In a recent article by Richard Adhikari on Datamation we find that hackers and spammers are tricking the advertised links on the right in some of Googles search results. When you type in whatever it is you’re looking for, in the search results you’ll see your normal crop of organic site listings. For instance, if we type “computer doctor repair Richmond” into Google, we get the usual suspects in our search results. However, in the sponsored links on the right there are several other links (see pic below). What this article is saying is that spammers have figured out how to manipulate these sponsored results on the right and they could lead you to dangerous and malicious sites.

So, as always, proceed with caution when Google-ing. And of course, we are here to help when you need us.

Ps. Do you ever get tired of people asking you to “Google” something for them? If so, LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com is exactly what you need. You go to their site, Google something, and it will create a very short video clip that you can send to someone. Give it a try, it is great fun.

Here’s one we made LMGTFY

The Computer Doctor of Richmond

Well, it’s not like it was hard to see coming.  Circuit City, based in Richmond Virginia announced today that it will start the liquidation process at all of it’s stores.  We, also based in Richmond Va are sad to see a long standing staple of the community shut it’s doors.  We are writing this to let customers of Firedog, Circuit City’s in house computer repair store know that we are hear for you if you need us.

We can assure you that we are not going anywhere anytime soon.  Our business is strong, and is growing through our high quality service and our superior customer care.

Circuit City employees, good luck to you all in your future endeavors.

For more info on the Circuit City liquidation, see Consumerist’s article here

In this final quarter of 2008 a computing milestone was reached.  Notebook/laptop computers sales surpassed sales of desktop computers.  Even in this downturn economy sales of notebooks rose 40% from this time last year to 38.6 Million units to surpass for the first time desktop sales at 38.5 million units (which fell 1.3% from last year).  These figures make sense considering how you can get a nice notebook computer for a little over $500 nowadays.  Moreover computers have entered a low cost price point that has put them into the semi disposable category whereas many times when faced with expensive repairs, many people opt for new instead of repair.  Also when coupled with the very low costs ultra portable NETbook computers at around 3-500 sales have skyrocketed for the year.  It was predicted that notebook sales would surpass desktop sales in 2011.

We here at The Computer Doctor of Richmond have seen much larger numbers in laptop repairs for the past two years.  Moreover, when advising customers on new computer purchases we usually encourage the purchase of a notebook over a desktop.  In most cases we recommend not spending more than a thousand dollars, and in many cases most people need only spend around $700-800.  We as a society are becoming more and more mobile with each passing day, so it only makes sense that we have mobile flexibility in our computing needs.

A few hand fulls of users of certain versions of the popular free Antivirus AVG recently learned this lesson the hard way.  A few of the European versions of AVG recently thought the user32.dll file of windows xp was a virus and deleted it.  And that would have been ok if it were actually a virus and not a critical file for XP.  In fact after AVG found and killed the file, the users computer failed to boot.

So just remember, sometimes you get what you pay for!

more info here

Well, those of you who social network know that mysapce is subject to spammers, advertisers and hijackers on a regular basis.  You also know that facebook does a much better job of keeping things clean and running smooth.  Well, be very careful if you’re a facebooker because a new phishing scheme is circulating called ubzpath.com. If it gets into a friends account you will get a posting saying something to the effect  of “did you know that your profile picture is now on ubzpath.com?”  If you then follow the link to to ubzpath it will prompt you for your email address and some other info.

First, do not go to the link.  However, if you do you will run the risk of getting hijacked if you follow through with putting in info.  To close the window, you will need to go into your task manager and end the task by hitting ctrl+alt+delete.

As always, make sure you have a good antivirus like MaCafee or Vipre to help keep you protected.  Be causous of links that your friends post.  Afterall, it may have not been your friend actually posting that, it may have been a hijacked profile!