I've been seeing more scams than usual.
The latest email scam was from someone posing as Wells Fargo. They took a poor screenshot of their website and embedded it in the top of the email. The email requests you login through their link to verify credentials.
As a general rule DO NOT FOLLOW LINKS from email. If your bank/cellphone/credit card co. needs information from you do not use the links in the email. Instead just login to the site like you normally would. If there is indeed some action you need to take the website will ask you once you are logged in.
Another scam we just received is from a Yellow Pages ad-space sales company. This, of course, is aimed towards businesses. If you have ads in Yellow Pages be wary of this advertisement. It looks like a bill but is in fact a promise to post an add for you in "some" Yellow Pages book.. not necessarily any book in the local area.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Sad but true
We just had a client come in who had a quote from Dell support for $170+ motherboard replacement because her computer wouldn't boot up and was unstable.
She came to us for a second opinion.
Turns out she just had a broken mouse.
A $39 diagnosis and an inexpensive new mouse saved over $100.
Glad we could help ;)
She came to us for a second opinion.
Turns out she just had a broken mouse.
A $39 diagnosis and an inexpensive new mouse saved over $100.
Glad we could help ;)
Friday, August 5, 2011
The best anti-virus software
I get the question "Which anti-virus software do you recommend?" commonly. My answer is the same:
"Free? or paid?"
If free, your choices are limited. The most common being Avast, AntiVir, and AVG. We use Avast free anti-virus at Western Sky PC due to our successful history with it, but what about paid software?
"I don't know, let me find out."
That's my answer. Always. I then go to a site that compares anti-virus software, find the current best based on their reports and provide an informed answer to the client.
(If you're curious the current best according to AV comparatives is F-Secure.)
"Free? or paid?"
If free, your choices are limited. The most common being Avast, AntiVir, and AVG. We use Avast free anti-virus at Western Sky PC due to our successful history with it, but what about paid software?
"I don't know, let me find out."
That's my answer. Always. I then go to a site that compares anti-virus software, find the current best based on their reports and provide an informed answer to the client.
(If you're curious the current best according to AV comparatives is F-Secure.)
What is "the cloud"?
With all of this talk in popular media of "the cloud" I would like to clarify it's definition for all of our sanity.
I, at first, checked the trusty site wikipedia.org and was handed this brilliant definition:
" Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction "
and promptly thought "What?!".
That may make sense to businesses who like to use hip phrases like "rapidly provisioned" (quickly supplied) to sound official but what does it mean to the common person. Let me help out with that:
If something is in "the cloud" it means you can access it using the internet, normally with your web browser.
Simple eh?
Many people are already using cloud services. The most popular being web-based email such as gmail, yahoo mail, and msn mail. Which put all of the complication of maintaining your email in the hands of the corporation. No installing expensive software, no compressing databases, simple.
I hope this helps.
I, at first, checked the trusty site wikipedia.org and was handed this brilliant definition:
" Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction "
and promptly thought "What?!".
That may make sense to businesses who like to use hip phrases like "rapidly provisioned" (quickly supplied) to sound official but what does it mean to the common person. Let me help out with that:
If something is in "the cloud" it means you can access it using the internet, normally with your web browser.
Simple eh?
Many people are already using cloud services. The most popular being web-based email such as gmail, yahoo mail, and msn mail. Which put all of the complication of maintaining your email in the hands of the corporation. No installing expensive software, no compressing databases, simple.
I hope this helps.
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