Dangerous Links, Phishing, and WOT

A recent article of mine has proven very popular. It discussed the recent epidemic of “rogue” antivirus and anti-spyware programs that is plaguing the Internet these days — such as Virus Response Lab 2009, Antivirus XP, and — literally  — hundreds of others.

These programs are really the tools used by cyber-criminals to infect your machine with malware… not clean it up, as you’re led to believe. (The article link [above] has a video demonstrating a rogue program.) As a bonus, you’re asked to provide your credit card number to buy the “full” (or, “Pro”) version.
What do you think criminals do with those cc#’s????

Regular readers are aware that I frequently post ‘alerts’ to the latest scams arriving via e-mail. Spam.

Here the latest, a classic phish:
from: AccountRobot_donotreply@e-gold.com
Subject: Notification of e-gold account update

What I’d like you to notice is the red circle next to the hyperlink .

That is the WOT (Web Of Trust) toolbar’s (now automatically integrated into Gmail, because I’m viewing it in a browser) website rating.
I’m no rocket scientist.. but I am pretty sure red means “bad”.. and/or, “stop”.

This website rating — with its easy to understand color code — tool can really save you a lot of pain and loss from phishing and poisoned websites; because the criminals are going to tremendous efforts to make their scams look legit (and to poison truly legit sites).
I’ll say it again– the Internet today is a very insecure and dangerous place!

There are many anti-phishing tools and plug-ins and filters to choose from (some are built into your browser, if you enable them) but if you want a quick, clean, easy to understand warning tool– give the WOT toolbar a try.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Questions About File Extensions*

Today I will answer a few reader questions in the (hopefully) now familiar “Q’s and their A’s” format, and provide a link to a free disk imaging program.

Q: What is a .bkp file?
A: First of all, it is helpful to know what a “file extension” is. The dot three-letters (sometimes four, as in website/index.html) ending you see at the end of file names is a method used to tell machines what category of file this string of code is (remember, it is just a series of 0’s and 1’s), and whether or not it is an “executable” file (such as a program.exe).
Your machine uses the extension to determine which program to use to open the file.

You are probably familiar with the more common file extensions: .doc and .txt for text, .xls for a spreadsheet, .jpg for pictures, and .htm or .html for webpages. Frankly, there are quite a few dot whatevers — too many to list here– the short answer is a .bkp is the backup file created by Windows Backup utility. This is the file you will use to restore your files should something untoward happen, and so you should treat it with care, and store a copy in two locations; on a CD or DVD and on a different drive or partition.
If you ever run across a .xyz that you’ve never seen before, and have no idea how it got there or what it does, the place to find out is the website FILExt.

Q: My computer is not showing file extensions, how do I make them visible?
A: You must turn off the “Hide Known File Extensions” feature. Open Windows Explorer using the shortcut mentioned in this prior article (Windows key+E) and from the Tools menu select (click) “Folder Options”. Then click on the “View” tab. Find and uncheck the checkbox by “Hide known file extensions”, as shown below.

Now click on the “Apply to All Folders” button, and then “OK”.

Vista users: In Vista you access this Options window via the Folder Options applet in the Control Panel. Start> Control Panel> Folder Options.

This answer is a good security tip as well, because hackers will sometimes take advantage of this by sending executable code disguised as something harmless.

Here’s how they’d do it: say they wrote a virus, we’ll call it “nastyvirus.exe”. If you received an email with the attachment nastyvirus.exe you probably wouldn’t click on it (and if you did, you really shouldn’t be using a computer! Sheeze). So the bad guy renames the virus “cutepuppy.jpg.exe.” If the Hide known extensions feature is on, it will appear to you as cutepuppy.jpg and you’ll be inclined to think the email attachment is a picture… and NOT a piece of nasty code.
Please note: for some inexplicable reason, Microsoft has Hide Known Extensions enabled by default. If you have not already turned this off, please do so now.

Today’s free download: regular readers of Tech–for Everyone know that I routinely advise making system backups for the purposes of “disaster” recovery. One highly recommend backup method is to make an “image” of your hard drive or partition with a program like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image.
If your hard-drive is made by Maxtor or Seagate (Seagate has purchased Maxtor), you can download a free, basic version of Acronis, to clone, image, or transfer your system. The tool is called Maxtor MaxBlast. [note: if you backup the image to an external drive, it must be a Maxtor/Seagate drive as well.]

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul, All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix

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How To Use System Restore To Fix Windows

Have you ever wished you could go back in time…and un-do something you did? Windows’ built-in recovery tool, System Restore allows your computer to do what you and I cannot do, jump back in history to a time when everything was working properly, and that’s a pretty neat trick!

Tip of the day: I should caution you that System Restore is not a panacea– there are some things it copies and restores and some things it doesn’t.
* It does not recover data once the Recycle bin has been emptied — you need to use Shadow Copy or an undelete utility for that.
* It doesn’t recover lost or corrupted User passwords.

It is, however, “user friendly” and simple to use. It does, automatically, take “snapshots” of the Registry and some dynamic system files, and is a good way to get an unstable and/or non-booting system back on its feet again without losing your files and user settings.

To get started, you need to make sure that System Restore is turned on, and that it has at least 200 megabytes of free hard-drive space to store snapshots on.

Turn on System Restore by clicking Start and right-click My Computer >Properties >System Restore tab and make sure there’s no check in the box next to “Turn off System Restore on all drives.”

While you’re there, select the drive, or partition, where you want to store the snapshots and click the Settings button. Now you can use the slider to denote the amount of memory you want to devote to System Restore. I set mine to about 500 MB’s, which gives me a good selection of Restore Points (snapshots) without losing too much storage. And now you are set: Windows will start taking snapshots whenever you make a ‘major’ change, like installing a program or device driver.

There are a couple of different ways to use System Restore to go back in time. In the first scenario, Windows still functions, and boots, but is unstable and crashes or freezes frequently.

1) Use System Restore by clicking Start >Programs >Accessories >Sytem Tools >System Restore. This will launch the System Restore Wizard. By default, the radio button “Restore my computer to an earlier time” is already selected so hit the Next button.

Now you will see a calendar, which has the available snapshots/times in bold.

2) Start with the most recent one first, and click “Next”, and then “OK”. Your system will reboot, take a while to load, and then a message saying “Your system has been successfully restored to date selected” will appear.

If this doesn’t happen, you will see an error message– retry using the next most recent Restore Point. You may have to try several.

The next scenario is when you’re in a bad situation where Windows just BSOD’s (”blue screens”), or won’t even boot. Boot your machine and hit, repeatedly, the F8 key as if you were trying to get into Safe Mode.

When the white-on-black Advanced Start Up screen appears do not hit any key(s) just yet. Before too long a dialogue will open asking whether you want to continue on into Safe Mode…Y/N? Type an “N” for “no”. This will launch the System Restore Wizard and you follow the steps as outlined above.

Should this dialogue not open after a suitable wait, use your up/down arrow keys to highlight (select) “Safe Mode” and hit Enter. You will now be in the funny-looking, petite version of Windows called, you guessed it, “Safe Mode”. It’s easy to know that you are, because it clearly says Safe Mode in all four corners of your desktop. Now you can access System Restore through the Start >Programs menu. Again, follow the steps as outlined above.

Occasionally System Restore cannot undo all the damage and it doesn’t work as we’d hoped. If the damage was done by malware such as a virus that also infected your snapshots, it may not work at all. But it is a powerful tool and has saved me many times over the years. It is quick, simple, and usually very effective– and it’s free!

[For more answers on System Restore, see my two follow-up posts; "A quick System Restore addenda", and "questions answered".]

Today’s free link: I mentioned undelete utilities, and there are many out there for you to try. Try to recover files by starting with a scan using Softperfect File Recovery. “…a free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption. If your important files disappeared and you can’t find them in the recycle bin, try this software product and get the files back to life. Easy to use, no installation is required.”

Copyright 2007-8 ©  Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Text Messaging Lingo– Help!

Folks– business obligations require a reposting today, but I did have time to update it.

I have an embarrassing confession to make–I don’t always know how to translate what someone has text-ed into English. I need a Text-to-English dictionary. This is just one more fact, added to an already long list of facts, that tells me I’ve gotten ‘old’. We didn’t have ‘texting’ when I was a teenager.

At first, I thought texting (aka “lingo”) was simply X-treme Abbreviation. And then, I thought it might be a combination of Vanity License-plate Language and X-Abbreviation. This thinking allowed me to read some of what I saw, but not all. I could decipher “gr8″ and “l8r”, but not “bb4n”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “texter” myself (Use a cellphone and give myself ear cancer? Not this fella!).

And then it dawned on me– these kids are using an Adult-proof secret code. They don’t want me to decipher it. The world suddenly made a lot more sense. My friends and I had used code too.

Fortunately, there are resources available for those of us who are “lingo”-handicapped. If you see “A/S/L”, but don’t understand what it means, you can find out (age/sex/location?) — and if you are a parent concerned about your child and what they’re doing and saying on the Internet and in chatrooms — I suggest you do.
If you’re like me, and just want to try to increase your “hipness” quotient (or just avoid some terrible faux pas), you will also find these translation resources useful and interesting. My favorite is below, as the day’s free link.

Samsung has conducted a survey of people who use text messaging, which produced results that state that text messaging is improving relationships between parents and teens. WiredParentPad has an interesting take on this, Do You Use Text Messaging to Stay Connected with Your Teens?

Free link of the day: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails. We are devoted to the fun of text messaging in all forms, there is a whole new fun language out there just waiting for you!”

Copyright © 2007-8 Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix 

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Empowering the Blind– Assistive Technology

Folks, I am a bit timid writing today’s article because there’s simply no way I can write it without showing my ignorance. I am not blind, nor otherwise physically impaired. I have no first hand knowledge what agencies or organizations are operating in your area, nor what the pertinent laws are.
I hope you’ll bear this in mind as you read this.

A few days ago I received a call at my online Tech Support biz from a gentleman who wanted me to look over his computer and make sure it was “up to snuff” and working optimally, because, he said, “hopefully, Ill be using it for a job.”
After answering a few of my routine questions, he had a question for me– was I familiar with JAWS?

I said I’d never heard of it. He told me “I can’t use my computer without it. I’m completely blind.” (He had a very old version, and there were some issues; thus, his call.)
We talked about life as a blind person for a while.. what impressed me most was this man’s desire to work.

Later on, I did some research, knowing that there may very well be a Tech–for Everyone topic there. It turns out that JAWS is the premier screen reading AT program.. and the most expensive– $895 for the Standard version.

[A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen. This interpretation is then represented to the user with text-to-speech, sound icons, or as braille output. Screen readers are a form of assistive technology (AT) useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, illiterate or learning disabled, often used in combination with other AT such as screen magnifiers.]

My client was caught in a classic “catch-22″. He wanted to work so he could “be a man” and have some money. He needed the software to work. He could receive some financial assistance to pay for the software, if he was employed (and could prove the software was vital to that employment).
Sigh.

What is available: If you, or someone you know needs access to assistive technology– here is what my research has uncovered.

Built-in AT: Recent versions of Microsoft Windows come with the rather basic text-reading Narrator, while Apple Mac OS X includes VoiceOver, a more feature-rich screen reader. The console-based Oralux Linux distribution ships with three screen-reading environments: Emacspeak, Yasr and Speakup. The open source GNOME desktop environment includes Gnopernicus and now Orca.

Free/Open Source:
For Windows
* NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open source, portable screen reader for Microsoft Windows. The project was begun by Michael Curran  in 2006. Although development progress has been rapid, it should still be considered alpha software.

Those listed above are it: the rest are commercial products, and range in price. All are a significant investment. Wikipedia has posted a list/comparison chart of screen readers that is a very good place to begin looking at your options.
Also, the Website Disabled World has a list, complete with short reviews.

My compassion and empathy were stimulated by speaking with my client, and grasping his catch-22 dilemma. I wanted to help him be a productive member of society, and get him the proper tool, but felt powerless.
Maybe something can be done.. but what? If I am missing something, would you let me (us) know? Post a Comment.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Modern Nightmare

It’s like we woke up inside a horror movie– we are under attack by zombies.

Yes. It’s true. Real life is imitating art (if you’re willing to call Night of the Living Dead “art”). We really are under attack by zombies– only our zombies aren’t trying to eat our flesh, they are trying to sell us bootleg f@rmacuticals and cheap Vl@gra, fake Rolex watches, and steal our identities. [note in the photo how the zombie is reaching for the wallet?]

In real life, our zombies can’t claw at us directly and they don’t have teeth. Our zombies are computers. Our computers. And they attack via e-mail and the Internet. Like the zombies in Night, they spread the zombie disease by infection. Differently, our zombies aren’t mindless; they’re controlled by villains (aka “cyber-criminals”).

Yes. Your computer may be a zombie.

If it isn’t a zombie (yet), it is constantly under the attack of infection via the Internet. An unprotected computer, connected to the Internet, will be infected within 8 minutes.
90 to 95% of all Internet traffic traveling the wires (using “bandwidth”) is zombie-generated junk e-mail that’s either a fraud attempt or (and?) loaded with malware– the “attack”.

How did this happen? Well, part of it is the Tech Industry’s fault (see, How the Tech Industry is Failing You), either unintentionally, or through lack of foresight, or through willful negligence and the rush to market. Security either wasn’t considered, or it was too expensive.
Nobody predicted the nerdy hackers evolving into organized, well-financed, criminal gangs of today.
And they put too-powerful, fully capable machines into the hands of the unwashed masses– us. The rest of it is our fault.

* We let our antivirus expire and everyday close the warning.
* We think we’ve just won the British Lottery.
* We still run Windows 98 because we’re “comfortable with it”.
* We cannot resist ‘free’ pornography.
* We cannot be bothered with those REALLY ANNOYING little windows that pop open at the worst times and tell us that a “newer version is available.”
* When someone tries to tell us about our machines, they start using big words in a funny language and we ‘tune out’.
* We believe that everything computer-related should be free, so we download cracked (aka “pirated”) software, bootleg music and video, and we don’t care who or where it comes from.

I could go on and on and on.

Yes.. we are our own worst enemies. But, you don’t have to be a part of the problem. And you don’t have to learn a big word-filled foreign language (aka “Geek speak”) to avoid the zombie attack.
Today’s free link: I have put together a list of proactive steps every computer user should know.. a checklist. In it you will find links to free, safe, and effective methods for protecting your computer, and keeping it safe. Please look over, Top 10 Things You Should Do To Your Computer. And then do us all a favor, pass the list on to your friends who have computers.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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How To Install Backup on XP Home

If you have photographs, and/or a music collection, and/or important documents on your computer, you simply must make backup copies or risk losing them forever.

Windows users can take advantage of the built-in Windows Backup utility. I have published a detailed How To for using it to automatically make backups and keep them up-to-date here http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/automate-your-backup-and-get-some-peace-of-mind/.
(Apple users can make an image backup using the Disk Management applet, which I describe here.)

That said, it should be noted that for some inexplicable reason, the Backup utility is not (usually) included in the default installation of Windows XP Home Edition. To use Backup, you have to install it manually.
Don’t worry, it’s a quick and easy thing to do; the files are on the XP CD-ROM in the “Valueadd” folder.

Tip of the day: Manually Install the Backup Utility
1. Insert the CD which came with your computer into your optical drive. Close any windows that open.
2. Open My Computer and right-click on the CD/DVD drive (usually “D:”) and choose “Explore”. Navigate to CD-ROM Drive:\VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP
3. Double-click the Ntbackup.msi file to start a wizard that installs Backup.
When the wizard is complete, click “Finish”. You will now find Backup in All Programs >Accessories >System Tools.
*4. Now, scroll up and click the first link to read how to use the Backup Wizard and set your machine to run automatic incremental backups.

BonusTip+Today’s free link: Make another backup using another backup tool.. of which there are many different types. Windows Backup is not the best backup type for an all-out system recovery, and so you might wish to use an “imaging” tool like Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage Home, or the free DriveImage XML (Bill Mullins talks about this program in a recent post, to read it, and see the appropriate download links, click here.)

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Patch Tuesday | Cyber-warfare | Vista hacked

This week has been particularly fun for watching misreporting in the news*.

There have been several instances of dire, Chicken Little The Sky is Falling! type headlines.. followed shortly by, “Oh. Wait. The data doesn’t support the conclusion” headlines.

Many, many years ago now, I took some Journalism classes in college. Every instructor I had, had these funny things called “Rules”. The top, Number #1 rule was: “Verify, Verify, Verify”. The second rule was: “There must be three independent and unrelated sources before you can consider anything a ‘fact’.”
We were told that we (future) reporters would have people, called “Editors”, whose sole mission was to double-check our “facts” and verify our “sources”.

We students quickly figured out why these instructors were teachers, and not actual newsmen (and newswomen, ahem)– they weren’t living in reality: in reality, there’s the word “allegedly”, and sentences like “is reported to have said”.

And we young people knew that “Facts” are about as much fun as a date with the Encyclopedia Britannica. Sensation sells. Duh.
[a brief aside: I decided not to become a reporter. I figured if I was meant to chase ambulances and firetrucks, I would do it as a personal-injury lawyer. I didn't become a lawyer either.]

Contrary to this week’s headlines:
* Russia did not launch all out cyber-warfare against neighboring Georgia. It was, in fact, hackers — on both sides — joining in the fun and using their botnets to shut down  a few websites.
See Kids, not Russian Government, attacking Georgia’s Net.

* Vista’s security features were not rendered useless by hackers, as “announced at BlackHat” (This one caused quite a stir!) In fact.. well, read what one of the “hackers” has to say:
See Alarmed about Vista security? Black Hat researcher Alexander Sotirov speaks out.

* And finally (for today), this Month’s “patch Tuesday” did not cause “widespread disruption”. At least.. here at T4E Headquarters it didn’t. Unless you call having to reboot “to complete installation” some kind of disaster.
Yes, there were more Updates than usual, and more of them were marked “Important”.. but that is actually a “good” thing– those Updates close holes.
But if you DID experience trouble (or, ever do) after installing an Update, click the link below and scroll down to the bottom answer.
See IE’s Menu bar, Taskbar icons, and bad Updates*

*(more accurately, “infotainment”.)

Today’s free link: is in the link directly above.

Survey: I am a bit curious as to how Tech–for Everyone readers are feeling about the Olympic Games being held in China, and so I’ve created a very brief (one question) survey.
Click Here to take survey.  (I will post the results Friday.)

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Remove Service Pack 1’s uninstall files– save almost a Gig

Folks, today I’m passing along a quick tip that I picked up from Bill Detwiler over at TechRepublic. This is for folks who are running Vista and who have installed Service Pack 1.

As I wrote about in my article Running with Vista Service Pack 1, If you are running a Vista machine, you really want to install the package of Updates and bug fixes called “SP1″. (Microsoft installed SP1 via Windows Updates a few months ago, and so you may not even be aware that you were upgraded.)

If you are happy with SP1 and are sure you are not going to want uninstall it — and I cannot think of one good reason why you would uninstall it — you can delete SP1’s uninstall files, and recover at least 800 MB’s* of space on your hard drive in about a minute’s time (that’s about 250 MP3’s worth).

Tip of the day: remove the unnecessary pre-SP1 files from your Vista machine.
1) Open a command prompt with Administrator privileges. (Start> Programs> Accessories, right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”)

2) Type in “vsp1cln” (no quotes) and hit Enter.

The file cleaning tool will take a couple of minutes to run, depending on your machine, and when it’s done, you will have almost a Gigabyte more storage on your hard drive– it cleaned 925 MB’s from my hard-drive.
I know, on today’s giant drives that’s not a big deal.. but who wants useless files taking up space for no reason?

Today’s free link: SpywareBlaster from Javasoft. “SpywareBlaster doesn’t scan for and clean spyware–it prevents it from being installed in the first place. SpywareBlaster prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, dialers, browser hijackers, and other potentially unwanted programs. It can also block spyware/tracking cookies in IE, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, and many other browsers, and restrict the actions of spyware/ad/tracking sites.” [note: this very useful tool requires that you manually check for updates.]

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Pen Scanners– A Back-to-School Must

There are some technologies that really do make me say, “gee, I wish they had that when I was a kid”, and one of them is the hand-held document scanner.

A hand-held document scanner is pretty much exactly what it sounds like it is; a portable device that allows you to “scan” text and images into digital form so you can store them on your computer… and thus access them for later study.
It’s kind of like having your very own pocket Xerox machine.

This is simply a “must have” if you are a researcher, or a student, as it replaces hand-writing out your notes, or carrying pockets full of coins to feed into the library’s copy machine.

When you find a relevant passage in a book, or other document, you simply pass the device over the text, much like you would use a highlighter. Later, you attach the device to your PC via a USB cord, and thanks to OCR, you can open your scanned passages in a text editor, like Word.

Hand-held document scanners (generally) come in two flavors; a true “pen” style — as pictured above — and a “wand” style.

The “pen” style makes it easier to capture just the lines of text that you are interested in. However, you must pass it in a fairly straight line, and wobbling it high or low may cause you to have to rescan the sentence (most have a preview window).. and some people use a plastic ruler as a guide.

I prefer the “wand” style, even though it (usually) means capturing a whole page. The color versions of these devices are pretty good at scanning images. Another advantage of the wand is if you are scanning tables and charts– the included software allows you to open the scanned tables in Excel.

Tip of the day: A simply fantastic Back To School gift (either for yourself, or someone you love) is a hand-held digital note taker. They’re quite reasonably priced.
My personal reco is to go with the slightly pricier wand scanner, and to go with the pricier-yet color model.

I won’t say which one’s “best”, but I will say that I agree with this PC Magazine review (read it here).

Today’s free link: SyncBack is a backup program that also functions as a file synchronizer, such as keeping your thumbdrive files and desktop files updated. From ZDNet:”Easily backup, synchronize, or restore your files to another drive, FTP server, ZIP file, networked drive, or removable media.“

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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