Supposedly this worm will start doing its dirty work on April 1.
There is a strong possibility that you do not have this worm.
However, if you think you might be infected or would like to run the removal tool just in case, use the following link:

http://www.bdtools.net/how-to-remove-downadup.php

This will take you to a bitdefender page on the topic that will give you the download.

The tool is simple to run.

If you do not have an infection it will give you a nice message telling you.

If you do have the infection it will provide the options for removal.

If you have a different anti-virus program that you prefer working with, then just do a quick search on their site for any special removal tool.
Or, make sure to update all your anti-virus definitions and do a full system scan before April 1.

It is not a bad idea to do a full scan in any case.

Your anti-virus program does you little good if it is not updated or if you don’t do a scan every now and then.

Below you will find a review of WebCamMax. This program forms part of a set of programs and hardware that will easily allow you to run a classroom online.

In order to get some idea of how it is done, I will run through the example of our Blueline Academy classroom.

This is obviously particular to the Blueline Academy. But I think you will be able to see how you can easily stretch this to fit your situation.

Step 1) Open wgge.exe, select and orb, and enter 3d space.

Step 2) Use alt-D to put the editor into 640×480 mode. Actually is a little off-size, but that gives you the approximate dimensions.

Step 3) Open WebCamMax

Step 4) Select Screen on Sources drop-down

Step 5) Click “Show Selected Area” button to put the red square on the screen.

Step 6) Under Mode select “Specific Area”. You could also have opted for “Follow the Cursor”, “Specific Window” or “Full Screen.” Specific Area works best for Blueline Academy.

Step 7) Move the square around and resize so that it fits whatever part of your screen you want to send.

Step 8) There is a little button in the far upper right (next to X that would close the program) that will let you make the WebCamMax into a small bar on your screen. This will get it out of the way.

Step 9) Open Flash Media Encoder (FME)

Step 10) File->Open then select the xml file for your Justin.TV account. Refer to Justin.tv help for how to do this part. Or email and I’ll try to explain.

Step 11) Select “WebCamMax” as video source. I leave audio source alone. That works for me.

Step 12) Press the Start button and you are now live online streaming a piece of your desktop to the world — or a select group if you have an Access code on the channel.

———————————————–

A few safety precautions.

1) Close all programs that are not needed.
2) Do not type urls, passwords, names, or any other content you don’t want sent to everyone on the planet.
3) If you get a phone call during the broadcast, be aware that unless you turn off sound (and are utterly sure it is off) you will be transmitting your half of the phone call to the world.

Found two things recently Justin.tv and WebCamMax.

Justin.tv is a broadcasting site that allows for broadcast streaming. Normally one would be restricted to streaming yourself staring into a webcam. However, with WebCamMax it is not only possible but pretty simple to stream chunks of your desktop.

Before I say more about streaming your desktop it would be only fair to confess that the program does much more, much much more. You can stream a dvd. You can stream multimedia files from your hard-drive. You can switch between any number of connected and active webcam type devices. And, for those that like the extra possibilities of Picture in Picture — that is available too. Pretty sweet.

However, those are not the features that first attracted me to WebCamMax. For me it was the ease of streaming parts of my desktop. I use Camtasia to record tutorials for upload to YouTube. I like Camtasia for just that purpose. But what about those occasions when you’d like to run a classroom?

With Justin.tv and WebCamMax I am able to run International online classes of pretty much any size. I have seen channels on Justin.tv with many thousand views. I don’t expect that a HowTo channel will very soon run out of elbow room.

So, I’ve been doing Blueline Academy workshops, tutorials, and classroom lessons using WebCamMax. I can work in the program, people can view what I’m doing live. Ask me to clarify a particular point, redo something, and in general interact. Can’t beat that.

There seems to be a minor glitch in the system if you want to use voice over while running a video. Well, what do you want for $29.95? And, I’m not entirely convinced there might not be a workaround for that issue. The problem is, in order to broadcast you are juggling Flash Media Encoder, WebCamMax, and your audio card mix board. Lots of buttons to monkey with. So who knows what other potentials exist.

For me, I know that just doing the simple stuff I can manage to get my mic to transmit audio and the WebCamMax to transmit my desktop, and thus I can do online classes around the world. A major boon for a distant learning program. And the total cost is practically zero.

If you happen to be reading these blogs from the bottom up, or for some strange reason actually reading them as they are posted, then you know that my computer had a major harddrive crash.

I used SpinRite to repair the drive as much as it could be repaired. Did its job well enough. But no miracle in data recovery. Okay, I know that grc.com (Gibson Research) doesn’t promise data recovery. But I was hoping that somehow fixing the bad sectors would magically make the data come back.

I would have had better luck waving a bowl of Lucky Charms over the drive.

So the next step was google and the long dive off a short pier into the murky waters of data recovery. Man, there is a ton of bull shit websites devoted to taking advantage of some poor sucker desperate to get data back.

Fortunately my karma musta been good (alright not too good or maybe the drive would not have gone belly up) but still, I managed to stumble across a helpful website.

I’m sure there are more. There may be much better. Don’t know. Since I only needed one working tool and no one is paying me to do a comparative study of recovery tools, I quit looking when I found runtime.org and GetDataBack.

I was a little put off by the fact that I had to know what type of drive I had. Might be nice if they made a little tool to tell me. Don’t laugh. Do you know if you have a six or twelve volt battery in your car? What, they come in different sizes?

Much to my surprise, and the reason I decided to give these guys a chance, they have a totally enlightened approach to retail on their site.

They give you a free download of a fully functional program with one exception — the ability to save your files. Other than the fact you can’t save the files it functions 100%. Might sound like a major bummer. You put all the time into discovering if you can get your data back only to find out you can’t save it.

Well, that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to know if I could save my data before I shelled out $79. As bad as it is to have totally lost data, it is even worse to spend money then find out the data is totally lost.

But what about all that time spent waiting while the GetDataBack rebuilds new directories and scavenges around for files? Not a problem. If you find that you have access to your data, you buy the program, they give you an instant registration, you input the registration into the STILL open program, you save your files.

So basically you can poke around and see if your data is recoverable before you shell money out to recover it. I like that.

An interesting side effect of this was a serious talk with myself about the value of the lost data. Before I found the data I *knew* it must be valuable. After I found the data and was staring at it (face to face) I finally confronted the real question “Are those missing files worth $79 to me?”

In my case the answer was yes. And fortunately the GetDataBack performed as promised.

Notably I am so shell shocked as a consumer on the web that I am still waiting for the gotcha. Whether it be spyware, backdoors, identity theft, or ????… I can’t quite shake the feeling that I’ve been screwed. Why? Because as a consumer on the web every time I turn around I’m getting screwed — or almost screwed.

In this case, so far so goo….

Don’t know if you caught the full story. My iMac was displaying bold blue text in red and bold red text in blue. Regular blue text was showing up blue and regular red text was red — as one would expect. But, the bold was reversed. Red for Blue and Blue for Red.

I didn’t even call Microsoft on the issue. After twenty some years they have trained me well to expect nothing in the way of support.

Apple has these wonderful commercials that make them sound so bright and cheerful and willing to help. I expect they might be — unless you call about an issue with Boot Camp and the functioning of Windows in the Boot Camp environment.

I had the wonderful experience of trying to get support from Apple Care on this red to blue and blue to red issue.

Lord, the minute you mention the dreaded words “WinXP” they stop listening. “Not our problem.” Just because it doesn’t happen on any other machine in the universe than the Mac running Boot Camp does not seem to phase them. Just because it is only happening on the piece of hardware I purchased with the wonderful apple logo does not phase them.

Their only suggest was to delete the partition and reinstall Boot Camp and WinXP from scratch. All data gone, all programs gone. And this was of course just a way to trouble-shoot the problem. Not a promised defined solution. Not a “hey sorry dude, we know it’s a bitch to do it. But everyone that has this problem finds the only solution is to delete the partition and start over.” No it was “hey, it’s not a problem. If you insist on making us give you any kind of help on this issue the only thing we can think of is to have you delete the WinXP and start again.”

A little harsh dude (or dudette depending on which support call I am referring to).

Fortunately before doing this I gave one more try at something else. I reinstalled my video drivers.

First I did a repair using my Leopard disk. Then I went to the amd.com website http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/mac/bootcamp-xp.html and installed the drivers there.

The trick here is that when you go to the general driver page http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html you need to scroll down in the OS selection box to notice an option for Apple Boot Camp WinXP. I use iMac and it fixed it for me. Don’t know if it will work for others or not. But this is very well worth the effort before deleting the partition and reinstalling Windows. Especially since that is only a trouble-shooting test.

I call myself a Zebra. Apple loves their animal names for the OS. So I figure Zebra is a good name for the idiots such as myself that want to make serious use of Windows on the iMac. I would consider switching to 100% Leopard if I could. But there are many applications I use that simply do not exist in Mac osX. Even if I wanted to shell out the thousands of dollars to buy new Mac versions of the software, the mac version does not exist — period.

Hence, I have to function as a Zebra. Some of my work in Leopard, some of my work in WinXP.

I’m not saying that Apple Care should be responsible for all my Windows issues. Would be nice if someone was because Microsoft has demonstrated no ability in that area. I don’t expect Apple Care to handle much of anything other than hardware issues. And for me, I consider drivers to be part of the hardware. The hardware manufacture is responsible for drivers that run their devices.

Now if Apple supplied an empty box which I would fill myself with odd bits of hardware purchased off the internet then I expect that I would need to bug the individual hardware dudes for support. But, since they assemble all the pieces and sell me a fully loaded box, I kinda expect some support when the hardware and drivers go whacky. Well I can expect free beer to fall from the sky in 40 ounce bottles. That won’t happen either.

As I said, I didn’t even dare to dream that Microsoft would care or help. But I fell for the marketing and allowed myself to dream that with the iMac I was coming home after a long journey in the woods to a warm fire and the friendly support of folks that would care. Well, they do care. As long as I’m not a Zebra. Apple Care and Microsoft share one thing in common — neither of them will give much support to us black and white stripped freaks.

It’s a bit odd writing a thread when you know that most folks will encounter the pieces of the thread back to front. Definitely a different headset. At the moment my only concession to this oddity is to periodically drop a hint on what the hell the topic is referring to. Such as “recall that this thread started as a result of hard drive turning into burnt toast.”

Even though I’m working on my brand new (alright, it’s a year old but it really is hardly used) computer with its new hard drive I can’t escape the feeling that I might need to go through all of this again very soon.

These feelings of dis-ease come from two sources 1) the sting of recent events, 2) every time I turn around on the apple support forums for bootcamp and winxp they are advising re-install windows.

What the bleep is up with “re-install windows” as the first “go to” answer when encountering a problem. Don’t these guys have more than one or two programs they run? Don’t these guys have a life? I’m running on into the third day of this installing my way back into a working environment. The flippant manner in which it is advised to *try* reinstalling windows knocks my breath away. It’s not like they are saying: “yo, I know it’s a pain, but I can assure you that if you install windows it will solve your problem.”

Well, I’m on the phone as we speak (or I type in the present and you read in the unknown future) with AppleCare. Lord have mercy, if you are thinking about buying an iMac and using bootcamp as a way to transition from the Windows world to the Mac world give it some hard thought.

Basically, if you don’t actually need to use any windows applications then by all means consider the switch. But, if you truly need any of your windows applications then look out. After calling Apply Care with an issue the first thing they determine is “are you having the problem in Leopard or in WinXP?” If the answer is WinXP then they instantly stop listening.

The way it goes is this. The computer is Apple. Boot Camp was written specifically to allow the installation of Windows on the computer. But Windows is most definitely a distant (and not looked upon fondly) third cousin. The official line from Apple Care is “If the problem is occurring in the Windows side it is Window’s problem not Apples.” Actually it is not Windows problem it is mine. It is my problem running Windows on a piece of hardware that I was led to believe would run it.

Frustrating? You bet.

Boy this was a tough one.

Back when I stumbled across and installed my favorite plugins they didn’t seem so difficult to find. I guess the “stumbled across” part is what made it easier.

However, there is another factor now, massive competition in the plugin world. Doing a search for plugins turns up a zillion possibilities where a short while ago it was just a few. So now, I need to wade my way through a fair number of “maybe this” and “maybe that” to find the plugin that is the one I used.

Might sound like I use a ton of plugins. Not so. I just like the few I use.

Web Developer 1.1.6
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

Html Validator 0.8.5.2
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249

IE Tab 1.5.20080823
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

HttpFox 0.8.2
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6647

I’ve listed them here. So that maybe next time I go through this maybe I won’t have to hunt so hard. I’ll just read the above and “ta-da” there they’ll be.

As the hard drive recovery saga continues, I am finding a near endless litany of small adjustments necessary to my computer environment.

For example, Sound. Why in the hell does Microsoft think it is necessary to make a beep sound every time a confirmation box pops up on my screen. Do they get a royalty for each time the beep is played like a radio jock playing their tune on the air?

In any case, it is off to Control Panel, “Sounds and Audio Devices”, Sounds Tab to turn some sounds off. I’m happy enough to leave the “Yo! your computer is about to melt” sound on. But the “Default Beep” and “Exclamation Beep” had to go. Just highlight the option, then select “None” from the drop down list of possible sounds.

I like to use the play sound button to confirm this is the offending sound. So far default and exclamation have been the only true irritants.

Found Sony Vegas Pro. Hidden away in a “safe place”. One of these days I will learn to stop putting things in a “safe place”. That makes them almost impossible to locate later. I would be much better of it I put them where they belong.

The install for Sony Vegas is so unsettling. Actually it isn’t the Vegas that’s a problem, it is the .NET framework that is a bit weird. The progress bar will move along fairly rapidly then when it gets to 99% it just sits there forever. Did I forget to click a button? Is my computer a doa? Just about the time I figure, let’s push cancel and try again up pops another window’s progress bar giving me some assurance that things are progressing according to plan. Just wish that plan had some room for putting the poor computer user at ease — at least a little.

Of course the trick here will be remembering all of the plugins that were installed. I could look through my browser history, I suppose, to find the sites I’ve been visiting, except for two little problems 1) I delete all history over 30 days old, 2) All of my bookmarks and history were on the C drive (remember C and G died). Those of you reading top down might have missed the beginning of this adventure — my computer hard drive went the way of burnt toast.

Camtasia Studio was slightly easier to locate. It was still sitting in the place I reserve for putting things that I haven’t figured out where to put them yet.