On Neowin , Brad Sams has notified on some ugly news: “Over two million passwords for Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others have been posted to the web after a botnet has infected thousands of machines and used a keylogger to obtain passwords. While this breach is not from any particular service, the botnet has clearly been running effectively for some time as it reportedly has over 2 million passwords, 300,000 of which are for Facebook accounts.” So, if you...
We shop all year long. We’re addicted to it (some more than others)…men hate it, women love it (let the generalization slide, it’s true). I read an interview with Kim Yarrow, Ph.D. in Medscape about this, and found it interesting. “I just finished a new book on that subject, Decoding the New Consumer Mind , so a short summary might be hard! I suppose if I were to narrow it down to the one most important thing, I would say that buyin...
Please be careful folks. Many of us shop online and use such mega outlets as Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us and delivery services such as FedEx, UPS and DHL. The scammers will be sending out phony delivery confirmation notices, and ads especially those with attachments like html and pdfs. Mouse over those links and examine them! If the offers are too good to be true, they are. If you go to those pages, you risk malware infection. These aren’t theoretical dan...
Everyone should have this one, probably. It supports all Windows OSs from XP on. It prevents the installation of toolbars, Java, home page and search engine switchers, etc. It isn’t perfect. Not 100% of the time. So, you’ll have to pay attention. It will bring you to the “custom installation”, but pay attention in case it doesn’t. I’d also bet that the sites which “wrap” or “bundle” software with other stuff are at work trying to figure out how to circumv...
It turns out that the massive hack which was perpetrated on Adobe has had ‘downstream’ repercussions. Evernote is the latest to inform its customers about possible effects of the Adobe hack. If you received an email from Evernote (check your spam folder!) please follow the recommendations below: “There were published reports recently of a security breach at Adobe that may have exposed private information, including Adobe passwords, email addresses and passwords...
I was casting about for stuff to apprise you of when I realized that I haven’t done anything for the Mac folks in a very long time, and that made me feel crappy. So, over at Lifehacker I saw this… it’s not free, it costs $8 (which isn’t bad)…but it’s free to try. Which isn’t bad at all since you can save all your mods and trade them with other Mac folks (though like with WB, etc. you’d need the proggy to apply the skins). You can check it out and download it here: http://...
We’ve all had the situation of “Program Not Responding” wait or end it…except even choosing to end some doesn’t. Here are five task killers which will do it for you in Windows, Android and Linux. The source of this is here: LINK . each app has a mini review, and the article really is worth looking at. Process Hacker and Extended Task Manager look good…but I don’t want to have to start with “compatibility mode” so Process...
Well…Google does come creepily close to “wrong!” in its ads as well in its network spying while photographing surroundings. They say they don’t actually read the email…but their ‘scanning’ isn’t to be taken lightly. So, MS wants a bigger market share for “Bing”. Imagine if they called it, “Bang!” or “Bam!”? To help get that share (they say Google decreased 10% and Bing increased 7%) they’ve started marketing merchandise. You can see it here . There’s a video here , as we...
I have one…I hope you do as well. Don’t think, “It’ll never happen here”, because it will. The only question is when. The answer? When you least expect. So I’ve reading on this topic ever since frogboy started expressing his “prepper” phenotype. Today… this article article arrived. I figured, “It’s a sign”, so I’m recommending you read it and do it. You should have one at home and in your vehicle/s, your office…wherever you think it might help. ...
Not a great launch. Apparently some 33% of verified reviewers on Amazon are noting a pulsing blue light signifying a “BSOD” situation. There are no verified numbers of units affected. A rumor about possible sabotage by Foxconn interns has been making the rounds (it has been around on IGN forums then removed) has been verified as a genuine post, although he veracity of the claim has not. The sabotage (if it was that) was thought to be due to working conditions at Foxconn,...
A quickie… for those who might need it, Acronis True Image 2014 is available at BitsDuJour today at discount: Instead of $49.99, 29.99 (US). For those wodering…Acronis is the gold standard of backup software….and this is a good price. Remember: As always: 1. If you don’t need it, leave it. 2. Check out pro reviews before deciding. 3. Create a restore point before downloading and installing. Check...
It’s a good disk management tool. It has a really simple and straight forward interface. When you launch it, it does a disk status, there are tabs for disk scan, gain space and manage. You should probably start with gain space and get rid of temp files. MaxiDisk does a better cleanup than Windows native tool. You can do the scan and get rid of old backups, junk files and old restore points…I’d think on the restore points…not to delete them without an external backup (or just de...
That time again. Here’s what’s in the patch: There’s a fix for the latest ‘Zero Day’ vulnerability, which is already out there in the wild…so do make sure to get it. You can read more here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-nov if you’re so inclined. Happy patching, all!
MS removed Gadgets from W8 because of security concerns, supposedly. I suspect it was to promote the tiled apps thing more, though…but I could be wrong. If you love your gadgets, now there’s a way to get them back…and it’s free. “ Gadgets Revived ” adds “Gadgets” to the desktop right click context menu. It has full control panel integration with working links in the “Appearance and personalization” category. It also has full integration with Windows Search when “g...
Since I wrote about the CryptoLocker malware which encodes your data files and holds them for ransom, HitmanPro has come out with free software to protect you from this malware which arrives in emails as a zip or pdf file and when opened, proceeds to work its ‘magic’ on your valuable files. HitmanPro.Alert is now in 2.5 Beta, which contains two tools: The first detects browser intrusion, and the second detects suspicious file activity stops the malicious code and neutral...