Open Source Cars? Yes it works and the cars look great

By Martin Brinkmann on August 13, 2012 - Tags:technology

When you think of open source, you probably think of software first and foremost, and maybe about open source devices as well. While it is linked mostly to software, Open Source is not limited to that field at all, as it is also a design philosophy.  But an open source car? How would that even work?

Take the site Local Motors for instance. It is an open source community of car designers, enthusiasts, engineers, modelers and fabricators who work in tandem to create the next generation of automobiles. Community members submit sketches, designs and ideas with the most popular ones rising to the top thanks to the site’s community voting system.

The first car that that the company made came from a design of Art Center College of Design student Sangho Kim. The Rally Fighter is a street legal vehicle designed for off-road fun. It features a 6.2 liter V8 engine, 430 horsepower, and comes with a set of optional features that customers can buy on top of the regular car.  A comfort package sets you back another $3200 for instance, adding full carpet and navigation, leather trim accents, full integrated back up camera and power windows and door looks to the car.

That is on top of the $74,900 that you pay for the car. What’s interesting here is that you not only get the car for the price, but also what Local Motors calls a Total Build Experience. You have to build your own car. That may sound intimidating at first, especially if you do not have any experience in doing so. But Local Motors assists you with a team of experts that help you through the process. According to Local Motors, the process is open to long time car builders and first time builders, and all that is needed is at least one additional person to help you build the car.

The Rally Fighter is just the first in a line of vehicles and improvements created by the community. You can check out the Forge for ongoing projects and competitions

Add tabs to Windows Explorer

By Martin Brinkmann on August 13, 2012 - Tags:Windows Explorer, Windows software

Tabs have been an integral part of web browsers for a long time. Before that, users had to open a new browser window when they wanted to open multiple sites at once on their system. When you look at Windows Explorer, Widnows’ default file management tool, you come to wonder why Microsoft never bothered to improve the file manager with features that third party applications like Total Commander, QTabBar or Q-Dir offer. Probably the two biggest features missing are an interface supporting tabs and an option to display multiple folder contents next to each other in one window.

Tab Explorer is a free program for Windows that adds tabs to Windows Explorer. It does so in an unobtrusive way by merging all open Explorer windows into a single window of the file browser. Each open window is represented by a tab that the software attaches to the top of the single Explorer window.

The tab bar lists all open folders by their name on top of the program window. The position makes sure that it does not interfere with any existing toolbars or processes which is different from the way programs like QTabBar handle it (the latter adds a tab toolbar to Windows Explorer that sits between the top and bottom toolbars.

You can easily switch between tabs with a single click, and the transition is more or less instant. The arrow at the top left corner of the toolbar displays a list of all tabs which can be handy if you have lots of Explorer folders open on the system. The program reduces the width and font size of each tab automatically to avoid horizontal scrolling. You will eventually notice that folder names get cut off, and that’s where the down arrow comes in handy. Eventually though you will see scroll options. A button on the right of the tabbar creates a new tab when clicked on.

The program hides the tabs when you move the Explorer window on the system, and displays them again once you stop moving the window around.

You may ask yourself what is happening when you maximize the window? The tabs are displayed in the title bar then so that they stay accessible but do not reduce the contents that are displayed in the window.

If there is one thing that I think is missing, it is an option to copy or move files by drag and drop on tabs. There is also no option in the window controls to close all open windows at once.

The program is not a Windows Explorer add-on, which means that it needs to be started before the tabs are shown in Windows Explorer. The options let you add the program to the system startup. (via Dottech)

Automatically close Firefox’s find bar after inactivity

By Martin Brinkmann on August 14, 2012 - Tags:Firefox add-ons

All web browsers support a find on page feature that you can use to to search for text on a web page that you are currently on. In Firefox, you simply press Ctrl-f or F3 to open the find on page toolbar at the bottom of the browser window and start typing. Firefox will automatically highlight the first instance of the text that you have entered provided that at least one instance of it is available on the web page.

You can then cycle through all instances of the text you have been searching for with the F3 key or Shift-F3. F3 will cycle through all hits from top to bottom, while Shift-F3 reverses the direction.

What you will also notice is that the find bar will be displayed on all tabs open in the same browser window so that you either need to close it manually with a click on the close button or by closing the Firefox window.

If you perform many find on page operations on a regular basis, you may be interested in a solution that automatically closes the Firefox find bar after a set amount of inactivity. Once you have installed Hide Find Bar, you will notice that the toolbar gets closed automatically after ten seconds of inactivity. The time only counts when the bar is not active.

If you think that the default time interval is too short or too long for your requirements, you can modify it in the add-on preferences. Enter about:add-ons in the address bar of Firefox to load the Add-ons Manager window. Locate Hide Find Bar here and click on the Options button.

Here you can change the interval, select to enable or disable the extension, and select whether you want a toolbar icon to appear in the browser’s status bar if the add-on is disabled in the options. You can use the status bar icon to enable or disable it in this case.

The extension is fully compatible with recent versions of the browser, even though it has been abandoned by its author who complained about the lengthy review process and criteria put forth by different reviewers.

Update: Damirora pointed out that you can also use / to bring up the find form, and that it will auto close after a certain time of inactivity.

How to clean a Dorifel infection on your PC

By Martin Brinkmann on August 14, 2012 - Tags:kaspersky

The Dorifel worm has hit computer systems in the Netherlands and to a lesser degree other regions of the world for the last six days or so. According to research by Emsisoft and Kaspersky, the majority of systems infected seem to be located in government, public sector and company networks. Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Dorifel (Emsisoft) or Worm.Win32.Dorifel (Kaspersky) enters the infected systems with the help of the Citadel malware which is related to the Zeus family of malicious software.

Kaspersky’s David Jacoby sees the point of entry in emails the malware is distributed with.  Dorifel itself will be copied into a directory under the user’s user folder, and launched from there. A shortcut is generated in the same directory that is added to a Registry startup key so that it is always loaded on system start. They key the malware shortcut is added to is HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\.

Dorifel starts three background threads as soon as it is started on the system. The first scans the system for Word and Excel documents, and executable files. The second thread contacts a command server ever 30 minutes which may provide the malware with additional instructions in the near future. The third and final thread checks for the existence of a taskmgr.exe (Task Manager) process, and if it finds one, terminates itself automatically.

The thread that is scanning for documents and executables will create a copy of the original file, encrypt it and in the end delete the original document on the system. What’s interesting is that encrypted documents can still be loaded, and that the documents will still display when that happens. In the background though the malware is installed if the system is not already infected with it.

What is likely going to happen is that at one point in time users will be asked to pay money to decrypt their encrypted documents.

Emsisoft has created a Dorifel encryption tool that you can use to decrypt files on infected systems. Just download and unpack the encryption tool to the desktop and run it from there. Once all documents have been decrypted, you can run an antivirus software that detects Citadel and Dorifel. All Kaspersky and Emsisoft programs, as well as others such as Hitman Pro do that. You can for instance use Emisoft’s Emergency Kit 2.0, a free program, to clean the system.