Sunday, April 5, 2009

The finest of all free anti virus software’s

I have run a few free antivirus softwares since I bought a computer and installed MS Windows. Not every one can buy a commercial product and not every free one is safe to use.

My experience might be of help to you. Those free antivirus software’s I went for and my view on them is listed below.

Norton Security Scanner


It has limited features and requires a net connection to initiate scan. Does not remove high risk items.

Behaves strangely too sometimes, failing to start.

It comes with the Google pack. Un-tick all other boxes except Norton Security Scanner. You would have to download the Google installer though.

PC Tools Free Anti Virus Software

The free version does not have all features. Also it has a problem with updating. This feature in the free edition fails to work sometimes.

Regular virus updates are what makes an anti virus software valuable. If it can’t locate and eliminate latest threats it’s useless to have it.


AVG Antivirus



Some say it’s the best free one available now. Its interface is stunning and would compare with the best paid products in the market.

But it also has a problem with updating. It is as if it’s a little shy to update itself. I initially thought that it was due to my firewall. But even after configuring the firewall to allow it, it still fails to update automatically.

Manually downloading the updates also fails some times as the program cant get through to the server.

I have a broadband connection, so the problem is not with my speed.

Clam Antivirus


It’s an open source free anti virus software. It was developed for Unix platforms mostly but has a windows version too ( Choose Win32 if you download it). I ran it for some time and it was good. It has a sort of ugly appearance outwardly which might not appeal to some. But it does its job and quite contrary to what people believe about free open source software’s is very good and has all the latest virus definitions.
They have a nice portable version which you can carry around in a flash drive. Plug it in before you work on any computer, whether at the workplace or at home or at any place. It would scan the system and you would be secure from infections.

Avast Free Anti Virus Home Edition


To my mind the best free one that exists. I have it currently in my system. You may not like its dark looks, but I tell you its very good. Once you install it you can forget that its there. It updates the moment you are connected to the net and says so too. (With Voice. It s very reassuring to hear it say “Your anti virus software has been updated”.

I do not know if other paid software’s have this feature. It’s lovely anyway)
But more than the novelty it has some fast features that you look for. That is, you need not initiate a scan for it to locate an infection.

All the computers in my office are heavily infected. Whenever I bring work back from office, this beauty locates the virus even before I have finished inserting the flash drive into the slot. That to me is sheer bliss. This is the only Anti Virus software that does it. It might frighten you a bit with its siren like sound when it has found an infection. You might think that there is a fire or a calamity in the vicinity. Man this thing takes its work seriously!

Their free Home version has all the features and if you register with them you can use it for free for an entire year. They might ask for your E Mail ID to send you the key, but they never trouble you with spam by sending unasked E Mails to your system if you have it disallowed.

Well you can decide for yourself what is best for you.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Guarding the mind

I have been trying to install Mindguard on my Linux OS for sometime now. Try as I might I can not do it no how. It’s true that my grasp of the Linux is billions of light years away from that of Linus Torvalds. Yet what is the use of downloading something if you can’t install it.


And I am inordinately curious about Mindguard too. Zapato seems a fun guy and his programme probably is only an amusing game. But the things that he says on his site on mind control are mind boggling. He certainly has invested some considerable time and research into it. Incidentally he maintains that Belgium does not exist at all and it is the creation of vested interests. All together an intriguing character.


Probably a man after my own mind.


But whether mindguard is a fun program or it actually protects you from psychotronic attacks is not the question now. You need to run it to know what it really is. I have not yet succeeded in doing so.


This irks me no end.


I have a double boot system, the first OS being a Linux distribution (Debian GNU Linux etch. This was downloaded from the net. At the time of installation I had no net connection and could not specify a location (mirror) to download updates. Hence it has an updating problem. May be this has some thing to do with the mindguard installation?). The other one of course is MS Windows.


After reading Zapato I was eager to see how it would work. It was easy to download it and unzip it. I located the ‘Install’ file and read me file. There was not a great deal of confusion on them. The confusion started as I was trying to install it.


I followed the instruction on the read me file of the mind guard and tried every other thing I can think of. Nothing would do the trick.
These were what I found on the install file:


“INSTALLATION:

It's what you would expect:

>$ cd [directory where source is]
>$ make
>$ su
># make install”


I cd’ to the directory, Computer says “There is no such directory or file “
Then how can I “make” “su” and “make install”


Well all other options failing I tried the last method he suggested.

“Or finally, if you are Mr. Leet CLI Guy, just copy
everything manually. The only consideration is the carrier
dir which must be either in ~/MindGuard/,
/usr/local/share/MindGuard/, or your current directory”


Synaptic file manager would not show the file (s) in it. It would only show the etch packets. I tried installing it through the terminal, nothing happened, I even tried manually copying the unzipped files to a directory as it was suggested. It would never copy into the directory the program suggested. I tried to run the entire installation instructions through the terminal as a last resort.


As you may have guessed by now, I am as dumb as a piece of rock in matters concerning computers. The Windows operating system has completely spoiled me. Though it may have vulnerabilities it also offers some nice uncomplicated features for the user. Not every one can be a good programmer can they?


So I would very much like to see some programs which searches for and fixes problems in the Linux operating system with a graphical interface.

I just am not the type who likes a black screen and white letters in it.

I know that there could be any number of options for those in the know. Some may even be able to edit the OS itself to customize it to suit their needs.

But with my programming skills entirely consisting of

Print “Hello World” ,

(You should see my expression of intense joy when the computer prints it finally after many tribulations)

I can’t be going anywhere near as editing the source to suit my needs.

All the same I am a very fun loving guy, though there could be others who contest this belief.

I want to install and run mindguard on my debian GNU Linux platform. Are there any helping souls who can tell me how? Or is this going to be a cry in the wilderness?

Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Conflicker fright

Ever since I had a scare with the Windows Operating System some time back I am a little too cautious of the emerging threats. It was this that took me on a hunt for information about Win32/Conficker.B. This Conflicker thing was reported to have the capability to exploit vulnerability in the windows XP service pack 2 and naturally I was all alert.

I have the Windows XP service pack 2 and the worm was expected strike on the 1st of April 2009!

It goes deep into the system and would be hard to locate if it hides itself in deep. It might also lay low without causing any problems for some time in the affected computers and spread to others from it, unknown to both the systems. The worm has many variants and is could be creating newer ones as it spreads.

At least for this time the Microsoft guys were ahead of the threat and have done something to alleviate it. They have updated their January version of MSRT to locate and remove the worm. If you are one who regularly runs it you would not have any problems. Also they have provided patches to remove the vulnerability. If you are running XP Service pack 2 you might need the following patch:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2996b9b6-03ff-4636-861a-46b3eac7a305&displaylang=en

You might also want to read up on the subject at this link.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-067.mspx

Their MSRT may be downloaded at the following site.

It really has helped me once when I was in dire straits. But it can only find infections after they occur, that is, it can’t detect and remove threats at the moment they take place.

But it’s a useful tool to have. I run it regularly. The only hitch is you need to download it every month to run the new version.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx

downadup removal tool also seems a good thing to have in the circumstances

ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/anti-virus/tools/beta/f-downadup.zip

You can run it after unzipping it to any of your local disks. The only thing is, read the read me file carefully before you do it. Also check whether new versions are available on the net for the worm could be transforming and modifying itself even as you read this.

It seems to be a mere scare after all.

On videos on meditaion

I like a practical approach to things and it doesn’t go away when I am talking about meditation. All the help you can get on the front should be welcome considering the nature of the quest. Take the case of music which is intended to get you to the alpha and theta levels, why not go for it, provided it does what it boasts about? But all the same, in my experience, (as one who has experienced the alpha and theta states before) most of the claims are just words and the programs would hardly get you where you want to.

But that should not discourage you. Listening to binaural beats now and then is not such a bad thing. It at least calms and strengthens the mind. Of this I am very certain. They quieten the mind and curb the tendency of the mind to wander. Don’t play the music too loud though. Silent sound and beach sounds are very refreshing in my experience.

Honestly they are much better than the kind of music that you hear around normally.

In the same manner I am interested in videos on meditation too. But there are not many good ones on the net on it. When I did a search on the sites like the google video, metacafe and you tube the only promising ones I found were those by the people I told you about in the last post. I learn that there are some 11 or so videos by them about meditation. I have seen some of them and I must say that I am impressed.

They are the most reliable videos that I saw on the internet on the subject. They don’t advice you to do the impossible and nicely explain about the experiences during the process. Basically these are helpful bits of information for the seekers. My only concern is that they are aiming a little low in them.

Hence I am not in total agreement with some of the things that they say, but that could be because my emphasis is on the subtler aspects of meditation rather than what is described by them . To me the entheric, astral and even mental and bhudhic bodies are off no importance. Following their development is rather useless if you are aiming at real knowledge.

Unless you can raise your consciousness to the level of self you are still running around in circles in the sphere of duality.

Naturally that is not the effect I am aiming at. Also the commentary, though well meant, could be a little spruced up in presentation. Health and meditation ( that is, the truer aspects of meditation) has little in common if any at all. Repairing our etheric body and controlling our astral body is a little inferior in the scale for me. These may naturally come or not. Better not concentrate on it.

But their video on the third eye was not bad, though it’s doubtful whether such information is really necessary to those who are trying to meditate. The talk about the placement of the third eye for example. That should have been avoided at all costs.

As they say the position of third eye roughly corresponds to the place of the pineal gland in the head. But it is neither necessary nor advisable to meditate on that spot. It might bring in a lot of harm rather than any good.

Pineal gland is not the third eye as some believe. It’s a remnant of our animal past. If stimulated it might give us a kind of sixth sense and some amount of clairvoyance. But, with it might also come in possession and outside influences.

This was known to everybody who has ever thought on the subject. So the advice has always been to place the mind strictly at the point in between the eyebrows and not at the pineal gland. Those who are following my post on Sambavi Mudra would be well advised never to think or meditate on the pineal gland. There could be any number of people who encourages doing so. They are totally in error in this regard.

I have never been a great proponent of Hatha Yoga and the reason is this. Both the recognized texts on the subject “The Hatha Yoga Pradipika” and “The Gheeranda Samhitha” provides some methods to get at truth even without the acrobatics that is contained in them otherwise. What they say on the Nada Yoga and Sambavi Mudra etc are worthy of note. Both are simple and effective practices to follow. Even Atmarama ( Of Pradipika) and Gheranda ( of Gheeranda Samhita) has not advised any place other than the middle of the brows to place the mind. Both of them swears on the effectiveness of the sambavi Mudra in exclusion to everything else.

“Sathyam, sathyam punah sathyam
Sathyamuktham Maheswara!
Sambavim yo vijAniyath
Sa cha brahmam na chAnyatha”
( Gheranda Samhita , Advice 3- 15)

Its the truth, the truth, and truth again
And you spoke the truth Oh Lord
The man who knows the Sambavi
He becomes the truth itself, there is no other way.

But there are enough ditches in them for people to fall in. They talk of all sorts of practices like the Khechari Mudra for example. It involves cutting away at the web below your tongue which connects it to the mouth and making it longer to so that it can go up to the third eye in the roof of the mouth. You could waste years in trying to make it happen. May be they were only listing certain practices which were in vogue at the time.

Anyway be like a swan which is supposed to have the ability to distill milk from water, throw away the unnecessary and accept the best, even from me.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Techno-spiritual tools

Mostly I am terrified of using certain words that others have picked at in my earlier posts. I should not be, having the proverbial thick skin as they say. But there it is, I am.

So naturally it’s with great trepidation (I love this word) that I am about to talk of technology. No, no, not on the philosophy of science and technology. That’s clean out of my league. It is much better to leave it to the experts and munch our daily bread is it not?

But why the heck should we not? I mean talk on the philosophy of science and technology? We are the guys who recently landed on the moon. (Not forgetting the argument that moon itself is a myth)

Should we not concern ourselves with technology then?

Well you may not.

Why?

Well consider this questionnaire:

Do you run the world?

Nnnno….

Do you call the shots?

Only when Sania Mirza plays.

What’s the Wall Street?

Isn’t it a street named after Rahul Dravid, the ‘great wall’ of Indian cricket?
What’s the current economic crisis?

That they are not employing more Indians? No wonder they are failing.
You see, first GROW UP.

Well thankfully my interest in technology is limited to the aid it provides to our normal life activities. If I am not mistaken yoga is a normal activity is it not? I could be wrong, is it something we don’t do normally?

Anyway in the land of its origin if you mention Yoga you get a regular Ha-ha. But we are not normal in India, our only aspiration is finding some dollars and “enjoying” (I wonder what that is?) life.

Every Indian Guru get on the first flight to the land of opportunities after he has learned the basics of spiritual practice and starts to dream about making fast bucks.
Honestly, though not a guru, I am not any different, I love money; the hitch is that I don’t have psychic abilities. It takes something to convince even the dumbest of people- that you are a Guru. If I could at least produce ashes out of the thin air, I might stand a chance of making some bucks in the west.


Let alone ashes I can’t even fix sashes as my wife would tell you- of windows I mean.
Can I be blamed if I am envious of those who go west? I try my best to dissuade those who are raring to go to the US.

I tell them.

“Friend aren’t they accumulating toxic assets there?”

They look at me as if hurt.

“Basically speaking, dollar is not at all toxic”

“It isn’t?

“Nope. To me it ain’t?”

Talk about conviction! If they had such faith in their inner most selves they would have been gods by now.

Anyway the influx of gurus has done a lot of good to the west too. Reports say that more and more people are interested in spirituality and yoga practices as the time goes by. There are more Kundalini awakenings in the west than there is in India it seems. The hectic activity on that front must be psychically influencing susceptible people towards that line.

The one great aspect of the current spiritual revolution is that it has created technological tools to help you in your spiritual quest. One video might teach you more things than a whole book on any esoteric subjects. Graphical video aids are wonderful in this regard.

While looking through the videos in You Tube I came across one on meditation. I have my doubts on its effectiveness as a tool to meditation, but it shows what the breath does when you are meditating. It’s useful to view it to learn what’s actually happening in meditation. And if it helps you in your efforts then it is more useful is it not?

If any one is interested, here is the link to it. It is the first one on videos on meditation named “How to meditate”.

Try it anyhow. The length of the video is about six minutes. It might not be easy to view it if you are using a dial up connection.

http://www.voobys.com/search/search_video.php?q=meditation#