Tech Help and Discussions

The e-commerce giant confirmed it would not fix the flaw, which could allow an attacker to remotely run code in a user's browser. eBay will not fix a flaw in its website that could allow an attacker to serve malware to unsuspecting site users. Israeli security firm and firewall maker Check Point disclosed a "severe" vulnerability that would allow an attacker to bypass eBay's code validation and remotely executive malicious code on the e-commerce site's users. Because of the nature of the vulnerability, an attacker can execute remote code that steals local data, injects code into unencrypted sites that could trick a user into turning over usernames and passwo…

I received calls from 2 customers today. Both are running W7 and both have problems that seem to be associated with an update. Stuck at configuring Windows or something like that. Anyone else seeing this?

Recently headlines such as Windows Phone is Dead have dominated the tech press after Microsoft released their most recent earnings report. The report was very good overall but it had one significant blemish - Windows Phone. In their second quarter report Microsoft revealed that only 4.5 million Lumia handsets were sold between October and December 2015. Two quarters earlier, April to June 2014, they had sold 10.5 million Lumia devices. That is more than a 50% drop in sales over a six month period but they did make major changes to the phone business starting in July 2015 so this is showing the direct impact of those changes. If you keep an eye on social media then t…

Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 to any existing customers for free until July 29, 2016. This is a dramatic shift from how previous versions of Windows have worked. Beyond this, it has also had a big effect on how Microsoft's finances work. Giving away the operating system for free seems like it makes no sense. Traditionally, Microsoft has made money by selling Windows (or, as an extension, Office) to consumers and businesses. Now, it just sells Windows to businesses and gives it away to consumers. The reasoning behind this is simple, and has been articulated by Microsoft many times: Windows on one billion devices. Getting Windows 10 onto one billion dev…

I am not sure which OS is on this unit so I am assuming it's windows 8. I want to load a linux disc to attempt a data recovery but I don't know how to enable the legacy boot option to boot from USB optical drive? The down arrow will stop at Network Adapter in the UEFI Boot Order. I have attached a screenshot of the BIOS, help please?

That Windows 95 startup sound always gives me nostalgia, but how about taking it for a whirl without setting anything up whatsoever? Andrea Faulds, a 19-year-old developer in Scotland, managed to get Windows 95 to function fully in the browser without any plugins. It’s a truly incredible sight to behold: seeing the 20-year-old operating system fully functioning in pure JavaScript is amazing — you can play Freecell, mess around in DOS or just enjoy the nostalgia. The project uses emscripten, an emulator that compiles C++ code to JavaScript at runtime so you can enjoy the full retro experience without needing to install a plugin or set up Windows 95 from scratc…

When Microsoft’s Edge browser arrived this summer alongside Windows 10, it was seen as a major step forward, incorporating new features like Cortana Assist alongside tricks that had become popular elsewhere, like Reading List and the new InPrivate browsing mode. But now, new research suggests that InPrivate may not be as private as it seems. According to an investigation by researcher Ashish Singh, websites visited from InPrivate can be easily recovered from a user’s hard drive by examining the WebCache file. Visited sites are stored in the same "Container_n" table that stores tab history from conventional browsing, the investigation found. "We are committed to re…

When you watch TV, is your phone always within reach? More importantly, are you just listening to the TV while you fiddle around on your phone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, web-connected crockpot? If so, then you’re like the 88% of millennials who are regularly using “second screens” while watching video. This according to research from trade group the Consumer Technology Association (formerly the Consumer Electronics Association), which found that 50% of all Americans with online access are turning to their secondary screens at some point while they watch TV and other video content. The most popular second screen use is to get more information about the show or …

Windows Phone started off life as a promising alternative to Android and iOS five years ago. Microsoft positioned its range of Windows Phone 7 handsets as the true third mobile ecosystem, but it's time to admit it has failed. If a lack of devices from phone makers and even Microsoft itself wasn't enough evidence, the final nail in the coffin hit today. Microsoft only sold 4.5 million Lumia devices in the recent quarter, compared to 10.5 million at the same time last year. That's a massive 57 percent drop. Even a 57 percent increase wouldn't be enough to save Windows Phone right now. Microsoft and Nokia have sold a total of 110 million Windows Phones compared to 4.5 bil…

Hey guys, this laptop came with XP but I installed Vista 32BIT and the wireless driver from here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/servicetag/1d5c1j1/drivers/advanced?s=bsd Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1490 Dual-Band WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card, Wireless 1395 WLAN MiniCard, Dell Wireless 13xx, 14xx, 1505 MiniCard, v.5.100.235.13, A37 Latitude D630 Service Tag: 1D5C1J1 | Express Service Code: 2971802557 Would the Hardware ID work in this case since this is not the original OS for this laptop please?

On this Dell 9020 machine I just reinstalled win7 32bit, all is working except for the windows update. I tried a few things found on the net but didn't work, anyone got an easy fix please?

Windows 10’s deep stash of carrots lured a record-breaking numbers of users to the operating system when it launched. But now that adoption’s slowing down, Microsoft’s breaking out the sticks in its quest to shift 1 billion users to Windows 10 by July 2018. Microsoft wielded the latest stick just last week, when it declared that buyers of Intel’s new Skylake processors have to upgrade to Windows 10 in the next 18 months, or forgo all but the most critical security patches—and those will be available to Windows 7 and 8.1 users only if said patches don’t “risk the reliability or compatibility” on non-Skylake systems. Future processors from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm will o…

You generally expect that a company that has your personal information — like your address, recent orders, and billing information — is going to treat that data with some level of care. While you know their privacy policy might still allow some sharing for marketing reasons, you don’t expect their customer service agents to divulge it to anyone who happens to call up and pretend to be you. Except that’s exactly what happened to one user, Eric, who wrote his story up on Medium. The hacker going after him didn’t do any fancy database work or complicated things with software. Instead, the attacker went after the weakest link in literally every single chain of security…

Today Malwarebytes announced their latest security offering called Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware. Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware, or MBARW for short, is currently in beta and is a small utility that runs in the background while quietly monitoring computer for behavior associated with file encrypting ransomware. When it detects associated behavior it automatically blocks the thread from encrypting your data, quarantines the executable, and alerts you that something was detected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOkUhGlXnRg Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware is currently being released as a free standalone product that anyone can use to protect their computer. With ran…

Last week I wrote about my testing to get the Favorites in Microsoft Edge properly syncing across all of my Windows 10 devices. It took me several cycles of manually deleting those favorites because it seemed that they kept being synced from somewhere in the cloud. I finally managed to get all of my Windows 10 devices, including one running the Insider build of Windows 10, to show zero favorites so that I could start from scratch. At that point I added several favorites and a basic folder structure on my main Windows 10 machine. I was then able to move, rename and delete favorites as well as folders. Those changes then synched to my other Windows 10 machines - inclu…

I think there is something different about how Windows 10 formats the hard drive. I usually backup drives using my older Acronis True Image Home 2010 software. That software didn't recognize a Window 10 drive this morning. The drive did show up in 'Computer'. Another tech told me he noticed something different with Windows 10 drives. I'm wondering if it has something to do with it being a Dynamic disk as opposed to a Basic disk. Just saying because Acronis TI said it couldn't backup a Dynamic disk when I attached the W10 drive this morning. Maybe it has something to do with GUID partitioning which I'm not familiar with. https://kb.acronis.com/content/2974

Symantec has terminated an agreement with one of its partners after a rival security firm caught the reseller using fake anti-virus warnings to lure customers into purchasing Norton at a bloated price. Jérôme Segura, a senior security researcher for Malwarebytes, explains in a blog post how he came across a fake alert window bearing the following message: "System Critically Infected. If you are not able to click on this button, Immediately contact Support toll Free Helpline 1-855-637-1900." Coupled with some ominous audio warnings from a robotic female narrator, the alert message would be enough to scare many ordinary users into calling the helpline. …

Hi, Being fed up with Microsoft's attempts to coerce me into installing Windows 10, which I do not want on my Windows 7 Desktop, I have set Windows Update as 'Download updates but let me choose whether to install them'. Since doing this I have found one optional update relating to C++ which I have installed with no problems. However, if I do a manual check for updates an error is generated as follows: Windows Update Error: Windows could not search for new updates An error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer. Error(s) found: Code 80244019 Windows Update encountered an unknown error. Get help with this error Previously, with…

My wife bought me one these yesterday. I have to say I will never use a mouse again. This thing is amazing. It's taking me time to learn all the gestures, but, so far it makes things so much easier. 2 fingers up or down to scroll pages. 2 fingers right or left to go back or forward. 1 finger click. 1 finger hold to highlight text then release and right click menu pops up. That's only the tip of the iceberg. You can configure it to different things in different apps. Once I get my head around all the standard features I'll get into creating app specific. I have tried trackpads in the past and never could get used to them. Now I don't know how I got along without one.…

Cyber-crooks have used the open-source code of the EDA2 ransomware to create the Magic ransomware strain, which has been spotted in real-life attacks against users in the past few days. This is the second time this happens, after the open-sourced code of the Hidden Tear ransomware was also deployed in live attacks around two weeks ago via the RANSOM_CRYPTEAR.B ransomware family. No happy ending for Magic ransomware victims Creator of both projects is Turkish security researcher Utku Sen, who says that both his projects, Hidden Tear and EDA2, were published only for educational purposes. For RANSOM_CRYPTEAR.B victims, the story had a happy ending, as Utku Sen r…

I was looking at a customer's machine this afternoon which took a long time to boot. As I recall, there was a black screen with the white arrow cursor. This lasted a couple of minutes. This is a Lenovo T540P laptop i5-4200M @ 2.5 GHz Purchased 2/22/2015 RAM: 4 GB I installed the machine. It was originally Windows 7. He fell to the MS Window 10 'upgrade'. Customer is older and doesn't so much other than check his email using his company's Outlook webaccess via a browser. He also reads news on-line. He uses Norton Internet Security What I'm wondering is if what I was seeing had to do with Windows 10 updates. Maybe updates were going on in the background…

When a company hires a telemarketing contractor, and that company makes telemarketing calls on your behalf, should you be held responsible for what that contractor does? This week, a trial in federal court began against Dish Network, where the feds and four state governments are seeking more than $24 billion in fines against the satellite TV company to resolve accusations that it made illegal calls. Dish is accused of making (or having made on its behalf) more than 55 million telemarketing calls and telemarketing robocalls to landlines and mobile numbers. Dish Network counters that these calls were made way back in 2008, and compares the fine to the mere $75,000 th…

Some Phillips s307 Android smartphones come with a pre-installed trojan (Android.Cooee.1) that shows ads and animations on the user's main screen, and cannot be removed without a firmware update or after going through a complicated series of steps, as Dr.Web, a Russian antivirus maker, is reporting. The adware was initially spotted in October but was only found on low-end Android smartphones from a series of unknown manufacturers. A recent incident has brought the trojan back into Dr.Web's attention when Android.Cooee was found in high-end smartphones manufactured by Phillips (the s307 series). Android.Cooee in the Android OS system loader The trojan is pre-in…