Better Know a Gamer is back! Nominate a friend, now!

So, the other day, I imported the WinBreak.com Better Know a Gamer archives. During this process I may have forgotten to disable my twitter updates which caused abut 30 articles to publish to my twitter and facebook streams in a matter of seconds. Sorry about that. But the good news is, you can read all about more gamers, and some of their best stories!

Better Know a Gamer is back, and you can Nominate a Gamer whenever you want, even yourself! There’s no shame in it, some come on and get famous!

Lookout – protecting your phone from more than viruses

From friends, co-workers, clients, and acquaintances alike all want to know the same thing: “how do I know if my phone is being hacked?” or “does my phone have a virus?” or “can my phone get a virus?” The short answer is: while it’s possible, it most likely hasn’t happened to you. There have been “proof of conept” attacks, but not much has been seen “in the wild” so to speak, at least not in North America. The likelihood that you, some random person of no interest to anyone, have fallen victim to an attack on your mobile device is extremely unlikely. If you really think you have, your safest bet isn’t worrying about your phone, but changing passwords of your email accounts, facebok account, etc… But for the added level of comfort, I advise people to install an application called Lookout.

Lookout is like AntiVirus for your phone. While there are other brands out there, they’re so busy trying to get you to buy the full version that they forget that there is a free competitor already out there. And Lookout isn’t just some wannabe trying to scare people about mobile security, they’re looking out for you. They helped Google identify some programs on the Chinese Android Market that were actually packing some nasty bugs (luckily, this doesn’t appear to have happened in the United States, so far). They’ve also been around the block – Lookout mobile once fully supported Windows Mobile. And even though some people still want to say that these guys are just fear mongering – what have they got to gain from it? Their base-product is FREE!

Lookout has around 15 million users, and take their role as a leader in mobile security very seriously. It looks for those occasional rare mobile-phone viruses, but the basic membership also allows you to log in to their website and track your lost or stolen phone! You can even backup your data, such as contacts, photos, and even call history. Lost your phone and unable to find it with the “Find my Phone” feature? Your replacement phone can have your most important data reimported to it.

Premium upgrades are available, too, allowing users to get a more indepth analysis of what programs are on your phone. Really figure out which apps can read your email, listen to your phone calls, transmit your personal data back to their developers, or even track your location. Take your security back in to your own hands for as little as $29.99 a year, or $2.99 per month. You can even try a 2-week free trial of these features. Other features may vary depending on your platform, but they do have safe browsing to protect you on the web, and even protection while you’re using WiFi hotspots to make sure nobody else is browsing your phone’s files.

The free product is incredible, and I have zero hesitation in suggesting that people install the app to their phone immediately. It can be downloaded from iTunes or Android Market.

How to Fix 0xc0000218 Registry Hive Error, or Boot.ini Missing Or Corrupt

Today is a Tech Tip Two-for-one. 0xc0000218, or a missing Boot.ini file. If 0xc0000218 doesn’t apply to you, scroll past it to see how to fix a missing boot.ini or HAL.dll file. This advice from Help Desk is a little more on the advanced side, it’s not the kind of problem you’ll see every day. However, the errors you’ll see here are errors anybody can recover from. You know you’re in for a bad day when your computer won’t boot, but these tips out, they may get you back up and running. Since this article is for slightly more advanced users, I’m going to leave out some of the basics – when I say “Boot to the Recovery Console” I’m going to assume you know what that means. While these are errors that are easy to overcome, one misstep in this part of the computer can cause a world of trouble, so you still may want to rely on an experienced friend for assistance.

0xc0000218

I had a user who was getting a Blue Screen error on their Windows XP machine, right after or during bootup. It read:

Stop: 0xc0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SYSTEM or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

To resolve this wasn’t too painful. If you perform a true Repair from a Windows XP disc, a lot of customization can be wiped out. Here’s what I did to just get back up and running, and not worry about my user profiles and everything else:

NOTE: In the case of my example, the corrupted file was SYSTEM, but yours may indicate a problem with the SOFTWARE hive. If that’s the case, replace SYSTEM at the end of any line below with SOFTWARE. If you can do it from the Windows Advanced Startup Options even better, but you may have to boot from a Windows XP CD – but either way you want to get to the Recovery Console.

I always type the following just to make sure I get back to the root of the C: drive, then in to the Windows directory. If you’ve installed Windows elsewhere, of course navigate to the proper directory, like WINNT.

  1. cd
  2. cd windows
  3. cd system32
  4. cd config
  5. rename system system.bak
  6. copy C:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
  7. exit

Let the computer reboot and see if your problem is resolved!

If your computer reports that the Boot.ini file is missing or corrupt:

  1. Boot an XP CD
  2. select the recovery console
  3. Attrib -h -r -s C:\boot.ini
  4. del C:\boot.ini
  5. bootcfg /rebuild
  6. fixboot
  7. exit
  8. After the reboot, you should be able to get back in to Windows!

I’ve been told that this works for the HAL.dll boot error as well, but I’m not certain, I’ve only ever used it for a boot.ini problem. It’s important to note that whether your have a problem with your registry hive or your boot.ini or whatever – you shouldn’t rely on these as “Fixes” to your problem. You certainly have a corrupt Windows installation and could even have a failing hard drive – you should back your data up immediately if either of these presented solutions lets you back in to your system.

2009 – Abraham Inc – Tweet-Tweet


A limited release in 2009, and I believe a wider release in 2010, Abraham Inc. is the kind of band that you probably thought didn’t exist any more. More likely, maybe you thought something quite like this never existed. Blending jazz and funk musical stylings, traditional Jewish Klezmer, and even rap vocals brought down hard by Canadian rapper Socalled. Abraham Inc.’s Tweet-Tweet is a musical experience unlike any other, a side project of some of the best in their field collaborating on a sound uniquely their own. There’s no real market for a band like this, but that didn’t stop them from creating one. The album has something for everyone. Head over to their website, and give them a listen.