Category: UncategorizedHey everyone, this is Adam with Call That Girl. I decided to do my first blog about virus’s, worms, Trojans, and all those other nasty programs that slow down your computer. To a lot of people all those words mean the same thing, but there are actually distinct differences between them, and that’s what I’m here to clear up.
Most people call anything that ‘infects’ your computer a virus. Although that is true to an extent, there are some minor details that are overlooked. Firstly a virus wont go out of its way to infect a computer. You must download and run a virus manually. That’s not to say that Virus makers aren’t getting sneaky, and finding clever ways to make you run their virus. Many virus’s are hidden in ‘free’ online downloads of games (poker), music (Limewire), pictures (Facebook) or other such ‘freebies’ (screensavers). Best way to avoid them is to understand that nothing online comes ‘free’. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. The other big distinction with virus’s is once you are infected, they will start to infect other files or drives on your computer. For example if you get a virus, it could start to infect your word files (or any other type of file) making it so anytime you send someone a word file and they open it on their computer, they will get infected as well.
Worms are similar to virus’s, but with one minor difference.. A worm will spread itself with absolutely no human interaction. Once you get a worm it will attempt to spread to other computers by whatever means possible. This is why you often hear about the worm that will e-mail itself to your entire contact list in your e-mail. E-mail isn’t the only way they spread however. Many will simply infect your computer, than look for other computers near by and infect them as well.
Computer Trojans are similar to the Trojan Horse that the Greeks used to defeat the Trojans. A Trojan is a malicious program that hides itself as a legitimate program. One very common program they like to disguise themselves as is anti-virus programs. Many people will go Google ‘Free Anti-virus’ then just download the first thing they find. This is a very bad habit, and actually often times ends up with you installing a Trojan on your computer. These fake anti-virus programs will say they are scanning your computer, but they actually just report a bunch of fake infections, then ask you to ‘purchase’ the program. This is their attempt to get you to enter banking information. Trojans are also commonly used by hackers to collect ‘zombie computers’ for their botnets (More on that in a future blog).
Adware and Spyware are becoming very common on computers now days. Adware and Spyware are very similar to each other, and often times one program will perform the options of both. Adware is a program that opens, plays, or otherwise displays advertisements. Not to be confused with internet pop-ups which are simply ad’s placed on websites your browsing. Adware ad’s will also open when your offline, even when your not using the computer at all! Spyware is a program that will monitor what you look at online, and will report it back to whoever made the Spyware. They will then turn around and sell that information to marketing companies. You can see how these programs often go hand and hand. These programs are often bundled in with other programs that you download. Many search bars that you can get online have some form of Adware/Spyware built in. My recommendation is to never download/use any search bar you find online, no matter who made it.
These are just some basic guidelines to the differences between all these malicious files. The people who make these files are starting to get more clever, and are now starting to blur the lines between them. I have seen Virus’s that spread like worms, and Trojans with Adware/Spyware inside, making it difficult to classify many of today’s Malicious files into concrete categories.
That’s it for today, check back later for more blog posts from your friendly Tech Intern.
Let me tell you how many computers come in the shop that have Norton, McAfee, Trend and WebRoot Spy Sweeper on them, and they are FULL OF SPYWARE!
I need to say that loudly because it doesn’t really matter what anti-virus program you use, spyware seems to get through them all.
So Lisa, please tell us…what are those programs good for? Well..they are good for a couple of things.
Period.
Spyware viruses and regular old viruses are not the same these days. Norton (I know this for a fact), will not support certain viruses and you will have to pay “extra” to get those removed. When you’re paying $80+ for the 360 package, you should get everything included. One of my clients had to pay extra for a certain virus removal. Kinda sad.
If you have purchased those products, have had a virus or 20 sneak past them or are finding them to slow down your computer…please Call That Girl for a phone consult and let us help you figure out a better system for protection.
If you are considering buying them, I would not. I remove many of those big box programs because they don’t work and are slower than bisquits drying in a hot sun.
My 2 cents! Enjoy your Wed!
Today’s blog is about the interns…
Updates! The workshop is busy with 50% off deals for the umemployed and of course, virus repairs. I brought on a new intern from ITT Tech and he’s been having a fun week with me learning all the little things that can happen in a computer repair shop. We set him up with his own computer to keep our libraries of drivers and software. He’s also going to set up a Linux server for me. YAY! My first one. I really haven’t needed one in the past, but what the heck…I’ll have one. For the first time, I’ll have a workshop with every operating system going on. Linux, Windows and Mac. Exciting times! (for a geek LOL).
The other interns (all from St. Thomas btw)…are a blazing away with their projects. Next week is the week they all launch their new projects, all at the same time! I have had fun helping them along, learning why their project is important and most important, how to get it done by deadline and following a project outline. I really enjoy helping the students learn the value of “back end marketing” versus “marketing that time time” and “marketing NOW”. I use all three with my business. All three work too.
I have on 5 interns, business and marketing, finance and technical. They all come in my workshop on different days, with their own computer work areas and I gave them all their own email accounts. Which I require they use for internal communications. Some of their profiles are listed in the “meet the interns” link at the top of the page. The page is getting updated right now, so check back to meet them all in a few days.
Are you ready for interns? I was ready after my business was running for about 9 months. I had one gal on for about a year and together we got her some really good technical experience to graduate with. Did I need an intern? No. I wanted to help and I had time to give. That is the most important thing about interns. It’s not getting them board to do your crap work, but rather the opposite. Give them projects they can learn from and take some load off your to do list at the same time. I have vowed to never give the interns “junk work” unless it’s a necessary element of their proejct.
If you have alot of business/marketing needs coming up, I recommend that you go to the St. Thomas website and put up an ad for an intern. I got great applicants and have my “intern academy” working hard. Right now I have 6 on board, all doing different projects that have value for my business and their future.
Some more tips…
I hope this guide helps you if you are ready to bring on a student or two. Feel free to call me if you have any questions!
Lisa
Many folks today are hearing these 4 words and don’t really understand what they all mean. To us technicians, we know…but you don’t. It’s terms we use everyday probably so I thought you all might like a review of what they mean.
Rebuild…to physically rebuild a computers hardware
Reformat… erase all the data/programs/settings, pretty much everything. It puts the computer in an original state, just like how you got it when you brought it home from the store. Many folks have to have this done when a computer crashes very badly or if it’s very infected with a virus. You will lose all of your data/music/pictures.
TIP: even though you reformat a computers hard drive, the data is still available! Please keep this in mind when donating a computer.
If you have not backed up your data, you should because a reformat does lose everything. Call That Girl does have tools to get that data back, but it comes in a “raw” form and you lose all the names of your documents and folders.
Reinstall …the operating system, this does not reformat the drive and usually your programs are still on the computer. But your data is not.
Repair… the computer means to install the original operating system disk and fix the glitches that are causing you problems. This usually does not change your programs or data. I would always back up though prior to doing this, just in case.
That is the quick and dirty version, I am sure there are more technical versions out there, but this is for the average reader to understand.
Call That Girl with any questions!
Hello all!
Hassan here, your Call That Girl marketing mad man! Today was a great day in the office at CTG. All of us interns were working hard at establishing outlines for our new projects. The flyers I designed for our Reboot partnership arrived today, and we are very pleased with how they turned out. This was a really great learning experience for me, and it truly gave me an idea of the different areas marketing can cover. One thing I learned from this project, that my marketing professors at UST have failed to mention is the actual design process for materials. Lisa, my fearless leader at CTG, quickly humbled me by showing me the difference between making a flyer on Word, and using design software. After I built the information side of the flyer, and developed a very basic outline of how we wanted it to look. The rough draft for the flyer was sent to our designer, and gave her an idea of how we wanted it to turn out. She did not mess with the information being presented, or the general layout of the flyer. All she did was main some minor layout changes, to make it look spiffy! The most impressive part about all of this to me is that a little really goes a long way. Keep that in mind yourself for the next time you have to build some sort of promotional marketing material… I know I did, and it turned out GREAT!!! Have a great week folks and thanks for following along!!
Random computer fact of the week:
One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.
For a month or more lately I’ve seen Internet Explorer cause some slight problems for folks. It’s not really slowing them down, but glitching more or less. This is a 2 fold issue.
#1. ) Your windows updates are trying to install Internet Explorer 8 and it’s not finishing the installation.
2.) You did the update/install but never completed the wizard and are getting oddities with surfing. IE may ask you over and over to allow phising sites or do other “optimizing”.
I’ll just say, I am a fan of IE 8.0 so far, but those extra’s aren’t helpful and are only going to annoy the advanced user or non-technical user. Just upgrade and don’t use the “extry’s” (as my Grandma would say”.
How to fix?
Do the installation. Run IE again and go to “tools” and then “internet options” and the “advanced tab”. In that window click on the “restore advanced settings” and “reset” tabs. IE will finish the install/updates and then close the IE window. Then open it again and you should see an IE 8 wizard box pop up.
Do the wizard, but select all the “No” options. This is how folks are having problems with IE 8.0. They are not completing the wizard and getting all sorts of phantom issues with it. I have updated many folks now with the wizard and it’s now working great!
If you would like help with this issue, we can help you over the phone. This does not require a home visit.
