Malware (bad software)

A lesson learned….

So I’m working on a friend’s machine. on the first pass, AVG found and removed 13 Trojans that were attached to his system restore, and then 1 virus.  But for some reason, he can’t access the internet now, so I took his computer back for further evaluations..

After 3 more AVG scans, tutorials on how to reset and reinstall the TCP stack, and winsock stack from scratch.. registry edits.. service pack reinstalls.. 5 more scans from various products, another 5 more malwares were found.. at the present moment, I’m doing one more scan just to make sure things are cleaned off. I am still NOT certain that I will not need to do a reinstall of XP for him.. but I’m giving it my best shot.  While waiting for the scan to finish, it was only then that I noticed that there are sooooo many malware products installed on this system.

So the lesson learned here is, for everyone who thinks that more protection is good protection.. I have this to say.. More protection is not necessarily good if the protection is a year out of date!!  Malware evolves (unfortunately) so we need to keep current on our protections.. There are free anti-virus software out there, some better than others.. get one, keep it updated daily! or give CMIT Solutions of the Lakes a call, and we’ll take care of that daily proactive task for you!

Multitasking…

This is note is going to be short and sweet.. it’s Thursday before Memorial day weekend.. WHY has this week been INSANE?!?!? is everyone else feeling the craziness as well? It’s good that business is getting busy.. (I hope yours is too).. Networking myself like crazy.. which is great too..  but I feel like I’m getting wiped out.! I was looking for some inspiration and found this..

“Wanting to be anywhere but where we are, doing anything but what we’re doing, is an unnecessary move that throws us off balance.” – Mipham Rinpoche

and he’s right.. In my morning networking session, there were fires going on all day, and all I wanted to sit there, and enjoy the people I was spending my morning with. But I was having difficulties.. So many things were on fire, and I was juggling so many things in the air..  I just needed to shut off the phone and focus on where I was at the moment.. Instead, right now, I feel all off balance, almost in a frantic state ( but calming now)..

So my message today, is not about technology per se, but for everyone having a crazy day like me, pause for 2 minutes, and take a deep breath.. or take 5 deep breaths, breathe out all the craziness and then resume.. we’ll be able to be more effective for ourselves, and our customers…

Facebook Security.. Instant Personalization..

It’s been in the news lately, but if you haven’t heard, Facebook has modified/upgraded their system such that some information you noted as private, has suddenly become public. One of the many new features from their Instant Personalization option. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has even generated a 38 page complaint against Facebook for all their new enhancements.

what do I mean? Before, I had much of my personal information set to private, or friends only… I didn’t want the whole world to know all my interests; music, food, etc.. Facebook, (I think) in hopes to bridge people together, took my list of items, matched them against pages, AND then provided my information to 3rd party sources based on what my marked PRIVATE interests were…what’s worse is if I had this Instant Personalization feature turned off, if a friend of mine still had it enabled, and belonged to a group that contained one of my interests, that 3rd party would also get my information!

Unfortunately, the default is to have all the boxes checked to allow this to happen.. You have to manually go in and uncheck all the boxes. Click Here for a step by step how to make sure you’re not publishing your information to outside interests..

.H

Pictures.. Pictures..

Today’s Lunch and Learn topic will cover pictures..

A friend just asked me which photo editing software do I use.. and the truth of the matter is, there are a couple that I use for different tasks..

If I need to send a quick screenshot to a customer, the quick and easiest application that I use is Paint!  yes! that little application in our start bar under accessories… It’s the greatest little app to use if you want to size a picture down, crop a portion of the picture, or even add text to a picture.. (not to mention a great little thing for kids to play with on your computer..!)

So that’s one thing we will be talking about, is different applications.. The other thing that we’ll be talking about is HOW to store pictures safely..  For companies that have monthly events that they take pictures for, they’d like to store them someplace safe.. hence BACKUP! We think of backup strategies for storing our business documents, but what about event pictures, logos? With the Digital Picture evolution, there really isn’t a shoebox anymore with printed pictures that we can store in the attic and pull out whenever needed.. We usually have them stored on the computer, and if that hard drive should fail.. whoosh! those pictures are gone as well!

So I hope you can join us this afternoon for Lunch at the Roadrunners at I215 and Flamingo at 12:30ish.!

Google set for world domination?

Did you know that Google generated $23.7 Billion (yes BILLION) dollars in 2009? And did you know that about 97% of that 23.7 billion was generated by advertising? (adwords etc) Hey, let me do the math for you.. that’s $26.989 Billion.

Yes, that’s a ton of money.. but do you know how they’re poised to take over? They have this whole company that acts as their think tank. They have sessions upon sessions of collaboration on a new idea, new widget, or even modification of an existing tool. They truly brainstorm, make an alpha or a beta product, and have all their employees TEST and give feedback.  They are trying to make things better.. They don’t always succeed, (remember how new gmail widgets caused email to be extremely slow for days?) but they are constantly trying to push the envelope, to innovate, to move things into the cloud, to create tools that make our lives easier and more efficient, to foster collaboration, to acquire strategic companies that do things better than they can do (YouTube)…

Have you seen their list of products? check it out here..  it’s massive and almost all encompassing..

Most if not ALL these tools are free. For small businesses out there, a copy of Microsoft Office for then entire office can be pretty pricey. There are other Free downloadable/installable applications that you can use that resembles Office, but for a small business that is just getting started, who doesn’t have legal or HIPAA constraints, WHY not use a tool that will allow your ENTIRE Sales team to collaborate on the new powerpoint Sales pitch? Or have a user of your product promote it for you, and post it on YouTube and have it go viral? (Travis Austin for Autotask comes to mind)

So the point of my first blog post is.. See how successful Google is? See the tools that they create/adopt in their Global Enterprise Multi-Billion Dollar business? As a small business owner, we ought to leverage their tools, collaboration ideas to HELP utilize technology more efficiently, to enable our small businesses to grow more rapidly..

.H