From time to time I receive sad/angry/informative messages from users that some antivirus scanner is reporting my programs as virus or trojan or suspicious file. Obviously those are “false positives” (the AV vendors are using this euphemism to replace “lies”). I have no idea why that happens. In the past I was publishing unsigned setup files, which could be part of the problem. But now everything is signed with my digital signature. The only reason for this to happen is the paranoid nature of some antivirus programs. Yesterday I had to deal with disappointed user who purchased my program just to see Nor**n saying it’s a virus and to stop the tool from working. I refunded the money, but no one could remove the bad taste feeling can’t be cured neither for me nor the user. According to nor**n, this tool is “suspicious” because is not very popular. Boy! I am writing niche software, I never intended to be popular with these tools. DrW*b directly says (lies) there is a virus in other of the tools I am publishing. Why? What virus? Kas***sky isn’t right now reporting any of my tools as virus, but it did that several times in the past… What is this? Why are antivirus programs lying about my programs?

They don’t care about me. They just want to prove to the end-users they are doing their job. Paranoid algorithm? OK, but why on my back? They don’t know my product (because my products aren’t so popular) and it is quite easy to say I am a bad guy, just in case. But what about me? What about my feelings? Seems that antivirus vendors are OK with destroying other people’s reputation (and building their reputation on my back). Well, how they will feel if I put a site online where developers like me to vote about the most stupid antivirus scanner? What if I publish a chart with the “most stupid antivirus” or “biggest lier” heading on top? It will be good way to educate end users what these “false positives” are (lies) and why those antivirus scanners are alarming people with false alarms (paranoid and/or stupid algorithms)… And I may claim (as the antivirus vendors are claiming) that I am making everything to increase people’s security (by informing them about unfair practices of antivirus vendors). And adding one “disclaimer” here and there will do the trick. Everybody’s happy… Except the end user (who doesn’t benefit of that) and software vendors (because to call you liar is the same as calling you virus maker).

The very existence of such situations is very ugly thing. And it comes back every now and then in my life. The “black” version of the Myth of the Eternal Return…

Finally, let me say it in plain text: I am software developer, not a virus maker. I don’t have viruses in my computers and I don’t distribute viruses. I am signing my products with my name (unlike antivirus software that uses soulless algorithms) and I really don’t know what more to do in order to prove my innocence. But as a victim I will continue trying to fight for my reputation and to see the justice to prevail.

In the last 10 years I am dealing a lot with download sites. Each title must be submitted to hundreds and even thousands sites. sometimes they are accepting my submissions, sometimes they are rejecting, but the people behind one site managed to surprise me. I never expected someone to contact me via email and ask for additional info. That means that someone is actually careful whit this site. They are checking what to list, contacting the developer. And this is the link if you are curious which one this site is: LifetimeUpgrades.com

You changed my life.

And you’ll never be forgotten.

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

You asked, I did it: the Duplicates Finder tool now comes with “ignore case” option:

http://wonderwebware.com/duplicatefinder

Yes! 4 months later, the new version of Screen Ruler is ready and published. A lot of good news (download and try in order to see all the changes) and one not-so-good piece of news (it looks like it is not free anymore)… Here is the download page: /screen-ruler-pro/

Direct download links below (fully-functional free trial version):

MS Windows XP, Vista, 7 (4.9MB; 32bit):

Mac OS X 10.5+ / Intel (13.6MB; 64bit):

One old goal is now fact: I got the under 100K Alexa rating, eventually, not much sure what that means, but it should be noted… (I am not sure why I was waiting for this in the last 3 years, probably something in Alexa gave me this number as a “goal”, now, when I saw this for first time, I felt I must be happy, although I don’t even remember why )As you probably already noted, I was fixing the site in the last days. Broken links, bad behavior in small resolutions and so on. However, I think it is fixed now and the new look should be labelled as “ready” with the start of the new month… New month, new look, new luck Now, I am on my road to get several important decisions about the close future. Which tool must get the priority? the css menu generator? The shaker? The new sitemap generator or the good old screen ruler? … There are some important (for me) considerations: should I continue with the current codebase? Should I start with MS Visual Studio? Or why not Qt? Am I planning cross-platform versions? Should I “commercialize”  the site a little (in order to make it possible to move it to dedicated hosting and purchase some goods that will make the whole project better)… Well, I am pretty sure all these are not important for you, but I am writing in this blog not only for the visitors — as it was said once: verba volant, scripta manent, so — for my own future reference — let it be written…Ok, that’s all for now. Let us hope we will have more good news very soon.

I received, again, a note from user that Sitemap Generator includes Virus/Trojan. In the last years I saw this situation several times, and I didn’t even ask him which antivirus solution trigerred the false alarm (they call it “false positive”, but that phrase is ridiculous because there is nothing positive when you accuse someone that he put virus in his program). I know, already, that in 99% of the cases it is Kaspersky. I suppose it is great antivirus scanner, but I am little tired to repack and repack this toy with different setup compilers and compression just to get rid of their fake alerts… Anyway, I repacked the tool, again, with different version of the crawler component and with different compression level, and right at this moment it says everything is OK (I am testing all of my programs with virustotal, the link for this particular test is here) but no one could say how long it will take before Kaspersky start again to alarm you that there is a Trojan or Virus inside the setup. So, if/when that happens — please, let me know. I will try, again, to fix the setup to fit their algorithm. Meanwhile, I am starting to think — should I get a MS certificate for these tools? Could that help in such situations?…However, the quick fix I can (and will) do is to add CNET button to every download page — they (CNET) are saying that everything hosted on download.com is tested for viruses and spyware, so that could be additional level of security for these visitors who don’t know should they believe me or not.Finally, why on earth I am writing this post? My family, so far, is not “Kaspersky”, so, I should not get such thing so seriously… but because I already wrote the post, let me leave it here for future reference…

Finally I found the time in the last two days to play around and eventually change the good old wonderwebware template with something new. I know the black background isn’t the most loved background on earth, and I am not big fan of dark sites… however, it looks like I found a way to use black background without killing the readability of the template… Ok, let us hope you will not hate the new look…

Quick, very quick note: this site is now 3 years old. And one big, personal secret revealed: 15th of May is special day for me — it’s my mother’s birthday (and that makes this day more important than my own birth date). So, now, everyone knows why I selected this date to be the “official” birthday of this site… Happy birthday to everyone who was born today!

Do you remember jpMaster77′s login script? This is one of the scripts I use often. Every time when a friend asks for some quick small system with login required, I use this base script as a startup point and build what is needed on top of this nice login system. Actually, I speak about the modified version of the system, published by Ivan Novak, who made some great improvements in the original code and published everything under open-source license. But with the time going I modified some of the code to best fit my needs (mainly, to make it faster to setup). And because I believe this is the spirit of the open source, I am now publishing my modifications here for anyone who may want to use them.Why new name? Why version 1.0?Well, as I see it, I must change the original project name to avoid any confusion with the original script. I don’t want someone to think that the Grand Master of Cpp (JPmaster77, who wrote the core system years ago) or Ivan Novak (who modified the original script) are responsible for any change I made in the code. So, that is why I changed the name to jpWare login system and restarted the version numbering.The system, exactly as the original, is licensed under GPL or MIT license — which one best fits your needs.