Topics

1

General Software Discussion / Heuristic Antivirus

« on: March 15, 2009, 08:47 AM »

Hey people, I'm posting after a long time here at DC.

Is there any anti-virus out there which i can use to test heuristic analysis only? I mean, only use the heuristic engine only to scan for viruses?

Well, I'm doing term paper on Heuristic Anti-virus Technology and want some pointers to where I can get more information etc on the topic. This is the best forum I'm aware of, so thought I would ask here.

2

Living Room / How viruses work

« on: October 29, 2008, 02:47 AM »

Hello, im doing a report on "Heuristic antivirus technology" for my term paper this sem, and while googling around for that, I have kind of got the idea of how viruses work, but im a little confused, so I thought to ask you guys of it.

This is what i've understood-
A virus, once executed, attaches itself to a normal executable file. It attaches itself to the end of the executable, stores the first instructions of the executable in itself, and overwrites the first instructions of the file with a jump instruction which jumps the control to the end of the file(where the virus has attached itself). So, on execution, the file first performs the work for the virus.The virus, at the end of its work (which usually is infecting other files), restores the original instructions it had overwritten (thats why it had stored those in the first place), and returns control to the file. That way, the file, in most cases, continues to work seemingly normally. That way, it spreads to other files.

The most confusing thing in this explanation I find is that the file which was infected is now restored to its original form(except for the virus code at the end, which causes an increase in size of the file) after the virus itself restores the file. Does this mean that the virus body in a particular file is only executed once after infection (since the virus has restored the original instructions over the jump instruction it had earlier written)?

Can you guys please point me in the right direction?

3

General Software Discussion / dialog box extender with "open folders" button

« on: July 20, 2008, 03:31 PM »

Im looking for a dialog box extender that I had sometime back which uniquely had a button for currently open folders which showed a list of folders currently opened in windows explorer. It had an overlayed appearance with a bar on top of the dialog box (like Direct Folders). Does anyone know what program im talking about? I 've gone through the list in the reviews given here on DC but none seems the one. I cant seem to recall the name no matter how hard i try.

4

General Software Discussion / Context menu Antivirus

« on: June 11, 2008, 09:07 AM »

Hey guys, im on the lookout of an virus scanner that DOESNOT run in the background, it can add a context menu entry which scans the file(s) when I tell it to, and i should be able to pass files from my downloader to it to scan. Is there any such antivirus? I tried Clamwin portable, but sadly it doesnt scan individual files  ( i think).

5

General Software Discussion / Incremental search in Windows Explorer?

« on: May 24, 2008, 03:04 AM »

Hey guys, i've been trying to find something that can add a search box in windows explorer (not "Internet Explorer", why did MS have to name both of them explorer?? It makes googling a hell lot difficult).

Infact, im trying to find something similar to (if not exactly) what QTTabbar (http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/) provides as the search box, (you have a lot of files in a folder, you enter some text in the search box, and the folders contents are filtered to show the files whose name contain the string you entered, and your work is done in half the time)

But qttabbar makes my explorer (both of them) slow to open, so even though I absolutely adore the features it provides , im reluctant to install it. I was wondering if theres something else that provides the functionality?

6

General Software Discussion / Taskbar only when pointer in top left corner

« on: May 05, 2008, 10:17 PM »

Hey guys, ive set the taskbar to autohide, since my bar is at the top, it pops up when I get too close to the top of the screen when all I want to do is close a maximised window.
Can you guys suggest a way so that the bar pops up only when the mouse is in the top left corner and not elsewhere?

7

General Software Discussion / 1 Tera Byte CD..

« on: April 07, 2008, 12:18 PM »

When I saw this, I had to post this, take a look at the attached image,

I burned an iso file (about 250 MB) to a 700 MB disk, and now, when I insert the disk, the disk size is reported to be 1 TB!!! Thats 50 times greater than my hard disk! whew, its one of those things that make you go "Oh my God!" with a smile on your face.

The thing is that i edited the iso file with Isoedit (inserted a folder in it), that is what I think caused such a behaviour. This has caused me to lose trust on that program, can you suggest any alternatives??

8

General Software Discussion / CD Cataloger

« on: April 05, 2008, 09:44 AM »

Hey guys, is there any piece of software that can AUTOMATICALLY catalog any cds I insert in my CD Drive. By automatically, I mean whenever I insert a cd, it should prompt me weather i want to catalog the cd i've inserted. That kind of tool would make cataloging much much more easier!

I think theres also a manual way to add a command to any program (in my case the cataloging program) to the auto insert notification that pops up if i enable autorun on my cd drive, but I dont exactly know how, any suggestions to where i can read on this?

9

General Software Discussion / View download traffic grouped by site...

« on: April 03, 2008, 12:29 PM »

Hey guys, im looking for a software which can keep track of my downloaded data volume grouped by the site address. I know its kind of specific, but i think there might be utilities out there that can have the capability.
I love the Opera status bar, which shows the amount of data downloaded on a particular site while opening the page, it would be perfect if it could save that data, and compile it so that the user can see the trends in his surfing habits. Any pointers in this direction?..

10

General Software Discussion / Speed Load

« on: January 07, 2008, 04:05 AM »

Hey guys, yesterday, while browsing through the softwares ive collected, my eyes suddenly went wide open when i read this:-

Speed Load Beta 3

it was a gem and i thought it would sure be popular someday!

Heres what the author says on the website:

What is SpeedLoad? 

My experience with install programs has led me to the following conclusion:
90% of them are rubbish!
SpeedLoad monitors a program's activities and then optimises the application so it loads more quickly. If install programs done their job properly SpeedLoad would have nothing to do, but the sad fact is that most of them only do the bare minimum that is required to get the program up and running and little else.

What should a good installer do?

A good installer should do the following (as well as other things required by the software that it is installing):

Ensure that all DLL's the program uses are in different and non-overlapping addresses.
Ensure that the EXE is bound to the DLL's it uses.
The ramifications of the installer not ensuring that (1) is true:

 If two DLL's that a program is using overlap one of them has to be moved. The implications of this are that it takes time to relocate a DLL and secondly every page in the DLL that had to be modified as a result of the relocation process is forced into the page file. This will effect over all system performance, as there is more "load" on the paging system.

The ramifications of the installer not ensuring that (2) is true:

 An EXE maintains a list of functions that it needs from a particular DLL. There are two ways to refer to a function in a DLL. A function can be imported by name or by ordinal. When the system loads a DLL on behalf of the EXE the end result is that the addresses of the functions required by the EXE are inserted into the EXE’s IAT (Import Address Table). Binding is the process of using a pre-built IAT. The system loader checks the time/date stamp (not the time stamp maintained by the file system, an internal time/date stamp that is stored in the DLL which is generated by the linker when the DLL was built) of the DLL and checks that it matches the one that EXE has a pre-built IAT for. If they match the system doesn’t have to build an IAT, it just uses the pre-built one. If functions are imported by name (as is typical) then binding can result in considerable performance increases.

SpeedLoad does its best the ensure that both (1) and (2) are true.

http://www.angelfire...edload/speedload.htm
I remember i noted down somewhere to get the new version when it came out, but sadly it didnt.
Although i used it on some exe s that took a long time to load, and it did work for some, had no effect on others and made some others unusable (thank God i made backups before experimenting!)

I was wondering why there isnt any other application that does what this software here does? I mean, i did feel "noticable" changes in loading time of some apps (I remember for sure, it helped in reducing the time it took for "TeaTimer" (the system settings protector that comes with Spybot)) to load. It seems as a good idea.

Is there something out there that does that kind of thing?

11

General Software Discussion / How much have you downloaded, in the tray?

« on: January 01, 2008, 04:37 AM »

Hey guys, im looking for a minimal software that monitors the amount of data downloaded and displays this, preferrably in the system tray. It doesnt have to have the bells and whisles, or even a graph for that matter (read - it shouldn't be a burden on the system) ! It should just record the data downloaded and show daily, weekly and monthly statistics.

The closest ive got to is NetNak, it really is a good piece of software , but i think it could be better if it had support for tray icon displaying data downloaded amount. Any suggestions?

12

General Software Discussion / Download Demons...

« on: December 27, 2007, 11:49 AM »

Hey guys,
which program have you used, and are currently using to download stuff from the web?
What are the best and worse "features" according to you?

Ive used many, one of them being DAP(Download Accelerator Plus), was good in downloading, interface was good, but i consider it bloatware, i specially hate the ads it displays on the download progress window, coz i know its stealing my precious bandwidth!

13

General Software Discussion / internet information manager...

« on: December 23, 2007, 05:21 AM »

Hey guys, what are the things you use to keep track of the info you get from the net? I mostly depend on my memory to recall what the name of the software was which i wanted to download, or what the site was which i thought i should add to my bookmarks list, etc. but it aint perfect. I many times have to redo the google searches, trying to put in the exact phrases which i had earlier googled to get to the results, n sumtimes i just forget about the thing completely until i see it again one day and say "I thought i tried that!". I used Cogitum co citer (http://www.cogitum.c...cker-text/more.shtml) for a while before formatting my system and thought it was good , but i need something with more features. Before reinstalling it i thought it would be better to get second opinions. What do you say?

14

General Software Discussion / Skin Your Shutdown...

« on: November 26, 2007, 11:30 AM »

Personally im not a big fan of skinning (mainly because im on a 750mhz processor, and i hate my pc being sluggish.But one thing ive always wanted is to shutdown windows windows in style! i mean to replace the shutdown option select screen. Even my brother whos not such a software freak wanted this functionality. Recently while stumbling around, i found this great tool or utility or whatever youd like to call it that does exactly that, and nothing else. Thats what i like about it, it isnt a hit on my resources and makes my pc look oh so cooler.

Have a look http://eng.softq.org/sshutdown.htm

Tell me what you guys think.

15

General Software Discussion / Handle Computer Lockups

« on: November 18, 2007, 09:10 AM »

Hi guys, im new to this site, i must say this looks to be a good place to be and make friends.

I love trying out and collecting softwares, so thought i should share one of the latest ive stumbled onto. Its called AntiFreeze. Its kind of an emergency task manager which is designed to be run when the cpu is abnormally busy. http://www.resplendence.com/antifreeze. Although i havn't got use for it since i installed it but I think it can be particularly useful, what do you think!

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General Software Discussion / Track Loading time

« on: November 17, 2007, 09:33 AM »

Does anyone know of an application which tracks how many seconds it takes for an application to "load"? I searched around but couldnt find any, it shouldnt be that complex a task that nobodys tried it!!