I don’t have a lot of time to cook as a college student. My schedule is irregular too. But, I don’t eat premade processed food like frozen pizzas. My method is making large amounts of food with low labor needs. That means slow cookers and pressure cookers. This first entry is how I make several pounds of pulled pork with only minutes of prep time.

First, you need a slow cooker (aka. crock pot). Then you need a pork shoulder. These are pretty cheap, usually 1.29-1.49/lb. You want one between 6 and 8 pounds. One side is covered in a thick layer of fat. That’s OK. Pick one that doesn’t have a lot of fat visible on the top (non-fatty) side. You will also need about 4 bottles of BBQ sauce. Wegmans has Memphis, Kansas City, and Brown Sugar flavors. I like Memphis, Kansas City tastes like dirt, and I’m trying Brown Sugar tonight.

Cut the shoulder into halves or thirds, depending on how much you want to make, but at least 3 pounds. Leave the bone in place. Freeze unused portions.

Optional: marinate the shoulder in the BBQ sauce overnight. Use enough sauce to cover the shoulder in a plastic zip bag.

Trim off some of the fat layer, leaving about 1/2 inch in place. Place the shoulder on the wire roasting rack that comes with most cookers, fat side up, and pour the bag of marinade over the shoulder. It’s OK that most of it will end up in the bottom of the pot. You don’t want the shoulder to sit on the bottom with the sauce. A lot of fat drips off and makes it oily.

Cook it for 8 hours on low or 5 hours on high. No peeking. The actual cook time is not critical.

When it’s done, put the cooked shoulder in a large bowl. If it’s cooked correctly, the shoulder will fall apart as you take it out. Discard the drippings in the bottom. Use two forks to shred (“pull”) the shoulder and mix with more BBQ sauce to taste. Serve on buns or as a late night fridge snack.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve this recipe, like searing the shoulder before cooking, using liquid smoke, adding onions and other seasonings, and so on, but that increases the prep time and cost. I like the basic method because it makes a lot of food for a low price, and I can toss the ingredients in the slow cooker in minutes and head off to class.

Tags: slow cooker, cooking, pork

Bury Shovelware
A lot of free, non-open source software is funded by advertisers. That includes ads on the product’s Web site, and an increasingly common behavior of bundling unrelated junk software with the product, especially browser toolbars. Browser toolbars can range from useful, but unnecessary, like the Ask Toolbar if you are a Google user, to commission-based affiliate marketing programs, like the Crawler or MyWebSearch toolbars. Plugins are basically programs that run inside your browser. Each one slows the browser down a bit, and can impair the browser’s reliability or your privacy.

Shovelware, in general, is unrelated software bundled for installation with a desired piece of software. The key is to carefully read the installer’s choices. Programs that install shovelware typically hide the choice, sometimes in plain sight, sometimes buried in an advanced options dialog. They all rely on most users’ tendencies to automatically click “Next” and overlook the choice. Several examples are below. Pay attention to the wording.

Fig. 1: uTorrent Installer

This is pretty benign. It’s opt-out, but there’s no weasel wording and the choice isn’t hidden within a customized install dialog. Just uncheck the box and you won’t have the toolbar installed or your homepage changed. Of course, if you want the toolbar, then proceed with the defaults.
Digsby is a real trickster, which pains me because I otherwise like the program.

Fig. 2: Digsby Installer

The install starts off with an opt-out choice for a browser plugin. Not too bad, but the plugin is solely for Digsby’s benefit. The plugin is designed to use Digsby’s affiliate code when you buy from certain online stores. It’s a kind of finder’s fee. The plugin provides no functionality for the end user. But it soon gets much worse.

Fig. 3: Third-party Shovelware

This has nothing to do with Digsby. It’s a completely unrelated piece of software. The installer is designed to snare the average user that automatically clicks on Accept or OK in install dialogs. The presence of “Decline” and “Accept” choices is meant to appear like a typical EULA dialog. Most people will click Accept because they think it is the EULA. This tactic occurs twice in the Digsby installer, in a row. The second time tries to install “error scan” software. We’re not done yet, though.

Fig. 4: Digsby Installer Wrap-Up

Before the install is finished, Digsby attempts to install another browser plugin, change your homepage, and install a program for “grid computing”. That program sells computational time on your computer to third parties. In all, the Digsby installer attempts to drop five pieces of unrelated software on your computer. When it is all done, a default install adds three pieces of application software, four IE browser plugins, a startup item, changes your homepage, and changes your default search engine.

Shovelware isn’t just for browser plugins, either. Adobe offers to include Norton or McAfee “security scan” tools with some of their Flash Player or Adobe Reader downloads. These tools do practically nothing. They are not antimalware products. They just check your computer to see if you already have an antimalware program installed, and will try to sell you a subscription to the corresponding product if you don’t have one. A full reading of the download web page will show the choice, and you will be able to deselect it.

HP printer software is also a problem. The default install settings for consumer HP printers installs the printer’s application and management software, HP Photo Creations, HP Customer Participation, HP Update, an IE plug-in called Smart Web Printing, software for coupons.com, and software that offers to sell you more printing supplies (Shop for HP Supplies). Oh, and the actual printer driver. It’s a total of four IE plugins and seven pieces of application software. This could be the king of shovelware. The only things you need to actually use the all of the device’s features are the print drivers, the management software, and maybe Solution Center for the easy access to all device functions.

Shovelware is particularly bad for inexperienced users with old or entry-level computers. Limited memory and processor capacity is common, and it can really hurt the performance of low-end systems. The best way to get rid of it is uninstalling from the Programs control panel. Heavy-handed use of “optimizer” utilities, some of which are shovelware themselves, can actually crap up your computer more, a topic I’ll cover in the next installation of this series.

Nowadays, most malware infections are fake security products. They’re designed to make your system unusable unless you cough up the ransom to “register” it, Thankfully there’s a basic removal procedure that works in most situations.

0. Have Malware Bytes preinstalled on your computer.
1. Restart Windows in safe mode with networking. Do not attempt manual removal in normal mode. It doesn’t work.
2. Open up msconfig, go to the Startup tab, and disable any items that have random names, reside in AppData/Application Data folders, and/or reside in user profile folders. If you’re not sure, uncheck it. If you get experienced with this you can tell which ones are the malware because they just don’t look right.
3. Reset all browsers. Check all proxy server settings to make sure they are disabled.
4. Open up a command line and run the following commands: netsh int ip reset reset.log, netsh winsock reset.
5. Check your hosts file for any redirects.
6. Update and run Malware Bytes.
7. You don’t have Malware Bytes or another cleanup utility? Reboot in normal mode. Your system should be cleaned up enough to download and install it now.

In most cases you’ll be cleaned up. More sophisticated malware will drop rootkits on your system, though. Symptoms include immediate reinfection, abrupt shutdown of antivirus utilities, or continued browser hijacks. If that’s the case, run TDSSKiller or GMER. TDSSKiller will probably handle it. It detects the most common rootkits, including TDSS, TDL4, and Mebroot, and also checks for other suspicious behavior like locked Windows services. GMER is more sophisticated, but harder to use. After removing any rootkits, rerun your cleanup utilities to catch what the rootkit was hiding.

REAL CASE FILES Presents: Wi-Fail

PROTIP: Novices should avoid changing wireless network settings if an Ethernet cable isn’t handy. Connecting to the wired side lets you back on the network to reconfigure.

Just a quick note here. There is no connection between the version of Office you have and the version of Windows you have. You don’t need to upgrade to Office 2010 just because you have Windows 7. Office 2007, 2003, and even Office XP will install and run fine. The same applies if you have Vista or XP. Don’t let ignorant salesman trick you into purchasing software you don’t need.