Archive for the ‘tech’ Category

You have some patching to do

Posted: December 17, 2008 by datechguy in tech, Uncategorized
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This is job one Wednesday morning for you all:

Microsoft Corp. is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.

The “zero-day” vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims’ machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don’t have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer’s programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used Web browser.

Well you shouldn’t worry, its not like Internet explorer has 89% of the browser market. Oh wait:

Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated “critical,” for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.

Well if you have your updates set to 3 a.m. and you leave the pc off then the auto update will not to squat for you. Personally I’d run a manual update and make sure that it is taken care of.

The download is not available yet, I’ll link to it as soon as possible but the recommended actions are listed here.

Of course you an always use firefox instead.

The patch is now available.

A flaw in IE. Who woulda thunk it?

Posted: December 16, 2008 by datechguy in tech
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You know the only thing that really surprises me after all these years is that every now and again I’m surprised by Microsoft security holes:

Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday.

The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims’ machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.

I thought the yahoo page on my sister-in-law’s infected PC had a Chinese flavor to it. Guess I was right. This is what firefox is for.

And if you don’t have a secondary browser on your system. Get one, I don’t care which.

Net is back but town still wacked

Posted: December 16, 2008 by datechguy in employment, tech
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Well I came home from a job interview to two happy sights: My first unemployment check finally showed up. (should be direct deposit from this point on).

And Comcast is back up including cable and net!

Incredibly the houses across the street, to the right of me and behind me are still all without power. We are the end of the power supply. Trash pickup however took place as normal.

Some neighbors have generators but most have relocated themselves for the duration. There will be no school here tomorrow (although Leominster is still iffy on that for tomorrow.)

Lunenburg has decided to cut its losses and keep schools closed until after the new year.

There is some nasty weather coming in the area tomorrow night so the already overworked power crews are going to be really on the spot to try to get people up before then.

But my situation means that blogging will become semi regular again tomorrow will have to get the minor brush removed.

The Ice storm commith power down those PC’s

Posted: December 12, 2008 by datechguy in tech, Uncategorized
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That nasty Ice storm that was supposed to hit us earlier today finally has gotten here, power just flickered on and off in the house.

Depending on if it goes off again and stays off blogging may be spotty for the next 24 hours, but we’ll see.

BTW If you have a PC that you normally leave on and you are in the same boat as me it would be a good idea to power it down and/or disconnect it from a plug. Electrical issues along with heat and teenagers/relatives are the top killers of PC’s.

“But tech guy” you say “I have a surge protector and/or an uninterruptable power supply connected to my PC.” Let me put it this way. It takes a few minutes to shut down the machine and disconnect stuff. If either the surge or the backup power supply fails what would you rather do: spend a few minutes re-connecting devices or putting in a claim on the guarantee provided by the makers of those things?

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