If you’re an IT professional or have more than a passing interest in tech, you know that you have to be constantly updating your skill set or risk becoming irrelevant. One of the new technologies which has risen to prominence in recent years is Virtualization. Virtualization has been driven by a need for enterprises to scale their IT infrastructure effectively and affordability as well as the explosion of cloud services. Making this feasible of course, is the speed at which processor performance has increased as well as provisions for hardware accelerated virtualization in those same processors.

Virtualization, though dating back to the 1960′s, has come quite a long way in the last decade. My first exposure to virtualization was with Virtual PC on the Mac. At the time, while this solution allowed you to use some of your Windows apps, they ran quite slowly – you just cared that it worked.

Today, virtualization is driving the adoption of a new type of thin-client desktop computing solution for corporations. By centralizing computing power in the data center and pushing a full, familiar desktop environment to end-users, cost saving in terms of hardware purchasing and retraining are realized. What’s old is new again.

There are many players in the Virtualzation space. Some of the products include VMware, Microsoft Virtual PC and Hyper-V, Oracle VirtualBox, Parallels, and so on. While each has it’s pros and cons, what it comes down to is what works and what makes sense in your environment.

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Here’s a scenario… You’ve put your USB flash drive into a computer’s and the Auto Run menu doesn’t pop-up. You figure it’s no big deal, so you head over to My Computer and find the drive letter for your USB device and double-click, but it doesn’t open up. What’s up with that?

What’s up with that is that you are or have been infected with a virus or some other form of malware. As a means of self-propagation, some viruses copy themselves onto the removable media which it has access to (that’s your flash drive). To ensure that other computers are infected when the drive is attached to them, the Auto Run facility of Windows is hijacked. In this way, when the flash drive is plugged in, the Auto Run is executed and it runs the virus itself, which then proceeds infect the new computer. The virus will edit, or create if it doesn’t already exist, a text file by the name of autorun.inf file, the contents of which tell Windows which programs to run and how to handle right-click context menus.

Steps to remove virus/malware and restore default Auto Run functionality:

1. Scan your removable drive with your favourite Anti Virus. Be sure that  it has been recently updated with the newest virus definitions.
2. ALSO run the freely available Malware Bytes on the removable drive. Malware Bytes specializes in finding and removing malware/adware/crapware and very often catches what general purpose anti-virus programs miss.
3. Click Start, type “cmd.exe” into the text box and press Enter. This will open a command prompt.
4. At the command prompt, type “X:“. Replace X with the actual drive letter.
5. Now, you need to remove the “hidden”, “read-only” and “system” file attributes from autorun.inf file so that it can be seen and deleted by the user, aka you. To do this, you must enter the following command: attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf
6. Now you can delete the file by entering this command: del autorun.inf
7. Restart Windows, try to access the flash drive once more and all should be fine.

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Note for Windows Vista/7 users

To carry out these commands you may need to elevate your session to Administrator. To do this, carry out the following:

1. Click the Start button.
2. Type “cmd.exe” but do not press Enter.
3. Right-click on the suggested “cmd.exe” which appears at the top of the Start menu and click “Run as administrator“. Click “Yes” at the prompt.
4. Carry out removal steps as above.

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Related Links:

• Malware Bytes

BlackBerry 6 was unveiled to the World in 2010 with the release of the Torch. Love or hate the Torch, you have to admit that it’s new operating system and user interface were a pretty big step up from OS 4.x and 5.0. But where does that leave the rest of us using older devices? Some of us, particularly owners of the Bold 9700 which has proven to be quite popular are the lucky ones. They will be able to perform the upgrade on their phones. A couple other devices are also upgradeable.

Devices qualifying for an upgrade to OS 6 include:

• Bold 9650
• Bold 9700
• Curve 9300

Find out how to get it on your phone after the jump (more…)

What is DD-WRT?

DD-WRT is an alternative, third-party, open source, Linux based firmware which can be installed onto many off  the shelf wireless (WiFi) routers. If you’re the kind of guy or gal that has wished in the past for a  ”real” router or at least for one that had a feature set more akin to that of entry-level enterprise routers, this may be your ticket.

It should be noted that DD-WRT is not the only one of it’s kind. There are other similar Linux-based replacement router firmwares such as OpenWRT and Tomato. I believe that all of these Linux router distributions can find a common heritage in the Linux based firmware of the first Linksys WRT54G wireless routers. Linksys was obligated to freely release the code for it’s firmware as required by the GPL License. The rest, as they say, is history

Why should I use DD-WRT?

Chances are that you don’t ave any real need for going through the hoops required to install an configure DD-WRT. That said, there are many useful features which DD-WRT brings to the table. (more…)

International roaming is expensive. We know this. Some of us, present company included, know this all too well. Surely, there must be a way to maintain a decent level of communication with your home country while travelling abroad without having to resort to selling off your car to cover your roaming bill. Let’s find out how.

Basic Telephony

If your needs are simple, an ultra-basic pre-paid mobile phone is for you. By basic, you qualify if all you need to do while abroad is to make and receive local voice calls. If you are considering just purchasing a SIM card to use in your own (presumably unlocked) phone, think again. In the US, for example, with T-Mobile, a SIM card alone will set you back US$25. However, you can purchase a basic cell-phone, with a SIM card and a few “free” minutes for $20.

It is important to consider which network the majority of the people you will be calling within the visiting country. This is important as most providers allow unlimited calling to others on the same network, depending on the pre-paid plan chosen. As an example, both AT&T and T-Mobile offer pre-paid packages which cost US$1 a day (if the phone is used on that day at all; no charge is incurred if the phone is not used) and allow you to make unlimited calls to parties on the same network (eg. AT&T to AT&T). Calls to other networks are charged on a per-minute basis.

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Feeling for pizza?

So, you’ve got a hankering for pizza. You and the rest of the gang come to a consensus; it’s going to be Pizza Hut. You ask around for the delivery phone number, and someone shouts, “area-code-1HUT”. You pick up your BlackBerry, and realise you don’t know the digits to dial, so once again you ask around the room. You then realise that EVERYONE in the group is in possession of a BlackBerry and can’t offer you the assistance you so desperately require. Do you reach for telephone directory or call 6411 for operator assistance? No… Read on for the real solution.

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