Category: Call That Girl’s Tech Blogs
Is Pinterest the perfect camping grounds for viruses?
Pinterest is an online pinboard.
Organize and share things you love.
Now, love that virus you’re about to download.
Think you already have a virus?
Click on the black button to the right of this post to book an appointment!
And now you can send your friends right to viruses, too! Many of you might not know this part of Pinterest, but when you find a picture you love and “Pin it”, you’re basically telling your fellow pinnners to love that pic, too and that they need to click on the picture to pin to their boards. Pinterest hosts the pictures, but then when it is finally “pinned” it can take people right to the website that is hosting the virus (after clicking on the image). The website that is hosting the pictures could have been attacked by a virus and now it’s camping out on the picture, just waiting for pinnners to pin, click and download a virus in less than a minute.
What can you do? Not much. If you pin the picture virus free you will never know. If the site becomes tainted, your future pinners will probably get it after clicking on the image, unless they have awesome protection. My client that called in this a.m. had McAfee protection and it sailed right past the security features McAfee offered. He didn’t even click on the image, he typed it in manually. If you get a virus, call us at 612-865-4475 immediately!
Watch our Youtube video to find out what you should watch out for now that you know this is a possibility.
Research has turned up little information on the laws regarding Pinterest and this issue, although I did discover another virus report. To read more, I found this blog about a clever Pinterest virus sneak.
http://doktorspinn.com/2012/03/18/clever-pinterest-virus-a-first-for-the-booming-image-site/
The FBI recommends you check for viruses
Info from a variety of websites we have reviewed: Last November, the FBI in the U.S. solved a major computer hacking ring that had infected more than half a million computers worldwide. The FBI set up government issued backup servers to prevent internet disruption for all those infected computers until all the “Bad Guy’s” computers/systems came down. On July 9th the backup servers will be taken down.
What this means is if you are infected, after the servers are taken down your computer and internet will not work perfectly. The computer will try to redirect itself every time you try to access the internet. The good thing is, there is a way to find out if you are infected or not. If you go to www.dcwg.org and follow the simple on screen instructions it will tell you if you are infected or not. If you are infected, the website lists a bunch of helpful tools to get your computer back up and running. If you need help you can always Call That Girl at 612-865-4475 or fill out the form to schedule an appointment.
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Why peeking in the Junk Mail or Spam folder is important
Simple blog today folks.
I hear this on occasion, “I found your email in my junk folder,” so I felt there was value to writing up a blog about the junk/spam folder. When I am remoted into a computer repairing Outlook, I usually have to do an email test to insure it’s sending/receiving and many times…my email doesn’t show up on the client’s computer. The same email is in my inbox, but when I reply, it’s in their junk folder. It wasn’t junk! It was a test email and that should not be flagged period. But it is. The subject line was just “test”.
We have two things to discuss.
- Subject lines can get an email into junk
- Any email can get into junk
These two things are important to remember and you might have important emails sitting in your junk folder. I check mine daily and find tons of little goodies sitting in there. Emails from colleagues, clients, my staff, it doesn’t matter…it finds its way there. A good reminder for you is to check your junk/spam folder on occasion and make sure you’re not missing an important email.
5 Common Mistakes People Do to Their Computer
Ah, finally…it’s time for the Doctor to tell her patients what they are doing wrong with their computers. One thing I will tell you for sure not to do is, floss at night! But there are many things we find our clients doing that are just flat out bad, wrong and ugly. Your computer will thank you if you listen to this advice.
1.) Never restarting. Many of you keep your computers on all day and night. Give it a restart on occasion! It’s good for the computer to refresh itself.
2.) Never do your updates. I can’t tell you how many computers we look at each week that never get basic updates. These include Adobe, Java, Flash, Windows and your anti-virus.
3.) Shutting off with the power button. You should always try to shut down your computer the proper way by going to your start button and selecting “‘shut down”. This allows the operating system to shut down as it was intended. By just pushing the power button, you are forcing a shut off and sometimes the computer’s operating system will be corrupted after doing that. You may see some repair windows come up the next time you turn it on.
4.) Not buying enough memory for your computer. If you have had a tune up done by us, we conduct a 22 pt checklist and part of that checklist includes checking your memory. It’s important to have enough to make your computer time fun and fast! No one wants a sluggish computer experience. We can help you with memory; to set up an appt, give us a call!
5.) Overspending on a computer. Many of our clients have told us that they paid over $1000 for a family home computer. I’m going to guess that was years ago, because now you can get a decent home tower/desktop computer for well under $500. Before you go shopping, call us and get a consultation done and we will help you purchase what you and your family needs, save you money and save you shopping headaches! Many times we can help you buy it online, get shipped to your home and we can come help set it up!
10 signs that your computer may have a virus
Boy oh boy is this getting more and more common. We used to take calls from our clients who told us that they had pop ups and weird notifications, or even a huge flashing graphic, “You’ve been infected”. Seems lately, the viruses are doing more damage underneath, and not showing the usual suspects. And no…your AV program may not be catching these buggers either.
Here are a few ways to figure out if you may have a virus. 
- Your computer is acting up
- Websites aren’t loading right
- You try to Google something, and it takes you to a whole different page
- You see a “web certificate” page on a website you’re trying to get to
- Occasional blue screen of death
- Internet goes in and out
- Internet just completely goes out
- Mouse and keyboard aren’t working as they should
- There is a new icon in your system tray you’ve never seen before
- You cannot log into your online banking
While most people just blow these off as glitches, you may have a virus and if let go long enough, could result in a computer crash, loss of data and spendy repairs. We recommend that you get a tune up where we do a virus spot check included in our 22 pt checklist.
Click here to submit a request today
While having coffee this morning, I watched a virus infect my computer
I know for some of my readers they would be scared, but for a computer repair tech, it was pretty neat to see it happen. I’ve been waiting for this day, where my computer gets infected without me doing anything or clicking on anything. (Yes, I do have protection, but I keep it limited so I can get what you folks get so I can witness it).
Here’s what happened….
I left my computer on all night doing a back up, then I went to check my hotmail email and once I clicked on an email that should have been safe to open, I saw a window pop up at the top of the hotmail window, asking for permission to download. But right after, I saw the “download installer” start moving. I didn’t give it permission or press the install button. I watched for a bit to see if it would show me what I was installing, it never came, so I cancelled the installation.
Too late. Next thing I saw pop up on my screen was “Your computer may be infected, please check your antivirus software” and I knew I got infected right then and there.
- I didn’t click on anything
- I didn’t install anything
- It self-installed
- It started running without me doing anything!
Next thing that happened was a big green shield showed up in my system tray and then POOF, a huge window popped up and starting running an antivirus check. The virus I got was “Anti spyware Soft” (I believe). I have seen this before on client’s machines, so I was familiar with it. I could not believe what had just happened though, it was crazy to see it all happen. It was crazy to actually witness what happens to my clients!
I then fixed my own virus (just like how I fix your viruses) and went on with my morning. As a repair tech, we fix our own problems. We rarely if ever have to call a “helpdesk” or “repair company” but for you folks, you probably do need help to remove these.
We fix these problems and quickly. Your best bet is to write down our phone number in case your virus takes away your internet access. Mine didn’t work after the infection.
612-865-4475
Happy Saturday, it’s really just too cold here in Minnesota today!
