Author Archive: Lisa Hendrickson

Lisa Hendrickson is the owner of Call That Girl. She is an Outlook Expert and Microsoft 365 Consultant.

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Warning about calls from India and “Windows Team”

| December 2, 2013 | 0 Comments

windows teamFolks, I am getting an average of 3 calls per week from clients stating they got calls from a “Guy from India” working for the Windows team. Some get trapped into the calls and eventually allow the “tech” to remote into their computer, some hang up and call me and insure they did the right thing. Same story, it’s a scam.

They show you event logs of warnings and tell you that you have tons of viruses, or your system is in need of repairing. They are now also installing a software tool and that runs, and shows you many errors (that may be common for your computer to have) and that you must hire them at $99 or their “unlimited support” package at $149 to $300.

Friendly reminders…Microsoft will never call you to tell you that your computer has viruses, hang up on anyone immediately that wants access to your computer, call me next if you feel you might have a virus either way.

Full Hard Drive Image Software and Restore Disk Information

| November 10, 2013 | 0 Comments

acronisNever fear a virus or computer crash again when you use the Acronis True Image Software. You will need an empty external hard drive equal to the size of the C:/ drive on  your computer  and a flash drive.

To get going, click on the image to the right here –>

Trial and test or buy now.

Install the software, it’s not hard to configure yourself. If you need my help, please call and book an appt. 612-865-4475

Once installed, you will see that your product allows you to do many different functions with your computer and backing up. Cloning your current hard drive to another hard drive is a great idea if you have a spare one or want one ready for just in case purposes. (Tools and utilities)

Now, to use the Windows software for making a system image and a system repair disk, go to your Control Panel and open “Backup and Restore” (in Windows 8, it’s there as Windows File Recovery)

Then you will need a flash drive for each or a DVD is fine too. They are quick wizards that do everything for you. You should have a 4 gig flash drive for this and only use the flash drive for this purpose.

What Acronis can do for you

  • Backup and restore a complete disk image—not just your files, but the exact configuration of your PC including your operating system, applications, and settings
  • Backup a full disk image to Acronis Cloud Storage
  • Keep a copy of your critical files offsite in our secure online datacenter
  • Access your files from any device, anytime
  • Share files securely by sending links to your content in the cloud
  • Use Acronis Cloud Storage with up to 5 devices (desktops, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, etc.)
  • Synchronize files across all your devices
  • Migrate or restore to a new PC
  • Restore your full disk image, including your operating system, applications, files, and settings, to a different make or model PC
  • Migrate everything from one Windows system to another, including a new PC
  • Restore your whole system configuration to a Windows Pre-Installation Environment (WinPE)
  • Backup dynamic volumes from Windows Dynamic Disks
  • Restore dynamic volumes onto bare-metal hard disks or previously configured Dynamic Disks
  • Backup your pictures, videos, music, documents, and other files
  • Set backups to run automatically whenever you want, even when you aren’t using your computer
  • Backup to any storage device, including USB keys, external hard drives, network-attached storage, and Acronis Cloud Storage

CryptoLocker virus attacks and holds your computer ransom

| October 22, 2013 | 0 Comments

Right now folks…it’s here and it’s bad. It’s so bad that technicians have been scrambling to figure out ways to fix this issue, the most easy and affordably for our clients…but sadly, this may not be the case.

cryptolockerHere is what is happening and what’s going on. An executable file is being sent through email and the recipients are opening them, opening a file and it’s taking over your computer, encrypting all of your files and locking you out. And this is no joke, if you pay the “ransom”, you can get your files back (or maybe not). Or you can call a technician and they can try to get your files back for you, but honestly…the time may be as much as the ransom is for the decryption of your files. This is horrifying to our industry. Have a client pay ransom or have us spend hours on your computers to get your computer back up and running.

What I will be doing today in this blog, is explaining many ways for you to protect your computer from this ransomware. (what is ransomware? software that takes your computer hostage via log in screens or destructs your computer in a manner you can’t use it).

1.) If you are backing up with an external hard drive, insure you are backing up (many people think they are, but are not) and eject the external hard drive from the computer when you are not backing up. Do not risk the external hard drive getting encrypted.

2.) Better choice, back up online. I can help you with this service, we can back up not only one computer, but as many as you want.

3.) We are finding that virus and malware detection products will not stop this attack, but having something is better than nothing in my opinion as it “might help” because the virus and malware companies by now are aware of the attacks and hopefully adding to their updates.

4.) Backup your entire computer and data files with a “image backup” and if something goes wrong, we can bring your computer back to the state it was at prior to the attack (or any virus attack or operating system crash) for just $49 per computer and some labor fee’s for setting it up.

If you have a computer that is already encrypted and need help, contact us.

If you want to protect your computer in case this happens, contact us.

612-865-4475 or email info@callthatgirl.biz

Internet Browser Toolbar Redirect & Virus Removal Sale

| October 17, 2013 | 0 Comments

With the increasing internet browser toolbar software redirect calls we are getting, we have now created a special deal for just these types of requests.

A bit about these types of issues. These are usually not viruses, but more software downloads that happened by accident (you didn’t know you were installing it) or intentionally, (you meant to install one piece of software and downloaded a fake program). What this means, is that your antivirus & malware products will probably not catch these downloads as they are not infected.

Sale!

We can remove the redirects and uninstall the software for just $49 from Oct 17 to Nov 17th.

After Nov 17th, the price will go up to $69

What if you do have a virus? Our virus removal prices are $129, so if you do have us to the $49 clean up and we find a virus, we will recommend moving to a virus removal and this special price is $99.

If your computer is slow and sluggish, it’s doubtful that the toolbar removal will make your computer faster (but it will make your internet faster probably), at that point, you can upgrade to a tune up for just $79 during this special.

Do you need online backup? Add on $49 (regular price $79)

Do you need a better antivirus and malware protection package? Ours is regularly $59, during this sale it’s just $39

Want everything? Dang! Get online backup installed, a tune up and our malware & antivirus installed for just $129.

We only book these appointments during the hours of 3:30 pm and 8:00pm or on a weekends. This sale is not available during the typical workday.

 

To schedule an appointment, email Info@callthatgirl.biz or call 612-865-4475

How to easily backup your hosted exchange email in Outlook 2013

| October 16, 2013 | 0 Comments

Awhile back, I had a client who did an update on her iPhone and during that update, her calendar went missing. She was on hosted exchange and due to some “terms and conditions”, a mailbox restore was not going to happen for the client. (By the way, not all companies refuse to do mailbox restores, just this specific one company that will remain nameless for now).  Even if you have a company that will restore mailboxes, it’s sometimes time critical to get back your information that you have already stored locally.

So if you have any version of Outlook, not just Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2010, the same instructions will work to some degree. There are screen shots below. The backup file will be stored in your default Outlook folders in your computer, but these should be backed up to an external backup or online.

If you need online backup, please call me to schedule an appointment. We charge $79 for setup and your products costs are $65 for one computer up to $109 for 3 computers.

  1. In Outlook…click on “File”
  2. Then click on “Open and Export”
  3. Then click on “Import and Export”
  4. Then click on “Export to a file”
  5. Select “Outlook Data File (.pst)
  6. Outlook will show you the mailboxes you can export. Click on the “Inbox” and hit “Next”
  7. Now Click on the browse button, and by default Outlook should save your file where online backup programs know to backup. It should be in the My Documents, Outlook Files folder.
  8. Create a name for the file and hit “Ok”
  9. Then hit “Finish”

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The larger your hosted exchange is, the longer a backup will take. I recommend doing this on Fridays before you leave the office or before you go to bed. You will not be able to use Outlook during this time.

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Click “Finish” and Outlook will now export a full copy of your hosted exchange to your computer.

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