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Why do they make viruses? – Part 1

May 20, 2010 By

Computer by Trash CanAs we are cleaning up after a virus infection we are often asked, why does anyone do this? There are a number of different reasons, almost all of them related to money. We’ll explore the first in this post: credit card scams.

A current wave of viruses masquerade themselves as antivirus programs, reporting to you that your computer has been infected. As the pop-ups build and take over your system it provides a link to a website where for $39.99 you can download a program that will remove all of the problems.

Of course, this is all a scam. Your computer is infected, but not by the things it is reporting, it is infected with a Rogue Antivirus virus. One of their primary goals is to get your credit card information to, first, collect the purchase you authorize and then to use your credit card for other uses. Plus, the supposed removal tool is nothing more than more viruses.

Online purchasing from legitimate stores is very safe and secure, however, you should only give your credit card to sites and stores you seek out, not those that come to you asking for it, particularly when it is related to viruses and security.

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Outlook and LinkedIn – Integrated

May 19, 2010 By

Microsoft’s clear direction with the upcoming release of Office 2010 is the integration of online into the desktop. A great and very useful example of this is the Outlook Social Connector coupled with LinkedIn for Outlook which is now available as free add-ons to Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

First, if you aren’t on LinkedIn, you need to be. LinkedIn is the professional business social media network and at last count was up to 65 Million registered profiles.

Traditionally, you had Outlook on your desktop to send emails, manage your calendar and organize your contacts and you had social media sites liked LinkedIn for connecting with others, reading updates and blog posts they have written, etc.

The new add-ons for Outlook bring the online into the desktop. For example, now, when I receive an email from Shawn Kinkade into my Outlook inbox, it automatically also populates it with his most recent profile photo from LinkedIn. At the bottom of the email, Outlook automatically summarizes all of my recent communication with Shawn, emails we’ve exchanged, meetings we have had. It also pulls in his recent blog posts and podcasts/RSS feeds so I can quickly see what he has been working on. And, best of all, it automatically brings all of his contact information into my Outlook contacts. If Shawn moves or makes some other change in his online contact info, my Outlook contact is automatically and immediately updated and, since I synch my phone to Outlook, so is my phone.

These connectors are currently available for LinkedIn and MySpace and coming soon for Facebook and Windows Live.

Go to LinkedIn for Outlook for more information.

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Worry Free Security

March 31, 2010 By

Trend Micro Worry Free SecurityOnsite Logic recently became certified to offer Trend Micro Worry Free Security as a hosted and monitored service.

Monitored solutions have been extremely expensive in the past. This solution is just a little bit more expensive than plain vanilla antivirus software, but it provides a significantly higher level of security and safety. We are extremely pleased to be able to offer this powerful solution and such a great price!

The benefit of the hosted/monitored solution is that it is being watched daily. Our customers are busy people and don’t have time to constantly monitor their networks and computers for signs of intrusion. This package assures them that their security protection is monitored every day and that all of their antivirus software is up-to-date and active. We also receive consolidated notification of any threats detected and what action was taken so we can quickly address attacks to help prevent them from spreading through the network.

Call for more information.

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Windows XP Mode on Windows 7

March 30, 2010 By

Last week Microsoft announced a change to XP Mode for Windows 7 that makes it much more accessible for small businesses. First, some background on what this means and then why this matters to you.

We’ll start with the idea of a virtual machine. Basically, this is the idea of having two or more computer systems running, at the same time, on one physical computer hardware. This has been a growing area, particularly with servers, where a company could maximize their investment in physical hardware by running multiple virtual servers, with differing needs, on the same box. For example, a company’s file server and SQL server, while two different servers with different configurations, rights and permissions and possibly even different operating systems, could be installed and run on the same physical box. Virtualization has been a rapidly growing area with enterprise business which have a large number of servers, many which are underutilized. It has also shown strong growth with non-profits who qualify for discount or free software licenses. The challenge for small businesses is that running virtual servers has required purchasing multiple copies of the server operating systems and client access licenses, antivirus, and other programs. Since hardware costs are a very small percentage of the overall cost of a new server, most small businesses elect to spend a little bit more and buy a complete new server instead of installing virtual servers.

XP Mode for Windows 7 Professional brings the application of virtual machines to the desktop. XP Mode creates a virtual machine, running Windows XP Pro, inside the Windows 7 operating system. Prior to March 19, this was restricted to only work on certain computer with specific hardware. However, the new release removes many of these barriers and because Microsoft licensing on XP Mode does not require the purchase of a separate operating system license, it is FREE.

For companies with legacy software that will only run under Windows XP, this opens the door to purchasing new computers with Windows 7 Professional and getting the best of both worlds. No need to reboot into a different operating system or downgrade the operating system, simply double click the icon and a Windows XP computer is running inside your Win 7 computer.

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