patndoris TechnoGeek

From time to time, I like to take a moment to share the utilities I feel every user should consider.  All of the ones I’ll recommend have a free version.  However, in some cases, I feel strongly enough about supporting the development of the program that I’ve purchased a full version.  in those cases, the full version is a one time upgrade price, not a yearly subscription price. 

1.  Microsoft Security Essentials.  This is the best anti-virus program I’ve used.  It’s light on resources, stays up to date, and works well.

2.  Malwarebytes. The free version is wonderful to scan and remove possible malware threats.  However, this is one of those cases where I really do believe the full version is worth the price.  Whereas in the free version, it is an on-demand scanner which the user must remember to run, the full version will run at startup, can be set to automatically update and scan on a preset schedule.

3.  WinPatrol.  WinPatrol does the work so you don’t have to be an expert.  You can remove/disable startup programs; manage services, remove active tasks; expose hidden files; manage cookies and filtering; monitor and restore file type associations; monitor host files and start pages, and more.  Try out the free version, and I’m sure you’ll agree that supporting WinPatrol by upgrading to a WinPatrol PLUS is definitely worth it.

4.  Filehippo Update Checker.  One of the best ways to keep your computer malware free, and running it’s best, is to keep your essential programs up to date.  Filehippo is a fantastic site, offering an array of free programs.  Their free update checker helps you stay current for programs you have installed that are also offered on the site.  Even if you don’t choose to run it at startup, you can run it on demand - and I suggest you do so regularly.  As I’ve said before, Java, Flash and Adobe Reader should always be updated to the latest version for security reasons.

5.  RevoUninstaller.  Hands down the best uninstaller around.  It gets rid of leftover files and helps keep your machine clean and free from the clutter that can occur over time.  The Pro version can even do a forced uninstall of difficult to remove programs and offers extended searching for leftover files.  It also offers an array of additional features.  Many of them are standard Windows features, but having them all located in one place makes it easier to use them.  I do believe this is worth the price of an upgrade.  The Pro version offers fully 64-bit support for Vista and Windows 7.  You can upgrade at a discounted price by doing so from within the free version. 

While there are certainly other utilities I suggest for many users (depending on the circumstances and their computer abilities), these are the ones that are simple to setup, and with the upgraded versions of the ones listed, can pretty much be left alone to do their job with little to no user interface.  If you prefer the free versions, they are all wonderful, and I certainly used them as free versions for many years before I decided to upgrade.  it just means you’ll need to remember that some of them are on demand and you’ll have to run them when you want them.

Many antivirus programs and online scanners will locate malicious items in your system restore points.  It’s great that they find them - that means they are doing their job.  And most will kindly offer to clean that item for you. But, and this is a big but - if you allow them to remove anything from your system restore points, you risk corrupting the point itself rendering it unusable.

In the malware removal world, an infected restore point is better than no restore point at all.  Today, my Microsoft Security Essentials identified something in a system restore point it felt was malicious.  I wasn’t paying attention and tried to clean it.  Then, I was faced with a backup that wouldn’t complete.  Thankfully, I was able to allow the file the next time I tried the back up and my image completed with no problems at that point. 

I’m not terribly worries about a malicious item in a restore point, because unless you actually use that restore point to bring back your system to a previous state, it’s not active - it won’t be a problem to leave it there.  If you find a system restore point is infected, I’d suggest just creating a new point after you’ve cleaned up.  Then you can delete the old ones with no worries (or just leave them there and make a mental note not to use them unless absolutely necessary.)

I don’t want to admit how old my photo editing software is.  For my quick fixes, I use Photoshop Elements..ahem..2.0 and according to the About screen it is from.oh I dunno..let’s go with.2002. Yes, my trusty software is almost 10 years old.  For my general crop and straighten, or simple fixes, it’s just fine.  But when I want to do something a little more interesting (which translates to something I never learned how to do in Photoshop Elements) I turn to a web based application called Picnik. 

I remember when I first purchased Photoshop Elements.  I read how you could do almost everything in it you could do in Photoshop.  I even bought a couple of books about using it.  Them there books still sit on a bookshelf.  I never used them. And I never learned to use the program to is full potential.  I only learned the basics.  For anything more complicated - I’d Google and attempt to follow the directions as best I could (sometimes with less than stellar results).  Then a co-worker mentioned Picnik.

I gave the website a go and I was hooked. I’ve been using Picnik for about 2 years now, and I must say - I adore it.  From the Picnik website:

Picnik is photo editing online, in your browser. It gives real people photo editing superpowers. It’s fast, easy, and offers tons of powerful tools, artistic effects, stickers, frames, touch-ups, scrapbooking tools, and more. And that’s all for free.  There’s even more available for Picnik Premium members: More tools, advanced effects, seasonal content all year long and more!

The real beauty of Picnik is it’s simplicity.  You don’t need to understand lots of complicated terms or remember crazy keystroke combinations.  Everything is clear and simple.  You just choose what you want to do - and Picnik does the rest.  Picnik also offers browser extensions for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.  They offer helpful tutorials and have a forum if for some reason you need additional help.

The Premium membership is currently $24.95 per year.  Considering that Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.0 runs $99.99 for the latest version - I consider Picnik a great investment.  I can get 4 years of Picnik for the price of just 1 version of Adobe Photoshop Elements.  And I’m betting that even at upgrade pricing on Adobe, Picnik still wins hands down every time!  With Picnik you have ever changing new and update features without the hassle of updating software since you do the editing in your browser.

You can share your Picnik creations to Myspace, Photobucket, Yahoo Mail, Flickr, Picasa and Facebook.  And of course, you can simply save them to your computer to do what you want to with them.  Picnik keeps a history of your photos so they are available when you want them.

Started in 2005, Picnik was purchased by Google in 2010.  With the support and backing from one of the biggest names around, it has to be good! So go have a little fun.  It’s a beautiful day for a Picnik, give the free version a try and let me know what you think.

If there are pop ups telling you how many hundreds and thousands of infected files you have asking you to fork out your hard earned money to clean them - don’t fall for it!  If you hear advertisements playing even when you don’t have the internet open, if your see warnings of your hard drive failing and critical errors and low memory on a machine you know shouldn’t have those issues - chances are you are infected. 

There has been an explosion in the malware forums lately, and not in a good way.  There are a couple of new rogues and rootkits going around and they are hitting a lot of people.  They are really nasty and not so easy to fix.  One person reported the computer shop he works in had 30 clients hit this week alone. 

The Windows Recovery rogue (and others like it) has the potential to appear to remove all your desktop icons, your start menu items as well as your quick launch and taskbar items.  They are easily restored using the proper tools, but whatever you do, DO NOT use any kind of cleaning tool that will empty your temp files or you will be in a world of hurt.  Even System Restore won’t help you if those temp files get emptied. The best thing to do is post in a malware forum and get technical assistance on this one.

The other is a really nasty piece of work that modifies one or more of your critical system files.  Right now, until our malware tools can catch up to it, it takes a bit of work to get rid of this little gem of a rootkit. Again, don’t tackle this one on your own - as for assistance in a forum (at least until anti-virus scanners and other reputable cleaning tools get a fix in place).

Your best defense right now is to be very careful what you click. Only download files from trusted sources. Stay away from P2P file sharing sites too.  Practice safe surfing even more diligently than normal right now!

This is a long blog - but easy and quick reading. Settle in and enjoy a good laugh! This actually happened to me a couple of years ago (as evidenced by the Vista and Java 1.5 references), but the lesson is still very valid.  All too often we assume when something doesn’t work right it must be our computer..have you ever done that?  Read on and you’ll see I obviously have!  But I certainly learned a very valuable lesson that I’ve never forgotten.

There’s a Java based streaming webcam I sometimes watch. On the Vista laptop the site connects and all the Java Applets function, but I’d had one pesky problem where the initial image of the cam loaded and then remained static. Streaming? Does IE7 & Vista know this means an updating picture? Hmm…IE7, Java, or Vista problem? Googled and Googled and after countless frustrating hours found only a couple people with the same problem…no posted resolutions. How nice! Why don’t people post problem resolutions for the rest of us?

Ian was kind enough to test IE7 for me - it worked. Possibility 1 ruled out. I posted on BBB and someone tested Vista for me - it worked. Possibility 2 ruled out. But wait! He tested it using Java 1.5. My machine had 1.6. In my infinite wisdom and relentless pursuit of an answer I decided to downgrade my Java to 1.5. My Thursday night went something like this. (Why oh why couldn’t I have been happy with all things working except that? (and YH voice conference of course!))

Tried to simply install Java 1.5….all goes well until I get a (somewhat expected) error at the end of install due to a newer version being already on the laptop. Uninstall 1.5…uninstall 1.6 (factory installed)…uninstall recent 1.6 update. Reinstall 1.5 successfully and test webcam site - WOO HOO it works!! Problem solved right? Disable automatic updates - happy to use old version if it works. Test YH Games, my YH 360 & Freeslots.com to be sure they’re OK. Here’s where the fun began - 6pm.

Only placeholders display on 360 no pictures. What’s up with that? Freeslots won’t connect…huh? YH’s main page loads but won’t connect to games. Uh oh….obviously Java 1.5 doesn’t like Vista for some sites. Test a few other non-Java related sites and they work fine. Ask 12-1/2 year old male offspring (who’s busy with 200 separate IM’s going on AOL) to test YH games for me on PC to see if he can connect. Yup it works….must be Java. GRRRRR! Decide to delete 1.5, revert to 1.6 and live with webcam issue. Simple enough!

Not so! Reintall 1.6 & update. Test webcam site - original problem returns as expected. Test 360, YH Games & Freeslots - @#$%! If click on any other Java page IE closes!! Google (in annoyance) discovering install probably corrupt. What the heck?! I didn’t get any errors! Somewhat impatiently uninstall 1.6 and 1.6 update AGAIN and reinstall. Attempt to check all sites….well IE not shutting down on me anymore…but problems persist, sites not working right. Now what could possibly be wrong with a version that previously worked??

Spend too much time checking Internet settings, trying things and Googling. Finally, decide to system restore to Thursday morning. Vista’s a bit slow at this…I’m not the most patient…but resign myself anyway. Click the button…wait…all goes well…system restored. Could this be the end of my story at 7:30pm? Nope, of course not! Same problem. Most websites ok….not Java ones. Alright…obviously something is really wrong here!

Spend WAY too much time looking at Internet settings. Unplug router and reboot it in case that’s the problem. Update router firmware (successfully) for good measure. Retest….still no luck. Getting really frustrated. Regretfully resign myself to another system restore to Wednesday night when I KNEW it was all working. Click button…wait….and wait… finally successful restore. Retest problem. @#$%!! STILL NOT WORKING!! What the heck could be wrong? Run CCleaner to look for missing files. Oh boy! Lots of missing DLL’s for Java. Google for Java DLL - not a successful search. Google is not my friend at the moment.

Decide to use the handy dandy backup discs I created to copy all Sun and Java files back from the CD’s to their original locations. Never done this before but how hard can it be? Really quite simple….and 1 file did have a different size. This 1 file MUST be the cause of all this rapidly developing headache at 10:30pm! Wrong again!

11:00pm tell Alene I’m about ready to cry. I NEED YH games and my 360 to work! Can live without webcam! Try to find Larry - no answer. Alene locates Larry and I start what turns out to be a rather lengthy voice call on YH with him. He doesn’t use IE but very patiently tried and tried to help me. We looked at everything we could think of….reviewing all the steps I’d done and the results. Tossed around other options…tested…no changes. Running out of ideas here. Perhaps need a fresh install of IE7? The possibility was as scary as changing registry entries - didn’t really want to go there!

Out of desperation, we disable my firewall on the router…still no luck. Then (light bulb goes off) and I get the bright idea to try these sites from my PC (which has had NO Java changes.) WHAT? Can’t connect from there either? Try AOL on the PC - huh? Connects just fine? Boot up old laptop - it has same symptoms! 3 machines? Same problem? What the heck is going on and why can AOL get to them??? No sense…no sense….what could possibly be wrong. Wait…if all 3 machines have the same issue…then…my laptop was ok all along?

All of a sudden…Larry remembers a similar past problem (and failed attempts to fix it) and says “maybe it’s your ISP somehow blocking the sites.” WHAT??? 8 hours and this could be an ISP issue? And just then… like magic! all of a sudden! - the sites begin working! All machines now test perfectly. Oh the words I wanted to say just then - bit tongue quite hard (may have drawn blood I’m not really sure…was too tired at almost 2am to care.)

Realization hits…in all likelihood Java 1.5 would have been just FINE on my Vista laptop. The stars simply conspired to line up to make this problem occur precisely at the same time I decided to downgrade Java to see if it fixed the webcam problem. What other possible conclusion could I have drawn? I change Java - now Java websites don’t function. Any other set of circumstances and I might have decided it wasn’t my machine. I spent the entire night and into the early morning trying single mindedly to solve a problem that DIDN’T EVEN EXIST!

Oh well - I’m sticking with 1.6 on here for now. I’ve submitted a bug report to Java and await a reply or update. I don’t think I’m brave enough to start the whole process over again just to see what might happen. (BTW this was time lapse blogging…some details have been omitted so you can read this in less than 8 hours!)

Lately, I’ve seen quite a lot of posts in the What the Tech, Bleeping Computer and Geeks to Go forums about browser redirects.  certainly, these are nothing new.  What has changed is that in quite a few of these cases neither the typically installed anti-virus programs, nor anti-malware programs are catching the culprit files. 

This malware can be stubborn to remove.  If you find yourself infected, and your typical malware fighting tools aren’t cutting it -  please post in one of the forums for assistance.  It may take a couple of days because the backlog of posts is kinda big right now - but you will get free assistance to help you clean up your machine.

The best defense is to keep your computer up to date.  Be sure to apply all your Windows Updates,  keep Adobe (Flash and Reader) up to date, and make sure to keep Java fully updated (and ensure that any remaining old copies of it are removed.)  Also ensure that you have updated anti-virus running all the time.  And of course - be smart when you are browsing, emailing, and chatting online.  Don’t click links or open files if you are unsure of them.  If you get strange prompts to download unexpected files while you are surfing - err on the side of caution and don’t do it!

No matter how cautious, we all run the risk of getting infected just by virtue of being on the internet.  Surf smart and stay updated and you’ll reduce your risks.  And again - if you do get infected and aren’t able to deal with it yourself - please ask for help from a reputable forum. 

It’s one of those questions that just never seems to go away…."Who has blocked me on [insert your favorite instant messenger program here]?" My answer is short and sweet (and hasn’t changed since I originally wrote this article in 2009) - you can’t know, you’ll never know, and your contacts have their right to privacy. That last bit alone is enough to generate quite a heated debate as I recently found out - but I’ll spare you the details. More importantly - trying to find out who has blocked you can compromise your computer’s security and infect you will all kinds of malware and viruses you never imagined - and it’s not going to yield any accurate information.  For some reason, every couple of years there seems to be a resurgence in sites and links claiming to help you find out who has blocked you - beware of them all!

For years, I’ve told people to stay away from block-checker websites. Back in November 2009, Christopher Boyd wrote on SpywareGude to beware of a block checker file that you can now download. It’s a new spin on the websites that have stolen credentials for some time. AIf you install MSN Block Checker you will be infecting your machine with Mob.Blockcheck - take a look at it’s behaviors and I’m sure you’ll decide you don’t really want it on your machine.  Also referenced in this detailed post are 3 previous posts about other online sites claiming to tell you who’s blocked you and phishing scams aimed solely at getting you to reveal your login credentials. Just this week, the well known Raymond.cc blog posted on an email that appears to come from one of your contacts and leads to a site asking for your login info to determine who has you blocked. I probably don’t need to tell you the email is a phishing scam. The friend from whom it comes has probably had their login stolen. The Raymond.cc post also includes very good information on what to do if you believe your login credentials have been compromised.

Many users don’t practice good security online - using the same login and/or password for multiple sites and services.  Being compromised may mean there is a lot more at risk in such cases. Phishers and hackers are quite happy to share their payloads with each other. Many people wrongly assume that because they run an antivirus or malware scan and it comes up clean they are not at risk and/or have not been compromised. FALSE!  Until the advent of the "downloadable" file previously mentioned, most of this phishing was done online. It’s true many of these sites also dump malware or crapware on your machine as a bonus - but the real problem is when the credentials are entered online. It’s hook, line and sinker for the phisher. They have what they need.  All those annoying IM’s and emails going out to contacts will most likely be happening from a remote server. All the antivirus and malware scans in the world aren’t going to stop it from happening.  Following the advice on what to do when you’ve become compromised becomes paramount if you want to stop the problem (and I assure you - your contacts would really appreciate it if you do.)

Knowing if you’ve been blocked is obviously tempting (or the phishers wouldn’t be doing so well with it now would they?)  I have never heard of a block checker that works, doesn’t infect your machine or steal your credentials.  Ask yourself this. Why does a site need your login credentials to determine if someone else is online? Doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? You have to ask yourself - is it really worth it to find out? There are options. Email the person and ask if they are not communicating for a reason. While slightly subversive, you could create another identify and see if the person will add you as a new contact. If you can see them online with one identity and not the other, then you are likely blocked.  Of course, that’s only as good as getting the person to accept some unknown new contact on their list (and if they weren’t mad at you before they may be after you do that if they figure it out.) Send them an IM - perhaps they just aren’t showing online, but will actually answer you. Or, you could just be adult about it - accepting that someone is showing offline to you for whatever their own personal reasons may be. Whatever your choice - stay away from the block checkers. They don’t work and the risks are far greater than the reward (or lack thereof).

Do you have a secret passion for desktop wallpapers? I enjoy looking at them, but rarely do I bother to change mine. (I’m a bit minimalistic in that sense. My current wallpaper is simply a centered image of Pink Floyd’s &quotark Side of the Moon" album cover.) I tend to favor the geometric or space/fantasy images - but my stumbling block is sullying them with my desktop icons. Somehow I like the inherent unmarred beauty. Thus, I stick with what I have. But I know many users who change wallpapers like they change clothes. If you happen to be one of those, this may be of far more interest to you.

I admit, I enjoy looking at the options, imagining how they’d look on my 17" laptop screen. It’s a nice little fantasy. If you enjoy doing the same, or perhaps actually enjoy changing yours up - take a look at these. "Fantastic Wallpapers that will Blow Your Desktop Away - from Smashing Magazine" I think my favorite is Influx, the depiction of the merge of two into one, where the resulting fluidity is somehow captivating.

If those aren’t enough for you, there are links to their other write-ups on dual screen monitor wallpapers, iPhone wallpapers, and other amazingly nice desktop wallpapers they’ve shown in the past. I’m pretty sure you must be able to find something you like here…