Send Email Attachment Through Filter

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Through much trial and error, I've found an obscure but reliable way to send any attachment through an email system that normally prohibits DLL, CMD, VBS, etc... files. Even zipping the files or renaming files usually isn't enough to trick the filter into letting the file through. Sending emails through gmail and corporate systems, the attachment can cause the email to be partially or fully rejected. With a solid need to send .CMD and .CAB files (with a DLL inside the CAB) through a corporate email system, I figured this out:

1. Create original.zip, NOT password protected.
2. Rename original.zip to something else original.zip.RemoveThisExtension.
3. Zip the original.zip.RemoveThisExtension file with a password.
4. Send the original.zip.RemoveThisExtension.zip file to someone.
   
5. Tell recipient the password to unzip the outer file and that they should remove the ".RemoveThisExtension" portion of the inner file.

I think password'ed zip files still provide the directory without needing the password. So "double embed + password " doesn't let the email scanner see past the one non-zip extension'ed file. Here's a shocker, I suspect that the file doesn't even have to be renamed! I didn't have time to try zipping the zip (while adding the password).

AVG Free v8 - Start automatic updates fix

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Recently I found that my AVG Free (version 8 / AVG8), was not updating definitions and complained that "Database update is disabled" (strange since I had installed only this Vista x64 (64 bit) machine only about 1-2 months ago). I didn't reinstall, but I did find a fix:

The problem was that automatic updates were not enabled. But when I was not able to make AVG save my settings when I tried to enable it via:
Update Manager / Update Manager settings / Start automatic updates

I found Error: e001018b in the log file (C:\ProgramData\avg8\Log\avgcfg.log):

[AVG8.CFGMGR] ERROR 2008-07-12 14:25:06,155 AAFRY PID:3800 THID:2848 ID:{4B69726F-6E736B79-4C696C69-32303036-30393034}:519.134.79458 MSG:'DWORD:0x455295d4', 'DWORD:0x2', 'DWORD:0xffffffff', 'DWORD:0xffffffff', 'ERRORCODE:0xe001018b'

The solution was to remove the schedule config file (C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\sched.cfg), and let it be recreated. Here's what I did:

1. Move "C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\*.cfg" to "C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\old" (NOTE: you might want to try moving JUST sched.cfg... that might be enough)
   
2. Open AVG console from the system tray
3. Check the box at Update Manager / Update Manager settings / Start automatic updates
4. Perform "update now" on all AVG components
5. Reboot

At this point everything seems fine.

These files were automatically recreated:
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\mail.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\sched.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\update.cfg
These files were NOT auto recreated:
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\krnl.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\user.cfg

File paths/directories will probably be different on Windows Vista vs Windows XP. To reiterate, I'm using Vista x64, so the paths above are for Vista.

If anyone does the above procedure with moving JUST sched.cfg, let me us know if it worked for you.

Accumalizer.com Pretends to Care

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I've been getting a lot of spam recently from Accumalizer.com. Various spam offerings always with the Accumalizer.com top banner with the sugar speckled gumdrop, makes it easy to identify and delete the spam.

I'm enraged by the good-neighbor spam policy at the bottom. It reads (FYI: I made the email change to someone@somewhere.com):

"Accumalizer.com thanks you for opting-in to receiving email advertising with us. You signed up one of our partners with the address someone@somewhere.com, but if you would prefer to you may unsubscribe from future correspondence at anytime.
Please visit the original website where you opted-in to view the relevant privacy policies.
Or, you may contact us at: 3 The Drive, Great Warley, Brentwood, CM13 3FR, UK (CoNo: 06187068)"

This is not only a half truth (I didn't opt-in in any fashion), but it's also intentionally vague and probably impossible to opt-out electronically. Since I didn't opt-in, or I don't know what horrible site gave them my email address, how do I return to the original site to tell them to stop? Even if I did figure it out, it probably WON'T stop Accumalizer since they already have my email address, and wouldn't notice an off-site unsubscribe!

It looks to me like they want to appear legit in being a good and responsible custodian of your personal information. Meanwhile they've made it impossible for anyone to actually unsubscribe!

I've tried their unsubscribe link, which is basically this form: http://accumalizer.com/webforms/accumalizer/unsub/
Yet I'd bet that it doesn't ultimately stop them. I'll add a comment later if the emails stop (or if they continue).

Blockbuster Knew

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I just got home from Blockbuster and I am impressed. Their "bricks and mortar" store is connected directly to the online rent-by-mail service, and as far as I can tell, the connection is real-time.

I have the online plan where they send me one movie at a time via the mail (like Netflix), but I get the added advantage of getting a free rental and an immediate return of the mailer. Its great that I can have a different movie almost every 2 days with this setup, but that's not what this post is about.

Yesterday I went online and put Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs" on the top of my Queue. Today, I went to return a mailer and get a free movie... and lo and behold, the Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs" movie was right there on the shelf! I formed a plan to rent the movie, and rush home and remove it from the queue. I raced home and within 5 minutes I was in my online blockbuster queue. I was greeted with an alert that said that I had just rented Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs", and that it was also in my queue... and would I like to remove it from the Queue?... and would I like to always remove rented movies from the queue.

I'm impressed that they have this feature, but I'm more impressed that the system kicked in SO fast! Wow.