It has been a while since I’ve attended any seminars. The last would be during a conference my company sponsored a table top. But that doesn’t stop me from attending seminars. Nowadays, you can even attend a seminar from the comfort of your own office desk or even your bedroom with the creation of Web Seminar or better known as Webinar.

Armed with only your flash configured browser or special software and a decent broadband internet connection, you can attend or even held a webinar. So on the 5th of March which was last 2 weeks, I attended “MarketingProfs B2B-2.0 EXPO”. Since the webinar was hosted in the US, it was almost midnight from where I live but I was still at my office doing some last minute assignment. Here are some screenshots of the webinar I’ve taken during the webinar:

B2B 2.0 Expo 2.0 Main Area

Since this webinar is using flash, it requires a little bit of download time and also consumes most of my underpowered Intel Celeron M notebook processor. It does kind of annoy me especially when my so called broadband internet somehow drops in between.

B2B 2.0 Expo 2.0 Booth

The booth are not the kind of booth you see at normal tradeshows and seminars but at least you can get information easily by just clicking and it automatically insert information inside my virtual briefcase. The only thing that I don’t like is how the sales chat is handled, it was so slow to load.

There’s also some free gift in a form of free PDF information download and stuff. Well, I did download some of them but it’ll just add more collection to my PDF junk inside my laptop. They did follow up by sending me e-mails but I won’t really bother on their offer and stuff since I’m not seriously in need of such services yet. I’m just there to gain a new experience.

Pre-Training Webinar

Last night, I attended another webinar. This webinar is supposed to be done at my office since it’s related to my job but I had the permission to do it at home since the webinar is held after my office hours. Furthermore, I need to make a recording of this webinar to be shared with my team mates so I need a stable internet connection. Apparently, my internet connection at home is much more stable than my office.

I missed 10 minutes of the introduction to the webinar because I misunderstood the instruction which required me to call a toll free number in the US. The webinar was held on Microsoft Live Meeting and I thought the audio would be included. I then remembered that I can use Skype to make phone call to the US and lucky it went through since its toll free anyway. Check out the video below to see the webinar live in action inside of my own bedroom:

I’ll have more events going on the next following weeks so I’m looking forward to that as well.

I hope my webhost have learned their lessons when the attempt to upgrade/repair the hard drive containing all their paid web hosting customer, resulted in a catastrophic hard disk failure which wiped out the entire hard disk with no possibility or recovery. It was truely a painful moment for me when that happened. Eventhough my blog was just 11 months old with some casual updates, I also add-on a few domain names on the same web host since that was the most economical thing to do.

Anyway, my web hosting will expire end of this month. I’ve decided that I shall remain with my web host which is Byethost for one simple reason. They are fanatically upgrading each and every components on the web host to the latest version available.

Byethost Current Component Version List

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, install this add-on for your Firefox Browser called Server Spy. It will tell you which version of web application server the website is using. New version normally has bugfixes and contain more new features for you to enjoy such as the one my web hosting is using which is Apache 2.2.8.

Despite the economical factor, I have plans to buy another web hosting for not to put all my eggs in one basket. I have 4 days of geeky days at home this Chinese New Year holiday so I might be doing a lot more of my online activities as what I’ve been doing before.

In this post, I’m not going to insert any pictures or images. It has been a while since this problem occured. I’ve tried a number of those free anti-viruses (I’m stingy okay..hehe) and none of them work. I tried using a Ravmon Removal Tool (right click and save as here to download) but it didn’t cure my problem. I haven’t try the new version called the Smart Anti Virus 1.0 but I’m going to check it out soon.

Anyway, one of my colleague here at my office circulated an e-mail on how to remove RavMonLog virus. I’ve tried it myself, and it works:

THREAT NAME
Worm.RJump.A

CLEAN INSTRUCTIONS

1. Right click on an empty space from the taskbar (or right click on the clock from the right corner) and select Task Manager.
   – Select the Processes tab, locate ravmon.exe, right click on it and select End Process
   – Delete the following file: C:\Windows\ravmon.exe
2. To clean the removable storage device (USB stick, PEN drive etc.) right-click on your USB stick / PEN drive icon and select Explore.NB: Be careful NOT to double-click the icon because the malware will be reactivated.
   – Locate and delete the autorun.inf and ravmon.exe files
3. Click on Start, Run, type regedit and click on OK.

NB: Before you edit the registry, please export the keys that you plan to edit, or create a backup of the system before you proceed.

1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
2. Delete the "RavAV" = "C:\windows\ravmon.exe"

SYMPTOMS

1. Presence of the autorun.inf and ravmon.exe files in the root of the storage device.
2. Presence of a copy of the ravmon.exe file in the windows system folder.
3. Presence of the RavMonLog file that contains the port number for the backdoor component.

DESCRIPTION

1. Worm.RJump.A spreads by creating a copy on removable storage devices or mapped drives.
2. It drops the following malicious files:
   • autorun.inf
   • ravmon.exe
3. Also it drops a clean msvcr71.dll file that is a part of Microsoft Visual Studio.
4. It opens a port for the backdoor component.

I believe that every one of us are promoters. If we feel good about the stuff that we use, we will always tell it to someone else whether directly or indirectly. Today I’m going to write about a new high tech tool that I’ve been using for the past 2 months. Being introduced to Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) during one of my visit to a Microsoft road show, it has truly changed the way I’ve been looking at computers. If you are using Windows XP like me, the application is already built inside START > All Programs > Accessories > Communications:

If you have never used RDC before, you need to find another PC for you to connect and try out. However, it is best if you are familiar with IP Address and networking configuration before you use this facility. This application when in use and connected, acts like your normal Windows but you are actually controlling another computer remotely. If you want a free web-based application that is easy to use, one more tool that I use is a web service called LogMeIn:

If you look at the screenshot above, that is my remote computer or specifically known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS) located half way across the globe in Pennsylvania, US. I pay USD19 per month to use this VPS which is always online 24/7. If you do the math, I save a lot by leasing this VPS instead of owning one simply because:

1. I don’t have to buy those expensive PC/Server stuff that will cost me thousands of dollars
2. The VPS is always online 24/7 and I don’t have to worry about high electricity bill because the extensive need of cooling system the computers/servers need to have
3. The download connection in the US is superb. At 1GB per second network connection, it is hundred times faster than my normal internet connection. Of course, getting that file to my PC requires FTP that is limited by my internet connection
4. I can use a unique static IP address for my website or web apps for a fraction of a price rather than leasing one from my local ISP

My only problem for using this VPS is it can be sometime slow just to access and because of the low price, I only get 256MB of RAM which is rather limited. Occasionally, I need to restart my VPS at least once a week to free up the RAM or the VPS will crashed. Well as usual, you get what you pay for right?

If you are interested to use a cheap VPS for your Windows remote development or even Linux powered one, check out SWVPS. I’ll write more of how and what I have use my VPS for in my next following post to come.