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Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Some London Photos (July 2010)

Bridge

Square

Lion

Back From London

Roy Schestowitz at a bridge

I still need to sort out the many photos and upload them at some stage.

Techrights.org Launched

A couple of weeks ago, myself and others created Techrights.org, which incorporates topics we have accumulated information on for the past 3.5 years. It will hopefully help people find required references from around the Web.

The site is mostly concerned with promotion of software freedom.

Update to Site, Microblogging

My personal Web site has been neglected for a while — neglected in the sense that it gets almost no updates anymore. The main issue with this ought to be out-of-date information that can easily deceive people despite the date stamps at the bottom (some pages are 8 years old). So today I updated some profiles and places in the Web site where I was described as a student. It’s about time to change those types of things. Some sites said that “Roy is an advocate of fair competition and consumer rights, who expects to complete a Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics very shortly.” An older one said: “My name is Roy Schestowitz and I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Medical Biophysics at Manchester University. I regularly blog at schestowitz.com where you can read about my interests, hobbies, opinions and pet peeves.” In identi.ca I introduced myself as “Freedom activist,” which is a very short version

Well, it has just been updated to “Roy is a Software Engineer, interdisciplinary researcher, and an advocate of fair competition. He holds a doctoral degree in Medical Biophysics.”

Since I hardly write in this blog anymore, may I suggest that those who already read this blog also subscribe to me on Twitter or Identi.ca? I am very active there.

Thanks, Harvey and Anita! (and Wallclimber)

JUST over a week ago I wrote about the Harvey and Anita wedding anniversary. This lovely couple had just mailed me a cheque (watch closely).

[Note: removed]

Another wonderful friend of almost the same age made a cartoon for me (which I am also grateful for).

OMG ponies small

Rowing: Second Place

Roy in 2009

Earlier this month, the annual rowing competition ended. This was rather disappointing. For the first time since I began competing (2001) I did not get the first place, but it’s not a total loss. Later this week I will do the 2-mile row for another competition, in which I have performed quite well so far.

As the years go by and we all age (I’m 27), the motivation — not just the ability — to stay in good shape rapidly declines. In the table tennis competition I got knocked out in the quarter finals.

Internet Cafe No Longer Honours Privacy?

EasyInternetCafe (354-358 Oxford Street, London) appears to have nice little spyware running on PCs in the Internet Cafe. Is this legal, ethical or safe? It’s now run under the brand name Swirl.

So here I was in an Internet Cafe in Oxford St. and all these applications were running on it. What do they do? What does it do for security? Is it just for users’ security or so-called ‘national security’ too? They already put keyloggers in India, so it would be shameful to find the same thing in the UK.

Here is what was running, ID information stripped off.

Name Rating PID CPU Memory Active File Type Start Title, Description Manufacturer : product
Remote Administrator v2.2 54% 472 C:\WINDOWS\system32\r_server.exe Program 20:32:15 Remote control tool – Server part : Remote Administrator
Windows Live Sign-in Assistant 46% C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live\WindowsLiveLogin.dll Internet when Internet Explorer starts WindowsLiveLogin.dll – IDBHO.IDBrowserExtension.1 (Browser Extension) Microsoft Corporation : Microsoft? Windows Live Login Helper
CafeAgent 3.49g 44% 1956 C:\Program Files\CafeAgent\CafeAgent.exe Program 19:32:07 SOFCIK : CafeAgent of CafeSuite
SpStart.exe 31% 1992 C:\Program Files\CafeSuite Recovery Module\1.0\SpStart.exe Taskicon 19:32:11 CafeSuite Recovery Module -
hkcmd Module 24% 1712 3.8 MB C:\WINDOWS\system32\hkcmd.exe Program 19:32:02 when Windows starts, Registry: Machine\Run HkWndName Intel Corporation : Intel(R) Common User Interface
PC Tools AntiVirus Engine 23% 256 C:\Program Files\PC Tools AntiVirus\PCTAVSvc.exe Program 20:32:12 PC Tools : PC Tools AntiVirus Engine
Surfovisor Client Service 21% 608 C:\Program Files\SurfovisorClient\Surfovisor.exe Taskicon 20:32:17 Surfovisor, Server PhaseFive AG : Surfovisor
Windows Live Sign-in Assistant 21% 3564 7.4 MB C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live\WLLoginProxy.exe Program 22:17:52 WLLoginProxy.exe Microsoft Corporation : Microsoft? Windows Live Login Helper
Windows User Mode Driver Manager 16% 672 C:\WINDOWS\system32\wdfmgr.exe Program 20:32:17 Microsoft Corporation : Microsoft? Windows? Operating System
CafeAgent 3.49g 6% 1792 15.6 MB 0:05 C:\Program Files\CafeAgent\CafeAgent.exe Program 19:32:03 when Windows starts, Registry: Machine\Run CafeAgent SOFCIK : CafeAgent of CafeSuite
Windows Explorer 0% 1516 21.3 MB 0:42 C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE Program 19:32:01 My Documents, Volume Microsoft Corporation : Microsoft? Windows? Operating System
Internet Explorer 0% 1160 19.0 MB 0:01 C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE Program 22:17:50 from Windows Explorer Security Task Manager – Windows Internet Explorer Microsoft Corporation : Windows? Internet Explorer
PC Tools AntiVirus Client 0% 1720 1% 12.7 MB 0:04 C:\Program Files\PC Tools AntiVirus\PCTAV.exe Taskicon 19:32:02 when Windows starts, Registry: Machine\Run E1DB6607, PC Tools AntiVirus PC Tools : PC Tools AntiVirus Client
igfxTray Module 0% C:\WINDOWS\system32\igfxtray.exe Program when Windows starts, Registry: Machine\Run IgfxTray (not active) Intel Corporation : Intel(R) Common User Interface
Security Task Manager 0% 1124 8% 13.8 MB 0:19 C:\dell\Security Task Manager\taskman.exe Program 22:15:24 Security Task Manager A. & M. Neuber Software : Security Task Manager

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Original styles created by Ian Main (all acknowledgements) • PHP scripts and styles later modified by Roy Schestowitz • Help yourself to a GPL'd copy
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