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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Virus is a frantic, old-school space shooter - Time Waster

If you're a fan of classic shooters like Space Invaders, Centipede, and Galaga, Virus may well keep you from doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Your ship is armed with a single blaster. As you destroy enemies, you'll pick up the occasional multifunctional bomb that works in one of three ways. Use it to destroy or immobilize enemies, or destroy hexes (like the ones you see in the screenshot) that certain annoying opponents leave behind.

The instructions state that you can "click to fire," but you'll probably find holding the button down and strafing your enemies into space dust much more satisfying, especially during working hours.

Keep an eye on your life meter: as your attackers increase in number and speed, a few are bound to make it past your barrage. When they do, you'll see the magic number drop. If it hits zero, you're toast.

You can, of course, start over and go Last Starfighter on the bad guys. Too bad there's no vomit-inducing death blossom.

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft's malware fix: nuke your drive

nuke windows for malware troublesI made the switch to the Microsoft Anti-Spyware app, now called Windows Defender, and haven't looked back. The latest major change has turned the tool into an invaluable one on my machine. But Defender can't do it all. In fact, we all know that rootkits, spyware, and badware in general could crud up our computers at any point, right? Well MS is cogniscent of this, and has a real fix: wipe your drive, and reinstall. Yep, that's it! Billions of bucks in R&D can't be wrong kids, it only takes a giant magnet and some extra time to be free from malware. Oh, and a terrific backup scheme... Who says this? According to the story on eWeek, Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft. The choice quote from Mike is, "When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit." Mike goes on to explain some malware is just "way too hard" to remove, thus requiring a total wipe and reinstall. They had to do this with a certain unnamed government branch, wiping and restoring 2,000 machines. The good news is, with rootkit attacks on XP SP2 on the rise, all you fixit types, IT guys, and family computer monkeys will have job security at least until Vista ships sometime in the not too distant future... Huzzah!

Filed under: Security, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft releases Windows Defender Beta 2

Windows Defender Beta 2

Yesterday Microsoft released Windows Defender Beta 2, formerly Windows Anti-Spyware, and it's now available for download from Microsoft. The new version of the anti-spyware software features a redesigned and simplified UI, a new spyware detection engine, and the ability to run without administrator privileges. If you want to see screenshots of the new release, one blogger has posted a bunch here.

[Via Digg]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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