Currently in congress there are two anti-piracy laws called SOPA and PIPA getting ready to be voted on. These bills are dangerous legislation written with malcontent for digital pirates and for the internet in general. In their basic form, these bills would give law enforcement the ability to shut down a web site for suspected piracy infringements, without due process.

For example, suppose that Louis Vuitton, the famous high end clothing designer see’s what they think are black market versions of some of their hand bags on eBay. They then could potentially file a complaint and within minutes of hearing the case, a judge could rule in Louis’ favor shutdown the country’s ability to get to eBay. This would disrupt the lives of millions that make their living off eBay or simply use eBay as a market place. Did I mention this is all without proper due process toward eBay?

In an impressive move against these bills, Wikipedia went dark in the US today for 24 hours. Google.com also staged a public protest via “blacking out” their Google doodle.

“Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.” Google’s stance on SOPA and they also give you a way to easily put your name on a petition to Congress. We would like to encourage you to take a moment and send a note to congress urging your representative to vote no to SOPA.

Doctor Kevin
Chief of Computer Medicine
The Computer Doctor of Richmond

We are currently undergoing a complete site move and new build at www.RichmondComputerDoctor.com Stay tuned for an exciting new interactive site and specials on many of our most popular services.

“I would once again like to thank Gray Hall of WWBT NBC news 12 for the opportunity to share important information with the good people of Richmond. The information in the video below is very important and should be shared with your friends, especially the retirees and the elderly.”

original news story here

Thank you
Kevin Boynton
Chief of Computer Medicine
The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Sometimes you get what you pay for (copyright Mark Weinstein @ http://prometheuscomic.wordpress.com/2007/10/ )

We have recently had a customer that had a friend help him out with some minor computers problems. This friend that is a tech guy for his company said, lets just save your data and wipe the computer and start over fresh and clean. While most of the time this is an extreme approach, but often does fix misc software issues. However, the friend bailed after that and didn’t load much of the needed software, and also messed up numerous important settings.
So the person that would become our customer, called his tech friend seeking additional help. However, the tech friend is now nowhere to be found. Thus we received a call asking for true professional assistance. We of course were able to get his computer repaired and completely back up and running after a reversing some of the damage or incomplete work that had been done. If we had been the first call and not the friend, we may have been able to get the computer repaired with less work.

And while we are on the subject, sometimes you get what you pay for when it comes to free software vs paid for software. A customer recently required viral cleaning assistance after her computer became infected with a dreaded rouge fake antivirus. We had helped her with a similar infection about a year before. At that time, we encouraged her to purchase and install Vipre antivirus. She politely declined and opted for the protection of a very popular free antivirus program. Perhaps if Vipre was protecting her, she may not have had this second infection. Moreover, $30 for Vipre may have saved her not only from needing our assistance, but the headaches and downtime associated with another infection.

Now the last thing we want to encourage is inaction or panic on the part of our readers and customers. We highly encourage you all to experiment with potential software, and if you think you might be able to repair something the go for it! We are here for you if you need us and in most cases there is nothing you can mess up that we can’t fix. But perhaps you may want to have give us a call before hand in case we have any advice for you. In both of these cases, our customers have learned a valuable lesson, sometimes free costs more!

Check out our very own Chief of Computer Medicine’s interview with local NBC news 12′s Gray Hall.

see the full news article on NBC new 12′s site

“I want to thank Gray and NBC 12 for the opportunity to share vital information with the good people of Richmond. In addition to what was mentioned in the story and what Irony mentioned, it is also very important to make sure your windows security updates, adobe flash and acrobat reader and your java plug-in are up to date. These are critical weak points that need stay updated. ”

Thank you
Kevin Boynton
Chief of Computer Medicine
The Computer Doctor of Richmond