Privacy games

 An updatable list of games about privacy and security for every modern device user.

Skype vs ooVoo

Recently I had a chance to test-drive ooVoo for video calls on a Windows PC. In the past I had been using Skype for all video call, but its state-of-the-art behavior makes me sick.

I already complained about inevitable forced updates which Skype doesn't allow to disable - they are downloaded in any case, and you are prompted with the update again and again... until you set no-access permissions for "?:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\SkypeSetup.exe". I guess, MS will take care of this "exploit" in future versions, but basically I don't care - I'm using Skype 5.2, and is ready to drop it as soon as a decent alternative is found. And there are quite a few of them already on the free market...

The most promising is ooVoo (see the hint how to get its offline installer): video conferences, offline messages, video recording are the features you won't find in Skype for free.

Cannot connect to a SharePoint site with SharePoint Designer 2013

I've spent more than half an hour trying to open my company's SharePoint 2013 site in SharePoint Designer 2013. There were no errors - just several identical dialogs showing the prompt for credentials (there were 3 or more of them), and then... nothing happened. I wasn't able to find the log file for SPD, so I went googling for the solution.

It took me several hours to dig through the Internet checking all sane pieces of advice.

ooVoo offline installer for Windows

While searching for an alternative to Skype, I've discovered ooVoo - rather new software which provides for free the capabilities, that are not available in Skype: group videochat, video call recording, offline messages, etc.

For some unknown reason ooVoo web-installer hangs on my PC (Windows 7 x64 SP1), and there is no explicit link on the official site with another version of the installer.

After short googling I wasn't able to find the solution, but I've encountered the link to the offline full installer of ooVoo at the forum: http://cdn01.oovoo.com/download/ooVooSetup.msi (version 3.5.8.22).

I wonder why this handy installer isn't provided at the official site.

Anyway I've installed ooVoo, and it works rather good. I had no chance to test the group videochat and video call recording, but offline message are supported.

So it's time to get rid of Skype! :)

 Published by WebStory

Windows Live Essentials enable Windows Automatic Updating

I had been running Windows 7 (x64 SP1) with disabled Automatic Updating until I decided to have a look at Windows Live Writer, which is a part of Windows Live Essentials.

In short: Windows Live Writer is the same bloatware as it used to be, it still can't display raw HTML nicely, so I continue to rely on Chrysanth WebStory.

Moreover, Windows Live Essentials seem to install several updates and enable Automatic Updating without even letting you know or bothering to ask you. It looks like a normal Microsoft's practice to think of its users as dummies pushing OK buttons. Fie!

Next day my notebook crashed several times during startup - probably because the updater wasn't able to connect to a Microsoft server. After that everything looked normal except for the hardly noticeable slowdown of the system...

And today I've noticed that Skype (which is grabbed by Microsoft) just became a bit better - it has updated itself! WTF?!

I was very suprised to discover that Automatic Updating is now enabled, and Skype is like another system component from now on... The time has come to try its alternatives!

Luckily I keep images with the stable OS states, which save me a bunch of time after Windows happen to put a spell on me :)

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DIR-300: PING-FLOODING flooding attack from WAN detected (reposted)

(English version is here)

Наконец-то методом научного тыка удалось выяснить, чем были вызваны перебои в Интернет-соединении.
Оказывается маршрутизатор D-Link DIR-300/NRU (Hardware Version : B1 / Firmware Version : 2.04), купленный недавно для обеспечения доступа в Интернет нескольких компьютеров по одному витому каналу, не дружит с torrent-клиентами такими как µTorrent - именно после отключения последнего и пропал эффект PING-FLOODING from WAN.
Даже если ваш провайдер не xmapa.net, вам могут пригодиться испробованные рецепты.

Acronis Align Tool for Western Digital hard disks with Advanced Format

After I had bought the Advanced Format Drive WD5000BPKT and cloned the existing partitions created on another drive in Windows XP (not a wide-spread practice, I agree) I discovered the new drive was rather slow, so it required extra tuning with the special so called Acronis Align Tool.

Luckily this tool is provided by Western Digital free of charge for anyone who has bought the matching drive, and the customer is expected to register at the official site to download the tool.

Unfortunately the registration didn't work well then and it still has some troubles, which are regularly reported at the thread "AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe NOT OBTAINABLE! How do I get this software?" (8 pages already!), and fixed by the support on an irregular basis.

I've already posted the link to the cached copy of the Acronis Align Tool to the thread, but it apparently violates the company's policy, so it was censored.

If anyone is still interested to download Acronis Align Tool without bothering to register at the site, here are few links to the cached version of the tool:

1. ftp://ftp.css.com.ua/pub/drivers/HDD/WD/AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe (the accessibility may be restricted in some countries)
2. http://mirror.szepe.net/driver/AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe (suggested 11/JUN/2013 by dmascus)

Note that it works only for Western Digital hard disks with Advanced Format feature.

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[29/JAN/2013] If you tend to avoid Acronis' products or don't have a WD drive, but still want to use your old partitions, there is an option to utilize MinTool Partition Wizard which is capable of aligning partitions. You may just burn the provided bootable ISO-image on a CD/DVD and avoid installing the software on your system. Enjoy!

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