Tech Help and Discussions

Five years after building its first HTML5 video player Facebook has finally moved entirely away from Flash for video. Facebook has moved to HTML5 by default in all browsers for web videos that appears on its News Feed, Pages and the embedded Facebook video player. Setting Adobe's Flash aside for video marks a significant change for the company, which built its first HTML5 video player five years ago. Back then it only supported iPhones and iPads, but retained Flash for other mobile browsers due to it outperforming HTML5. Despite seeing promise in HTML5 for video, Facebook has outlined the numerous challenges that have kept it from making a complete switch from F…

Security researchers from FortiNet and Heimdal Security are reporting on a new set of ransomware campaigns distributing CryptoLocker and CryptoWall ransomware, ramping up just before the holidays. In both cases, attackers are using business-themed emails, either for unpaid invoices, or for shipping notices, which are either luring users into downloading and unzipping archives, or clicking on malicious links that infect them with the ransomware via a Web-based exploit kit. Heimdal Security is reporting on a barrage of spam emails sent to Scandinavian users, that infect them with CryptoLocker version 2. This is an older version, but still efficient enough. On the …

One of my computers (fortunately "only" a backup one) - Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit) wanted to install updates last night (it was set to "Download updates but let me choose when to install them") and I lazily left it doing it on shutdown and went to bed, without looking to see what they were... and now this morning it won't boot. I just get a "Your computer was unable to start" box and it goes through its "Windows is looking for a solution..." routine, then re-boots, and round and round we go.... :( I have managed to get (using the prompts) to a command window, as admin.... I'm hoping there is maybe some way of finding out what the last updates were and uninstalling the…

Hey guys, on power on I am seeing the asus logo and a spinning wheel, that's as far as it gets. I tried pressing shift+f8 to go into recovery but that doesn't work, help please?

Hey guys, I reloaded vista on this compaq presario sr2170nx desktop. It's missing th PCI simple communications driver, looking at the driver page: http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/Compaq-Presario-SR2000-Desktop-PC-series/3339270/model/3340206 I am not seeing a chipset driver or the PCI driver, help please?

An image backup copies everything on your drive—operating system, boot sector, programs, and data files—into one compressed but still very large file. If disaster renders your Windows installation useless, an image backup will allow you to get it up and running again quickly. I recommend you create an image backup, saving it to an external hard drive, three or four times a year. This is in addition to the far more important daily file backup of your data. Creating an image backup in Windows 10 Plug in your external hard drive—which should have enough free space to hold everything on your internal drive. Make sure Windows can access the drive. In Windows’ …

The myth of iOS being more secure than Android is being slowly eroded with each new security report released. The latest to take a swipe at Apple iOS' reputation is one from mobile security vendors Checkmarx and AppSec Labs. After analyzing hundreds of Android and iOS applications, the two companies' security researchers can claim that they've found more security vulnerabilities that rank as High and Critical in iOS products. The percentage of vulnerabilities that researchers can label as High and Critical is 40% for iOS apps, but only 36% for Android applications. Nine vulnerabilities for each tested mobile application Researchers from the two companies ana…

Hey guys, all you techs out there, would you mind telling me what is the most requested pc repair for you please? My research is showing virus issues as the most requested, it is the same for you?

Microsoft has unpublished temporarily the latest Windows 10 Mobile build from its servers while it works to fix installation problems. Microsoft has removed the latest Windows 10 Mobile build it made available to Lumia 950 and 950 XL users due to installation problems. A Microsoft Answers forum moderator acknowledged Microsoft had unpublished Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.29 from its public update servers due to a variety of problems experienced by some of those trying to put the latest release on their Windows 10 phones.(Thanks to Johan van Mierlo for the link to the post.) While some Lumia 950 XL users said they were unable to install the 10586.29 build since D…

If you visit torrent search websites to pirate software, the risk isn't only through the law. Hundreds of websites used to find links to torrent files for downloading pirated content are serving millions of visitors malware every month, new research has discovered. While there is a current misconception that torrent search websites -- such as the Pirate Bay and KickAss Torrents -- are only used to facilitate piracy, this isn't the case. Torrent files facilitate the download of large files across peer-to-peer networking, and in itself this technology is not illegal and can be highly useful in finding license-free content or sharing large files with one another. …

Considering the scammers seem to be getting more persuasive at writing their scam mails, and also so far I cannot seem to find any news from Microsoft about this, I am a bit concerned about this E Mail! Why send it and ask you to look for and install an update that I would expect to come in with normal updates? Here is a copy, unless you know for sure they are OK don't click any links :- Important information about your email service Dear user, In a few weeks, we will be making some changes to our email services that might impact your @outlook.com, @hotmail, @live or @msn email account. These changes will prevent your email from being delivered to the Windows Li…

Hello I often fail SFC. I used to fix it with the DISM health command but lately I cannot. There has been a big discussion in either a Win 7 or 10 forum about a new way. You click on a zip file with the word HEALTH in it. The rest was over my head. I cannot remember the forum but if anyone knows how to do this and can slowly explain it, it would save me tons of time having to either recover an image or reset. I get corruption too much and don't know why. My wife's PC is almost identical to mine but she is OK with SFC. I was so wrapped up i forgot to get the details but one had to do with failing to get the "source." I had not removed the win.old yet and have an re ins…

I subscribe to "Windows Secrets Newsletter". Some users claim that adobe is telling people to stop using "Flash". It appears that Flash is a security risk. Is there any validity to this? http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/173156-Adobe-is-telling-people-to-stop-using-Flash

In the midst of all the shopping on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Wet and Wild Wednesday, Thanksgiving 2.0 For People Who Were Out Of Town Or In The Hospital Last Week Thursday, and Black Friday All Over Again Because Why Not?, there are oodles of Amazon packages landing on shoppers’ doorsteps. In some rare cases, those packages might end up on the wrong doorstep, so why does Amazon not seem terribly concerned about getting those items back? This was the question posed by Consumerist reader Bobby, who didn’t realize until after the box was opened that one of the Amazon packages they received this week was actually intended for someone who had previous…

The software giant will no longer update older versions of Internet Explorer, leaving millions without patches or security updates. Millions of Internet Explorer users have just five weeks to upgrade to a newer browser before security patches dry up. Microsoft blasted a reminder to users earlier this week that after January 12 there will be no more patches to protect against drive-by downloads and other browser vulnerabilities. That doesn't bode well for the millions affected, considering almost every month Internet Explorer remains one of the most likely targets of hackers and attackers. As many as 124 million users are running Internet Explorer 10 and e…

A new password-stealing attack helps hackers to target other sites and services. A new "cocktail" of malware is stealing passwords before locking out Windows users from their machines. A number of badly-secured sites are redirecting visitors to sites that serve up the notorious Angler exploit kit, which helps hackers conduct drive-by attacks on visitors' computers with relative ease. This kind of attack is especially sneaky as it can be done automatically and without the user's knowledge. Once the exploit kit finds a vulnerable app, such as Flash, the kit delivers its malicious payload. According to a blog post by Heimdal Security, a widely-used data thi…

Hey guys, every now and then while typing the caps lock button will work the opposite and I will need to restart windows to correct this, I am guessing that I am accidentally hitting some key my mistake that's causing this so what I am seeking is way to correct this whenever it happens without having to restart windows, any ideas please?

The company said most Windows PCs are "automatically protected." Windows PCs will no longer trust Dell's self-signed root certificate, amid concerns it can be used to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks on millions of computers. Microsoft said in a security bulletin that it updated its certificate list to revoke its trusted status. It's the second strike the software and services giant has taken against the certificate, days after it updated Windows Defender -- installed on all modern Windows machines -- to remove the vulnerability. Dell installed the "eDellRoot" certificate on support tools it bundles with its PCs, but security experts warned the certificat…

Shadow Volume Copies have been a feature since Windows Vista that allows snapshots, or backups, of your files to be saved even when the files are currently in use. These snapshots will attempt to be created every day and allows you to restore documents to previous versions or even to restore them if they were deleted. This same technology is also used by the Windows' System Restore feature that allows you to roll back Windows to a previously working configuration in case there is a problem. Since Windows Vista, Microsoft has been bundling a utility called vssadmin.exe in Windows that allows an administrator to manage the Shadow Volume Copies that are on the compute…

This technology is 100 times faster than Wi-Fi By Donald Armbrecht Nov 24 2015 https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/11/t...ampaign=buffer A new technology, known as Li-Fi, could one day offer internet speeds one hundred times faster than the Wi-Fi we use today. Scientists have achieved speeds in the lab of up to 224 GB per second. That’s the equivalent of downloading 18 movies in the blink of an eye. Li-Fi, or light fidelity, is now moving to trials in the real world, with office tests in Tallin, Estonia achieving speeds of 1 GB per second, 100 times the speed of traditional Wi-Fi. The limits of Wi-Fi For those who remember 56k modems, Wi-Fi feels like a rapid and…

Hey guys just checking to see if vipre is now a better choice according to this: http://www.pcantivirusreviews.com/Comparison/Editors-Choice-2016.html?avrtsid=2

In Windows 10 you’ve got tons of choices for desktop programs, and apps from the Windows Store can be useful too. But there are still probably a few key webpages you turn to every day instead of a desktop program or modern UI app. Wouldn’t you love to have those key sites available to you on the Windows 10 Start menu? Here’s how to do that. The Edge way Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 has pin-to-Start functionality built-in. Open Microsoft Edge and then navigate to the page you want to add. In the upper right-hand corner, click the three horizontal dots, and then from the drop down menu select Pin this page to Start. A pop-up window will appear asking you to…