Why Dont You Blog?

I have to set up a new award for the “most incomprehensible error message on my PC this evening.” It’s a small category with only one contender. But this would still be a shoe-in contender, even if it was up against the bizarre messages my work PC gives out.

If you cant read this, it says

“Test cannot be started because it already does not exist”

Thanks to wikileaks, however, I can reveal the error message instructions at the heart of the Matrix.

************************************************

Access level: Top Secret Distribution: Error message Replicators

Error message bots’ code of conduct

• Never explain. Never apologise.
• Make sure you use the word fatal. This always inspires user optimism.
• If you’ve used up your store of fatals, say unrecoverable
• Always include the word error. There’s a high chance the user will take the blame.
• Include at least one over-16 digit number, preferably in Hex
• Stay onscreen just long enough for the recipient to imbibe the concepts of fatal and/or unrecoverable.
• Never stay onscreen long enough for the user to actually write down the number of the error.
• Freeze all processes and shut down instantly if the user tries a Print Screen
• However, be sparing in your use of several alarming words and disturbingly large numbers at the same time. Users are frail compared to silicon-based life forms. They may be panicked into binning their whole system.
• Locating the precise memory block holding the error is always useful. All PC users know exactly what is going on in any segment of their hard disk at any time.
• Drill your human-machine hybrid tech support workers to respond only if provided with at least one over-16 digit hex number and a precise physical memory address.
• Set off threatening security alarms if the user tries to fix anything, themselves. Be sure to mention their contracts of employment…
• Ensure PC behaves normally in the presence of a tech support bot. Time your re-presentation of the message to occur exactly 5 minutes after the support bot leaves the room.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Popularity: 29% [?]

As previously mentioned, I am the “proud” owner of a Nokia N73 phone (which unfortunately suffers from a few “build quality issues”). As this is a phone with more functionality than a PC I bought ten years ago (512MB disk space for example), and it runs on the Symbian OS I am curious about its susceptibility to virus attacks.

The Nokia N73 is used for mobile email (thanks to 3) and came with a free trial of F-Secure AntiVirus. This has now run out. The free trial was excellent, however given that it was for about six weeks duration and during that time, my phone was not set up for mobile mail it seems to have been a bit wasted.

Turning to the wonders of the Internet for inspiration, I thought it would be fairly easy to find a free Anti Virus package for the phone. A trip to AVG (Grisoft) was no use, as while they do many versions for Linux, BSD, Windows etc, there was nothing which would run on the phone.

So, off to the search engines. A quick run on Google found a post on Mobiledia.com which claimed Symantec had released a free AV package for Symbian phones. Looks good to me, so off to the URL in the article, I go. Sadly this simply redirected to the Vista PublicBETA page which needs Vista and a PC to work. Not much use for my Nokia N73. Searching the Symbian site finds an AV for Symbian but it is $44.95 rather than free - and a quick look at the Mobiledia.com site shows the post was made in March 05. Ah. Back to Google.

Continued searches on a variety of engines seems to only throw up conflicting data. Some sites assert the S60 V3 operating system on the N73 doesn’t need AV yet (strikes me as madness, Nokias are popular phones and as such major targets for virus writers) and most of the others are posts by people looking for N73 AV software. I have found a few sites which offer it although none for free (lots free for V2 of the OS though). Just as despair was about to set in, I found the BullGuard Mobile Antivirus site. Could this be the answer? A download later, and I am pushing the .SIS file through the Nokia Application Installer. After a few seconds, the installer pops up “Please finish the install on the phone user interface” so I look at the phone.

Sadly the phone says “Installation of BullGuard_S60.sis not supported” and quits out.

Back to the drawing board. If you know of any free AV packages for N73 phones PLEASE let me know. Also if you know of any plugins which allow the N73 / Lifeblog software to talk to WordPress I will be your friend for life.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Popularity: 42% [?]