News Items
May 12, 2005 03:36PM
Lots of updates for AIMFix in the past couple days, plenty of new variations on the Gabba-A/"check out this" virus. See the information page for more details. I've updated AIMFix slightly more than the list of process names and such, it's just too many to keep the webpage updated. On a related note, someone called Sydney/soccerchic3133 sent me a log file and I updated AIMFix to repair the files in the log, but Sydney evidently mistyped the email address, and it was returned to sender. So, Sydney, if you're reading this, the updated AIMFix should help you out.
-Jay
May 06, 2005 12:12PM
Just posted a journal entry about an amusing email I received. It was really kinda just funny at first but it made me think quite a bit. I've felt a lot like giving up lately with all these AIM viruses. It's just not that much fun anymore, it's boring and tiring and takes up my free time. To make things worse, it means I have to run Windows as a dual boot just to be able to update AIMFix. I guess it's just discouraging because I can't use the tools I want (in other words, can't use Linux while I'm doing it), and I would really like to have a proper virus sandbox to make better removal tools. More than anything else, it just gets tiring that this stuff keeps on happening, and people keep on clicking the links and getting infected. Some people get infected three or four times by similar viruses! As much as I am glad to help people, sometimes I do wish they'd learn not to get infected in the first place. I don't get paid for this, and it sometimes takes up a lot of my time and effort to get these viruses removed and answer emails.
In some respects, I feel like retiring (it has been two years, after all) and moving on to other things, but I feel responsible. It seems like non of the antivirus companies are keeping up with this, AOL doesn't seem to do anything about it, and it seems like I'm the only one out there who cares sometimes. I don't even use Windows, let alone AIM anymore, so I feel out of place working on this now, but if I stop, then what happens to all the people I currently help? Will millions of people just have to live with viruses? Call me soft-hearted, but I can't seem to leave this project with that on my conscience, at least not yet.
-Jay
May 05, 2005 10:04PM
Well, I apologize to anyone who downloaded AIMFix on Wednesday evening. There was a conflict with one of the brand new variants of the "Gabba" virus, and if you ran AIMFix, the "shell" for Windows was set to "Expl" instead of "Explorer.exe" - this results in your desktop not loading properly - no taskbar, icons, etc. I have corrected this, and anyone who was affected by that can simply re-run the newest version of AIMFix to repair this problem. If you're interested, the basic problem is that the virus edits the shell entry to make the virus run every time you load the shell (making it very difficult/impossible to remove).
AIMFix therefore removes the virus entry and replaces a clean one, but in this instance the replacement was incorrect and resulted in stopping the virus but messing up the system simultaneously. Again, I apologize to anyone who ran into this, but on the fortunate side, at least the only people affected are people who downloaded AIMFix on Wednesday from around 6-12 at night (GMT, so it was more like 1-7pm on the East Coast of the U.S.), and it's easily repaired by running the updated version. This is why I need a test machine I can infect with viruses and monitor properly, so I have an exact idea of what happens when encountering these viruses in the wild. Maybe someday I'll have enough money to get myself a copy of VMWare or VirtualPC (when I get my first Mac) and I can use that to test viruses in a controlled environment and remove them more efficiently.
-Jay
Apr 25, 2005 08:36AM
Work on Phi Lambda Upsilon's new website continues...I've redesigned it (and I'll probably redesign it again) to look a little more professional. The next steps for me are to create a menu/submenu system that is editable through the content management system, and a php index of all the files in the web directory so they can be linked to, etc. Beyond that, just regular updates to the CMS as I try to pull better html code out of it and clean it up. This was the first time in a while I just didn't feel inspired while designing a site...it just didn't seem "on" to me. On the other hand, I felt somewhat that way about the old black style for this website, and everyone really liked that one, so who knows. I'm still pretty content with jayloden.com, but I wouldn't be surprised if I decide to redesign that pretty soon too...I get bored rather quickly with how often I'm usually viewing my own design.
The PLU site also got a nifty new feature, in the form of a pdf creator and print version of each page. This was requested by the client, but I had a little fun figuring it out and I was quite happy to get it working in the end. I've debated implementing it on this site, but I really don't see much point - can't imagine people are out printing off pages from this site, or downloading them as pdfs. Maybe I'll do it anyway, just in case someone wants to download virus removal isntructions or Safe Mode instructions.
-Jay
Apr 18, 2005 09:03AM
Finally selected a Content Management editor component - TinyMCE. I've also finally put in a news post creator that will eventually replace the index page, once I figure out what to do with the links from index.htm that I haven't got linked elsewhere. If you're interested in TinyMCE, please see their project website. I have a lot of work to go with the CMS, tons of back-end PHP that has to be glued in here and there, and then lots of security checks and authentication. I at least managed to move the authentication over to encrypted passwords and usernames, but I'd like to put in lots more error and exception checking to prevent scariness from the user side.
I'd also like to modularize the archive Python scripts so that I don't have duplicate scripts, and maybe they can read from a config file to let the sysadmin of the site insert their own paths, etc. As much as I need this to work for me at the current time, I'd really like to keep it modular so that if (when) I have to do this again, it's easier, and I can even share my code. Who knows, maybe someone else will find my hodgepodge of scripts useful. My main reasons for doing it myself are that a) I understand what is going on inside and out, b) I can fix it if it breaks, and c) nothing else quite fits my niche. I'm fanatical about following web standards (xhtml and css, please) and having clean code. I don't need a database back end for my tiny site, and I like the accessibilty of what I had in place before, so it was more logical for me to extend it. I'm trying to keep performance in mind at all times, by minimizing file reads and maximizing caching of content. Although I'm sure there will be lots of room for improvement in this area, given my relative [lack of] coding prowess, I'm doing my best and as I learn better methods I will implement them. Given enough time, this might end up a viable CMS solution for others besides myself.
-Jay
