Where is the Origin of this CoronaVirus Outbreak?

 21 March 2020

Let Science Do the Talking

There is a lot of talking about where this present coronavirus has originated.  Some said from Wuhan,  China;  others claimed that it was from USA.  Some even mentioned about Taiwan.    In between and among the countries,  they blamed each other for spreading the diseases.   The Politicians,  the netizens,  the commoners all have their says,  bringing up all sort of evidences to prove that they are right

When will this end?

This sort of argument will never end.  The argument will still continue  until the day when there is a common understanding among all of us  and what that might be,  you might ask.   The Science.

The Experts are Talking?

So far,  all the argument has one thing in common.  It started with “according to the experts”.   In many of the arguments,  not many mentioned about the names of experts.  even if  experts’ name were quoted,   the argument will not rest. 

What could Stop these Arguments? 

The argument will stop when everyone has the consensus and agreed to concentrate the effort to find the source.  This will never be easy and may not be possible if the this coronavirus is man-made and not from natural sources like bats or pangolin.   In this case,  there might be a possibility to use RNA technology to locate this source. 

What is RNA Technology?

In layman's term,  it is much like the DNA technology.   It is a tool used to study the gene or the genome of a organism or living cells. Unlike DNA that ,  RNA technology

How? 

Every virus will have a set of genome sequence as defined by RNA techology

Who is GISAID?

GISAID is nonprofit organisation with HeadQuarter in Munich of Germany.   It serves to share information about global health, research and education with databases that can be assessed free by people all over the World.  
Its primary purposes is provide a platform where the World can share all influenza virus sequences, related clinical and epidemiological data etc to help global researchers doing researches on  viruses.

GISAID presently has more than 350 genome sequences to be shared on their platform. 

The shutting down of the Bio Research Lab in America could only further reinforce the believe that the country has put in place a proper control and management system to handle these laboratories and to prevent them from causing a pandemic.

The only Bio Research Lab that can guarantee 100% safe is a Bio Lab that never do any research on biological work or has been closed down. Even when there is "leak" or mishap, there must be protocols and procedures to handle these happenings to stop them from causing a outbreak. It is still safe.

Argument about who is responsible for this coronavirus outbreak basing on this kind of argument will go no where. It will alwys ended with everyone scolding each other an "idiot". it is just a waste of time..

Why don't we let Science do the talking. We have DNA and RNA technologies, quite sure they will be able to tell us sooner the source of this outbreak.

If you like you can look at this chart presented by GISAID . It uses Genome sequences and arrange the virus to form trees that can trace the source and the origin. The chart has all the information about the gene and the kind of mutations happening. Enlarge into full screen and explore. GISAID is a non-profit organisation stationed in Munich, Germany. It has more than 350 genome sequence free to share to all people of the World.

https://www.gisaid.org/epiflu-applicatio...ov-19-app/

You can also view this video that illustrate how other use the same Genome sequences to map and anlayse the development of virus infection. The web address is shown at the bottom of the video

https://youtu.be/rPQFC05TzOI (Part 1)

https://youtu.be/-ATEq7NeI-M (Part 2)

How Reliable Are Those Figures about Coronavirus in China?

When US coronavirus figures went above the Chinese figures, Trump said "You don't know what the corona numbers are in China". This video tries to find out. 

 

The reference website are: 

1. Chinese health figure for the month of Dec 2019 

 http://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/s7923/20200...  (alternative page)

 

2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-he... 

 

3. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/11...  (alternative page) 

Home Made Sanitizer Why & How Explained.

The Wuhan virus or Coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused every store to run
out of hand sanitizers. Besides using hand sanitizers to disinfect
shoes, door knobs etc is rather wasteful. The alternative of home made
sanitizers using Isopropyl Alcohol is a cost effective solution.

Please note that virus is not a living thing but it will remain
activated ready to infect any living cell. Disinfectants can only
inactivate virus so that it will lost that infection ability. This is as
good as “killing them"

Can RNA Technology Tells the Origin of the Coronavirus?

Can RNA Technology Tells the Origin of the Coronavirus? Part 1

Some Scientists made attempts to analyse the genome sequences of the coronaviruses supplied by the laboratories all the World.  They produced a comprehensive chart to monitor whereabout are these viruses from.  They claimed it has the ability to tell who is the parent and who is the child of the viruses.

Here is the 2nd Part

RNA技术能否说明冠状病毒的起源？ 第1部分

一些科学家试图分析全世界实验室提供的冠状病毒的基因组序列。 他们制作了一张全面的图表来监视这些病毒的来源。 他们声称它具有分辨出谁是病毒的父母，谁是病毒的孩子.

这是第二部分

CGTN Editor in Chief: CoronaVirus Could be from USA

SARs Cov2 coronavirus Could Have come from USA

Get Rid of CloudNet Virus?

10 February 2020

When one  switches on his  PC or notebook (named as PC), he  might notice

a) the CPU fan was running very fast.  It would make a lot of fan noises after some idling moment. This was despite having  no other running programs running; the CPU is 99% idling as indicated by Task Manager.

b ) the CPU’s graphical plot next page showed CPU running at 50% load;

c) the Network Activity showed heavy usage and;

d) the TCP Connection showed a lot unidentifiable connections 

What had happened?

Likely the PC has a virus called “CloudNet virus”

What is CloudNet?

CloudNet is an Web consulting firm in Central Minnesota. But this CloudNet virus has nothing to do with it.  The CloudNet virus happened to use the same name. 

Initially, this virus was an xtension hiding behind the web browser. It would hijack PC user’s Internet home page. It would distribute promotional materials, display banners, coupons, pop-ups and other advertising products. PC users can remove this virus with a few simple steps. May be because of this, the new virus is now hidden and embedded in a System protected program. Ordinary users and novice might not be able to remove it without any effort.

Is the Virus Harmful?

This virus will use one's  PC to send signals to various designated Internet addresses. It is not known exactly for what purpose. May be it is sending "clicks" to those addresses to earn some advertising money. Anyway, it will make one's PC running slow and will help to consume lot of CPU power.

How to Remove?

There are plenty of articles written in the Net about how to remove this virus. As CloudNet is embedded and hidden behind a protected System process called "CSRSS", it will need some special steps to remove it.

What is CSRSS?

It stands for client/server run-time subsystem. It is an essential subsystem that must be running in the background. It must also run in the Safe Mode. The process handles the creation and deletion of threads. It also deal with some parts of the 16-bit virtual MS-DOS environment. Hence, there is no way to remove it using Windows Explorer using traditional method.

What are the Methods ?

3 possible methods

 

Method 1:

It involves restoring the system images. If one has a good copy of system image saved earlier, this is the best and easiest method. However, not many users has the habit of updating and keep a recent copy of the system.

Method 2:

It involves disabling the control of the Windows system that prevents users from deleting CloudNet. This method requires one having to change the security setting of "CloudNet".

To do that one must first change the ownership of the "CloudNet". From the “CloudNet” search directory using Windows Explorer, right click to select Property. In the property of CloudNet, change the ownership from "System" to "Administrator control. After that edit the permission of the system so that the System will be "Deny Full Control" of CloudNet. Once the System lost the control, Windows Explorer can delete the "CloudNet".

But there is still one more step i.e. to disable the Startup Autorun of CloudNet. This is because Windows operating system will always protect any running program.

To disable Autorun, one can use "CCleaner" or "Hijackthis" or Microsoft's Autorun program. Make sure CloudNet will not run in the next start up before deleting it.

Method 3

This method involves the repair and replacement of CSRSS. This CSRSS is located in System32 in the Windows directory. One can download a fresh copy from either a trusted website or extracted it from another PC or installation disk.

One would not be able to replace the existing copy of CSRSS because it is protected bythe Operating System. To replace CSRSS, one could use another operating system like the Unix Operating System used in either Knoppix CD or Hiren's boot CD. However, can it allow CloudNet to be deleted when starting up Windows has yet to be tested.

The 3 methods are shown in this video presentation

Will these Methods work for Windows 10?

The same 3 methods should also work for Windows 7 as well as windows 10

Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

5 February 2020

Microsoft has stopped providing technical support from 14 January 2020.

But, it is still safe to use Windows 7. Microsoft will still provide patches if they found any security threat. However, they will not update their software when there is new feature. For example, they will not provide any new drivers for the new hardware coming out after 14 January 2020.

Is it Free?

The upgrading from Window 7 to Windows 10 was free of charge when it was first announced in 2015. This upgrading work is still free today. No one knows how long I will last. Therefore, it is better to grab it before it is too late

How about Performance?

In 2015, many have tested Windows 10. They did not like it because it was quite baggy and running slower than Windows 7. Some have difficulties navigating around. They have to install a software call "start is back" to change the menu screen to look like Windows 7. These problems have been improved after so many years. The menu screen is  now friendlier. The new menu screen will look a bit like Windows 7 with added Windows 10 features. One would find the desktop mode easier to navigate. As for the speed, some claimed that it would run faster than Windows 7. Windows 10 is no longer as baggy as compare to Windows 7 if one has a SSD drive to run it.

How difficult to Upgrade?

They have made it so easy to upgrade. Just copy the windows files into a CD ROM; or memory stick,  then click set up after booting up the Windows 7. Everything will run smoothly. The installation is much faster than installing a new Windows

Losing existing files, user data and applications?

The files, data and applications will be copied over just like re-installing a new windows. Some existing data and files that cannot be transferred will be savedin a folder called "old window". One can always recover back these data and files

Will all existing Applications of Windows 7 work?

Some applications from Windows 7 might not run properly. But this can be fixed by changing the compatibility settings. There might be some very old applications such as games which will not work. These are the exceptions rather than the norms.

What needed to upgrade?

No special tools or software needed except the followings

a) About 16 GB to 20 GB free hard disk space for the working files, depending on whether the existing Windows is 32 bits or 64 bits;

b) Prepare an USB stick with at least 6 GB of space if one wants also to upgrade other PCs in the house;

c) 7-Zip compression software if one is using USB or CDROM copies and of course,

d) A stable Internet connection to update the Windows

After that, download a file called"Media Creation Tool" from this Microsoft web page. There will be an option to choose if one wants to upgrade the PC straightaway or have the installation software extracted and copied to an USB or a CD ROM.

What Version After the Upgrade?

If the existing Windows 7 is an Ultimate or Professional version, the upgraded version will be Windows 10 Pro. For others, only Windows Home edition.

What are the Possible Issues?

a) Windows Slow Start up

One might experience slow startup even when one has a SSD to run Windows 10. “Insufficient memory” allocated for running Windows startup programs could be the cause. The Windows could take 40 seconds instead of less than 20 seconds to start the Windows. This problem was solved when the maximum size of the virtual memory was changed to 8 GB.

b) Some Applications cannot work properly

This could be the compatibility issues. A change in the compatibility setting will normallysolve this problem. It involves running the applications under compatible Windows 7. Setting it to "run as Administrator" will usually fix this problem. 

Here is the video presentation for this article.

Add a 250GB SSD To PC with 1TB HDD & Keep all Files

3 February 2020

SSD (Solid State Drivers)  are very cheap nowadays. Many PC users have upgraded their existing PC or Notebook with new SSDs. They will want to get rid of their existing smaller sized 250 GB SSD for a song.

If one has a PC with a mechanical hard disk (HDD), it will time to upgrade the PC. One can add these small and cheap 250 GB SSD to speed up the PC. The challenge is how to add these small SSD so that it can be transparent to PC users. Many a time, the existing HDD will have twice as much data/storage as compared to the SSD's capacity.

Many cloning and OS migration software will not work under this kind of setup. For example, one user has a 1TB HDD with about 500 GB of data/programs in the existing setup. He would want to add another 250GB SSD. The cloning and OS migration software will warn him that the 250 GB SSD is too small and refuse to proceed.

What Can Be Done?

There are 3 methods:

1.  Reinstall fresh copy of Windows OS to the SSD and copy all the application and files one by one and then patch them to work with the new  Windows OS. This will be a very tedious work;

2. . Reduce the storage in the existing HDD to fit the migration requirement. After that, reinstall the deleted programs and games.  This method will be better but still require lots of manual patching work;

3.  Use special migrating software such as "PC Mover Professional". This will be the easiest and quickest method.  This will be described in detail in this article.

Step by Step

Follow the step by step procedure as shown in this flow chart and also the video presentation to add the SDD.

 Finishing up

1)  Update the ShortCuts in the Start Menu and Recovering Lost Files and Program

The PCMover software will not migrate some applications from the old harddisk to the new SSD. This is because the applications may not be compatible or one has left them out during the migration. These applications will not show up in the Start Menu. One can always recover them.

The PCMover software will not affect any applications or files in the older hard disk. This older hard disk has been automatically renamed as D: Drive. One can recovered these applications by creating a short cut as shown in this video.

2)  Tidying Boot Startup Menu

It is advisable to install a new copy of Windows for a new disk. When we install a new windows, the Startup Menu will show 2 copies of Windows. They might be of identical name. The following video will show how this problem can be resolved.

Things to Take Note

PCMover will not migrate

• Files that has Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. These files are music files and programs that has keys or serial numbers for proper working. They might need deactivation on the old PC and reactivation on the new PC;
• Specific hardware drivers;

PCMover is not for migrations from newer operating systems to older operating systems. For example, from a PC running Windows 7 to a PC running Windows XP. It will not run properly.

It is advisable to carry out a Windows Updates (including .NET) for the new PC before carrying out the migration work. 

Cannot Reinstall Windows 7’s iTune

10 January 2020

Important Note:  Always backup the Registry using "System Restore" before meddling around with the PC.

One might come across this problem. iTune stopped working and re-installation stuck with this error message:

After that, no matter what we do, we are always stuck with this error message. Trying to do the following as recommended by many will not work as well:

1. Uuninstalling iTune or Bonjour Services or deleting the iTune folder from the PC or LapTop;

2. Re-istalling the Windows Installer or update to the latest version;

3. Doing “System Restore” without any success;

4. Repairing the Operating System using System Inastallation Disk;

5. Registering and unregistering Windows Installer, msiexe.exe;

6. Uninstalling all other Apple device including Bonjour;

7. Playing around with the Registry keys by removing iTune and Apple related products.

At the stage of almost trying to recover the Windows 7 installation, this solution popped up.

What that Solution?

It is actually a solution offered by Microsoft.   It said it will fix problems that block programs from being installed or removed.  Here is the program to download.

Just follow the instructions given by the program. The program is safe to use. It will helps one to repair program installation and uninstallation issues. It will also fix corrupted registry keys.

Should the above fix does not solve the issue,  try to restore the PC back to its original state using "System Restore". 

What could be Wrong?

There was no specific explanation about what was preventing iTune from re-installation. Microsoft only said that the program that fix such issues will fix the following issues

• Corrupted registry keys on 64-bit operating systems that control the update data;
• Prevented new programs from being installed;

• Prevented existing programs from being completely uninstalled or updated;

• Blocked one from uninstalling a program using "Programs and Features" in Control Panel.

What need to do after the fix

Uninstall all Apple Software, reinstall iTunes or iCloud for Windows.