Should I send you my user name and password?

No

However, we at IT Services are doing everything we can to make it easier and faster to accomplish those things that you wish to do with your computer. If you send us your user name and password in an email we will assume that your goal is to have your identity stolen and your credit utterly destroyed. With that in mind we will more than glad to post your personal information including Social Security number and credit card information on every underground website and newsgroup we can find. That way the identity thieves can quickly obtain your information and your credit can be ruined even before you even graduate from college.

If a matter is urgent should I log a call and ask you to take care of it As Soon As Possible?

Most differently!

Everyone in IT Services appreciates the opportunity to grow in character as they restrain themselves from chocking the living @#$% out of people who think their problems are more important than anything else going on at the moment. And since most people believe that we sit around putting everything off until the last possible moment it is very important that you let us know that you want your issue resolved now rather than latter.

Also, as an added benefit, when you put ASAP in your request we can add you to a list of names of people we will be lining up against the wall after the revolution.

Do you need my life story to fix my problem?

Even though we at IT Services are very interested in how your dog sat on your keyboard and accidently spelled out the name Xenu and how you use to work in the IT field and know more about what we are doing that we do, no, we only need to know what the problem is that your are having. Most of the time the issue is something unintentional and whole unintelligent that you did anyway, so it is completely unnecessary to blabber about mindlessly to prove what we have already guessed.

Got to go for a little bit….

http://7ater.com/dcon08/

Anyone who works in IT should read these post.  It’s funny at first - then gets sad….

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/

http://www.7ater.com/greengold

A repository of my poetry.  It’s not yet half done, but there are enough Poems up for you to read.  Look them over and leave me some comments.

Ok - now I’m a clean cut geek who looks like a nerd.

I’m going to leave the picture on the header - I like it.  Looks geeky, comic book/fan-boy geeky.

Started a new Blog for my technical post.  Tech Talk Ror The Non-Geek is now located at http://cartersvillecomputercare.com/techblog/

All previouse tech post here have been moved over, and this will be more personal.

2001 Buick Regal LS
70,000 Miles
One Owner
Very Clean and and in Great Shape!

Send her an e-mail or leave a comment congradulating her.  She’s Happy!

I am often asked by parents how to keep their little darlings safe from all the nasty stuff out there on the internet.  I figure the best way to do this is by doing several post on how it is best handled.  In all of these when I refer to “kids” or “children” I mean any child living with you that is less than 18 years old.  I really don’t care how mature your child is, if they are not a legal adult then you need to protect them from the dangers they can face.

My answer every time I am asked this I give this same short answer:

Never let your child access the internet without supervision.

The best way to do this is to have your computer in the room that is most used by the family, like a living room or den.  You don’t really have to look over their shoulder and watch everything they do, just be in the same room so that there is a chance you will glance up and see what is on their screen.

For full disclosure I must state that I have no kids of my own.  I have always worked with children in churches and other groups.  Usually being the computer guy with lots of games and toys and no kids of my own the tweens and teens will confide in me and my wife.  We are not judgmental, and we generally don’t tell on the kids unless there is clear and present danger involved.  However, we do know that these not-yet-adults should not be trusted on their own with things like a loaded gun, mind altering drugs and the internet.

Do I think your little precious is a bad kid?  No.  Do I think they are going to try to do bad things behind your back?  I hope not.  Do I think that a child playing with fire will eventually get burned?  Uh, yeah!

Children are curious and when they find a way to see or learn new things, especially forbidden things, they most likely will.  Most every man can tell you of the time either he, or a friend, found their fathers Playboy Magazines.  Did they look away and say “my mom wouldn’t like me looking at that?”  No.  In my house it was Easy Rider Magazine.  They just had the naked women on motorcycles.  I stole and read everyone I could get away with.

You may say that’s a part of growing up, and it’s healthy.  You may be right.  However, I wish I could take you to the sites on the World Wide Web I have come across.  A lot of this behavior is not natural.  It’s not just kids seeing naked people and giggling, it’s a lot worse.  I really wish I could post a link to some of this, but I really don’t want you to see this garbage.

Anyway, I have to lower my blood pressure now.  Simply DO NOT allow your child (even if they are 17 and mature for their age) to surf the internet alone in their room.  I will rant about the next item in another post… then get to some advice that you might actually use.

-7ater

 As many peoples “Computer Guy” I get to see a lot of PCs in very bad shape.  Most of them are totally filled with Malware.  Here is Wikipedia’s definition of Malware:

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. It is a portmanteau of the words “malicious” and “software”. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

In other words; it is stuff on your computer that you don’t want and that can make your life miserable.

 I am often amazed in these times how many computers I sit down to that have absolutely NO protection from the poo-poo that you can get from the internet.  I try not to lecture people about going to websites that are bad or downloading whatever, but if you’re going to play in the places that can do your computer harm PLEASE take something to protect you.

Many, many people will say they have virus protection, but I’ll look and see that their subscription ran out a year ago.  Let me explain how an antivirus application works:

 1.A bad guy writes a program that is harmful to your computer.
 2.They release it to the world, usually through the internet or e-mail.
 3.Somebody gets the virus on their computer (usually several people).
 4.The virus gets reported to the people who write the antivirus software.
 5.The Antivirus software people write code for their product that looks for and protects you from this virus.
 6.The Antivirus people put their code up on their server for you to download.
 7.Your machine downloads the code from the server.
 8.Your computer is protected from the Malware.

Understand that the time between steps 6 and 7 can sometimes be a whole week.  The time between steps 2 and 3 can be a lot longer.  So until you actually get to step 8 you are NOT protected.  And if you are not currently getting updates for your antivirus program you will never make it to step 7.  You must realize that there is a period of time with any virus that you are not protected, and if you do not have an updated program you are NEVER protected.
 
Scared?  Good!

So what should you do about it?  The best defense is safe computing practices, but I’ll save that for another post.  Mainly, get an antivirus program.  Secondly, make sure it is getting updates regularly.  I cannot recommend one program over another because they are constantly changing.  One week one is better and the next week another one is better.  Of the ones I have used and feel confident with are (in no particular order):

 Symantec (Norton) (www.symantec.com)
 McAfee (www.mcafee.com)
 Panda (www.pandasecurity.com)
 Tend Micro (www.trendmicro.com)
 AVG (www.grisoft.com)

There are probably others, but like I say – these are the ones I personally have had good experiences with.  Another one that I have heard a lot of good things about is NOD32 (www.eset.com), but I haven’t had a chance to use this yet.

 If you are trying to find one that works for you shop around.  See what prices work for you, and most of them will allow you a trial period.  If you download a trial remember two very important things:  1) When the trial runs out you must pay for a subscription to continue to get updates 2) If you install a different antivirus program be sure to uninstall the old one first.  It’s a good rule to never have more than one antivirus program installed on one computer.

 If you are squirming about paying for software you don’t want to have to buy check out AVG.  They have a free version.  There does not seem to be any catch to this and I have installed it on many machines.  It is a basic antivirus application.  It scans files as you access them, scan e-mails and does a complete scan every day.  One thing I really like about this program is it updates every day instead of once a week.

 Other tools that can help remove malware from your machine are AdAware (www.lavasoftusa.com) and SpyBot (www.spybot.info).  Spybot is totally free and AdAware has a free version for personal use.  Both of these programs will scan your system for potentially harmful or annoying programs.  You will have to update and run these manually.  In other words just installing them on your machine does absolutely nothing.  You have to run the application, get the latest updates, run the scan and remove the problems. 

IMPORTANT!  I only recommend these two programs, and you MUST get them from the websites above.  There are other applications that have the same or similar names.  Most of these are phonies and actually install malware on your machine.  Do NOT install a spyware program that you find on the internet unless you are ABSOLUTLY sure of what it is and what it will do.  You are doing more harm than good by installing unknown spyware, antivirus, malware, registry cleaner or whatever.  Just because it says it is going to fix your problems does not mean it will.  Have I made this clear?  I don’t know what else to say about this….

 Another application that has to be mentioned is Windows Defender (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx).  This is Microsoft’s antispyware application.  It is free.  I do believe it is good and worth installing, but it’s one of those applications like Malicious Software Removal Tool that seems to be working, but I can never verify that it is or it’s not.  The price is right, but I wouldn’t rely on this solely.

 So, you are probably reading this because I sent you to it.  Right now look at your machine and see if you have any antivirus program running.  If you do check that the definitions are up to date – no more that 7 days old.  If you need to update, do so.  If you need to renew your subscriptions, do so.  If you don’t know what to do, then call a computer guy to help you.  I’ll be glad to help if you are in my area.  If you are somewhere else then I’m sure you can find a geek out there that will help you out.

 Just be safe!
 -7ater

You can see me and Carlitos at the 2007 Dragon Con at www.7ater.com/dcon