Fixing the ******* Smart Defragmenter Virus

My system was hacked by the Smart Defragmenter virus sometime during the early evening of 10/29/10. I'm not sure how that happened, but here's how to save yourself a lot of hassle if a program called Smart Defragmenter suddenly shows up on your PC.

I started getting disk error and RAM messages from Smart Defragmenter. As I'd been doing a lot of graphic work, and file transfer that day, I thought all I needed to do was to reboot.

After rebooting, I got the same error messages again. I'd never seen Smart Defragmenter before, but thought maybe it was a Dell or Microsoft product that was added during an update.

So I stupidly ran Smart Defragmenter. It said it had fixed 5 problems, but to fix another 5 problems, which would, of course, cost me money,

This looked like a virus, so I ran my free version of AVG.

My laptop crashed.

Rebooted. Did some quick searches on "Smart Defragmenter," on late 10/29, but except for one comment by one guy, people made it sound like it was a real program.

My husband, who is more technical than I am, thought I was having a disk failure. Since I was away on Saturday, he said he'd get a better external backup drive and back-up my laptop before the disk failed completely.

When I got back Saturday night, he said he'd bought the new external drive, but my laptop kept failing during the backup.

This morning, I logged in again and still got disk failure and ram messages. I foolishly decided to pay for the "Smart Defragmenter" update. Huge mistake. I ran the program and still had the same error messages.

I called my credit card company to dispute the bill. While the invoice for "Smart Defragmenter" claims the name of its company is: SecurityLabSoftware, LLC (SLS, LLC), Professional Circle, Suite 110, CA 10345, clearly that's a bogus address. The phone number isn't findable associated with a company online (877-282-0139 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              877-282-0139      end_of_the_skype_highlighting). My credit card company says they'll note my dispute of the bill but I'll have to call again when it's posted in two days. The credit card company says the name they have for the company was "www.trd-app.com" which is a non-existent URL and their phone number is 888-490-4755 which appears to be a non-existent phone number.

To make a long story short, let me tell you what to look for to dump Smart Defragmenter from your system, without having to pay for some other program.

The problem executable is "winsp2up.exe."

On my system, Windows 7 Professional, this file was in [User]>AppData>Local>Temp
You have to do a Control-Alt-Delete and stop this process. Once you stop this process,
you can go to your temp directory and delete the file.

Another problem file in the same location is 48262185 (I think that had an exe too). This file was installed at the same time as winsp2up.exe, so I deleted that as well.

After rebooting, everything seems to be OK. I'd like to know how I got this virus, but now I know that AVG freeware is unreliable, I'll be installing a much more robust security system and I'll be changing all my passwords.

Weird Year, Great Trip to Australia and Going To Rally to Restore Sanity

I've been very quiet in the blog this year. I was hopelessly exhausted for over the first half of the year, but still managed to keep up with a part time job and an increasingly busy volunteer project.

The good thing that happened this year was Jim and I were able to go to Australia. We had a stupendous time. I survived jet lag, and took 1450 photos (nearly half of which I've edited).

This is my favorite photo from Australia:

September 11, 2010, the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Laurie and Jim Mann, photo by John Maizels

We were in Melbourne for nearly two weeks, and Sydney for five nights. We went to Aussiecon 4 (World Science Fiction Convention), saw great sights, ate great meals and just had a terrific time. The only disappointment was we were going to New Zealand for a few days. To Christchurch. Sadly, our timing was off and the earthquake hit a few days before we were due to go. After dithering (I was eager to see Christchurch, and our B+B escaped unscathed) we decided to stay in Melbourne. Otherwise, we had a spectacular trip.

Also, being in Sydney the day that Oprah announced she was going to bring about 300 Americans to visit later this year was kind of a trip in itself - this was the top news story in Australia that day.

After a very busy two months of traveling, I decided at almost the last minute to go to Washington tomorrow for the "Rally to Restore Sanity."


So I have to go and meet a friend early tomorrow morning.

Atomic Gingerbread

This is a modification of a recipe from The Joy of Cooking - Applesauce Gingerbread. I like more ginger in my gingerbread. Also, since it doesn't have any butter and has only a little oil, it's better for you than most baked goods.
Recipe to print
Preheat oven to 325.

Boil
1 cup of applesauce

Remove from heat and stir in:
1/2 cup molasses
1 tsp baking soda

The mixture will foam and bubble vigorously. Cool slightly.

Sift together:
1 1/2 cup flour
4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt

In a large bowl, beat on high speed until
thick and pale yellow, 3-4 minutes:
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar

Gradually beat in
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tbl ginger paste

Fold in flour mixture in three parts,
alternating with the applesauce/molasses
mixture in two parts.

Fold in
1/3 cup raisins

Scrape the batter into a 9" x 9" pan. Bake until
a toothpick inserted into the center comes
out clean, 40-45 minutes. Let cool in the
pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Slide a thin
knife around the cake to detach it from the
pan. Invert the cake, let cool right side
up on the rack.

Decorate with some crystal ginger.

You can add any kind of ginger in any amount to this recipe, though sushi-style ginger doesn't work, due to the vinegar.

In Honor of a New Polio Documentary ("The Shot Felt 'Round the World") - Short Notes on Dr. Jessie Wright

Two years ago, I took a documentary course at the University of Pittsburgh. Back in 2005, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the release of the polio vaccine, some folks at Pitt led by Carl Kurlander started to collect a video record about the cure for polio.

When I took the course in early 2008, Carl suggested someone in the class might want to research Jessie Wright. I volunteered, and I'm glad I did. Jessie Wright was the unsung hero of polio treatment in the Pittsburgh area. I hope a little of my research made the cut, but I know they wound up with a shorter documentary than they were planning two years ago.

Here's a short look at Dr. Jessie Wright:


Born in England, Jessie Wright immigrated to the Pittsburgh area with her parents in 1906. Jessie was interested in medicine, partially due to having a friend handicapped by polio. Jessie learned about physiotherapy by observing the patients and helping with their therapy at the D. T. Watson home. She spent the next few years learning and practicing physiotherapy, while saving the money to attend college.

Even before attending college, Jessie studied skeletons and observed a dissection. She started taking premedical courses part time at the University of Pittsburgh in about 1921, and took several special courses in physiotherapy at the Harvard Medical School. Since Jessie was working, it took her many years to earn her Bachelor of Science (awarded in 1932) and her Doctor of Medicine (awarded in 1934).

Dr. Wright was later named the director of the D. T. Watson Home and taught orthopedics at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to her medical, administrative and teaching duties, Dr. Wright developed several orthopedic devices and refined several others. While she worked on braces and splints, and she also adapted an existing device for especially for polio patients―the “fast-rocking” bed. This bed helped many polio patients to breathe on their own and freed them from the iron lung.

By 1947, she was the Chairman of the Joint Orthopedic Nursing Advisory Council and was active in the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. She worked with leaders in the polio field, including Jonas Salk and Basil O’Connor and built a reputation for herself and the D. T. Watson Home that went far beyond Pittsburgh. When he needed to test the vaccine on people who had already had polio, he tested patients at D. T. Watson.

But even while the vaccine was being tested and appeared to be working, Dr. Wright had to return her focus to rehabilitating polio patients. “The year 1952 was the worst polio year on record, with more than 57,000 cases nationwide.” Hundreds of children from across Pennsylvania arrived at the D. T. Watson Home for therapy. The therapy was surprisingly creative and patient-led. The important thing was to get the patient to the highest-level of self-sufficiency possible.

After forty-five years of near tireless work in the cause of improving the lives of people with orthopedic diseases, Dr. Wright suffered a coronary in 1966 that required her to retire from her professional activities, including running the D. T. Watson Home. She retired to seaside Maryland, where she enjoyed swimming, fishing and boating. Dr. Jessie Wright died September 6, 1970. A tree was planted in her honor at the D. T. Watson Home, and an annual award for Physical Therapy was named for her at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. Both were extremely appropriate honors for a woman who worked so hard to professionalize physical therapy and loved the outdoors.

Rewriting History and Science, Texas Style

Texas has always had a strong, centralized system for buying textbooks. Unfortunately, the Texans are continuing to dumb down and rewrite history and science. Next, we'll probably learn that Pi=3, because the Bible says it does.

Roger Ebert wrote an excellent piece on how bad this siutation has gotten:
Texas School Book Repository.

So I guess the question many of us have is - how can we convince publishers to publish fact-based science and history books? If Texans want to rewrite science and history based on the ravings of the lunatic fringe, shouldn't these books be self-published rather most lunatic fringe books are?

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Well, it's not Quite the Republican's Waterloo...But It's Close!

I was raised to be a Republican. Heck, I even voted, when I was 19, for Gerry Ford. I worked for Republican candidates in the '70s and '80s.

But while I've spent most of my adult life as a registered Independent, I became a registered Democrat in 2004.

I believe we need a multiple party system in this country. But any rational Republican let the far right co-opt their own party somewhat during the Reagan administration, but whole-heartedly during the Clinton administration.

I'm not fond of big government. But, more important than its size is, is it a progressive, forward-thinking government? Does it try to treat people fairly? Does the government respect the Constitution? We didn't have that from early 2001 until early 2009. And yet, health care reform is somehow more unconstitutional than holding prisoners for years without charging them? What's wrong with this picture?

While my husband and I make under $250,000 (well under), I expect we will be paying higher taxes in the future. And I will not bitch about it. Not only will we be helping to pay for more American's health care (which is fine by me), we will also be helping to pay off the debts incurred during the Bush wars and tax cuts (which never were fine by me). But we won't bitch about it.

Thanks, again, President Obama and the Democratic party, for helping to bring American into the late 20th century with your health care reform plan. We will always remember who voted for it, and who voted against it.

HCR 2010: Better care for people, not for insurance companies!

Congratulations to Obama and the Democrats for dragging our country, kicking and screaming in some cases, into the late 20th century healtcare reform wise. Maybe we can stop spending as much of our GDP on healthcare, and get the better care most of the rest of the civilized world gets. Better care for people, not for insurance companies!

Pittsburgh's Blog for Equity Day

I'm busy today, so I'll get right to the point:

Consenting, taxpaying adults have the right to live with whomever they want without fear of state-sanctioned prejudice. There will always be bigots out there (that's life), but the law should not practice prejudice, like denying gay folks the right to marry should they so choose.

Annual Oscar Predictions - 2010

Stop on by; I'll be updating this during the Oscars.
2010 Oscars (comments on movies made in 2009).