Computer Tips and Tricks

Well it’s a new year and 2010 is upon us. Do you have a New Year’s Resolution?

Well I don’t know about computer maintenance being a resolution, and I think that most people would think that’s a bore. One thing to think about though, If you use AVG Free Anti virus version 8.5, it is no longer supported. In fact, it was probably not supported at the end of November. AVG version 9 is here and you need to go download it and install it to keep current. If you don’t upgrade, you are vulnerable to viruses on the web and increasingly so as time goes by.

Bad things happen when your Anti-virus programs expire!

Nowadays, you also need to install a Spyware or Malware program to compliment your anti virus program. Malware is short for Malicious software. I always like to install Malwarebytes and Super Anti Spyware and I encourage others to use those.

Make sure that daily scans are running and that Real-time protection is turned on. Also, please, oh please, start using Firefox for your web browser instead of Internet Explorer. You don’t have to use Internet Explorer and I encourage others to make Firefox the default. It’s definitely a safer browser and you can also now count on using added software (called extensions) to help increase your trust of certain sites. The added extension is called Web of Trust, and will actually show you what sites are good and what sites are bad.

This helps you make sure you know what you are Clicking.

Check out the image below; it show that when you search Google, you will find either a green, red, or yellow circle after each entry.

Green is good in this case, yellow, means to use caution and that the site has a weak reputation, and red is not a good site to be entering. Even if you do click on the site that is not trusted, you will get a popup from that site that gives you a warning. If that is not enough, and you still want to go there, well you are on your on.

Some sites in the web of trust are unknown, which means that it has not made it in the database of listed sites yet. In my case, you can trust my sites listed below…

Links:

http://www.mypcnetwork.com    My PC repair Website, If you need help, give us a call

http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html?part=dl-10044820&subj=dl&tag=button&cdlPid=11014801    Download AVG Version 9 here

http://www.malwarebytes.org   Download MalwareBytes

http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html   Download Super Anti Spyware

http://www.getfirefox.com   Mozilla Firefox web browser

http://www.mywot.com    Web of Trust Download

I have a friend who uses Weatherbug on his pc, but the reality is that takes up system resources on his system all the time and actually sends back his tracking cookies to the site, which can be misused.

I think it would be better to use Google for your Weather forecasts you need it.

Just go to Google and type in weather and your zip code to get the above.

Instead of visiting other weather search sites, you can display weather reports for the U.S. and selected cities around the world directly in Google. Google displays the current temperature, conditions, humidity, wind speed and direction, and a four-day forecast with graphics.

Next to the weather report is a link allowing you to add the forecast to your iGoogle page. Plus, underneath U.S. weather reports you will find links to external sites such as AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, and Weather Underground, offering more detailed weather forecasts and radars if desired.

The cool thing is that less memory is used on the system, increasing performance.

In the past, I have recommended AVG Antivirus (The Free version) for most users that I run into in the community. Add the combination of Malware bytes malware removal tool, and you’ve got a fairly decent arsenal to protect yourself against bad files. But recently, with the dramatic increase of malware and virus behavior on the Interwebs, you might need a second opinion from time to time. I recently ran an online scan from NOD32 to look at a machine that I just did a thorough cleaning on. After this scan, I found 2 more viruses that I missed with AVG and Malware bytes.

I know that it is common to have one tool not find a threat whereas another tool will. But what makes this so appealing is that the NOD32 program does cost $39.99 per year, but you can use the online scan for free. The scanner does download some software to your machine, and if it does find a virus, it will quarantine it and “Hold” it basically. If you do decide to remove that software, then the virus will be released back into your system.

NOD 32 onlinescan

Toptenreviews gave NOD 32 a #4 out of 20 antivirus products recently.

Another worthy review is from Terry’s Computer Tips on NOD 32

Check out this review from Antivirusware also

I guess what I like about the product is that it is much easier on my system than the hog that AVG has become. Give it a try.

Fake anti-virus (AV) software is spreading at such a pace that it could grow past all other types of malicious software. It seems to be everywhere right now. Sophos Software is now seeing 15 fake AV sites a day now up from 5 a day last year. Panda is saying that Fake Antivirus will account for over 30 milion pc infections a month.

Technically, rogue AV is often hard to detect because the software is essentially a confidence trick. The rogue program convinces the user that they are infected with malware when they are not, and the user agrees to install the software to remove the non-existent threat. The user willingly hands over anywhere between $29 and $79, without the bogus software having to do anything that would cause an anti-virus program to intervene. If you do give them money, they still do not do anything about it, which doesn’t even qualify for extortion.

The bad thing is that the programs look legit often using that same interface and basic code that the real programs use. So, if you all of sudden see a hard drive scan that finds you have 139 viruses on your machine, just kill the program anyway you can. If you have questions, just contact me.

Got a laptop in today that had such an odd problem. The customer said that they rushed the shutdown process and went ahead and hit the power button to shutdown the laptop. When they went back in and powered it on, the touchpad did not work.This was a Compaq (or HP) laptop model cq50-139wm (one of the deals at Walmart).

I installed the latest drivers over at synaptics.com but that did not work. I went to hp.com and got the latest drivers for that machine but that did not work. The device manager didn’t eben show the touch pad at all. The mouse setup under control panel did not even have a listing for the synaptics touch pad driver.

Thinking that it was malware related, I installed atf cleaner, pcfixer, malwarebytes, ccleaner and there was a lot of crap to remove but did not take care of the touchpad.

A lot of sites on this issue were saying to do fn-f7 or some key combination to make sure the touchpad was not turned off. In this case, there is a small push button above the touchpad, that is amber if it is turned off, blue or white if it is turned on. In my case, it was on, but the touchpad still did not work.

Did a system restore back several days but the touchpad still no worky.

I finally came across a site where it mentioned powering the laptop off, popping the battery out and letting it stay disconnected for more than a minute. This did the trick. Special thanks goes to http://forums.techguy.org for that info.

Technorati Tags: compaq cq50, laptop, synaptics, touchpad

Check out this video over at woodywood245 on youtube

Run MsConfig by going to Start > Run > type msconfig
Then selected startup and uncheck just about all the programs you can stand. If there is a program that is running and you are not sure what it is, you can google it by typing in “process “. Sometime it is obvious what the program is. Most folks don’t need to run MSN Messenger or Quicktime detector or all those programs resident in memory. You can always start them up manually and save your memory. Remember, you can always check the program back on if you need to. Just about the only programs you need to run is your antivirus or anti-spyware programs.

Technorati Tags: msconfig, slow computer, slow pc, slowdown, Startup

Is your computer slowing down or getting sluggish on you? Does it seem to not have that snappiness that it had when it was new? That seems to be one of the major complaints that I hear all the time. Now there is a call everyday it seems where someone is getting popups related to XP Antivirus 2009 or XP Antivirus 360 and if you click on any part of the window except for the red X in the right corner, you will get loaded up with some pretty evasive spyware that is not trivial to remove. In most cases, you have to have a professional to remove it. If you do see this Antivirus 2009, It will say you have 146 viruses and you must scan now. DON’T DO IT. If you start it, I recommend immediately powering off the computer. If you want to try some of the maintenance on your own, Here ‘s a list of spyware software that I recommend for the average user to use so click the links to get the software:

Spybot Search and Destroy

Ad-Aware

MalwareBytes

If you need more help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Technorati Tags: antivirus, malware, spybot, spyware, virus

I received a machine the other day that had malware on it that got past the AVG Antivirus suite. I decided to go to 2 tools that removed the problems. The first is to go to Malwarebytes.org and download that scanner. Just look in the center of the page for the download link….

Also, I ran the Clamwin Antivirus Scanner and was able to remove a virus that was affecting this machine. The scanner runs very fast and in low memory also.

Check it out at Clamwin.com