In recent days we’ve become aware of a software website selling “Personal Security Software” and claiming to be associated with Otaku Software.

The site, “otakusoftwareguide.com” is in no way related to Otaku Software or otakusoftware.com.

Under no circumstances should you supply the “otakusoftwareguide.com” site with any personal information, especially your credit card number.

If you’re unlucky enough to fall victim to this scam, you’ll see a charge on your credit card bill from “otakusoftwareguide.com” for $79.90, and you’ll be sent a software file named “setup_40s1.exe”.

Do not install “setup_40s1.exe”, as the file contains viruses, malware, and spyware.

The site “otakusoftwareguide.com” is registered through bizcn.com, a notorious domain name registry frequently used by scammers. The domain is registered to one Henry Nguyen Gong, a well known purveyor of malware.

While “Henry” is probably just an alias used by a crime syndicate, I’ll post “his” contact details for posterity:

Henry Nguyen Gong
Phone: +33.0466583875
Fax: +33.0466583875
Address: Rue la produit 34, Nimes Languedoc-Roussillon 30189,

Please be aware that “Henry” isn’t just using otakusoftwareguide.com, he perpetrates the same scam using a number of different websites. If you’re looking for anti-virus software, I’d recommend a well know free solution such as AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials instead of some unknown software.

As I said before, this is most probably the work of a criminal organization, so they’ll try to use your card again in the future. Initiating a chargeback on this first fradulent charge will not be enough to protect you.

If you have fallen victim to this scam then I strongly recommend that you cancel your credit card immediately.

I’m extremely disappointed that these scammers have chosen to use our name and reputation in order to steal from people, and I’ll be taking whatever steps I can to remedy this situation.

While we pride ourselves on ensuring TopDesk and DeskSpace run on older video cards, a new video card can sometimes make a world of difference (especially if you want to take advantage of the new features in Windows 7).

If you’re in the market for a new video card, Tom’s hardware has compiled a list of the current best value-for-money graphics cards that’s well worth checking out.

We’ve been sitting on this news for quite some time, but with the release of DeskSpace 1.5.6 it’s finally time to announce that we’ve opened an office in Penang, Malaysia. Why Penang? Well…

On a more serious note, Penang is known as the Silicon Valley of the East and is home to companies such as Dell, Intel, AMD, and Motorola. With fantastic Government support for information technology and world-class universities, it’s the perfect place to grow our company.

What does this mean for Otaku Software? Firstly, we’re using Penang as our Asian sales base, helping us to forge stronger ties with software and hardware companies in the region. Secondly, our products are also being partly developed in Penang. With more more hands on the job we can deliver better quality software, on a much faster schedule.

I’m proud to announce that DeskSpace 1.5.6 is the first of our products to be fully developed by Otaku Software Malaysia, and is an example of the level of quality and polish we’ll be bringing to all our future releases.

If you’d like to keep up to date with the latest Otaku Software news or if you’d just like to talk to us, you can now follow Otaku Software on Twitter at @otakusoftware.

As always, you can also follow me personally at @otaku_jstewart.

The Otaku Software forums have been upgraded to phpBB 3. We’d been using phpBB 2 since 2004, and while it continued to perform admirably, it was starting to get a little bit long in the tooth.

The new forums have, amongst other things, better support for uploading images, a more modern look, and much better security.

We hope you enjoy using the new forums, and as always, please let us know if you experience any problems.

I stumbled across Lee-Soft’s ViGlance application today. It’s a Windows 7 style taskbar for Windows Vista/XP, and it looks like it’s going to be a great utility when it’s a bit more mature.

However, I was struck by how familiar the website looked. A little digging into the page source confirmed my suspicions: the developer, Lee Chantrey, has copied our old website design wholesale, right done to the CSS files and HTML layout (although to give him credit he’s managed to cram numerous Google Ads in there too).

While I’m flattered that someone thought enough of the design to steal it, that still doesn’t make it right.

Lee seems like a good guy, and he’s doing a great service bringing Windows 7 features to Vista/XP for free. Copying another website seems out of character for someone so generous. So Lee, how about doing the right thing and letting people know where you took the design from?

Update 1: Lee has contacted me and communicated his apologies. His site template was designed by someone else and he was unaware it was lifted from our site. He’s added a “Design by Otaku Software” message to the footer of each page on his site.

Update 2: Sigh. After being accused of making “vague accusations” I’ve uploaded pictures of our old web site to make it completely clear: Lee-Soft is using our design. The colors are different, but the HTML and CSS are the same. What I’d also like to make clear is that this situation has been amicably resolved, and we’ve given Lee-Soft permission to continue using our design.

I don’t usually do this, but in this case we’re out of options, and I don’t want to leave one of our customers hanging…

One of our customers has incorrectly entered their email address on the order form and they are continuing to contact us using the same invalid email address. We’ve tried everything we can to get in touch with them, but have so far been unsuccessful.

So, Carlos, if you’re reading this, the Yahoo! mail address you entered when you ordered and when you tried to contact us doesn’t exist. I’d love to send you your download details, so please contact us via this blog, the forums, or the Customer Service contact form and let us know a valid email address we can send your order details to.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.0. If you’re currently using a previous version of Firefox it’s well worth the upgrade. If you’re into tweaking your browser, Lifehacker has a great Power User’s Guide to Firefox 3.0.

We had a tornado rip through Perth yesterday, a very rare occurrence in this part of the world. While some areas suffered damage, thankfully no-one was seriously hurt.

TG Daily has a writeup with details on nVidia’s next generation GT200 video card.