FAKE APPLE E-MAIL SCAM

DON'T LET THAT EMAIL FOOL YOU!!

There are always email schemes running amok in the world; they can be from Banks, Ebay, Amazon - just about anywhere. Here is one I just received, with the subject line: "Apple ID temporarily locked".

Always be suspicious, for example, this email supposedly comes from Apple.Uk and I'm not in the UK. If you hover over the email address links, it just shows your email [again], but when hovering over:

>Validate My Apple/iCloud Account Details

You'd see a long line of HTTP lingo that doesn't really send you to Apple.

Remember, ALWAYS be suspicious of emails of this nature. As you can see, my Norton Anti-Virus pegged it as SPAM correctly.

'Nuff Said,
Brian

MY COMPUTER IS DEAD

OR, "MY PC WON'T TURN ON"










These are but only two examples of how the customer explains an issue. Obviously there are several things you can check:

• Are there any lights or fan noises coming from the computer?
• Is the power "ON" LED lit on your screen?
• When you power up your PC does it display the "Splash" screen? Example: If you own a Dell computer when it's first powered on a large DELL appears on the screen with a status bar just below it indicated boot progress. If you get this, your PC is not dead.
• If your PC has no lights or noises, check to make sure the power cord is firmly inserted into the computer power supply
• Or, if it's plugged into a power strip, and other devices are working, try plugging it into another outlet
• If the screen has no indications of power, unplug then replug the power cord back into the monitor itself.
• Also, try the other end of the plug and make sure it's firmly connected and/or try another plug.

Many times there actually is something on the screen. It will be black, very often displaying "No bootable device found" in small white letters. This could mean your hard drive has failed, or, if the computer is set to BOOT TO CD DRIVE first, and you have a blank CD/DVD, music or game cd in that drive it won't go any further. 

Likewise, if for some reason it was set to boot to USB drive, and you have a non-bootable USB flash stick inserted, you could get the same problem.

If you do some trouble-shooting as listed above, you could possible save yourself a service call, or at the least, be able to answer the questions asked of you by the technician on the other end of the phone -

'Nuff Said,
Brian

WHAT? I CAN'T GET BRIAN??

ANY NEWS IS ALWAYS GOOD NEWS FOR MY RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMERS





Sugarlandpc and I have parted ways. I've known for some time that they've been pushing more into the business realm, while at the same time I've enjoyed the personal contact, conversations, and relationships I built on the residential end of the business. 

They've always been clear on their direction into having more business accounts than residential. I suppose some of you have felt a change this year with certain area codes getting charges for travel to your home.

MY PICTURE/BIO BEFORE I DISAPPEAR FROM THEIR WEBSITE

During a service call I had last Monday morning, as I worked on the customers computer, I talked with my customer [as I usually do] and somehow "soldering" was mentioned, and she told me how she had loved to solder - in fact, during World War II she soldered resistors and capacitors into bomber dashboard instrument controls! 

Another call down near Galveston led me to a customer named "Leonard", who, as it turned out had won an Emmy for his work in television, and was also a Ham radio operator, like myself. Leo and I are now good friends as well!

It's calls like these that have solidified my love for helping those at home. I never know what I'll learn from my next customer, and while they end up with a virus free computer when my car pulls away from the curb, I often learn a bit about history. A slice of someone's time/history that I never would have know about otherwise.

Does this mean you cannot get residential support by me any longer? Of course not! I'm still here, available to help your needs -


Regards,
Brian 

DRIVE BY MALWARE

HOW IT WORKS

I've addressed many of these same issues from time-to-time, until some of you are probably sick of seeing it, but the problem isn't going away - it's increasing in size!

DOES THIS LOOK FAMILIAR?

A recent [and excellent] post on Malwarebytes blog helps bring everything into focus and I suggest you give it a read! Here is an excerpt:

“UpdateNowPro.com is distributing Software Updater. Air Installer is an install manager that will manage the installation of the selected software. In addition to managing the installation of your selected software, this install manager will make recommendations for additional free software that you may be interested in. Additional software may include toolbars, browser add-ons, game applications, anti-virus applications and other types of applications. You are not required to install any additional software to receive your selected software. You can completely remove the program at any time in Windows ‘Add/Remove Programs’. At the time of downloading you accept the Terms and Privacy Policy.”

In other words, the program they want you to download bundles other applications, something we know all too well.

You can read this Blog post HERE.

Regards,
Brian

NEED A GREAT ANTI-VIRUS FOR MULTIPLE PLATFORMS?

WEBROOT SECURE ANYWHERE

INTERNET SECURITY COMPLETE

As I've often said, there is NO magic bullet [ed. - Anti-virus] that will stop 100% of the threats you will encounter via the Internet, but if you stick with one of the highly rated companies, you're in the right ball park! 

Lately I've been somewhat distressed while at a residence for virus cleanup and hear that someone [for example] said -  "You should get rid of your Norton product - it's trash", when they still had 200 days of protection left which they had paid for. Nonsense.

Whether via the Webroot website, or Amazon you can pick up an excellent deal on their multi-platform [Windows/Mac/Tablet/Cellphone] best selling edition that covers 5 devices, for the wonderful price of:

$29.99

Should you ever get this sort of advice, please feel free to contact me for a balanced opinion, which, if you've read my Blog's long enough, I know that you know you won't get a line of BS like that -

'Nuff Said,
Brian

EBAY'S "StubHub" VICTIM OF HUGE CYBER CRIME RIP-OFF

LITTLE DETAILS NOW

Apparently Ebay's StubHub online ticket resale service has been the victim of a huge/wide-cyber crime scheme which has been under investigation for about a year now. 

Only a few details have been leaked about the operation but Authorities involved in the investigation and arrests will be making a press announcement sometime later today -

'Nuff Said,
Brian

83

83 WHAT?

In the last 45 days or so we know that Microsoft has patched 83 flaws in it's Internet Explorer; and that's a LOT of patching [59 of those were last month's total]. Microsoft wants everyone to use Internet Explorer as their main gateway to the Internet, but for some reason they can't get it right.

24 IE updates were from this Tuesday's Microsoft patch day, and take particular note if you are using Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any Internet Explorer under 10 - go directly, immediately to Adobe and update your FLASH to avoid a terrible credential stealing flaw. Stop reading this and do it now.

Taking a quote from an article by Gregg Keizer:

"This issue is definitely in the wild with public exploit code," warned Ross Barrett, senior manager of security engineering at Rapid7, in an email. "Flash users should patch immediately."

'Nuff Said,
Brian