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Wednesday 25 June 2008

Direct Console MSNHOOK.dll fail

If you have an Asus notebook computer and you get this message, or ending in "failed to load", do not be alarmed.
What has happened is that with a new anti-spy-ware definition update, your anti-virus and/or anti-spy-ware program now thinks that this Asus notebook utility is a trojan (spy-ware).
To fix this you will need to go into your anti-virus/anti-spy-ware program and add the path to the Asus Direct Console folder, as well as the paths for LCMP.exe and MSNHOOK.dll to the exceptions.
After doing this, download the latest Direct Console (also goes by other names like Direct Messaging...) version from the appropriate Asus site and do a repair install to put the msnhook.dll file back (or just restore it from the virus vault). Reboot and the message should be gone and Direct Console should be running and properly functioning.

Monday 23 June 2008

Facebook Firefox Issue

If you are having problems with Poke-o-matic or the Facebook Refresh script, or Facebook pages not loading when you click on them, either while in Firefox 2 or 3, I think I've found the problem. It has to do with Adblock and possibly Adblock Plus if you use that instead.
To solve the problem
• Log into Facebook
• Right-click on Adblock and choose to Whitelist the whole site.
Now things in Facebook should work fine. Hopefully, the makers of Adblock and Adblock Plus can fix this issue in the near future.

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Firefox 3 June 17th

Firefox 3, final version, will be out June 17.
If you don't use many extensions and/or themes, and you are running Windows 2000, XP or Vista, go ahead and download and install it.

If you are running an older version of Windows, you won't be able to use Firefox 3.

If you do use a lot of extensions/add-ons, then you might want to wait until your favourites are updated to run on Firefox 3 (unless you know how to hack an extension to change its maximum version setting)


There are lots of improvements in the new version of Firefox, especially improved performance and memory handling.

UPDATE
There are many extensions that have NOT yet been updated to work in Firefox 3. So, my advice is to check the add-ons page first to see if the extensions in questions have been updated or not for version 3. There are a few things about version 3 that are quite different, so, if you hack the max version in the code for the extension, it still might not work properly.

Monday 9 June 2008

Security Threats Through Adobe

Many security threats use Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat Reader to run on your computer.
Here is a recent article about this.

To minimize your risk, keep Adobe Flash updated.
In IE, type in Adobe Flash in the search bar/field, and install it. Make sure to UN-check Google Toolbar if you don't want it (I recommend NOT using the Google Toolbar).
In Firefox, type in Adobe Flash in the search bar/field and download the installer. Close Firefox and run the installer. You may have to run the installer a couple of times to get it to properly install.

Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Remove this program and install Foxit instead.