East Bay / Tri-Valley PC Repair

December 14, 2009 – 8:16 pm | by Dave Bonds

Google recently began sending out window decals to local businesses to promote the usage and adoption of QR codes, as well as to promote Google Maps, and they’re calling these businesses Favorite Places. QR codes can be decoded with most smart phones (iPhone, Android phones and Blackberry’s) and will provide a link to the business listing on Google Maps.

The good news: We’ve been selected as one of the few businesses to receive these promotional window decals!

However, because we don’t have an actual office (I work out of my home), I thought I would go ahead and post pictures of the letter Google sent, along with the QR code window decal.

Tags: Bay Area, East Bay, East Bay PC Repair, Google, information, internet, news, PC Repair, San Francisco

October 19, 2009 – 10:54 am | by Dave Bonds

If you work on computers, you’ve undoubtedly encountered a rogue anti-virus program. These programs disguise themselves as real antivirus programs, trick the user into installing them, and claim the user has viruses all over their system. Often times, the only virus is the rogue antivirus program itself. These programs can be trojans, viruses, or just an attempt to get the user to pay money by claiming it will get rid of the (non-existent) viruses on your system.. and doing nothing.

The problem is, these Fake antivirus programs can be a real pain to get rid of completely. That’s where Remove Fake Antivirus comes in.

Remove Fake Antivirus 1.32 is used to remove:

• 1. Cyber Security
• 2. Alpha Antivirus
• 3. Braviax
• 4. Windows Police Pro
• 5. Antivirus Pro 2010
• 6. PC Antispyware 2010
• 7. FraudTool.MalwareProtector.d
• 8. Winshield2009.com
• 9. Green AV
• 10. Windows Protection Suite
• 11. Total Security 2009
• 12. Windows System Suite
• 13. Antivirus BEST
• 14. System Security
• 15. Personal Antivirus
• 16. System Security 2009
• 17. Malware Doctor
• 18. Antivirus System Pro
• 19. WinPC Defender
• 20. Anti-Virus-1
• 21. Spyware Guard 2008
• 22. System Guard 2009
• 23. Antivirus 2009
• 24. Antivirus 2010
• 25. Antivirus Pro 2009
• 26. Antivirus 360 and
• 27. MS Antispyware 2009

The program seems to be updated fairly regularly by the software developer, which is good because new rogue antivirus programs are released all the time, and hopefully will be added to future versions.

It is available for download from the developer’s site, where you’ll also find other useful utilities to protect your system.

[via ghacks]

Tags: antivirus, Downloads, flash drive, free, malware, PC Repair, Portable Apps, usb, Utilities, viruses, Windows

October 18, 2009 – 11:11 am | by Dave Bonds

How many of you knew that Microsoft released a free anti-virus and anti-malware program this week? I’m guessing not too many.

A friend of mine, Luy, with IT Support Guys, wrote an excellent blog post on how Microsoft has failed to promote their new security app, even on their own search engine Bing.

Well, it’s called Microsoft Security Essentials and it’s available for download from Microsoft. I’ve installed it on several customer computers and have been rather happy with it. I just got around to installing it on a machine of mine, however, because I keep my system from getting infected in the first place, my machine is not really a good testing environment. But I digress…

The stats coming from Lee Matthews at Download Squad:

The Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog has posted some interesting numbers. After its first week, Security Essentials has already been installed more than 1.5 million times. From the approximately 535,000 machines reporting statistics, MSE has logged over 4 million detections.

44% of MSE users are already running Windows 7 with XP following at 33% and the remaining 23% on Vista. The number of detections per OS is also interesting. 52% of the 4 million reported were found on Windows XP systems compared to only 32% on Vista.

Windows 7 users fared even better. Though they represent the largest group of MSE users, only 16% of detections came from systems running Microsoft’s latest OS. The post also reports 1/3 of these machines are using the 64-bit version, which “is even more resistant to malware than 32-bit due to PatchGuard,” states Microsoft’s Joe Faulhaber.

Surprising that over half of the detections come from only 33% of users? Not really.

Go download and try out Microsoft Security Essentials yourself, and let me know in the comments how you like it? Is it better than the paid apps (like Norton or McAfee), or existing free anti-virus (like AVG or Avira)?

Tags: anti-malware, anti-virus, Downloads, free, malware, microsoft, Utilities, viruses, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP

October 15, 2009 – 10:11 am | by Dave Bonds

I can’t tell you how many times this little application has saved me: Winsock XP Fix

I keep it on my thumb drive so I always have it when I need it. And although the name says XP Fix, it works in other versions of Windows as well.

The Winsockfix Utility will:

• Detect your current Operating System
• Release the IP address, taking you “Offline”
• Reset the TCP stack using Netsh.exe (Windows XP only)
• Delete the current Registry TCP and Winsock Values
• Import new “Working” Registry Values
• Backup any Current “Hosts” file
• Replace the “Hosts” file with a default one
• Reboot the Computer

Often times, as a computer repair guy, you’ll encounter someone who can’t connect to the internet, and when the problem doesn’t seem to be related to any network hardware, it’s probably related to the TCP/IP stack, the HOSTS file or some registry settings. This mostly happens when adware, malware or viruses change these settings or modify the files needed to connect to the internet. When you get rid of the problem source, the files it modified are still jacked up.

That’s where this program comes to the rescue. Make it the first thing you try, before spending countless hours troubleshooting other things or reinstalling programs, and you’ll have super fast resolution times and can move on to your next customer.

Download Winsock XP Fix

Tags: Downloads, flash drive, free, internet, PC Repair, Portable Apps, tips, Tips and Tricks, Utilities, wi-fi, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP

September 30, 2009 – 7:23 am | by Dave Bonds

From a report released by Panda Security, makers of Panda Antivirus, the number of PC’s infected with Malware grew 15 percent in the month of September. The numbers are just staggering, showing why you need an up-to-date antivirus AND an anti-malware program installed.

As you can see from the line graph, the US is just 9th on the list of most infected, with nearly 59 percent of all PC’s infected with malware.

And the following pie chart shows a breakdown of the number and types of those malware infections.

via CNET News via Panda Security

Tags: infographics, information, internet, malware, news, PC Repair, reports, viruses