Odd Lots

[jeff_duntemann]

• Heads up here; this is important: Something called EasyBitsGo.exe appeared in a directory under Documents and Settings/Application Data/All Users this morning about half an hour ago. The executable was already installed and running and wanted permission to install Flash Player. (I do not allow Flash Player on Windows machines, as it's exploit fertilizer.) The timestamp on the executable's directory tree indicated that it had been installed no more than a minute before it popped up. There appears to be a Skype connection, and I was using Skype at the time. Be careful. If you see it, close Skype, kill the easybitsgo.exe process in Task Manager to close it, and then nuke that directory. Then go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall it. Reboot. If Skype did in fact install this thing without asking, it may be the beginning of the end of my own use of Skype.
• Per the above: Launch Skype. Select Tools | Options | Advanced, and un-check Automatically Start Extras. Then reboot again and make sure it's not still running.
• All RAMmed up and nowhere to go: KingMax has announced a 64GB MicroSDXC card...and there's almost nothing on the market that will use that much storage in one chunk. If we've learned nothing else in the last thirty years, it's that "barriers" are a mark of either hardware vendor cheapouts, or software vendor incompetence. Are address lines so dear that we can't raise the barriers to a level at least five years out? (I suggest 256 TB. Ok, six or seven years out.)
• What if Babbage had outsourced tech support to the Pacific Rim? (Thanks to Ernie Marek for the link.)
• Yet another longstanding dietary fetish is now in jeopardy. The case against salt always looked weak to me, in that it was clearly hazardous to people who already had certain kinds of heart disease, but that the case that it caused heart disease was mighty thin and mostly anecdotal. All roads continue to lead back to carbs, and especially sugar. More in coming days as time allows. (Thanks to Carol for the link.)
• If just rooting your Nook Color isn't quite enough, here's a description of how to turn it into a complete Android tablet. If it sounds scary to you, well, you may not have the computing experience to do it; but when I read the article I thought, Sheesh, that's easy. You can even boot from the SD slot to get a sense for the mod before making changes to device memory. The process appears to be reversible, and the mod allows you to use Bluetooth-capable GPS receivers and other Bluetooth devices. Given how cheap the NC is, I'm tempted to try it while I wait for the high-end slates like Xoom to mature.
• We could maybe use a few more of these.