Rogues, rogues, and more rogues

There seems to be a never-ending stream of new rogue programs every week. I think what is happening is that they come out so fast and get spread so quickly that the anti-virus programs can't keep up with them, and so they slip through. Today I had 2 customer calls where McAfee ($$) failed to protect a system and another system running AVG Free also managed to get infected with yet another new rogue.

Frequently one result of these rogues is that the user cannot access the internet. Also, the more clever rogues will block the usual programs from executing. One solution that seems to work most of the time for me is another free program. I have a new number one favorite tool to fight the rogues. It is SuperAntispyware Portable. I download it at home to a flash or thumb drive and show up at my customer's home or shop, which was the case in one of the 2 calls today, ready to go. I point to my flash drive, click on the icon, and select Open. That's it. No installation. The portable tool goes right to work. Unfortunately, as with so many scanners, the program runs for a long time, but today it did the job for me.

You can download it here and use it on your own machines, although if you are able to, I suggest you favor the full free version of SupreAntispyware that you already have on your system. You do ave it installed already, right?

Download SuperAntispyware Portable version here

Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers

I get this question a lot from many of you: "Who are these guys who do this stuff?". The Wall Street Journal provides a partial answer in this article.

Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers

"HOOGEZAND-SAPPEMEER, Netherlands—In this sleepy Dutch town last December, police burst into the bedroom of 19-year-old Martijn Gonlag as he hurriedly pulled on jeans over his boxer shorts. He was hauled away on suspicion of taking part in cyber attacks by the online group calling itself Anonymous.

Mr. Gonlag admits taking part in several attacks on websites, but he recently had a change of heart as some hackers adopted increasingly aggressive tactics."

Read more here.....

Note: If this link does not get you to the complete story, go to Google and search for "Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers". Click on the link provided in the Google results. By the way, watch the video found imbedded in the article.

 

Firefox 5.0

I got a pop-up from Mozilla this morning informing me that Firefox 5.0 was available and I was encouraged to download and install it, which I did. The download and install was very simple and quite fast and the resulting product (what I see on my screen) is identical to the old Firefox 4. I am not interested in bells and whistles yet. I just wanted everything to look the same, and it does. Most importantly, my Bookmarks are all there, displayed as a sidebar down the left side of the screen. I guess you could say I am pretty set in my ways, and you'd be right. I am happy with Firefox 5.0.

As an aside, I would probably be happy with Google's Chrome too, but for some strange reason Google is adamant about NOT providing a sidebar for displaying Bookmarks, so a Firefox user I shall remain. I am disappointed to see, as I travel around to your homes or work on your laptops that many of you have Chrome installed, but don't know how it got there or why it was installed and you don't even use it. The answer is pretty simple. Google has paid some companies a lot of money, I imagine, to have them also download and install Chrome when you download and install their product. Be careful and read the fine print when you download programs and make note of what options are pre-selected, usually with a check mark in a box. The good news is that it is easy to get rid of Chome if you don't use it or want it. Just go to your Control Panel and uninstall it.

CDS Parts

CDS Parts bills itself as the place to go for "hard to find notebook & laptop replacement parts".

Most of those of you who know my PC services know that I am pretty much a software guy and I don't normally like to dismantle laptops. Desktops, I will work on those, but laptops are a whole different breed. If you take a laptop apart, you'd better read and then reread the instructions before putting screw driver to screw. One false move and you might as well salvage your hard drive and scrap the rest.

I have been tempted to take my Acer Aspire 5100 laptop apart to fix a faulty left "mouse" key built in on the touchpad. I communicated with CDS after reviewing what I thought were my options. I had two wonderful e-mails as a fellow named Chad from CDS responded to my inquiries. He seemed very knowledgable and replied quickly to my notes. I was very impressed by this level of customer service, sorely lacking in so many companies today. I have not yet done any business with CDS, mostly because I am a little nervous about the tasks that lie ahead if I try to fix this problem myself. If I do decide to proceed as a DIY project, I will definitely deal with CDS Parts based solely on the way Chad handled my inquiries. I do not hesitate at all to recommend CDS to you too, should you find yourself needing "hard to find notebook & laptop replacement parts".

Thank you CDS.

CDS PARTS

Excited About the Cloud? Get Ready for Capped Data Plans

From the New York Times, by David Pogue.

"The tech world seems to move in spurts and spasms, and right now we’re in the middle of the “cloud” wave.

Personally, I find the term “in the cloud” pretentious and annoying. Don’t they just mean “online?” Yes, I realize that computer professionals are referring to something much more specific — “data and application software stored on remote servers,” for example — but the world’s marketers and P.R. people seem to think that “the cloud” just means “online.” (“Now you can buy your toiletries in the cloud!!”)"

Read more here....

100 Years of IBM: Milestones

My employer for 30 years has turned 100. Happy Birthday IBM!

This article is from PCWorld.

"IBM is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding Thursday. Led by American capitalist icons Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Thomas J. Watson, Jr. until the 1970s, the company grew from a pre-World War I conglomeration of companies making tabulating machines and time-keeping devices into a globe-spanning technology behemoth that pioneered the development of electronic computers and dominated the mainframe era.

The company holds a mind-boggling array of patents and pioneered advances in a wide range of technologies including punched cards, processors, transistors, storage, word-processing, databases and OSes. As one of the emblematic 20th-century corporations, IBM also went through turbulent times. The U.S. government brought several antitrust lawsuits against the company, and critics have attacked it for alleged cosiness with repressive regimes. After Tom Watson Jr. retired in the 1971, the company seemed to lose its way as mainframe computing began to face competition from smaller, more modular systems. Increasing bureaucracy contributed to missteps during the PC revolution, and IBM suffered a series of annual losses in the early 1990s. Under the reins of then-CEO Lou Gerstner, starting in the mid-90s, the company bounced back to profit by focusing on software, system integration and other services, which remain key to the company's growth today."

Read more.....