Honestly when TGM started I never figured it to more than a hobby.  However, with the questions, requests, and visitors (Not all of which are related to me) that come in everyday, not only is the site more than I ever expected, it’s reached a point where TechGeekandMore is growing up. 

     Starting today, and over the next couple of days, TGM is moving to its own hosting provider.  The TGM v2, will be able to offer more features, and hopefully help inform more people about Technology in simple terms, which is at the core of what TGM will always be.

      I just ask the readers of TGM to have a little patients while we get everything moved over, I think you will like what the new v2 TGM site will offer. Thank you for visiting TechGeekandmore

Alex Novelo

Head of TechGeekandMore

Here are some sample instructions for your PC

****WARNING: Please read the following 1st****

Tip: It is a good idea to "back up" (record on paper) all of your BIOS settings before you make any changes to them.

Note: Every setup program is slightly different from every other one. Even if two BIOSes are made by the same company, they may have different settings. The commands as shown here might be different on your PC, or they might be in a different place. Use care when modifying these parameters, and refer to your motherboard manual if it is accurate. I can’t cover every possible variation of settings.

Warning: Changing advanced parameters can lead to system instability and data loss. The only change I will be referring to in this post involves the boot order.  It is recommended only users who really understand what they are doing change make any changes to any of the other options in the bios. IF you choose to make any other changes to the bios, Proceed at your own risk.

*****OK with that said**********************

Dell systems

• Depress the F12 key when boot menu text appears at startup

• Select BIOS setup and depress the Enter key

• Using the arrows on your keyboard, move to Boot Sequence and the select the device you want to boot to (CD/Floppy/USB) and move it to the top of your list. (The pc will attempt to boot in the order of your list)

• Click Apply

• Click Exit

• Fully shut down (power off), wait a few seconds, and restart your computer

HP systems

• Depress Esc key when prompted at startup

• Depress the F10 key to Configure BIOS

• Scroll to the area where it says First Boot Device, Second Boot Device, Third Boot Device,

• In that area press the +/- key on your keyboard to change each boot device, adding the device you are trying to boot to as the 1st device.

• **Make sure you include Hard drive in either the 2nd or 3rd device

• Depress the F10 key to save and exit

• Select Yes and depress the Enter key

• Fully shut down (power off), wait a few seconds, and restart your computer

Lenovo ThinkPad systems

• Depress the blue ThinkVantage key when prompted at startup

• Depress the F1 key to enter the BIOS setup utility

• Using the arrow keys, scroll to the Boot area…

• The using the x\- keys set the order to boot selecting the device you want to boot to as 1st device.

• Depress F10 key to save and exit

• Select Yes and depress the Enter key

• Fully shut down (power off), wait a few seconds, and restart your computer

And that’s how you change your boot order……..for your pc. 

A few days ago Google presented their brand new phone, called Nexus One:

And some days later we find out that if a user searchs for “buy Nexus One” he will obtain around 4,000 malicious links:

When clicking on any of these links, you will see some of the typical fake antivirus sites:

It will try to infect your computer with a rogueware called LivePcCare. Be careful while searching, and use at least some free web filtering tools. (Like Web of Trust)

Update: 5 out of the 6 first results are malicious, including the 1st and the 2nd one.

Update 2: Now the same crew is using the Haiti earthquake

The FBI released the following warning this week after the earthquake (LINK: http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm)

HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FRAUD ALERT

01/13/10—The FBI today reminds Internet users who receive appeals to donate money in the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake in Haiti to apply a critical eye and do their due diligence before responding to those requests. Past tragedies and natural disasters have prompted individuals with criminal intent to solicit contributions purportedly for a charitable organization and/or a good cause.

Therefore, before making a donation of any kind, consumers should adhere to certain guidelines, to include the following:

• Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including clicking links contained within those messages.
• Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as surviving victims or officials asking for donations via e-mail or social networking sites.
• Verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations by utilizing various Internet-based resources that may assist in confirming the group’s existence and its nonprofit status rather than following a purported link to the site.
• Be cautious of e-mails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files because the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.
• Make contributions directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf to ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes.
• Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions: Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft.

MSNBC has released a list of charitable organizations that are active in Haiti, to help you know that your donation is going to the right place.  The list can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478

——————– o ——————–

     In addition to the the financial scams, there are now also web scams which will cause your pc to get infected with Rogueware (Things like fake anti-virus messages), while visiting sites that appear to be legit Haiti Support or Information sites.

     In the latest attempt to use a news making event, into a way to spread Rogueware, those running what are called SEO (SEO = Search Engine Optimization) are targeting keywords related to the earthquake in Haiti. Running searches on terms such as ‘Haiti’, ‘RT (re-Tweet)’, ‘Wyclef Jean’ and his charity, ‘Port-au-Prince’, Haiti donations, just to name a few are bringing up sites on major search engines pointing users to what they believe to be legitimate news and images related to the tragedy. When in fact, these sites, because the criminals were able to manipulate results of the search engines, are showing fake sites mixed in with real sites. 

(Picture from http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/dangerous-web-search-haiti-earthquake.html)

    If you encounter one of these fake site, 1st thing that you should NOT DO is click on any pop up or link that says you need to install something to see the site.  1st thing you SHOULD DO is attempt to close your browser by selecting either the X on the top right or by selecting CNTR-ALT-DEL on your keyboard, going into Task Manager, highlighting your browser, and selecting END TASK (Never attempt to use any of the actual “Close” or “exit” buttons that will appear with the pop up as most of the time the “yes” and “no” button will both do the same thing which is install the Rogue program on your machine).

     In addition, as soon as you reopen your browser (after closing it for the pop up), you want to make sure that you go in and clear your Temporary Internet Files and your Internet Cookies (In Internet Explorer its Tools –> Internet Options –> then under browsing history –> delete and then delete all.  In Firefox its Tools –> options –> privacy –> clear your recent history / clear your recent cookies).  That is in addition to making sure that your Anti-Virus software is up to date, that your Updates for your operating system (Windows, MAC, Linux) are up to date.

(Soapbox**) I continue to point out the need to update, and yet I still regularly get called out to clear infected machines, that are missing updates (Had a Windows PC last week on XP service pack 1 and Norton AV 2004 with updates from September 2005). Not that I don’t want to work, and get paid, but if you really want to make sure you don’t suffer thru the down time and expense of waiting for a tech like myself, UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE.  Will updates protect you 100%, no, unfortunately in the age of the internet, new and more innovative ways to beat a system come up 100’s of times every day, seven days a week.  However, keep in mind, when you leave your house, you lock your door.  Why?  Will locking your door, protect your house from being robbed?  You hope so, and 99% of the time it will.  So updating your system is like locking your door, if you don’t lock your door you will eventually get robed. (End Soapbox)

**Lastly – To the people of Haiti and those readers of TGM with family and friends in Haiti. You have our thoughts, during this difficult time.**

“The hardlock service failed to start due to the following error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O error”.

     It took a little digging around to find the answer and here is what the Hardlock service does – It is used with software that require what is called a hardware lock or dongle to make the software work. (Dongle = A piece of hardware that attaches to a computer in order to make a piece of secured software run. A dongle in this sense is used as a high-end form of security to prevent the unauthorized copying of software, since making a copy of the hardware itself is much more difficult than simply copying the software)

     In the case of this customer, they used to run point of sale software from this pc that required the “dongle”, however when the point of sale software was removed, the part of the software that looked for the dongle stayed and kept looking for a piece of hardware that was no long on this machine.

     To correct this issue, (WARNING: Keep in mind that this will break the software that the dongle is used for if that software is still on the pc) all you need to do is run the following from the command prompt (Start –> Run –> CMD)

and just type HLDINST –remove (Type it just as you see it), and hit enter.

That will stop the Hardlock service and remove the registry entries belonging to the Hardlock driver.

and the current MSN page.

If you would like to see the new page and it isn’t coming up for you, you can go to http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx to check out the new layout.

The 1st post of 2010, comes courtesy of my brother-in-law, and his need to be able to use his iPod. When you have your iPod set to Automatic Mode (which I understand is the default mode for iPod’s) and you plug in your into a pc with iTunes that isn’t the pc that you initially did the sync with you will see the following error message

     If you click on “Erase and Sync”, you will reset your iPod, delete everything that is on it, and load whatever songs/videos you have on the computer that the iPod is currently connected.   

    The following information comes from the Apple support page (LINK:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1202), and explains how to move your iPod from Automatic mode to Manual mode. 

Use iPod with multiple computers

You can manage your iPod with different computers as long as the computers are running the same operating system (Mac OS X or Windows) and you have set the iPod to "Manually manage music." If you’re not using iTunes 7 or later, click here.
Using an iPod formatted for Macintosh on a Windows computer is not supported. Using an iPod formatted for Windows on a Macintosh computer is not supported. To determine your iPod’s hard disk format see "iPod: How to determine iPod’s hard disk format." To change the iPod format you will need to restore iPod using iTunes. For more information on the how to restore iPod with iTunes see "Restoring iPod to factory settings."
Modes
By default iPod is set to "Automatically sync songs to my iPod" sometimes called automatic mode. In order to transfer music from multiple computers iPod must be set to "Manually manage music" sometimes referred to as manual mode.
Automatic Mode

When iPod is set to automatic mode iTunes automatically updates iPod’s music library whenever you connect iPod to your computer. iTunes transfers new songs you’ve added, and erases songs you’ve removed. However, the first computer you connect iPod to is its "home" computer, and the music library from that computer is copied to iPod. When you connect iPod to another computer, an alert box appears with this message:

"The iPod "iPod" is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPod and sync with this iTunes library?"

"An iPod can be synced with only one iTunes library at a time. Erasing and syncing replaces the contents of this iPod with the contents of this iTunes library."

If you want to delete the music library on iPod and make the second computer iPod’s "home" computer, click Erase and Sync. iTunes will delete all songs and playlists on the iPod, and then will copy the music library and playlists from the new home computer to iPod.
Manual Mode
If you want to keep the music library on iPod, but copy songs or playlists from the music library on the second computer, click Cancel to this dialog box, and then set iPod to manual mode.
You change the iPod synchronization mode to manual mode in iTunes:

1. Open iTunes, if necessary.
2. Select iPod in the Source pane.
3. Click the Summary tab.
4. Click "Manually manage music and videos" to enable that option.
5. Click OK in the resulting dialog box.
6. Click Apply.

It is normal for iPod to take a few seconds to change from automatic mode to manual mode.
When in manual mode, to add songs or playlists drag them from iTunes to the iPod icon in the sidebar. To remove songs or playlists select them on the iPod in iTunes and hit the delete key. You can also create playlists directly on the iPod.

When I started TGM at the end of February 2009, it was started as a simple hobby. I really never figured that I would get more than a few family members and maybe some co-workers/clients following it.  I guess I got a little more than what I expected. As noticed in the final stats for 2009, with 1 little exception (and even that one was close), TGM has grown every month since it started. 

I guess a special thanks is in order to Apple, Cisco, McAfee, and CA for having issues with their software.

\

Which helped inspire the creation of TGM so that questions, that I heard everyday (multiple times a day) would be answered in a form that even the most non-technical person can understand.

Happy New Year

Here is a screenshot I took of one of these ad pop-ups that I got while accessing a Major National Newspaper site. You probably have seen this or something similar to this if you spend much of any time online.  Let me say it one more time, before going on with this post “THIS IS A SCAM”. 

Not only do you get the ad telling you that Google will pay you to work from home, but when you try and close it you get the following pop ups.

“Skeptical…..” Any ad that requires it to tell me that I shouldn’t be skeptical and that my financial security will only cost me $1 should be an instant alarm for everyone to not just walk away but run away as quickly as possible. (IMPORTANT NOTE: AT THIS POINT USE THE X ON THE TOP RIGHT, DO NOT USE THE OK BUTTON TO CLOSE IT)

“Are you sure” is the next window you will get, really people, if being told are you sure, then told are your really sure, about anything should be an alarm.  (NOTE: AGAIN USE THE X ON THE TOP RIGHT, DONT CLICK EITHER OK OR CANCEL)

Oh and for good measure now you will get another pop-up ad that looks like a legit news site (I appears that it will say either from the “Houston Tribune News” or from “News8News”). The sites are very real looking as they use parts from actual websites (Note the Electronic Cigarette story that comes from News8, but that news 8 is actually WFAA which is an ABC TV station not the fake news8news that has nothing to do with any legit website.)

Part of the problem with these sites are that they are now finding ways to appear long side legit sites, and on top of that they refer to actual stories (like the WFAA story) or claim to be “As seen as” and use major legit news sites (There is a very legit .  Additionally, the problem is that they use very similar names to actual sites, so that the average user gets confused.

ABC News did a story about this issue recently (A few Quotes from the ABC story)

“But the affiliations suggested by the site were questionable at best: It said that customers would earn cash "working from home with Google," even though Google says it does not endorse such work-from-home sites.

It also claimed that it had been featured by television news organizations, including ABC News and CNN.

Both organizations say they haven’t endorsed the site. The site’s only real connection to legitimate news organizations, experts say, seems to be through paid advertisements placed on those organizations’ Web sites.”

The complete ABC news story about this can be found at (LINK) http://abcnews.go.com/Business/work-home-google-scam/story?id=8438110&page=1

     So just remember a couple of Internet Golden Rules

        – Even if its on the internet, it doesn’t mean that its true

        – Even if it looks like the Tweet, Facebook link, Email, IM, or any other form of online communications looks like it came from someone you know, its possible that it wasn’t sent by them. Always be very careful when clicking on links.

        – No job/job search or anything concerning “financial security” should cost you money to get.  As soon as anyone says “Pay me X amount, and I’ll tell you how to be make money or be debt free”.

An additional resource to see if something is a scam is (LINK) snoops.com.  Snoops has more info on this fake work at home scam as well. (LINK: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/employment/google.asp)