It’s been a nice and rainy week in Portland, but that doesn’t mean you need to let your guard down!

Today’s post, is brought to you by the letter “R”, for Ransom-ware. Ransom-ware is software that makes it onto your computer, usually mysteriously, then holds your files captive until you pay a fee. This can be a product that’s sold or a virus that holds your MP3′s hostage.

Recently, Sunbelt Software – Protocol16′s recommended anti-virus company, discovered a new “in the wild” ransom-ware package that encrypts the contents of your hard drive (this is actually arguable as to if it encrypts or just causes problems). This means that your hard drive cannot be read within minutes of having the software installed.

After installation, you’re left with the following message:

Ransom-ware from Data Doctor. Shutdown message.

If you get this, it’s too late… The hard drive (specific files, actually), has been encrypted and you’re left with a Windows mess that barely works.

After you see this message and your computer shuts down, you’re stuck with a message stating that “Windows has recovered from serious error. Some files can be corrupted. Disk checking is strongly recommended.” This is NOT a Windows error.

Upon attempting to access a file that’s been encrypted, you’re met with another error message stating: “Unable to open the file due to data corruption.” Upon clicking the “Repair” button, you see the next screen:

Data Doctor 2010, Requesting Payment.

Hey look everyone, my favorite topic! Software asking for credit card information…

Some files may or may not be encrypted, but the software will continue to nag you to purchase it. They’ll even charge you an activation fee so they don’t need to pay any fee’s for the credit card being run.

Don’t install this program. PLEASE don’t.

I’ll fire up a Virtual Machine here shortly and make an infection video for everyone to see how this works as well.

If you’re reading this and curious what we recommend for anti-virus software, we heavily recommend Vipre. We are a local reseller, so if you’re interested, give us a call and we should be able to get you a discount.
Justin

Protocol16 mainly caters to business and small office/home office customers throughout Portland. As such, we offer maintenance & monitoring contracts. Well, a recent customer pointed out that he didn’t require me on site every month, just every once in awhile. So, for these situation, I created two more DEEPLY discounted plans!

“Every Other Month” – 1 hour, every other month, for 1 year: Protocol16 will show up at a pre-determined date and time to check your computer for hardware and software problems, check the log files, ensure that your antivirus and windows updates are working properly, as well as spend time with you to answer any questions and solve any other issues that may arise. Up to our computers will also be physically cleaned, inside and out, 3 times a year. Price: $399.99  – Normal Price: $599.64 Prices do not include any needed hardware. Extra hours, beyond the plan limits, are billed at $66/hr.

“Every Quarter” – 1 hour, every 3 months, for 1 year: Protocol16 will show up at a pre-determined date and time to check your computer for hardware and software problems, check the log files, ensure that your antivirus and windows updates are working properly, as well as spend time with you to answer any questions and solve any other issues that may arise. We will remotely monitor up to 3 workstations and we’ll physically clean up to 3 computers on each visit, inside and out. Price: $259.99  – Normal Price: $459.64 Prices do not include any needed hardware. Extra hours, beyond the plan limits, are billed at $66/hr.

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! We’re always here to help and it’s our goal to leave you with a smile on your face.
Justin

Protocol16 works closely with other computer shops across the country on a forum where we can all talk, share ideas and alert each other of problems. In this case, our early warning system worked. It just so happens, that a computer shop in the northwest happened to pick up, locate and alert everyone to the virus issue.

This virus causes redirects from Google to other websites. For instance, if you do a search for McAfee or something else anti virus related in Bing, Yahoo or Google, you may or may not be redirected to a random website instead of the intended page.

It’s been noticed that most anti virus solutions are not correctly identifying this issue yet, and if you have anti virus loaded on your machine and you’re infected, your anti virus software will not find the infected files.

If you have this type of problem, please give us, or your local computer repair company – if you’re not around Portland, a call.
Justin

While I’ve seen the commercials over the years, I always thought there was something more to the “I’m giving away free classes” commercial. The whole “Try my product” at the end just made it cheesier.

Well, this week, the stuff hit the proverbial fan about Video Professor.

The service basically acts like many other types of scams where you are charged for shipping and handling for one item. After that, if you don’t return that item within a “review period”, you are signed up, and charged for, a much more expensive subscription service. This charge is not detailed on the checkout, but instead on a link detailed next to a Checkbox that states “I have read and agree to xxx” (The same type of agreement no one reads…). If you click the link, you get a decent amount of text that details this: “we’ll conveniently bill your credit card just $189.95” – direct quote from here.

While you can certainly learn things from this series, I would not recomend signing up for anything with this company. The company is known to be deceptive and has even attempted to get people wanting & needing jobs to sign up for the scam as well.
Justin

A common misconception among a lot of my customers here in the Portland area is that computer companies and the technicians never have problems, this will help correct that assumption.

Protocol16 runs a Small Business Server (SBS 2008) for our internal shop. It has everything that we need, all in one nice “little” package. Well, that nice little package can mean that if one bad thing happens, nothing works (rare, but possible). That was the case on today.

Last night, after I returned home from a family event, I decided to go ahead and install the latest Microsoft Updates. We don’t automatically install updates on the server since they can cause problems for a number of things. Well, last night, the updates installed, I allowed the server to restart and went to bed. The next morning, I fired up my email and got nothing, along with a “Disconnected” message in the bottom right corner of Outlook. To a lot of people, this is where they start picking up the phone. I had to turn around and log into the server, to which it promptly locked up. Oh, what fun…

A reboot later, I found the problem and corrected it. Another reboot and the server was up and running. Goes to show that we’re not impervious to problems ourselves.

On a side note, the problem was a simple one, but caused all kinds of problems on the server – everything was throwing errors, locking up, etc. I just might hobble our server when we start interviewing for our next technician to see how they perform in a real-world scenario… Again, we hire the best technicians, if a simple server problem like this throws them through a loop, they’re not going to make it with our customers either.

Hope everyone has a decent Black Friday. We found some really nice deals ourselves and will be passing the savings on to our customers later.
Justin

I get asked this all the time, and most recently yesterday afternoon while working on a client’s computer.

So, here are my current recommendations:

Currently Running XP: No, unless you want to spend more money for the newest thing. Windows XP does not transfer to Windows 7 easily. There are 3 ways to upgrade it, all are considered costly and may cause Windows 7 to run slower, or you’ll be missing some things. It’s best that you wait until you either buy a new computer or you start running into issues where programs just don’t like to run anymore. At that time, you can make an informed decision on the hardware you’re using. Prices of computers and laptops are going down every day.

Currently Running Vista: Yes. The upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 is relatively painless. Protocol16 has done many upgrades for clients and we report a high success in our upgrades (actually, no failed upgrades yet).

Currently Running a NetBook: This is one of those hard decisions. Windows 7 will run on Netbooks, but it might be very slow, depending on the exact model you’re running. We’d need to know the model and a few other details to discuss it.

As always, if you have any questions and are anywhere near Portland, we’ll be more than happy to talk with you.
Justin

PS: We have some REALLY big news coming soon…

GOOOOD MORNING PORTLAND!

I found an interesting piece of news today that really caught my attention, and I wanted to comment on it.

The other day, the NSA testified that it had “worked on Windows 7” in conjunction with it’s release cycle. They basically stated that they worked with Microsoft during the build of Windows 7 (they did this with Vista as well) to make it more secure.

Well, the next day, various people started putting a few dots together and ended up screaming about back doors, black helicopters and government agents – you get the point.

While I know, for a fact, that Antivirus companies look the other way for specific things on computers – due to law enforcement, I haven’t seen anything on that fact for the government. As an ex-government employee, working around computers, I can say that the changes in security from XP to Vista to Windows 7 have been things the government had been doing for awhile.

There are certain ways to secure Windows, as well as other operating systems. The government has it’s own way of doing those things. I personally use some of these methods in my every day usage of my own computers. Protocol16 even uses some of these methods when securing client computers. One of the biggest things done is separating the Administrator from the User. Most people using XP or Vista use the computer in Admin mode. I’ve talked about this in the past, as well as how I think you should leave Universal Account Control (UAC) on, for security. Windows 7 takes that a step further by separating the tasks that someone does into 2 categories: User and Admin. Internet Explorer, when fired up – even from an Administrator, is started as a normal user. Even things like the Command Prompt (the older DOS looking screen with a black background and white text) is started as a User instead of Admin. These are things that I’m guessing came out of the recommendation from the Government.

I’ll give away another secret as well. The NSA is not the only organization that worked on Windows, and won’t be. Microsoft takes recommendations from thousands of companies every day. For instance, Dell worked on Windows 7 as well… They recommended changes to both Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 when they found issues with their own hardware. Even Microsoft’s current TV campaign of “I suggested X feature” tells that they do listen to feedback.

But, don’t believe all the hype. Many of the features in Windows 7 where, in fact, in Vista. I got worked up the other night (read: Yelled at the TV again), when I listened to a commercial talk about how Windows 7 has new child monitoring and the actor talked about how he had suggested it. That feature has been in Windows Vista since the beginning.

Make your own decisions based on what you think is right. The NSA doesn’t just work on Windows, they work on Linux and Unix too…
Justin

I get that a lot, and oh, I do mean A LOT. Most recently, it happened at a client’s office in Tigard.

The question refers to all kinds of things to include browsers, keyboards, mice, and even computer hardware. I generally answer as honestly as I can as well, but there are some things that people just don’t want to hear.

When I say that, I mean that I’m a little unique on what I use for various things. For instance, I use an Ergonomic keyboard. People think that’s pretty cool, until I show it to them (see it here). At one job, I had to keep a standard keyboard attached to my computer as well because of the amount of people that got really messed up trying to type on it.

At the same time, I use an ergonomic mouse (here). Most people think it’s pretty freakin’ cool and like the feel of it, until I show them the price tag (typically $99). That gets the “I’m in a glass shop, I’ve got to put this down REALLY carefully…” reaction going.

For my browser, I use Firefox. A lot of people have heard of it, some people haven’t, but to each his own. I personally like it since it auto-updates and allows me to install all kinds of neat tools that I use on a daily basis.

My point is, when you find something YOU like, use it. Don’t worry about the price tag. I spend 10+ hours a day in front of computers, unless I’m really busy that day. On a standard keyboard, my wrists start to hurt. On a standard mouse, I get cramps. While the examples I give are unique and expensive, they are well worth it, in my situation. To the few people that have actually been brave enough to sit down and force themselves to work with my keyboard and mouse for more than a few minutes, they’ve gone out and gotten the exact same setup for themselves – even after they’ve made fun of me. “A Mac user using a Microsoft keyboard! HA!”

Didn’t know I was a Mac user at home eh? It might surprise you how many computer professionals do use Macs…
Justin

Unless you were living under a rock last night, you noticed the wind, rain and, for some of us, the power outages & brownouts. If you were under a rock, in a hill or were in a valley, I hope you missed all the “fun”…

Unfortunately, not everything survived the ordeal. We’ve fixed 2 dead computers this morning (as of 8:30AM) due to power surges when the electricity kicked back on after a quick brownout.

We always recommend surge protectors UPS’ for servers and important machines, and this is why. Fortunately, the fixes for these machines are VERY quick and we managed to get our customers running again with no major damage other than bad power supplies.

Please note: Power Strips are not surge protectors. They typically maintain a very small fuse that doesn’t help in these situations.

Computers that are left plugged in during storms can have various problems without a surge protector or UPS. If you have any questions, please let us know.
Justin

Shopping local these days is a mantra many are repeating over and over. While Protocol16 competes with larger named companies, one of which mere blocks away from the home office (and it’s got a lot of horrid reviews…), there are several national companies that are franchised locally. You may not know it, but several of the other computer repair companies are franchised national companies (read: behind the scenes, there are Corporate bean counters, full marketing departments supporting a few people, etc).

Unfortunately, this mess is about to get just a little larger. It seems that Wal-Mart has decided to dive into the computer repair market to compete with the Geek Squad and other local businesses like Protocol16.

While there a few Wal-Mart’s in Oregon, there are several other competitors that I consistently hear complaints about. With Wal-Mart jumping into the fray, it shows a trend that I have been noticing as well – people are much more thrifty now. Many of my customers are opting to fix older computers rather than buy a new one – and I have no problem with that. Spending a little less money to limp a computer along another year is worth it for a lot of people in Portland, especially those still job hunting.

My main problem with the national competitors is that I’m seeing a huge trend of misinformation or a lot of installs lacking quality. While I don’t want to be specific on the things I’m seeing or who did it, there is a huge difference in quality depending on who works on your computer. It seems that the quality is directly related to two things:

1. Quality of employees. This is actually directly related to the amount of pay someone is getting. Myself, as well as other business owners, have noticed that the quality of applicants takes a nose dive at a specific dollar amount. Any company operating under that dollar amount is opening themselves up to a huge amount of applicants that are under-qualified to work on computers. Oddly, many of the companies operating under that dollar amount charge MORE than Protocol16 does.
2. The size of the company. The amount of employees causes a few problems. The environment is not cohesive to new and brilliant ideas – they get lost in the general chatter of the company. The other issue is that the more employees you have, the more likely you are to get someone that has no clue what happened last time you called or brought in your computer. So, that weird issue you get randomly when you open Office, you have to repeat the whole story to the next guy you talk to. If that next guy wants to get more money in commission off of selling you a computer, he just might ignore what you’re saying and tell you that the flux capacitor at checkpoint charlie is broken (note: neither of those exist in computers) and you need a new computer…

While we’d love for you to become a customer and use Protocol16 as your desktop or computer repair company, do your research and decide if one company in Portland or Beaverton or Hillsboro is the right company for you. I’ve been shopping local more and more, sometimes it’s more expensive, but in the end, it’s our community that I’m helping, not one a thousand miles away.
Justin