With five thousand new viruses and malware being created everyday, no one anti-virus can catch them all.  So it’s a good idea to use more than one.

You can always have more than one anti-spyware, but having more than one anti-virus may cause problems since they’ll conflict with each other.  I recommend using online scanners to supplement your regular anti-virus instead.

Eset Online Scanner is both excellent and free.

Find More Viruses with Eset Online Scanner

Click here to download Eset. It will take you to Ducktoes Calgary Computer Repair’s Spyware and Virus Removal page.

Also see Ducktoes’s page on how to prevent viruses.

New virus records internet history.

Be careful if you don’t want your web habits broadcast online for all to see. Tighten up your computer virus security, and don’t download “free” music and games, and don’t rely on Norton or McAfee to save you.

The BBC reports that a new kind of spyware infects computers using p2ps and file-share sites then publishes the person’s internet history on a very public website before asking money for its removal.

Website Yomiuri claims that 5500 people have so far been blackmailed after being infected.

I wonder how much the unfortunate users paid to remove their name and internet history from the site. This seems like a disturbing and evil new twist to viruses and spyware and like any new virus idea will probably be copied by other virus creators. And while this blackmail virus is only limited to people who have downloaded a free game or music from a Japan-based site, others may be more broad.

If you are worried about your computer’s security–and your own privacy– now might be the time to make sure you’re as safe as possible. Read Ducktoes virus prevention tutorial and uninstall your p2ps for awhile at least.

And if you’re already infected bring your computer into our computer repair shop. We can remove the viruses without removing your photos, music and business data.

Here are the top eight ways to make sure your computer goes into the shop on a frequent basis:

1. Use P2Ps like Limewire. You’ll be on a network of thousands of computers and will get a lot of viruses quickly. Some of the viruses will not be discovered by your anti-virus if you have one. A couple will be downloaders or droppers and will suck in even more viruses from the evil virus-creator’s server. Soon you’ll get hundreds of viruses and your Internet won’t work. Don’t use the Limewire Pro that scans downloaded songs for viruses. You’ll have to call your computer tech quite soon.

2. Don’t get your adult movies from the movie store. Instead visit online porn sites frequently. You’ll get even more viruses than the users of p2ps. And while you’re there download the porn site’s video codec. It will be chock-full of viruses.

3. Don’t keep your laptop in a soft cushy case protected by jolts and bumps. Soon the metallic circuitry will chip and your motherboard will malfunction. Leave it on the couch or floor to suck in little bits of lint and pet hair. The fan will give out.

4. Let your house-sitter or teenager and his friends have access to your computer.

5. Let your desktop computer accumulate dust. Never open it and clean it out with canned air. Eventually the cpu fan and the power supply will clog up and you’ll be able to take your computer to the shop.

6. Keep your computer in the kitchen and let it accumulate cooking grease along with the dust. This will make it harder for the computer tech to clean.

7. Don’t use an anti-virus or anti-spyware. Your computer will be in the shop in a few days or weeks.

8. When your computer does succumb to a virus or accumulated dust and makes you lose your temper, give it a punch or a kick. This may break it immediately or make the screen have a permanent dark spot.

Seriously, if you’d like help with your computer and you live in Calgary, visit http://www.ducktoes.com or if you are a business visit http://www.ducktoes.com/calgarycomputerrepair.html.

A friend and client installed Cybersitter on her computer a few years ago when her sons were younger. Now her sons are adults and have their own laptops, so she didn’t want the program any longer, but she didn’t remember the password to run and uninstall the program. It wasn’t really a problem however until the Cybersitter went wrong somehow, and blocked her Internet. She thought the computer had viruses, so she asked me to bring it in to my computer repair shop.

I discovered it had Cybersitter running in the background, but without the password I couldn’t uninstall it. So I changed the registry instead.

You can do this too.

First make a backup of your registry in case you make a mistake.

To make a backup:
1. Go to the Start button and select Run. (If you have Vista or Windows 7 you may not see the Run feature, so go to Start button, then in the Search box, type Run.) Type in regedit and press Enter. Now the registry editor will come up.

2. Select the File menu and then Export. Decide where you want to save your backup. I usually pick Desktop. Type in what you want to name your backup.

3. Click Save.

You now have a backup of your Windows registry.

Now you can repair the Cybersitter problem:
1.Go to Start button then to Run. Type regedit.

2. Navigate to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders.
3) Delete the key ‘net98′.

Now you are not being screened or filtered but will have to do this everytime you start Windows.

Or to permanently disable Cybersitter:
1. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
2. Delete any ‘C2K’ keys.

Restart your computer.
You are now Cybersitter free!

I don’t like any kind of “parenting” software that monitor or restrict users because they often backfire and cause the computer to malfunction. And then, unless the user or computer repair shop can find a fix like the above you’ll end up having to reinstall Windows and lose everything. It’s much better to talk to your kids about your expectations and values and supervise them while online. If they go to inappropriate sites, kick them off for the day or week. Explain why you disapprove. Give them the skills and values to make decisions about what they do on the computer. This will last into adulthood and won’t hurt your computer in the meantime. I did this with my kids and they all are the kind of people I would trust on my computer now.

Supervision and Communication Better than Parenting Software

Go here if you live in Calgary and need a Calgary Computer Repair Company.

Or go here if you are a Calgary business and need IT support or computer repair.

http://lifehacker.com/339474/top-10-obscure-google-search-tricks

I’ve just found a great list of (mostly) freeware utilities from Major Geeks to diagnose all components of your computer. There are tools to diagnose both hardware and software and even a boot disk called Bootzilla to remove viruses.
Give them a try.

I’ve just found an article by consumersearch that compares external hard drives. Their top pick is a LaCie d2 Quadra. http://www.consumersearch.com/external-hard-drives
I like how on this site, there is a wealth of information on all these different review sites.

On Amazon.com, customers prefer another Western Digital.

I’m leaning toward Western Digitals, now, but will research on.

I’ve been researching hard drives for my computer repair business. The results I’ve found so far seem to review performance and quality. I’d like to find research that compares drives for reliability and longevity but haven’t found many answers in that regard. I did find out that hard drives are designed to last for five years.

It all started with a client of mine, a business owner who has had really bad luck when it comes to hard drives. The hard drive in her 13-month-old computer and her backup hard drive went bad at the same time, and this after three other hard drives had gone bad in the last few years. Then I came to install a new backup hard drive, and it was bad to from the get go. So I decided to look at reviews for hard drives for her and my other clients.

Here is a hard drive review at Test Freaks that show promise:
http://www.testfreaks.com/internal-hard-drives/?sort=score
According to it, certain Intel and Western Digital hard drives are the best. The best is an Intel that costs over $400. I think I’ll take a closer look at one of the Western Digitals, Western Digital 1 TB AV-GP SATA OEM AV Hard Drive WD10EVDS. It has a high score and isn’t too expensive. If you wanted to use it as an external, you can put it in an enclosure (which is what external hard drives are – hard drives in enclosures.)

The search goes on.

It can happen in a heartbeat, a lightening flash, a burglary, a fire, a bump of the vacuum, a bad virus…

And all your files and photos are gone. So don’t put it off. Backup your computer today. It can be easy and inexpensive.

I’ve been researching backups for a Calgary business that Ducktoes supports for computer repair. And I found an online solution that looks impressive. It’s Jungle Disk. It allows you to sync between computers and backup your files to a Cloud storage service like the one at Amazon. So I thought I’d share it with all my clients and readers. Online is a good alternative since even if your business goes up in flames you still have your important data.

If you need Ducktoes Computer Repair or any other computer repair or virus removal to do this for your then call 403-483-0105. Actually we can help anyone anywhere with our remote service.

Researchers are spying on Bittorrents users according to this article in The Register. So be careful or else your computer’s IP address and your illegal downloading habits could be recorded and monitored. .

According to another article on p2pnet news, some people charged for illegal downloading “fees” are fighting back. They’re hiring lawyers and challenging the big labels.

Close to 14,000 people have been charged fees for downloading music illegally, and, I imagine, software copyright infringements could be next.

The risks of being charged a big fee for downloaded or uploading music are probably quite small, but I’m not sure I still want to take the chance. I hate the idea of being monitored even for research.

And there’s an even better reason not to use p2ps and torrents. As a computer tech I see p2ps on almost every computer I fix. And many of them are infected with viruses. P2ps and torrents spread a lot of viruses and malware. Your computer repair bills from viruses caught on p2ps could end up costing more than what you’d spend on the cds you really enjoy.

I’ve mentioned Technibble before. It’s my favorite site for computer techs, especially those starting a computer repair business. But today I’ve found a new site for new techs called Emerging Techs. It has some good tips for both new and more established techs. Other people besides techies who want to know more about maintaining their computers might find it helpful too.

While surfing the net on Stumble, I came across this great site of Free Applications for Windows. http://www.freeapps.co.uk/windows/. It has some great software for you, including a web design software that rivals Dreamweaver and FrontPage and is free.

And while you’re on there, download AVG to protect your computer from viruses.