.de – 1 Bloodhound.Exploit.105 virus
  • Smart60.ru – 4 HTTP Malicious Toolkit Variant Activity
  • DSE.nl – 1 Trojan Horse

A curiouser exception at the USA DOJ is:

  • National Criminal Justice Reference Service – 1 virus in a PDF document

Possibly some of the above assessments by Norton Internet Security 2009 are false positives, but it appears that the viruses and other nasty infections have no respect for nationalities or size of organisations. I should point out that these random checks revealed just one or two sites for every 100-200 search results, so there isn’t an epidemic out there. I am thankful for the software alert that stopped me from checking out the company behind the spam email that started this post.

I will write a review of Norton Internet Security 2009 soon.

Australian SEO Forum rejects my application

SEO 5 Comments
Reading Time: < 1 minute

I recently discovered the Australian SEO forum and registered. They approve manually and today I received the following email:

Unfortunately your registration at Australian SEO Forum did not meet our membership requirements. Therefore your registration was deleted.

Sorry,
Australian SEO Forum

I don’t recall ever being rejected by any forum. Have you? Anyway, it seems that the forum is up for sale. If you buy it, please let me know and the new membership requirements, so that I may try to register once again.

Google's Wonder Wheel

Search Engines No Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Google Search has announced two new features that may interest some people. The first is Related Searches, which appears below the SERP and the other is a longer snippet if the search term is four words or longer. Not exciting enough for me.
Wonder WheelHowever, Google Blogoscoped reported some testing of new features that were more interesting to me at first glance.
You won’t see the test unless your PC collects a special cookie. Blogoscoped has kindly provided it in the article, so you can insert it into your PC and see the new playthings for yourself. I first read about this in Webmasterworld where posts by FTFlash and Robert Charlton describe these new features (click the above image to enlarge it). Note; You must use google.com, not a national one such as google.com.au.
If you get the cookie, you will see “Show Options” next to “Web” below the Google logo. In the above image I selected Wonder Wheel, which is depicted in the image above. You will see related searches in the spokes but the wheel itself does not play any visual games. It is simply a backdrop to the related searches. Being in beta, I can’t be too critical, but I don’t find the feature useful. For many searches, the spokes do not appear and you can’t click the hub (your search term), so you are left wondering.
For my test I chose San Francisco, being home to most Googlers. I clicked “San Francisco Attractions”, which opened up a second spoked wheel linked to the original wheel. I next chose “San Jose Attractions”, whereupon the original wheel becomes an outlined circle. For each selection you make, you get organic search results in the right half of the page and at the bottom you get a columnar list of the related searches seen in the Wonder Wheel. Strangely, I got “San Jose, Costa Rica Attractions” and “San Jose Costa Rica Attractions” (no comma the second time).
The Wonder Wheel will probably be a gimmick for me as I don’t run my applications in full screen mode and need to see most of the screen in a smaller window. What did you think of it?
The second new choice on the left is a Timeline for the current search term. This operates in a true AdWords broad match sense and made no sense for my “San Jose Attractions” search term (minus quotes). The timeline started in 1602 with a reference to the namesake San Jose in Panama. The next one in 1610 is in Mexico. And on it goes, giving unnecessary information for a query that started in San Francisco. The sixth result is the one in Silicon Valley.
The third new feature is Search Suggestions, 16 of which appear above the Onebox map and 10 local results. These did relate to San Jose, CA and were quite relevant.
Choosing “Images from the page” show two thumbnails next to each result, which would be popular for some searches.
In all these new features I did not see any AdWords, so I don’t know how messy the page will look with ads. Some people have reported slightly different test options. Let’s wait and see how these features morph into their final version.

Google’s Wonder Wheel

Search Engines No Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Google Search has announced two new features that may interest some people. The first is Related Searches, which appears below the SERP and the other is a longer snippet if the search term is four words or longer. Not exciting enough for me.

Wonder WheelHowever, Google Blogoscoped reported some testing of new features that were more interesting to me at first glance.

You won’t see the test unless your PC collects a special cookie. Blogoscoped has kindly provided it in the article, so you can insert it into your PC and see the new playthings for yourself. I first read about this in Webmasterworld where posts by FTFlash and Robert Charlton describe these new features (click the above image to enlarge it). Note; You must use google.com, not a national one such as google.com.au.

If you get the cookie, you will see “Show Options” next to “Web” below the Google logo. In the above image I selected Wonder Wheel, which is depicted in the image above. You will see related searches in the spokes but the wheel itself does not play any visual games. It is simply a backdrop to the related searches. Being in beta, I can’t be too critical, but I don’t find the feature useful. For many searches, the spokes do not appear and you can’t click the hub (your search term), so you are left wondering.

For my test I chose San Francisco, being home to most Googlers. I clicked “San Francisco Attractions”, which opened up a second spoked wheel linked to the original wheel. I next chose “San Jose Attractions”, whereupon the original wheel becomes an outlined circle. For each selection you make, you get organic search results in the right half of the page and at the bottom you get a columnar list of the related searches seen in the Wonder Wheel. Strangely, I got “San Jose, Costa Rica Attractions” and “San Jose Costa Rica Attractions” (no comma the second time).

The Wonder Wheel will probably be a gimmick for me as I don’t run my applications in full screen mode and need to see most of the screen in a smaller window. What did you think of it?

The second new choice on the left is a Timeline for the current search term. This operates in a true AdWords broad match sense and made no sense for my “San Jose Attractions” search term (minus quotes). The timeline started in 1602 with a reference to the namesake San Jose in Panama. The next one in 1610 is in Mexico. And on it goes, giving unnecessary information for a query that started in San Francisco. The sixth result is the one in Silicon Valley.

The third new feature is Search Suggestions, 16 of which appear above the Onebox map and 10 local results. These did relate to San Jose, CA and were quite relevant.

Choosing “Images from the page” show two thumbnails next to each result, which would be popular for some searches.

In all these new features I did not see any AdWords, so I don’t know how messy the page will look with ads. Some people have reported slightly different test options. Let’s wait and see how these features morph into their final version.

Democratisation of the Web or Copyright?

General 1 Comment
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Two news stories a world apart remind me that doing something quickly and cheaply is not always appreciated, at least by some vested interests.

The first story is about the first CIO of the United States. Indian-born, but raised in Tanzania and the US, Vivek Kundra. Apparently this wunderkind has impressed Barack Obama enough to create this position, where he will be tasked with lowering the cost of government operations through the use of technology.

To quote the linked article:

In just 19 months with the District, Mr. Kundra has moved to post city contracts on YouTube and to make Twitter use common in his office and others. He hopes to allow drivers to pay parking tickets or renew their driver’s licenses on Facebook.

An earlier article in the Washington Post mentions his time as CTO of the District of Columbia where he questioned a $39,000 price tag to reassign the IP addresses of a network.

“Why would that take $40,000?” he snapped. “This project seems like a sham right now. We need to take the happiness level down for this one.”

The “happiness level,” a measure of a project’s success, is just one of the tools Kundra, 34, has developed in his quest to improve the way the District’s 86 agencies use technology. In the 18 months since joining Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration, Kundra has gotten attention for taking an unconventional approach to government, which is not typically first to adopt the latest computing trends.

Kundra has introduced popular consumer tools to bureaucratic processes, runs his office like a tech start-up and works by the mantra that citizens are “co-creators rather than subjects.”

And this:

The bidding process for city contracts is posted on YouTube, for example, and his employees use versions of Wikipedia and Twitter in the office. He wants to let drivers pay parking tickets and renew driver’s licenses on Facebook.

In October, he launched a contest called “Apps for Democracy” to encourage developers to create applications for the Web and cellphones to give District residents access to city data such as crime reports and pothole repair schedules.

Comments left by readers are polarised. Some love his approach; one wrote bitterly:

1. It costs money to bid the project- This means Bid and Proposal work needs to be performed. Contracts people, legal, and all of these things contribute to contract costs.

2. Contractors cost money. I don’t work for wages as a citizen of Pakistan or India. I reside in Northern virginia and the cost of living is just a bit more than that hut in a major city in India or Pakistan.

There’s nothing in the articles to suggest he outsourced anything to offshore workers, but I like his approach. I don’t believe he is replacing stodgy computer systems entirely with Facebook applications written by contest winners – he is simply adding a way for people to use familiar technology.

That story takes me to the second incident closer to home. Asher Moses reported that a Sydney programmer is being threatened with legal action by NSW authority RailCorp for selling Transit Sydney, an iPhone app that he sells for AU$2.49. It enables users to get the publlished suburban train timetables on their iPhones.

The programmer, Alvin Singh, is quoted as suggesting that RailCorp is in the “planning stages” of getting their own iPhone application on the market, but he doesn’t think a government body could do this “any time soon”.

There is also the matter of copyright of the timetable compilations, as this application merely repurposes that static information, not up-to-date situational facts such as cancellations and delayed schedules. Fair enough — a commuter would rather have the latest data.

Both incidents remind me of an ever-present struggle between entrepreneurs who want to “knock up” something and use it and the traditionalists who want things done the “right way”. My guess is that RailCorp would take at least three people and about $50,000 to create that application — a business analyst, a developer and a tester, whereas Mr Singh probably knocked it up in a weekend.

Should three jobs be at risk because a citizen took the initiative and launched a rather basic app? I hope not, but I wish RailCorp simply released their application rather than pursue Mr Singh. Commuters can decide which one they’d rather use.

Similarly, US citizens are justified in wondering if government projects will be offshored to save money at the cost of local jobs. OTOH, US taxpayers would rather see their contributions spent frugally and wisely. There are no clear-cut answers here.

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