About time for mine

Finally happened: I was using the laptop, upon which I rely for everything, and it *died*. Right there, mid type-stroke, just died. I nearly did as well. But, then I remembered that I am a Computer Professional, and I tried to figure it out.

As I've mentioned before, the laptop runs hot enough to prepare eggs on, as it has an AMD processor. I run SpeedFan to keep an eye on temp, and it regularly runs ~77C. Thats pretty darn hot.

After I waited a few minutes, I was able to turn the laptop back on, so I backed up all the important stuff and purchased a laptop cooling fan. Took 15C off the temp right away. It was $35, and I would recommend you run right out and buy one right now. Just go.

Extra - Make sure all your browsers are up to date. Its getting a lot worse out there for exploits and fake sites that serve up malware. I took a false virus fix off a client's machine the other day, a bit of crapware called "ErrorFix". Google it and you find removal instructions - thats the first clue that it may not be legit.

Don't be afraid to Google things if you don't recognize them. Sometimes Google with the words, Scam or Removal.

Additional Details

We've been named Member of the Month by the Milan Chamber of Commerce .

I'm helping with a seminar on Social Networking for Business on Tuesday, June 16, at the historic Union School building. I'd direct interested parties to the FaceBook event page, but the chamber didn't make one. Hopefully, we can convince them to use these technologies to publicize events in the future.

We were at the Ann Arbor Mayor's Green Fair yesterday, June 12. It was really crowded and a great evening. A lot of people stopped to talk to us, and we had a really positive reaction from the attendees. I think we'll see a few new customers from it.

Also, we have a new tweet: follow @Dr_Inky_Green for printer and cartridge tips and info. I'm using Tweetdeck to keep that account straight; recommended.

More chatter

I've been doing most of my commentary on Twitter and Facebook. I can get the Tweets into the FB status, but it would be even cooler if I could have tweets appear here as posts. Ideas?

We'll also be launching additional online content with Cartridge World (online blog and tweet persona) and we'll be needing followers. You've been warned.

As for Call Your Help Desk, its been a consistent hum of activity; not too much, not too little. Could be more, but when would I find the time? I think things will settle down after I get some more groundwork laid, but it will be awhile yet.

So, thats it. Did you think I would talk about politics? Not likely. Maybe we'll start talking about recycling. There's a topic on which we can all agree... mostly.

I'm a winner!

Its like this guy isn't even trying.

Dear Friend,
My name is Frank Moss. I am an American citizen, base in London, I have been in money management field since 21 years , here in United Kingdom.

Just long enough to forget grammar, I see.

I have a client who wants to invest the sum of US$15,000,000.00 (Fifteen Million) United States dollars. He's a top politician in Iraq and never want his name to be mentioned.

Um, yes, thats possible. Except he would have been a Baathist, so probably fled to Syria.

Can you handle a huge sum of investment and help us to move this money to your country through U.N diplomatic courier service channel?

All you financial advisors out there, Can You handle a huge sum of investment? I bet you consider Huge > 15M.

If you can handle such huge sum of investment and interested to be my partner to invest in your country, kindly respond with: 1. Your full names, 2. Home or Office address, 3. Direct contact telephone numbers, 4. Age and occupation.

It sounds like Yoda is involved in the old Nigerian scam. I'm half tempted to respond and list my occupation as FBI Investigator. And I like how he refers to the US as 'your country'; thought you were a Yank too, old boy?

For further details, urgently contact me via this e-mail address:
[redacted]@live.com

Regards,
Frank Moss.

Its like they're not event trying to be believable. Just throwing anything at all out there and hoping it sticks somewhere. Anyone who falls for this kind of diaphanous deception should be deported.

I am so tempted to buy a disposable Wal-Mart cell phone and just screw with the guy...

Confikerery Doo Da

The Confiker virus is finally awake and doing... no one knows what yet.

ZDNet has an article that describes what they know so far. Also, if you Google for a confiker remedy, apparently there are criminals
using poisoned search results to serve up malware as well. Lets be careful out there.

Upcoming Events

Taste of Milan Tickets Presale
Come on down to Milan for an evening of fun and food. Taste of Milan will be held at 5PM on Friday, May 15th, at the senior center, 45 Neckels Ave. Tickets are on sale now. For more info, call the Milan Chamber of Commerce at 734-439-7932.


York Township Environmental Workshop
The Township of York is presenting a series of workshops from noon to 5PM on Saturday, April 18th, focusing on Garden Design, Home Energy Conservation, and Backyard Habitat. The workshops are free, but seating is limited, so please call ahead for reservations at (734) 439-8842.


NRA Foundation Banquet
The Huron Valley Friends of NRA are hosting a fundraiser banquet to support shooting and educational programs. The prime rib banquet will be held at 5:30 on Wednesday, April 22, at Tri County Sportsmens League, 8640 Moon Road, Saline. Tickets are still available, so call 734-429-9561 for reservations.

Weekendery

We spent the weekend at the Home Improvement expo at the Farm Council Grounds. That sounds so banal. 'Farm council grounds' brings to mind sharing space with livestock...

Anyway, we had a lot of visitors to our humble little booth. We split the space between CallYourHelpDesk, and Cartridge World. I would try to engage folks by asking, "Do you have a computer question?" A lot of people did.

And it didn't hurt that we were in the paper over the weekend.
have a look

So far, several people who met us over the weekend, or saw us in the paper, have come by and tried our services. It can only go up from here.

What Next?

We've been exhibiting at the Home Builder & Improvement show at the Farm Council grounds in Saline. Pretty good crowd - a lot of people stop by to chat about computer issues. I'm trying to attract attention by soliciting their PC questions... most people still look askance and wiggle away. Some talk and talk and talk... but thats OK.

O, btw, go get yourself a look at the Sunday AA News, business outlook section, p10. Not near Ann Arbor? Go to
the web site .

I think its pretty cool.

We'll be at the Expo through today, Sunday. I'll also spend a couple of hours at the Washtenaw Business Expo at the Four Points on Tuesday (3/24).

Come on up and see me sometime...

O Noes! We R Hacked!

I saw this dire warning this afternoon:


What to do?
Well, lets examine it for clues.
1. Windows Internet Explorer will not scan the PC for viruses, so we know we're being duped.
2. The word choice in the dialog sounds like it was translated directly from another language. Hilarious.
3. OK or Cancel? What would you choose? I chose to go to Process Explorer (or use Task Manager) and cancel iexplore.exe. Kill it right off. Choosing either OK or Cancel will yield the same result in that either click will be captured and launch a web site that downloads the payload. Then the real party starts.

As a precaution, I ran AVG, Malwarebytes, and Super Anti Spyware. All scans showed that there were no infections.

The moral of the story is to be ever vigilant and not to rely completely on the automated processes like security applications. Use common sense. Or you could always call me and ask.

Checking in

Well, I've successfully avoided posting for about three weeks! W00T!

Sorry, but it occurred to me (ok, it occurred to others to tell me) that my blog was getting a tad, shall we say, Dull? Yes, we shall. It was dull. Anyone want to read about the hard drive or CD I installed? Viruses defeated? PCs and networks set up?

I think not. Not all the time anyway. So I'll break the fourth wall and let you in on what else I've been doing. Its a bit more exciting.

I've joined the Saline City Environmental Commission as an interested community member. I don't actually live within the corporate boundaries of the city, so I can't be a sworn member, but I'm still very interested in the environmental affairs of the city.

I do live within York Township, so I've joined the township environmental commission. We've got a really interesting program on tap for our Earth Day workshops. More info can be found on the township web site or on Facebook. I've created an event page for it; get on Facebook already!

I'm the chairman for our annual Friends of NRA Banquet; it is held on Wednesday, April 22. Funds raised at this event help us at Tri County to have educational and recreational events for the community, for no or low cost. Tickets are on sale now, but don't delay.

We at Cartridge World are manning a booth at the Home Improvement Show at the Saline Fairgrounds, March 20-22. We're also at the Greening of Milan Expo, April 20-21.

Looking to May, I will help organize the Taste of Milan event, on the 14th, then immediately drive to Nashville for our corporate annual meeting, 15-17th.

June, we at Tri County host Women on Target the 13th. Its a good over view-type event for women of all ages who might not have any experience with various shooting sports, but are curious. Since I'm a NRA Certified instructor, I always help out.

In July, we have Celtic fest on the 9-11th. I'm helping with gate control this year.

August, Saline Summer Fest will feature a 5k Run. I've done a few runs, and am proud to have been approached to help out.

See? Lots of interesting things going on. Arguably, I might be stretched a bit thin. We'll see. I'll update status on the goings on of these various events and commissions as things happen.

It won't be boring. Promise.

Hold Tight!

Not too tight.

So what did we do for Valentines, you ask? We went to the Beale St Smokehouse and saw ass-kickin blues courtesy of the Witchdoctors. They were murdering all my favorites, and I mean that in a good way.

This week, there's the usual networking (Morning Edition, A2B3, WRN, HBA), and many evening meetings. Mon - FNRA Banquet, Tues - York Twp Environmental, Wed - Air Rifle and Saline Environmental, Thur - Tri County general membership meeting, Fri - Artini Martini Crawl. Alright, the last one isn't technically a meeting. But there is booze, so theres that.

I even have a couple of virusy PCs to fumigate.

Larger news, we're one of the featured businesses in the upcoming Business Outlook section of the AA News, due out in March. How cool is that?

Peek into the chaos

Lessons from this week:
* If your PC tells you to download some very-convenient solution to a problem you didn't know you had, you're in too deep already.
* If your PC runs any operating system, the age of which can be measured in decades, you need to just let it go.
* Laptop DC Jacks are fragile as hell. I've replaced many of them now and I'm just appalled at how easily they break. Makes for good cash flow over here, but still.
* If you have a server at your business, and I mean a business you own in this case, so the server is your property, but you don't know the server's password... well, where to start? Its like not having keys to your own car.

And so on and so on. Its all common sense stuff, but I think people panic when their computers stop cooperating. We rely so much on the wee beasties that we can't cope when they die. The answer, of course, is to accept their mortality and back up all important data.

This coming week, I've got no scheduled PC work (scary!), and a few networking opportunities. I'm not looking forward to a break in the pace, but we can't always choose, can we?

Heads, Ugly, Ready to rear

A complaint that seems to be re-inventing itself is the dread AntiVirus2009 infection. While relatively minor as infections go, it has started infecting machines from which I had removed its predecessor(s) last year. I'm glad the providers of the anti-virus/anti-spyware apps are up to speed on the latest problems.

Unless they're in on it... very convenient if you ask me.

We've been bloody busy down here. The new name rollout is going smoothly as well. More on that by the end of Feb.

And now for something completely the same

As for amusement, that may have been it right there.

Recent activities include a few dead laptops, several misbehaving desktops, an errant wireless network, and a sloppy wired network. Several appointments for this week already, and not a complaint to be had from me.

Saline Leadership ended last week. It was on a high note (arts n crafts day!) (it was actually better than I made it sound right there). It was an interesting course. I'm glad I did it, and I would actually encourage you to get a second opinion should you consider joining. Not that there's anything wrong, mind you, but the commitment level is not trivial, and you must put some thought into it before hand. More than one person dropped out during the process due (I assume) to time constraints.

What set SLI apart from other Leadership initiatives was that it focused on what skills it takes to be a leader. As a guide, it used the idea of Learning Organizations put forth by Peter Senge. The disciplines he identifies in such an organization are Systems Thinking, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, and Team Learning. Each has its role in creating a leader. Fascinating stuff, really, but not your typical Leadership Institute kind of curriculum.

Many things on tap for this week. I won't promise to keep up with them, but its a goal.

Ides of Snow

Weren't they a band? 1972?

Sorry, been busy.

Lots of cartridges, and lots of PC support.
Just busy, man, busy. Some hardware replacement, a lot of securing of PCs, keeping the bogeymen at bay. Lots of little stuff, ya know? But it keeps a body moving.

I'll try to think of something amusing soon.

Nary a dull moment

And so freshly back from our brief holiday in the warmer climes, we hit the ground running. We spent the day with much printer supply business, and several computer appointments as well.

I did some maintenance work on a local business' network. Its the one that needs a lot of work; I just can't get it all done in one fell swoop, lest heads explode.

I did a bit of data retrieval on a supposedly dead PC. Funny, it worked fine for me. On the other hand, being dead wasn't its worst feature - it also had zero security apps installed. And even worse, the other two PCs on the home office network were insecure as well. I have an appointment tomorrow (I think) to finish up the other two.

Tuesday, I also have a bit of user training to get done after the breakfast at the Morris Lawrence bldg, with the Ypsi Chamber. Tuesday is almost completely filled.
Thats very good news, indeed.

I'm thinking of re-branding HTTP into something with a bit more cachet, something a bit catchier. The domain is available, too. I won't say anymore or Gary will steal it to hold it ransom. I know his type...

Breathe Easy now

You will be no doubt relieved to read that the rain held off, and the fireworks were indeed spectacular. The sustained shelling went on for over ten minutes, with a backdrop of all the air horns from the boats in the marina. Absolutely fabulous.

And now this morning, shall I make resolutions? Isn't it a waste of time?
Will you make resolutions?

We sat out on the balcony, listening to the ruckus. The wind began to blow just after midnight. It was a cool, sustained blow, and there was something on it. I couldn't tell quite what.