Cross your fingers that we continue to have Internet in the very near future.
Reports have emerged that three of the four cables that run along the Pacific ocean floor, and connect Asia to the United States, have somehow been severed. Accoording to the Times Online, there are fall back plans when a cable breaks that traffic is routed to a second cable, and before January of this year, there had never been more than one cable broken at a time.
With three of the four cables broken, there are outages being reported in Egypt, and traffic is delayed between Asia and North America. Due to these delays, strains are also being placed on the cellular networks as companies roll over to back up plans for communications needs.
Seeing as this is the second time in the span of a year there have been multiple line breaks, it sounds to me like it is time for more lines to be dropped across the oceans for even more redundancy.
While it is good news that this patch is out there, you will still have to wonder how many people never even know it was there, let alone that it is now fixed. We still recommend you look at using other browsers such as Firefox, Chrome or Opera.
Some days it just doesn’t even pay to turn on your computer when you run in to malware.
Malware is short for “malicious software” which is any piece of software that loads on to your computer without your informed consent, and intends to do harm to your system in some way. One of the most popular versions is a style known as “Rogue Malware” that usually intends to in some way mimic other software. The best known example of this style is the type I get infected with last night known as “Antivirus 200X”.
Antivirus 200X (there are versions for 2008 and 2009) attempts to fool you in to thinking that it is a Windows security program and that is is scanning your system for spyware, malware, adware and viruses. It will fake reports for these items and tell you that you will need to purchase their software to remove the harmful files. Until you do buy it, it will take over your system, attacking you with pop-up ads even in web browsers you don’t currently have open.
While I had fought off Antivirus 2008 before on someone elses computer, the 2009 iteration is even more devious. It barred me from going to websites that hosted software to uninstall it, even when I did finally get the software on the computer it kept me from installing it and it also locked me out of being able to edit my registery file so I could remove it by hand.
After trying several programs, I finally found one called SpyHunter V 3 that unlocked the installation problem. Once that was done, I used a combination of other softwares, and invested around 6 hours in fighting the infection. To help save others some of these problems, here is what I suggest you use”
Malwarebytes took out the main problem of the actual Antivirus 2009. I found good instructions, and a download link, at BleepingComputer.com
AVG Free seemed to find even more and has now installed guards warning me of potential problem sites
And when I found I still was getting random popups, BleepingComputer.com again came through with ComboFix. Make sure to follow the instructions on this one closely.
So after six hours of pain, my system seems to be free of this pain finally, but I am still being cautious.
Just remember to be safe in your surfing, backup your files frequently, and keep your anti-virus software up to date!
Running out of time to send out holiday cards? Why not send a video greeting?
Popular video sharing site YouTube has built a nice collection of video greeting cards you can share to friends and loved ones this year. Since most of them veer towards the humerous, it is probably best to keep these to people whom you already know what their sense of humor is like.
It is very easy to use.
Preview the videos
Click on “Send the video as a greeting card” at the bottom of the preview window
Pick a background
Enter up to a 230 character greeting
Enter the email addresses of the people you wish to send it to
Click on “Send this video greeting” and you’re done
If you are feeling really brave, you can also create your own video pretty easily.
The service is free, saves you having to send cards by traditional mail and saves trees! Hurry if you still want to print your own holiday greeting cards, or simply go this route if you run out of time.
Internet Explorer users have a new security flaw they need to be concerned about.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the “Zero-Day” flaw, meaning a flaw that has always been there, but only recently exposed, only requires a potential victim to visit a malicious website. The user does not need to download anything, so in the course of their normal Web browsing, they could simply stumble into the malicious coding. The coding installs itself on your computer and is currently used to harvest passwords for popular online games, which can then be sold on the black market.
At this time the flaw is only known to exist in Internet Explorer 7, the most popular iteration of the program, but could very well be lurking in older editions also. At this time, Microsoft, the makers of the program, have not yet released a security patch, nor have they given any indication to one may be forthcoming.
Until such a time as a security patch is released, it is recommended that users download another browser such as Firefox, Chrome or Opera (our choices are in that order, but all are good) to use.
My 21st century existence crashed directly with a 20th century utility today, and it wasn’t pretty.
Every one in the immediate StarterTech family awoke this morning to no running water in our homes. We had no clue what the cause was, but due to two of us having to run into town, we just opted for someone stopping by the water district office and seeing if our bills were up to date and so on.
What we learned was that the turn off was an area wide issue in our vicinity due to upgrades to the water system. When we inquired as to why we knew nothing about this, the utility office workers informed us, “Well, we put a notice on channel 3″, our only local television station.
Therein resides the problem. People with DirecTV or Dish Network do not receive our local channel. They can barely transmit over the air, and won’t even be doing that as of February 19th, and our local cable provider leaves a lot to be desired.
So here we are left with the issue that our water utility, an essential aspect of human life, left the ability to warn people of a major service outage to just the local television channel in the hopes you would see it. The outage was from 8:00 AM to 12:30 PM, and once it was back to working, we are under a boil order for 48 hours. What happens if someone left for work at 7 AM and reutnrs sometime after 12:30? This person didn’t see the notice, missed the outage, and now they are drinking water they have no idea that they are supposed to be boiling their water.
In this day and age, with dwindling television ratings, this was the best way the water company could find to communicate this important notice to us? How about doing some other free things that could potentially reach even more people?
Email burst list
Social network profiles
Twitter account
Those are just three ideas off the top of my head that would cost them no money, and reach potentially even more people. In the realm of alternatives that cost, there are also an actual website with notifications on it and text message notifications.
In short, therewas no excuse for the lack of communication, and way too much reliance on us just happening to see a notice on the local television station. How about getting a bit more proactive and actually going to where your customers are nowadays? I know, what a concept.
Walmart has launched over a hundred items at bargain prices on their website today in the lead up to the final push for the holiday season.
The items are heavily discounted and feature a good mix of toys for young children… and toys for the older ones, too. (also known as “adults”) The majority of the prices bring them into line with the everyday prices of online retailers like Amazon, but they are still good deals. With their free Site To Store shipping on the majority of the items, you can have them shipped to your favorite Walmart location and pick them up the next time you are in the store.
There is a lot more items to be had, and many rumors are circulating that you can expect to see more sales like this from multiple retailers between now and Christmas.
Gmail has added the ability to read PDF files, and this may cause mass rejoicing amongst people who use the popular email service for business.
PDFs, short for Portable Document Format,are a popular way for people to send documents to one another, but they can be cumbersome to use due to the need to download them. Google has removed this necessity by adding the ability to actually view the files inside of Gmail now. This is a welcome addition to the service for anyone who uses it for business.
According to the Gmail Blog, you will now see a “View” control next to PDFs attached to your email, so all you need to do is click that and you’re done. A welcome inclusion to the service, and yet another example of Google going hog wild with new features before the end of this yeat.
Novatel is looking to release a new gadget that maysolve one of the biggest headache for mobile computing fanatics: Where to find a WiFi hotspot.
Releasing sometime during the first half of 2009, the MiFi is essentially a 3G modem that will bring in the cellular network signal, convert it, and release it back in to the general vicinity as a WiFi signal. Imagine being on a train, bus or other form of mass transit, and you will be able to get our your laptop or iPod Touch and get right to work.
While the device has no official price yet, they are saying “under $200″, you will of course need to pay some sort of monthly fee for a data plan. While these vary wildly in price from carrier to carrier, this could easily become an essential piece of equipment for any one that works outside of their office more then they do in it. No mare hunting for a coffee shop, now you can work on the go, where and when you want.
Another day, another dozen new releases from Google.
As we mentioned yesterday, Google seems to be on a tear with new releases. Since we published the news of upgrades to Google Street View, there have been two major new releases from the Big G. First up, Google Chrome, Google’s upstart new web browser they introduced back in September, has been taken out of beta status and received an upgrade to version 1.
According to the Google blog, the new version has improved bookmark controls, better speed, improved stability and more. If you have yet to try out this new browser, it is a decent experience, though no one here at StarterTech has switched to it completely, we do use it every day for various tasks. If you have not yet downloaded it, you can download it here, and if you are currently using it, click on the wrench in the top right corner, click on “About Google Chrome” and then click “Upgrade” and it will handle the rest for you.
Second up is a new feature for Gmail that made a brief appearance in October, but it was pulled almost as soon as it appeared. The release is stable now and working with all of the major United States phone carriers. As Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins noted on Mashable last night, it is not working with regional carriers, though.
The Gmail blog notes that the new features is part of the “Labs” system which means you need to go in and activate it by hand. As we noted in the post about Gmail adding Tasks, you need to do the following:
Go to Settings
click the Labs tab.
Select “Enable” next to “SMS”
Then click “Save Changes” at the bottom.
After Gmail refreshes, you will see the options in your contact information.
As we said yesterday, we don’t know what has happened with Google this month, but they are on a tear for new releases!
Cross your fingers that we continue to have Internet in the very near future.
All users of Internet Explorer need to update immediately to fix a critical security hole.
Some days it just doesn’t even pay to turn on your computer when you run in to malware.
Running out of time to send out holiday cards? Why not send a video greeting?
My 21st century existence crashed directly with a 20th century utility today, and it wasn’t pretty.
According to the 
Another day, another dozen new releases from 
Second up is a new feature for Gmail that 
