Someone from home wants to say thanks and send you a FREE cup of coffee

Thanks to all of you who sent in the kind comments about the year in review columns for 2009(#1 & #2).  It is good to know that you are using them, liked the repeat of specific sites and that you are continuing to enjoy the column on a regular basis.  So, “Thanks!”

Today I wanted to talk about a very interesting free application that I stumbled upon this week and  the website where I found it.  Everything USB is an interesting site that has…well OK, you guessed it, lots of information about USB devices.  USB stands for “universal serial bus” and is the interface (plug) between your computer, most thumb drives/memory sticks and an array of other items that plug into your computer like camera cables, etc. with the little rectangular interface.  Take a look around there and you may find some interesting info.

One of the things that I found and have tried out for a week or so is called, “Predator“.  The Predator site says, “PREDATOR protects your PC with a USB flash drive” which is exactly what it does.

I know you have seen spy movies where they have to plug a device into a computer to unlock  it.  They don’t use the regular username and password we actually use.  Be aware that the majority of movies spotlighting computer use show them doing things computers in the real world don’t do at all.

With Predator installed on your computer you have entered the movie zone.  Once Predator is installed, you just plug in your thumb drive and get almost immediate access to your computer.  When you walk away from your computer just pull the stick out and drop it in your pocket.  Once, your USB device is out of the computer your monitor goes black and locks.

When you come back to your computer, plug in your device and it unlocks for you to use.

This program also requires you to set a Predator password just in case you lose your drive and can’t get into the computer.  If that is the case you simply press the enter key three times and it asks for the password.  You get three tries to enter the correct one.  If you fail it will lock down for 5 minutes and you won’t be able to try again during that time.  Neat little security trick if your friends at work try to get into your computer.

An interesting Predator feature is that it creates a log which you can read.  If anyone tries to log into your computer while you are gone it tells you what they tried and how it failed.  For instance, when you get back and check the log you could see if someone tried to get into your system with the wrong password, etc.  Check the site’s link above for more details.

Is this better than a username and password?  Nope, but it sure is cool.

Tags: add-on, computer, Double Click, doyle, internet, newspaper column, programs, Ron Doyle, thumb, thumb drive, Transferring Files, usb, USB drive, yego

This week I wasn’t planning on writing about Facebook; nevertheless, a new and devious problem has popped up.

I, apparently along with millions of others, have been getting emails that appear to be from Facebook.  These emails have a subject line of, “updated account agreement” with an authentic looking verification number.   It has an attachment and basically states, “Due to Facebook policy changes, all Facebook users must submit a new, updated account agreement, regardless of their original account start date.”  It goes on to say, “Accounts that do not submit the updated account agreement by the deadline will be restricted.”

For me the offending email went to a non-Facebook email account I have.  This was my first warning to ignore the email.  Next, which I have warned you about before, you should never open attached files that you are not expecting, so don’t unzip it.  Lastly, and the most obvious warning is that the unzipped file is an executable file (marked with the .exe extension).  NEVER EVER run an exe file on your computer if you don’t know exactly what it is…NEVER.

So basically, DO NOT follow the directions to unzip and run the agreement.exe file.  I have read several different descriptions on this agreement.  The scariest one states that the executable file is a variant of the “ZeuS banking Trojan“, a very nasty program.  Once run the program installs silently in the background of your system and waits for you to type in your banking logon information.  What happens when you do logon to your bank’s site?  It steals your information and sends the login info back to the bad guys.  Then they take your money…simply and quickly.  They now have full access to your bank accounts just as if they were you.

One day last week several Tech-news sites reported that over 6 million emails like this went out before lunch.

Along with this one, another Facebook phishing scam hit that asked you to logon to your Facebook account and change your password.  When you went to the linked site from within this email you would be taken to a very realistic Facebook login page.  If you entered your current username and password it would then take over your Facebook account.  This isn’t nearly as bad as the first one I mentioned but it may still cause you a lot of problems.  In this case you would most likely never be able to regain control your FB site.  They will have changed the password and your email account that was attached to FB and you are out of the picture.

Please folks I am tired of these attacks and tired of writing about them so let’s all listen up now.

Never open an attached file in your email unless you are waiting to get something from a known person/place.  Even if from a close friend!  Email accounts can be imitated just as if your friend sent something to you.  Next, no trustworthy company will ever ask you for your login information; whether it is a bank or online social network.

PLEASE be careful!  Once a mistake like this is made it may never be properly corrected.

Tags: bad guys, botnet, doyle, evil, facebook, newspaper column, phishing, Ron Doyle, sneaky, twitter, Zeus

Last week I wrote about “Google Chrome” and mentioned a couple of its better options.  “Google Chrome” is a good browser; however, at this point on the internet timeline I like another browser better.  “Better” used here is “as in my opinion”, so you are certainly welcomed to disagree.  Due to the huge number of emails about my favorite browser I will write this week about Firefox.  From the Firefox URL of mozilla.com, you can probably figure that FF is somehow related to Mozilla.  A very quick/short history of the browser starts in the 1990s as Netscape Communicator, later becoming Mozilla which is now Firefox.  That history leaves out a lot of the details but if you are really interested just Google for “history of Firefox” and you will find more than you care to know.

Why do I like Firefox more than other browsers?  Well, I can’t really put it in words but basically, for me, it is due to the “add-ons” available for Firefox.  You can make it a slim, fast running browser as it is downloaded from the URL above.  But also you can add add-ons which give it other abilities beyond those that come with it.  Be careful.  If you add too many add-ons it has been my experience that the browser can slow down significantly, especially when opening.

Add-ons are easy to find, download, install and use.  Every time I see something on the internet about Firefox it always includes the author’s favorite add-ons for their preferred browser, so that is where I will head today.  My “have to have” add-ons for Firefox are:

KEYSCRAMBLER:  When you type on your keyboard, the signals from the keys travel along a path in the operating system before it hits your browser. Keyloggers (the bad guys) are in this path and monitor, record and then send these keystrokes to the criminals who then use your secret data.  KeyScrambler stops keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes before they get to this path. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely impossible to read at that level.

IE TAB:  Sometimes web sites/pages are written to only use Internet Explorer.  The only one I have issues with is Microsoft’s “Outlook Web Access” which allows Outlook email to be used on the internet, usually by companies.  If I open it in FF they are jumbled and disordered but if I open them using the IE Tab in FF, the Outlook Web screens are displayed properly.

GOOGLE TOOLBAR:  This is the Google Toolbar that is available for most all browsers but this version is for FF.  It really ties your browser into all of your Google related resources on the web.

TABLOC:  This add-on obviously deals with tabs in FF.  It has many features but the one that I appreciate most is being able to double-click a tab and it locks.  Once a tab is locked when you click any link on that locked page a new tab will open.  That way it is much easier to go back to the tab that you started on before clicking away from it.

These are just a few of the add-ons that I like in Firefox.  Shoot me an email this week and let me know what you like about Firefox and its abundance of add-ons.

Tags: add-on, addons, computer, Double Click, doyle, FF, Firefox, google, internet, Ron Doyle

“A well known telephone scam is now being used on cellular telephones.”

“If you receive a phone call on your mobile from any person saying that he or she is a company engineer, or telling that they’re checking your mobile line, and you have to press 90#.”

“End this call immediately without pressing any numbers. There is a fraud company using a device that once you press 90# they can access your “SIM” card and make calls at your expense.”

“Forward this message to as many friends as you can to stop it.”

AND

“If you are ever forced to withdraw monies from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse order. The machine will still give you the monies you requested, but unknown to the robber, etc, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.”

OK, I’ve had enough from some of my well meaning readers and one or two relatives in particular.  Please STOP sending me warnings like these.  They are hardly ever true and I have written about ones similar to the above two before, but many people just don’t get it.

The two above are resurfacing from a couple of years ago.  And they, like all other crazy warnings are false. At least these two are based on pieces of truth.

The 90# was related to something that could have possibly happened in the past, but no longer.  In the past some commercial phone systems only required you to dial “9″ for an outside line, there is a very slight possibility that this could have led to something but no longer.  Also home phones and cells phones can not be affected by this so don’t forward this message to anyone. 

The Reverse PIN trick was explored by Joseph Zingher in 1994 or 1998 (I’m not sure this is true since I have found multiple references to him that disagree on his employment and dates).  He thought up the idea although no ATMs have ever used it.  I have read that it would cost too much money and the police may not be able to get to the scenes quickly enough.  In addition, under pressure, you may not be capable of remembering your PIN backward.  Consider also those pesky palindromic numbers like 2992 or 1221 or even 5555?

Just Google a few words from these warnings and find out BEFORE you send them to others that they are fakes.  For one of the above I just pasted “you have to press 90#” into Google.com and in a second found that it was an obvious Urban Legend.  Don’t waste your friends’ and relatives’ time.

Oh, by-the-way, have you heard that there is someone online who wishes to meet you and is lonely tonight…give it up please!

Tags: computer, computer help, doyle, internet, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, Urban Legend

I got several emails about transferring files from old computers to new Christmas computers recently.   They wanted to know the best/easiest/least expensive way to move old, but still important files onto the new computer.

First — don’t move your program files.  For instance you don’t want to transfer a game to your new computer, primarily because it won’t work.  Programs must be installed on your new computer because when a program installs, it writes information in many places on your computer that you don’t know about.  Without just one small bit of that information it won’t work.  So gather all those CDs you threw in a drawer somewhere and start installing them on your new computer; when you have plenty of time.

The data files or files that you have created using those programs, can be transferred to your new computer a number of ways.  These are files like photos, the book you are writing, drawings, scans, poetry, etc.

An easy way is to copy them to CDs or DVDs with your burners (hopefully both computers have one).  Next, copy the files from the CD or DVD to the new computer.  One CD can hold a lot of info (about 700 MB) and a DVD can hold about 7 times that (4.7 GB).  This is an easy, fairly inexpensive way but it will take a while. 

If you don’t have a burner you can use a flash drive in the same way as a CD or DVD transfer.  Depending on size one of these could hold more files than a DVD.

Another way is to purchase an USB file transfer cable (under $25) if both computers have USB ports.  You then link the two computers together using the cable and XP’s transfer program.  If one computer has XP on it, it will allow you to copy the program to the other computer on a floppy disk.  Go to ALL PROGRAMS / ACCESSORIES / SYSTEM TOOLS / FILE AND SETTINGS TRANSFER WIZARD and follow the wizard’s instructions.

Also, with the price of external hard drives down well below $200 they could also be an option for your data files.  Copy them to the external drive and copy them back to the new computer’s drive.  Then use the external drive for backups or with MojoPac (mentioned last week).

Advanced users could install the old hard drive into the new computer and drag files to the new drive.  Wipe the old one clean and leave it for more storage.  BEWARE!  This will most likely void your warranty!  If you have the computer built locally, ask the tech to do it for you…it will be worth the additional cost. 

No matter which way you go you will need to be organized in locating the files you want transferred and do not select files you do not really need.  This could be a good time to perform some file spring cleaning.

Tags: computer help, doyle, new computer, newspaper column, old computer, Ron Doyle, Transferring Files