Virustotal is an online service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines. It is a site I use frequently to check any files against viruses, worms, trojans and malware which I have received or any trial software versions I download from the Internet. 

To use: Simply head over to http://www.virustotal.com/ and upload your file and their service will provide an in-depth scan of the file against the latest leading virus scanners. To give you an idea of these, see the list below (list as at 11th October 2008):

AhnLab-V3
AntiVir 7.8.1.34
Authentium 5.1.0.4
Avast 4.8.1248.0
AVG 8.0.0.161
BitDefender 7.2
CAT-QuickHeal 9.50
ClamAV 0.93.1
DrWeb 4.44.0.09170
eSafe 7.0.17.0
eTrust-Vet 31.6.6141
Ewido 4.0
F-Prot 4.4.4.56
F-Secure 8.0.14332.0
Fortinet 3.113.0.0
GData 19
Ikarus T3.1.1.34.0
K7AntiVirus 7.10.490
Kaspersky 7.0.0.125
McAfee 5403
Microsoft 1.4005
NOD32 3513
Norman 5.80.02
Panda 9.0.0.4
PCTools 4.4.2.0
Prevx1 V2
Rising 20.65.42.00 
SecureWeb-Gateway 6.7.6
Sophos 4.34.0
Sunbelt 3.1.1715.1
Symantec 10
TheHacker 6.3.1.0.106
TrendMicro 8.700.0.1004
VBA32 3.12.8.6
ViRobot 2008.10.10.1416
VirusBuster 4.5.11.0

Enjoy!

Greg Olsen
Yellow Duck Guy

If you would like a simple memory gadget to place on your Vista OS desktop to monitor all that memory usage then you can get a hold of this cool little gadget called iStat Memory 1.0.

You can download a copy of this from here:
Vista Memory Usage Gadget Download

Enjoy!

Greg Olsen
Yellow Duck Guy

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 was released (November 07).
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 was released (November 07).
• Microsoft CRM 4.0 was released (December 07).
• Microsoft Office 2007 was released (retail customers January 07).
• ActionThis was released. http://www.actionthis.com
• Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 was released.
• Microsoft Windows Vista Operating System was released (retail customers January 07).
• Greg Passed Exam: Microsoft CRM 3.0 Customisation !!

>>Microsoft Windows Server 2008 global release launch will be around February 27th 2008 - so look out for this!

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog posting(s) through the year, hope you have found it informative.  I will be looking at increasing the volume of postings in 2008.

ActionThis has just gone live this week.

What is ActionThis?

“ActionThis is a web-based team and project management tool with a difference. It focuses on ‘execution’, on getting things done. If you’ve ever had the experience that people agree to do things and don’t follow through, ActionThis can help. It remembers so you don’t have to, with a very cool web interface for anywhere access, plus Microsoft Outlook extensions so assigning and dealing with tasks is as simple as email”

How do I get it?

You can sign up for a 30 day free trial from the Web site here: http://www.actionthis.com/

There is also a ActionThis product datasheet for download for more info here: ActionThisDatasheet.pdf

So I encourage you to sign up now for the 30 day free, no obligation trial.

Yellow Duck Guy
Greg Olsen

Well I thought it might be interesting to join Plugoo and give this blog the ability to send instant messages to my computer directly when i'm online or offline.

"Thanks to Plugoo, visitors on your webpage, friends or family, can easily chat with you while visiting your website! Plugoo enables you to chat directly from your Instant Messenger with any visitor of your blog, personal webpage or e-sales site. When you’re logged into your Instant Messenger (Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, GoogleTalk, Jabber or ICQ), you can receive in real time all the comments of your visitors or any question they might ask, and answer instantly! "

If you would like to use this service as well then simply go to http://www.plugoo.com/  and create your own Plugoo account, following the few very simple steps.

So you can now start messaging me directly by using the link below:

>Message me with Plugoo

Yellow Duck Guy
Greg Olsen

Well in April 2007, New Zealand Labour-led Government extended the daylight savings period to 27 weeks.  What this means to us in IT is that our operating systems (and any other date specific apps) will need to be updated to account for this change.

New Zealand Internal Affairs has a publication about this, which can be found at the link below:

http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Daylight-Saving-Daylight-saving-to-be-extended?OpenDocument 

You can also find a Daylight Saving blog on MSDN which some helpful tips 'n' tricks, this is located here: http://blogs.msdn.com/nzdst/

There is also a couple of manual options for updating your system, these are defined as:

Method 1: Use the Tzedit.exe utility to manually modify the time zone
Method 2: Update the Windows Registry Directly

See here: http://www.microsoft.com/nz/msdn/timezone/manual.mspx

I have updated my Vista operating system at home via Windows update and the hotfix as been applied successfully.  You notice the information about the Daylight Saving by simply clicking on your clock in the bottom right of your screen on your taskbar (assuming you are using the default layout).  You should get something similar to what is shown below:

Yellow Duck Guy
Greg Olsen