4 Operating Systems in 1 year (Review)

I took it upon myself to treat 2014 as a testing tool of trying out 4 different operating systems in 1 year. The idea was to try out each operating system for 3 months in everyday use without taking the SIM out and putting it back to my preferred phone (which was iPhone at the time). Therefore, do note that I “was” the biggest proponent of iOS. I was one of those users that jumped on iPhone early, having the 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S and last but not least 5. Therefore I was opposed to any other operating system.  My least favorite at the time was BlackBerry BB10 OS, I had hate for it without even trying the OS out.

Prior to testing my uneducated, unscientific tests, this is how I thought they would rank up:

1. iOS
2. Android
3. BlackBerry
4. Windows (I thought because it was new, it would have lots of flaws)

The handsets I picked up were as follows:

1. iPhone 5
2. Samsung Note 2
3. BlackBerry Z10
4. Nokia Lumia 1520

The applications that I used on everyday basis are: email, contacts, SMS, Calendar, taking photos, voice notes, notepad (small notes), minor editing and emailing of Excel and Word, and of course phone calls. The only entertainment I have used is audio streaming, some youtube watching, and that’s about it. Therefore, you can consider myself a business user. I’m by no means a gamer. Take that into consideration as you read my final results.

My final rankings with a brief explanation:

1. BlackBerry Z10 – BB10 as an operating system is by far the easiest, and fastest to get the job done if you are planning to do business only tools. I found the keyboard to be the best and easiest to use, and navigating between the tasks required no effort or waste of time. Yes I was a hater, absolutely didn’t want to open my eyes to see a BB. However BB10 operating system changed my way of thinking.

2. Nokia Lumia 1520 – Windows Phone 8.1 is superb. It actually surpassed all of my expectations. It might have scored high because of Excel and Word editing (on a 6″ screen). However, I was able to do all of my tasks without a worry.  The OS is missing a few minor things, but overall it did the job.

3. iPhone 5 – When I was testing the phone I was transitioning from iOS 6 to iOS7. iOS6 was solid operating system, with the addition of iOS7 and since I used it mostly on iOS7 it scored low on my personal chart. For some reason it took significant amount of time to do things versus the top 2. I’ve become a lover of the iOS to a hater by trying out other operating systems. How the heck did that happen? In all seriousness, iOS is a great choice if you are planning to do business and entertainment. It would score #1 on my list if that was the case. But as I mentioned, I don’t do any entertainment/gaming. As a business device, it just doesn’t do the job as BB10 and WP8.1 did. At least for me.

4. Samsung Note 2 – Please take note that I’m not bashing the actual hardware. Samsung Note 2 is a beautiful handset, with amazing piece of hardware. The operating system is the worst piece of you know what. Wow! I think I found myself fixing things on it then getting the job done. If you are a business person, stay away from Android. If you want to play games and waste time, Android is the OS for you. If you are looking for just entertainment, I would say Android would score #1 on my list. Other then that, stay away.

Of course the rating above is a personal preference. However, I think people need to try other operating systems and not be committed to one. It might open up your eyes, like they have been opened up for me.

Spam Links showing up in WordPress

I was contacted by a client who had experienced odd links / advertisements showing up in his WordPress setup. Furthermore, he had experienced emails bouncing back from his Contact Us form. The client has a dedicated servers with 5 ip addresses. Other websites are not experiencing any issues nor are the other 4 ip addresses. The odds are his entire server was not compromised.

Upon examining his infected website it appeared that majority of the links traced back to: http://www.genericstts.com. Some of the keywords that were used in linkage were: Play Craps Online, Play Bingo Online, and Meilleurs Casino en ligne.

This was a multiple task, first we needed to find out why his dedicated server was blacklisted and second, we needed to find out what was causing these links / advertisements.

There was absolutely no point in trying to un-blacklist his ip address because we needed to solve his website spam problem.

The obvious solution was to find if its a plugin or theme causing this or the actual WordPress that was compromised. After narrowing it down, it appeared that a plugin was compromised.

This is where you need to make a decision. Do you just wipe the entire system or delete just the plugin or trace the issue and try to eliminate the malware manually and keep the plugin and the website in tact. It all depends how much information you have stored in your wordpress setup, how much time you want to spend, or how much money you want to spend for someone to spend the time to narrow down the problem. The client wanted to trace the issue down. According to Fox IT, the proper solution should be to eliminate the user and to wipe the system down.

Now you can try and install clamav or maldet to see if it will find the malware and remove it for you, or you can try to find the issue manually.

I did it manually, since I knew which plugin was infected I took a look at each file manually. As it turns out it was a .PNG file that was infected. It did drop itself in two different spots. After getting rid of the two .PNG files, I also made sure you couldn’t write into those two directories.

After getting rid of the malware, I went to de-list the blacklisted IP.

All was back to normal.

If you require any sort of malware removal on your dedicated server (or shared) CONTACT US