Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Nov 16, 2010 6:31 pm

anyone know a way around monitoring programs running on school/work computers? And possibly a way around web locks?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:34 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:anyone know a way around monitoring programs running on school/work computers? And possibly a way around web locks?

Depends on the programs. The most straightforward way is to use a bootable USB dongle.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 3:22 pm

Koumei wrote:
Roy wrote: Since when? If anyone mentions elite array at all here, it's to say how big of a barrel of cocks it sucks.
As I said, no-one uses it for actual games, just the basic "So look, your Wizard is wandering in with, even in Elite Array, a 15 Int, obviously, so he's bringing X to the table just for existing" or "Assume monsters with big stats were made with the Elite Array, to tone them down a bit when played as PCs" and so on.

I still have no idea who is actually doing this. Any discussions about stats I've seen assume maxed primary stats. 20 for Pathfailure characters, 18 or 20 for 3.5 characters, 20 for 4.Fail characters...

On other forums, people will try and pull stunts like that. Not here though.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:48 pm

I got lured into reading a string of articles on Cracked today and came across this story {OK, New York Times, Black, White, Cowboy}.

How in the hell is this not plagiarism????!!!!

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Wed Nov 17, 2010 11:25 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:anyone know a way around monitoring programs running on school/work computers? And possibly a way around web locks?

Really depends on the program you're talking about, what it does, and how it works (or how we can infer it works from what it does).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:13 am

looks like the library uses this program: Net Support School Client

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 5:35 am

Heh. Uninstall? Looks like that program is pretty thorough.

Sounds like yer better off using your hypothetical future iPhone for unrestricted unmonitored browsing.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 6:56 am

haha.. yeah... credit checks suck. Ah well, I didn't hold out real hope of getting around the school computer monitoring.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 11:44 am

There is probably a way to get it to malfunction via command prompt shenanigans or something, but it's probably unwise to try.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 7:30 pm

more unwise than posting the original question on one of said computers?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Nov 18, 2010 8:56 pm

Oddly enough, yes. Probably not much more, though.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Nov 19, 2010 1:00 am

My GF is having computer issues. She's got this program called "Ultra Defragger" constantly popping up messages that she has critical threats, that she doesn't have hard drive space (55 gb when I checked).

So far in my (admittedly incomplete) knowledge, this is one snappy little bastard. It blocks me from entering the program files, it redirects every google search to an advertisement. Adaware and spybot don't find anything (but that's not surprising.) It also shuts down Firefox, but lets IE through.

I have attempted to use Google, it has not given me any instructions (but lots of offers to download programs to "fix" it!).

She's running XP.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 1:06 am

Safe mode is worth a shot. Admittedly, the last time I tried safe mode it turned out to have been deleted and I needed a new computer.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 1:13 am

While this link has a solution that involves downloading an anti-malware program, it also contains some useful information:

To wit:

Associated Ultra Defragger Files:

%Temp%\<random>
%Temp%\<random>.exe
%Temp%\dfrg
%Temp%\dfrgr
%Temp%\<random>.dll
%Temp%\<random>.exe
%Temp%\tmp2.tmp
%UserProfile%\Desktop\Ultra Defragger.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Ultra Defragger\
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Ultra Defragger\Ultra Defragger.lnk
%UserProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\Ultra Defragger\Uninstall Ultra Defragger.lnk
File Location Notes:

%UserProfile% refers to the current user's profile folder. By default, this is C:\Documents and Settings\ for Windows 2000/XP, C:\Users\ for Windows Vista/7, and c:\winnt\profiles\ for Windows NT.

%Temp% refers to the Windows Temp folder. By default, this is C:\Windows\Temp for Windows 95/98/ME, C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\ProfileName\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp for Windows 2000/XP, and C:\Users\ProfileName\AppData\Local\Temp for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Associated Ultra Defragger Windows Registry Information:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "<random>"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "<random>.exe"

If you don't trust downloading additional programs, you could try to boot linux from a thumb drive and then manually delete all of those

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:10 am

Prak_Anima wrote:looks like the library uses this program: Net Support School Client

The standard modus operandi for getting around these things is to run a web proxy somewhere else on port 80 and bring in a usb stick with firefox on it, then point firefox at the proxy.

There are ways to stop that using group policy though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was blocked.

You could always attempt to boot off usb/cd straight into ubuntu or something. I find USB booting is often not blocked in BIOS.
Alternatively, you could have a VNC server at home listening on 80 and grab vnc viewer, it will have much the same affect.

Alternatively, you can do interesting things with phpMyProxy, that's probably what I'd use. Stick it on a server somewhere and hopefully the web blocker will allow numeric ips.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 1:58 pm

name_here wrote:Safe mode is worth a shot. Admittedly, the last time I tried safe mode it turned out to have been deleted and I needed a new computer.

This may also be a solution to Prak's problem.

Often enough these programs have a silly hole too, where you can ctrl+alt+delete to break out of them and back into your regularly scheduled operating system.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:02 pm

Malwarebytes is my standard response:

http://www.techspot.com/downloadget.php ... a3fc06e555

Install, update and run it from Safe Mode.

Also, use Avira or some other antivirus:

http://dlce.antivir.com/package/wks_avi ... nal_en.zip

Again, install, update and run from Safe Mode.

You'll probably have to do multiple passes to grab everything.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:09 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:My GF is having computer issues. She's got this program called "Ultra Defragger" constantly popping up messages that she has critical threats, that she doesn't have hard drive space (55 gb when I checked).

So far in my (admittedly incomplete) knowledge, this is one snappy little bastard. It blocks me from entering the program files, it redirects every google search to an advertisement. Adaware and spybot don't find anything (but that's not surprising.) It also shuts down Firefox, but lets IE through.

I have attempted to use Google, it has not given me any instructions (but lots of offers to download programs to "fix" it!).

She's running XP.

Avast antivirus does a nice job, but consider Spybot Search & Destroy as backup. Just make sure it doesn't delete mistaken registry entries.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:42 am

Why are macadamia nuts so good? Moreover, why are they so expensive?

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:48 am

Maj wrote:Why are macadamia nuts so good? Moreover, why are they so expensive?

They're good because they're almost all fat. 75%, it's monounsaturated, but it's still fat.
Expensive? I shake the tree

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:27 pm

Update: My GF took it to a computer repair guy and paid $60 rather than search her basement for her system discs. I've seen her basement, and I would pay someone $60 to not have to do that as well, so I am not judging

.

Another question, with a disclaimer:

-This question is about women. This is a serious question and not a rant; I have had little experience with anything "normal" in my life and I seriously am puzzled by something.-

TL;DR: I'm 12 and what is this?

Anyway...

On a TV show, a female character on the TV show cheated on her husband because "he only had sex with her twice a month". I'm just wondering if I was supposed to sympathize with the character or reject her as trying to justify her own misdeed with lame excuses.

Seriously, I really don't understand sexuality. I just don't have an internal mechanism that tells me I'm oversharing.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:41 pm

Count wrote:On a TV show, a female character on the TV show cheated on her husband because "he only had sex with her twice a month". I'm just wondering if I was supposed to sympathize with the character or reject her as trying to justify her own misdeed with lame excuses.

Seriously, I really don't understand sexuality. I just don't have an internal mechanism that tells me I'm oversharing.

Unfortunately, there is no way to even tell. Different people have different libidos, and it is entirely possible that the writers of the show feel put upon having sex more than once a month or so and equally possible that if they don't get it on every couple of days that they start sweating acid. Sex every two weeks could be anything from a healthy marriage to grounds for divorce, depending on the people. And there is no way to tell what the writers thought they were describing.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 5:59 am

two questions, actually:

first: what, in total, contributes to the relaxing effect of smoking? Is it just the nicotine, or what? If I can get off deadly death sticks and still relax by smoking vaguely, supposedly less deadly herbal cigarettes, I'll do it, but if nicotine is the only relaxing aspect of smoking... well, save me a seat at big tobacco's teat.

second: what are some fairly indicative signs of bipolar disorder or clinical depression? I don't mean "if you have this, you may be depressed/bipolar," I mean "yeah, this in all likely-hood means you are depressed/bipolar." I'm not trying to be a hypochondriac, I'm just curious.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:48 am

Nicotine basically makes it difficult for your body to process the chemical creators of stress for a few minutes. This makes you "relaxed" in the short term and "stressed" a bit later when the effect wears off and the chemicals that have built up in the meantime come out to play. This is why people who chain smoke have "nic fits". It's literally just the stress they would have felt over the last period catching up to them.

There are better ways to reduce stress, I like chocolate for example. Marijuana works for some people too.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:52 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Nicotine basically makes it difficult for your body to process the chemical creators of stress for a few minutes. This makes you "relaxed" in the short term and "stressed" a bit later when the effect wears off and the chemicals that have built up in the meantime come out to play. This is why people who chain smoke have "nic fits". It's literally just the stress they would have felt over the last period catching up to them.

There are better ways to reduce stress, I like chocolate for example. Marijuana works for some people too.

-Username17

Hm, but cigarettes don't have calories and I hate marijuana. Guess I'm stuck with slow suicide and stress stop gaps.