This is the first Double Click column of 2010!  It is hard for me to believe but this is the beginning of the ninth year I have had the honor and pleasure of writing Double Click for all of my readers.  I am happy to continue as long as you like.  Please shoot me an email occasionally to let me know!  As usual…for my first column of the year and at the request of many emails I received, we will look at all of the Internet sites I mentioned last year.  So sit back and get your fingers ready.  By-the-way, if you are a clicker you can go to the DoubleClicks.info site and read the column the day it is published in the paper and actually click the links.

Here they are in their order of their appearance with short descriptions if needed.

• Open Office, a good free Microsoft Office substitute.
• Windows Live Mail, Microsoft’s free online email application.
• Thunderbird, another free email application.
• Avast!, a free antivirus and anti-spyware program.
• Windows Defender, Microsoft’s free application to protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats.
• Spyware Blaster, another app to protect against spyware, adware, browser hijackers, etc.
• Advanced System Care 3, free program used to maintain ands keep your computer running smoothly.  Note: some readers reported issues with this although it has worked well for me.
• Cuil.com, GoodSearch.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com, Live.com (now Bing.com) & Melzoo.com, various search engines (you know my favorite if you have read the column much).
• MySpace.com, Facebook.com & Twitter.com, three of the most popular social networks (twitter.com/rondoyle is the one that I use).
• Microsoft.com, the name says it all.
• Google Toolbar, the best of many browser toolbars, others mentioned; Alexa, AOL, Ask, Dictionary.com, Dogpile, eBay, MSN, Yahoo and Groowe).
• Google Desktop Search, Google application which enables you to very quickly and accurately search your local computer.
• TrueCrypt, application that allows you to encrypt your files for security purposes.
• Wallpaper Changer, allows you to change your desktop background at a specified interval. If you have Windows 7 you no longer need this.
• OnlineConversion.com, converts between most any type of measurements.
• Carbonite.com, Mesh.com & SkyDrive, cloud file storage; last two are owned by MS and are also free.
• Netflix & Blockbuster, DVD and digital movie rental sites.
• PayPal, eBay, iTunes , online payment and purchase sites.
• Hallmark & Dayspring, online e-card companies.
• Hamachi, a free hosted Virtual Private Network service that can securely connect computers on a network.

Next week we will visit part 2 of last year’s links.

Tags: 2009, google, internet, iPod, last year, microsoft, new computer, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, twitter, Urban Legend

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 said that I would give you the other Firefox add-ons that I like to use, if anyone asked.  You readers really surprised me!  You asked, so here goes the rest of my FF add-ons, in alpha order just to keep it simple.  At the end of each I put a one-word adjective describing it for you.

First up, “ColorfulTabs” which a couple of you said were your favorites.  This add-on doesn’t do very much for the geeks out there but it looks good.  “ColorfulTabs” changes the colors of each tab to a different color.  That doesn’t sound so great; however, it makes them easy to distinguish and makes the browser just look better.  There is a separate link for FF v. 3, so click carefully.  Attractive.

Next in my list is “Searchbar Autosizer“.  This one is a real space saver which I like.   I don’t like lots of buttons in my browser since you can see more web page without them.  This add-on allows you to choose between different sizes your searchbar will use in FF.  You can: 1) size incrementally by each letter you type, 2) keep the searchbar small until you start typing then it auto-enlarges or 3) set it to the width of your choice all the time. Useful.

Now a really slick one for the FF GUI (Graphical User Interface, or how it looks on the screen) called, “Tab Preview“.  For you Windows Vista users this add-on makes the tabs in FF perform very similarly to the way that the Tabs in your taskbar do.  When you hover over a tab in FF a small thumbnail (picture) of the page represented by that tab opens.  This allows you to not only know what page the tab represents, but to actually see a preview of its contents.  Favorite.

“TwitterFox” is one that is specifically for Twitter users (twitter.com).  By-the-way, you should check out Twitter. Find me at http://twitter.com/rondoyle. TwitterFox lets you know twitter statuses and allows updates to your tweets. Like I said specific to Twitterers, is that a word?  It will add a tiny “T” icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their statuses. Also it has a small text input field where you can tweet. Cute.

Last, but not least, “Windows Update” will allow you to update your version of windows without having to open MSIE.  Convenient.

Tags: add-on, addons, FF, Firefox, twit, twitter, Twitter.com