CrexTechs Blog

Keeping kids (and your computer) safe online is an ongoing struggle in this age of cyber wars and tech savvy kids.  Kids seem to know more than their parents about what is out there and how to get to it.  Unfortunately, that knowledge does not come with judgement which means kids will visit every site they can find, exposing their computers and/or their parents' computers to all the baddies out there.

Through a special offer with InternetSafety.com, Sunbelt Security News (Vipre's newsletter) readers can get Safe Eyes at a special low price.

To learn about this award winning software go to:

http://www.internetsafety.com/safe-eyes-parental-control-software.php

To order go to

http://www.sunbeltsecuritynews.com/NK7DJ1/100922-SafeEyes

Please note:  CrexTechs does not have experience with this software and so can not recommend it. Also, you might miss this about renewal if you don't read carefully:

You will probably get an email informing you of the renewal, however, if you change email addresses or have an over-zealous spam filter, you might not get the notice so be sure you keep track of your subscription so you don't get any surprises down the road.

With all the tricks used by hackers to get into our machines, it is really scary when the update window pops up and says, updates available.  Is there a way to know when this is bogus and when this is a legitimate update?

Unfortunately, the biggest threats to our computers comes from the very providers that provide regular updates through popups.  These would be Windows, Adobe Reader and Vipre (or whatever anti-virus program you use).  It is so so so important to update these programs as these updates are plugging the latest security holes that hackers are exploiting!!

One wants to believe the update popups we get from Windows, Adobe and security warnings are legit but, we are so beleaguered with threats on the internet, how can we be sure.  We all get bogus emails from sources claiming to be our bank, our credit card company, our PayPal account and even from friends, asking us to follow a link and input vital personal data.  We've learned to delete these and go directly to the official website to check our accounts if we are unsure.

But what about these update popups?  My rule of thumb is, when a popup says you need to update, you may have a virus, you are at risk, or any other message accompanied by a link, don't do it!!

The only way I know to be sure that I am getting an official update is to go to the official website of the provider and look for updates there.   This is not always easy as there are so many products, versions and other options.

The live update that windows does will usually trigger automatically and you will get only an option to restart or not.  If you don't wish to restart after the updates, be sure you shut down your machine when you are finished for the day so that you will have to boot up the next time you use the machine. Updates only take affect upon booting.

To check for updates for Windows or Microsoft, go to your Start menu/All Programs/Microsoft Updates.  This will take you to the Microsoft website.  Microsoft will do a scan of your machine then offer you update options.  Choose the recommended updates.

Your Vipre (or other anti-virus) will update itself when you run your scans.  Occasionally you will be notified that a new version is available.  Go to www.Vipreanitvirus.com If your subscription is still in place, you  might be asked for you subscription number (open Vipre and look for it under help/about).

For Adobe Reader or Player, you may be asked if you want to update when you try to open an Adobe Reader .pdf file or a Player file or you might be told you need to update when you boot up in the morning and open your browser.  You should be safe to say yes and do the update immediately.  If you want to check on updates at Adobe, go to http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates, select the Adobe Reader for Windows in the drop-down menu.  Scroll down the list of updates to Adobe Player or Reader and select the update.

You will notice that I say should be safe because in this age of cyber wars, we are never really safe from possible hacking.  We can only be vigilant in our practices.

This custom built desktop computer has a 1.3 GHz AMD Athlon processor, 128 primary cache, 256 secondary, 320 gb storage, 992 mb installed memory with an extra slot, CD-ROM drive.

Great deal at $250.00

Hard drives fail and when they fail they often take all of your data with them.  It is a fact of life.  There are many reasons a hard drive can fail.  Wikipedia has an excellent article on why hard drives (hard disks) fail along with links to articles on data backup and data redundancy.

Besides business files, all your precious personal files--your email, bookmarks, genealogy files, photos, homework, budgets, household spreadsheets, etc. etc.--are data in computer lingo.

Sometimes when hard drives fail, we can recover your data at the minimum cost of $85.00 per hour (just to try, success is not guaranteed).  If we can not recover your data, you might be able to get some of it back through a "clean room" process at the cost of as much as a few thousand dollars or more.

I have blogged on the importance of backing up in the past but it can't be repeated too often.  Backup, backup, backup are the three most important words in computing because once you have lost your data, life as you know it is over.   While viruses and other malware can deny you access to your data or corrupt your data, or your hard drive can fail for a number of reasons, having a back up (a good recent backup) can put you back in business relatively quickly and easily.

Mail files can be some of the most important data you have.  We advise using an online mail service (which stores your mail on their servers) rather than a machine based program such as Outlook or Outlook Express (which download your mail to your machine for storage).  The servers that store online mail are backed up daily (and redundantly)--protecting your mail is their business.  If you must use a machine based mail program, look at exporting your mail and contacts to a backup media and do so on a regular basis.

There are lots of options for backing up depending on how much you have to back up.  Some of these options are:  thumb drives, CD/DVD, external hard drives, zip drives, tape drives and online backup services.

If you are backing up, be sure your media is in good working order--if it is more than a few years old, consider replacing it (depending on what you are using).  If you aren't backing up, start.  If you back up once a month, start backing up once a week or daily if you have time sensitive data.  Also consider redundant backups--that is, backup your backup .  And be sure to store your backups in a secure location.

Consider imaging your hard drive once or twice a year depending on how much specialized software you have on your machine.  We can image your drive for $40.00 plus the cost of the media to store the image. (Note: we do not store images onsite so you will have to safeguard your own image.  You will want to continue to do backups of your data regularly on a separate media.

Don't wait to see IF hard drive failure happens to you; WHEN it happens to you it will be too late.

According to Wikipedia, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndiation.

How can something that is supposed to be "really simple" be so befuddling?

I know that RSS is used to feed information to users from sites that update regularly, like blogs, without the user having to go to each individual site.

One can get updates through email, which is what I usually do and an option we offer on this blog.  We use Feedburner's email subscription service.   Clicking on the link on the bottom of the left column takes you to the Feedburner subscription screen where you input your email address and then type in those funny letters to insure that a real human is signing up.  To further insure the security of your email, you receive a confirmation email from Feedburner. Once you click the link in the confirmation email, you are signed up and will automatically get CrexTechs blog updates.  How easy could it be!!  The down side is that this update comes to you usually the next day.  RSS promises much more timely updates.

We also offer RSS through a link on the page (right column under Links).  While I maintain this blog, it has never been clear to me how RSS works.  And what one has to do to subscribe via RSS.  I recently wrote to our Web Guru, Bryan, who set up this blog as well as our website, to ask him how RSS works.

Here is my email to Bryan:

Hi Bryan, I am writing a blog posting about RSS feeds--trying to understand how this works, so I thought I'd write about it.  I went to our blog to click the link for the RSS and got code.  I was expecting an RSS subscription screen.  Am I just dense and don't get how this works or is the code not supposed to be showing up?

From Bryan:

What happens when you click that button is totally dependent on how your computer is set up. (When I hit the RSS button in my browser on the CrexTechs blog it automatically opens in my "feed reader.") RSS is just an .xml file ("code") that has the most recent updates in a standard format that "readers" like Google Reader or NetNewsWire use for updates.

Most browsers these days pull links out and put it in the menu bar, but the link is also buried at the bottom of every page of the blog in the footer information. You'd take that link (or any one like it on the web) and copy and paste it into whatever reader you use to subscribe.

Some sites use a service like FeedBurner to provide a page with more options like this one for Red Rock, but that's a third party thing and can actually make it trickier to figure out how to subscribe if you don't happen to be using one of the readers they support.

Does that help?

Thanks Bryan, it sort of helps, I think.  So I have to cut the link and paste it into a reader that I choose.  Not sure where I find the reader but when I figure that out, I'll add an addendum to this post!!  It's just reassuring at this point to know that you know--it is so good to have a Web Guru!