AVG glitch shows iTunes as a Trojan

Technical Bulletins - AVG Software | AVG antivirus & Internet security software support
If you haven't update AVG since July 25th and you have iTunes, AVG might think that iTunes contains a trojan. Update AVG to fix this. If AVG has moved part of iTunes to its vault, click on the above link for the steps to restore the important iTunes files.

Firefox 3.5 - a couple of tweaks

Tab Mix Plus Dev-Build 0.3.7.4pre-Tab Mix Plus

When you upgrade to Firefox 3.5, some of your extensions might not work. Tab Mix Plus, which is one I use all the time, did not work. But, there is a version that will. Go to the above link and download the 0.3.7.4pre version and it will work fine in Firefox 3.5.

Also, make sure you have Mr Tech Toolkit installed. It will enable you to make other add-ons compatible with the new Firefox. Most, made to work this way, should work fine.

Another thing. If it annoys you that when you close the last tab, Firefox closes too, instead of just giving you a blank page, you can open up about:config and navigate to browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab, and change the value to false. This is new with Firefox 3.5.

Some good basic computer tips

3 Beginner Computer Tips That Are Often Neglected

Learn to use the keyboard
Watch what you install - be picky about what you install
Get organized.

Remove IE8 from systems that slow down

Since Internet Explorer 8 has come out, I've noticed that it has slowed down some systems - particularly Windows XP systems. On some of these systems it seems to cause long boot times, IE8 is slow itself, and other programs seem to run much slower. I've noticed this happening on some Windows XP systems, but not all Windows XP systems.

If this has happened to you, removing IE8 may speed things up, but maybe not all the way back to as fast as it was before.

To Remove IE8:
Open Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, check off Show Updates
Look for Windows Internet Explorer 8. Look for Updates and Security Updates for IE8. Remove the updates first, then, finally Internet Explorer 8. Restart the computer as requested throughout the removal process.

To Block IE8:
Go here and download and run the blocker tool from Microsoft.

Maybe Microsoft will come out with something to patch this. Until then, hopefully removing IE8 will help.

Hold off on that McAfee patch!

McAfee AV Patch Leaves Some Computers Unbootable | Maximum PC

Oopsy-daisy! According to complaints on McAfee's message board, a mandatory service pack for the company's antivirus VSE 8.7 software has left some machines unbootable. The update, which was issued on May 27 and later pulled on June 2, was intended to squash minor security bugs, but also inadvertently flagged some Windows system files as malware.

This is another reason why I recommend NOT using one of the big commercial anti-virus programs.
I recommend using AVG Free.

Buying a new computer? Wait until after October 22, 2009

Gizmodo - Windows 7 To Be Released October 22 - windows 7

If you are planning on buying a new computer soon, wait until after Oct. 22nd. Windows 7 comes out then. From all I've read, Windows 7 is better than Vista. Don't get me wrong, Vista works great (contrary to all the bad press it got). But Windows 7 sounds like it is pretty much a version of Vista that has been tweaked under the hood and has some new features added.

Gumblar virus

New "Gumblar" Virus Making the Rounds | Maximum PC

First detected back in March, the 'Gumblar' attacks have been gaining steam lately, growing by as much as 188 percent in just a single week, ScanSafe warned. Gumblar refers to
a Web attack that plants malicious scripts on normally legitimate
websites, which then redirects Google search results on victims' PCs.

New Web Site Drive-By Threat

Web Attack That Poisons Google Results Gets Worse - Business Center - PC World

... The attack, which has intensified in recent days, can be found on
several thousand legitimate Web sites, according to security experts.
It targets known flaws in Adobe's software and uses them to install a
malicious program on victims' machines, CERT said.

... Security experts say that if you're using a fully-patched system with
up-to-date security software, you should be protected from these
attacks. To date, they've worked by hitting the victim with malicious
PDF or Flash files.

Open Office 3.1 is out! Download it now

Go here to download:

download: OpenOffice.org Downloads

Here is a list of improvements:
OpenOffice.org 3.1 New Features

Facebook - Interface Improvement part 3

Update - Facebook Greasemonkey scripts
New ones I've discovered:
- Facebook Add Status - In the new layout, you no longer see your status on the Home page. This adds your status to the Home page
- Facebook Events, Pokes, Requests to the top - Highlights has taken over the right-column, so you end up having to scroll down all the time to see things. This script moves things up above the Highlights section so you don't have to scroll down to get to them.


For Greasemonkey and Greasefire set-up info, visit the previous post about these here.

Organize your desktop icons

Fences™ - By Stardock - Clean up your desktop clutter

Do you have a lot of icons on your desktop? Would you like to organize them easily? This free program, Fences, is a great program for organizing desktop icons/files/folders in Windows XP and Vista. Check it out.

Movienizer - for cataloguing your growing movie collection

Movienizer 1.9 - Free Movie Organizer



If you have a large collection of movies and you want to get a better handle on it, try out this free movie cataloguing program. It does a lot of the work for you, including downloading information and pictures from IMDB. You can also track of who you have lent movies to and when.

Beware of Scareware

Security Fix - Microsoft: Dramatic Rise in 'Scareware' Infections

"Scareware," or programs that masquerade as legitimate security and anti-virus software and then frighten and bully users into paying for them, have emerged as the most prolific and fastest-growing threats facing PC users, according to a biannual security report released this week by Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft found that in the second half of last year, seven of the top 25 malicious software families removed from Windows computers were scareware titles such as Antivirus2008, XPAntivirus, SpywareSecure, and Winfixer. 

Why the Welsh are the coolest!

Facebook | Extreme Sheep LED Art

Dispose of your old dead computer parts safely in Ontario

Do What You Can




At this site you can find nearby locations for disposing of hazardous waste and electronic waste (computers, TVs, etc.)

Regarding the electronic waste:

To decrease the amount of potentially hazardous material accumulating in our landfills, the Ontario Government has designated Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES), a non-profit industry organization to manage a program that encourages reuse, recycling and, if needed, proper disposal of unwanted electronic equipment.




If you live in Toronto and have old computer parts that still work and you are looking for new home for them, you can check out
Computation at 280 Jane St.
They also accept dead computers and parts. They have a free day coming up for dropping of computers and parts:
Computation's FREE Earth Day
They also have a location in Montreal.

What you need to know about the Conficker Worm

What You Need to Know About Conficker and How to Avoid Being a Victim | Maximum PC

This article (link above) contains a lot of useful information about the Conficker Worm.

Basic things you need to know:
- If your computer is running Windows (modern versions), it is possible for your computer to become infected
- If you have been getting regular Windows Updates and you have the latest (March 2009) updates, you should be safe.
- Make sure to keep your anti-virus program up to date
- If you cannot get Windows updates, and you cannot visit real anti-virus sites, you may be infected (as the worm blocks these things)

[UPDATE: for an easy test to see if you are infected, go to this infection test link.]

Here is the Microsoft site with specific security patches (which you should already have via Windows Automatic Update, unless you were infected a while ago) for this worm:
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical

Am I Infected (and if so, how do I get rid of it)?
Here are 2 detection and removal tools:
If you can't get to these sites to get these tools, then there is a good chance you are infected. Download these tools using another computer and copy them onto your infected computer.


1) The latest Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool
You can get this from Windows Automatic Updates, or, download it on another computer from here , and then copy it onto your computer and run it.

2) Symantec's (Norton) removal tool
W32.Downadup Removal Tool


When done, if you were infected, re-connect to the Internet and see if you can get Windows updates again - if so, make sure you get all the critical updates.

More information on the Conficker worm here:
Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm
Virus alert about the Win32/Conficker.B worm
DHS Releases Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool
Conficker Doomsday Worm Sells Out for $49.95

nvlddmkm.sys BSOD

nVidia BSOD nvlddmkm.sys - Vista Hardware Devices

I was running an Asus laptop with an Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT video card (with a driver from April 30, 2009 obtained via the Asus Update utility) in it running Windows Vista Home Premium. Everything was fine. Suddenly it crashed and i got a BSOD msg referring to
nvlddmkm.sys

Looks like some glitch with the Nvidia display driver and Vista.

I found this forum with the solution.
What worked for me was:
- Boot into Safe Mode
- Run, cmd, sc delete nvsvc
- restart computer
- In the Display properties, change it back to Aero.
- Done

Everything seems fine after this fix.

Toddler/cat-proof your computer

Toddler keys

This program will let you disable the keyboard, mouse, cd drive door and power switch.

Mac anti-virus programs

iAntiVirus - Free AntiVirus for Mac

There are more and more threats being created for Mac computers. iAntivirus is a free anti-virus program that may be suitable for most Mac users. It only targets Mac-specific threats (so, if you are not sharing files with a PC or dual-booting to Windows, then this should be sufficient).
The free version of iAntivirus comes is full-featured and only lacks the support features - updates are automatic and free.

One other drawback to this free software - it doesn't cover OS versions prior to 10.5

For other programs, check out these reviews at About.com It seems the most comprehensive anti-virus (in these reviews) is the paid Norton Internet Security for MacIntosh program.

If you have other recommendations, please leave them in the comments.

Downloading embedded on-line videos

If you want to download an embedded video, here are a couple of options:

For YouTube videos, there is the easy to use bookmarklet that enables you to download the video in MP4 format:
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files
Or,
You can use the Orbit YouTube Downloader - more complex:
Orbit YouTube Downloader

For a variety of embedded video formats, there is the full Orbit Downloader
Orbit Downloader

All of these are free.

Sure, there are Firefox extensions that enable you to download embedded videos, but they don't always work. When they don't, try the above downloading methods.

AVG Free v8.5 - Anti-virus and Anti-spyware

AVG has released a new version of their program, but you have to download it and install it to get it (you can't update to it via updates in 8.0).

To update to version 8.5, download the new version here at Filehippo.
Then, run the file - choose Repair Install when asked which installation.
Make sure to un-check the Security Bar and un-check daily scans (if you don't want these options).
When done, reboot the computer and manually run the updater to immediately get the latest updates (or you can let it update itself the next day).

To get rid of the notification ads, make sure your settings allow you to see hidden files and extensions, go to Program Files\AVG\AVG8 and look for
avgfree_us.mht and rename to avgfree_us.mht.bak
Also add .bak to
avgmwdef_us.mht
and
avgresf.dll

Works fine in Windows 2000 to Vista (x32 and x64)

Done.

Opt Out of Google targeted ads

Privacy: Opt Out of Google's Targeted Ads

There are some links in this article to different ways to opt out of the new Google ad-targeting system.

Facebook - Interface Improvement part 2

Want to fix or modify ways that Facebook looks/works?

(This post assumes you are using Firefox - You might be able to do these things in IE, but I haven't checked it out.)

You can do a lot using Greasemonkey and Greasefire.

Greasemonkey allows you to run special user scripts on specific websites.
Greasefire lets you see what scripts are available for a site.

These can be used for all sorts of sites, but I'm going to focus on a couple of basic scripts for Facebook here.

Install Greasemonkey from here.

Install Greasefire from here.

You will need to restart Firefox to enable them.

Once you have restarted, go to your Facebook home page.
Right-click on Greasemonkey and choose the top line that shows a number of scripts available.
Look for these 3 scripts (you can type them in the top to find them more quickly):
- Facebook Poke All
- Facebook Layout Ad Killer
- Facebook Friends Checker

Poke All - if you get a lot of pokes, this is a useful script. It puts a poke-all button above the pokes. It also ads a poke selected button so you can select some (by checking them off) and then click the button to poke only the selected people. Sometimes this script doesn't show up or work, so you have to do things the old way. But, when it does work, it is a time saver.

Ad Killer - gets rid of the Facebook Sponser ads and ads in the news feed.

Friends Checker - Do you have lots of friends and does it bother you when it seems someone has de-friended you but you can't figure out who it was? With this script installed, you will receive a notice of who de-friended you.

There are lots of other useful Facebook scripts out there. Check it out.

UPDATE
If you don't like the Highlight column in the new Facebook layout, check out the script called Delete Facebook Highlight Column

Adobe releases patch for problems in Photoshop CS4

Photoshop update fixes slowdowns, crashes | Underexposed - CNET News

Visit the link for the details and the download links.

Adobe Acrobat Reader critical bug

Acrobat Reader has dangerous bug - The Inquirer

ADOBE HAS WARNED that there is a critical bug in Acrobat Reader and users should disable Javascript for two weeks while Adobe comes up with a patch.

Cell Phones - Car Kit

Suddenly your cell phone shows “Car Kit” and seems to work except you can't hear people and they can't hear you – just a strange noise.

Do you have a baby in the room? On some cell phones, if you get the charger slot wet (or a baby sticks his/her tongue in it) it can short out the phone and make it think a special “car kit” device is plugged into it (whatever that is). You look on all the settings and there is nothing to adjust anything like Car Kit.

To repair this – make sure the charger slot has dried out. Then, wiggle a piece of metal in the slot until “Car Kit” disappears (bascially you are toggling the Car Kit setting back off). The end of a butter knife, a paperclip, a piece of tin foil, ... something like that does the trick.

And now, keep the phone away from babies.

Rogue anti-virus software points to fake reviews

Rogue anti-virus software points to fake reviews - The Inquirer < read full post

Watch out for rogue anti-virus programs, period.
This one in particular (Anti-Virus-1) is altering the host file so when you go to certain legitimate review sites, you will get automatically redirected to fake versions of the site which give glowing reviews of the fake anti-virus program.

UPDATE - More on this at
Ars Technica: New malware attempts legitimacy by spreading phony reviews

Open Office Tips

OpenOffice.org: 7 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do - Solutions by PC Magazine <read full post for the tips

OpenOffice.org 3.0 costs absolutely nothing but comes closer than anything else to letting you delete your copy of Microsoft Office (which probably cost you a lot). Even though OpenOffice.org—which is, yes, an application suite, not just a Web site—can't do everything Office can, it can do a lot, and it has some of its own tricks that even Office can't manage. Here are a few that may not be obvious, as well as a few ways to make OpenOffice.org less annoying out of the box.

Feb. 2, 2009 updates in AVG not working

AVG Free - Download update

If you can't update and you open AVG, you may see a message stating that a .bin file is missing.

To solve this problem right away (it may solve itself in a day or two), go to the above link and download the last 2 files in the Updates list (of 4 files).
Once you have downloaded these bin files, open AVG, click on Tools, Update from directory...
Point to the folder where you saved the bin files and okay.
It should be fixed now.

New fraud on Facebook to watch out for.

Latest Facebook Scam: Phishers Hit Up “Friends” for Cash < read me!

Conficker, the Downadup worm affecting 3.5 million PCs so far.

1 in 3 Windows PCs vulnerable to worm attack

The Downadup worm, called "Conficker" by some researchers, surged dramatically this week and has infected an estimated 3.5 million PCs so far, according to Finnish security company F-Secure Corp. The worm exploits a bug in the Windows Server service used in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.

Microsoft issued a patch in late October after confirming reports of in-the-wild attacks, most of them against machines in Asia.
...
Microsoft has recommended that Windows users install the October update, then run the January edition of the Malicious Software Removal Tool to clean up compromised computers.

When you see the little yellow shield, apply the updates. If you don't see the little yellow shield for over a month, you probably have something infecting your machine, blocking the updates. Update your anti-virus program and run a full system scan. I recommended this anti-virus/anti-spyware program: AVG Free 8.

My Top 15 Free Windows Programs for 2008

Inspired by the post at Lifehacker, and, since it's been a while since I've written up a top-list, here is my top 15 list of free Windows programs.

In no particular order:

Firefox 3 - the latest version of Firefox is fast and very secure and remains the best with extensions of all the browsers

AVG Free 8 - anti-virus and anti-spyware, and much improved since it first came out. Easy to use and works better than the big programs that must be purchased.

7zip - decompression and compression of many many compression formats, and free!

Foxit PDF reader - now works directly inside a Firefox tab as well as on its own. Faster and with a much smaller footprint than Adobe Reader. They keep making this better with every version

Crossloop - for remote connections with clients for help/repair - free and very simple to use

Shutdown Guard - for stopping Windows Updates from automatically restarting your computer (XP and Vista)

Winamp - best free media player overall - yes it has playlists and you can use it with your ipod or any other MP3 player. Works better than iTunes and doesn't install other programs behind your back, and you can customize its many settings (file formats to deal with, whether it launches on its own or by your command...)

Quicktime Alternative - streamlined and unobtrusive version of Quicktime

Realplayer Alternative - streamlined and unobtrusive version of Realplayer

Open Office 3 - the best free alternative to MS Office. And it can open .docx files now. You can create a PDF directly from any of the programs in the suite with a click of an icon. Word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, database, you can make it save things in MS Office format by default if you need to share documents with others have MS Office, and more.

Thunderbird - excellent email program from Mozilla (same group that brings you Firefox). I find this much easier to customize and to backup and move files around when need be than Outlook or Outlook Express.

Picasa - a good, free program from Google for viewing, sorting and editing your photos and more

Superantispyware - A great 2nd program for manually scanning your computer after AVG Free 8 to catch and fix anything that might have been missed. I like this better than Ad Aware and Spybot put together.

CCleaner - great for cleaning up temp files, temp files leftover from crashes, and cleaning up the Registry and more.

Cobain Backup - a free backup program that you can fully customize - scheduling, backing up to various drives including network drives, etc.

Got any favourite free programs I left out? Add them in comments.

Happy New Year!

Asus laptop built-in webcam upside down

I use an Asus laptop. My built-in webcam was working fine until recently. Now it shows upside down. I had recently updated a lot of drivers. So, I rolled back the driver (Control Panel\Device Manager\Imaging devices... and it works properly now.)
I am using Windows Vista.
If you are having a similar problem in Windows XP with a built-in webcam on an Asus laptop, try rolling back the driver.

I found a lot of info relating to this problem on Linux, and the solution there was to re-program something.

Security flaw in Internet Explorer has experts recommending alternative browsers

BBC NEWS | Technology | Serious security flaw found in IE

Switch to Firefox 3 for a safer, faster and more enriched browsing experience.

The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to
take control of people's computers and steal their passwords, internet
experts say.

Microsoft urged people to be vigilant while it investigated and prepared an emergency patch to resolve it.

More on the Koobface virus

The Facebook Virus Spreads: No Social Network is Safe - ReadWriteWeb

Play it smart. Keep your anti-virus software up to date. Don't click on fake messages like You look just awesome in this new movie.
And don't install the Flash plug-in from anything but the Adobe Flash site.

For more details, click on the link.

A new Facebook virus to watch out for

Facebook hit by virus - The INQUIRER

Koobface spreads by sending notes to friends of someone whose PC has been
infected.

The messages, with subject headers like, "You look just awesome in this new
movie," direct victims to a third-party site where they are asked to download
what it claims is an update of Adobe's Flash player.

Downloading the software means that users end up with an infected computer,
which then takes users to contaminated sites when they try to use search engines
from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live.com, according McAfee.

Sumo Paint - Free on-line just-like-Photoshop program

Sumo Paint
Is an on-line program very very similar to Photoshop.

Handy if you need this and you don't have and can't afford Photoshop.

Foxit Reader 3 out. New and improved

Foxit Software

Foxit Reader 3.0 is out now. Alongwith numerous improvements is the fact that it now supports Firefox - so you can click on a PDF and have it open in the tab instead of opening in the Foxit program outside Firefox)

However, in order to keep using some of the other useful features, you have to install the Ask Toolbar. To install the new Foxit Reader without having this toolbar running:
- Download the installer file from the link above
- Close your browsers
- Run the file and choose Custom
- When you get to the part about the toolbar, Un-check the point about making Ask your home page.
- Finish the installation and close Foxit (if you let it open)
- Open each browser and disable the toolbar it added (it will still be installed, but it won't be there taking up space and resources in your browser)
- Done.

Bell can squeeze the bandwidth.

TheStar.com | Business | Bell can squeeze downloads, CRTC rules

With this CRTC ruling, it pays to do your homework and find out if that different Internet Service Provider is using Bell or not, before you switch to them for a lower rate. If they do use Bell, this means that you might be paying for a lemon  - your bandwidth will be much lower than what you mean to pay for. Remember, ISPs offer you an "up-to" speed, not a minimum.

So far, in my experience, and in the experience of friends and clients, Rogers seems to be more reliable and seems to do less bandwidth squeezing of customers, than Bell Sympatico in their Internet service. And, for home land line telephone service, Bell seems to be more reliable.

Major SPAM provider shut down

Spam drops 75% as major host shut down - Security - Technology - smh.com.au

Hopefully this will result in an actual reduction in SPAM