Tag: Computer support St. Paul Minnesota
Your Computer and You
Your computer is probably your best friend at this point. It knows more about you than anyone else. It knows your thoughts, your dreams, your goals, your sadness, your banking information, your sneaky Google searches, your tax information, your business, your kids homework, your precious pictures, your private picture collection, your musical likes and dislikes, usually all of your passwords…. your internet usage….is YOU.
The point of this blog today is to alert everyone of computer safety basics
1.) Please, please please…back up your stuff! (that best friend of yours can lose your data or make it expensive to get back). After backing up, be sure to take your external hard drive away from your computer, put in a safe or at least in a secret place. Leaving it next to your computer is not recommended. Theft or fire, both will be gone!
2.) Create a log in password for your account if you have not. (make it harder for thieves to get into your account if they steal your computer)
3.) Create your children accounts on the computer that does not allow them administrative rights. (Too many parents allow their children full admin controls and they are getting more curious these days!)
4.) Use parental controls if you have young children (this will stop them dead in their tracks when they are searching on the internet)
5.) Get a battery powered surge protector for in case of storms. (After each storm, I can’t tell you how many people lose their power on the computers, modems, etc). If you have everything plugged into these devices, it should give you up to 20 minutes of computer power (*and internet!). The last power outage I had, I kept on playing on the internet in the dark.
Just a few thoughts from me and issues we see with our clientss. Have a great week folks!
If you would like to book an appointment with us, feel free to call 612-865-4475 or fill out the form below.
First Mac Virus Removed at Call That Girl
Definition of “virus” an unauthorized program that inserts itself into a computer system and then propagates itself to other computers via networks or disks; when activated it interferes with the operation of the computer.
Call That Girl had a milestone day last Saturday morning; we removed our first infected Mac computer. It’s not really historic, but it kind of is. We just don’t see viruses/malware/scareware get through on Macintosh computers. But it’s happening and here is what happened.
Client receieved an email from a friend that an attachment. She opened it thinking that she would be safe because it was from a friend and she’s on a Mac. Why not open it? It turns out that the attachment installed a small virus in her computer that caused constant pop ups telling the client to purchase extra antivirus software and redirected her internet sites to porn sites (since it didn’t destroy software in the computer, it may be defined as “scareware”). As long as something is intruding on your computer and causing your computer to not function correctly, it is definately an infection if anything.
Luckily this removal and a double spot check with one of our Mac cleaning programs took about a half hour. Will this be the case moving ahead? Will Mac viruses get worse? Probably. It is in my opinion something to watch for sure and track the trends.
What can you do? Most AV products have Mac versions available, but if they are anything like the pc version, they might not work very well. We simply do too many virus removals a week to know they don’t work. But outside of purchased protection, I think it’s important to learn added safety precautions. But just like we see on the pc side of infections, sometimes you are doing nothing intentional and you get infected.
- Watch your computer use better
- Be careful with opening attachments
- Be sure it was an intended attachment
- Look for suspicious names in the attachment
- If you see something popping up while you are surfing the web asking for your username and password, be sure you are intentionally installing a product or application.
- If you do get a pop up, never give your password, never give out your credit card number
- Never purchase products to remove the infection, these are always fake
- If you do click on something and you see a “status bar” moving very fast across your screen, you have already been infected. I recommend shutting down your computer and calling a professional, or call us to assist.
612-865-4475
Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9.0) Problems and Issues
Welcome to the wonderful world of Internet Explorer 9 or the not so wonderful world of Internet Explorer 9. I downloaded it a few months ago and did not have great success with it, so I uninstalled it and went back to IE 8.0. My main reason for uninstalling was that the tools I needed for work (LogMeInRescue) did not work on IE 9.0. It’s not the fault of IE 9.0, it’s that my product wasn’t built for it. But that will happen with many programs you all use. You may be on Facebook and now a game will not work, because it’s not ready for IE 9.0 yet. Or you will be on a website that used to work (it was maybe an interactive website) and now does not work for you.
Many of you are on Windows 7 and are automatically getting the download for IE 9.0. Some of you are getting it automatically and have no choice. Some of you have your updates set to notify you, and then you can have a choice to download and install it or not.
What if you are an XP user? You cannot download IE 9.0. You are only going to be able to install IE 8.0
Call That Girl’s tech team is not installing it for clients. We just do not feel that all the main programs people use online is ready for IE 9.0
Here is a link provided by Microsoft for more information on downloading or uninstalling IE 9.0
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/how-do-i-install-or-uninstall-internet-explorer-9
Final thoughts, if you want to try it, it’s not bad. I am not too happy with the look and feel of it and will probably stay on IE 8.0 until I have to upgrade. If you need help with this issue, feel free to book an appt with us on the form below.
Mac OS X Gets Its Very Own Fake, Malicious Antivirus Program
Re-blogged from http://www.geekosystem.com/mac-defender-fake
Need proof that Mac is catching up to Windows in a big way? Security firm Intego reports that it has recently observed in the wild a malicious, fake ‘antivirus’ app appearing on computers running Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Windows, of course, has been host to such programs for about as long as the Internet has existed. Apple’s fake, malicious antivirus program has a much slicker interface, though.
Called “MAC Defender,” the app functions similarly to comparable PC scam programs: It claims that the user’s computer has been infected with viruses and asks the user to pay for the program via credit card. Protip: Don’t provide your credit card number to MAC Defender.
For full story: http://www.geekosystem.com/mac-defender-fake/
Internet Email Alerts and the Facebook Hacking
Wow this was an exciting week with fake email alerts folks! We have received tons of client emails asking about these and yes, they are fake as all get out!
Best Buy, US Bank, Target, Ameriprise (and more) got hit . Apparently it was just email accounts that were compromised, but welcome to the world of the Super Information Highway (circa 1997). How long has it been since you have heard that term? A very long time I am sure. I say Super Information Highway because Facebook hacking and these email hacking intrusions are becoming very prevalant in today’s world. And no, antivirus protection will not help you with this, it’s all done on the inside and sitting cozy in your inbox when you wake up.
Are we safe? Probably not. Will my email get hacked even though I have it on a Go Daddy secure server called “secureserver”??? At some point I guess. What can I do about it? Not much, it’s the internet. I think in a few years our whole internet experience will be changed completely. I do think that we will have something called “an internet account” that is run by some large company and every single thing we do is run out of it. Almost like a Zuckerberg idea of sorts, but very secure with physical requirements to log in…unlike Facebook right now. Speaking of Facebook, the calls are still coming in on a weekly basis about people’s facebook accounts getting hacked. Don’t fret, the techs at Call That Girl are sniffing and testing these “I photoshopped a picture of you” chat logs and private messages. So far, our programs are keeping out the intruders. Want to know what we have? Call us for more info 612-865-4475
Moving along…What should you do if you get an email from a well known company that you service with that looks like trouble?
- Delete the email–who cares (I did that with my US Bank email)
- Call your bank if you are worried, scared or nervous
- Never click on links in these types of emails
- Call us for a virus spot check if you did click on any links
While we are not surprised by what is going on, we are trying to watchdog it and alert our fans, friends and subscribers of this information. Always delete, ask questions later!
Lisa
The Service Pack is Back!
Woo hoo! It’s that time for the highly anticipated and eagerly awaited SP 1 update for Windows 7. The service pack is back!
Before we begin, let’s start off with some important things to do before you install service pack 1.
- Back up your entire computer. Very important. It’s not that the service pack will delete files, but if your service pack update goes bad, in a worse case scenario situation, you maybe have to reinstall the operating system (Call That Girl has done 3 updates now with no problems).
- If you need help setting up on online back up system, feel free to call us and we can help.
- We can also help you do a back up to your external hard drive
- Then go to your control panel and to “…..”
- It will say that you have one important download and go ahead and start it
This update should be an hour to an hour and a half to do. Just let it go and relax a bit.
