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!

McAfee and Facebook team up
Recently Facebook announced that in an effort to try and stem the tide of people getting infected while facebooking, they’ve teamed up with McAfee to offer free antivirus suite. While a great and innovative way to try and keep their users safe, it is far from a perfect solution.
Users wanting to take advantage of this deal will simply need to sign into their facebook account, click on McAfee page link and become a fan of McAfee. You will then be able to download and install it (after giving a credit card). For more info on the Mc-fbook deal click here.

You’ll receive a free 6 month subscription to their full security suite and a discount after the 6 months is up. However, this is not an end all be all solution and you must still exorcise caution while facebooking and tweeting. Phishing scams to steal your facebook account info is still very prominent. Moreover, social media like facebook are one of the most common ways to get infected with a fake antivirus like we’ve warned about before.

We also see many customers on a weekly basis that are “protected” (notice the “quote” thingy’s?) by McAfee, Norton and the rest of the big names. These customers say, “but i thought i was protected.” In the end all you can do is be smart, don’t click on links without being careful about what you’re doing. If you’re not sure, just don’t do it. Same goes with email. Safe surfing is key to keeping your computer clean. It is also very important to take steps to make sure your computer is updated with microsoft security updates and you have a good antivirus. Lately, with all the computers we see that have been infected while being under the “protection” of McAfee and others we just can’t qualify them as adequate. In fact we’ve found that the latest free Microsoft Security Essentials free antivirus is in many ways a better level of protection than many of the big name AV’s.

However, if you want the best AV we’ve found, then follow the bread crumbs to Vipre AV. Take a look at our post here to learn more. We have had tremendous success and so have all of our customers that have made the smart decision to protect themselves with Vipre antivirus.

Microsoft’s free antivirus, “Security Essentials”

Microsoft released their free antivirus, Security Essentials a few days ago.  And to make a long story short, it aint half bad!  It is a decent replacement for other free solutions or the option of simply going naked with not AV software at all.  It is relatively fast at scanning and has a small foot print (meaning it doesn’t require a lot of horse power like some other brand name AV’s).  It also does an ok job of finding infections when compared to other AV’s.

We here at TCDoR.com have started testing it to see how it stacks up against some of the big dogs like Norton, McAfee, Vipre and others.  However, our initial tests have been relatively positive as with much of the rest of the industry.  In fact techreview.com agreed and said it is quite good.

If you’re interested in trying it out, go to www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ and download it.

A few days ago we talked about how you should be using bookmarks to help keep your internet life running smooth.  Today, we’re going to tell you about a fantastic way for you to keep your bookmarks backed up and in sync across multiple computers.   Xmarks, formerly known as foxmarks is an internet browser plug in for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari that allows you to keep your bookmarks or favorites in sync.

So what exactly does this mean for you?  First install the xmarks plug in into your browser and create your free account.  Then xmarks does the rest for backing up and syncing your bookmarks up to the web.  Then install xmarks on any number of other computers, log into your xmarks account and it will take care of the rest.  This will synchronize your bookmarks between all of your computers.
This fantastic tool can be especially useful if you are working on something at the office, and need to continue reading it at home.  Just save yourself a quick bookmark, and when you get home it will pop into your bookmarks automatically.  Moreover, if you use the bookmarks toolbar like we talked about previously, xmarks will take care of synching these too.

For more info, please see xmarks website