The Ride Essay Example For Students

The Ride Essay The RideIt was a beautiful day and definitely not forewarning of the events that would change my life. The warm Las Vegas sun was shining brightly in the blue and cloudless sky. A light breeze cooled the warm air just enough to stop the body from sweating. The breeze was clean and crisp that blew along with the scent of a spring day. The only noise was the roar of the engine as I twisted the throttle and accelerated through the twisted roads near my home. As everything raced by me, I felt a rush of adrenaline, then the fateful turn approached. I had taken the turn a hundred times before but today it would change my life. Around the turn would be my motorcycle accident that would cause me to take life much more seriously. We will write a custom essay on The Ride specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Before the accident my lifestyle was very fast paced. I spent almost all of my time with my friends going out to parties every night. My life was in control without any abusive habits, it was just fast paced and fun times with friends. Never being at home added to an already stressful family environment. My high school education suffered from too much fun and too little studying. My father made being at home a very uneasy feeling, making me want to stay away even more. He never took any time to help me with school, car or money. I always had to work to earn everything, the only thing I wasnt paying for was rent. In turn I wanted little to do with my father, stepmother or brother, never contributing or helping out. I even stopped going with them on vacations. The feelings I had were that I just wanted to be alone by myself, independent. For four months after the accident I was unable to do anything that I had previously done in the normal routine of my life. With a full leg and hand c ast I spent almost all my time during the four months recovering on the couch in the living room. I finished my junior year of high school at my bedroom desk. During this period I developed a lot of patience from the slow healing process of my bones. I also spent a great deal of time thinking, assessing, and contemplating my life and my future. Some of my thoughts were What was I doing with my life?, Where was I headed?, What was in my future for myself?, What did I want to do with my life?, How my family life was affecting me?, and many other personal issues dealing with my personality. While I was contemplating I realized that my life had no focus or direction. After several mentally stressful and depressive months, my life came into focus. After visiting my mom in Sacramento for a week, I realized living with my father was very negative for me.During that week I was totally happy and more than willing to try to help out around the house, even though I still wore a brace on my leg . Being treated differently with love and as a young adult, not a child, made all the difference. It was a very tough decision to move to Sacramento during my Senior year of high school and leave all my friends behind, but I could no longer live with my father. After moving to Sacramento, to live with my mother, I gained positive direction. Traveling in that same direction I have developed my future and career. Now I have a positive family life, which I have learned to value very much. Also I have slowly developed a better relationship with my father. I often go back to Las Vegas to visit my friends and my family. I still go out with my friends and have a good time. We still have a wild time, but not all of the time. We have all matured and found purpose and balance in our lives. I had no idea this event would dramatically change my life, my future, the way I think, and the events to come into my life. I am not certain that it was for the best or the worst, because I do not know what events would have followed if I did not drive around that turn. One thing for certain I would not be here in Sacramento, where I have a great life and have developed a promising successful career. I might still be riding through those corners in Las Vegas, livi ng fast and carefree. Perhaps that turn put my life in the right direction. I know now that I have a greater appreciation for life and I have learned what the more important aspects of ones life are. I attribute most of the changes in my attitude and my accomplishments to my mom. She has always been there for me with unconditional love and positive support of me as a person. My accident and the events that followed changed me. I now take life more serious and know that having a family that cares about you and loves you is the most valuable asset one can possess. .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .postImageUrl , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:hover , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:visited , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:active { border:0!important; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:active , .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598 .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u60ed88ceaee3d50d83b57772437e0598:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Essay on The Kite Runner And A Separate Peace EssayCategory: Biographies

An Overview of Ocean Currents and How They Circulate

An Overview of Ocean Currents and How They Circulate Ocean currents are the vertical or horizontal movement of both surface and deep water throughout the world’s oceans. Currents normally move in a specific direction and aid significantly in the circulation of the Earth’s moisture, the resultant weather, and water pollution. Oceanic currents are found all over the globe and vary in size, importance, and strength. Some of the more prominent currents include the California and Humboldt Currents in the Pacific, the Gulf Stream and Labrador Current in the Atlantic, and the Indian Monsoon Current in the Indian Ocean. These are just a sampling of the seventeen major surface currents found in the world’s oceans. The Types and Causes of Ocean Currents In addition to their varying size and strength, ocean currents differ in type. They can be either surface or deep water. Surface currents are those found in the upper 400 meters (1,300 feet) of the ocean and make up about 10% of all the water in the ocean. Surface currents are mostly caused by the wind because it creates friction as it moves over the water. This friction then forces the water to move in a spiral pattern, creating gyres. In the northern hemisphere, gyres move clockwise; while in the southern  hemisphere, they spin counterclockwise. The speed of surface currents is greatest closer to the ocean’s surface and decreases at about 100 meters (328 ft) below the surface. Because surface currents travel over long distances, the Coriolis force also plays a role in their movement and deflects them, further aiding in the creation of their circular pattern. Finally, gravity plays a role in the movement of surface currents because the top of the ocean is uneven. Mounds in the water form in areas where the water meets land, where water is warmer, or where two currents converge. Gravity then pushes this water downslope on the mounds and creates currents. Deepwater currents, also called thermohaline circulation, are found below 400 meters and make up about 90% of the ocean. Like surface currents, gravity plays a role in the creation of deep water currents but these are mainly caused by density differences in the water. Density differences are a function of temperature and salinity. Warm water holds less salt than cold water so it is less dense and rises toward the surface while cold, salt-laden water sinks. As the warm water rises, the cold water is forced to rise through upwelling and fill the void left by the warm. By contrast, when the  cold water rises, it too leaves a void and the rising warm water is then forced, through downwelling, to descend and fill this empty space, creating thermohaline circulation. Thermohaline circulation is known as the Global Conveyor Belt because its circulation of warm and cold water acts as a submarine river and moves water throughout the ocean. Finally, seafloor topography and the shape of the ocean’s basins impact both surface and deep water currents as they restrict areas where water can move and funnel it into another. The Importance of Ocean Currents Because ocean currents circulate water worldwide, they have a significant impact on the movement of energy and moisture between the oceans and the atmosphere. As a result, they are important to the world’s weather. The Gulf Stream, for example, is a warm current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and moves north toward Europe. Since it is full of warm water, the sea surface temperatures are warm, which keeps places like Europe warmer than other areas at similar latitudes. The Humboldt Current is another example of a current that affects weather. When this cold current is normally present off the coast of Chile and Peru, it creates extremely productive waters and keeps the coast cool and northern Chile arid. However, when it becomes disrupted, Chile’s climate is altered and it is believed that El Nià ±o plays a role in its disturbance. Like the movement of energy and moisture, debris can also get trapped and moved around the world via currents. This can be man-made which is significant to the formation of trash islands or natural such as icebergs. The Labrador Current, which flows south out of the Arctic Ocean along the coasts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, is famous for moving icebergs into shipping lanes in the North Atlantic. Currents plan an important role in navigation as well. In addition to being able to avoid trash and icebergs, knowledge of currents is essential to the reduction of shipping costs and fuel consumption. Today, shipping companies and even sailing races often use currents to reduce time spent at sea. Finally, ocean currents are important to the distribution of the world’s sea life. Many species rely on currents to move them from one location to another whether it is for breeding or just simple movement over large areas. Ocean Currents as Alternative Energy Today, ocean currents are also gaining significance as a possible form of alternative energy. Because water is dense, it carries an enormous amount of energy that could possibly be captured and converted into a usable form through the use of water turbines. Currently, this is an experimental technology being tested by the United States, Japan, China, and some European Union countries. Whether ocean currents are used as alternative energy, to reduce shipping costs, or in their natural state to move species and weather worldwide, they are significant to geographers, meteorologists, and other scientists because they have a tremendous impact on the globe and earth-atmosphere relations.

Shades of Meaning in Names of Colors

Shades of Meaning in Names of Colors Shades of Meaning in Names of Colors Shades of Meaning in Names of Colors By Mark Nichol A recent newspaper article about the world’s ugliest color reminded me that writers of both fiction and nonfiction can be misguided in describing colors. The article referred to a study in which researchers identified the ugliest color: opaque couchà ©. This name (the official designation in the Pantone Matching System, a printing-industry codification of colors) is French for â€Å"nontransparent layer,† a translation just as unhelpful in helping people visualize the color, which has also been- ahem- colorfully described as baby poo green. Now, having read that description, who out there can’t picture opaque couchà ©? When describing colors, it’s best to associate them with known visual stimuli- objects (especially those from the natural world) known to have that color. Artists and fashionistas may know celadon from celery, but a layperson will likely draw a blank when trying to picture a sweater dyed celadon, while easily forming an image of a celery-colored one. Likewise, emerald or mantis will resonate better with readers than a vague term such as chartreuse or teal, or one with a place designation, such as â€Å"Paris green.† Also, reconsider dated references. â€Å"Bottle green† was a useful descriptor in an era when glass containers of a distinctive green hue were ubiquitous, but the term will fall on blind eyes among younger readers. By contrast, â€Å"olive drab† is timeless, because of association with the fruit, though military combat uniforms, which used to be dyed in the color given that designation, are now generally earth toned. Also, consider how evocative a term is. Bright green, harlequin, and neon green are very similar shades, but â€Å"bright green† is lifeless, and harlequin suggests a pattern rather than a hue, but â€Å"neon green† is a vivid descriptor. For a very specific demographic, â€Å"Nickelodeon-slime green† will evoke the color of the ooze known to people who watched game shows on the Nickelodeon cable and satellite network during the 1990s, but it won’t benefit other readers. By all means, be as specific as possible in depicting colors, whether using a fictional character’s (or real-life person’s) choice of a fashion palette to provide insight into his or her personality or to convey an object’s or landscape’s appearance, but choose color descriptors carefully to enhance rather than obscure. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Meaning of "To a T"Top 11 Writing Apps for iOS (iPhone and iPad)Show, Don't Tell

UC Admissions Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

UC Admissions - Personal Statement Example This paper the researcher is writing to apply for the Business Administration program specializing in accounting. At this point in life where he has to decide on his professional future, the author has chosen to pursue a career in business administration mainly due to his interest in the field and the confidence he has gained through his work experiences. The author has been interested in business and accounts since high school and this has today become a major motivating factor for pursuing his further education. After graduating from high school, the researcher worked for a business concern run by his friend’s father for about a year which was a good learning experience in more ways than one. This work experience made him realize the importance of accounting in business ventures and also inspired him to learn the core aspects of the subject in order to fully understand and comprehend business-related problems and issues.   In addition, the author also worked at a local ban k during his summer break and this experience provided him an opportunity to learn many aspects of accounting and its related issues. The author’s experiences have provided a good platform to explore and understand the different aspects related to business and accounting. Every experience that he stood to gain reinforced his interest in the subject and his determination to excel in his chosen field. The author’s work experiences have made him become more efficient and resourceful.

Barry Bond And Jackie Robinson Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Barry Bond And Jackie Robinson - Essay Example Before drawing comparison of both these luminaries from the world of sports, it is quite pertinent to mention that these two players are from different era and Robinson was the first to break the concept of colour line in the history of baseball since his first appearance with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the year of 1947. And, he was the first black man to play in the league since 1880s. This fact helped him to bring an end to the racial segregation prevailing in the world of sports and particularly in professional baseball. He was an epitome of character and his impeccable talent provided a strong blow and challenge to the traditional basis on which the segregation was made in the area of baseball. He also made a considerable contribution in the Civil Rights Movement. On the other hand, the accomplishment of Bond as a baseball player is remarkable and this places him in a position unparalleled with the baseball players of all times. He has set a record of getting seven ‘Most Valuable Player Awards’ but in the personal front he had certain loop holes which makes him a diminished entity to an extent before the personality of Robinson.

Greek Mythology and Achilles Introduction Essay Example for Free

Greek Mythology and Achilles Introduction Essay Introduction Once upon a time, long ago there was a marvelous battle called the Trojan War, but before hand, there lived a Greek god named Peleus who extracted love for the Sea goddess Thetis. As time passed, they became one, so they thought why not form our love in to a child. When their child was born, Thetis dipped him into the river styx which was in the underworld (Achilles). Thus made him immortal and his name was Achilles. When Thetis dipped Achilles in to the underworld, she held him from his heel, this spot remained vulnerable, (Achilles). Meaning it was the only spot in his body that remained mortal. Achilles’ parents knew that he would become the greatest fighter ever lived, (Gill). So Achilles knew that he would end up fighting in the Trojan War. Personal Qualities Achilles was a great warrior who possessed many unique qualities; for one, he was immortal. He was a man who was known for his incredible strength, fighting ability and his intimidating armor. Some of his other main qualities were that he was part human, past super natural, (Achilles). He was very courageous, brave, and also strong. He used his strength and bravery to kill Hector, king of the Trojans, (Achilles 1). Achilles was also very well known for his helmet, which was gold with red horse tips above it. His armor would always be recognized in battle. Achilles had many weapons, but his two main battle pieces were his short sword and spere, (Gill). When fighting, Achilles showed no mercy. When he killed Hector, king of Troy, he tied Troy’s king to the back of his chariot and dragged his corpse around the city walls for twelve days, (Gill). Achilles is unique, and the qualities he possessed are too. Personal Struggles and Achievements Achilles was a great man, he seemed perfect, but every great fighter has a  weakness and for Achilles it was his heel, (Achilles 1). Although Achilles has weaknesses, that did not stop him from his many achievements that were successful. Prophecies said, â€Å"Troy would only win if Achilles was on his side†, (Gill). Achilles was sent to kill Hector in the Trojan Warm so he did and came out successful. Sadly, in the war an arrow that was shot from the brother of Hector, Paris, landed in Achilles’ heel. Being the only vulnerable spot in his body, he died at Troy while still a young man, (Gill). Conclusion Achilles was a great leader and always led in battle. He was born and became one of the best fighters ever lived, (Achilles). Achilles was and will be remembered as â€Å"A hero with a weakness†, (Achilles 1). He was an immortal man with a great fighting ability, also a leader who showed courage and left his footprint, literally. Works Cited â€Å"Achilles†. Myth Encyclopedia.J rank.Web. March 20, 2011 Gill, N.S. â€Å"Achilles- Trojan War Hero Achilles† About.com.2011.INT.Friday, 08 April 2011. â€Å"Achilles†.GreekMythology Edition.Search, 2011.web.7Mar.2011.

A Comparison of Shelleys Frankenstein and Rifkins Biotech Century Ess

Shelley's Frankenstein and Rifkin's Biotech Century   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Human beings are created by God, who intends that they reproduce and flourish amongst themselves.   However, with the accomplishments of science, ideas that were thought to be impossible are becoming possible inside experiment labs; for example, scientists have found a way of creating life without requiring sexual reproduction.   Further more, scientists are now experimenting with cloning other living things.   Jeremy Rifkin explains in "Biotech Century [ . . .]" that science offers "a door to a new era of history where the genetic blueprints of evolution itself become subject to human authorship" (245).   One may argue that scientists are now assuming the role of God by manipulating science and leading humankind to a biotech century.   While this may seem to be a success to most scientists, they must be aware of the harm they can cause human life and be prepared to take responsibility; unlike Victor Frankenstein, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, who "uses his knowledge to assemble a grotesque manlike creature [. . .] horrified by what he has done, abandons it the moment he brings it to life" (Ruszkiewicz 231).   Because he sees his creation as a failure and refuses to accept responsibility for his actions, the monster turns destructive, killing people close to Frankenstein.  Ã‚   Although both Rifkin and Shelley's writings stress similar concerns, they differ in certain aspects.  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One difference between Rifkin and Shelley, is that Rifkin looks at science as being partly a positive contribution to society, involving huge amounts of money (246).   He also believes that scientists can continue to use science for a more positive way, if and when... ... Dolly."   CNN.com.   9 Dec.   CNN Health.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   <http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9905/26/dolly.clone.02/index.html> . Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.   A play by Nick DiMartino, Direct.   Moses Goldberg.   Narr.   Professor McNamer.   Global Stage Production.   WLIW21 Presentation.   Class Movie. ZRB 1201.   Fall Semester, November 25, 2002. Kahn, Jeffrey P.   "Choosing Our Children's Future or Choosing Our Future Children?"   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   CNN.com.   25 Nov.   CNN Health.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   <http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/03/04/ethics.matters/index.html> . Rifkin, Jeremy.   "Biotech Century." The Presence of Others. 3rd ed. Ed. Andrea A.    Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.   244-245 Shelley, Mary.   "Frankenstein." The Presence of Others. 3rd ed. Ed. Andrea A.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.   231-232   

History of Computer Virus

THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER VIRUSES A Bit of Archeology There are lots and lots of opinions on the date of birth of the first computer virus. I know for sure just that there were no viruses on the Babbidge machine, but the Univac 1108 and IBM 360/370 already had them (â€Å"Pervading Animal† and â€Å"Christmas tree†). Therefore the first virus was born in the very beginning of 1970s or even in the end of 1960s, although nobody was calling it a virus then. And with that consider the topic of the extinct fossil species closed. Journey's Start Let's talk of the latest history: â€Å"Brain†, â€Å"Vienna†, â€Å"Cascade†, etc. Those who started using IBM PCs as far as in mid-80s might still remember the total epidemic of these viruses in 1987-1989. Letters were dropping from displays, crowds of users rushing towards monitor service people (unlike of these days, when hard disk drives die from old age but yet some unknown modern viruses are to blame). Their computers started playing a hymn called â€Å"Yankee Doodle†, but by then people were already clever, and nobody tried to fix their speakers – very soon it became clear that this problem wasn't with the hardware, it was a virus, and not even a single one, more like a dozen. And so viruses started infecting files. The â€Å"Brain† virus and bouncing ball of the â€Å"Ping-pong† virus marked the victory of viruses over the boot sector. IBM PC users of course didn't like all that at all. And so there appeared antidotes. Which was the first? I don't know, there were many of them. Only few of them are still alive, and all of these anti-viruses did grow from single project up to the major software companies playing big roles on the software market. There is also an notable difference in conquering different countries by viruses. The first vastly spread virus in the West was a bootable one called â€Å"Brain†, the â€Å"Vienna† and â€Å"Cascade† file viruses appeared later. Unlike that in East Europe and Russia file viruses came first followed by bootable ones a year later. Time went on, viruses multiplied. They all were all alike in a sense, tried to get to RAM, stuck to files and sectors, periodically killing files, diskettes and hard disks. One of the first â€Å"revelations† was the â€Å"Frodo. 4096† virus, which is far as I know was the first invisible virus (Stealth). This virus intercepted INT 21h, and during DOS calls to the infected files it changed the information so that the file appeared to the user uninfected. But this was just an overhead over MS-DOS. In less than a year electronic bugs attacked the DOS kernel (â€Å"Beast. 512† Stealth virus). The idea of in visibility continued to bear its fruits: in summer of 1991 there was a plague of â€Å"Dir_II†. â€Å"Yeah! â€Å", said everyone who dug into it. But it was pretty easy to fight the Stealth ones: once you clean RAM, you may stop worrying and just search for the beast and cure it to your hearts content. Other, self encrypting viruses, sometimes appearing in software collections, were more troublesome. This is because to identify and delete them it was necessary to write special subroutines, debug them. But then nobody paid attention to it, until †¦ Until the new generation of viruses came, those called polymorphic viruses. These viruses use another approach to invisibility: they encrypt themselves (in most cases), and to decrypt themselves later they use commands which may and may not be repeated in different infected files. Polymorphism – Viral Mutation The first polymorphic virus called â€Å"Chameleon† became known in the early '90s, but the problem with polymorphic viruses became really serious only a year after that, in April 1991, with the worldwide epidemic of the polymorphic virus â€Å"Tequila† (as far as I know Russia was untouched by the epidemic; the first epidemic in Russia, caused by a polymorphic virus, happened as late as in 1994, in three years, the virus was called â€Å"Phantom1†). The idea of self encrypting polymorphic viruses gained popularity and brought to life generators of polymorphic code – in early 1992 the famous â€Å"Dedicated† virus appears, based on the first known polymorphic generator MtE and the first in a series of MtE-viruses; shortly after that there appears the polymorphic generator itself. It is essentially an object module (OBJ file), and now to get a polymorphic mutant virus from a conventional non-encrypting virus it is sufficient to simply link their object modules together – the polymorphic OBJ file and the virus OBJ file. Now to create a real polymorphic virus one doesn't have to dwell on the code of his own encryptor/decryptor. He may now connect the polymorphic generator to his virus and call it from the code of the virus when desired. Luckily the first MtE-virus wasn't spread and did not cause epidemics. In their turn the anti-virus developers had sometime in store to prepare for the new attack. In just a year production of polymorphic viruses becomes a â€Å"trade†, followed by their â€Å"avalanche† in 1993. Among the viruses coming to my collection the volume of polymorphic viruses increases. It seems that one of the main directions in this uneasy job of creating new viruses becomes creation and debugging of polymorphic mechanism, the authors of viruses compete not in creating the toughest virus but the toughest polymorphic mechanism instead. This is a partial list of the viruses that can be called 100 percent polymorphic (late 1993): Bootache, CivilWar (four versions), Crusher, Dudley, Fly, Freddy, Ginger, Grog, Haifa, Moctezuma (two versions), MVF, Necros, Nukehard, PcFly (three versions), Predator, Satanbug, Sandra, Shoker, Todor, Tremor, Trigger, Uruguay (eight versions). These viruses require special methods of detection, including emulation of the viruses executable code, mathematical algorithms of restoring parts of the code and data in virus etc. Ten more new viruses may be considered non-100 percent polymorphic (that is they do encrypt themselves but in decryption routine there always exist some nonchanging bytes): Basilisk, Daemaen, Invisible (two versions), Mirea (several versions), Rasek (three versions), Sarov, Scoundrel, Seat, Silly, Simulation. However to detect them and to restore the infected objects code decrypting is still required, because the length of nonchanging code in the decryption outine of those viruses is too small. Polymorphic generators are also being developed together with polymorphic viruses. Several new ones appear utilizing more complex methods of generating polymorphic code. They become widely spread over the bulletin board systems as archives containing object modules, documentation and examples of use. By the end of 1993 there are seven known generators of polymorphic code. They are: MTE 0. 90 (Mutation Engine), TPE (Trident Polymorphic Engine), four versions NED (Nuke Encryption Device), DAME (Dark Angel's Multiple Encryptor) Since then every year brought several new polymorphic generators, so there is little sense in publishing the entire lists. Automating Production and Viral Construction Sets Laziness is the moving force of progress (to construct the wheel because that's too lazy to carry mammoths to the cave). This traditional wisdom needs no comments. But only in the middle of 1992 progress in the form of automating production touched the world of viruses. On the fifth of July 1992 the first viral code construction set for IBM PC compatibles called VCL (Virus Creation Laboratory) version 1. 00 is declared for production and shipping. This set allows to generate well commented source texts of viruses in the form or assembly language texts, object modules and infected files themselves. VCL uses standard windowed interface. With the help of a menu system one can choose virus type, objects to infect (COM or/and EXE), presence or absence of self encryption, measures of protection from debugging, inside text strings, optional 10 additional effects etc. Viruses can use standard method of infecting a file by adding their body to the end of file, or replace files with their body destroying the original content of a file, or become companion viruses. And then it became much easier to do wrong: if you want somebody to have some computer trouble just run VCL and within 10 to 15 minutes you have 30-40 different viruses you may then run on computers of your enemies. A virus to every computer! The further the better. On the 27th of July the first version of PS-MPC (Phalcon/Skism Mass-Produced Code Generator). This set does not have windowed interface, it uses configuration file to generate viral source code. This file contains description of the virus: the type of infected files (COM or EXE); resident capabilities (unlike VCL, PS-MPC can also produce resident viruses); method of installing the resident copy of the virus; self encryption capabilities; the ability to infect COMMAND. COM and lots of other useful information. Another construction set G2 (Phalcon/Skism's G2 0. 70 beta) has been created. It supported PS-MPC configuration files, however allowing much more options when coding the same functions. The version of G2 I have is dated the first of January 1993. Apparently the authors of G2 spent the New Year's Eve in front of their computers. They'd better have some champagne instead, this wouldn't hurt anyway. So in what way did the virus construction sets influence electronic wildlife? In my virus collection there are: †¢ several hundreds of VCL and G2 based viruses; †¢ over a thousand PS-MPC based viruses. So we have another tendency in development of computer viruses: the increasing number of â€Å"construction set† viruses; more unconcealably lazy people join the ranks of virus makers, downgrading a respectable and creative profession of creating viruses to a mundane rough trade. Outside DOS The year 1992 brought more than polymorphic viruses and virus construction sets. The end of the year saw the first virus for Windows, which thus opened a new page in the history of virus making. Being small (less than 1K in size) and absolutely harmless this non resident virus quite proficiently infected executables of new Windows format (NewEXE); a window into the world of Windows was opened with its appearance on the scene. After some time there appeared viruses for OS/2, and January 1996 brought the first Windows95 virus. Presently not a single week goes by without new viruses infecting non-DOS systems; possibly the problem of non-DOS viruses will soon become more important than the problem of DOS viruses. Most likely the process of changing priorities will resemble the process of DOS dying and new operating systems gaining strength together with their specific programs. As soon as all the existing software for DOS will be replaced by their Windows, Windows95 and OS/2 analogues, the problem of DOS viruses becomes nonexistent and purely theoretical for computer society. The first attempt to create a virus working in 386 protected mode was also made in 1993. It was a boot virus â€Å"PMBS† named after a text string in its body. After boot up from infected drive this virus switched to protected mode, made itself supervisor and then loaded DOS in virtual window mode V86. Luckily this virus was born dead – its second generation refused to propagate due to several errors in the code. Besides that the infected system â€Å"hanged† if some of the programs tried to reach outside the V86 mode, for example to determine the presence of extended memory. This unsuccessful attempt to create supervisor virus remained the only one up to spring of 1997, when one Moscow prodigy released â€Å"PM. Wanderer† – a quite successful implementation of a protected mode virus. It is unclear now whether those supervisor viruses might present a real problem for users and anti-virus program developers in the future. Most likely not because such viruses must â€Å"go to sleep† while new operating systems (Windows 3. xx, Windows95/NT, OS/2) are up and running, allowing for easy detection and killing of the virus. But a full-scale stealth supervisor virus may mean a lot of trouble for â€Å"pure† DOS users, because it is absolutely impossible to detect such a stealth virus under pure DOS. Macro Virus Epidemics August 1995. All the progressive humanity, The Microsoft and Bill Gates personally celebrate the release of a new operating system Windows95. With all that noise the message about a new virus using basically new methods of infection came virtually unnoticed. The virus infected Microsoft Word documents. Frankly it wasn't the first virus infecting Word documents. Earlier before anti-virus companies had the first experimental example of a virus on their hands, which copied itself from one document to another. However nobody paid serious attention to that not quite successful experiment. As a result virtually all the anti-virus companies appeared not ready to what came next – macro virus epidemics – and started to work out quick but inadequate steps in order to put an end to it. For example several companies almost simultaneously released documents- anti-viruses, acting along about the same lines as did the virus, but destroying it instead of propagation. By the way it became necessary to correct anti-virus literature in a hurry because earlier the question, â€Å"Is it possible to infect a computer by simply reading a file† had been answered by a definite â€Å"No way! with lengthy proofs of that. As for the virus which by that time got its name, â€Å"Concept†, continued its ride of victory over the planet. Having most probably been released in some division of Microsoft â€Å"Concept† ran over thousands if not millions of computers in no time it all. It's not unusual, because text exchange in the format of Microsoft Word became in fact one of the industry standards, and to get infected by the virus it is sufficient just to open the infected document, then all the documents edited by infected copy of Word became infected too. As a result having received an infected file over the Internet and opened it, the unsuspecting user became â€Å"infection peddler†, and if his correspondence was made with the help of MS Word, it also became infected! Therefore the possibility of infecting MS Word multiplied by the speed of Internet became one of the most serious problems in all the history of existence of computer viruses. In less than a year, sometime in summer of 1996, there appeared the â€Å"Laroux† virus, infecting Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. As it had been with â€Å"Concept†, these new virus was discovered almost simultaneously in several companies. The same 1996 witnessed the first macro virus construction sets, then in the beginning of 1997 came the first polymorphic macro viruses for MS Word and the first viruses for Microsoft Office97. The number of various macro viruses also increased steadily reaching several hundreds by the summer of 1997. Macro viruses, which have opened a new page in August 1995, using all the experience in virus making accumulated for almost 10 years of continuous work and enhancements, actually do present the biggest problem for modern virology. Chronology of Events It's time to give a more detailed description of events. Let's start from the very beginning. Late 1960s – early 1970s Periodically on the mainframes at that period of time there appeared programs called â€Å"the rabbit†. These programs cloned themselves, occupied system resources, thus lowering the productivity of the system. Most probably â€Å"rabbits† did not copy themselves from system to system and were strictly local phenomena – mistakes or pranks by system programmers servicing these computers. The first incident which may be well called an epidemic of â€Å"a computer virus†, happened on the Univax 1108 system. The virus called â€Å"Pervading Animal† merged itself to the end of executable files – virtually did the same thing as thousands of modern viruses do. The first half of 1970s â€Å"The Creeper† virus created under the Tenex operating system used global computer networks to spread itself. The virus was capable of entering a network by itself by modem and transfer a copy of itself to remote system. â€Å"The Reeper† anti-virus program was created to fight this virus, it was the first known anti-virus program. Early 1980s Computers become more and more popular. An increasing number of program appears written not by software companies but by private persons, moreover, these programs may be freely distributed and exchanged through general access servers – BBS. As a result there appears a huge number of miscellaneous â€Å"Trojan horses†, programs, doing some kind of harm to the system when started. 1981 â€Å"Elk Cloner† bootable virus epidemics started on Apple II computers. The virus attached itself to the boot sector of diskettes to which there were calls. It showed itself in many ways – turned over the display, made text displays blink and showed various messages. 1986 The first IBM PC virus â€Å"Brain† pandemic began. This virus infecting 360 KB diskettes became spread over the world almost momentarily. The secret of a â€Å"success† like this late probably in total unpreparedness of computer society to such a phenomenon as computer virus. The virus was created in Pakistan by brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi. They left a text message inside the virus with their name, address and telephone number. According to the authors of the virus they were software vendors, and would like to know the extent of piracy in their country. Unfortunately their experiment left the borders of Pakistan. It is also interesting that the â€Å"Brain† virus was the first stealth virus, too – if there was an attempt to read the infected sector, the virus substituted it with a clean original one. Also in 1986 a programmer named Ralph Burger found out that a program can create copies of itself by adding its code to DOS executables. His first virus called â€Å"VirDem† was the demonstration of such a capability. This virus was announced in December 1986 at an underground computer forum, which consisted of hackers, specializing at that time on cracking VAX/VMS systems (Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg). 1987 â€Å"Vienna† virus appears. Ralph Burger, whom we already now, gets a copy of this virus, disassembles it, and publishes the result in his book â€Å"Computer Viruses: a High-tech Disease†. Burger's book made the idea of writing viruses popular, explained how to do it, and therefore stimulated creating up hundreds and in thousands of computer viruses, in which some of the ideas from his book were implemented. Some more IBM PC viruses are being written independently in the same year. They are: â€Å"Lehigh†, infecting the COMMAND. COM file only; â€Å"Suriv-1† a. k. a. â€Å"April1st†, infecting COM files; â€Å"Suriv-2†, infecting (for the first time ever) EXE files; and â€Å"Suriv-3†, infecting both COM and EXE files. There also appear several boot viruses (â€Å"Yale† in USA, â€Å"Stoned† in New Zealand, â€Å"PingPong† in Italy), and the first self encrypting file virus â€Å"Cascade†. Non-IBM computers are also not forgotten: several viruses for Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST have been detected. In December of 1987 there was the first total epidemics of a network virus called â€Å"Christmas Tree†, written in REXX language and spreading itself under the VM/CMS operating environments. On the ninth of December this virus was introduced into the Bitnet network in one of West German universities, then via gateway it got into the European Academic Research Network (EARN) and then into the IBM Vnet. In four days (Dec. 13) the virus paralyzed the network, which was overflowing with copies of it (see the desk clerk example several pages earlier). On start-up the virus output an image of the Christmas tree and then sent copies of itself to all the network users whose addresses were in the corresponding system files NAMES and NETLOG. 1988 On Friday the 13 1988 several companies and universities in many countries of the world â€Å"got acquainted† with the â€Å"Jerusalem† virus. On that day the virus was destroying files which were attempted to be run. Probably this is one of the first MS-DOS viruses which caused a real pandemic, there were news about infected computers from Europe, America and the Middle East. Incidentally the virus got its name after one of the places it stroke – the Jerusalem University. â€Å"Jerusalem† together with several other viruses (â€Å"Cascade†, â€Å"Stoned†, â€Å"Vienna†) infected thousands of computers still being unnoticed – anti-virus programs were not as common then as they are now, many users and even professionals did not believe in the existence of computer viruses. It is notable that in the same year the legendary computer guru Peter Norton announced that computer viruses did not exist. He declared them to be a myth of the same kind as alligators in New York sewers. Nevertheless this delusion did not prevent Symantec from starting its own anti-virus project Norton Anti-virus after some time. Notoriously false messages about new computer viruses started to appear, causing panic among the computer users. One of the first virus hoaxes of this kind belongs to a Mike RoChenle (pronounced very much like â€Å"Microchannel†), who uploaded a lot of messages to the BBS systems, describing the supposed virus copying itself from one BBS to another via modem using speed 2400 baud for that. Funny as it may seem many users gave up 2000 baud standard of that time and lowered the speed of their modems to 1200 baud. Similar hoaxes appeared even now. The most famous of them so far are GoodTimes and Aol4Free. November 1988: a total epidemic of a network virus of Morris (a. k. a. Internet Worm). This virus infected more than 6000 computer systems in USA (including NASA research Institute) and practically paralyzed their work. Because of erratic code of the virus it sent unlimited copies of itself to other network computers, like the â€Å"Christmas Tree† worm virus, and for that reason completely paralyzed all the network resources. Total losses caused by the Morris virus were estimated at 96 millions of dollars. This virus used errors in operating systems Unix for VAX and Sun Microsystems to propagate. Besides the errors in Unix the virus utilized several more original ideas, for example picking up user passwords. A more detailed story of this virus and the corresponding incidents may be found in a rather detailed and interesting articles. December 1988: the season of worm viruses continues this time in DECNet. Worm virus called HI. COM output and image of spruce and informed users that they should â€Å"stop computing and have a good time at home!!! There also appeared new anti-virus programs for example, Doctors Solomon's Anti-virus Toolkit, being one of the most powerful anti-virus software presently. 1989 New viruses â€Å"Datacrime†, â€Å"FuManchu† appear, as do the whole families like â€Å"Vacsina† and â€Å"Yankee†. The first one acted extremely dangerously – from October 13th to December 31st it formatted hard disks. This virus â€Å"broke freeà ¢â‚¬  and caused total hysteria in the mass media in Holland and Great Britain. September 1989: 1 more anti-virus program begins shipping – IBM Anti-virus. October 1989: one more epidemic in DECNet, this time it was worm virus called â€Å"WANK Worm†. December 1989: an incident with a â€Å"Trojan horse† called â€Å"AIDS†. 20,000 copies were shipped on diskettes marked as â€Å"AIDS Information Diskette Version 2. 0†. After 90 boot-ups the â€Å"Trojan† program encrypted all the filenames on the disk, making them invisible (setting a â€Å"hidden† attribute) and left only one file readable – bill for $189 payable to the address P. O. Box 7, Panama. The author of this program was apprehended and sent to jail. One should note that in 1989 there began total epidemics of computer viruses in Russia, caused by the same â€Å"Cascade†, â€Å"Jerusalem† and â€Å"Vienna†, which besieged the computers of Russian users. Luckily Russian programmers pretty quickly discovered the principles of their work, and virtually immediately there appeared several domestic anti-viruses, and AVP (named â€Å"-V†) those time, was one of them. My first acquaintance with viruses (this was the â€Å"Cascade† virus) replaced in the world 1989 when I found virus on my office computer. This particular fact influenced my decision to change careers and create anti-virus programs. In a month the second incident (â€Å"Vacsina† virus) was closed with a help of the first version of my anti-virus â€Å"-V† (minus-virus), several years later renamed to AVP – AntiViral Toolkit Pro. By the end of 1989 several dozens of viruses herded on Russian lands. They were in order of appearance: two versions of â€Å"Cascade†, several â€Å"Vacsina† and â€Å"Yankee† viruses, â€Å"Jerusalem†, â€Å"Vienna†, â€Å"Eddie†, â€Å"PingPong†. 1990 This year brought several notable events. The first one was the appearance of the first polymorphic viruses â€Å"Chameleon† (a. k. a. â€Å"V2P1†, â€Å"V2P2†, and â€Å"V2P6†). Until then the anti-virus programs used â€Å"masks† – fragments of virus code – to look for viruses. After â€Å"Chameleon†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœs appearance anti-virus program developers had to look for different methods of virus detection. The second event was the appearance of Bulgarian â€Å"virus production factory†: enormous amounts of new viruses were created in Bulgaria. Disease wears the entire families of viruses â€Å"Murphy†, â€Å"Nomenclatura†, â€Å"Beast† (or â€Å"512†, â€Å"Number-of-Beast†), the modifications of the â€Å"Eddie† virus etc. A certain Dark Avenger became extremely active, making several new viruses a year, utilizing fundamentally new algorithms of infecting and covering of the tracks in the system. It was also in Bulgaria that the first BBS opens, dedicated to exchange of virus code and information for virus makers. In July 1990 there was an incident with â€Å"PC Today† computer magazine (Great Britain). It contained a floppy disk infected with â€Å"DiskKiller† virus. More than 50,000 copies were sold. In the second half of 1990 there appeared two Stealth monsters – â€Å"Frodo† and â€Å"Whale†. Both viruses utilized extremely complicated stealth algorithms; on top of that the 9KB â€Å"Whale† used several levels of encrypting and anti-debugging techniques. 1991 Computer virus population grows continuously, reaching several hundreds now. Anti-viruses also show increasing activity: two software monsters at once (Symantec and Central Point) issue their own anti-virus programs – Norton Anti-virus and Central Point Anti-virus. They are followed by less known anti-viruses from Xtree and Fifth Generation. In April a full-scale epidemic broke out, caused by file and boot polymorphic virus called â€Å"Tequila†, and in September the same kind of story happened with â€Å"Amoeba† virus. Summer of 1991: â€Å"Dir_II† epidemic. It was a link virus using fundamentally new methods of infecting files. 1992 Non-IBM PC and non-MS-DOS viruses are virtually forgotten: â€Å"holes† in global access network are closed, errors corrected, and network worm viruses lost the ability to spread themselves. File-, boot- and file-boot viruses for the most widely spread operating system (MS-DOS) on the most popular computer model (IBM PC) are becoming more and more important. The number of viruses increases in geometrical to progression; various virus incidents happen almost every day. Miscellaneous anti-virus programs are being developed, dozens of books and several periodic magazines on anti-viruses are being printed. A few things stand out: Early 1992: the first polymorphic generator MtE, serving as a base for several polymorphic viruses which follow almost immediately. Mte was also the prototype for a few forthcoming polymorphic generators. March 1992: â€Å"Michelangelo† virus epidemics (a. k. a. â€Å"March6†) and the following hysteria took place. Probably this is the first known case when anti-virus companies made fuss about this virus not to protect users from any kind of danger, but attract attention to their product, that is to create profits. One American anti-virus company actually announced that on the 6th of March the information on over five million computers will be destroyed. As a result of the fuss after that the profits of different anti-virus companies jumped several times; in reality only about 10,000 computers suffered from that virus. July 1992: The first virus construction sets were made, VCL and PS-MPC. They made large flow of new viruses even larger. They also stimulated virus makers to create other, more powerful, construction sets, as it was done by MtE in its area. Late 1992: The first Windows virus appears, infecting this OS's executables, and starts a new page in virus making. 1993 Virus makers are starting to do some serious damage: besides hundreds of mundane viruses which are no different than their counterparts, besides the whole polymorphic generators and construction sets, besides new electronic editions of virus makers there appear more and more viruses, using highly unusual ways of infecting files, introducing themselves into the system etc. The main examples are: â€Å"PMBS†, wording in Intel 80386 protected mode. Strange† (or â€Å"Hmm†) – a â€Å"masterpiece† of Stealth technology, however fulfilled on the level of hardware interrupts INT 0Dh and INT 76h. â€Å"Shadowgard† and â€Å"Carbunkle†, which widened debt range of algorithms of companion viruses. â€Å"Emmie†, â€Å"Metallica†, â€Å"Bomber†, â€Å"Uruguay† and â€Å"Cruncher† – the us e of fundamentally new techniques of â€Å"hiding† of its own code inside the infected files. In spring of 1993 Microsoft made its own anti-virus MSAV, based on CPAV by Central Point. 1994 The problem of CD viruses is getting more important. Having quickly gained popularity CD disks became one of the main means of spreading viruses. There are several simultaneous cases when a virus got to the master disk when preparing the batch CDs. As a result of that a fairly large number (tens of thousands) of infected CDs hit the market. Of course they cannot be cured, they just have to be destroyed. Early in the year in Great Britain there popped out two extremely complicated polymorphic viruses, â€Å"SMEG. Pathogen† and â€Å"SMEG. Queeg† (even now not all the anti-virus programs are able to give 100% correct detection of these viruses). Their author placed infected files to a BBS, causing real panic and fear of epidemics in mass media. Another wave of panic was created by a message about a supposed virus called â€Å"GoodTimes†, spreading via the Internet and infecting a computer when receiving E-mail. No such virus really existed, but after some time there appeared a usual DOS virus containing text string â€Å"Good Times†. It was called â€Å"GT-Spoof†. Law enforcement increases its activities: in Summer of 1994 the author of SMEG was â€Å"sorted out† and arrested. Approximately at the same time also in Great Britain there was arrested an entire group of virus makers, who called themselves ARCV (Association for Really Cruel Viruses). Some time later one more author of viruses was arrested in Norway. There appear some new unusual enough viruses: January 1994: â€Å"Shifter† – the first virus infecting object modules (OBJ files). â€Å"Phantom1† – the cause of the first epidemic of polymorphic virus in Moscow. April 1994: â€Å"SrcVir† — the virus family infecting program source code (C and Pascal). June 1994: â€Å"OneHalf† – one of the most popular viruses in Russia so far starts a total epidemics. September 1994: â€Å"3APA3A† – a boot-file virus epidemic. This virus uses a highly unusual way of incorporating into MS-DOS. No anti-virus was ready to meet such kind of a monster. In 1994 (Spring) one of the anti-virus leaders of that time – Central Point – ceased to exist, acquired by Symantec, which by that time managed to â€Å"swallow† several minor companies, working on anti- viruses – Peter Norton Computing, Cetus International and Fifth Generation Systems. 1995 Nothing in particular among DOS viruses happens, although there appear several complicated enough monster viruses like â€Å"NightFall†, â€Å"Nostardamus†, â€Å"Nutcracker†, also some funny viruses like â€Å"bisexual† virus â€Å"RMNS† and BAT virus â€Å"Winstart†. The â€Å"ByWay† and â€Å"DieHard2† viruses become widespread, with news about infected computers coming from all over the world. February 1995: an incident with Microsoft: Windows95 demos disks are infected by â€Å"Form†. Copies of these disks were sent to beta testers by Microsoft; one of the testers was not that lazy and tested the disks for viruses. Spring 1995: two anti-virus companies – ESaSS (ThunderBYTE anti-virus) and Norman Data Defense (Norman Virus Control) announce their alliance. These companies, each making powerful enough anti- viruses, joined efforts and started working on a joint anti-virus system. August 1995: one of the turning points in the history of viruses and anti-viruses: there has actually appeared the first â€Å"alive† virus for Microsoft Word (â€Å"Concept†). In some month the virus â€Å"tripped around the world†, pesting the computers of the MS Word users and becoming a firm No. 1 in statistic research held by various computer titles. 1996 January 1996: two notable events – the appearance of the first Windows95 virus (â€Å"Win95. Boza†) and the epidemics of the extremely complicated polymorphic virus â€Å"Zhengxi† in St. Petersburg (Russia). March 1996: the first Windows 3. virus epidemic. The name of the virus is â€Å"Win. Tentacle†. This virus infected a computer network a hospital and in several other institutions in France. This event is especially interesting because this was the FIRST Windows virus on a spree. Before that time (as far as I know) all the Windows viruses had been living only in collections a nd electronic magazines of virus makers, only boot viruses, DOS viruses and macro viruses were known to ride free. June 1996: â€Å"OS2. AEP† – the first virus for OS/2, correctly infecting EXE files of this operating system. Earlier under OS/2 there existed only the viruses writing themselves instead of file, destroying it or acting as companions. July 1996: â€Å"Laroux† – the first virus for Microsoft Excel caught live (originally at the same time in two oil making companies in Alaska and in southern African Republic). The idea of â€Å"Laroux†, like that of Microsoft Word viruses, was based on the presence of so-called macros (or Basic programs) in the files. Such programs can be included into both electronic spreadsheets of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. As it turned out the Basic language built into Microsoft Excel also allows to create viruses. December 1996: â€Å"Win95. Punch† – the first â€Å"memory resident† virus for Windows95. It stays in the Windows memory as a VxD driver, hooks file access and infects Windows EXE files that are opened. In general the year 1996 is the start of widespread virus intervention into the Windows32 operating system (Windows95 and WindowsNT) and into the Microfoft Office applications. During this and the next year several dozens of Windows viruses and several hunsdreds of macro viruses appeared. Many of them used new technologies and methods of infection, including stealth and polymorphic abilities. That was the next round of virus evolution. During two years they repeated the way of improving similar to DOS viruses. Step by step they started to use the same features that DOS viruses did 10 years beforehand, but on next technological level. 1997 February 1997: â€Å"Linux. Bliss† – the first virus for Linux (a Unix clone). This way viruses occupied one more â€Å"biological† niche. February-April 1997: macro viruses migrated to Office97. The first of them turned out to be only â€Å"converted† to the format macro viruses for Microsoft Word 6/7, but also virtually immediately there appeared viruses aimed at Office97 documents exclusively. March 1997: â€Å"ShareFun† – macro-virus hitting Microsoft Word 6/7. It uses is not only standard features of Microsoft Word to propagate but also sends copies of itself via MS-Mail. April 1997: â€Å"Homer† – the first network worm virus, using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for propagation. June 1997: There appears the first self encrypting virus for Windows95. This virus of Russian origin has been sent to several BBS is in Moscow which caused an epidemic. November 1997: The â€Å"Esperanto† virus. This is the first virus that intends to infect not only DOS and Windows32 executable files, but also spreads into the Mac OS (Macintosh). Fortunately, the virus is not able to spread cross the platforms because of bugs. December 1997: new virus type, the so-called â€Å"mIRC Worms†, came into being. The most popular Windows Internet Relay Chat (IRC) utility known as mIRC proved to be â€Å"hole† allowing virus scripts to transmit themselves along the IRC-channels. The next IRC version blocked the hole and the mIRC Worms vanished. The KAMI ltd. nti-virus department has braked away from the mother company constituting the independent one what, certainly, is considered the main event of 1997. Currently the company known as Kaspersky Labs and proved to be a recognized leader of the anti-virus industry. Since 1994 the AntiViral Toolkit Pro (AVP) anti-virus scanner, main product of the company, constantly shows high results wh ile being tested by various test laboratories of all world. Creation of an independent company gave the chance to the at first small group of developers to gain the lead on the domestic market and prominence on the world one. For short run versions for practically all popular platforms were developed and released, the new anti-virus solutions offered, the international distribution and the product support networks created. October 1997: the agreement on licensing of AVP technologies use in F-Secure Anti-Virus (FSAV) was signed. The F-Secure Anti-Virus (FSAV) package was the DataFellows (Finland) new anti-virus product. Before DataFellows was known as the F-PROT anti-virus package manufacturer. 1997 was also the year of several scandals between the anti-virus main manufacturers in US and Europe. At the year beginning McAfee has announced that its experts have detected a â€Å"feature† in the antivirus programs of Dr. Solomon, one of its main competitors. The McAfee testimony stated that if the Dr. Solomon's antivirus while scanning detects several virus-types the program switches to the advanced scanning mode. What means that while scanning some uninfected computer the Dr. Solomon's anti-virus operates in the usual mode and switches to the advanced mode – â€Å"cheat mode† according to McAfee – enabling the application to detect the invisible for the usual mode viruses while testing virus collections. Consequently the Dr. Solomon's anti-virus shows both good speed while scanning uninfected disks and good virus detection ability while scanning virus collections. A bit later Dr. Solomon stroked back accusing McAfee of the incorrect advertising campaign. The claims were raised to the text – â€Å"The Number One Choice Worldwide. No Wonder The Doctor's Left Town†. At the same time McAfee was in the court together with Trend Micro, another antivirus software manufacturer, concerning the Internet and e-mail data scanning technology patent violation. Symantec also turned out to be involved in the cause and accused McAfee of using the Symantec codes in the McAfee products. And etc. The year completion by one more noteworthy event related to McAfee-name was marked – McAfee Associates and Network General have declared consolidation into the new born Network Associates company and positioning of their services not only on the anti-virus protection software market, but also on the markets of computer safety universal systems, encryption and network administration. From this the virus and anti-virus history point McAfee would correspond to NAI. 998 The virus attack on MS Windows, MS Office and the network applications does not weaken. There arose new viruses employing still more complex strokes while infecting computers and advanced methods of network-to-computer penetration. Besides numerous the so-called Trojans, stealing Internet access passwords, and several kinds of the latent administration utilities came into the computer world. Several incidents with the infected CDs were revealed – Some computer media publishers distributed CIH and Marburg (the Windows viruses) through CDs attached to the covers of their issues, with infected. The year beginning: Epidemic of the â€Å"Win32. HLLP. DeTroie† virus family, not just infecting Windows32 executed files but also capable to transmit to the â€Å"owner† the information on the computer that was infected, shocked the computer world. As the viruses used specific libraries attached only to the French version of Windows, the epidemic has affected just the French speaking countries. February 1998: One more virus type infecting the Excel tables â€Å"Excel4. Paix† (aka â€Å"Formula. Paix) was detected. This type of a macro virus while rooting into the Excel tables does not employ the usual for the kind of viruses macro area but formulas that proved to be capable of the self-reproduction code accommodation. February – March 1998: â€Å"Win95. HPS† and â€Å"Win95. Marburg† – the first polymorphous Windows32-viruses were detected and furthermore they were â€Å"in-the-wild†. The anti-virus programs developers had nothing to do but rush to adjust the polymorphous viruses detecting technique, designed so far just for DOS-viruses, to the new conditions. March 1998: â€Å"AccessiV† – the first Microsoft Access virus was born. There was no any boom about that (as it was with â€Å"Word. Concept† and â€Å"Excel. Laroux† viruses) as the computer society already got used to that the MS Office applications go down thick and fast. March 1998: The â€Å"Cross† macro-virus, the first virus infecting two different MS Office applications – Access and Word, is detected. Hereupon several more viruses transferring their codes from one MS Office application to the other have emerged. May 1998 – The â€Å"RedTeam† virus infects Windows EXE-files and dispatches the infected files through Eudora e-mail. June 1998 – The â€Å"Win95. CIH† virus epidemic at the beginning was mass, then became global and then turned to a kind of computer holocaust – quantity of messages on computer networks and home personal computers infection came to the value of hundreds if not thousands pierces. The epidemic beginning was registered in Taiwan where some unknown hacker mailed the infected files to local Internet conferences. Therefrom virus has made the way to USA where through the staff oversight infected at once several popular Web servers that started to distribute infected game programs. Most likely these infected files on game servers brought about this computer holocaust that dominated the computer world all the year. According to the â€Å"popularity† ratings the virus pushed â€Å"Word. CAP† and â€Å"Excel. Laroux† to second cabin. One should also pay attention to the virus dangerous manifestation – depending on the current date the virus erased Flash BIOS what in some conditions could kill motherboard. August 1998: Nascence of the sensational â€Å"BackOrifice† (â€Å"Backdoor. BO†) – utility of latent (hacker's) management of remote computers and networks. After â€Å"BackOrifice† some other similar programs – â€Å"NetBus†, â€Å"Phase† and other – came into being. Also in August the first virus infecting the Java executed files – â€Å"Java. StangeBrew† – was born. The virus was not any danger to the Internet users as there was no way to employ critical for the virus replication functions on any remote computer. However it revealed that even the Web servers browsers could be attacked by viruses. November 1998: â€Å"VBScript. Rabbit† – The Internet expansion of computer parasites proceeded by three viruses infecting VisualBasic scripts (VBS files), which being actively used in Web pages development. As the logical consequence of VBScript-viruses the full value HTML-virus (â€Å"HTML. Internal†) was born to life. Virus-writers obviously turned their efforts to the network applications and to the creation of full value Network Worm-Virus that could employ the MS Windows and Office options, infect remote computers and Web-servers or/and could aggressively replicate itself through e-mail. The anti-virus manufacturers world was also considerably rearranged. In May 1998 Symantec and IBM announced the union of their forces on the anti-virus market. The collective product would be under the Norton Anti-Virus trade mark distributed and the IBM Anti-Virus (IBMAV) program is liquidated. Response of the main competitors, Dr. Solomon and NAI (former McAfee), followed immediately. They issued the press-releases offering the IBM product users to promotionally replace the dead anti-virus with their own products. Less then one month later Dr. Solomon â€Å"committed suicide†. The

Gender and Power in the Media Essay

Media is the best avenue for companies to advertise their products, especially if they want to reach a greater scopre of target consumers. Every day, persuasion through the television, internet, and radio commercials, as well as in printed ads and billboards will make them sell more of their products in an effectual manner (Allen). Radio and television are the two channels where most Americans get information, especially news, aside from the Internet, magazines, and many others. And because of these two media, they can definitely change the way audiences perceive things in society, especially the youth, who may be more vulnerable to media influence compared to adults. This may partly be attributed to their inexperience. It affects how they decide on things that matter greatly to them and to others (Reed). The core and obvious difference is that the radio only produces sound, while the television produces both sound and images. The radio was formed from different ideas coming from Michael Faraday’s electromagnetism, to James Clark Maxwell’s treatise on electricity and magnetism, to Heinrich Hertz’ Hertzian waves, down to Gugliemo Marconi’s wireless telegraph and signal company (the world’s first radio factory) and tuned syntonic telegraphy (Parker). The radio was first used as a transmitter of information, especially for the ships who sails long distances (Parker). This later on became a major requirement for ships, especially to have radio auxiliary power and two operators with a licensed driver after the Titanic sank in early 1900’s (Schoenherr). Previously, the programs in radio were only for musical and talk show purposes. However, starting 1940, the programs in radio also offered drama and news (Schoenher). In California, KALW San Francisco is one of the stations that operated in FM as it was aired on September 1. 1941. It was licensed by the Federal Communications Commission on March 10, 1941, to broadcast educational programs. Its first program was Schoolcast. The listeners of this program were mostly soldiers training in tanks as their radio is reached by the signal of the station (Tripod. com). Radio was even once classified as monopolistic competition, as only few individuals or group of people operate the radio industry in some states. But with the Telecommunications act of 1996, ownership was also granted to some groups (Drushel). Nowadays, there are registered and licensed 643 public and private FM and AM radio stations available for the listeners in California. One of these is 102. 7 KIIS FM or KISS FM in Spanish located in Los Angeles (SHG Resources State Handbook and Guide). The station was first heard in 1948. Presently, it was owned and managed by Clear Channel Communications. The station is actually a result of change formats, purchasing, and trade frequencies among defunct radio stations, individuals, and companies. Today it the stations is also known as LA’s #1 Hit Music Radio Station as it is one of the highest rated Radio station in the United States, and is recognized as 2007’s station of the year. The station plays R&B, pop, and rock music. They said that their play list is based on the likes of their listeners. Unlike any other station, they censor the songs before they play it on air. One of the popular personalities in the station is Ryan Seacrest. In society, some topics are beyond common knowledge, for example technical terms that are medical in nature and only medical experts can further explain. By having discussions on the radio or in television or having these placed in an article will allow information for more people, especially if these concern health and safety of the majority. Critical issues need to be exposed, analyzed, evaluated, and properly addressed, thus the role of media is vital in this stage (RadioIslam. org). Popular media, like FM Radio programs, particularly KIIS FM, in the late capitalist societies became the primary source of knowledge and experience virtually about anything, including gender. It is said that they are important in the creation of power relations in society (Hains). Take for example the social status of women and men. In the construction of gender and sexuality, it is said that the school, particularly the teacher, plays a very important role in this crucial stage. As expected, one can only be masculine and feminine. In some cases, some of the abuses of these children are coming from male teachers, whether this be physical or verbal. Some experts opine that femininity is always shown as sexual appeal, while men are sex seekers. Students would favor a woman teacher rather than a male teacher because they act as mothers and more overtly show concern for their students. To some students, male teachers are impatient. Male students are punished heavily by male teachers as compared to female students. Having said all of these, we can say that both sexes experience harassment and abuse from both sexes, and not just the females (Chege). The media can use their influence to expose these problems and seek help and justice for this people, who at an early age have been subjected to such trauma. Moreover, it may be worth noting that media may also be partly blamed for reinforcing both the abusive behavior of the teacher and the shame felt by student over her stigma (Chege). Previously, females were viewed as passive. They are not allowed to work and usually stay at home, doing the chores of a wife, and only serve as trophies of their husbands. Worse, they are not allowed to go to school as it was believed that only men can seek education since they are the heads of their families. They are always expected to watch themselves and to act according to the norms of society, especially in the eyes of men as she is the object of men’s sight. Her skin must be supple, hairless, and smooth. Her face must be free of wrinkles, with no signs of stress or whatsoever. Her lips must be kissable, and her eyes mysterious. Women are said to be more restricted with their movements. They must be cross legged when sitting, and toes pointing only in straight or inward directions. Aside from these, they are also trained to show their smiles more than men do. They must stand with stomach in and chest out. If any of these are violated, it means that they violated norms of morals, speech, and movements. Moreover, women tend to occupy the lower and marginalized positions in a company, or even in society. Most women are given reproductive, productive, and community work. Reproductive tasks would include giving birth, feeding and educating her kids, taking care of her husband and children, and other domestic tasks. Her productive work would mean to produce products and services for others’ consumption. Community work would entail her to support different activities that will directly benefit society through volunteerism. However, not all women are given the chance to enjoy community work, since they are burdened by her reproductive and productive functions. Men tend to be more powerful in most realms. Needless to say, they occupy most of the highest positions in industrial organizations and society; thus the glass ceiling phenomenon (Chege). On the other hand, men are expected to be active, and to make things happen. They go out of their houses to work, and were sent to school whether they like it or not. Men are allowed to sit with legs apart so they can move loosely from one place to another (Employees. oneonta. edu). Nowadays, as media plays a greater role in building society, things have changed. There is equality among men and women. Women are more empowered to do things that men usually do. Media brought the new concept of a woman, someone who is ideal. For most, what is beautiful is a woman who is firm, with a narrow hip, with a small breast, and slim, as evidenced by the models in the cover of a magazine. For those who do not posses this kind of body, dieting is an alternative. Another way is to have surgery in order to enhance one’s physical attributes. Diet and surgery are some of the popular topics both in print and non-print media (Employees. oneonta. edu). Women are becoming more liberal as evidenced in the paper of Izabel Magalhaes. She said that it the responsibility of media especially radio in introducing the said concept to these women. Media is more open about talking about women’s stories that discuss their sex experiences at the expense of entertainment of others (Magalhaes). They say what they feel; they enact what they think (Employees. oneonta. edu). Women would go to school and get the job opportunities opened for men, and nowadays, women excel in different fields, almost overtaking men in different positions and levels. Some male workers would even be surprised that their boss is a woman In KIIS FM; men are not the only DJ’s in the station. There are also women who work everyday for the station. Even in describing the achievements of a woman, some adjectives that are associated with men are actually used. Those words are not anymore exclusive to men. The main reason is that men are usually viewed as individuals with physical strength. Nowadays, physical strength is not the only issue, topics about men’s health, fashion, and trips are now being featured by the media. This time, the notion that men only desires for women is not anymore true, since nowadays they are also interested in fashion, health, and many other things like women do (Magalhaes). As what have mentioned a while ago, media, particularly radio is also used to attract possible buyers by different companies. It is said that advertising, such as those in radios, contributes in representing and constructing gender identities in urban region which also exists in the past. The interests of large corporations are presented to the people, and whoever has the most interesting advertising skills and features will be favored by the consumers (Magalhaes). Alternatives were provided in front of us everyday, both are competitively packaged. Women are now represented by these advertisements as liberal, yet viewed as a commodity to be used by the society. Men on the other hand, are presented to be not only dominant over women, but with other types of men as well: disabled, heterosexual, homosexuals, and many others. At some point, women remains presented as incapable and dependent on men, and that it is assumed by the society that their existence is for the purpose of men’s pleasure. Some advertisements would use adjectives for a product that is a characteristic of a woman (Magalhaes). The choice of words will trigger our minds to think of different things. But because of these, more women are verbally harassed by men, whether in public or in private places. This injury is transformed into grievance, and lastly to a dispute. These situations encouraged more women to aspire greater positions in the society like in Congress, in the courtroom, or in media, and to acquire greater power. It is assumed that the media can change an individual’s outlook in life, behavior, ethics, and values. The combination of media with law, for example, has goals of transforming the society, using naming, blaming, and claiming. Naming would imply discussing harassment and defining it; blaming would mean identifying the suspect for harassment; and claiming would demand for the transformation of grievance into a remedy. In this situation, media can be used to educate the people in the different harassments that women acquire. But despite this fact, until now, there are still women who remains marginalized in the society. They still remain powerless and voiceless against the criminals (Laniya). Aside from advertising, media is also influential in the political realm. In every Presidential election, candidates would use the media to reach more people, and to persuade them to vote for him or her, such as in the case of the United States. This scheme started in 1930’s and 40’s when President Roosevelt used the radio to campaign in such a conversational manner with the people. Its success triggered other U. S Presidents to follow him, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Aside from media exposure for these candidates, media can also be a source of funds for the candidates (The University of Texas at Austin). The voter’s idea of the personality of the speaker either make or break them. However, we should remember that personality and leadership is not really together. There were presidents who are idolized for their great leadership, but not for their personality. There were inefficient leaders who are revered for their personality (The University of Texas at Austin). Television and radio debates are important especially in educating the voters about who the deserving candidate They scrutinize the past and present of this candidates. But although media affects our decision regarding this matter, studies would show that face to face contact is still the most effective medium to get votes from the people. In election histories, it is said that a well oiled political machine, particularly with good relationship with the media, is more likely to win the elections (The University of Texas at Austin). In this juncture, we can say that indeed, media has the power to make a change, but not as much powerful as we do (The University of Texas at Austin). The real problem is that people does not have the power to control the media. It is said that in this setting it is the minority that dictates the people the things that they want others to know, the events that will only be consider for reporting, the facts that will be examined and evaluated, and many other instances. This minority controls the media, which affects the politics of the country, then way wee live, the way we talk, the way we think, and many others. The discussion on radio and televisions regarding any political issue that directly affects the interest of the people is only limited, as it is restricted to discuss some sensitive issues. Take for example if the discussion on the radio program is anti-Semitism, the station would not actually invite true anti-Semitist. In this case, the discussion is not really a discussion of the topic at all. Investigative journalism on the other hand, plays as a hero in revealing to us the hidden truth, up to some point that they already invade public lives (RadioIslam. org). The music played on the radio affects our moods and our emotions. Music can trigger sad and happy memories, depending on the song played at the program. Radio stations can dictate what kind of music and genres society ought to appreciate, and which singers ought to be popular. It modifies choice of music into something that favors the capitalist. Other artists may not be given the chance to be heard and present their talent (RadioIslam. org).

drama improvisation essays

drama improvisation essays processes for the Elizabethan period In this essay based on improvisation, and the process that we undertook in the play building process I will describe the processes and stages that we went through but first, the main period of time that inspired our drama play was Elizabethan, theater during the Elizabethan times was often based around the lives and deaths of monarchs (kings and queens). Our play relates to the conventions of theater at the time because it was based around monarchs. The central purpose of this play was to point out the amount of superstition and envy that was often in the royal family but never seen by the public, as well as to entertain and educate the viewing audience about the Elizabethan times and what the Elizabethan plays were about and the sort of characters that were involved in these sort of plays: witches, kings, queens, princesses, soldiers, lady in waiting, and princes. As well as any other characters that may be required. The characters of out play are representative of characters of the sixteenth century because the witch planted a seed of ambition in the princess and the king goes off to battle, and the queen receives a report that the king is missing in action and presumed dead. The princess thinks that she should be the one to assume the throne because she is older than her brother but, when her brother is crowned heir to the throne the infuriated princess goes to the witch for a prediction of the future. This is where the witch plants the seed of ambition; this is an example of representation of characters of the sixteenth century. The plot of our drama performance was a reminiscent of the sixteenth century because there are witches, but the main similarity between our play and a drama performance of the sixteenth century is that in the sixteenth century drama a monarch was usually killed, in our play a monarch was also killed, the monarch tha ...

11 Easy Steps for How to Draw a Dog

Easy Steps for How to Draw a Dog SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Dogs are cute! Who hasn’t taken a moment to doodle their favorite pooch on the side of their paper before? But like many animals, dogs can be hard to draw well, especially from memory. If you are trying to up your drawing skill, this guide for how to draw a dog is for you! We’ll cover all the basics of learning to draw animals and dogs in particular, and walk you through drawing a dog step by step. 4 General Tips for Drawing Dogs and Animals Drawing animals can be really challenging! Living creatures are often harder to draw than static objects, as you want your animal drawings to be full of life. Here’s a few tips to get you started! Use References It might feel like cheating to use a reference, but it’s a-OK. Professional artists use references all the time to help their artwork feel more realistic. A reference photo will help you see what a dog looks like without trying to make a real dog sit still the entire time you’re working. There are so many kinds of dogs that it’s practically impossible to remember how to draw all of them. Even if they have similar skeletal structures (which isn’t always the case), their fur texture, eye shape, and size can vary pretty widely. You can take your own reference photos or use ones you find in books or online to help you get the details right. Study Anatomy You don’t have to go to veterinary school, but spending some time looking at animal anatomy will help you better understand how an animal sits, stands, and moves. Pay particular attention to the location of the spine, as this will help you figure out how the animal is shaped. When you know that, you’ll have an easier time positioning the head, legs, and tails appropriately. You can also get a better handle on their muscle structure, which is particularly helpful when drawing animals with short fur and pronounced muscles. Though you don’t need to replicate every detail in your drawing, understanding how an animal’s body works can make your drawings feel more lifelike, even in a cartoony style. Start With Simple Shapes Even complicated drawings are based on simple shapes. A light underdrawing that consists primarily of primary shapes is a great foundation for more detailed drawings; you can build on the basic shapes to help your drawing feel lifelike. Look at an animal’s anatomy and imagine it as several connected shapes. You might see a large oval for the ribcage and a rounded rectangle for the head, or an almost kidney bean-like shape for an animal’s leg. These are just guidelines- they’ll need refinement to really work in a drawing, but using these shapes to guide your work will help you stay on track as you’re drawing. Draw Lightly It takes time and effort to draw well. Start off with light pencil for sketching, and don’t be afraid to erase and try again. As you progress through the drawing process, you can erase your guidelines and draw in heavier pencil. This helps keep you on target and gets rid of the unnecessary lines. When you’re ready, you can go back over your drawing in ink or marker, and erase the pencil marks entirely. That ensures that only the lines you want are visible! This also works for digital illustration. Using layers in illustration programs, you can have underdrawings and layers of increasing detail, which can be turned off when you no longer need them. With practice, you'll soon be doing way better than this. How to Draw a Dog: The Simple Method Even when you’re drawing a simple dog, it’s smart to have an understanding of basic dog anatomy. It might sound silly or unnecessary, but even cartoony drawings need to be based in reality to look right. As mentioned above, take some time to look at dog anatomy and learn the basic shapes that make a dog up to help you make even a simple dog look great! Because there are so many kinds of dogs, we can’t provide a tutorial for how to draw all of them. Instead, here’s a simple guide for drawing a sitting dog that can be adjusted depending on what kind of dog you’re drawing. A modest beginning. Sketch the Muzzle All you need is an oval to start with. Don’t get caught up in making it look perfect- you can make adjustments to it later. Also, don’t worry about details. Just get a circle down and we’ll add to it later, once we have the body done. It doesn't look like much yet... Draw the Head Sketch the shape of the head around the oval you’ve drawn for the muzzle. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect, because you can change it at any time. You can change the shape depending on how you want your dog to look. Some dogs have very round heads while others are more angular, but having the head oval in place gives you a structure to work around. Looking a bit more like a dog now. Add a Nose Dog noses are unusually shaped. They actually look a bit like mushroom slices, with an exaggerated flare at the bottom. You can start by drawing a sort of rounded triangle, then adding the nostrils to flesh it out. A simple nose or a detailed one can be equally effective depending on how detailed your drawing is. Making progress... Add Ears A dog’s ears can be a great source of expression! Depending on what kind of dog you’re drawing, the ears may be floppy, upright, or even cropped. Start with the basic shape and tweak it from there. Eyes make a big difference. Add Eyes Let’s keep it simple here- eyes are tricky to draw well! Two little ovals will do the job for now, so if we’re doing a simple cartoony drawing, we don’t have to get very detailed. You can add eyebrows to give your dog more of an expression. Dogs don’t have eyebrows exactly like we do, but some have eyebrow-like markings just above their eyes. Feel free to use your imagination! Okay, it's definitely a dog now. Add a Mouth Dogs have two rounded shapes beneath their noses that often turn upwards, making it look as though they’re smiling. You can draw these shapes as rounded ovals to make the dog look happier, or make them more angular and pointed downward to make your dog look more serious. In combination with the ears, the dog’s mouth is the best way to convey emotion. The egg-shaped body feels like a bit of a step backward. Add a Body The body looks a bit like an egg, with the top hidden behind the dog’s head. Again, draw it lightly and go over it later to add more detail. These legs leave something to be desired. Add Front Legs Draw two straight lines and add a little oval at the end for the paw. You can embellish these with spots or fur, but the basic shape is just two sets of two lines with a little oval at the end. I wanted a husky-like tail, even if it looks a bit like a banana right now. Add a Tail What kind of tail a dog has depends on its breed. You can draw a skinny tail, a fluffy one, or no tail at all depending on what kind of dog you’re drawing. These legs are a little on the abstract side. Add Back Legs Back legs are a little more difficult to visualize, but think back to the anatomy of a dog. The dog’s thigh is kind of like a tilted oval, and the foot and lower leg are like an elongated, squashed oval. All these are just sketch lines, so if they look a little funky now, that’s okay- you can fix them up with detail later on. Details and ink definitely help the doggy appearance. Add Details and Finish Up Now that you have the basic structure of your dog, you can touch things up with detail, erase all your sketch lines, and outline in ink. Some things to add to make your dog look more lifelike and cute are color, fur textures, and whiskers. Take a look at real dogs and see the features that make them unique, then make adjustments to yours to make it look special, too! How to Draw a Dog: The Detailed Method Drawing a detailed dog is a lot like drawing a simple dog, though it will likely take you more time and effort. Again, understand the simple shapes that make up a dog. Look at skeletal structure and muscle groups to help you understand what they look like under all that fur, as those are the features you’ll start with before you add more detail. First and foremost: start simple. It’s easier to draw a familiar yellow lab than it is to draw something more complex, like a Puli. That goes for shapes, too. Underdrawing is even more important when drawing detailed dogs than it is for simple dogs, even if you feel like you’re erasing most of the work. And erasing is a big part of drawing detailed dogs. You probably won’t get it perfect the first time, but that’s okay! The dog up above was my first attempt, and if I continued to practice I would get better. Erase and try again and again. You might not notice your skill improving, but every drawing you do brings you closer to the artist you want to be. This beautiful dog is going to be our reference photo. Start With a Reference You can use your own photo or one you find online, but add your own embellishments and tweaks to really make it your own. You don’t need to trace, though you can if you’re just starting out and want to get a better grasp on what dogs look like. It’s not wrong to learn by tracing, but it’s a good idea to use those drawings as practice unless you took the photo yourself. Many artists take their own reference photos. If you can’t, you can use one you find online, but aim to make your drawing substantially different from the reference if you plan to use the picture for something other than practice. Starting with a reference photo lets you work off of an existing image, which can help your drawing be more accurate. Use what you know of skeletal structure so you can better draw the shapes that make up a dog. Not very impressive. Outline Shapes Naturally, dogs are made up of many complex parts. But when you’re starting your drawing, just focus on the basics- the shapes that make up the basic form of a dog. If you were to just imagine a dog’s silhouette, you might see a rounded rectangle for the head, a large oval of the chest, and another oval for the hindquarters. Start with a line to keep the body parts aligned. The line can be straight or slightly curved, depending on what position you’ll draw the dog in. Then draw the basic shapes at their appropriate places, centering them on the line. After some redrawing, we have the basic form of the dog in our photo. Outline Shapes for Larger Features Now that you have the basic dog shape down, you can add just a little more detail. Focus on drawing the larger features of a dog- the snout, feet, and legs. Again, draw shapes rather than detailed features, as you’ll add all the little stuff later. Fill in the places where those features meet the body, and connect the larger sections of the body together. You’ll flesh all of this out later on; for now, you just want it to look like the basic silhouette of a dog, not something instantly recognizable as whatever breed of dog you’re trying to draw. This dog is more muscular than furry, so I focused on the muscles. Add Body Contour Now’s the time to start getting into detail, mostly in the body. Add some rough structure to the body, such as muscle definition for short-haired dogs or fur outlines for long-haired dogs. Look at where the breed is thicker or thinner, and emphasize those areas of the body. Look at where fur gathers on images of the type of dog you’re drawing, and also where muscles are more visible. Those are the areas to emphasize here, but, as always, don’t get too invested in details yet. Also take a moment to draw the legs and feet in more detail. Add toes and fur, if necessary, so you have a clearer picture of what the final dog will look like. Hey, that's a dog! Erase Unnecessary Lines Get rid of the guidelines you used, as from now on you’ll mostly be fleshing out details and shading. You’ve spent enough time on the basic shape, adding some fur and details, that you no longer need your initial shapes and guidelines. Now’s the time to add basic outlines for the dog’s ears, eyes, nose, and snout details. Get their placement and shape right, and be sure they look similar to those in your reference photo. This will probably take some time. Don’t get frustrated if you have to draw and redraw these features several times- these are details that are important to get right, but that can be quite tricky to execute well. You might have to do a lot of practice, but it’ll be worth it in the end! Add Fur Texture Now you can add fur and fluff to the details you added in the last step. Add a little fur to the ears or little tufts on the legs. If you’re not drawing a particularly shaggy dog, add more muscle definition. Use shading to emphasize where the dog’s muscles would show, and sketch out areas where the dog is more muscular to make it look more realistic. Just as you’ve done throughout the drawing, start with general details before you get into the smaller ones. Go for general fur shape, then add fuzzier patches. Get the general body shape and muscle structure done, then add muscles that are in use given your reference photo’s pose. It's not perfect, but that just means it's time to practice! Finishing Touches You’re almost done! Take some time to add additional details to things like the dog’s nose and eyes, and add teeth or a tongue depending on whether the dog’s mouth is open. You can also add spots or other color patterns if your dog has them. Just shading will accomplish this, or you can use full color to give your picture even more pop. However, it is possible to get too detailed. Some artists draw intensely detailed images while others are a little more sparing. Both are great art styles, so don’t feel like adding tons of detail is the only way to make your art look realistic and interesting! Additional Tips for Drawing Dogs Once you've got the basics down, drawing a dog is a matter of practice. Keep trying to improve, even when it feels like your skill isn’t getting better. But if you need some additional help in drawing certain parts or certain kinds of dogs, consider these tips! How To Draw a Dog’s Face Drawing a dog’s face can be particularly tricky- we want our drawing’s faces to be as expressive and cute as real dogs. Understanding what a dog’s skull is like is a great first step, as you’ll be able to see what parts move, what parts don’t, and where important features like the ears and eyes sit. Outline the basic shape before adding features. You can block them in using lines to be sure that they’re all aligned properly. As with the rest of the dog, start with the broader details and then fill in the specific ones. Start with the shape of the eyes, for example, and refine them until they look right. Then add the iris and pupils as well as surrounding fur. You can always make changes, but it’s easier to start with the larger details and fill in the specific ones than end up having the erase everything because you can’t get the shape to look right after you’ve drawn the details. How to Draw a Puppy Puppies are a lot more than miniature dogs- they have different features, which means there are special considerations to keep in mind when drawing them as opposed to adult dogs. For one, puppies often have proportionally larger paws than adult dogs. Drawing the paws a bit larger is a good way to clue people into the fact that you’re drawing a puppy! Puppies are also generally a little chubbier, with more rounded bodies. Though some might be a little muscular, for the most part puppies will be more rounded- combined with other puppy features like larger paws, a rounded body can make a dog look younger. Some breeds also have gangly legs, especially as they begin to grow into adolescents. A few adult breeds, such as borzois and greyhounds, may look gangly as adults, but many dogs get that same look as they’re growing up. It’s okay to make your puppy drawings look a little awkward- it’s true to life! Another good detail for puppies is that their eyes often look proportionally larger than those of adult dogs. This is a common feature of baby animals, and it’s part of the reason that people love them so much. A large head, round eyes, and smaller nose and mouth remind us a lot of human babies, so use those features to make your puppy drawings look even cuter! What’s Next? Don't be afraid to experiment with different styles when drawing dogs. Check out this guide to how to do contour line art and try out a whole new art direction! Not sure what to draw now that you've mastered dogs? This list of 100 different drawing ideas is sure to help. Drawing is a great hobby, but it can also make you money. Check out this list of art scholarships to help you turn your skills into cash for college! Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Melissa Brinks About the Author Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to help them prepare for their college education. 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