It's complete. Muahahaha

Check out the sweet cable management.

I'm going to bite the bullet and actually build my own PC from scratch. I've always been too lazy/nervous before and have just bought pre-built PCs, adding components to them as needs be. Considering I talk a lot about 'puters, I thought it was about time I put my damn money where my mouth is!

So this is what I'm getting:

Case: <strike>Coolermaster Elite 335</strike> Cooler Master Elite 334

PSU: <stike>OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w</strike> Corsair 450w VX

Motherboard: P5QL/EPU

Processor: Intel Core2Duo E7400 (That's the 2.8GHz one)

Graphics card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB

RAM: <strike>Corsair</strike> Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz

HDD: Western Digital WD6401AALS 640GB

CPU Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro

DVD Drive: Samsung SH-S223 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL

OS: Windows 7 (x64)

What I'm hoping my PeeCee will look like.

I just received my Samsung SyncMaster 2333... It's massive. 23 inches of huge. Probably a bit too big really, but I'll get use to it.

Play me off...

GOING TO AMERICA AND I WON'T BE BACK FOR TWO WEEKS. DIRECT ALL COMPLAINTS TO COOP83.

I recently have a new found love for my N95 as O2 (my mobile phone network provider) recently gave me an upgrade which I couldn't refuse. For £9.58 a month, I get 200 minutes and 400 texts (more than enough for me) unlimited O2 to O2 calls and unlimited data (mobile internet), plus a new Nokia 6220 classic for free (which I gave to the MRS).

ANYWAY, having not really used mobile internet before now, I still assumed it was not up to much, especially after using WAP a few years back on an old 1" monochrome screen and being extremely unimpressed. But now, it's quite remarkable how far technology has gone in just a few years.

My first port of call was going to Google and downloading their apps, mainly Google Maps, and when I was using it, I thought "Wow, this is really handy", but then I noticed it was connecting to a GPS satellite, and before I knew it, my exact location was presented to me. That's pretty damn cool, I must say.

After that, I checked something out called "Google Latitude". This application allows you to keep track of your friend's location (if they have Latitude enabled on their phone). I set up Latitude, and took the dog for a walk whilst Jen stalked me using her laptop. My phone was relaying information on my exact location to her laptop, without any user input at all. How awesome is that?

I know a lot of this is old hat to you guys, but I find this technology to be really awesome and extremely useful; Google have this amazing ability to create software people really want to use, and I love it. Obviously the privacy buffs (read: The Daily Mail) outrage about this for some inexplicable reason, but this technology gets a massive thumbs up from me, and I can't wait to see what's in store for us in the future.

(I unfortunately read The Daily Express the other day, and there was this great story about how villagers blocked the Google Street View cam from taking pictures because "houses within their village have been broken into 3 times in 6 months". So, in fact, if my calculations are correct, that means people without their houses in Google Street View are 3 times more likely to get burgled.)

After having little work for months, I'm now doing 60+ hours a week, so I'm not going to be around that much in the near future.

Thank you so much for all your PMs and comments, they really are truly appreciated.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lib rary/cc512587.aspx

>>You can't clean a compromised system by patching it.

>>You can't clean a compromised system by removing the back doors.

>>You can't clean a compromised system by using some "vulnerability remover."

>>You can't clean a compromised system by using a virus scanner.

>>You can't clean a compromised system by reinstalling the operating system over the existing installation.

>>You can't trust any data copied from a compromised system.

>>You can't trust the event logs on a compromised system.

>>You may not be able to trust your latest backup.

>>>>>The only way to clean a compromised system is to flatten and rebuild.

Jesper M. Johansson, Ph.D. [YES, HE'S A DOCTOR], CISSP, MCSE, MCP+I

Security Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation

YES, THIS MAN IS HEAD OF SECURITY AT THE LARGEST COMPUTER CORPORATION IN THE WORLD.

+ ----------------------------- +

http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-147.htm (Steve Gibson (1) of GRC.com and Leo Laporte(2) of twit.tv) Download and listen: http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-147-lq.mp3

Leo: "I asked him, I said, well, what percentage of malware infections are you able to get rid of without formatting, and how many of them come back? And he said, well, you know, 99 percent of them come back. And it seems to me that you have to format the drive."

Steve: "It turns out that, I mean, the way this malware has evolved now, it's so insidious and sinks itself so deep into the system and, you know, renames files and sticks itself in places you don't know to look and is able to hook itself in so that it gets started up in many different scenarios, I mean, if you get a serious infection, really, I mean, for two reasons. First of all, you don't ever - you will never again, by definition, be able to trust the system. And secondly, you just can't get rid of it. It won't go away. And when people say, well, it comes back, what it means is they didn't get rid of it the first time. There was some little hook left somewhere, some little piece of evilness that is monitoring, and it reinfects the system. So it's just - I think your advice is right, Leo. You just - mostly, how could you ever do ebanking on a machine that once had this on there? I mean, there just isn't a way you can trust a machine that was taken over. "

WHAT ABOUT SYSTEM RESTORE:

Steve: "Well, there are now System Restore-aware malware. Which, I mean, that is a great example of the adaptation that we're seeing in this kind of malicious software is that it's evolving step by step. Once upon a time, remember, the spyware scanners could remove spyware. They'd say, okay, we got rid of it, and it would be gone. Now all kinds of things break because the software is really insinuating itself into the system because it doesn't want to be removed. And it's successful in not wanting to be removed. So even System Restore - and the problem is System Restore is sitting on the same system. If it's in the same system, you can't trust it."

Leo: "Frequently, in fact, people will restore viruses that they got rid of."

(1) Been in the security business for years, created the first anti-spyware programme coined the phrase "Spyware". Also the creator of "shields-up" and SpinRite. He knows what he's talking about.

(2) Owner of the twit podcast network, been in love with computers for decades, has his own tech radio show. Hosted numerous TV shows about computers. Again, he's a genius in his field.

If a mod posts in this blog, I'll show them my penis.