All you have to do is to move it to Trash.

And tadaahh, it’s all gone.

It will open a Pandora’s box once you launch the .exe file. First, I got a warning from Avast about the trojan virus. Next, offers for another antivirus and antimalware came up. I knew right there and then that it was a virus. I immediately disconnected my computer from the Internet.

From resources in the Net, the virus points from Netherlands and Kazakhstan. My computer didn’t detect any virus when it is offline, but once you connect to the Net, offers for antiviruses come up. No option other than a reformat. Resources: ItWorld and KDVR.

My computer is slowing down anyway, so I might as well reformat it.

It’s a lesson learned the hard way.

Why Avant? According to a video tutorial, one can download a Screengrab addon and it should allow a screen capture of your browser. It didn’t work for me so I used another browser. Photoshop will be used in stitching the maps. Notepad will server as your HTML editor.

1. Go to maps.google.com and locate the map you want to save. In this example, I want to save a map of UP Diliman. Click the Link button on the right and highlight and copy the HTML code.

2. Paste the HTML code in Notepad. By default, the width is 425 and height is 350. You can change this to your preferred dimension. Expect a slowness of your system as the dimension get bigger. I used 2000 by 1000 pixels. Save the document as an HTML file. In my case, I saved it as map.html.

3. Open map.html in Avant. Once the page is loaded, go to File > Save Current Page as Image
4. Re-do steps 1 to 3, this time, select a portion of the map that wasn’t saved yet.
5. Let’s assume that you have 2 sections of the map. Open Photoshop and open the image files that you want to merge. Go to File > Automate > Photomerge. Select Add Open Files. If you haven’t opened the files yet, select Browse. Wait for the files to merge. Keep doing the steps if you want to have a complete copy of Google Maps saved in your hard drive.

By they way, the map that I did initially had UP Diliman only. It now extended to Fairview in the north, and SLEX in the south.

…Until the typhoon Ondoy last September 26. My neighbor migrated to Canada, so the Smart Bro connection has to be cut off. Digitel services also went down. There was a dial tone but there was no DSL. I have been calling them everyday (literally, everyday), even twice on some days and all I hear from the customer service agent is that they will make a follow-up report, that this is part of a network problem, etc. I got so pissed off that after futile attempts to get a connection, I texted an agent of Globe to give me a subscription form. Eight days after I filled up the form, they went to the house and set up the phone and modem connection. It took them an hour and 15 minutes to set it up.

I now have two telephones, and supposed to be, two ISPs as well. Notice that I also have a Linksys VoIP box and an answering machine.

So much for the introduction. I know that as long as I get Internet connection from the modem, Globe will not take care of my wireless set up. The problem is that if I plug the cable coming from the Hurricane ProLink 5200 modem and connect it to the Linksys WRT54G, either I will only have one Internet connection. That’s either via wireless or wired. I followed the instructions in The Greek Brewery, but it didn’t do any good.

Take note that in the instructions, it asks you to delete the pre-existing setting under the WAN configuration in 192.168.1.1/globe. That didn’t help me because once I do that, I lose my Internet light in the modem. My officemate also suggested to do MAC address clone, or to copy the MAC address of the modem to the router. That didn’t work either.

I was finally able to setup my wireless router via the following instructions. All you need is, of course, a network cable. This is the only configuration that worked for me, so others might have different suggestions.

1. Do not make any changes in the modem. Just leave it as it is. (I just found out that this modem is also a router.) Turn off the router for the purpose of hooking it up with the wireless router.

2. Go to the GUI of your router via 192.168.1.1 (or whatever local IP that was set before.) Go to Basic Setup, look for Local IP Address. I set mine to 192.168.1.2 so as not to be in conflict with the default IP of the modem.

3. On the same page, look for DHCP Server and select disable.
4. Turn off the Linksys device. It will now act as the access point instead of router. Connect the cable coming from the Hurricane modem to the Port 1 (not the Internet). Notice the blue cable in the picture. It is connected to Lan Port number 1.

5. Turn on your modem, wait for the lights to stabilize. Turn on your Linksys device. You should be able to browse using a wireless device, and via cable (notice the gray and yellow cables above).

If you will be networking your computers, make sure you check the IP address under 192.168.1.1/globe, Lan Interface > DHCP Settings. It will give you the IPs and the MAC addresses of your devices. If you will visit the DHCP Client table of the Linksys machine, you will see nothing because it already acts as an access point, and no longer a router. Your Hurricane model is now the router.

I have to thank my officemate Ryan for suggesting this setup.

Screen Size: 22″
Resolution: 1366 x 768
Sound Output(RMS): 3 Watts x 2
Sound Effect system: SRS TruSurround HD
Speaker: Down Firing
Picture-in-Picture: 1 Tuner
Set size(WXHXD) with Stand: 557.5 x 424.8 x 202.5mm
Weight with stand: 4.0kg
HDMI:1
Composite(AV):Common Use for Component
PC input (D-sub): 1
Headphone: 1

The TV works perfectly with my 80GB Microsoft Zune (sorry, I don’t have an iPod). Here, I played Lord of the Rings:

Once you connect the Zune to the wifi, it has the ability to know the top songs (at least in the US). Top pop song is I Gotta Feeling.

Review will follow later once I finish setting up the cable channels.

When I right-clicked on the folder Recycler, there was no Delete option.

Anybody who has an idea on how to reformat a USB in EEE PC?

Bad thing that facebook.com/herbert was already taken. So I have to content myself to facebook.com/hcarigma. It was done in less than a minute. I have to delay doing the grocery because I might be late in grabbing my preferred username.

Am not really into Facebook. It might be the tech-pressure that prompted me to sign up last December. Since 2003, I’ve been with Friendster and had connected with friends, classmates and co-workers. I even signed up with Multiply but has posted nothing. I declined Tag invitations. I feel that all these “social networking” websites are just networking but rarely a social one. I decline requests for approval for people I do not know.

But now that I have Facebook, I don’t think that I can totally abandon Friendster. I still treasure it because I have contacts with models, beauty queens, lawyers and potential lawyers, professors and journalists in it. Probably the only thing that would keep me on visiting Facebook is to navigate its applications.

It’s not really that “high-end” high end. But I’ll probably use it for the next three years, just in time when Windows 7 comes out later this year. Am not into gaming. In fact, only the Windows XP built in games are installed on this computer. I’m more into graphics and desktop publishing part. Aside from the operating system, I have Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, Reader, Dreamweaver, MS Office, Nero, Thunderbird, Firefox, Safari, Zune, FLV Media Player, Yahoo Messenger and Winrar installed on the PC.

Here are the specifications of the computer, parts of which I purchased from PC Hub. Thanks to Ryan Noble and John Eric Chan for the assistance.

Processor – Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.3 Ghz (P 8, 150)
Motherboard – Gigabyte G31M-E S2C (P 2, 500)
Memory – Kingston 2GB DDR2-800 (P 1, 250)
Video Graphics – Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 DD3 Ultimate Edition 512 MB (P 3, 530)
Hard drive – Seagate 160 GB (P 1, 999)
Optical Disk Drive – LG DVDRW Dual Layer 22x (P 1, 270)
Power Supply – HEC 500 watts Raptor 500 (P 2, 250)
Casing – Generic Techwill (P 801)
Keyboard – A4Tech KBS 720 (P270)

The mouse was purchased from CDR King. I also bought several extension cords – 2 for the audio jacks, a splitter for the speaker and the headset, and 2 PS2 cords.

These are the parts I already have:
Monitor – LG Flatron W2252TQ (purchased last January 2009)
Hard drive – Samsung 250 GB (purchased last January 2008)
Creative Speaker which was a gift in December 2007

You would see in the picture that I have a CRT monitor. That’s just for color calibration of the photos I edit. I believe that CRT still represents the true colors of the picture rather than the LCD. Of course, there are LCDs out there whose color are the same of that CRTs but they’re far more expensive. For Torrents, Rapidshare downloads and quick email check, I use the first generation Asus EEEPC 701 8GB.

My old computer will be used by my sisters for their flash games, my cousin for Friendster and hopefully school projects, and my parents for a voice and cam chat with my siblings in other countries. It was an Abit Fatal1ty, with a built in HDMI graphics port, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB hard drive, Lite-On DVDRW, an old HEC PSU and a five-kilo casing.

Dicapac stands for Digital Camera Pack and is made by a Korean company. I bought this thing in Watsons in Hidalgo for P 1, 200. Cameras could only fit into selected camera case, so you better check out which one is suitable for your cam.

Placing the camera
Before you insert the camera into Dicapac, make sure that it is on ready-to-shoot mode. Either you prefer the manual or automatic mode, you need to set this before hand because its difficult (make it impossible) to change the settings once the camera is already inside the case. I prefer the automatic mode. Before closing the case, test if the lens will extend enough. A tip if you want to use Dicapac: make sure that you take out the air before putting the camera, or before closing it. I did this by sucking the air out (imagine those rugby boys). If there’s air in the case, it’ll be hard to press the camera shutter.

Closing the case
Once you have taken out the air, get ready to close the case. Dicapac has three layers of closure. One is a zip lock, very similar to what you see in food containers. Fold the zip lock and you now have the second lock which is made of cloth put together. I don’t know what its proper term is but its something that’s common in bags, laptops, or anything that carries gadgets. The third layer is also made of that cloth. This third layer is at the back of the name.

Hard plastic
Not all of the edge of the plastic is covered by the black rubber like material. If you’ll notice, the upper right edge is just plastic which make it prone to damages. You might want to put a duct tape.

Here are some pictures taken using the Dicapac WP-510.

Photoshop CS3 is in a DVD, along with other programs essential to my workspace like an old version of Lightroom, Thunderbird, Firefox, Real Player, VLC Media Player, etc. What resolved this problem is by copying the files from the DVD and paste it on the hard drive. I did mine in the Desktop. Ran the installation from there.

Since I do layouts, InDesign CS3 is also important. I had this same problem a year ago but last November 2008, I finally got it to install. The problem is the same: Please insert Adobe InDesign CS3 to continue installation. I use a DVD here that when I plug in to the drive already proceeds with the installation.

I followed Answer number 21 in Mininova. In my Desktop, I created a folder names as “Adobe CS3.” Inside it is “InDesign.” And inside that folder is “Adobe CS3.” Installation was fast.

Having used that technique, I wonder if it will also work in installing other CS3 programs like Dreamweaver or something. I mean, can I just create a folder in the Desktop named “Adobe CS3″ then the name of the program, then “Adobe CS3″ in it?

Until I finish off my project and upgrade my computer January next year, I will stick to CS3s. Remember that I have some problems in running Photoshop CS4. But thanks to the people who gave their comments, I think I might be able to do it.

At the end of the day, I learned one lesson. If ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Photoshop CS3 and InDesign CS3 are running smoothly until I ran the portable versions.