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Have you set your facebook username yet?

They’ve been available for 4 hours now and I thought I’d rush to the laptop and grab /lyndon but, alas, someone more geeky that me already has…

So after much deliberation I grabbed /lyndonw.  So now my facebook profile ID matches my email address prefix and you can now find me @ http://www.facebook.com/lyndonw.  Which is much better than the default of http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=707200510!

Make sure you grab yours at http://www.facebook.com/username before you’re stuck with john.m8734!

It appears that Microsoft have thrown their toys out of the pram when it comes to the EU and their latest operating system.

European buyers of Windows 7 will have to download and install a web browser for themselves.

Bowing to European competition rules, Microsoft Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer.

One wonders how the average consumer is going to download and install a web browser without a web browser….

Summers here!  It’s BBQ time and some of my favourite side dishes are deep fried (sorry mother!)

There’s nothing like some crunchy beer battered onion rings or mushrooms, washed down with a bottle of ice cold Bud or a nice glass of Pinot so without further ado, here’s how to magic them together…

To make the lovely batter you need:

• 200g of Plain Flour (plus extra for dusting)
• A good pinch of salt (preferably sea salt)
• 1 egg
• 300ml (give or take) of beer, lager etc…

Do NOT sift the flour but dump it straight into a bowl with a nice large pinch of sea salt.

Add the egg (minus the shell) and start whisking.

It will become obvious really quickly that there is not enough liquid in the bowl to accomplish this task, so open your bottle of Bud (or chosen beverage).  If you have a 330ml bottle then take a nice swig (30ml worth) and add the remainder nice and slowly to the bowl whilst whisking.

Keep this up until you have a fairly smooth batter about the consistency of double cream.  Don’t fret if you have some small lumps, that’ll just add a bit of extra crunch – we don’t want boulders but little specks are good.

Congratulations, you now have your beer batter.

Now take whatever you want to deep fry, button mushrooms, onion rings, mars bars (minature ones on skewers work best apparently!), lightly dust in flour, dip into the batter until nicely covered then gently place into your deep fryer at 170ºc and cook until nicely golden brown.

At this point I would like to emphasise the word place.  Never drop things into hot oil as this will generally cause splash backs and nasty red burns which hurt!  You have been warned.  If in doubt get someone sober to do this part…

Once nicely golden brown, remove from the oil and place onto kitchen towel to drain and sprinkle with some more sea salt.

Serve and amaze your friends with your culinary expertise!  Enjoy!

I think most people have seen the rather naff T-Mobile “Life’s for Sharing” adverts from Liverpool Street Station, if you haven’t then you’re not really missing much!  But I came across this little cracker from Belgium and wondered whether it served as the inspiration…

It seems quite a few friends have been caught out by a nasty piece of malware recently called “System Security”.

This piece of software is especially cunning as it looks very much a part of your Windows system, however is far from it…

There are many suggestions on how to get rid of it, the easiest being to install the free version of AVG anti-virus, which should remove it, however some people report that this doesn’t always work.  Even if it doesn’t do the trick I can’t recommend AVG anti-virus strongly enough for home use, especially as it’s free!

If AVG doesn’t do the trick for you then it’s time to head over to Malwarebytes.org to download their Anti-Malware Tool, which is free for on-demand scanning.

Should you wish to manually remove Security System you will need to check for the following files, system processes and registry keys and remove them (72637123 is a random number – yours will probably be different):

• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\72637123\72637123.exe
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\72637123\72637123.glu
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\72637123\pc72637123cnf
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\72637123\pc72637123ins
• C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Start Menu\Programs\System Security\System Security 2009 Support.lnk
• C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Start Menu\Programs\System Security\System Security 2009.lnk
• C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Desktop\System Security 2009.lnk
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\72637123
• C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Start Menu\Programs\System Security

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\72637123
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\systemsecurity2009

You should now be free from the dreaded System Security malware.  The information provided above is given freely, for educational purposes and is not guaranteed in any way.  If anyone should suffer permanent injury, death or data loss then it’s not my fault!

Good Luck!

UPDATE: You may need to enter safe mode to use the above tools, this can either be done by pressing the F8 key as the computer is booting up (before the Windows graphic appears) or by loading MSCONFIG.

To load MSCONFIG, click on Start, then Run and enter MSCONFIG, click OK.

Click on the BOOT.INI tab and click the checkbox next to /SAFEBOOT and click OK

When prompted, click on Restart.

DO NOT make any other changes in the MSCONFIG screens or you run the risk of damaging your PC further.

If in doubt, ask for help – I’m not that expensive