April 22, 2009 – stlplace

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Last Updated on April 22, 2009 by stlplace

First Quarter earning reports for the stocks I own (as of this writing, it could change without notice). This is mostly for my own benefit, I want to collect them in one place rather than go to different IR web sites. Listening to conference call is a mixed experience, sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s boring. The most interesting part is the Q&A session, where the analysts and management goes back and forth: and I get the most out of things there (most of time).

US Bancorp USB beat slightly
Conference call (audio and slides)

McDonald MCD (barely according to CNBC)
Conferece call (for some reason it’s not working for me).

CNBC report (link).

War against spyware: I

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Last Updated on November 12, 2009 by stlplace

My old laptop was hosed. Couple weeks ago I noticed something strange going on, particularly sometimes it will pop up IE windows when I have not clicked on anything. The situation got worse, when I tried to do a system restore on XP, reboot, and a “Spyware Protect 2009” program automaticlaly started up. This user interface very much like a Microsoft anti-virus program. Then it says my laptop was infected with all kinds of programs: such as LdPinch key logger blah blah blah.

Hmm, being a software engineer, I know something fishy is going on there. So I stopped the process and googled “Spyware Protect 2009”, and here is some information (one and 411-Spyware.com). Looking through task manager, I found sysguard.exe. Killed the process. Delete the sysguard.exe.

I don’t know how my laptop got infected with sysguard. Restoring XP appears to be the direct cause, but I think another reason could be I was using uusee (a Chinese online TV program), so I went ahead and un-install it too (sorry no bias against my home country, but there are too many spyware/adware going on in some Chinese web sites).

Mission not complete yet