Ask Felgall

The new version of the Adobe reader (version 9) is now available as i found while hunting the Adobe site to try to figure out why Adobe Reader 8 can only print 12 pages of a document at a time.

I found out the hard way though that the instructions that are on their site for downloading using Firefox are utter garbage. I followed their instructions and it used the Adobe download manager to download the file and then stupidly tried to install it automatically (which of course failed since you can’t install it from a limited account on Windows (and no one would be stupid enough to access the internet in a web browser on an administrator account unless they are trying to collect viruses). When their download mangler couldn’t install the file which it had just taken ages to download it either deleted it or hid it so well that I can’t find it. I have ended up having to download the entire program AGAIN because of their stupid download mangler. If you are going to download Reader 9 using Firefox then make sure you DO NOT allow their download mangler to run and use the regular download manager in Firefox to download the file instead.

Since I started selling PHP scripts from my site I have had three copies of one or other of my scripts stolen. I know this because right from when I first started selling the scripts I have had code in place to at least track when a copy of one of the scripts I have for sale has been downloaded.

The first occasion when I had a script stolen was before I implemented the IPN script that automatically emails the purchased script to the buyer after Paypal clears their payment. Back then I had a link from the page that you get to after making the purchase that allowed the buyer to download the script. In this particular instance the thief simply looked up the destination page in the source code of the page that linked to Paypal and went there directly without actually going via Paypal. Paypal has since introduced a way to encrypt the form to prevent this from being able to be done. What this thief didn’t know was that the page with the download link was set up to email me whenever a copy of the script was downloaded and since the download was actually done by emailing the script to the buyer, the thief had to give me their email address in order to steal the script. Due to the time that they picked to steal my form2mail advanced script I was able to watch them install the script on their site and soon after they finished installing the script I used their new contact form to contact them to advise them that I knew they had stolen the script and would take further action if it was not removed immediately. Since their site was actually part of a school web site competition it would have been very easy for me to advise the competition organiser if they hadn’t complied and removed the script. I am still not sure why they stole my advanced script since the free version would have been quite adequate for what they needed.

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What are the latest viruses to cause people problems on the web? What were the biggest virus problems last month? Which are the most popular hoaxes currently confusing people about what are and are not viruses? This web page that I added to the site back in 2002 las live feeds from one of the major antivirus software producers to answer those questions for you.

Virus Information

I have spent the last week or so setting up a new web site. The new site is basically a forum with the same categories listed on it as I cover on the main site and here in the blog. If you can’t find the answer you are looking for anywhere else on my sites then you can ask your question in the forum.

New Forum Launch

Yesterday my ISP blocked my internet access for a couple of hours when their automated spam blocker somehow misidentified my connection as having been sending spam. The ISP did not of course accuse me of sending spam, their block page suggested that it would have actually been caused by a virus or spyware having got installed on my system and that this was the most likely source of the spam. Their block page also offered free antivirus and antispyware software for download so that you could use the time you were blocked in scanning your system to find and remove the problem.

I didn’t need their download links because I already have a full range of security software installed on all my computers and the antivirus software had already brought itself completely up to date before the block started.

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Microsoft have finally release the first beta version of Internet Explorer 8.

Download Links

For those of you who insist on using Internet Explorer rather than a modern web browser and who are running Windows XP, there is no longer any reason to continue to use Internet Explorer 6 with its 600+ security holes.

Internet Explorer 7 was released about a year ago but the install process insisted on your proving that you have a valid installation of Windows XP. Now not everyone who was not prepared to run that validation is using pirated software as some people have privacy convcerns about such things. Well the good news is that now you don’t have to worry about that as Microsoft have removed that step from the installation process so that everyone running Windows XP can now download and install Internet Explorer 7 without having to validate their operating system.

Internet Explorer 7 download