Virtual Memory warning on myspace

A bulletin that recommends the wrong action

Date: Jan 6 2007 [updated July 2007]

Let's start with the basics: not all myspace problems have a virus as their cause. Many myspace profiles are just too full of pictures - and picture comments won't help - to load quickly. This CAN cause virtual memory problems . As the bulletin below notes: around Christmas the amount of picture comments explodes - so people will have 'heavier' myspace profiles then before. The way to prevent your profile from becoming too heavy is to get rid of the pictures. This can be done by one or more of the following. The first three are the most important ones. 

  1. Least drastic : delete all comments with more than one picture. This will leave the majority of the pictures up, but will get rid of the ones that eat up your bandwidth too generously.
  2. Necessary : don't ever accept comments with video's or music. However cool they may be, these CAN contain viruses. Normal picture comments can't. 
  3. Don't have too many pictures on your myspace profile. Limit yourself to say 10 pictures on your myspace profile. Personally I don't have any. Why? Because every picture you add will make your profile more cluttered and load more slowly. If you know how to limit the size of pictures, please stick to smaller pictures. Smaller pictures load quicker.
  4. Disable HTML comments. This has the unfortunate side effect that people cannot post links, or pictures, or music in your comments.
  5. Delete all comments with pictures. Fast and easy, but it may offend your friends. So tell them why you did it, if you actually think they will notice the missing pictures.

A virtual memory warning just means there are too many pictures on your profile (comments included). It's not a virus. Deleting all comments with pictures will work, but the specific website the pictures come from will not make a difference.

If you find that you have problems with too many of your friends profiles as well - you may want to consider getting a new video card on your computer, and perhaps an extra dose of internal memory as well. I did that recently and it works like a charm. The above still goes: it's just basic politeness to not stack your profile full of pictures (even in the commens) so that people with slow computers or internet connections can still see your profile and be your friend.

The following bulletin got this article started, but it is complete nonsense :

Subject VIRUS WARNING

Body: This was a bulletin sent out about 3 weeks ago warning us all of the hazards of certain graphic site carriers. It seems whoever warned us didn't stress the full ramifications of what could happen once these graphics made it to our pages, as a friend of mine, Denise, lost her computer from this garbage. These sites and others, like PimpyourMySpace and who knows what others have put a virus type code into their graphics that will cause your pages to freeze up and give you *virtual memory* warnings....all just before your computer crashes IF NOT ADDRESSED IMMEDIATELY!

It is HIGHLY recommended that you delete from your comments or from your profiles any graphics from these sites. It's best right now, to NOT USE ANY GRAPHIC for comments until this threat is long gone. EDIT YOUR PROFILES and remove any codes that refer to *embed savetags true* or something to that effect. The codes that are embeded in the graphics will find their way to invade other codes in your profiles...hiding in music player codes, or stand alone codes ....that's why your page will take forever to load or just totally freeze up your computers. It tends to eat available memory to depletion causing a whole system crash. This is serious business! Everyone I know is having problems loading pages...so please take this warning seriously! REMOVE ALL GLITTER GRAPHICS and THOSE CUTE ANIMATED GRAPHICS FROM YOUR PAGES OR COMMENTS IF THEY WERE ADDED IN DEC TO PRESENT. The older graphics you have had before Dec will be ok if you've had them saved to your pc for awhile. The real trouble came when Christmas was approaching and so many graphics were distributed in comments or for decorating profiles.

Many of us will be deleting profiles and building new one's because our profiles are hacked and we can't get free of the hackers.

TAKE WARNING AND PROTECT YOURSELVES!!! NOW!!! don't wait!!

the first bulletin:

DO NOT ACCEPT GRAPHICS FROM THESE SITES....REPOST
Body: I received this from a friend who says not to accept any Pic or Graphics comments from these sites:

--photocasket.com !!!
--Sparkletags!!!
--MStags!!!
--sexiluv.com
--commentshack.com
--commenthound.com
--pimpfarmer.com
--skillzdesigns.com
--freesource.com

Word has it the peeps who run those places are sending out CODE that's Getting some of my friends Pages DELETED!!!

I will not accept anything From any!!! of the SITES above!

Sorry..Can't afford to...

Thank you for your consideration on this matter!

COPY/PASTE and REPOST for YOUR own and YOUR FRIENDS Myspace  www.myspace.com personal ACCOUNT safety : )