Ravi's Rants

Rndaom, Yet <Well Formed/>

Radio is (almost) dead

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Yeah, I know, clickbaity claim 🙂

But no, radio is not actually dead. Getting there, but it is technically still alive, and not doing too well.

I got 6 months of free Satellite radio with a car I bought recently. If I was in the car for a total of, say, 50 hours over the last 6 months, I probably listened to Satellite Radio for a total of about 10 minutes.

The remaining 49 hours and 50 minutes, I was listening to podcasts.

And this week, I’ll be letting my Satellite radio trial expire.

Nothing rules like podcasts.

Sorry, but Radio is dead.

Long live podcasting.

What Your Podcast Listeners Are Thinking

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Recently, I wrote a post as an avid podcast listener, and a podcaster myself (my podcast SubscribeMe.fm turns 1 year old in just a few weeks!)

I first submitted it on Reddit.com, and it was promptly deleted by an auto-moderator.

I woke up next morning, to see a huge number of responses, including some nasty ones. But you gotta take it in your stride when you post in a public forum.

Here’s the full article, published on my podcast’s site:

What Your Listeners Are Probably Thinking

Google’s New Online Magazine

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Did you know: Google recently launched their first, full-length, online magazine called ThinkQuarterly.

At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest. We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service.

But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.

Our first issue is dedicated to Data – amongst a morass of information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help transform your business? We hope that you find inspiration, insights, and more, in Think Quarterly.

Matt Brittin
Managing Director, UK & Ireland Operations, Google

 

Google Redirection Virus

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Just when I thought that I was one of the most “web savvy” and “tech savvy” people on earth, who could never be tricked into downloading anything that would infect my computer…

BAM!

My laptop gets infected by what’s come to be known as the “Google Redirection Virus”.

The symptoms are very obvious…

You do a Google (Yahoo or Bing) search, and when you click on any of the results, then it redirects you to a totally unrelated page on a completely unrelated web site that has all kinds of ads on it. My Google toolbar for FireFox even blocked some of the sites as spam/malware sites, and did not allow me to actually visit them.

So I first consoled myself following this rude shock that in spite of having McAfee Virus Protection on my laptop, using only Firefox (no IE) and being extremely “download paranoid”, I had still ended up a victim of this stupid virus.

And then I started my Google search (every time I did a search to research this virus, guess where the first Google result took me? To a spam site, of course! The virus was still very much in action!

The first thing I found, was that the virus had changed the way my Firefox browser connects to the interwebs.

See how the setting had changed to “Manual proxy configuration” to point to “127.0.0.1” on port “64646”.

First thing to do is to change the setting to “No Proxy” and hit “OK” (unless you’re actually using some other proxy server).

That seemed like it solved the redirection issue, but I had to be absolutely certain. So back to Google – without the redirection issue.

And that’s when I found more and more people talking about the Hitman Free Virus Scanner software.

The software itself has a cost associated, but they allow you to do a free scan and even remove any viruses it may find, for free, using their free 30-day trial version.

If you don’t wish to fully install the anti-virus software, just select the option to run a free “one time” scan of your computer.

Worked like a charm!

It picked up on many malware files on my laptop, as you can see below.

Here’s what it looks like after it cleaned up all the garbage (required a reboot to fully delete one file).

So here I am, after cleaning and rebooting – totally virus free (or so I hope!).

Now that I’ve destroyed whatever little confidence you may have had in “big name” anti-virus programs, go read more about the Hitman tool, and get rid of the trojans!

Happy Trojan Hunting! 🙂

– Ravi Jayagopal

PS:  Feel free to pass this link on to others. And as always, don’t forget to comment below. Cheers!