We think it would make much more sense if folks had a way to have those important machines checked out every once in a while, on a Proactive basis. Call it Proactive IT support for Home and Home Office Computers. Oh wait! There is just one problem, and that is that no one offers this service at a price that makes sense to residential or home office customers.

As I was making my review of what is going on on the industry, and talking to my competitors in my area, this fact became very clear. Larger businesses have IT personnel on contract for set hours and once they reach a certain size they also have specialized monitoring software that will alert everyone immediately the second some sort of issue appears on a covered machine. What do home and home office customers have? Their telephone. Of course the problem is that no one thinks to call the Awesome computer guys until things are really bad, and then they can be down for several hours while a Tech is dispatched and the issue is fixed.

It does not have to be this way.

Once I came to understand the problem as I have explained it above, I knew that we were uniquely positioned to offer a compelling solution to this problem. What I asked myself is: “How can we set up a worthwhile Proactive offering that is not cost prohibitive for home and home office customers”?

And my answer has now been formulated and it is called Awesome Care. For a set price that almost any home or home office computer user can afford, the Technicians at Awesome Computer Help directed by 23 years of Tech Support Experience will make a proactive remote check on your computer(s) twice a year. By doing this we believe we will be able to spot problems that are forming and will be troublemakers later. We will fix them now before they have a chance to bring the machine down. As an additional incentive folks who sign up for this program will get priority scheduling and reduced rates on all of our other services, and a new less expensive “remote support” service tier that is not available to the non-Awesome Care customers. It is the priority scheduling that we believe will be the greatest benefit, because the last thing that any user wnats to hear when they call in for a computer repair is that they cannot be helped immediately.

And so we now offer Awesome Care on a world wide basis. For those customers not in our physical coverage area, we will still make the proactive checks and report the results via EMail, and in cases where more assistance is required that cannot be done remotely, we will assist those out of our coverage area customers in finding a suitable local Tech who can help them, and will try to negotiate the best rate possible for them.

Of course this might be the year where the important computer does not fail at all . . . but why take the risk when some real peace of mind on the compouter can be purchased for so little? There is just not time for that kind of scare in someone’s life.

Avoid the Scare with Awesome Care

Now 99.9% of computer users know that you should not open that attachment on that strange EMail (which is likely from someone you know) or click that link in that strange EMail that you just got (probably also from someone you know). So how can the virus writers infect your machine if 99.9% of everyone knows not to do that?

Well there are several ways, and absolutely everyone needs to read this article to understand what some of those ways are, but the virus writers have not given up their traditional approaches either, and thus we need to have a quick discussion about Social Engineering.

The FBI Rogue is a great example. If you actually read what it says on the screen when this infects your computer, you will read threats that your machine has been doing illegal things or that you have, that it will threaten to file criminal charges against you, and that all of this will happen to you if you do not pay them $400.00.

It is the same thing as a spam EMail that comes in and says “IRS Notice of Under-reported income” or “Foreclosure Notice”. Of course all of these are lies but they are designed to get you upset and out of your normal frame of mind. The virus writers know that if they can get you out of your normal frame of mind then it is more likely that they can get you to click that link or open that attachment.

In the example case, my customer acted very smartly. As soon as he saw his own picture next to a screen with an FBI Logo, he immediately turned off his computer and left it off until he was able to get it here to my lab in Cypress. I was able to clean the machine for him and we prevented that FBI Rogue from spreading to anything else on his home network.

Of course the FBI Rogue has nothing whatsoever to do with the real FBI. They are just trying to scare us. Do not let them.

Joseph

The result of this will be a new Service Offering that we plan to roll out on February 2013. It will be called

Awesome Care

The idea is for us to come check your machine proactively from time to time so that we can see problems coming and head them off before they get there. We envision the following benefits being defined for those who will purchase Awesome Care.

1. Defined pricing at a discount for all of our services.
2. Stable and available remote control access for remote repairs.
3. Protection from service price increases for as long as the plan is in effect.
4. Priority Scheduling if something does go wrong.
5. Automatic Renewal with Credit Card
6. Pricing that Home and Home Office customers can work with
7. Plans for small business with no limit on number of computers
8. Peace of mind for customers who know that their computers are getting a timely checkup by an expert.
9. Easy process to remove machines or add new machines.
10. If you move locations then your service moves with you as long as it is current.

Use the list at the top left to find a Tech today, and ask them about Awesome Care. You will be glad that you did.

Avoid the scare with Awesome Care!

Now do not get me wrong, I do believe that Windows 8 does represent the direction that all computing is going . . .

I just disagree with the way normal computer users are forced to make the change before they are ready to because they are not allowed to decide what OS comes on the new computer that they purchase. My recommendation to normal computer users who are not wanting to be on the bleeding edge is to avoid Windows 8 for 12-18 months at least.

There is a significant learning curve with Windows 8, and the classic Windows 7 interface does not work as well as you might hope. Windows 8 is also clunky (a technical term) on traditional computers with a mouse and keyboard . . . it does much better in a touch interface scenario. I personally think that in Windows 9 they will remove the text from the tiles by default, just like they did on the Taskbar (by default) between Vista and Windows 7.

To me it appears that they are being influenced by Star Trek where the computers are all pictures or symbols and no text and all touch or voice interfaces. I personally believe that this is driving some of their decisions.

You know, like Mr Scott says in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: “The keyboard! How Quaint.”

So I believe this is why they are moving this direction, but I am concerned that someone who gets a new Windows 8 desktop or Laptop (non-touch screen/non tablet) computer under their holiday tree may spend until well after New Years celebration with a lot of frustration.

Most reports I see say that the time to get comfortable with the new operating system is measured in weeks. I remember my own experience the first time I saw a beta . . . I sat in the front of the machine for a couple of minutes not knowing what to do at all, and then I started clicking on various things to see what they did.

So if you like Windows 7 and will be replacing a computer in the coming year, you might want to start trying now to see where you can still get a Windows 7 machine.

Aleuron Trojan
TDL3 or TDL4 Rootkit
TDSS

The Aleuron Trojan is a delivery mechanism for the TDLx rootkits. A rootkit is a malicious piece of software that hides in the background on your computer but can give someone else control of it. A Zombie Net is a group of infected computers that acts as one because it is controlled by the same version of malware; and on the dark side of computing folks sell access to Zombie Nets for real money.

What could someone do with a Zombie Net? For our purposes we will talk about a 20,000 computer (typical) Zombie Net. The controller (or the person who has bought control) can issue a command to the entire group telling them to do something like hit microsoft.com over and over again. This is an example of what is called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack and is designed to bring the target website down by overwhelming it with requests from all different locations.

But these days the more valuable item is harvesting EMail addresses. Every infected computer can provide a list of 500+ EMail addresses to the Zombie Net controllers that can then be sold to spammers. So you get spam not necessairily because you have a virus, but one of your friends did and they got your EMail address off of their computer. Please note that the Address Book is only one place they get these addresses, there are many more.

Almost everyone knows that they should have a good AV program and make sure it is not expired and it is updating, but it still surprises me how many folks have a Windows machine with an expired AV or even with no AV at all! Might as well paint a big target on your computer’s back if that is the plan.

What do we recommend for AV? The one and only VIPRE. Small, fast, effective and out of your way, with US based Tech Support where the folks speak clear English, and all of that for much less than the competition. The only brand we recommend.

What if there was a carrier out there that did not lock you up like this? Well you might be suspicious because you do not know what their coverage would be like. . . but what if you then learned that they use the Sprint Network?

It is here now, and it is called Flash Wireless from ACN. Click this link and then click the Shop Now button at the top right.

Flash wireless has plans for simple voice all the way up to Unlimited Voice and Text Messenging and Unlimited Data. Yes that is Unlimited data. They have different smart phone options that you can see at the link above. These options change on a regular basis so try again in a few days if you are not seeing one out there that you like right now. The best part of all is that you are not all locked up on a deal and can switch or quit at any time without any kind of penalty.

So show the mobile phone companies who’s boss. Sign up for a Flash Wireless Plan today!

If you did have two resident antivirus programs on the machine then they are likely to spend as much time fighting each other than fighting actual viruses.

Unless one of them is NOT resident.  Enter the Free Version of Malwarebytes Anti Malware.

The free version of Malwarebytes is a stand alone non-resident scanner that will not interfere with your resident scanner (which should be Vipre if you have been listening to us).  It has to be the free version however, even a free trial of the paid version will become a resident scanner and then will conflict.

Now Malwarebytes is a very good resident scanner, but I do not like to use it that way.  If you use Malwarebytes as your resident scanner then you cannot use it’s free version as a backup scanner, which is my favorite way to use it.

So our recommendation is to get Vipre for your resident scanner, and then get the free version of Malwarebytes to back it up.  The first time you run the Malwarebytes it will ask you about a free trial of the paid version, and you will need to make sure that you press the Decline button.

Here’s to you Vipre and Malwarebytes provided safe computing!

Buying a used computer I now think is worse than buying a used car.  Sure everything appears to work ok when it is purchased, but it will come with almost no warranty and is generally much closer to a hardware failure of a component than a new one would be. Also pretty much everyone charges too much for used machines.  They lose value quickly and in my view are always priced about $100.00 too high.

Some folks end up doing this because they want XP or Vista when Windows 7 is the only easy choice on a new machine.

Your local computer place, especially if you can find a good mom and pop shop, can build you a new machine and install these older operating systems if that is what you need;  but it is going to cost a couple of hundred dollars more generally than if you were just able to buy a new machine off the shelf.  I am referring to Desktop computers here, as it will become increasingly harder to put older operating systems on Laptop computers because it is difficult to get the right drivers.

If you need a Laptop with Vista or Windows XP today, then you will likely need to buy a business class machine such as the Dell Latitude.  You will pay a little more, but drivers for the older operating systems will still be available.  Also you will need help potentially getting the older operating system on the machine, as it will still come with Windows 7 by default unless they have an option to change that at purchase time.

We are now recommending to our customers that they purchase new machines if they need the older operating systems still. It costs more up front, but will pay for itself on the back end with increased stability and machine life.

If these newer things worked a little better in general I would not be as concerned, but these newer configurations (different from the traditional desktop or the traditional Laptop) seem to have more than their fair share of issues from what I have seen.

Today let’s take the case of the big computer in a screen.  I am not really sure what this idea is all about.  The machine is not portable, yet it crams all components into an extremely small space as if it were a portable.  With a wireless keyboard and mouse it has no other wires other than the power cord, but all the wires of the traditional desktop are usually out of everyone’s way so I do not see any real advantage there.

Plus you cannot ever get a bigger screen, you are stuck with the size of the screen you bought.

Of course all the parts inside are going to be proprietary in a design like this, which means if a componant fails outside of warranty it will be expensive and probably cost prohibitive to fix.

I cannot see any advantage for a machine like this for the consumer.  Get a traditional desktop (NOT a slimline) instead.

How to do it?  Well as with all things in Windows there are several ways to get there and none of them are wrong, but I like to right click the Start button or Orb and choose “Explore” or “Open Windows Explorer”.   Once the Windows Explorer appears then I like to find the C: drive on the left side and then right click on it and choose Properties.

On the resulting dialog box there is a Tools Tab.  Choose that.  The top button on the resulting dialog is the Check Disk button. Press that and I like to make sure both Checkboxes are checked.  Then press check now.

It will not actually check it now,  but it will ask if you wish to schedule a check for next boot.  Say Yes to that.

The next time you boot or reboot the computer then the check disk will run, and it could take an hour or so depending on the size of your disk, so do not do this when you are facing a deadline and need your computer.  You can watch at least the first part of the disk check,  if errors are thrown it is usually obvious even to the non-techie.  Once the disk check is done then Windows will start as usual.

Now just because a drive is making noise does not mean that it is dead or even about to die, but noise is not the usual case for most drives, especially if it has been silent in the past and is suddenly making noise now.

First and foremost, if you do not have all the data files on this drive backed up please stop reading this immediately and go and back up your files.

There is a disk check option in Windows that you can use to get a feel for how the disk is doing. There are several ways to find it but I like to right click start and choose Explore or Open Windows Explorer. Find the C: drive and right click on it and choose properties. Then choose the Tools Tab. The Check Now button is at the top. Press that and mark both check boxes within. Windows will ask if you want to schedule this check for next boot and you will say yes.

The next time your computer reboots you can watch the disk check. I like to listen to the drive during the check as well and see what kinds of noises it is making.  If you are not sure about the noise you are hearing, get a professional opinion about it.

After troubleshooting the machine we determined that the source of the issue was the hard disk. It was not completely dead and indeed we were able to get all of the files off of it and stored in a safe place, but running a scan on it produced more than a thousand errors.

A dying hard drive is the last thing that folks think of when their brand new computer has an issue, but if this user had not sought help when he did, that drive could have completely died before we were able to copy off all the files.  Hello thousand dollar guys, or the clean room data recovery folks.

The moral of this story?  If your computer is doing something weird, do not wait around to get it fixed . . . and also backing up all of your data to a secure place is always a good idea.

For today let’s talk anti-virus.  We have recently withdrawn our recommendation for any of the free anti-virus products. We used to recommend Microsoft Security Essentials, but we believe that asking someone who you are not paying to protect you from hundreds of thousands of malware traces in the world might be a lot to ask and a lot to expect.  We now exclusively recommend Vipre, and you can find it on the Best Antivirus page.