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If you get this trojan virus, you will notice a small yellow triangle that says System Alert! Your computer is infected. windows has detected a spyware infection. Of course these are not authentic messages coming from windows. They are caused by Spyware or Malware trojan virus called Smitfraud. I think the one I got is called Troj.vlob.an

This virus is so evil that it will disable your task manager, change you wallpaper and send you lots of popup to advertise fake anti-spyware programs. Do not click on these ads or you will keep getting more spyware, trojans and virus. It will eventually slow down your pc so much that you will have to call me.  

Yesterday I went to repair another computer for a customer and she had this bad virus. She had the same type of Zlog trojan that I also wrote about last week. That time I decided to reinstall windows, but this time since I had read some articles about it, so I went prepared with a few tools to clean it. First I had the smitfraudfix.exe and I also had a fixtaskmanger.exe as well as a few other basic antispyware and antivirus programs. I thought that the smitfraudfix.exe would be the perfect tool. I went ahead and ran it in safe mode and let it do its things. But even after it was finished and rebooted, this virus kept reappearing. I also noticed that the task manager was still disabled. So now I ran the other tools. I ran the task manager fix tool and it did get me back the access to the taskmanager. I continued to clean using some original methods of regedit and msconfig. This PC had Windows XP home edition. I found a few entries for rundll followed by the name of some strange dlls. So I deleted these from the startup paths and also from the registry Hkey local machine, software, microsoft, windows, run key etc.

I also booted back into safe mode and deleted the strange dll’s which I know are the virus files. But I noticed that even in safe mode, I was still getting the highjacked wall paper and the little yellow triangle that this Zlob trojan causes. it looks like this is a new variant that not even smitfraudfix.exe can get rid off. I also ran Adaware, Spybot and trojanhunter. None of these programs could kill this virus. I was ready to reinstall windows. But I decided to try one more tool. I downloaded a SuperAntiSpyware free version and I tried that too. This program which I once I thought was spyware actually helped clean up many more adware, trojans and spyware programs. It only left the fake wallpaper and I removed that, but I still have a feeling that this virus is still hiding somewhere else.But where can it be hiding? I think it has somehow infected the files that windows uses to display the active wallpaper. I will have to go back this evening and this time I will have to try a self booting antivirus program and see if it find the effected files. If anybody who reads this post knows a better way I will be glad to here from you. I may even offer you a small reward!

I know that I will see this virus again. Next time I want to be even better prepared for it. Please post any helpful comments below. Thanks in advance.

BTW I just found a few more tools and will bring them to the PC tonight:

SmitRemove and Rouge remover. I also will run ccleaner and install the latest antivirus version as I can find.

I have looked into several XP files, including setupp.inf and winnt.sif and pidgen.dll. But I still have not found a true answer. What happens is that I have a Laptop that came with a OEM version of XP without SP2. The HD went bad, so I wanted to use my Corporate Volume License Edition of XP Pro with SP2, which I still have plenty of unused licenses for it.  I wanted to do this instead of putting the Old OEM version of XP pro that came with the Laptop. But somehow along the process, I used another CD that was not from my volume license either. It must have been a retail copy that somebody used and made a copy of. So the key worked and let me install it. I assumed that it was the Corp VLK version, until after I finished setup and all of the drivers. This took me a few hours too.

Now I think I have no choice but to reformat again and use the correct Corp VLK CD.

Unless somebody knows a way that I can fix the version that is on it, to work, and let me activate it. I also want to know if I call Microsoft, will they be able to help me? I can give them my Corp VLK info and prove that my company paid for it too!

No matter which brand you choose, you may have experienced a sudden loss of reception from your wireless router. You may only get a signal when you are within 5 feet of the Router, or the Router may not even show up when you search for it.

I have had several Routers: Linksys, Netgear, Belkin and even a Novatech and this has happened to all of them. The router either shuts of power to the Radio transmiter or the Radio transmitter burns out completely. 

When this happens, you may get lucky by just doing a Hard Reset and then reprogramming the Router. Also it may not be the router, it may be your wireless card too. But if you find out it is the router what can you do?

Well the answer is: reset it or replace it.  You can also try doing a firmware update. But if none of this works, then this basically means that the radio transmiter or amplifier chip inside the router, or wireless card has burned out. This may have been caused by too much heat, or because of a power surge. If you still have a warranty then take it back and return it. If not buy a new one for about $50. This time buy it at a Store like BestBuy of Circuit City. Pay an extra $10 for the 3 year extended warranty. Also make sure to use a power strip.

Another thing: Always activate the WEP or other Wireless security features. It is possible that hackers can do things to your wireless router, pc’s and network that will cause the radio transmitter to burn out too. If you do not know how to setup security then you should unplug your router. Or you can call me and I will help walk you through this over the phone.

http://www.movicompservices.com

And lastly, if you ever go away for vacation, please unplug your router.

This applies to:

Linksys, Netgear, Belkin, 3com, Novatech etc.

I have this Toshiba Laptop - South American or European Edition.

Model = A135-SP4796 

Ever since I downgraded it from Window Vista - Basic Spanish Version, I am having a hard time finding all of the XP drivers. For starters, Toshiba will not help. They have some kind of evil agreement with big Microsoft, not to make it easy for anybody to put XP on it. But I am stuburn, I had Vista. I think Vista is the worst OS that MS has come up with. I do not no many people who like Vista, not even in Big corporate Offices. Everybody is still using Windows XP.

I had started a few weeks ago on this Laptop which belong to my niece. I found some drivers on Hardware Central and Geeks to Go Forums and that helped me to get the Wireless card drivers, The video and eventually the sound to work. Now I am working on it again. I am trying to find the 2 missing drivers:

1) Ethernet Driver - which I can do without as long as I have the wireless working

2) Mass Storage Device - The lack of this prevents me from connecting camera’s USB flash drives or IPODS to it.

Does anybody know who manufactures these 2 parts, The driver has got to be out there somewhere and I will not stop searching until I find it.

Also I hate Toshiba  - Curse them for not helping all of us that resist Vista! 
I almost put Ubuntu Linux, but thought that my niece who is 12 years old may not know how to use it!

Please post comments below.  Thanks!

Yesterday, I went to go fix a friends PC and she had told me that she had a virus, so I proceded to login and kill it. Well this time I was surprised to find that my first tool, the task manager was disabled! I next tried to go into safe mode and found that it was still  dissabled even in Safe mode. Next, I tried to access the internet, but no luck. This little nasty virus has changed the host file and it had dissabled lots of windows XP services and more.

As I was pressed for time I told my friend that I need to take the computer home and re-install windows. When I arrived home, I searched the internet to find out what kind of virus I was dealing with. It appears to be the Zlob Trojan. This Trojan virus is very nasty. It is hard to get rid of. I found an article on geeks to go.com. This is a virus simular to Error Guard! and it at keeps telling you that you have a virus via Windows anti-virus and it has a yellow triangle on the task bar with an exclamation that will not go away.

If you find this one you may be better of reformatting the computer, but you can also try this tool from geeks to go and it should also clean it.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/How-to-Remove-Zlob-trojan-Media-Codec-Goldcodec-Braincodec-t140685.html

In my case it did not work, because I made the mistake of trying to delete files and registry keys and also turning back on several services in an attempt to get back the task manager. So in this case I decided to reinstall windows and that is what I did. I totally wiped away this nasty trojan and all of the other junk that it may have put on the poor pc!

As I predicted 2 years ago. This technology is going to be the next boom. It may help revive our economy and make us forget about the housing slump.

It looks like Comcast, Time Warner, Sprint-Nextel, Verizon, Google and Clearwire are planning on investing Billions of dollars into this technology:

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2008/03/26/the-cable-guys-could-be-sprints-last-chance.aspx

Now you can relate this to my WIMAX post below which I wrote about in 2006:

http://www.blogsomebody.com/wimax-and-why-i-think-it-will-be-considered-one-of-the-greatest-inventions-of-the-2000-decade/

What do you think will happen next?