Martha's Blog

Every now and then I see an email account that seems to belong to more than one individual.
An example is ‘johnandmaryjones@some isp.com’.

You’ve probably seen an account like this as well.  Causing even more confusion, the email address might be johnsmith@some isp.com, but the sender signs the email with a totally different name, like ‘Charles Smith’.

I suspect at least one of the reasons for email account oddities is because the owner may not be aware he/she should have a separate private email address. Or perhaps the owner of the account does not want anyone else to have a separate email account so he/she can read emails intended for the other party. (Possessive?) At any rate, this practice seems odd.

Almost all ISPs (Internet Service Providers) allow several email addresses for the account. So John Jones can have a separate account and Mary Jones can have her own account. Even if the ISP allows only one account, why don’t folks make use of Yahoo or Gmail to get their own account?

I have no idea why an email account that includes someone’s name would belong to another person that signs a totally different name.  I imagine there is a reason, but what it could be escapes me.

Sometimes I wonder too much about stuff, this may be one of those times.

Martha

LinkScanner supposedly stops those drive-by rogues from installing on your computer.

I installed this program because I am paranoid about security. However, it never let me know if it stopped anything and to be truthful, I suspect my ESET Smart Security was doing the same job.

Since it seemed like my web browsing was slower I decided to uninstall LinkScanner.

The uninstaller kept hanging. The only way to get out of it was through Task Manager.

What a challenge this was! Every thing I found in searches on how to remove this program indicated first I would need to install AVG’s virus scanner and then uninstall it. Since I have ESET, I knew that wasn’t an option for me. I would have had to uninstall ESET first and then install AVG!  No way was I going to uninstall ESET!

AVG’s website was no help, or at least it was well hidden.

So I just kept trying to uninstall the LinkScanner. The uninstaller would get to a certain point and just hang. The dreaded ‘not responding’ message would pop up every time.

Then I tried to uninstall LinkScanner by using Advanced Uninstaller.  It finally managed to uninstall it after I performed some other steps first.

I stopped it from running by disabling it in Task manager and rebooted. Then it finally uninstalled, but there were ‘leftovers’  that had to be deleted manually. When trying to delete these files I kept getting a message ‘The action can’t be completed’ because the file is open in AVG LinkScanner©9Watchdog’.

So what is this? I did a search for this on my computer  and all it did was take me back to the files I couldn’t delete.

Finally it occurred to me it must be a running service. So I went to Administrative Tools/Services and sure enough there were two entries for this stubborn program, ‘AVG LinkScanner©9WatchDog and AVG Security Toolbar Service.  Once I disabled these two services I was able to finally delete the ‘leftover files in Program Files.

CCleaner removed the leftover Registry entries and now the LinkScanner is finally gone.  And browsing is much faster!

Martha

Why is it so important to so many folks to have hundreds of friends on Facebook?

By far the majority of these folks don’t have a clue who all of the ‘friends’ really are and I suspect they don’t care. They just say ‘OK’ and ‘befriend’ anyone who asks.

Case in point.

I think that pretty much says it all.

Martha

When you joined Facebook, (or ANY other social network site) did you give them the password to your email? Why for heaven’s sake did you do that? Did you actually want Facebook to send an invitation to your bank? Did you want them to send an invitation to anyone and everyone in your address book? (And remember, some email programs will save every email address for anyone you ever sent an email including replies.)

Oh, you didn’t know they would do that?  What exactly did you think would happen when they said ‘Find friends using your email account?’ Did you think they would know exactly who your friends are and wouldn’t send invites to anyone you didn’t want to receive an invitation? Really, did you think that?

I suspect you didn’t think at all, you just blindly followed and gave them your password. For shame! Don’t you know you shouldn’t give your email password to anyone?  Even your ISP won’t ask you for your email password!  Your bank, your credit card company, Paypal, etc., none of these will ask you for your email password, so why on earth would you give a stranger your password?

Oh, you say, Facebook isn’t a stranger.  Really? Do you know who lurks behind the site that is asking for this information? I bet you don’t!

If you did fall for that ‘Find friends using your email account’ and now that everyone in your address book has been spammed at least once, all those
folks that didn’t join you on Facebook are going to spammed again to remind them of the ‘invitation’ to join you. This fact makes me wonder about the
validity of the blurb below the box to enter your password.  You know, the one that says ‘we won’t store your password’.  Then how do they manage to send out ‘reminder’ spam?

I would guess it’s because your password is still there. I would remove it if I were you.  Then you should go to where ever your email is hosted and change the password for your email account. And for goodness sake, don’t ever give away your email password again! Ever!

Martha

Word Press has a new version and so I decided to upgrade. Everything seemed to go fine until I reached the last step, upgrading the database. This new version requires MySQL 4.1.2 or greater (old requirement was 4.0) Now a techie I am not. So I hop to my host’s control panel and start searching for how to upgrade my WP database.

Greek! It might as well be Greek, ’cause I don’t understand this stuff.

I call the help line for my host and get a very helpful person who is trying his best to help me, but he must be in another country, because I just can’t understand what he is telling me.  Finally I mange to get most of what he is saying.  I create a new database and start the export from the old database to the new database, but the in the last step I get an error and there I am lost.  So the nice tech tells me he will send me an email with instructions on how to fix the error and now I wait for the email. (I know he knew I would never understand the verbal instructions!)

Sure enough, the email comes through with the instructions. Fortunately for me my programmer son is home and I turn this over to him. He fixes the database and now the export from the old database to the new database goes through with no errors.

So now all I had to do was update the config file and now I have the new version up and running.

I did learn something, but I hope I don’t have to do this again for awhile!

Martha

I use Secunia to test my computer for insecure applications. I had a question about something so joined their online forum to see if there was an answer there. I went through the usual hoopla when joining a forum and at last got to the Congratulations screen telling me to ‘login using the form’ below.

Except there was no form below. (In Firefox, my default browser) So I reloaded the screen.  Nope, no form.  On a hunch I opened IE and loaded the same screen.  Yep, there was the form.

Now while this is normal for some websites, the funny thing is, Secunia reports that Internet Explorer (both regular and 64 bit) are insecure and there is no fix!

Now since they know IE is insecure, wouldn’t you think their page would work in another browser like Firefox?!!!!  (But it did work in Opera!)

Martha

For safer surfing, better use Firefox with NoScript installed.

I have read numerous emails from folks that get one of these scareware alerts. Most of them are wanting to know how to remove it as their security protect doesn’t help.

Today I experienced first hand one of these ‘fake alert’ scareware/malwares. I like to read the comics online and have a few sites bookmarked. As soon as I clicked on one of them the ‘fun’ began.

My browser opened full screen (which is an annoyance) and then I got the alert telling me ‘your computer is infected!’ It appeared to be scanning something, however I know it wasn’t scanning my computer.  These malware writers really know how to scare folks. The alert looked real and if I hadn’t known about these scammy ‘alerts’, I might have been hooked into buying thus infecting my computer with more spyware!

Firefox had opened a new tab from a site, isoft-online. (I would not go there if I were you!) The alert was there, all but screaming at me. I could not close the tab and I could not close Firefox. My ESET flashed that a threat had been quarantined, but I still could not close Firefox.

I brought up the Task Manager and closed Firefox. When I reopened Firefox there it was again. Task Manager again closed it. The next time I opened Firefox it asked me if I wanted to restore the previous session and of course I clicked ‘no’.

Lesson learned, install NoScript on Firefox.

To test, I went back to the infected site. Something tried to load besides the site, but was unsuccessful. I am still going to update my spyware programs and run indepth scans, just to be sure there are no infections.

I checked the quarantine logs to see what was blocked and it was listed as ‘NSIS/TrojanDownloader.FakeAlert.C trojan. You just can’t be too careful on the Internet these days.

Martha

Computers can be confusing even for some of us that have used them a long time and think we know what we are doing. To add to the confusion for a lot of folks is the ‘naming’ of programs and processes.

Microsoft really confused folks by giving their email programs such similar names, Outlook (part of their Office suite) and Outlook Express which came with Windows 95 up through Windows XP. Tech support long ago learned to ask if their email problems are for OE or MS Outlook in Office.

There is the ‘Messenger’ as well. There is the regular Messenger, the instant messenger application and then there’s the Windows Messenger Service (which the hackers found all too soon and used it to spam users even when not in email).

Microsoft is not the only culprit giving stuff almost the same names. There’s Windows Media Player (comes with Windows) and Media Player Classic (not a Microsoft program). Guess the program author couldn’t think of something unique.

There are a lot of stuff out there with similar names and the bad guys take advantage of this copycat name thing. They make really bad programs that sound like a good program and get folks to install them on their computers.  Sometimes these programs are touted as being free, but usually there is a charge. These nasties do two things, first they take your money and then they spy on you.

You just can’t be too careful out there on the wild and wooly web and never take a name at face value!

Martha

Did Microsoft finally get IE right? Time will tell.

I installed IE 8 on my test computer which is using a nearly pristine version of Vista Home Premium. The computer is less than two months old and so far I am only using it to test stuff (no betas yet).

I attempted to import my bookmarks from Firefox (a nice improvement) and then I got the same old thing, ‘not responding’. I closed IE and reopened it and found to my surprise that the bookmarks did import.

So I looked to see if the humongeous security hole was gone, but nope, it’s still there! (ActiveX)

Until ActiveX is removed from IE, it will never be my default browser.

When I get a new computer with Windows 7, I will get two other browsers, Firefox and Opera and then I will disable Internet Explorer! (I hope they keep this option in the final release!)

Martha

I am using the beta for Windows 7 and it is pretty cool.

It still has UAC. There are several levels of UAC, but if you really want protection, it needs to be the top level. (Security. Stops MBR Rootkits from installing as well as untold other crimeware).

Vista bashers like UAC turned off; guess they don’t like to rely on Windows to protect their computers. First they fuss about the lack of security, but when they get it, they don’t like it. Can’t please some folks regardless of what you do.

It still won’t support your old printer or scanner, because the printer and scanner manufacturers don’t make drivers for them. (Not the fault of Vista or Windows 7, but try and make folks believe that!)

It looks cool and still puts things in different places than Windows XP. (The locations make more sense!)

The Internet connection utility is super cool. Windows 7 found my print server and installed the printer with no problems. I was amazed at how well that went.

So far Windows 7 seems to be fast, lean and working well. I did have to download an email program as no email client is included with Windows 7.

Unfortunately the biggest security hole in Windows is still there. (Internet Explorer) I hear there will be an option to turn IE off; that is great news!

After updating Windows 7 the first thing I did was download and install Firefox. Then I installed Avast for virus protection. For what it is worth, everyone should have a backup browser. Even if you use and like Internet Explorer, you never know when IE will have a ‘spasm’ and quit working.

I expect some of the Vista bashers will try Windows 7 and really like it.

Martha