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It took a while to find this one. After accidentally installing a virus and cleaning it manually, I wanted to clean up the registry entries in MSConfig to not show the now defunct startup .dll's and .exe's

The way to do this is quite simple actually. There are 3 locations in your registry where the information is held.

The first two are:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

When you click on the folders you will find the names of the programs. Delete them and they are gone from MSConfig (Note: This does not actually delete the file). Make sure you browse too and delete the offending files before deleting them from the registry. Check both the Local Machine and Current User because they can have separate or duplicate entries. You also want to make sure one program doesnt reinstall another after rebooting thinking you had fixed the issue!

The third location is:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\MSConfig

Here you will find two folders: /startupfolder/ and /startupreg/

Startupfolder will have full path folders of items that startup with the "/"'s trimmed as "^". You can find information on the programs by clicking the folder and viewing the contents. Delete the folder if you want it out of the MSConfig list.

Startupreg has more descriptive startup items. You can clearly see the names you would normally see in MSConfig.

Once you delete the files from these locations, give your computer a restart and you should no longer have them showing / loading.

These 3 Registry keys/folders are very handy for manually removing viruses, especially those "ANti Virus" Viruses. The ones that make it seem as if they are an anti virus.

You MUST make sure to remove every file associated with them...they will try to hide. Be vigilant and careful. Once manually removed it is recommended ot always followup with antimalware/spyware software such as Spybot Search and Destroy, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and a general Anti-Virus.

A client of mine has me working with Microsoft Access. Let me start by saying I am no expert in Microsoft access. I understand the principles behind SQL, as they are very similar to mySQL, but even still working with access has been interesting if not frustrating.

Google's Caffeine indexing platform was just released yesterday. The web will now be indexed faster in a more "real-time" algorithmic process. Basically all the different qualifications that go into the search indexing formula will be piece-mealed in and compared to the the entire database in real time as opposed to building stack by stack of data over time in order to run the sort query and seeing major changes only pushed out after long periods of time and data analysis.*cough, wheeze, gasp*

What does it mean for SEO? It means the possibility that a new site will be indexed faster. We may start to see rankings rise at a rapid pace as we tweak and influence our sites for performance and SEO "friendliness".

I am looking forward to seeing reports from the SEO field stating rapid changes instead of slow dreadful ones. Maybe now all those scam filled SEO companies won't be able to promise results without a 6 months - 1 year contract.

Hilarious, Google places playable pacman game on front page of Google.com, causing countless billions of wasted hours today. Very cute "Insert Coin" button there. Creative!! I love it!

Figures, it runs like crap on IE, but runs smooth as silk on Firefox and Chrome...could it be HTML5? Will we see more of this to come? I sure hope so! The web is changing rapidly, as is all of our communications technology. Just look at Google IO 2010. Lot's of exciting things to come...like Flash for Android!!

Looks like Symantec bought Verisign...boo! I got this e-mail today, just a couple of minutes ago.

Dear VeriSign Customer,

I am writing to inform you that VeriSign has signed a definitive agreement to sell our Authentication Services business to Symantec, a premier end-to-end Internet security provider with extensive distribution, broad product offerings and integrated service delivery. Upon closing of the transaction, the VeriSign Authentication Business, which includes the PKI, VIP and SSL assets, will become part of the Security and Compliance Group at Symantec, and VeriSign's network infrastructure and domain name business will continue to exist as a separate independent company retaining the VeriSign name. Certain Authentication related brands and trademarks, such as VeriSign's check mark, will be included in the transfer from VeriSign to Symantec. VeriSign will retain its corporate name and utilize it for our remaining business.