Warnings:
July 2009
I have noticed more and more people bringing in their computers complaining that they are slow or just not as fast as it was when they bought it. This is because more and more people are getting on the internet with those computers. The internet, while being a very helpful tool, is a very bad place for a computer to be. Every web page you go to has small programs attached to it that install on your computer. For the most part, the ones on yahoo, msn and such well known sites are relatively harmless; however, there are so many of them now and people visit so many sites that these programs pile one on top of another and eventually you will notice a decrease in performance. Your computer will become slow and in some instances these (Malware) programs will cause other issues, up to and including causing computers to not even boot up. As a computer repair store we have learned a trick or two about how to deal with these programs. Since a person must be able to get online to live for the most part, we have found software that can be installed, updated, and run on a weekly to bi-weekly basis to remove what the computer picks up while you are online. One program we use is called MalwareBytes and may be obtained by clicking here. For information about the software, how to use it and any updates, please visit the designers web site here.
February 2009
I ran into a new virus situation that I found interesting yesterday. Up until now, I didn’t think you could infect a sound file with a virus. I was scanning a customers’ computer yesterday and found a Trojan on her hard drive. I had to manually delete it as Norton said it couldn’t repair it. When I got to the location of the file and looked for it, I noticed that the infected file was an MP3 file. MP3 files are common use music/sound files that are a compressed version of the original making it quicker to transfer online and they take up less space. This file was sitting in the Limewire/Incomplete folder, meaning she was in the process of downloading it via Limewire, it hadn’t even finished but was already a full blown virus. This particular customer did have Antivirus software but being a Trojan and obtained through Limewire, she had basically (unknowingly) told her antivirus that this file was okay to download and had in effect infected her computer to the point where she could no longer get online at all.
The file name: impossible joe nickols.mp3
The virus name: Trojan.Brisv.A!inf
This article was found in the Abilene Reporter News November 3rd, 2006 Issue. It can happen to anyone.
Big Spring woman hit with copyright suit
By Blanca Cantu / cantub@reporternews.com
November 3, 2006
A Big Spring woman is one of 38 Texans named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed this week by the Recording Industry Association of America.
The lawsuit against Amber Bailey was filed at the federal courthouse in Abilene on behalf of several companies including Capitol Records, Inc. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
The suit alleges that Bailey illegally distributed copyrighted music on the Internet.
An attempt to contact Bailey late Thursday was unsuccessful.
Court documents show the civil action seeks damages for copyright infringement under the copyright laws of the United States and a court order prohibiting Bailey from continuing the illegal action. The lawsuit asks that the defendant be ordered to destroy all copies of the recordings.
According to the lawsuit, Bailey allegedly downloaded copies of six songs, including ones performed by Mariah Carey, Dixie Chicks and Lionel Richie.
Other similar lawsuits were filed against named defendants in federal district courts in California, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina and in various Texas cities. Names of individuals named in the lawsuits were subpoenaed from their respective Internet service providers, a RIAA press release said.
EDITED BY: PATTI STEELE; COPY EDITED BY: JEFF WOLF; HEADLINE BY: JEFF WOLF
This article was found in the Abilene Reporter News November 21st, 2006 Issue.
Second Howard County resident sued by recording industry
By Blanca Cantu / cantub@reporternews.com
November 21, 2006
A Howard County man was among another group of Texans named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed last week by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Richard Armstrong is one of 17 people accused of illegally distributing copyrighted music on the Internet.
This batch of lawsuits filed at the federal courthouse in Abilene on behalf of several companies including Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records and Sony BMG Music Entertainment was announced two weeks after similar RIAA lawsuits were filed.
Amber Bailey, of Big Spring, was one of 38 Texans named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed about three weeks ago by the RIAA.
The suit alleged that Bailey also illegally distributed copyrighted music on the Internet.
Court documents show the civil action seeks damages for copyright infringement under the copyright laws of the United States and a court order prohibiting Armstrong from continuing the illegal action. The lawsuit asks that the defendant be ordered to destroy all copies of the recordings.
According to the lawsuit in which Armstrong was named, Armstrong allegedly downloaded copies of eight songs, including ones performed by Mariah Carey, Usher and Bon Jovi.
Other similar lawsuits were filed against named defendants in federal district courts in California, Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania and in various Texas cities. Names of individuals named in the lawsuits were subpoenaed from their respective Internet service providers, a RIAA press release said.
COPY EDITED BY: BEVERLY BUTMAN; HEADLINE BY: BEVERLY BUTMAN
Malware Removal:
We've noticed within the last 6 years there has been a new threat to computers on the internet other than just viruses. This problem is just as serious and sometimes just as harmful as the worst viruses out there. Our country is now identifying this problem as Adware, Spyware, Malware, and sometimes even Hijackers. We want to help you get rid of this problem. As our customers or potential future customers, we want to look out for you.
This will be a description of what you need to get and how to use what we recommend to you. The first thing to know is, we will provide you with a link to download a program (for free) that has been proven to work and that we use on our own systems to keep this problem at bay. We also highly recommend that you run disk clean and defrag, located on your Start menu under All Programs, Accessories, System tools. On the disk clean, if you run it every couple of weeks it shouldn't take long to run; however, the first time you run this program it can take up to an hour to run. The defragment program will take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour depending on how often you add or remove programs and files. Again, when you run this program monthly it will take less time in the long run. These suggestions will help you to maintain and keep your computer running as it should. Remember, non of this is a substitute for Anti-Virus software, always make sure you have a current and up-to-date anti virus. We recommend Norton AntiVirus, McAfee, or for our freeware users, AVG.
The first program, Spybot, may be obtained by clicking here. Save it to the desktop or your My Documents folder. When the download completes, double-click or Open/Run it. Go through the install progress accepting all the default settings. This will also install a real-time monitor that may bug some of you, but it will let you know anytime changes are made that may affect your computers performance. It will alert you even if you are the one making the changes, which in most cases will be alright. If it alerts you to a change and you haven't been on the computer, then you know there is an obvious problem and may need our help.
Another program that will come in handy, especially if you start receiving bogus virus and security alerts because you have gone to an unknown web site, is MalwareBytes. It can be obtained by clicking here. Again, you will need to install the software, update it and run a scan. The scan will alert you to harmful material on your computer and after viewing the results you will have the option to remove the selected items. So far everything these 2 programs have found and removed for us have not caused any problems with computers. We allow them to remove anything they find and we haven't had any issues afterward.
If you run these these programs as recommended above, you will have one less thing to worry about and you won't have to spend the extra money to have your computer repaired when you acquire adware, spyware, malware, and hijackers off the internet that can cause your computer to become inoperable.
It has recently come to our attention that there is a site dedicated to uncovering false spyware adware removal programs. If you would be interested in reading up on these, it will give you an idea of how many programs are out there just trying to get your computer, go to this page and read up. http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm
Disclaimer: We would like to point out that these programs should be updated once a week and though they are recommended by us and keep our computers safe they are not infallible and you may still run into trouble with adware and spyware.
Other free software: