Annual Windows XP Installation

Posted on July 26, 2006
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About three weeks ago, the computer I’ve been using at the office was infected by a malicious software. This successful-breaching worm was not a destructive one (the ones where it could erase important files), but still it is bothering my work. This worm which is a rontokbro variant worm, deletes some of the important features in Windows, like Search, Run, Regedit and the Task Manager.

I’m not going to deny that the penetration process of this worm through the computer was my fault. I ignores certain factor of computer security. If I could summarize my old security policy, it was like a time bomb until certain malicious software would penetrate. The lack of will to update my virus definition, the non-active firewall, and the read-write policy to one of my shared folder, Yeah, ignorance is bliss.

I don’t know if it was the worm or it’s just me who looses patience to my old crash-prone Windows system. I had to re-install Windows. I have a very bloated Windows full of leftover programs, orphan registries and corrupted files.

It took me five days before I can launch the re-installation process. Why was it so long? Life is full of obstacle. The damn worm corrupted my PC on my deadline days. I cannot afford to do a makeover of the system on those busy days. Therefore, I just let the damage as it is for a couple of days. It doesn’t ruin my important files, so it’s all right.

I had to reformat the partition and do a clean Windows XP installation. The re-installation process took only about 30 to 45 minute max.

So what can we learn from my series of unfortunate events? Here comes the fun part. I divided my experience into three part tips.

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MAMP, Migration and Everything Else

Posted on July 17, 2006
Filed Under Daily Notes, Software | 5 Comments

The Story

For about a month, I was “forced” on using Macintosh. Here’s the story. It began way back to the year 2000. I once had this nifty Pentium III 800 MHz PC with 256 MB of RAM. I’ve used this as a development platform. My area of expertise was based on the so-called LAMP or Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. In four years of college, I was focus on these issues. The PC itself is more than capable to fulfill my needs to learn these four entities.

With Red Hat 9, Apache 1.3, MySQL 4.21 and PHP 4.3.11 intact, I manage to use this PC on developing program to fulfill my thesis prerequisites. Even in its last days, with a specifications that rather old now, It still capable to be stuffed with Fedora Core 4 (though it experiencing hiccups in some parts).

Nevertheless, just like humans, it has its dying moments. Approximately one year ago, it started to die. When it turned on, the disk drive will produce squeaky sounds and it will not boot up. By then I realized that I have to move my critical data to a safer place.

By the grace of God, My father lends me his other laptop (Pentium M 1.7 MHz 1GB RAM). The problem is he gave it with one condition. I cannot change the OS within (Windows XP) with any other OS by any means at all. There lies the catch; I can’t leave the LAMP platform. I am used to it. The sun shines once again when I found a very nice application called Xampp. Xampp is an Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. In its installation process, Xampp will automatically install Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl in a proper place.

My research and development projects was back again, though I can’t called it LAMP no more, still it’s only a matter of platform, it doesn’t affect the development substantially. It was a happy moment, until..It happens once again (in other form).

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