DIY Computer Repairs
I come from a time, as many who live at the Heads do, when most blokes (and some ladies) did their own car repairs.
Hours spent lying on cold concrete floors battling with unyielding bolts, swearing and covered in grease and dirt. Fixing the Holden or Ford us gave much satisfaction and the money (sometimes) saved helped the family budget. Once chips – silicon ones, not the dead remnants of lunch at the beach – found their way into cars, things changed. Using a strobe light to set the timing and tinkering with carburettors soon became impossible when they were replaced by electronic ignition and fuel injection and we had to rely on workshops with the right gear to do the specialised work for us. Continue reading
Registry Cleaners – are they worth using?
I’ve been using Windows in all it’s flavours since the days of Windows 2.0. Not a wonderful piece of software I think everyone around in those days will agree, but it started the whole ‘gui’ thing off – at least for PC users!
The Windows registry first made it’s appearance with Windows 3.1 and it was intended to tidy up the profusion of .ini files that had previously been used to store configuration settings for programs running under Windows.
Registry cleaners are software utilities whose usual purpose is to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. These redundant items are often left behind after uninstalling software, either by using their own (and sometimes faulty) uninstalltion programs or by simply deleting program directories – which is definitely NOT recommended! Continue reading
Just What The Heck Is Spyware, Anyway?
by Scott Drinkard
What Is Spyware?
It goes by different names. Spyware, adware and malware are some of the more popular monikers. It really doesn’t matter what you call it, though. The bottom line is that you don’t want it on your computer. First of all, let me state for the record that I think the internet is a wonderful thing. I think a majority of people would agree that the World Wide Web has made life for all of us a little more convenient. Whether it’s reserving a hotel room, buying music online, checking the local weather or any number of thousands of useful sites (did I mention email?) we all have gotten a little bit spoiled with having all this information right at our fingertips. Continue reading
PLEASE don’t click on fake security alerts!
by Andy Turner
Coastal Computers & Design
I’ve just spent the last 2 hours attempting to clear another ‘Smitfraud’ spyware variant. They are notorious buggers to clear completely, hopefully this one has gone for good – but I won’t hold my breath! Update: Nope – this system has a ‘rootkit’ infection as well… more work!
Ninety-nine percent of infections like this are caused by downloading an infected ‘codec’ to watch a particular type of video or a ‘drive-by’ spyware attack – but once you have been infected, please, please don’t ignore it or try to remove this yourself unless you know what you are doing. Continue reading
Who Is Watching You?
By Tony Dean
Emails are not the only way of delivering trojans onto your hard-drive – if you unwisely click on any links in them – but online in any direction you go cyber-cruising is fraught with a never ending minefield you will have to tread extremely carefully to avoid infection by virus or trojan.
In another article I wrote about trojans being downloaded by unsuspecting visitors to blogs clicking on a link in a ‘comment’ and leading to downloading a trojan – not the expected pdf or other information.
The sophisticated ease by which trojan writers can make these ‘virtual spies’ and send them out to the gullible populace online is breathtaking in it’s concept. Continue reading
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