Al's Blog

What you should do when your computer says you have a virus

2011-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

This excellent article from brucebnews.com talks about what you should do when your PC tells you that you're infected. One of the main takeaways is that you need to know what antivirus software you're using. If you don't know what your AV software is, you won't be able to tell if the message about an infection is from your AV vendor or from a scammer. If the message is from your AV software, then you should follow the directions it's giving you.

However, if the message is not from your AV software, then you are being scammed. Bruceb gives these tips.

If a web site brings something up on your screen that might be malware, turn your computer off with the power button. Get your hands off the mouse and do not click on “OK,” “Cancel,” or the X in the upper right corner! Anything that you click might lower the defenses on the computer and install malware.
Antivirus software & UAC will not always protect you against malware if you click OK at the wrong time. The bad guys are liars. They will say anything to get past your defenses, without conscience or remorse. Use your common sense. Read and think before you click OK.
Don’t click on links to web sites unless you know exactly where you’re going.

Follow links with carefree abandon to and from legitimate sites, but don’t click on links that arrive in spam e-mail, instant messages, web forums, or IRC chats, or that start from an untrustworthy web site.
Don’t click on links in email messages unless you deeply trust the judgment of the person who sent the message.
Don’t click on links in forwarded messages.
Shortened links are becoming popular in Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and social networking sites. You can’t tell where they lead by looking at them. Don’t follow them unless you trust the person who created the link. (Ed Bott has an article today about a URL shortener run by McAfee that turned up in a yucky spam comment. McAfee and the other URL shortening services don’t check the bona fides of a link! Just because a shortened link has “McAfee” in it – http://mcaf.ee – doesn’t make it safe!)
Just because something is listed in a Google search doesn’t mean it’s safe. Make a judgment about where you’re going before you click.

March Madness Calendar for Outlook

2011-03-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

This is from Microsoft's Office site. I've added it to my Outlook.

March Madness 67 games, one Outlook Calendar

Keep track of all the games in the 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Subscribe to the March Madness Outlook calendar and you’ll automatically get the entire schedule, updated matchups, and locations of games delivered to your calendar*.

Why go to the cloud?

2011-01-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

If you’re a small business you have to decide how you’re going to handle your email and collaboration needs. Most small businesses are reliant on the Microsoft Office programs which include Microsoft Outlook. With a Small Business Server, the Microsoft Exchange email server is included. For organizations that want better communication, then Exchange provides an important piece. Besides the obvious ability to send emails, an organization can share calendars and contacts with others within the company.

If you’re one of my customers, chances are you have a Small Business Server (SBS). With those with a SBS 2003 server you may be looking to update that soon. Since that server was released there are now 2 subsequent SBS servers that have come out. The first replacement was SBS 2008. As of this writing, two of 3 versions of SBS 2011 have been released. These are the direct upgrades to SBS 2003 and SBS 2008. These versions, which start at $1096, have Exchange and other technologies included.

The version of SBS 2011 that is slated to be released soon is SBS 2011 Essentials. Pricing for that is $545. It does not have Exchange and other technologies included because it will have close integration with cloud based services. The advantage to this stripped down version of SBS is that the support and upgrades for Exchange and other technologies are handled by the hosting companies.

In Microsoft’s case, their current offering is called Business Processes Online Suite. It’s soon to have a name change to Office 365. Microsoft is using their newest Exchange server to provide email. All collaboration available in the more expensive versions is also available in Essentials.

Although there is a monthly expense associated with an online subscription, overall costs are held in check because of the lesser onsite support needed. Microsoft and other online providers give you support as part of the subscription price. This is not to say that there aren’t problems. As far as Microsoft support goes, however, they go the extra mile to make sure issues are resolved in a timely manner.

For those organizations without the need for greater collaboration, you can purchase licenses for Exchange only at a very reasonable rate. Next time I’ll talk about the SharePoint part of their collaboration suite.

Email Disclaimers

2011-01-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

There is a great article in Wired about why having a disclaimer at the end of an email is irrelevant but not having one can be costly.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/pr_burningquestion_legalwarning/

Secunia ranks companies with greatest security threats

2010-08-03T16:03:00.001-07:00

A new report from security software provider Secunia shows that despite considerable security investments, the software industry at large is unable to produce software with substantially fewer vulnerabilities

Apple
Oracle
Microsoft
HP
Adobe Systems
IBM
VMWare
Google
Mozilla Organization

Source http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20011403-62.html?tag=mncol.