Category: internet explorer

Reviewing the Seagate 500 Gb FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable HD (ST905003FGA2E1-RK): Special Star Trek Edition

Paul


I recently got to test out a new Seagate FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable Hard Drive with movies pre-loaded onto it.    I wanted to talk about it and let everyone who might be interested to find out more about it.

Product Features

  • 5,400 RPM Spin Speed, 8 MB Cache Buffer

  • USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s

  • Sync and back up quickly at your desktop without having to search for cables.

  • Guard the privacy of important files and folders.

  • Get your storage solution up and running quickly.

System Requirements:

To create and activate a Paramount account for your FreeAgent Theater+ media player you will need a
system with:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer

  • Microsoft Windows XP operating system (any version, including MCE) with Service Pack 2

  • installed, Windows Vista or Windows 7

  • 1.5 GHz CPU or faster (minimum of 600 MHz)

  • 512MB or more memory (minimum of 10GB)

  • At least 20GB or more, free hard disk space on your computer and drive

  • Windows Media Player 10+

For the best viewing experience of the films on your computer we recommend you have a screen
resolution of 1024 x 768 (minimum of 800 x 600) and speakers or other audio output. Internet access is
also required.

A choice of up to 20 popular Paramount titles can be unlocked for a fee including:

  • Star Trek (2009) (Free when you buy the Special Edition Hard Drive)

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • GI Joe

  • Shooter

  • The Hunt for Red October

  • The Italian Job (2003)

  • Ghost

  • Patriot Games

  • Beowulf

  • Enemy at the Gates

  • The Spiderwick Chronicles

  • The Love Guru

  • Coach Carter

  • The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

  • Nacho Libre

  • Jackass 2.5

  • A Plumm Summer

  • Carriers

  • Dance Flick

  • Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I had a chance to test out this hard drive and I wanted to tell you about my experiences with the software and with the Star Trek (2009) movie.   I must say after playing the movie, I was impressed with the High Definition.   My computer can support High Definition and I was quite shocked that it wasn’t Standard Definition.   While playing the movie, you will notice the Hard Drive will get warm but it isn’t a problem.

In order to view these movies on your laptop or computer your will need to acquire the license from the Paramount store to make the movie you choice available to be watched from your computer or if you have the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+1080P HD Media Player STCEA201-RK. This is good for those who might want to view this on your High Definition Television sets. It is just as cheap as the Roku. After your get the rights to watch the movie on that computer, you no longer need to have Internet Access to watch it. Great for when you are traveling and can’t get internet access. You only can give three systems the rights to view that particular movie that you bought through the Paramount store, but the prices are comparable to those you get fromAmazon Video on demand. The only drawback is that you will need to use Internet Explorer 8 or Higher to buy or acquire a license from the store. You have to make Internet Explorer your default bro
wser when you want to buy a new license for a movie off the hard drive.

I never heard a sound out of the hard drive while it was running. I could tell they made sure to keep it quite when they made the hard drive. The other nice thing about the FreeAgent Hard drive is that you only need to have one USB port to use this, and no power cords are required either. I must say that is also nice to have when you are on the go, no need to find an extra power outlet.

Seagate FreeAgent Ultra Portable
Amazon: $99.99 (Silver / Black)
Mwave: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB 2.5 Ultra-Portable Hard Drive STAA500100 USB Black
Mwave: STAA500102 USB Blue
Freeagent Go Special Edition(movie)
Seagate: FreeAgent Go Pre-loaded with Star Trek on it(No longer Available).
Amazon: No links available
NewEgg: No links available
Seagate Docking Station
Amazon: $16.99

If your backing up a lot of GB’s of data, the drive does get warm but that is also normal. It was never hot enough to burn me or hurt anything. I find the small size to be quite nice to have when traveling and going places with it. Not bulky or overweight, only about 1/2 pound of weight when you pick it up. The only drawback that I can see is the way they use the lights to show you when the hard drive is being used, a few small holes will dim and light up and unless you are really watching those lights you won’t know!

The Programs that come with this are quite powerful. Great Backup tools and Syncing tools for keeping your important data backed up. There is even a Carbonite trial on the Hard drive to encourage your to keep your data backed up off site. I do recommend people trying Carbonite because you never know what will happen to your home or your computer.

Would I recommend this to My Science Fiction Friends?

I most certainly would recommend this to any one who might need to have a way to backup their files and also have a way to have portable movies on the go. I can say that this idea of having media on a portable device like this is a great way to watch movies offline.

I’ve also asked them some questions that I am waiting for a response but when I do find out, I will update this post for those who might have the same questions. I will also update the links so you can buy these hard drives online!

Computer Security : How not to get Infected.

Paul

In my [intlink id=”3999″ type=”post”]previous blog post[/intlink] we talked about how the computer would get infected with Malware. Now on this blog post we will discuss how you can prevent most to all of these from ever happening again on your system.

Now let’s face it we are more and more going to be on the internet.   This is almost a necessity for a business or individuals.  You see Businesses have built there product around the internet and that is why it is necessary to be on the internet.

What program not to use to Surf the web

You should consider getting away from Internet Explorer,  I don’t say this lightly.   It may take Microsoft Months to fix a hole in something that involves [intlink id=”2301″ type=”post”]ActiveX or Something like that[/intlink].  We know how Microsoft will only[intlink id=”1951″ type=”post”] push out the really big security holes[/intlink] out of Cycle but keep the minor ones in Cycle.   [intlink id=”2301″ type=”post”]Hackers have jumped on exploits[/intlink] before when it comes Internet Explorer and use them on Black Wednesday, not less than 24 hours after the patches have been released.

Although these examples I showing doesn’t mean that they haven’t been fixed they are showing you how long it takes sometimes to fix them.

What you should use to Surf the web

One of te ways to prevent getting infected is keeping your browser up to date as quickly as possible, and I believe Mozzila Browser which is called FireFox is the answer.   One reason I recommend this to anything else is it is a community based browser and that means there is no waiting for a fix to come out when you know about it they have been working to fix the security hole.

They don’t wait till next month to send out a patch they usually only take a week or two to come up plugging the hole.   So that is why I always recommend to my clients to use FireFox instead of Internet Explorer.

I have 3 Addons that I would recommend along with FireFox, these addons help stop some of the most common ways to exploit your system.   The first one is called NOSCRIPT it is good to prevent scripts from being used on the web or on your system.  The next Addon I would recommend is Bit.ly Preview this is good for any shorten URL that is out there and will show you where it is really going.    It will also work well with Twitter web interface really well and let you know were a url is actually going to easily. Finally the last on I would recommend to my customers is AdBlocker Plus, this one is really good to use for like Facebook or other social sits where there might be a scareware redirect advertisement.  This will prevent some of those Notorious attempts at getting you to click a fake ad.

Also you may want to consider also installing some [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Firewall and Antivirus[/intlink] software to better protect your system from getting a virus in the first place.

On my next post I will talk about some common ways to trick you into installing a virus or scareware on your system. So stay tuned.

[ad#SUPERAntiSpyware]

A few Zero Day Exploits in the wild — Heads up

Paul

Several different Security Vendors are Reporting that there is an ActiveX and Directshow exploits out in the wild.

The Directshow file in question is : msvidctl.dll

[A work around to prevent this]

[ad]It involves an ActiveX control called the Microsoft Streaming Video control and there is no workaround that I know of just yet.   Microsoft is aware of these exploits but we don’t know when they will release the patches.
These flaws mean that if you visit an Infected site you will most likely install software that you really don’t need or want.   You should be cautious where you go especially on chinese servers because some of them are reporting that they have seen an overnight bloom of sites that have these exploits in place.

People should take care and [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]install anti-virus and firewalls[/intlink] even the free ones are the best choices right now to defend againts these types of attacks.  You should also make sure you have the updated virus definitions and make sure you have the latest version of the AV program.

It is also suggest for users to not use Internet Explorer to prevent some of these exploits but take care and install a good browser, I would suggest Firefox to better protect your computer from some of these exploits.

Spyware : Michelle Obama’s Ta’s Ta’s Video

Paul1 Reply

I love this one, I was reading the Sans Report about Michelle Obama Ta’s Ta’s on Video.  I wanted to investigate this a little further so I went searching around.  I found some comment spam links to a site I will not talk about the links directly.  The site however had a fake video on it :

michelleobamatoplessfake

It looks like if you hit Cancel or Details it keeps trying to tell you need to install an ActiveX Object.   It also makes the user think that there is only one option to use right now.   As you can tell  it makes you think you can’t cancel or get details but I did.  I tried to cancel and it kept on popping up trying to get you to install this active X installer.   AVG detects it as:

michelleobamatoplessfake1

[ad]This proves the fact that any Anti-virus software is better than nothing at all.   I also  have talked in the past about [intlink id=”2991″ type=”post”]fake codecs and how they are used maliciously[/intlink] to spread malware to people who aren’t up to the job.   I didn’t take long to find Phrases such as “Michelle Obama Topless” or “Michelle Obama Topless Video” to find spam comments linking to sites that are hosting these types of malware.  It seemed that in order to get out of the cycle with the Malware site, I had to do a CLT-ALT-DELETE and End the process of Internet Explorer process from Task manager.  It was an infinite loop and could not be closed any other way.  upon trying to go the link again it seems to be a random redirection every time you visit that site the next time I went there, I had a scare message pop up telling me:

michelleobamatoplessfake2

As you can tell this [intlink id=”3397″ type=”post”]pops up with scareware[/intlink] instead of the video and tries to tell you have a virus and you should run a free scan from the site of their choice.   This is an old tactic and still being used but funny if you look at that message one you know it is from a “Webpage” and two there are at least one grammar error?  Can you see it?

You’re best bet is not to go clicking on links that people have left in comments.   I am so glad I have moderation turned on and I have to approve each and every post someone comments on.   This is the only way I know how to prevent from being used in the spam campaign.  Remember it is time to update your [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Anti-virus and Firewall [/intlink]if you don’t already have it.  Don’t forget to visit the Forums and help discuss this problem in detail.

Zero Day For IE7 Being used in the wild.

Paul

It looks like IE7 patches are being used right now in the wild.  According to TrendMicro:

HTML_DLOADER.AS exploits the CVE-2009-0075 vulnerability, which is already addressed by the MS09-002 security patch released last week. On an unpatched system though, successful exploitation by HTML_DLOADER.AS downloads a backdoor detected as BKDR_AGENT.XZMS.

How the IE7 Exploits are being used

[Image from TrendMicro Blog]

[ad#ad2-right]As you can see this this can be very bad for the companies who wait a while.  Internet Explorer is still being used 1 out of 4 users and I see it it all the time on my stats.   The Good news is this isn’t as hard to get rid as the Conflicker but should be taken serious because the writers might start to want to get even more malicious and make it even harder.

This is the next step to prevent yourself from getting caught with your pants down so to speak, you need to patch all systems that have internet access.  I still like the Autopatcher because it will do the job with very little input from the user.   It also makes it easier for people to patch big systems.  You should also consider installing some Free Anti-virus software to help protect the systems you do have.

From the looks of this virus, someone could easily make this into a botnet and you know how that can could affect your systems and your ISP.  So it is best to get this months patches on the floor of your company as soon as possible.

You should also consider telling your users to start using Firefox to prevent infection from even happening. Until you patch, you are vulnerable.