Virus Prevents all .exe Execution

Eradicating another nasty virus

Another computer infested with some nasties found its way to my desk. Cleaning the Trojans from this one was easy, getting windows working again after proved to be slightly more difficult...

As before, for the benefit of others that might be facing a similar issue here are the steps taken to solve the issue. The system was a Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit based laptop. The virus itself was a common variety of fake virus checker and it was easily removed by rebooting in safe mode, clearing all the temp folders and running  malwarebytes and super antispyware scans. The problem was that after cleaning the system nothing would execute. All ability to run any .exe file would fail.

The solution was to edit the registry and restore the .exe file associations manually.

Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT then exe ensure the Value Data to is exefile in this case it had been set to something else.

Then also under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT in the folder of exefile and Change the Value Data to "%1" %* finally under that exefile folder, then shell, then open, finally command folder, Change the Value Data to "%1" %*

After a few restarts everything was back to normal with the ability to run in all the missing windows updates and finally install the anti-virus software (another .exe that needed to run)

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Un-googled

24 hours of google disconnect - shows how dependent we are

For the past 24h the ISP serving PawPrint's main office had an issue that prevented subscribers, including us, from connecting to any of the many Google web sites (including mail, maps, search, basically anything from the big G was offline) Despite everything else being just fine - it was amazing to see what an effect this had on the Internet in general.

Beside the obvious hit to loosing our normal web search tool there was a much more far-reaching implication. Instantly all those web sites using Google Analytics immediately ceased to function. Because the site won't load without the Google Analytics API we couldn't access literally hundreds of web sites that rely on this stats tool. Sites with integrated mapping were inaccessible as well, but at least in those cases the remainder of the content came through for the most part.

So what's the lesson here? total dependence on a third party might be something to consider and consider carefully when configuring your web site. There are many other statistics options out there and if, for whatever reason, your customers can't access your web site because of the methods employed to track them - the end result certainly doesn't justify the means.

The "de-googling" has since ended and we are back able to search again but it was an eye-opener just how much of the web has elected to put their own business into place of being totally dependent on a third party.

Incidentally: PawPrint.net doesn't use Google Analytics (for precisely this reason) and for both our web site and that of the majority of our customers this outage didn't affect their web presence in the least.

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Confused about the BC HST

So was I, here is some information that might help...

As a software provider located in BC, and the changeover date for the new HST fast approaching I have been trying to get some straight answers about how it applies to my business. This turned out to be harder then I would have thought and the answers I eventually got were most surprising! The following should help anyone in BC or Ontario in a similar non-tangible goods service industry.

First and foremost I had a nightmare of a time finding answers on the maze of Government web sites for anything but the basics. The main questions I needed to know were:
1) Does the tax apply to US customers (answer: no)
2) How does the tax apply to customers in other provinces in Canada (answer: well, that depends)
3) If I need to sell tangible goods as well, are there any further steps to complete something like the old 'Social Services Tax Exemption Certificate' (answer: no, but many wholesalers still don't understand that)

This leaves a bit more explanation necessary for #2. First of all the document you need to find to answer this is here:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/gm/b-103/b-103-e.pdf
It carries the rather ambiguous title "Place of supply rules for determining whether a supply is made in a province" (translated into "human" that means: do you need to charge tax to someone and if so which one)

The one aspect of the HST I had completely failed to understand is that it's not always the same percentage - it depends on where the customer is, and in terms of software that goes a step further to where the software will actually be used. The rules are all in that document and the examples they give are even easier to understand - but here is my reader's digest of it all:

As a BC software company:
If I sell to someone in BC and the software will be used in BC or all of Canada then they pay the BC HST (12%) - simple enough, and exactly what I would expect.

If I sell to someone in Ontario and the software will be used in Ontario then I charge them the ON HST (13%) - ok this was a surprise!

If I sell to someone in Quebec and the software will be used in Quebec or across Canada then I only charge them the GST (5%) - confused yet... wait it gets better!

If I sell to someone in Quebec and the software will be used in Nova Scotia then I charge them the Maritimes HST (15%) - still with me?

If I sell to someone in Ontario and the software will be used across Canada then I charge them the ON HST (13%)

So now that this is all perfectly clear... (ya right) Now I understand why it was hard to get a straight answer. I ended up needing to speak with a GST/HST Rulings officer at the Canadian Revenue Agency to get this all explained. The 'thought process' here is that the tax charged is based predominantly on where the software will be used. Tack on to that the concept that if the goods are going to be used in many provinces then for simplicity (and I use the word lightly) they just assume it's where the goods were purchased (billing address).

So what does this mean for business in BC? You must be sure to keep tabs on all the taxes in place in every province in Canada to whom you provide services. If your software is going to be used in a province that has HST you will need to charge at their rate. For any other provinces you will go back to charging the GST only rate. As a side note, when I asked the first person I spoke with at the CRA "How does Ontario ever collect the tax I, as a BC Business, collect at their HST rate if I only report it in BC?" their honest response was "Actually, I've always wondered that myself" - and we wonder why it's so hard to get straight answers about all this...

All kidding aside - I truly hopes this helps other businesses sort out the coming HST nightmares.

PS: I must include an excerpt from the document mentioned above because it almost sounds like Peter Piper Picked....

"unlike the previously explained place of supply rules for intangible personal property that can only be used primarily in participating provinces, these proposed rules can result in the supply of intangible personal property being deemed made in a province that is not a participating province."

Oh My!

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Laser Mouse 6000 - Cleaning

How to open and clean a Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000

The scroll on my mouse had been getting steadily more choppy and erratic for a while.. I knew it needed cleaning but finding the screws to open the thing was a challenge. This little howto is provided in the hopes of helping others with a similar mouse.

The trick: The screws are hidden under the 4 pads in each corner of the bottom. They are just stuck on with clew and can easily be popped off with a micro screw-driver or sometimes even with a fingernail.

Once you get past that little challenge it's easy the top of the mouse will just pop-off and you can easily access the wheel mechanism. In my case I blame my cat for having a fine little hair stuck in there. As soon as that was out everything was fine again. although I took the opportunity to give the entire inside a good cleaning and blow-out as well as oiling the wheel mechanism a tiny little bit.

Result: my Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 is now scrolling beautifully again.

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Nvidia 196.75 Driver Warning

196.75 drivers can cause severe cooling problems, possibly resulting hardware damage

EDIT: the driver have since been updated and this warning really no longer applies.

The latest Nvidia drivers may have a serious flaw that can reduce performance, possibly cause the card's fan to stop, and may even lead to hardware damage. The reports are so serious Nvidia has removed them from their web site pending further investigation.

It is very frustrating when, in a valiant attempt to remain cutting edge and hopefully keep your system as 'updated' as possible to hear that it's the update itself that may be a problem. In this particular case several tech news outlets are reporting many users indicating issues with these drivers.

The drivers have only been available for a short time so if you haven't updated your graphics drivers recently you're probably not at risk - but better safe then sorry. Visit your Nvidia control panel and check the System Information under the help menu to see which drivers you are running. If you have 196.75 then the recommended action is to un-install these and revert back to version 196.21 (thankfully this is what I happened to be running already)

The 196.75 version has been removed from Nvidia's web site and they have issued the following statement:
"We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our Web site in the meantime."

Hopefully this warning will help prevent any damage to systems out there.

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PHP 6 is coming

Some changes are already visible via depreciated functions in PHP 5.3

The long awaited PHP 6 version is starting to look more like a reality at the end of a very long tunnel, but in the immediate future the PHP team has depreciated several functions and language concepts in the PHP 5.3 release that are clearly aimed at helping developers start to migrate early...

For the most part anyone following good programming practices and not taking shortcuts will not have had much problem with changes from php 3 - 4 - 5 thus far But the new 5.3 release is not going to be as easy as it marks a few functions as depreciated that will likely hit some developers very hard. The full list is available on the PHP web site but we have highlighted a few of the key issues here:

• call_user_method() (use call_user_func() instead)
• call_user_method_array() (use call_user_func_array() instead)
• define_syslog_variables()
• dl()
• ereg() (use preg_match() instead)
• ereg_replace() (use preg_replace() instead)
• eregi() (use preg_match() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• eregi_replace() (use preg_replace() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• set_magic_quotes_runtime() and its alias, magic_quotes_runtime()
• session_register() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• session_unregister() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• session_is_registered() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• set_socket_blocking() (use stream_set_blocking() instead)
• split() (use preg_split() instead)
• spliti() (use preg_split() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• sql_regcase()
• mysql_db_query() (use mysql_select_db() and mysql_query() instead)
• mysql_escape_string() (use mysql_real_escape_string() instead)
• Passing locale category names as strings is now deprecated. Use the LC_* family of constants instead.
• The is_dst parameter to mktime(). Use the new timezone handling functions instead.

Some of these may come as a real surprise to many especially ones like ereg/i and split/i which are used so frequently in so many PHP applications. The rational seems obvious in that the PHP 6 release will stick to a single regular expression engine rather then continuing to support several as PHP currently does - but the change will be a hard hitting one for many as all the regular expressions used will need to be switched into pearl-like format and then all related code re-tested.

Now, is a great time therefore to start the migration process and we here at PawPrint have already begin swapping out any cases where these functions are used for their counterparts.

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