support


“Independent” support hotlines and how to deal with them (updated: who is in the picture?)

I got contacted by “Anatha anatha”, a support specialist ( :))) – can’t stop laughing) who is offering “free” support to Avira Antivirus customers. As the description says, they are “an independent Support Provider for Avira Antivirus” and they have a free telephone number (+ 49-800-181-0338) for all customers in Germany. A simple search for that number gives you: A LOT of activity online. There are videos on Youtube, there are pictures on Flickr and there is even a website: http://www.supportaviranummer.com If you look at this website, it is half in German and half in English. Yes, they even have a Refund Policy : http://www.supportaviranummer.com/refund-policy.html So, if it is “free”, why is there a refund policy? 🙂   If you look at the whois information, you see that it is actually owned by an Indian company “Y.E.C.A. COMPUTERS”: Registrant Name: Y.E.C.A. COMPUTERS Registrant Organization: Y.E.C.A. COMPUTERS Registrant Street: 111, SHIVPURI, PATEL NAGAR, NEAR CENTRAL BANK OF INDIA Registrant City: Kanpur Registrant State/Province: Uttar Pradesh Registrant Postal Code: 208007 Registrant Country: IN Registrant Phone: +91.8081810673 Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: +91.8081989024 Registrant Fax Ext: Registrant Email:  The domain is fresh: Creation Date: 2018-03-30T14:28:49Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2019-03-30T14:28:49Z     So, why are they doing that? Are there also such services for other AV producers? Let’s see: http://supportsymantecnummer.com/ : NO http://supportbitdefendernummer.com/ : NO http://supportkasperskynummer.com/ : NO http://supportmcafeenummer.com/ : NO … well … I guess Avira deserves special attention.     As for the nice lady…


No Image

Goodbye Twitterfeed.com, Hello HootSuite.com (updated)

Until now, I used Twitterfeed.com to publish several RSS Feeds to Ping.fm and from there to several social media networks like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Yahoo and Flickr. For quite some time now, TwitterFeed is no longer compatible with Ping.fm. I’ve been quite patient and supportive with both Ping.fm and Twitterfeed.com . I even created bugs for them at GetSatisfaction.com. Still no result… Only “we know there is a problem, we are working on it.”. Well,guys, have fun ! Because I’m not having anymore. So, it is now time to say Goodbye to Twitterfeed.com, and say Hello HootSuite.com. Hootsuite is able to publish on all social media networks above and also on Ping.fm. Because I like to be able to control everything from one place, I will continue for now to use Ping.fm. But, it is nice to know that there are alternatives. Follow me on Twitter – www.Twitter.com/sorinmustaca, LinkedIn – http://de.linkedin.com/in/sorinmustaca, Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/sorin.mustaca, Yahoo and Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/msorin. Update: Hootsuite.com has cancelled the free support and now they allow only paid support for those who have more than 3 feeds. I had to come back to twitterfeed which also officially removed the support for ping.fm




No Image

Conceptronic CHD3LAN NAS Server

I bought from eBay a brand new Networked Attached Storage server without HDD for 51 euro. Cheap and nice toy.. but … The company from which I bought it, advised me to upgrade the firmware via the web interface. And I did, poor me 🙁 Needless to say that the box is dead now. During the upgrade, I got a timeout from the box and since then it just didn’t work. I wrote to the support of Conceptronic and followed their advice, but without success. Still trying.


No Image

More Skype exposed

I found recently a very interesting article about P2P networks and Skype. This comes as a completion of the other article about Skype exposed posted here in June: Here is a permalink It is written by some guys from Cornell and Google. Here is the article. The most interesting thing is (copied included links): “Garfinkel [11], concludes that Skype is related to KaZaA; both the companies were founded by the same individuals, there is an overlap of technical staff, and that much of the technology in Skype was originally developed for KaZaA. Network packet level analysis of KaZaA [16] and of Skype [1] support this claim by uncovering striking similarities in their connection setup, and their use of a “supernode”-based hierarchical peer-to-peer network.” Heheh, I wonder what will happen if someone wants to exchange a file with multiple users, for example in a conference. 🙂 They close the article with this: ” Altogether, we find that Skype users appear to behave differently from file-sharing users as well as traditional telephone users.”


%d bloggers like this: