B2EVO

This is a great online (web browser) tool which can actually tell if you can run a specific PC game.

I’ve tried it for NFS Most Wanted not because I like EA, it was for test purposes only Besides my bloody work computer cannot run anything proper.

Below you can see my results. It came as a pleasant surprise for me: I can run NFS MW on my work computer!

The funny thing is that I have low FPS rates even in NFS V Porsche Unleashed (1280 x 1024 px, all details set to high).

Anyway, I hope this browser tool it’s not like any antivirus software – after its first run it finds that I have some viruses on my PC, even though the antivirus installation came as soon as I finished to install all system drivers after a fresh and clean windows installation, all of this with my network cable unplugged during the whole process

Here are my results:

So, Can You Run It?

Do you remember the good old times? Do you remember how we used to connect to internet?

Do you remember the 56K modem?

If not, here’s a good replica of that times. Well it’s much more a good replica of that sound.

I think there is no internet user who doesn’t know what a key logger means. Even if you didn’t know you’ll be suspicious after reading its name.

If someone came to me and sad that there is a hardware version of this hack I wouldn’t believe him. But guess what? There is one. At least this has been proven.

I was opening up my almost brand new Dell 600m laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard.

I figured “No Big Deal”, and continued with the dissasembly. But when I got the metal panels off, I saw a small white heat sink – wrapped package. Being ever-curious, I sliced the heat sink open. I found a little circuit board inside.

Being an EE by trade, this piqued my curiosity considerably. On one side of the board, one Atmel AT45D041A four megabit Flash memory chip.

On the other side, one Microchip Technology PIC16F876 Programmable Interrupt Controller, along with a little Fairchild Semiconductor CD4066BCM quad bilateral switch.

Looking further, I saw that the other end of the cable was connected to the integrated ethernet board.

What could this mean? I called Dell tech support about it, and they said, and I quote, “The integrated service tag identifier is there for assisting customers in the event of lost or misplaced personal information.” He then hung up.

A little more research, and I found that that board spliced in between the keyboard and the ethernet chip is little more than a Keyghost hardware key logger.

The reasons Dell would put this in their laptops can only be left up to your imagination. It would be very impractical to hand-analyze the logs, and very CPU-intensive to do so on a computer for every person that purchased a dell laptop. Why are these key loggers here? I recently almost found out.

I called the police, as having a key logger unknown to me in my laptop is a serious offense. They told me to call the Department of Homeland Security. At this point, I am in disbelief. Why would the DHS have a key logger in my laptop? It was surreal.

So I called them, and they told me to submit a Freedom of Information Act request. This is what I got back:

*via virus.org.ua

Recently I encountered some serious problems with my computer. The bloody thing won’t boot! I did everything in my power to avoid a slow and painful winXP install, but after 2 hours of brain storming I soon realize that I was working against the odds. Therefore a fresh and clean winXP installation hit hard my routine

I’ll be honest with you guys; it’s been a while since my last winXP installation. 1 year, 3 months and 24 days to be exact.

Anyway, this sudden strike came with some losses. I lost some miscellaneous files. You know, when you use the computer in your daily activities you start to personalize things, to make them easier to reach/use also better looking (if permitted by hardware). Some of those miscellaneous files were my windows media player play lists, my precious WhereIsIt DVD catalog, some savegames and some torrents. WMP play lists I manage to rebuild them, the DVD catalog took me 6 hours to rescan all my DVDs, the savegames didn’t matter after all because gaming is in my blood. The torrents were lost.

I use µTorrent as a torrent client and never thought to do a back up of all my active torrents. You know what? I don’t think I will! Because I found how to ‘restore’ them.
The procedure is quite simple and came to me by accident.
So, here it is:

• you have to download the exact torrent file from where you originally got it;
• open the torrent file;
• save the file to where the data is already stored.

That’s it! µTorrent will do a check file then it’s ready for seed again.

Happy seeding,

CJ

PS: If you wonder if I chose to install Service Pack 3 for windows XP, the answer is: No!

SP2 will remain my favorite because it has already proven its reliability. It’s strong and stable like a rock. Besides I’ve made the stupid mistake to install SP3 on my work computer and after one week I did the roll back to SP2 for one simple reason: SPEED!