Hey Guys

So I get a lot of comments and emails from you guys about viruses that won’t go away.  The fact is, some of these viruses and trojans are NASTY, and they don’t want to go away at all.

Now, if you have a virus – and you haven’t followed my initial Virus Removal Steps, DO THAT FIRST!  It works most of the time.  Only if you can’t get rid of the problem using those steps should you continue with the rest of this post.

(Note: This area might change from time to time based upon different options and available fixes!)

Removing the PESKY Virus
Assuming you have already gone through the inital Virus Removal Steps, and you still can’t get rid of the virus – here is your prescribed Next Step:

• Open up your browser and go to http://www.combofix.org/
• Follow the directions at the bottom of the screen.  There will be some loud beeps, don’t worry – they scare me too!
• Make sure that you disable any virus and malware programs that may be running (check your system tray by your clock!)
• If it asks you to install system recovery, do it.

It usually takes about 5-20 minutes to run depending on your pc.  Don’t worry, it’s easy to run!

Added Note:  If  you cannot get combofix to run, change the name (F2) to svchost.exe and it should run.

In most cases, I have found that this cleans up most of the really pesky viruses that I encounter.

If you have any questions, leave a comment!

Mike

What’s a blog?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

About 5 or 6 years ago, the Blog Explosion hit the web.  Everybody and their sister had a blog.  There were plenty of sites that would host your blog for you for free, and people just went crazy…for a while.

But there was a small problem, all of a sudden there were too many blogs to read, and people got tired, frustrated, and confused.  There were a lot of interesting blogs to read, but the reader had to go and find that blog site everytime they wanted to read it.  A vacation here, a case of the flu there…and all of a sudden you weren’t reading their blog any more.  But then you remembered that blog 6 months later so you go out to read it and it hasn’t been updated for 4 months because everyone stopped reading it and the blogger just gave up…because no one was reading.

It happened to me, plenty of times.  We all have good intentions, but life just get’s in the way.

So along comes Web 2.0.  The whole concept behind Web 2.0 and New Media is for you the reader/consumer to consume the writers content ON YOUR TERMS!

How?  RSS (Sound Familiar)  But this is kinda cool, you can actually have all of the blog posts of just about ANY BLOG on the web come to ONE PLACE - FOR YOU!

RSS

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

And Here is the video on how to use the Reader that I use - Google Reader!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y

This definitely changes things.  Now you can read cool blogs on Quilting, your favorite NASCAR driver/team, your Faith, anything.  You just have to find the blog that you want to read, and click the little RSS button, and you’re set!

The New Thing is called Micro-Blogging.  And the biggest site for it right now is Twitter!

Another video to explain something pretty difficult in plain english (Thank You so much Lee!)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Twitter is pretty cool! You can setup a free account at http://www.twitter.com .  You only get updates from people that you FOLLOW! I am on it EVERYDAY, so if you want - you can Follow Me by Clicking Here!

There is a lot more Web 2.0 around the corner!  New technologies are coming on the scene EVERY WEEK!Â

If this is new to you, there is a LOT of INFORMATION to take in!  Here is what you should do:

• If you don’t have an RSS Reader, go here to Google’s site (here is the link) and setup your Google reader.
• Then find the SUBSCRIBES menu on my blog, and look for the Add to Google button.  Click on it, and have it added to your Google reader!
• If you have an iGoogle portal (also Free), you can add the PowersZone blog to it as well!
• Then go out and find some other blogs, and start subscribing to them as well.

HEY (Late addition)  If you just want the blog posts sent to your email address, just fill in the Subscribe by Email form on the right!

If you have any questions, or just want to say “Hey”, leave a COMMENT below!  It would be much appreciated!

Take Luck!

Mike

I was in Best Buy last week and I ran into a friend of mine that I had not seen in a while.  I love Best Buy, it’s one of the only brick and mortar stores that I go to anymore.  Anyway, I was talking with my friend and she was there buying a HUGE pack of CD-R’s (writeable CD media).

I asked her what they were for and she said that she and her husband had gone to Paris for three weeks and she had all of these pictures that she needed to “burn”.  She has one of those cameras with a 40 gig harddrive in it so she had quite a bit of video and images that she needed to backup.

I asked her if she was making copies of the CD’s for family and friends and she said that wasn’t the case, that this was her way of “storing” the images in her library.  I asked her how long she had been doing this and she said “years and years”.

That’s when I told her that CD’s were not the best way to do this because of the fact that they “de-laminate” over time which means that the data becomes useless after a period of 10-15 years or so.  It doesn’t always happen but it had happened to me so I was speaking from experience.

She had never heard of that and I told her that she should go back and look at some of the older cd’s in her collection to see if they work or not.

Two days later she called me in horror stating that some of the oldest cd’s weren’t working at all.  She brought them to me and although they weren’t de-laminated, they were burned with a very old cd-burning unit that was proprietary and had to be viewed with that unit to work.  Well needless to say that cd-rom unit was long gone.  So I spent a few hours helping her find some software that would let her read the disk but it cost her $150 bucks.

It appears that there is big money in OLD TECHNOLOGY!

She lamented that now she had to go and “re-burn” all of the old cd’s into new cd’s which reached in the number of over 300.  That’s a lot of time!

I suggested a different strategy for her.

Her computer has 500 gigabytes of room, and her computer has the ability to add a second hard drive.  I suggested that in her case that she just buy another 500 gigabyte harddrive (just over $150) and let me install it for her.  Then she could just move the data from the CD’s back onto the new harddrive!

But that only solved half of the problem.  How to keep the images SAFE!

You see, her house burned down when she was younger and still living at home, and many of her family’s pictures and portraits were ruined or destroyed.  So she had a real fear of losing her memories.

That’s when I recommended that she try CARBONITE Backup software to create a backup of all her images.  Carbonite keeps your files safe on huge secure and private computers, and the software backs up your files throughout the day via an internet connection so you don’t have to plan anything or schedule a time to backup.

She wasn’t sure about using the internet, and I told her that she could try it FREE for 15 days and told her it was definitely worth a shot.  So she tried it and loves it.

The cost of the service is about the same as a huge pack of CD-R’s or DVD-R’s, you just don’t spend all your time burning disks!!!

I use it and love it.  I back up with it and had to recover using it and it’s effortless.  Very Easy!

If you want to learn more about CARBONITE, Click Here or on the Banner below.

Bruce

I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of email everyday.  I have a lot of different email accounts because I need one that is personal, I have a couple for work, I have admin accounts that track stuff for me, etc.

One of the biggest problems that I run into is trying to get my mail when I am not home or at the office.  Yeah, I got one of those cool phones that I can read email with…but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s hard to find old emails because the search function is poor, and another HUGE Problem is dealing with the fact that I have to BACKUP all my emails in Outlook.  If my computer dies, I spend more time recovering emails than any other aspect of the recovery!

So, I have started to bypass all of these issues by using a GMAIL EMAIL ACCOUNT by Google!  It is completely web-based.  I can do everything that I can do in Outlook, and it’s VERY EASY to USE!

And I can still read my GMAIL in Outlook if I want.

There is some great functionality in Gmail that you just don’t get in traditional email applications.

Oh, by the way…It’s FREE!

Now you need to get an INVITE to use Gmail, so click here to Email Me and let me know you want a GMAIL account and I will send you an invite.  (I only get 100 invites, so first come-first served)

Mike