And now, (ANOTHER) word from our sponsor

Actually, I am the sponsor. One of my little ventures is called Boothbay Region For Rent By Owner or BRFRBO. I guess the name says it all, but let me add that the Boothbay Region of Maine has become a very special place for our family. We purchased a small summer cottage back in 1974 in an area known as Ocean Point , which is in East Boothbay which is in Boothbay.

On this web site we have listed 25 rental properties including some year-round  homes. Boothbay, as you may know, is on the ocean. I honestly believe that if you go there once for a long weekend or a vacation, you will want to return. Please check it out. Click on the photo or link below the photo to see our web site.

BRFRBO

MailStore Home – Easy Email Archiving, Backup and Migration

I am excited about the possibilities of this FREE program. I read about it on technibble.com. I just downloaded it and will try it on my desktop PC, the one that runs Windows XP SP3. Here's why: In the early 2000s and maybe late 1990s I ran Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client of choice. This was way before Google Mail. In 2005 I switched over to Microsoft's Outlook, IMHO the Cadillac of client e-mail programs. I use Outlook now and back in the old days I used it as well.

Here is my situation. I saved all of my Thunderbird e-mail from those years. I have always wanted to import that e-mail into Outlook, but Mozilla would not come up with a way to export their Thunderbird e-mail in a format that could be imported into Outlook. Microsoft, on the other hand, never came up with a method to import Thunderbird e-mail into Outlook. Replies from both companies were basically a finger-pointing exercise, each saying the other should do it. To the best of my knowledge, neither ever made it a possibility.

So this program, "Email archiving, backup & migration", holds some promise for me. I am not sure when I will try using it to import my Thunderbird e-mail into Outlook. After all, how important can this be in the big scheme of things? (Yawn!). If and wehn I do try, I will report back on this blog.


In the meantime, perhaps some others of you out there might be able to make use of this program. So do check it out if this appeals to you, at http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx.

Wanna buy a Mac?

I have decided that I do not want to keep my MacBook Pro 17" laptop. I have found that it is not compatible with me! That is about the size of it. "It just ain't Windows!" In spite of all the derogatory talk about Windows over these many years, and the very positive talk about Apple products, I am here to say that the Mac is NOT as user-friendly as Windows. Okay, disclaimer: I have owned my Mac for 2 years, used it for less than one, and have had umpteen years of experience with Windows. I am comfortable with Windows, and I am not comfortable with OS/X, which is, I think, the name of the operating system on my Mac.

The MacBook Pro cost so much ($2800 when I purchased it and then I added MS Office for Mac). K-ching! More big bucks.

The machine seems to me to have been designed for a lefty. One look and you will see why I say that - everything but the hardly-ever used CD/DVD drive is on the left side. To close a window, one has to click the upper left hand corner of the window. It is all backwards for a Windows guy.

A Mac is much like a PC. It has updates - frequently. Presumably to fix problems? The system hangs from time to time and I have to shut it down and re-boot. It is much like a PC in these matters.

Anyway, I would like very much to divest myself of this asset. I bought it so that I could expand my PC Doctor service offerings. I have never done that and am not now motivated to do so. If you really want to see what all the shouting is about and really want a Mac laptop, this is one well-configured machine, in excellent condition, and I will let it go for a fraction of its original cost to me. It has almost a full year of extended warranty service left. I have never used the extended warranty. Please write me if you are interested. pcdoc@brpcdoc.com.

Fixing Those Ailing Laptop Keys

I have never seen this subject covered before in the media, but it is one that deserves some attention. This is from the New York Times.

"Q. How hard and expensive is it to replace stuck or broken laptop keys yourself if you don’t want to drag the computer into a repair shop?

A. Laptop keyboards vary by manufacturer, so the task of fixing one yourself also varies in complexity and price for parts. Several sites sell replacement keys and other necessary hardware to do the job, and most charge about $5 a key. So if you have the time, patience and technical fearlessness to tackle the job yourself, it can cost you less than $20 if you just need a few keys replaced.

Sites like replacementlaptopkeys.com and laptopkey.com steer you through finding the right parts for your laptop model. Both sites also have video installation guides to illustrate the repair process. General computer-repair sites like laptoprepair101.com and ifixit.com may also provide useful information."

Hackers zap Zappos: Info from 24 million users stolen

Yet another one of these. This is from foxnews.com.

"Popular online shoe retailer Zappos.com said late Sunday that hackers had accessed its network, stealing customer account information from as many as 24 million customers.
Credit card information was not stolen, company CEO Tony Hsieh said in a statement sent to users, but email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits from credit cards -- and more -- may have been compromised.
"We were recently the victim of a cyberattack by a criminal who gained access to parts of our internal network and systems through one of our servers in Kentucky," reads a statement posted on the company's blog. "We are cooperating with law enforcement to undergo an exhaustive investigation."

Read more of this article here

MRT Time!

January's MSRT is now available if you have applied the latest updates to Windows on your systems. It is comforting to run it once a month and to get this result.

TuneUp Utilities 2012

I love TuneUp Utilities. I have been using it for many years. I last commented on it in this blog back in 2010. See http://pcdocsblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/and-answer-is.html.

I recently acquired the 2012 version and it is the best version I have ever used. I think I use most every program included in the suite, but I do have my favorites. Ask me if interested.

You can find out more about TuneUp Utilities 2012 here.

Bubble Wrap Fun

MVPS HOSTS File for January 2012

The subject file is available now.

Those of you keeping up with this important security assist will find what you need below. If anyone has any questions, write me at pcdoc@brpcdoc.com.



The MVPS HOSTS file was recently updated [January-05-2012]
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Download: hosts.zip (146 kb)
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.zip

How To: Download and Extract the HOSTS filehttp://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts2.htm

HOSTS File - Frequently Asked Questions
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hostsfaq.htm
Note: the "text" version makes a great resource for determining possible unwanted connections ...
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt (594 kb)
 
Get notified when the MVPS HOSTS file is updated
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/updates.htm

Consumers turn to do-not-track software to maintain privacy

A friend sent me a link to this article, and I found it most interesting. I have always used Ad Block Plus as a Firefox extension. I always just let it run and never checked its logs, if it has any, as to what it had blocked. So the idea of a blocker like Do Not Track Plus and Ghostery, that actually show you, on a real-time basis, what has been blocked, was fascinating to me.

My friend had installed Do Not Track Plus and was quite pleased with it. I decided to try Ghostery instead mostly so we would have 2 opinions on this type of FREE software and perhaps compare notes.

I had Ghostery downloaded and installed in a matter of minutes. In my first hour I was amazed at how many different companies were tracking my every move, Ad Block Plus notwithstanding. The photo below gives you an idea of how it works. When you go to a web site Ghosteryy will display, in a small purple box, for a few seconds, all of the companies that are trying to track your moves and, I hope, blocks them all successfully. It is quite amazing to see so many. A few minutes after I went to the web site pictured below and captured the screen, I went to the AARP web site and saw 12 companies listed as wanting to track me! Wow! Who knew?

 

These Firefox extensions are very easy to install, and, in spite of some warnings, I still have both Ad Block Plus and Ghostery installed. I have not experienced any problems.

Here is the whole article if you wish to read it

Users desert Windows XP in near-record numbers

The first sentence says it all for me: "Exodus accelerates over last four months as users move to Windows 7".

Well, golly, who'd guess that our old XP iron is getting tired, new PCs are amazingly affordable, Christmas was somewhere in that last 4 months, and so many people have outgrown their machine bought back some years ago with an XP that was a mere shadow of what it is today.

Anyway, that is my opinion. I am down to one XP machine, and it too is getting tired. It shows this with issues or problems that I have never seen before. Fortunately for me, I am experienced enough to figure these out and to keep "old faithful" running. I realize that for many/most of you the easiest way out is to buy one of the new inexpensive machines and to move on to Windows 7. Some have even abandoned their XP machine in favor of a smartphone and/or a tablet. 


As for me, I am getting to be a tightwad in my old age, and I plan to try to stick it out with my IBM desktop PC, running XP, as my primary device. Of course, there's always my MacBook Pro laptop, running some strange and completely different operating system, that I use most every day!

Exodus accelerates over last four months as users move to Windows 7

Sudoku Puzzle Solved

A voice out of my past, an old friend named Ron from Vermont and a former IBM co-worker, saw my Sudoku plea and came to my rescue. I don't think Ron and I have seen each other or even made contact in over 25 years!

The key to moving forward and also to directly solving the puzzle was determining that the last box in row 3 had to be an 8. Once that box was filled with the 8, the rest fell in place easily.

I have learned something. I need to either learn to think deeper than I usually do, or I need to print the tough ones off and use pencil and paper to determine the "possibilities" for each box and proceed from there. However, even then I still need to learn to look at these puzzles a little differently and look ahead more than I had to do with the EASY puzzles.

Thanks Ron!

Sudoku - help needed!

I love Sudoku puzzles. I read a few years ago that doing Sudoku puzzles might help keep my brain active and delay the onset of dementia or other memory issues that we senior citizens seem to suffer. At this point I hope that is true but really don't care too much. I have become a Sudoku fan and really enjoy doing the puzzles.

I use http://www.websudoku.com/ for its free puzzles, and for a year or so I have been doing the EASY puzzles. I got to the point where I could do all easy puzzles and got my time down to around 8 minutes. I think the web site says the average time for their easy puzzles is around 6 minutes. Okay, I never said I was fast! I can just complete them all successfully.

Lately I have been trying the MEDIUM difficulty puzzles, and after a while I have run into a stone wall. I can do most of them, and it takes me 20 minutes now to do the medium puzzles. BUT, I have run into two MEDIUM puzzles so far that have me stymied.

I would like someone who can solve this puzzle to please give me a hint. One possibility would be to give me the next move and to explain the logic and how the answer was determined. Another would be to just explain the logic necessary to determine the next move, and I would be perfectly happy with that. Anyone?

I should mention that since I have been doing all of these online that I do not have a pencil and paper to use. Some people suggest writing the "possibilities" for the boxes inside the boxes with a pencil in a small font. Then, examining all the possibilities would help determine the next move. That may be true and may indeed be what I have to do, that is, get me a pad and start filling in possibilities. If that is the way to proceed, fine, but I am hoping there is yet (at least) one more trick I have not learned. Anyone?

Please write me at pcdoc@brpcdoc.com if you can help.

 And thank you!

Here is where I have run into a wall. It's kinda neat that all 3 incomplete rows contain the same numbers. I have not run into anything like this so far. The numbers in blue are the ones I have entered so far.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I wish each and every one of you a very happy 2012. I thank you for supporting this blog.

How to Digitize Your Old Photos

This is a very timely article for me. We have raised 4 sons and up until 2001 all of our photos were of the ole paper variety. Fortunately most of them are in albums, so we have a head start on the pocess of organizing and digitizing them. There are, however, many hundreds that are stored away in boxes. Lots of these are not just of our boys but family photos going way back to our parents and our own time as kids. Most of the latter are black and white, but if digitized and stored and organized properly, will make a nice gift to our sons for them to cherish long after, well, you get the idea. (DON'T FORGET TO BACKUP THESE GEMS!)

I had bought a used scanner on Craigslist about 2 years ago, but used it very little, and when I wanted to use it this week, it no longer powers on. I am not sure what the problem is, but expect to be looking for another scanner. I will probably go the used route again. These things are pretty cheap. Mine is a Microtek Scanmate 4800, not a terribly new machine, but it did a very nice job for us the few times we used it. I see the exact same machine on Ebay for around $24 with free shipping, so I am tempted. This time, however, I think I will consider all options, including more modern used equipment and new machines as well.

I didn't mention the fact that this used scanner has a slide attachment so one can digitize the old 2x2 inch slides as well. I have boxes and boxes of slides from my Mother and Father's possessions and I am sure I will find many of those interesting.

Anyway, if you have similar interests, you should find some good advice in this Steve Morgenstern article I found on techlicious.com.

How to Digitize Your Old Photos

PC Doc's Security Baseline

I think every 6 months or so I should publish this post, especially for those of you who may be new viewers. For those of you who are familiar with my security baseline, I continue to use the same portfolio of free products I used 6 months ago. There are no changes.

I hope you are using these programs. Keep them updated before running!

From time to time I refer to my security baseline. My security baseline is merely a list of programs I use (all free) and recommend for anyone to use to keep their systems secure. This applies to YOU if you use Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.

Remember, all of these products are FREE, but will do as good a job as any fee products you may use. I make that statement and stand by it based on 43 years of experience with computers.
 
1. Microsoft Security Essentials - V2 now available. If you have V1, upgrade now  (FREE!) This is a very impressive anti-virus program and can replace any you have now. DOWNLOAD HERE
2. Windows Firewall (Standard part of your operating system. Check the Security Center to be sure it is on.)
3. MVPS HOSTS File - download the current month's version and update monthly DOWNLOAD HERE
4. CCleaner - check for newer version than you may already have. Run weekly. DOWNLOAD HERE by clicking on Download Latest Version in the upper right hand corner of the page.
5. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - run bi-weekly. DOWNLOAD HERE
6. SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition - run bi-weekly in the off week after #5. DOWNLOAD HERE
7. Spybot Search & Destroy - run monthly just before downloading new HOSTS file. I am testing the new Beta version 2, and I recommend, for now, downloading Version 1.6.2 under "old versions". DOWNLOAD HERE

I will be happy to assist you with any or all of the above installations. This can be done remotely.

Questions?  Comment below or write me, pcdoc at brpcdoc dot com

Merry Christmas!

I wish all of you and your families a very Merry Christmas!

Suggestion # 2 for backing up your data on a remote server

Okay, so assuming your first small step in backing up all of your system's data worked, what's next? BTW, if it did not, or if you have questions, here is a good place to test the support organization of your backup firm. Mine is SOS Online Backup, and IMHO support is their strong suit. They were all over, in a hurry, any issues I experienced, and came up with the workable solution in all cases.

I would suggest that you split up your MY DOCUMENTS folder into separate backups by backing up a folder at a time and then thoroughly checking out the results. After my initial test backup's success, I then started, one at a time, to go after the biggies, namely MY PICTURES, MY MOVIES, MY MUSIC, and MY OUTLOOK MAIL FOLDERS. I started with the smallest of these 4 folders and ran each one separately. Backing up takes time, and I typically allowed these biggies to run overnight and even multiple days if necessary. Remember, upload speed from your Internet Service Provider is typically a lot slower than download speed. In the case of Comcast, their advertised download speed is 15 MB and upload speed is only 5 MB per second. Speed tests of your connection can be done here: http://speedtest.comcast.net/ With Comcast your download speed can be far greater than the 15 MB advertised because of their burst mode for downloads, but their upload speed will always come in around 5 MB.

After successfully backing up each folder, be sure to check its contents completely.
This is what mine looks like now.

Note that I have backed up about 77GB of my data. I have a total of about 95GB in MY Documents. I will do further downloads a folder at a time until I have everything backed up completely.  If you have any questions, please write me.

Suggestion # 1 for backing up your data on a remote server

Okay, so you have selected a vendor to provide you with online backup. I have picked SOS Online Backup. If you picked someone else, that does not affect my suggestions.

You have in mind exactly what you want to backup. It might be a long list of folders, or it might be something as simple as "MY DOCUMENTS", which of course contains many other folders.

I suggest you start small. Simply pick one rather small folder and its contents to be backed up and then go ahead and run your first backup. The reason I suggest starting small is to familiarize yourself with the software and how it works. Watch it work, displaying as much information as your vendor will allow. In fact, watch it from start to finish. See how it works and try to understand it. When it is finished save the information that has been presented to you by the backup program. You can use this as a check to make sure everything worked okay.

Once finished, take a look at the vendor's server where your data has been backed up. Open up your data folder on the server and review its contents. If you have to, manually count the items that were backed up and then compare this to the folder on your system that you just backed up.

Do you have a match? Contents of the folder on your machine match exactly the contents of the folder on the server? They should be the same.

If you find this explanation to be too complicated, please call me and I will step you through it. It is very important that you get off on the right foot.

Backing up your data at a remote site

I have one machine in my house that is the central repository for all of my important personal data. Here I am talking primarily about MY PICTURES, MY MOVIES, and MY MUSIC.

These three folders account for roughly 75 GB of data. Additionally I have about 25 GB in other personal data. Included in this extra 25 GB are all of the files I have determined to be important enough to keep down through all of my years working and playing in data processing.

I have written in this blog about my Western Digital 1 TB MyBook external hard drive. For the past several years this (and before it several smaller drives) external drive has been my primary backup.

The MyBook drive is still running. Two things: I have found that 1 TB isn't all that much when used to backup data from several home computers, including mine, and TWO, it is bound to fail sometime AND it is LOCAL.

I have long recognized the need I have, and maybe you have the same need, to maintain a backup of my data on a REMOTE system.

I wish I could have had the luxury of testing the major remote backup offerings like SOS Online Backup, Carbonite, and Mozy. But being one person with my small commercial venture, I did not. I instead attended a Webinar sponsored by SOS Online Backup, and some time later came to an agreement with SOS's management that enabled me to use their product with terms and conditions acceptable to me.

So here I am at the end of 2011 telling you that I am an SOS Online Backup user, and I am satisfied that I have all 75 GB of my most valuable data backed up somewhere in The Cloud.

If it is not intuitively obvious to you why I wanted to have a remote backup site, it is because my primary data and all of its backup was right inside my house, and if anything happened to my house, I would lose all of that data.

I have learned a lot about remote backup, and I will be happy to share my experiences and make recommendations to you over the next month or so. You shouldn't go into this blind and you should not rely solely on the management of the backup company to take full responsibility for your data. You need to be involved and take that responsibility.

I believe I wrote some time ago about the owner of a small company which had all of its financial data stored offsite. When their local computer failed and they had to restore their data, they found out that the data they needed was not there at the remote site! They had to manually enter a full year's worth of data into their financial systems in order to restore their books. You mustn't let this happen to you and this is where I will be making some recommendations, so please stand by.

In the meantime, I have to say I have no experience with Carbonite or Mozy or any other backup service except SOS Online Backup. They now hold my precious 75 GB of data that I do not want to lose, and I feel good about SOS and I feel my data is safe and that they will continue to backup any additional data as I add it to my system.

A little extra insurance

A little extra insurance, especially when it's free, can't hurt IMHO. I just downloaded 9 Windows XP updates from the Tuesday Microsoft update. One of these was MSRT (the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool).  If you do nothing but install it, a quick scan will be run on your behalf and this will be done stealthily, so you'll not be impacted, and that's good.

But, I recommend you take the bull by the horns and run a full scan under your own control. It'll run a long time, but what the heck, once a month won't hurt. And although it runs like the wind, it won't impact your system performance much.

To run it, click on START, then RUN, then key in MRT (note: no 'S') and click on OK. When the MSRT program starts, select FULL SCAN and let it run. If any problems are found, you will see the results.

Collageit

That's Collage It! As in make a collage using your own digital photos. I will have more to say about this in later posts, after I get more experience, but in the meantime I give a thumbs up to this simplistic product which does so easily in so many ways what many of us would have liked to have done for years. At least speaking for myself, an amateur photographer with almost 40,000 personal digital photos, this is a tool whose time has come.

You can try it for free, but the free version puts a watermark on the final product that you create. For only $19.90 (at least that is the price today at http://www.collageitfree.com/purchase.html). I do not know if this is a seasonal sales price or not, but give the freebie a whirl to see how easy it is to use and then decide for yourself if you want to buy the Pro version for $19.90. The fee Pro version removes their watermark.

Collageit

Ouch! Those set top boxes are really hurting us. Very interesting article about the electrical use, on and off, of the many electrical devices we have about our houses.

Top 26 Stealth Home Energy Hogs

Lavasoft's Rogue Gallery

I referenced Lavasoft's Rogue Gallery once before as a good place to visit to keep a finger on the pulse of what was happening out there in the wild with news of new rogue programs. These are the kind of programs that so many of you have called me about and asked me to help get rid of. In the past week, Lavasoft has posted news of 10 new Rogue programs, with the second group of 5 being posted today. So, for today at least, and espeially during the holiday season, I recommend that you visit this site. I hope you won't find something familiar to you. In other words do all you can to avoid rogues!! Running Malwarebytes and also Superantispyware on a weekly basis for the next month or two would be a good idea. We all like to shop online, and doing that opens a few doors for these bad guys. In fairness to Lavasoft, since their product is Ad-Aware, run that too if you have it installed.

From the Lavasoft Rogue Gallery home page:

"The Rogue Gallery, powered by the Malware Labs at Lavasoft, is a resource dedicated to keeping computer users safe from rogue security software. By providing a comprehensive database of current rogue security applications, you have the ability to clearly see what programs are considered rogue – and avoid them.

Navigate the Rogue Gallery by displaying the latest threats or by searching for specific programs, listed in alphabetical order. Use the "Submit a Rogue" link to quickly and easily send any suspicious programs directly to Malware Labs to be analyzed."

DO CHECK OUT THIS ROGUE GALLERY TODAY AND KEEP COMING BACK!

The New Smartphone Threat to Your Privacy

Okay, I am STILL not a smartphone user. I realize this puts me in the other 1%! For me it's really a matter of cost, but I digress. For those of you in the 99% who care about smartphones, this is something you might be interested in:

"The Web is abuzz about a newly revealed privacy threat to smartphone users––a "keystroke logger" program from a company named Carrier IQ that constantly runs in the background, without the user's knowledge. The software records personal information and events ranging from phone numbers dialed to the content of text messages and information typed in to presumably secure websites."

More here....

12 Things You Didn’t Know Facebook Could Do

From the New York Times.

"The designers and engineers who build Facebook are anything but complacent about their success. They face a constant threat from the career-centric LinkedIn, specialized upstarts like Instagram’s mobile photo network and now Google’s fast-growing Google+, an attempt to improve on Facebook’s core design that has picked up tens of millions of users in its first few weeks.

Minh Uong/The New York Times

So Facebook has been adding features to make the reigning social network more useful and convenient."

Read more

Technical Resources Online

I came across a new resource today that I thought I would share with those of you interested in solving PC or Mac issues on your own. It is listed first below, but I thought I'd add a couple of others that I also use quite regularly.

The Podnutz Forums

The Windows Secrets Lounge

Annoyances.org

Thanksgiving 2011

And lest we forget, thanks to the men and women who cannot be home with family.

Latest MVPS HOSTS file

The latest version of the MVPS HOSTS file is available today.

Be sure to get yourself a copy!

November 23 HOSTS File available today

City's Water Control System Hacked Because of Three-Character Password

Okay, this is the last post on this subject. The message should be clear by now - put your own house in order by revisiting your own passwords!

This comes from maximumpc.com, but I have seen it covered in several other sites as well.

"There is a lot of emphasis on computer security these days. Strong passwords, encryption, the whole nine yards. Apparently no one told a community called South Houston in Texas, USA. According to various confirmed reports, the municipality was using a simple three-character password to protect its Internet-facing SCADA system, which controls water and sewage systems. This system was accessed by a hacker known only as pr0f as a proof of concept. Yikes."

Read more here

25 Worst Internet Passwords

I sincerely hope that you don't find your password on this list. Seriously, it's time we all took the advice of all the experts and change our passwords to something else - at least one that is not on this list!! Check out my blog posts of the last week to see more on this important subject.

I found this on foxnews.com.

"If  “password” is your password, chances are you’ve been the victim of a hack attack.

“Password” is the least successful, according to SplashData’s annual list of worst Internet passwords.

The list, notes Mashable.com, is somewhat predictable. Sequences of adjacent numbers or letters on the keyboard, such as “qwerty” and “123456,” and popular names, such as “ashley” and “michael,” all are common choices. Other common choices, such as “monkey” and “shadow,” are harder to explain.

As some websites have begun to require passwords to include both numbers and letters, it makes sense varied choices, such as “abc123″ and “trustno1,” have become popular choices.

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list:

• 1. password
• 2. 123456
• 3.12345678
• 4. qwerty
• 5. abc123
• 6. monkey
• 7. 1234567
• 8. letmein
• 9. trustno1
• 10. dragon
• 11. baseball
• 12. 111111
• 13. iloveyou
• 14. master
• 15. sunshine
• 16. ashley
• 17. bailey
• 18. passw0rd
• 19. shadow
• 20. 123123
• 21. 654321
• 22. superman
• 23. qazwsx
• 24. michael
• 25. football

SplashData CEO Morgan Slain urges businesses and consumers using any password on the list to change them immediately.

“Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords,” Slain says. “Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.”

Facebook Hoax Claims to Support Wounded Soldiers

This comes from techlicious.com.

"Internet security company, Sophos, is reporting that a popular post making its way through Facebook that purports to support wounded soldiers is, in fact, a hoax. The text of the post is a variation of the following:

"When filling out your Christmas cards this year, take ONE CARD and SEND it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier, c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these soldiers could get to bring up their spirits! Feel free to repost. This is a wonderful thing to do !!"

While the heart of the post seems to be in the right place, those cards will never reach an American soldier. Hoax-busting site Snopes.com reports that the U.S. Mail will not deliver any letters or packages addressed to "Any soldier" or "Any wounded soldier" at Walter Reed, for the safety and well-being of patients and staff.

Instead, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center asks that all holiday mail for unnamed service members through the American Red Cross's Holiday Mail for Heroes, at this address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Cards must be postmarked no later than Friday, December 9th in order to be screened and delivered in tie for the holidays.

If you're concerned about Internet scams and hoaxes, be sure to read our Internet Safety & Security articles on Techlicious.

Suzanne Kantra
Founder, Techlicious"

Browser Wars: Chrome vs. IE9 vs. Firefox

Browser wars, shmowser wars! This article is from pcmag.com. 

Browser Wars: Chrome vs. IE9 vs. Firefox

Yes, Google's Chrome gets high marks, but I will stick with Firefox until/unless Google decides to add a left side of the screen Bookmarks toolbar. This is something that is in each and every other browser, but for some reason Google refuses to add the feature to Chrome.

Some of us have been asking for this ever since Chrome came out, and release after release we expect to see it, but it never comes. Here is the last (most recent) post in the forum where we ask for it!

Google Chrome Help Forum

Great buy at Costco

I was at Costco today and they threw in a brochure of specials for the Thanksgiving weekend of 11/25-11/27.

One item that caught my eye was this:

Seagate 2TB Freeagent Goflex Desk External Drive. Regular Price is $99 (that is a really good buy as is), but Thanksgiving weekend price is $30 off for a selling price of $69.99!

I just can't believe how low these external hard drive storage devices are priced. If you need a local backup device, you can't beat this deal. Seagate is top shelf!

The argument against this might be to consider offsite storage. More on that later.

Make your passwords unbreakable but memorable

This is an excellent article by Kim Komando. I encourage all of you to read it and implement some of her suggestions. Having strong passwords is very important these days. See yesterday's post!

Make your passwords unbreakable but memorable

What To Do When Your Email Gets Hacked

I sure have seen a lot of this lately. That is, I have received many e-mails from people I know that contain just a one-liner url (web site address link). This article comes to us from the techlicious.com web site and it contains some very good advice. Even if you have not been hacked, I recommend that we all at least check out this article. The best and easiest thing you can do is change your password, and while you are at it, make the new one stronger.

What To Do When Your Email Gets Hacked

Veterans Day

A HUGE thank you to all of our veterans, on this their special day.

You Can’t Tell a Vet Just By Looking

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carrier didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth whose behavior is outweighed in the cosmic scales by four hours of unparalleled bravery near the 38^th Parallel in Korea.

She is the nurse who fought against futility in Da Nang and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years.

He is the POW who left one person and came back another.

He is the drill instructor who has never been in combat, but has saved countless lives by turning no-accounts into Marines.

He is the parade-riding legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the white-haired guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, aggravatingly slow, who helped liberate a Nazi death camp.

A vet is an ordinary and extraordinary human being — someone who offered his life’s vital years in the service of his country.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.  We will never be able to repay the debt of gratitude we owe.

- Author Unknown -

YouTube’s Rules for Video

From the New York Times:

"Q&A: YouTube’s Rules for Video

 

By J.D. BIERSDORFER

 

Q.

Is it possible to download videos from YouTube?

 

A.

Several browser plug-ins and utility programs around the Web do let you grab copies of your favorite clips and stash them away on your hard drive. But even though the site hosts many clips showing how to download YouTube videos, the official YouTube FAQ states that doing so is against the site’s terms of service agreement and is a violation of the video-owner’s copyright.

Some video pages found on YouTube may have an official button to download a copy of the clip from the site. In that case, YouTube does allow you to take a copy for yourself."

A Guide for PC Buyers Not Looking for a Tablet

I am personally holding out for at least another year and will await the arrival of Windows 8 and more touch screen capability and affordability, but if you are in the market for a laptop, here is some good advice from Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal.

A Guide for PC Buyers Not Looking for a Tablet

Five Great Internet Banks

Well, I have to say this is very interesting. Have you checked the interest rate your bank is giving you on a savings account? Paltry in my case. These appear worthwhile checking out. (Puns were not intended!).

This comes from pcmag.com:

Five Great Internet Banks

15000

Sometime over this past weekend, the hit counter at the bottom of this blog's home page went over 15000! Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see it.

This came after 668 posts over 3 years, 8 months, and 25 days! This was my first blog post: http://pcdocsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/hello-world.html

So I thank you, whoever you are, for stopping by and checking out my tiny space on the web.

If you have any suggestions for improvements, please tell me what they are. Write me at pcdoc@brpcdoc.com.

If you have comments on any blog post as we move forward, note that comments are allowed on the blog. Just click on the word COMMENT at the end of each and every post.

If you have found value in this blog, please let me know. Write me at pcdoc@brpcdoc.com.

When I started out I was writing about things I knew about, like how to clean up a hard drive or how to tune your system, or how to secure your system against the many predators out there, but I soon found out that I couldn't keep that up. I just don't know that much! So I began turning into a "clipping service", checking out various technical web sites and reporting back on things I considered might be relevant to at least some of you. It is tough, without feedback, to know if this is valuable to any of you, but I guess the fact that there have been over 15000 hits to the site speaks to that in some small way.

One other thing: I would welcome guest blog posts. If you have something you think would be of value to the (mostly Windows) readers of the blog, let me know and we can work to get your information posted. I will credit you with the post. Write me at pcdoc@brpcdoc.com.

Thank you for your continued following and loyalty to this blog.

How to Become a Great eBay Seller

I am not a great eBay seller, but I'd like to be, so I found this list of tips very interesting.

The intro to the article talks about wanting to raise some money as the holidays approach. Good idea that drew me in further. See what you think.

"With the holidays around the corner, I've started eyeballing the piles of unused stuff I have squirreled away in closets around the house as a source of cash. I know I can get good price on eBay if I price it right and create an enticing listing."

10 Tips for Being a Great eBay Seller

Uptick in tainted ads hurts consumers, advertisers

Yet another warning: BE CAREFUL! They still are out to get you! This article appears on usatoday.com today.

"The online-advertising industry is scrambling to quell a long-standing problem that has taken a turn for the worse: the spread of malicious ads on the Internet's top commercial websites.

Several new twists have made so-called malvertisements a fast-rising threat to consumers — and a big headache for publishers, advertisers and ad networks, say technologists and security researchers.

The spread of infected online ads has spiked tenfold over the past year, according to research disclosed by security intelligence firm RiskIQ at a recent Online Trust Alliance conference in Washington, D.C.

RiskIQ documented a peak of 14,694 occurences of malvertisements in May of this year, up from 1,533 in May 2010. Each corrupted ad could have infected the PCs of thousands or millions of website visitors, based on how long the ad ran, says Elias Manousos, CEO of RiskIQ."

Read the entire article here

Should I click that update button?

This comes from the Call That Girl blog, and contains some very good and valuable tips. I recommend reading the article, which is not too long.

"First you may ask, what are “update buttons” They usually sit in the lower right corner of your screen right next to your clock. Sometimes they just sit there and don’t do anything. Sometimes they blink constantly warning you to do an update. And you may wonder…which ones are good to do?  In today’s blog I will alert you to some udpates you should be doing and some you should not be doing. Most of our clients do not click any update buttons or alerts to update and that usually need to be done and some can safe you from getting a virus!

Update buttons for the most part, should be done and the software you have installed have asked for your permission to do the update. Many times, the update button is just there and doesn’t ask, so you have to do the all manually. It’s probably a good idea that once a month, you roll your mouse over those icons and see what your computer would like to do."

Specific Product Recommendations - read here

How to Remove a Rootkit from a Windows System

This highly technical article from technibble.com is not for the faint of heart. If you consider yourself technically competent, you should read this over and, if and when necessary, use it. However, a word of caution: if you are not technically competent, make a mental note that you saw this post and inform your local PC Doc if/when you have issues with your Windows machine.

How to Remove a Rootkit from a Windows System

Windows XP was great, but is ten years too long?

As far as I know, we still have until 2014, when Microsoft will drop support of XP. This article comes to us from itworld.com.

"October 26, 2011, 11:46 AM —

flickr/Will Clayton

At one time, 80 percent of all desktop computers ran Windows XP. The breakout OS appeared on October 25, 2001, making it 10 years old. But is 10 years too long for any OS?

Of course, Service Pack 2 in 2004 revamped plenty of XP modules, particularly security. Should Microsoft have tweaked the interface and called SP2 a new OS? They didn't, and no other major OS came out of Microsoft until Windows Vista appeared in 2006. Vista had the smell of New Coke and the Ford Edsel, so XP kept on going until Windows 7 (and beyond). Windows 7 likely will stay below 50 percent market share when Windows 8 appears in a year or two.

Since technology is all about change, bolting new tech onto old OS frameworks can be painful. Those fancy new SATA disks? Gluing those onto an XP box strains patience. 3D graphics? Large amounts of RAM? XP lets us down. But that doesn't mean we don't still love it in many ways and for many applications. And Microsoft will support it for three more years because of enterprise demand."