Maybe You’ll Find These Helpful..

Sometimes, I find it very difficult to bite my tongue.. But I’ll be nice. Today I have some good info to share with you. Read on.

Apple (Mac) owners: Apple releases Flashback removal tool, infections drop to 270,000

“Apple today released an update to its Java component that removes known versions of the Flashback malware. In a separate study, Symantec reported that it counted only 270,000 infected Macs, down…” Read more..

Yes, folks.

The days of “Apples do not get viruses” are O – V – E – R. (Been true for a while now..) Fortunately, there’s an AV for Macs that’s not only good, but free: Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition
“Free antivirus that works simply and beautifully.”

Reminder: The deadline for filing with the I.R.S. is mere hours away. To help you meet this deadline, on the IRS website there is a page called “FreeFile”, and here you will find the “partnership links” to the free versions of 19 accepted tax prep programs — of which H&R Block’s Free File and also TurboTax are available.
To qualify, you must have an Adjusted Gross Income of $56,000 or less.

Today’s (2nd) free link: FreeFile at the IRS
(Note: there’s two buttons on the page; “I will choose” and “help me choose”. Though all of the programs there are accepted by the IRS, I would recommend clicking the “I will choose”, and then selecting either H&R Block or TurboTax.)

Best for last department: I met a guy. Think you may want to be aware of him. More precisely, be aware of what he does.

What he does – with his Free Data Recovery site – is help people rescue data from hard drives that have decided to go severely wonky, and/or push up daisies. Die. Go kaput.

“A Revolutionary Approach
Welcome, my name is Stephen and I’ve put up this site to begin the roll out of a truly unique remote data recovery service that I think has the potential to revolutionize the field of hard drive data recovery.“

Q: Who might benefit from knowing about Steven and his new FDR?
A: Anyone who does not have a proper backup strategy in place (aka “everyone”).

Q: And why is this “revolutionary”?
A: Well, click the link (above) and he’ll tell you. What I’ll tell you is that data recovery is an expensive endeavor (often involving “clean rooms”) and those of you with business critical data (aka “corporate”) should use that kind of (expensive) service — but for us average folk, trying to recover a few photos, say, well Steve is the guy to call.
Seriously.
Click the link, or the image, and find out why. (And when you talk to him, tell him I sent you.) Read more..

Today’s quote: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama

Your “Friday Fun”: Today’s funny video is a bit adult (language) and so I am just going to provide the link, and leave it up to you. But it is a classic Chris Rock sketch. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-880897175401400927

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

About the Recovery (D:) Drive

A Reader Asks a Very Good Question About the “Recovery Partition”..

Q: Paul,
When I open up the My Computer icon on my desktop to check my hard drive, the recovery disk is usually close to 2/3’s full and it is in GB. Is this a drive I want to do anything with? I have plenty of drive space on my C drive but this takes 3-4GB of space.
What is the recovery drive for and should I try to recover the the disk space it uses?

A: When you click on “Computer” (or, “My Computer” in XP) an explorer window will open showing the storage devices (aka “drives”) attached to your computer (storage “memory”). These storage areas will be assigned a “drive letter”, and usually start with the area which contains the Windows operating system and is responsible for “booting” your computer — labeled drive “C:”
Why doesn’t it start with “A:“? Well, back in the day, it did. Long ago, computers came with A and B drives – which were 5.25” ‘floppy’ drives (which contained the operating system. Windows didn’t exist yet). When the first “hard” drive came along, it had to go next in line.. thus C:\ (c: equated to “hard disk” [with a “k”]). Eventually, operating systems were designed to run from “hard” disks, and – eventually – “floppies” went the way of the T-rex. (But “hard disk” still equates with “c””)

I digress, but! I need to keep talking about computer history/evolution for just a bit longer. Long ago, computers used to come with CD’s. Either a Windows CD or a Windows CD relabeled by the manufacturer to something like “Dell Recovery Disc”. These were used in the sad case of really bad errors crashing the computer, and tech support told you you had to “reinstall Windows”.
(Sometimes called “disaster recovery”)

At some point in time, some brick-headed, idjit barnacle of a CEO made the absolutely dumbest decision ever made by Man — in the hopes that they could save 3¢ per computer sold. (Can you guess what I would say to this *person* if I met them?) They decided to do away with the Recovery CD and instead put those files on a special section (called a “partition“) of the hard disk — which came to be Drive D:\ (aka “the ‘recovery partition’)… the topic today. Ahem, sorry.

Back to the topic: When you first start up your computer (aka “boot up”) you will see a drab screen that says something to the effect of “Press F11 to recover your computer” (or some F key.. maybe F10, maybe F2..) This function is used in the sad case of really bad errors crashing the computer, and tech support tells you you have to “reinstall Windows”. (Sometimes called “disaster recovery”)

This “recovery process” will wipe (aka “erase”, aka “delete”) your C:\ drive, and copy the “image” stored on D:\ over to there — thus returning your PC to “factory condition”.. complete with crapware, such as Connect to AOL and Polar Penguins, and minus all your installed programs, updates, and … files.

You do have a backup copy of all those.. right?

This disaster of a disaster recovery method was not necessarily the case if you had/have a disc. Which is why the CEO mentioned above is a jackass. And why you want to read, Windows 7 Owners, You Want To Do This…

Answer the question, Paul: Okay okay okay
The drive D: aka “Recovery” is a special, protected area, which contains the files necessary to restore your computer to factory defaults. You cannot modify it. Short version: Pretend it isn’t there, and … hope you never need it.

(If you are eyeballing that ‘open space’ because you have filled up your C:\ drive.. well, no. What you need to do is install additional storage [ aka “upgrade” ] and/or go in and remove stuff from C:\)

* Okay.. maybe not the dumbest…

Today’s reco’d reading: Warning: Surprise spam trojan on Facebook

“Ever received messages from your Facebook friends containing a notice or invitation, such as an invitation to visit a particular site, added with an interesting message, like “Hey watch this, so cool!”? In most cases, the recipient of the message will be happy to follow it, especially if the message was sent by one of your best friends, which you trust. However, did you ever think that it could be sent by an intruder, spam, or even viruses?

Like yesterday, one of my friends received a “surprise” from Facebook, but then soon realized that his computer was now infected with the trojan, as well as making it a “spam machine.””

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

---

Share this post :

Will System Recovery Delete My Programs?

Most computers today come with manufacturer software and a partition on the hard-drive to provide the ability to do a “System Recovery”, oftentimes accessed through a program called “Recovery Center”.

I have received several inquiries recently as to whether or not running a “recovery” will remove (“delete”) installed programs and files.

A: Well.. Yes and no. It will “delete” your installed programs, and no, it probably won’t “delete” your files.

Huh?

What the recovery software — when launched — will do is offer to copy the files on your machine to a backup location,{usually, it depends on the manufacturer, but most do} and them restore them again after it wipes out your C:\ drive and re-Installs Windows.
(Actually, a factory “image” of your machine taken right before it left for market.)

[note: you already have a copy of your files.. right? You do make backups.. right?!? If you answered, “uh.. no, not yet..” please read this.]

Your computer will basically be “restored” to factory defaults, and you’ll have to reinstall all your programs, and visit Windows Update, and tweak your Desktop.. deja vu all over again. But, the contents of your Documents folder will be copied back.

Because of this, you should consider this type of recovery a method of last resort, not to be tried until other methods — such as the built-in Windows’ System Restore — have been tried first. https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/how-to-use-system-restore-to-fix-windows/
Maybe.. call a Pro first?

Today’s free download: Digsby helps you manage all your IM, e-mail, and social network accounts from one easy-to-use application.

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

Share this post :