Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Emergency Post

I don't remember what the emergency was.  I only wanted to post one post a day.  Really.  But life is outpacing my writing speed.


Anyway...I wanted to post something and decided it couldn't wait till tomorrow.  I came to the computer and discovered to my horror that a keylogger was running on my computer.  The Ardamax Keylogger.  It was not in stealth mode or hidden in any way.  I did not install it.  It wasn't there earlier.  I installed two pieces of software today and fear it was installed by one of them.


I installed Microsoft's Visual C# Express Studio.  I installed it on my old computer without a problem.  While I do not put it past Microsoft to spy on me, I don't think they would use a third party program to do so.


The only other software I installed was Qumana.  It is the editor software I am using to write this post.  This is the most suspicious suspect.  It is decent software and it is free.  I don't yet have enough information to determine if it's install is the culprit.  I have asked Ardamax folks to tell me how to uninstall their software.  It is stealth and I can't easily find it on my system.  Once I have uninstalled it, I will reinstall the Qumana software and see if the keylogger is reinstalled.


While I do like the Qumana editor so far (my last post only required one tweak to get it right), I cannot in good conscience suggest it to anyone if it is installing a keylogger.  I'll update you when I know.


EDIT:  Qumana is safe.  And I do recommend it for editing and posting new blog entries.  The culprit was a stock market web site I went to.  Shame on them!


So, what in the heck was so important that I needed to add another post today?


Oh yeah.  Emergency stupidity warning.  You read some news and think, this is too stupid to be made up.


For want of $60, California may loose it's claim of being a green state and turn into a gray state.


A homeowner planted redwood trees in their yard.  A few years later, their neighbor installed solar panels on their property.  Now the trees are shadowing the panels.  The solar panels are a hefty 10KW system that provides all the power they need.  They say they do end up paying $60 a year for their power.  They want the shade gone.


Guess who is in their corner?  The government!  There is a law that says tress cannot block solar panels.  The couple with the trees can be fined up to $1,000 a day until they fix the problem.  It went to court and a judge ruled in favor of the solar panels.  The fines were waived, but two of the trees have to get cut down.  Because, as we all know, plastic and metal is better for the environment than trees.


Don't believe me, check it out here.


While I am here, how about a public service announcement?


A while back, I was reading on a scientific forum about the technical wonders of a new dish washing soap called Dawn Direct Foam.  One pump should do a full sink of dishes.  Sounded wondrous and the forum owner tried it and said it was truly great.


I gave it a try myself.  I still have half a bottle of it on my sink.  Truly, it is a technical marvel.  They managed to make one foamy pump of detergent last for a full sink of dishes, depending on how you do dishes.  The technical marvel is solely applied to foaminess.  It is cheating.


To compare, they started doing something to your meat a while back.  Not all meat, but most likely the meat you buy.  They prep and package it in a carbon monoxide environment.  The carbon monoxide binds to the red blood cells like oxygen, but it sticks much better than oxygen.  The result is that your meat stays pinkish red for far longer than it normally wood.  It is easier to move such fresh looking meat.  It is cheating.  The color of your meat now means nothing to you, but you think it does.


Back to foam.  What we all associate with detergent foam is it's ability to fight greasy grime.  You are being tricked.  Dawn mad scientists have found a way for the foam to last long after any grime fighting as ceased.  Not only does it do a poor job of cutting grease, but it is very difficult to rinse off.  The foam just persists and persists like the energizer bunny, but without doing anything of substance.


I went back to my Ajax.  It is a great dish detergent, cuts thru grease like a chain saw and rinses clean quickly.


No writing for you this post.  You already got your daily dose. :)


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2 comments:

Sandra said...

Wow that was a full post and I loved it :)

Seriously, the meat thing made me gag, what the heck are they thinking??? And this right after the beef recall, now I'm all paranoid LOL

I'll have to look into that editor, I usually just go straight online and do it, though I was using Windows Live Writer for a while and really liked it.

Hope you guys are having a great day.

Hugs,
Sandra

Anonymous said...

Yeah.. parents sure can do a lot of damage just by being thoughtless.