tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60001595267987393372024-03-08T18:04:33.979-05:00Your Personal Computer AssistantGot problems? Need answers? You've come to the right place!Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-47254255418148434022010-03-30T04:21:00.001-04:002010-03-30T04:21:57.052-04:00Removing a virus if the computer won’t boot<p>What do you do if you have a computer that is infected but you can’t boot it? You need some way to clean it up. One technique is to remove the hard drive and add it to another computer where you can run an AV/Malware scan.Unfortunately, that’s beyond many folks’ ability and won’t help if you have a laptop…</p> <p>Well, here’s <a href="http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/about/">Brian Krebs</a> and his blog to the rescue. He has <a href="http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/2010/03/removing-viruses-from-a-pc-that-wont-boot/">another great posting</a> with info (and links) on several “rescue CDs”, including:</p> <p><a href="http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd" target="_blank" modo="true"><font color="#0066cc">AVG Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="http://dl.antivir.de/down/vdf/rescuecd/rescuecd.iso" target="_blank" modo="false"><font color="#0066cc">Avira Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/" target="_blank" modo="false"><font color="#0066cc">BitDefender Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="ftp://ftp.drweb.com/pub/drweb/livecd/" target="_blank" modo="false"><font color="#0066cc">Dr. Web Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.f-secure.com/linux-weblog/files/f-secure-rescue-cd-3.11.23804.zip" target="_blank" modo="false"><font color="#0066cc">F-Secure Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="http://devbuilds.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/RescueDisk/" target="_blank" modo="false"><font color="#0066cc">Kaspersky Rescue</font></a></p> <p><a href="http://acs.pandasoftware.com/soporte/safedisk32/safedisk32.zip" target="_blank"><font color="#0066cc">Panda Rescue</font></a></p> <p>Any of these will do the job. You burn the CD and then boot from it. You need a working internet connection. Brian’s post has lots of details.</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-44532698413076191282010-03-27T06:39:00.001-04:002010-03-27T06:39:30.885-04:00Beware of ATM Card Skimmers<p>Not exactly a PC issue, but I was so struck by this, that I wanted to get as wide a visibility as I could. It never occired to me that someone could attach a device to an ATM’s card reader slot to read the magnetic stripe and make it look real! Guess we all need to start pulling on the card readers from now on…</p> <p>Here’s the article from <a href="http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/2010/03/would-you-have-spotted-this-atm-fraud/">Brian Krebs blog</a>. Read it and be warned!!</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-20933688801227472192010-03-26T06:20:00.001-04:002010-03-26T06:20:35.405-04:00Consumers Don’t Relate Bot Infections to Risky Behavior As Millions Continue to Click on Spam<p><a href="http://www.maawg.org/consumers-don%E2%80%99t-relate-bot-infections-risky-behavior-millions-continue-click-spam">Here’s an article</a> from the <a href="http://www.maawg.org/">Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group</a> about spam. Very scary statistics. </p> <p><strong><em>“In the new survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or forwarded it – activities that leave consumers susceptible to fraud, phishing, identity theft and infection. While most consumers said they were aware of the existence of bots, only one-third believed they were vulnerable to an infection.<span>   “</span></em></strong></p> <p><span>And folks wonder why their computers get infected with all sorts of malware… :-(</span></p> <p><span>Thanks, once again, to Michael Pietroforte of 4SYSOPS.com for pointing this out…</span></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-19719298524964654992010-03-26T06:14:00.001-04:002010-03-26T06:14:25.458-04:00Free Utility to mount ISO images<p>Ever need to run a CD that is in ISO format? Usually, you need to burn the image onto a CD and then run the CD. Her’s a (free, of course) utility that will mount an ISO image (or <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: en-us; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa">MG, CCD, DVD, UDF, and BIN) and make it look like a physical drive.  The program is called <a href="http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html">Virtual CloneDrive</a>. </span></p> <p><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: en-us; mso-fareast-language: en-us; mso-bidi-language: ar-sa"><a href="http://4sysops.com/archives/free-virtual-clonedrive-mount-iso-and-img-images/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+4sysops+%284sysops%29">Here’s a review</a> by Michael Pietroforte from his <a href="http://4sysops.com/">4SYSOPS blog</a>. It looks very nice….</span></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-9006390845712094352010-03-26T05:30:00.001-04:002010-03-26T05:30:28.655-04:00Inexpensive Hard Drive Recovery Insurance Available<p>We often see on the net postings from folks whose hard drives have crashed and they ask if the data can be recovered. the standard answer is “Sure… if you have a ton of money!”. There are data recovery firms out there, but it usually ends up so expensive that only incredibly critical data is worth it.</p> <p>Well, now there’s a German firm called <a href="http://www.freecom.com/objects/00015389.pdf">Freecom</a> that will let you pay about 30 Euros ($37 USD) to register a hard drive. If it fails, you mail it to them (pre-paid) and they sent the recoverable files back to you within 2 weeks. Not a bad deal. </p> <p>A piece of advice…. Don't use this in place of good backups. First off, you don’t know what can be recovered. If it’s a head crash, a lot of data can be most. Also, you have to wait 2 weeks to get what can be recovered.</p> <p>Thanks to <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/032410-pc-users-get-cheap-recovery.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_security_strategies_2010-03-25">John E. Dunn of NetworkWorld</a> for identifying this service….</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-25640150819820691582010-03-25T05:22:00.001-04:002010-03-25T05:22:00.666-04:00How the mighty have fallen…<p>I couldn’t resist… Seems that even the Communist Party isn’t immune to hacking. As reported by <a href="http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/?p=9193">Sophos Labs</a> the Communist Party of Britain’s web site has been infected (again!)…. Lenin is turning over in his grave…. ;-)</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-7959756847882897942010-02-16T03:31:00.001-05:002010-02-16T03:31:29.959-05:00Rootkit may be the cause of XP BSOD’s<p><a href="http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/">Brian Krebs</a> has posted <a href="http://www.krebsonsecurity.com/2010/02/rootkit-may-be-culprit-in-recent-windows-crashes/">an interesting article</a> in his blog. Turns out that there are indications that the Blue Screen of Death that some folks are experiencing (see my <a href="http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/personal-pc-assistant/windows-xp-patch-kb977165may-cause-bsod-blue-screen-of-death-36888">previous post</a>) after applying Last Tuesday’s KB977165 patch. Turns out that several folks who had the problem also, it turns out, were infected with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit">rootkit</a>. Rootkits are a particularly nasty piece of malware that are very hard to find and eliminate.</p> <p>If you have seen (or know someone who has), the advice is to scan the system immediately with several malware scanning software packages. It would be best if you could do it from a bootable CD with the scanning software on it….</p> <p>By the way, Brian’s blog is one I would recommend that any network admin or technically savvy user subscribe to.</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-59602926418279493992010-01-10T14:47:00.000-05:002010-01-10T14:47:29.483-05:00Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate is availableMozilla has released the Firefox Release Code 1 of 3.6. I won't bore you with all the details because they are available on the web site and, frankly, I'm not all that interested. I've done my share of betas and Release Candicates (Windows 7 was the latest). Also, I'm an IE 8 person. I actually prefer IE 8 to FF 3.5. On both my home and work machines it's actually slower loading than IE. <br />
<br />
<br />
I really don't want to start a browser war here. The beauty of it is that there are a bunch of very good, solid browsers out there and we have the choice as to which one fits us best. <br />
<br />
In case you do want to download it you can get it here: <br />
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<a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html">http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html</a>Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-16992017078902392142010-01-10T06:10:00.001-05:002010-01-10T06:10:47.463-05:00I’ll be moving to another blog over the next week.<p>I reported earlier that I have been having problems with my e-mails getting trapped if I have the url for this blog in my signature. In fact, if *any* url with “blogspot.com” in it gets lost. I’ve been unable to resolve this so far.</p> <p>I’ve been a member of “IT Toolbox” for almost 7 years. It’s an amazing collection of list servs, blogs, and other sources of information. They provide a resource for blogs, so I’ve set up one there. For the next week or so, I’ll be posting in both places, but eventually will only post there. It will, I believe, also give me a wider audience with more opportuinity for interaction with folks. The url is:</p> <p><a href="http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/personal-pc-assistant/">http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/personal-pc-assistant/</a></p> <p>Thanks for all your support and for showing interest in my ramblings. I’ll be the same old Hank over there, also… :-)</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-28407705159640289212010-01-09T10:31:00.001-05:002010-01-09T10:31:08.681-05:00Best Buy will drop “Optimization” service<p>According to The Consumerist, Best Buy will stop providing what they called their “Optimization Service”. Supposedly their technicians would examine the contents, programs and setup to reduce the wasted space, boot time and speed up the performance.</p> <p><a href="http://consumerist.com/2010/01/best-buy-to-replace-optimization-with-installer-app.html">http://consumerist.com/2010/01/best-buy-to-replace-optimization-with-installer-app.html</a></p> <p>First off, what they do is very basic techniques that just about any PC knowledgeable person either knows or has access to through the web. I’ve probably posted some as well as pointers to others. </p> <p>Second, I’m not a fan of Computer Geeks, anyway. I’ve dealt with several folks who used them and I’m not impressed at all with what they did, much less what they charged. One individual who bought a Dell through them (why?) and got an extended service contract. Now, let me say that I’m not one who recommends service contracts for tower/desktop computers. They almost always will fail in the first 3 months or almost never within the first 3 years. Even if they do, they are easy to fix (except for motherboards).</p> <p>But I digress… This woman took it to Computer Geeks and they decided it needed a new mother board. When I had talked to her, she had been without the computer for over 2 weeks, going on 3. I told her that this was ridiculous. If she had called Dell, they would have diagnosed the problem and send a technician with a new motherboard and installed in her house, usually within a couple of days. Not a happy customer!!</p> <p>Oh, well…. Reportedly, Best Buy will provide a “Best Buy Software Installer” starting January 17 and are working on replacing the Optimization Service. From the Consumerist: <font color="#0000ff"><strong><em>“Translation: Instead of you paying Best Buy to delete trialware from your new PC, Best Buy will get paid by software makers to try to get you to install it.””</em></strong></font></p> <p>All I can say is, if you insist on buying a computer from Best Buy, “Caveat Emptor”. At the very least, get a geek friend to help you configure what you need before you go there. Be informed…</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-32530222216111008222010-01-09T06:30:00.001-05:002010-01-09T06:30:01.382-05:00Spam filters block valid e-mails<p>If you haven’t heard of it, there is an open source spam anti spam software called Apache SpamAssassin. It’s engine is used by many ISPs to filter and alert them to spam e-mails. You may not realize it, but most ISPs will block and not deliver e-mails that they have identified as SPAM. If it’s “possible” or “probable”, they will mark it as such. A <strong>*LOT*</strong> of e-mails don’t ever get to your mailbox.</p> <p>The problem comes in when the spam filters you use generate what are called “False Positives”. Perfectly good e-mails are identified as sapm and blocked. Normally, this is a very small number, but apparently, SpamAssassin had a coding error that resulted in e-mails dated 2010 and 2099 being given high scores and trapped as spam. </p> <p>The fix was generated quickly, but ISPs may have been running the incorrect code for anywhere from minutes to days. Unfortunately, if you were affected, the only way you can know is if you have confirmation from others that your mails got through. The only thing you can if you were affected is to resend the e-mails.</p> <p>SpamAssassin has posted some advice on its web site:</p> <p><a href="http://spamassassin.apache.org/">http://spamassassin.apache.org/</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-38648874996229270902010-01-08T06:15:00.001-05:002010-01-08T06:15:15.593-05:00Firefox 3.5.7 Has been released<p>Mozilla has released another “Stability Issues'” fix. You should definitely either update form the app or download it</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/download.mozilla.org');" href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5.7&os=win&lang=en-US" target="_blank"><strong><font color="#0066cc">Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Windows)</font></strong></a></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/download.mozilla.org');" href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5.7&os=osx&lang=en-US" target="_blank"><strong><font color="#0066cc">Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Mac OSX)</font></strong></a></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/download.mozilla.org');" href="http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5.7&os=linux&lang=en-US" target="_blank"><strong><font color="#0066cc">Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Linux)</font></strong></a></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline">Details of what was changed are at</span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"><a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.5.7/releasenotes/">http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.5.7/releasenotes/</a></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline"> </span></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-37114363360859009202009-12-31T15:27:00.001-05:002009-12-31T15:27:47.409-05:00Great deal on Quicken 2010<p>Intuit has a deal going on until <strong><em><u><font size="4">1/4/2010</font></u></em></strong>. You can get Quicken 2010 <strong><u>for 1/2 off!</u></strong> The web page may look like it’s for Quicken Premier, but scroll down and you can get the other versions for 50% off.</p> <p><a href="http://quicken.intuit.com/lp/qkn10/qlp17.jsp?priorityCode=6298762157&cid=em_18568_025_002">http://quicken.intuit.com/lp/qkn10/qlp17.jsp?priorityCode=6298762157&cid=em_18568_025_002</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-75854055594603278572009-12-31T15:21:00.000-05:002009-12-31T15:21:45.325-05:00My e-mails are getting lost if I include my blog URL in my noteI've been having a problem lately with my e-mails getting lost if I include my blog URL. In fact, they get lost if I include <strong>ANY</strong> xxxxx.blogspot.com URL!<br />
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If anyone has any ideas or have seen and/or resolved this, please let me know. You can reach me at rasilon at aol.com.<br />
<br />
TIA....Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-53408513606756945762009-12-31T15:18:00.001-05:002009-12-31T15:18:10.368-05:00Have a Happy New Year’s Eve!<p>Here’s hoping everyone has a great new year’s eve and a better year in 2010. Enjoy it while you can. According to the Mayan calendar, the universe ends in 2012…   ;-)</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-16935478616234415652009-12-31T08:50:00.001-05:002009-12-31T08:50:34.651-05:00Inventorying Network Printers<p>This is really for those of you who manage networks with multiple printers. It’s a nice little utility that will basically find and inventory network printers.</p> <p><a href="http://www.technibble.com/page-countster-repair-tool-of-the-week/">http://www.technibble.com/page-countster-repair-tool-of-the-week/</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-8696626353473915772009-12-29T07:35:00.001-05:002009-12-29T07:35:01.708-05:00Problems uninstalling Security Software?<p>Previously, I mentioned a terrific program <a href="http://www.revouninstaller.com/">Revo Uninstaller</a> that uninstalls programs and then finds all the “left-over” bits of Registry entries and files. I still find this to be the best one period. I almost never use the Add/Remove Programs (“Programs & Features” in W7) any more…</p> <p>Here is a program specifically intended to remove Security software like Norton, Trend Micro, McAfee, Kaspersky, etc.. Some of these programs (especially Norton/Symantec & McAfee) don’t always do a complete job. On their web sites you will find utilities and manual processes specifically intended to remove these remnants.</p> <p>Problem is that you shouldn’t have to do this and it is, frankly, beyond many folks’ ability to find and use. The net is full of folks with systems mucked up by a failed uninstall of an AV program.</p> <p>I’ve come across a utility (thanks to MowGreen) called “AppRemover”. The name is a bit misleading since it is specifically targeting security software. <u>It doesn’t remove other programs</u>. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but it looks good and I respect any utilities recommended by “MowGreen”… A very nice feature is the ability to search for remnants left over from a failed uninstall. </p> <p> I think together with Revo Uninstaller, you’ve got all the bases covered.</p> <p><a href="http://www.appremover.com/">http://www.appremover.com/</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-6320024820002999192009-12-29T06:44:00.001-05:002009-12-29T06:44:48.249-05:00Microsoft AV software is “very fast”<p>First off, I hope you all had a great Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza… We had our son David home from his group home for the weekend and it was great. Looking forward to a better new year…</p> <p>==========================================</p> <p>Back to business…..</p> <p>An organization called <a href="http://www.av-comparatives.org/index.php">AV-Comparatives.org</a> has published a report on the speed of various anti-virus software. It’s important that you understand that they are talking about the impact on <strong><u>performance only</u></strong>. This report says nothing about the effectiveness of the vendors’ programs. </p> <p><a href="http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests">http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests</a></p> <p>While not the best (i.e., the least impact on performance), Microsoft Security Essentials did very well, especially compared to the various “free” programs. It finished higher than several retail programs (Avast, Symantec, ESET, McAfee, AVG)</p> <p>To be honest, I don’t think it is the best solution out there. My personal preference these days is Kaspersky Internet Security 2010. However, for a lot of folks, paying $60+ is more than they want to pay. Assuming that the computer is running Vista or Windows 7, I’m comfortable setting the “average” end user with the built-in firewall and MS Security Essentials. </p> <p>My reasoning is that most firewalls are just too complicated for the average person. More often than not, the alerts are just plain incomprehensible for most folks and they end up allowing the program the access requested. In effect, they are rendering the firewall worthless. So far, I’ve not seen any reports that the MS AV solution is not completely acceptable. What we need to monitor in the future is how quickly and effectively MS keeps up with the continually escalating ware with the malware programmers…</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-91775371519965427742009-12-24T04:38:00.001-05:002009-12-24T04:38:47.701-05:0010 email scams to watch out for<p>These things happen all the time, but they are especially prevalent at the holidays. Here’s an article by Debra Littlejohn Shinder in TechRepublic that has a good list of the most common ones and how to avoid them.</p> <p><a href="http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1227&tag=nl.e042">http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1227&tag=nl.e042</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-29531459923297644672009-12-24T03:57:00.001-05:002009-12-24T03:58:15.755-05:00Here’s one terrific site for Optimizing your XP or Vista installation…<p>Just ran across this one. I’ve briefly looked at it and it’s really amazing. There’s a <strong>TON</strong> of information here and from what I’ve seen, very useful. A lot of sites just say “Do this and things will be great.”. This guy goes to great lengths to explain what to do (with a lot of screen shots) and why you should do it. </p> <p><a href="http://www.optimizingpc.com/index.html">http://www.optimizingpc.com/index.html</a></p> <p>One caveat…. Before you do any changes you should:</p> <ol> <li>Create a Restore Point</li> <li>Back up your computer</li> <li>Keep track of the changes you are making so that you can undo one or more if things get worse. </li> </ol> <p>Everyone who gives advice on how to improve your system has a point of view and makes assumptions (yes, including me). There are so many variables on what software/hardware you can have as well as customizations, that it’s always possible for an “improvement” to actually degrade your performance or even make some software stop working…</p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-19328529388216502272009-12-24T03:36:00.002-05:002009-12-24T03:43:58.065-05:00Court rejects Microsoft appeal, bans Word sales as of January 11….Hold on…. It’s not as bad as it sounds….. <br />
<br />
Turns out that MS was using code in Word that a company called <strong>i4i</strong> claimed violated one of their patents. As of January 11, 2010, MS must not sell any MS Word with that code. MS has said they will have new code available for sale by then.<br />
<br />
Here’s an article from NetworkWorld on it….<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/122209-court-rejects-microsoft-appeal-bans.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2009-12-23">http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/122209-court-rejects-microsoft-appeal-bans.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2009-12-23</a><br />
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BTW, there is no requirement to fix software already sold prior to 1/11/10. You may have noticed, though, that MS has issued a patch on Microsoft Update to remove the code.Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-42688768567084302842009-12-21T04:44:00.001-05:002009-12-21T04:44:40.692-05:00Be on the alert for Malware showing up as a Christmas e-card<p>As usual, Christmas is an opportunity for the malware folks out there to try and penetrate your computers. Here’s a posting from Sophos about it.</p> <p>Usual caveats apply. Don’t open any e-mails or e-cards if you don’t know who they cone from. Even then, be sure the hyperlink is what appears in the text. As they indicate in the posting, hover the mouse over the link (don’t click on it) and the real URL will appear. If it doesn’t match the text, it’s malware….</p> <p><a href="http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/?p=8039">http://www.sophos.com/blogs/sophoslabs/?p=8039</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-75929156654116282392009-12-20T05:21:00.001-05:002009-12-20T05:25:13.142-05:00Need to copy lots of files? Enter XCOPY!<p>If you’ve worked with Windows for any number of years, you’ve had the need to copy  a large number of files from one location to another. In some cases, you can just drag and drop folders. However, for the longest time, there was a tool called <strong>XCOPY</strong> that was popular. Lots of flags to allow you to narrow the scope and specify attributes. Over the past decade or so, MS has provided another tool called <strong>ROBOCOPY</strong>. With Vista, XCOPY was “deprecated” (whatever that means) and you were prompted to use ROBOCOPY.</p> <p>Well, XCOPY is back in Windows 7. Apparently, more flags have been added. Just enter <strong>XCOPY /?</strong> to see all the flags. Guess enough of us complained….. </p> <p>Below is a link to an article in <strong>TechRepublic</strong> by Greg Schultz. He has a very nice tool called “<strong>XCOPY TOOL”</strong>(cool name, huh?). It adds a graphical interface that makes is a snap and eliminates the need to memorize or run XCOPY /? (and print it) every time you want to run the command. </p> <p><a href="http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1930&tag=content;leftCol">http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1930&tag=content;leftCol</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-48098326669115983762009-12-19T07:15:00.001-05:002009-12-19T07:15:27.714-05:00Antivirus software enters the “Cloud”<p>Panda software has released the final version of <strong>Panda Cloud Antivirus</strong>. It’s free and it runs in the “cloud”. You’d better have fast internet access or it just plain won’t work. I don’t know much about it, but it does look interesting.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/">http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6000159526798739337.post-39400768719055521302009-12-18T06:07:00.001-05:002009-12-18T06:07:41.260-05:00Hardware & Software Compatibility List for Windows 7<p>Microsoft published a nice web site that will show you what software & hardware is W7 compatible. You can either search or display them by category. If you are thinking about Windows 7 or buying a computer with Windows 7, check it out…</p> <p><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx</a></p> Hank Arnold (MVP)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08475537348605695371noreply@blogger.com0