RealtyTechBytes.com » Computer Security

backupify your social content

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:00:37 +0000

I had a minor disaster at my casa last week in which I lost all access to a VMWare Fusion Windows XP machine. Fortunately it was quickly resolved by using a backup. That started me thinking about what I have that is NOT backed up.

All of my computers use backup drives that are physically connected to my computer. They run continuous backups and are available to move my data to another machine if I need to do so. Or, they can be used to restore missing or corrupt data.

I also use MozyHome as another way to back up data. So in theory I am covered, right?

Not so quick. What about my social sites like Twitter and Facebook? It turns out that I have not been backing those up. What if my account at either site got trashed or even worse, cancelled? How could I recover my friends lists or pictures or the content that I have posted?

To put that in perspective, at Twitter I am following over 4500 people and over 4300 are following me. Trying to restore those lists without having a back up file would be impossible. The same holds true for my Facebook account where I have over 600 friends, many Notes, a few pictures and so on.

In my research to solve this problem I ran across a service that I am using and thought that you might like to know about it too.

This is a cloud based backup service that will use your login information to go to your Twitter, Google Docs, Wordpress, GMail, Facebook, Zoho, Delicious, Flickr, Basecamp or Photobucket accounts and perform daily or weekly backups of your data.

The service acts as backup program and does not actually store your data on their servers. Instead, the data is stored on the Amazon S3 Web Services Cloud, which in my opinion was a really smart move on their part. To understand why I say this, click here to read more about Amazon S3 web services.

You can also download your data to your local computer once it has been backed up. This now gives you 3 copies of your data. The original is on Twitter, Facebook, etc. But, you also have a copy on the S3 cloud and the one on your hard drive. The chance of all three failing at once are very, very small.

Finally, until January 31st, you can get an account for free. Hmmm, sounds like a good deal to me. Better click on the backupify logo in this post or just click http://www.backupify.com and sign up.

About the Author: Jerry is a 23 year veteran of the real estate industry and has done it all from listing and selling, to managing single and multiple offices. He has been the IT Director for a major SF Bay Area company, and has also been the Training Director for another major SF Bay Area company. In addition to writing this blog, Jerry is the Principal of Jerry Kidd Training and Consulting, specializing in showing real estate professionals how to utilize today’s exciting social tools to create and nurture relationships with home buyers and sellers. Visit http://www.JerryKidd.com to learn more about the training and consulting services offered.

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backupify your social content

Top Ten Realtor® Tech Tools

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:55:09 +0000

Real estate agents are called upon to provide many services to their buyers and sellers. The services can range from finding that perfect property for their buyers to marketing a home for their sellers. At the end of both processes there is an escrow to manage (Hopefully!) with all of the attendant inspections, reports, issues and negotiations that go along with a successful close of escrow.

Finding buyers and sellers to work with is perhaps the most important part of a real estate agents daily life because without clients to work with, there is no need for the agent’s skill and knowledge.

Both aspects of what a successful agent does benefit from the proper use of technology tools. Because I am a licensed broker (and am married to one) and because of my strong technology interest and background, I am often asked what tools an agent should have in their arsenal. This post is going to look at the Top Ten Tools that I think every agent should not only have, but have mastered the use of as well. I am going to split this into two parts, looking at 5 this week and 5 next week.

1. SmartPhones

There is no question (at least in my mind) that the telephone has been and continues to be, the most important tool that any real estate agent can have, Today, that really means that you need to have a SmartPhone. By that I mean a phone that can not only make and receive phone calls wherever you are, but also send and receive email and text messages. It also needs to be able to browse the web and open common documents associated with our business, like PDF files, Word docs and photos.

According to a Pew Internet and American Life Project Survey from December 2008, (The Future of the Internet III) “The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet for most people in the world in 2020″. If this is true, then your clients will not only be using this technology in their lives, they will have the same expectation of you. It’s now time to get rid of that old cell phone that only makes calls.

2. Laptop or Netbook

Our society is one given to an on the run lifestyle, we real estate agents have to be able to match the needs of our clients. Gone are the days when we could always meet our clients in our offices so that we could access computers, files, phones and fax machines. Today we need to be prepared to meet with our clients on their schedules, even if that means meeting them at their work, a coffee shop, the gym or even at their son or daughter’s soccer game.

Today’s laptop computers can pack the punch of a desktop computer and can do so very affordably. A quick check of the ad flyers in the Sunday papers turns up a number of great laptops under $2,000.00. For information on what to look for, see my previous article http://realtytechbytes.com/what-laptop-should-i-buy-in-2008/.

A new class of portable computer has come on the scene. This new machine is typically less than 3 pounds with a maximum screen size of 10 inches. They are known as netbooks and are capable of handling light weight computing chores like browsing the web, updating a blog, and sending and receiving email. Typically they are equipped with Windows XP Home, 1 Gigabyte of RAM and 80 ~ 160 Gigabyte Hard drives. Most have built in WiFi and web cams which allow you to connect to the Internet from public WiFi spots. The webcams will allow you to create video messages to send to clients. One of these would serve very well for the mobile real estate agent as they would perform most necessary tasks. I wouldn’t attempt to edit videos or do much work with photo manipulation as they are generally running hardware that is not up to the task. The good news about these machines is that they are in the $300 to $600 price range!

3. Scanning and faxing

We live in a sea of documents. There are contracts, reports, flyers, brochures, email and more that often have to be provided to clients for their signatures. This works pretty well in our offices as most offices now have copy machines that can scan documents to email and or fax. But, what do you do from the road or at your home? This is where portable scanners come into play.

Fujitsu makes two versions of scanners that I really like. The first is the S500 series of scanners that sit on your desktop and connect to your computer via a USB connection. The device is capable of having 50 sheets of paper loaded into its input. When you press the green button on the machine it connects with the computer and starts feeding each sheet of paper through it’s two-sided scan head. The resulting file turns up in your computer’s My Documents folder as an Adobe PDF file. If the originals are double sided, then both sides are scanned in one pass. And, the machine also scans in color as well. This is perfect for taking your documents and getting them into PDF format for emailing. Fujitsu also makes a portable model, the S300 series, which has all of the same features (The input tray can only handle 10 documents at a time) yet will also fit into a briefcase making it the perfect companion to your laptop or netbook. (There is no reason why you couldn’t use the S300 series at home as well as on the road…it is at home in either role)

This is great for getting documents to your clients that have email. But what about those clients who only have fax? How can you get documents form your computer to a client who wants a fax? The answer is simple. Use one of the online fax services like MyFax, JFax, eFax and so on. I use MyFax and heartily recommend them. They all work in a similar fashion. You connect to the Internet, and then navigate to their website. Once there you log in to your account and select send a fax. The service allows you to create a cover sheet and then select any document on your hard drive to fax. A few clicks and the document is on its way. You can also get a permanent incoming fax number that your clients can use to send faxes to you. Once a fax arrives you receive an email with a PDF attachment of what was sent. No more tyranny of the fax machine! For more information on the ScanSnap and MyFax, please see a previous post that goes into greater detail: http://realtytechbytes.com/your-gift-to-you/

4. Portable printers

Occasionally you just have to print something while you are out and about. Some clients feel better having a printed document in hand rather than just an email. Many times I am more comfortable in reading a printed document instead of reading it on the screen. For that reason, I believe that a printer that fits into your briefcase is a necessity.

I have been using a Canon i80 printer for about 4 years now. It produces photo quality color prints (on photo paper) but does a very good job on documents using plain paper. It is no speed demon, and the ink tanks are small and expensive, but it has saved my bacon on many occasions. It is also tough enough to handle the rigors of being transported around. It got dropped one day and exploded into a pile of printer parts. I scooped them up and painstakingly assembled them back into a printer and when I turned it on, it worked and has ever since! The new model is the i90. Hewlett-Packard also makes a highly regarded portable printer, the Officejet H470wbt Mobile Printer. It comes in 3 models. The base model, one with battery, and one with battery and a wireless connection. For more information, please see my previous post at:
http://realtytechbytes.com/powerful-personal-portable-printing/

5. AirCards

Although you can find WiFi in many places these days, it is not always available in some of the places that we find ourselves needing to work. Like your client’s home! Even if they have WiFi, do you really want to connect your computer to their network? Attaching your computer to someone’s personal network carries the risk of catching a virus from an infected computer on their network, or worse, you delivering a virus to their computers! You really don’t want to connect to their network and have a problem turn up for them later that they might blame you for either.

The solution is to obtain an AirCard. This is essentially a “cell phone” for your computer. It has its own phone number (although you will never dial it up) and it connects to a cell carrier’s digital data network. It acts like a modem for the laptop or netbook. Some carriers allow your SmartPhone to act like a modem (Notably AT&T does not allow the iPhone to do this) so check with your carrier to see if your phone can do this and if so what the extra data plan (if needed, as your current data plan may cover this use) will cost.

All of the major carriers offer AirCards and in most cases they are simply USB “sticks” that plug into your computer’s USB port. They all come with software that you install and configure so that getting connected is easy once the device is set up. From that point on you will have Internet access anywhere there is a cell signal. It’s worth noting that the connection speed drops off rapidly in areas with weak signals, so choose your carrier based on their service area. Some carriers offer discounts if you already have your cellular service with them, so be sure to start your investigation with your current carrier. And take your laptop or netbook to the store with you. Most carriers are happy to set up the AirCard for you so that it is ready to go when you leave the store.

*******

That’s it for this week. Next week we’ll take a look at the final five Tech Tools that make the list.

facebook virus prevention tips

Jerry Kidd — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:50:31 +0000

Recently subscribers to facebook have been receiving emails from people in their networks that at first glance appear to be legitimate invitations. However, if you should click on the link in the email it will take you to a site that will attempt to install a Trojan horse program on your computer.

Should that happen your computer could be disabled, it could be used to further transmit bogus invitations, it could be searched for sensitive information, it could become a relay for spam or many other nefarious activities.

One of the joys of sites like facebook is that they allow you to connect and keep up with your networks. In an active facebook network you might expect to get several of these requests a week. More if you have a large and active network.

So, the question is how can I tell what is a legitimate request and what isn’t? And then the next question is what happens if I accidentally click on one of these links?

Let’s tackle the first question. Here is a picture of a recent Facebook invitation that leads to a Trojan site. (It’s only a picture; none of the links will work) I’ll discuss how you can use this as a model to determine what is real and what is dangerous.

Item 1: This is a legitimate Facebook sender. The problem with these Facebook invites is that the user account of some poor soul on Facebook has been hacked and is being used to send these emails directly from Facebook.

Item 2: It is coming from someone that you know so you think it’s safe to take action on the contents. This is nothing new and has been used for years by virus senders, so you should already know to be cautious when opening ANY email. Right?

Item 3: Here is where the first clue comes in to play. Notice the mis-spellings. Are you really subject to a spy camera? Probably not. This should set off your spider sense that something is wrong.

Item 4: Here is the giveaway. Starting from the left and reading to the right, we see: http://www.facebook.com/1.php?u= so far so good, but then it continues with another http://adreeanalin… This link makes you think that it goes to Facebook but it actually wants to redirect you to another web site. You should make it a practice to look at the links in these emails. If there is more than one http in a link you would be best served to NOT click on it. Instead call the sender and ask them if they sent you an invitation. You need to call your sphere more often anyway!

Items 5 an 6: These may be legitimate links, but since we have already identified this as a dangerous email, there is no reason to go experimenting. Delete the email and empty your Deleted Items Folder. Next, log in to Facebook and Open your Inbox and delete the Invitation from there as well.

But, you say, what if I mis-read this and click on it anyway?

Here is where I will answer the second question. If you have kept your computer up to date with all of the Microsoft updates, and if you have installed a modern Anti-Virus platform that also monitors your surfing activities, chances are good that you will either be warned that you are attempting to visit a dangerous web site and you will prevented form completing the action. Older Antivirus software that is kept current with updates may not warn you that you are visiting a dangerous site, but they will probably not allow the Trojan to infect your computer.

So, keep your software updated. And pay attention to what you click on. You are the best first line of defense when it comes to safe computing. By the way, be sure to have current backups of your data, if your computer does manage to get infected, sometime the only sure remedy to effect a repair is wipe off your hard drive (Or even install a new hard drive). If your data isn’t backed up, you will lose it all, which could be a real disaster.

3 money saving web sites that you have never heard of…

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:49:18 +0000

Lately it seems like my money runs out before the month runs out and I have been looking for ways to economize. Being the geek that I am, I turned to the web and did some searching. Here are some interesting web sites that I think will help you save money and maybe even put a few bucks into your pocket.

Since Halloween just happened, can Christmas be far behind? Normally that would be good news for all of us, but this year it could be a bit tight. Wouldn’t it be great to know about all of the coupons and rebates available at our favorite stores? When I heard about this next site I got very excited as I have two grandsons looking for some pretty expensive gifts this year.

Check out RetailMeNot to search a database of over 20,000 online stores. You can search by the store’s web address or by keywords. You’ll get back a listing of any available discount codes that you can apply at the checkout page for an instant discount.

They also have print coupons that you can print out and take to a retail store.

This one is called BillShrink and this is also very exciting. They will analyze your cell phone bill and help you make the right choices when it comes to which plan you should be using. They also help you pick the right phone. I started by allowing the site to upload my bill from AT&T (which they did once I gave them my login and password to the AT&T site). 30 seconds later they were showing me how to save over $700 a year based on the usage that my bill showed! They also offer a similar service for your credit cards.

Whenever I teach my “Technology Tools for Realtors®” class and do the show and tell of all the tech tools that I have accumulated someone invariably asks if they can attend my next yard sale! The problem is that I have never held one and my cupboards are overflowing with gear that I once used, but don’t use anymore. This is where Gazelle comes to my rescue.

Gazelle will give you an instant quote on any tech gear that you want to sell. If the gear qualifies (in other words they really want it) they will ship you a box to send your gear in and they will pay the shipping costs. Once they receive it and it is in the condition that that you said it is, they pay you.

I realize that you could put the stuff on eBay or Craigslist and sell it, but this is so much easier! I found out that the T-Mobile Dash that I retired in favor of the iPhone is worth $73.00. Now that is a tempting offer!

Who knows, if I sell all my old gear to Gazelle and let BillShrink save me some money on my credit cards and cell phone bills, maybe I can use RetailMeNot to save some money on my Christmas shopping this year!

Ho Ho Ho!!!

Technology tools for real estate agents…redux

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:07:41 +0000

I’ve been on vacation since Friday afternoon. Actually, I spent all of Friday afternoon and part of Friday evening driving the 482 miles from Orinda, California to Newport Coast, California down the El Camino Real, otherwise known as US Hwy 101.

During the 7, almost 8, hour drive I had plenty of time to reflect on this week’s blog post and what I would talk about. I had several good ideas, but the most compelling idea was to recap what I have talked about to date.

When I started out to do this blog my main purpose was to show real estate agents how they could use tech tools to enhance their businesses and along the way provide better service to their clients. According to the WordPress dashboard, I have made 34 posts in 8 Categories in the 4 months that I have been blogging, and if I may be so bold as to say this, think that I have been true to my purpose.

The Categories are:

Apple Information – Posts about Apple products including computers and the iPhone

Buying Technology Tools – This category contains posts about cool tools that I think you should know about, and how to buy them.

Computer Maintenance – We all hate it but we all need to maintain our equipment

Computer Security – Let’s all practice safe computing

Cool Freebies – This category contains info on useful tools that are free!

How to… – Curious about how to do something? Look here.

Product Reviews – Here is where I give you my take on products that I use and think that you should too!

Sales Tips – Let’s face it, we are all sales people. Here are some tech related sales tips.

If you look through these categories, you may notice that a dominant theme is working remotely or working while mobile. This is no accident, as I believe that the future of our business lies outside of our bricks and mortar offices. The agent of tomorrow will need to bring the transaction, from end to end to the client…no matter where that may be. I have written many of my posts on that topic and you will learn about the tools that I use to work from wherever I happen to be that has an Internet connection.

So, take a few minutes and look through the categories to remind yourself of where the goodies are while I go sit by the pool!

Let’s (not) go phishing!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:25:50 +0000

Let’s talk about phishing. No, not fishing with a rod, reel and some bait, but phishing where hackers try to get you to give up some personal information by exploiting a weakness in your browser or email service.

Here is how it works:

This weakness allows malicious coders to create Web sites that look exactly like legitimate sites, credit card companies, or online merchants, and ’spoof’ the web addresses. When a user is at one of these sites and looks in the address section of IE, it will appear as if they are at that company’s site. Everything from the https:// to the little yellow padlock at the bottom of the ’secure’ page can appear complete with the spoofed company’s web address or URL (Universal Resource Locator) in the proper places.

This means that you can no longer trust what you see in the address bar, especially if you are clicking on a link from an e-mail message or from another web site. The possibilities are endless and very dangerous for the less technical Internet going public. The opportunity for identity theft is enormous and you should take steps to protect yourself.
Because of this latest method of tricking users into divulging personal and financial information, it is important that you do not click on any links in e-mail that supposedly come from your bank, eBay, PayPal, Amazon.com or any online merchant or financial institution.

If you receive what you think is a legitimate e-mail message from one of your financial or merchant Web sites, do not click on any link in the e- mail, especially if it is asking you to update your information.

Always go to the company’s Web site manually by opening your browser yourself and typing in the actual address for the company. If the information sent in the e-mail is legitimate, then you should be able to access it through the companies Web site when you sign-in or login to your account.

If you have set up your computer to automatically download and install the weekly updates from Microsoft, then your browser has been patched so that it will show the actual address of the website that you are viewing…but the patches can’t help you if you travel to one of those sites and give up the information that are asking you to provide.

The best advice is to NOT click on links contained in emails that purport to be from you lender or financial institute. It’s ALWAYS best to manually type in the link into your browser.

Stay safe out there!

Firewalls ~ You really, really, really need them!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:22:13 +0000

Here is the Cliff Notes version for those of you in a hurry: You need one. Go get one. Stop arguing.

Now for the rest of you, we’ll start with a little trip back through time.

Back in the days when desk top computers were just starting out, they were stand alone computers connected to nothing. The only way that one computer could talk to another computer was through what came to be known as “sneaker net”. Sneaker net got its name because if I wanted to get a file from my computer to yours, I had to copy the file to a floppy and then walk it over to your machine and put the floppy in your machine and then copy the file from my floppy to your hard drive. Hence the term sneaker net. This was great from a security point of view, since my machine was isolated from yours, no harm could come to it…unless it came via floppy disks! Guess what, the juvenile minded idiots that write viruses figured out that they could disrupt my computer by getting me to use a floppy that had a virus on it. Since sneaker net was slow and limited by its very nature, the propagation of these viruses was limited.

The next evolution was modems and what came to be known as BBS or Bulletin Board Systems. In this case you would use your modem to call the modem of the BBS computer and you could read and leave messages for other computer users. The drawback here was that the popular BBS often delivered busy signals instead of the connection that we were looking for. The hackers soon found these systems and pretty soon it became possible to catch a computer virus by downloading infected files from the BBS. Propagation was faster than by sneaker net, but still very slow by today’s standards because not many people were equipped with modems, nor did they even know about the BBS in most cases, or they got busy signals when they called in.

Fast forward to today. Most American households have a computer. The majority of them are connected to the Internet via high speed access through cable or DSL. One of the things that the hackers discovered was that when people got high speed access, they often left their computers on all the time. This was a major discovery, because if a computer is on all the time and it is constantly connected to the Internet, it becomes a sitting duck for hackers to attack. If you recall the old movie about the teenager who discovered that he could get into a Pentagon computer from his bed room, you may recall that he used a computer program to sequentially dial phone numbers until he found a modem that answered. Guess what? That is a real scenario. Today hackers use a software program called a scanner that will “dial” a series of IP addresses until it finds one that is responsive. Then they switch to something called a “port scanner”. Your computer has over 65,000 Ports built into the IP protocol stack. By sequentially trying each one of them, the hacker hopes to find one that is open and responsive. Once a port is found, the hacker then tries to crack the password (if there even is one) by using dictionaries…also run by computer.

Once the hacker has access to your system, he then installs a “back door” program on your computer. The back door, rootkit, or Trojan, sits quietly waiting, listening on its port for the hacker to come calling. The Trojan allows the hacker to run scanners from your computer to attack some one else’s computer. If he is successful, the attack looks like it comes from you. Whoopee. He has the fun, and if the attacked person can successfully trace the attack back to where it came from, you are the one left holding the bag. The Trojan also has the ability to allow the hacker to do anything they want on your computer including stealing information (Quicken, banking, etc.). They could also trash your hard drive if they wished.

How do you stop this sort of thing? By installing a firewall. Firewalls come in several flavors…hardware and software, internal and external. I use both an external, hardware firewall and an internal, software firewall on my home network, and also have it installed on my wife’s network in her office.

I use a LinkSys Switch and router combination. These are under $100.00 if you shop around. In connection with the LinkSys, I use the FREE ZoneAlarm firewall from Zone Labs. I also use antivirus software as well. I update my virus signatures daily and run a virus scan several times a week, in addition to the real time virus scanning that occurs as I go about my daily business.

So, is all this necessary? Yes it is. I have examined the logs from both the LinkSys router and ZoneAlarm and have found about 5 to 10 external attacks each day! This just amazes me. I wonder what’s going on with your computer if you aren’t protected…don’t you?

One final note. The LinkSys will stop the bad guys from even seeing if there is a computer at my IP address. The ZoneAlarm will stop a Trojan from using my computer to reach out and touch someone.

So, if you don’t have a firewall and you are using DSL or Cable or T1 or other high speed access…stand by for trouble. You have been warned.

Help! My Computer Crashed!!! (Part 6)

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:26:49 +0000

So one day you go up to your computer and it is doing something weird or it’s not doing what it should be doing or something is wrong and you just have no clue what to do. You’ve even rebooted, but the problem has not gone away. It’s now time to call tech support…or is it?

But wait! There are a few things that you can do first to make life a little easier. In fact, it’s best to do these things way in advance of ever having to call tech support, so why don’t you do them now before you need to make that call?
First of all, have or keep good records. Buy a small copybook for each computer that you own. On the first page record the date that you bought it and what it is, i.e. Pentium III, 866 Mhz, 128 Megs RAM, etc. Copy down any serial numbers and model numbers that you can find. It will be easier to look them up here than to chase through the paper work mess that most of have called our receipts file. Make note of tech support numbers and operating system and software versions as well.

Now, this part is key: anytime that you install software, write it down in the book. Date & Time installed and the name of the program installed. Also, record the source of the software and the company who wrote it. The reason for doing this is simple. Sometimes when you install software it breaks something.

So the second thing to do is try removing the last installed software and see if that fixes the problem. Sometimes it does, and once again you don’t have to call tech support!

But, if none of this works, you have no choice, so pick up the phone and give them a call.

When you finally get through to them try not to let them know how angry you are for being on hold for so long!
Then clearly explain what your problem is as concisely as possible. Most of the folks you get at TS are called first level support. They often don’t know much more than you and many times they will try to solve your problems by reading from a script. Keep in mind that their understanding of your problem is only as good as YOUR ability to accurately state your problem. It will be helpful to know what you were doing with the computer just prior to the problem showing up. They will need to know what you did to try to fix it and they may be interested in knowing what software you have recently installed.

The techs on Level 1 support are there to catch the easy problems and they often do, but most of them are ill-equipped to fix the really nasty problems. For that you need to “escalate” the problem to the next level, often known as Level 2.

Here you can expect to find techs that have been on the job for a while and have a good understanding of the product. They will have known what the level 1 techs have asked you to do to solve the problem, but may ask you to do some of the same things over again anyway. Don’t argue with them or cop an attitude, just do it. The old adage of you can catch more flies with sugar…holds true here as well. These people have to field a great number of calls everyday, most of which are from angry and frustrated people. Be different, be kind and you will stand out from the crowd and will get better treatment as well.

The final level is Level 3. You will rarely get to this level because this is usually just a few people who are highly trained and experienced in what they do. They get the truly baffling problems. If they can’t fix the problem, then it’s usually pack up the equipment and ship it back time!

Here’s the trick. In many cases, the first level people have no real idea what to do if the problem is not on their script. This is why you may be told to “re-install Windows”. Being told that by first level techs is inappropriate in my opinion. If you are asked to do that, ask to be escalated to the next level or ask to speak to a supervisor. In my opinion, a re-install of an operating system is warranted when your computer is so “hosed” (technical term for it’s all screwed up) that an OS re-install is the only way out. But let a level 2 tech tell you that, not a level one tech.

So that’s pretty much it.

Reboot often. Keep good records. Run error checking and Disk Defrag periodically. Keep your antivirus software up to date and scan frequently. Always scan attachments before opening. Don’t ever open attachments that have .vbs or .exe as their file extensions, unless you are absolutely certain about their origin. Call the sender and ask them “Did you mean to send me xyz.vbs file?” “What is it?” and “What does it do?” are good questions to ask as well. If they didn’t send you those files then tell them that they are infected with a a virus or a Trojan and then go delete the file they sent to you. Even if it says that Jennifer Lopez or Ricky Martin is coming over!

If your computer is a toy or is just a hobby instead of a business machine used to help you earn income, then go ahead and ignore these posts! But, if you’re like most of us, your computer is a very valuable business tool that you can’t be without.

Protect it and maintain it and your downtime will be minimal instead of catastrophic.

Help! My Computer Crashed!!! (Part 5)

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:21:50 +0000

Now I’ll talk about Error Checking (A.K.A. ScanDisk or ChkDsk) and Disk Defragmentation.

These two programs are essential to the continued good health of your computer. Running these two programs is like changing the oil in your car and getting a tune up. They don’t perform the same functions, but if your forget to change your oil, eventually you will destroy your engine. Failing to run Scandisk and Defrag won’t destroy your computer, but it can make for really sluggish performance and in extreme cases failure to boot up can occur.

Here’s what they do and why they do it. We’ll start with Scandisk.

Your hard drive is composed of several metal platters a little smaller in diameter than a CD. These platters are spaced and stacked on a spindle and revolve at high speed. Each side of each platter has a read/write head that writes and reads data to and from it’s individual platter. The platters are coated with a magnetic oxide and the heads place a magnetic charge on the oxide coating, or they read a magnetic charge. The platters are electrically divided into “cylinders” (think of them as tracks) and the cylinders are divided into “sectors” (think of a wedge of pie). Data is stored on sectors by the heads. A special part of the disk called the File Allocation Table (FAT) keeps track of where the data is so that it can be found when needed.

Now, even though this works pretty well most of the time, occasionally data gets misplaced and ends up not where it is expected to be. This is where scandisk comes in. It reads the FAT and verifies that the data is where it is supposed to be. If it finds that something is out of place, it stops running and asks you if it can “fix” the problem. Scandisk also does something known as a surface scan. In this test it examines the magnetic characteristics of each sector to determine if it can safely hold data. Because things like improper shutdowns, voltage spikes, brownouts, etc can cause problems with the data on your disk, it’s a good idea to run scandisk weekly. Don’t panic, I’ll tell you how to do this in your sleep before we are done here.

Disk defragmentation is a different animal. You would think that when you save data on a disk that it would go on the disk in a nice orderly fashion, i.e. start with sector 1, then go to sector 2 and so on. But that is not the case. What actually happens is that the system finds the first empty sector and puts as much data into it as it can. It then finds the next empty sector and puts as much data in there as it can. When this process is complete, your data is scattered all over the disk. The result of this is that when you want to retrieve your data, the heads have to fly all over the disk to retrieve it. This takes time, and on badly fragmented disks you can see the machine slowing down.

Defrag literally picks up the data and shuffles it around until everything that is supposed to be next to each other actually is next to each other. The defrag process usually starts with a scandisk because you don’t want misfiled data moved around…you would never find it again and the computer may actually fail to run. Once scandisk is finished, defrag starts. This process can take several hours on large hard drives with lots of data.

Instead of you having to manually remember to start these programs, what if the computer could keep track of itself? Well if you are running an earlier version of Windows you are in luck. Down in your System Tray in the lower right hand corner of your screen is a small icon that represents Windows Task Scheduler. Hover your mouse pointer over the ions until you discover it. Double click on it and the Scheduler program will start. Click on add scheduled task and a wizard will walk you through the process. You will get a list of programs and in the list you will find both Scandisk and Defrag. Pick one and set it up to run on Tuesday mornings at 1:00 AM every week. Follow the wizard to complete setting this up and then go back and schedule the other program to run on Wednesday morning at 1 am.
Unfortunately, Windows XP and Windows Vista do not make this as easy to do. However, it can still be done. Microsoft has a very good article on how to do this at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308569. For error checking in XP and Vista, you want to follow the instructions in the article and look for a program called ChkDsk which is usually found at c:\windows\System32\chkdsk.exe. Defrag can usually be found at c:\windows\System32\defrag.exe.

Now this may have been way too “geeky” for you, so this is one of those things that you may wish to have the geek on your team set up for you. At any rate, regular error checking/repair and disk defragmentation can go a long way towards keeping your computer humming along!

Help! My Computer Crashed!!! (Part 4)

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:16:56 +0000

Next up is Virus Scanning, so to start with let’s talk about what is a virus. If you go the McAfee web site, their glossary defines a virus as “A computer program file capable of attaching to disks or other files and replicating itself repeatedly, typically without user knowledge or permission.”
This is probably as good as it gets as far as a definition goes. The real question here is why would someone write and let a virus loose on the world. That’s hard to answer, but some of the writers who have been caught admitted to a feeling of power over what they had done.

Computer viruses have been written for all computer operating systems including Macintosh.
Some viruses attach to files so when the infected file executes, the virus also executes. Other viruses sit in a computer’s memory and infect files as the computer opens, modifies or creates the files. Some viruses display symptoms, and some virus’s damage files and computer systems, but neither symptoms nor damage is essential in the definition of a virus; a non-damaging virus is still a virus.

At any rate, the fact remains that viruses are out there. ANY ONE can send you a virus. Even me. None of us do it knowingly, as the definition above states, but do it we do. So how do you protect yourself? The answer is multifaceted.

The most important thing that you can do is to never, ever open an attachment without scanning it for viruses first. Of course this assumes you have a virus scanner! So the second most important thing that you can do is have a Virus detection program on your computer. Of course just having it does no good unless you update it daily. So, the third facet is to frequently download and INSTALL updates from your software manufacturer’s web site.

You may want to know which virus scanner should you use, and I would answer that I use TrendMicro PC-Cillin and have for years. Why you may ask, and I would say because I am familiar with it and it works well for me. Your mileage may vary. The truth is that McAfee, Norton, Dr. Solomon and others are all pretty much equal in the results of their work. They all have different quirks and different methods of getting there, but they all work. So, how do you decide? Remember that local techie I told you to cultivate a relationship with? Go ask them for their opinion on what will work best for you. You did start cultivating that relationship didn’t you?

Since new viruses are being released almost daily, the Anti-Virus companies must constantly revise their software and post updates on their web sites for you to download. Viruses can be detected because they have a “signature” or method of working that is different from how normal programs operate. Each new virus has a different signature, or a variation of an older signature. In any case, if you don’t keep your system up to date, you could fall victim to the latest virus.

Once you have installed your virus checking software and have updated it (yes, right out of the box it needs updating to cover the time from when the CD was created until you installed it, so hop to it and download the update), then you want to create the rules by which you scan your system. PC-Cillin will let me scan each file every time I access it. Whew! That’s a lot of overhead on my system, and even with a fairly speedy processor and tons of memory the slow down is unacceptable to me. So, my system is only set to scan e-mail attachments that come in. I have also scheduled the system to run a virus scan on my entire hard drive, checking EVERY file, once a week at night while I am asleep. PC-Cillin will check the web site for updates before running the scan, but I prefer to get the updates myself. Control freak that I am.

So to recap:

ALWAYS virus scan an attachment to an e-mail. Don’t fall for the Anna K, or the I love you, or the flavor of the month come-on. Scan no matter who sent you the e-mail. This is the single most important thing that you can do. Have a virus checker on your system and keep it updated often.

For those of you using Outlook or Outlook Express, do turn off the Preview feature…using that feature effectively opens an e-mail and can launch certain types of viruses.

But wait…it’s too late you may say, a virus has already infected my system. Well, no problem…IF you have recent backup. If you have a recent backup you can recover, even if the virus is so destructive that it has destroyed your data. You will need a Windows Startup Disk, your backup software and your backup data for these extreme cases. Don’t wait for disaster to strike before starting a backup program.

If you are fortunate and have only been infected by an annoying virus rather than a destructive one, your anti-virus software will offer to fix the problem for you. In some cases, the virus may have hijacked a Windows System file. When that occurs the virus software won’t be able to fix the problem. The reason being that the ONLY way to fix an infected Windows system file is to delete it and re-install it from the installation CD. (Notice that I did NOT say re-install Windows). Windows will not allow you to go through that process while Windows is running, so that’s why the Anti-virus software can’t fix the problem. It is fixable though, if you shut your computer down and restart it using the Windows Startup disk. (You DO have one of those, right?). The Startup disk starts your computer in DOS mode. From DOS you can delete the offending file and reinstall the good file from the Installation CD.

If this sounds way too arcane for you, get your local techie to help.