Today, a Microsoft spokeswoman said that the company started to distribute SP1 to users who have turned on the Automatic Update feature in their operating systems.

Currently, the update is limited to English, French, Japanese, German, and Spanish language versions. The other language versions will be released in the middle of next month.

Some Vista users may not see the update on the Windows Update feature because they are using defective drivers which may cause problems during an upgrade.

An installer can be downloaded if users cannot see the service pack in Windows Update. However, the installer will block systems from installing it if they are not using updated drivers.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

EndItAll is a small utility designed to close or kill all non-essential processes on a system.
This tool is great to use on slow computers which are slowing down your computer repair tasks. It is also great to use before a virus scan because it frees up more system resources for the scanner, and it can kill currently active viruses and trojans. Some other great uses for this application is to free up resources for high-end games or dvd burning.

A nice feature of this application is the ability to protect processes that are non-essential, but you want to keep open anyway.
Read the rest of this entry »

The details of new features that will be in version 8 of AVG Anti-Virus have been released.

The upcoming version will have safe search features as well as an anti-spyware feature. Internet surfers will also be protected by Safe Surfing features which shows a warning if they visit insecure websites. However, the Safe Surfing features will only be available in the paid version of the Anti-Virus.

The Register notes that Safe Search and Safe Surfing features use the Linkscanner technology.

It will be available to a broader audience since it will be available in other languages besides English. This includes Italian and French.

Source: The Register

The following is a paid review. However, it completely of my own opinion and is not influenced by being paid.

The folks over at HandyRecovery.com sent me a copy of their software “Handy Recovery 4.0″ to play with and review.
I will begin by talking about what it is. Handy Recovery is data recovery software designed to restore files that have been accidentally deleted or where damaged by virus attacks, software faults or from deleted/formatted partitions.

It works under 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista (has earned the certified for Vista logo). It supports all Windows file systems and hard/floppy drives and unlike much of the recovery software out there, it can recover from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Multimedia and SD Cards. It can also recover from compressed and encrypted files on NTFS drives.

Now, onto my review of the software.
Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a few times where I have been called out to onsite repair jobs that only took 10 minutes to complete. However, I need to charge a minimum of 30 minutes to 1 hour (depending on distance) to cover the driving time and cost. Now if I were the client and I was slugged the full hour fee for a 10 minute job, I would feel like I didn’t get my moneys worth.

So how do we make our clients feel like they got their moneys worth? Always provide value.
Read the rest of this entry »

A news has been posted at Information Week about the incompatibility of Adobe’s audio production software called Audition on computers with Windows Vista SP1.

“For anyone attempting to install Adobe Audition on Windows Vista SP1, you can forget it,” said NeoSmart bloggers. They said that the software crashes “immediately on startup.”

The problem has something to do with a Windows feature called Data Execution Prevention. The feature is designed to prevent memory buffer overflow exploits.

The article notes that Microsoft has yet to finish ensuring Vista SP1 users that all devices such as printers and mice would work with the service pack.

Source: Information Week

An article has been posted at Ars Technica that Paypal have blocked some of the old versions of web browsers.

The company states: “In our view, letting users view the PayPal site on one of these [older] browsers is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts.”

First-tier browsers including Firefox 2 and IE 7 users will be able to do their business normally while warning messages will be posted on users who logs on to Paypal while using old versions of web browsers.

This decision was made to reduce phishing attacks.

Source: Ars Technica

Sophos has detected a malware through an email about a former Miss Croatia.

The email contains a photo of Nina Moric and it was written in a non english language.

The article at Sophos contains the image and a screen shot of the email. Pob, the author of the article notes that users who received this email should have figured out that this is malware because:
1. The link in the photo is a .exe file.
2. The domain name that is included in the email is associated with internet pornography.

The name of the Trojan is Troj/Srizbi-A.

Source: Sophos

The other day I came across a clients computer that was getting the infamous Blue Screen of Death (aka BSOD). However, since the computer had the “Automatically Restart if the event of a bluescreen” option switched on, the system would restart and the blue screen disappear too quickly for me to read. Most technicians will just go into Safe Mode and switch this off, but what if you cant get into Safe Mode? What happens if the option to “Disable Automatic Restart” doesn’t show in the F8 menu either?
I had this happen to me and I found a way around it. Read on.
Read the rest of this entry »

A new bug has been published by Microsoft which affects multiple versions of Windows operating systems. According to the article at Ars Technica, here the Windows versions that are affected:

1. Windows XP with SP2
2. Windows Server 2003
3. Windows Vista with or without SP1
4. Windows Server 2008

It is a security issue which allows privilege escalation. It can be exploited only if IIS is enabled or an SQL Server is installed.

The advisory from Microsoft notes that, “Microsoft will take the appropriate action to protect our customers, which may include providing a solution through a service pack, our monthly security update release process, or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.”

Source: Ars Technica