Nobody Lies on the Internet... Right?

On a quiet September morning I logged into Facebook to see what my fellow intarweb denizens were doing only to find this plastered all over my wall:

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO...IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY.

 WTF? Again? Didn't they already snuff this rumor? Well much to my chagrin, I saw more and more of my friends falling for this and littering my intarwebs with it so now I feel I must do what I can to educate people. Bear with me, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

How to Tell if Something on the Internet is Fake (Generally):

1. If it is in all caps, it is most likely fake. Yes, some people use caps to drive home a point, but if it was real, it would be done sparingly. Most people would caps a SINGLE word to drive home a point, NOT THE WHOLE POST.
2. There is no way to accurately measure the results of forwarded / spammed / re-posted crap. No company uses it because it is impossible for them to determine a result. If a single poster were to change a single letter of the post down-line in the marketing campaign would fail to register. Companies use actual metrics such as "Like" clicks or unique page hits to determine popularity. This kind of gullibility hoax has been used for many years on the internet. People get a kick out of seeing how many people they can get to spread their chain-spam. No format is safe, email, every IM in existence, My Space, now Facebook... they have all had similar scams.
3. Check it out on Snopes.com ! Snopes is a rumor and urban legend database that will tell you if something is real or not. Before sending or posting a chain-letter, check them out. It may save you some embarrassment.
4. The bigger and more intrusive the ad, the more likely it is to be fake. Ever see those ads that flash and say you are the 1,000,000,000th visitor? Win a free ______ by just clicking here or taking a survey? Those are ALL fake. Period. They will string you along and make you think they just need a bit more info... would you like free car insurance quotes? All you need to do is sign up for this MasterCard and you get your free iPod no matter what! - Yea... no... those are fake my friend. You end up giving out personal information and signing up for even more spam.
5. B.S. Proof - Your Facebook Icon will turn Blue indicating that you successfully spammed your friends so now FB will be free... really? Have you ever seen Facebook? Blue is Facebook's trademarked color. It is and always has been blue. Take a good look at the "proof" that is offered and many times you will find it is even more B.S. than the post itself.
6. If something makes you share it with your friends before you can access the information (share this to at least 10 Facebook friends to see this shocking picture!) it's fake. Not only is it fake, and most likely leading to malicious software, you have now recommended it to your friends as well... that ought to get you invited to the next family Bris.

This all stems from this Weekly World News post:
FACEBOOK TO CHARGE USERS! | Weekly World News
Which also reported on:
ALIEN SPACESHIPS TO ATTACK EARTH IN NOVEMBER! | Weekly World News
KIM KARDASHIAN’S BUTT EXPLODES | Weekly World News
and
FACEBOOK WILL END ON MARCH 15th, 2012! | Weekly World News
Totally. Reputable. 

Other Hoax Examples:
AOL Circa 2004-2005:

Dear America Online and Instant Messages users:

Our America online staff is planning to take away IM
by July
18th, 2005. If you want to keep our IM free of charge,
send this email to
everyone you know. It will be used as a petition. Each
person you send
this to counts as one "signature" If this petition
gets 100,000 signatures
they will keep AOL IM.

Yahoo IM:

HERE WE GO AGAIN GUYS, JUST KEEP PASSING THE MESSAGES ALONG....... SORRY TO BREAK THE NEWS BUT HAVE 8 DAYS OR U CAN SAY GOODBYE TO UR ACCOUNT.YAHOO IS GOING TO CHARGE $10.00 A MONTH FOR INSTANT MESSANGER TO WHOEVER DOESNT SEND THIS MESSAGE.UR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE. LOVE U ALL .....

Another AOL /AIM:

Dear AIM users,Because of our overloading of our servers, we are being forced to extract our non-active AIM users. Because this is a free service, AOL has exceeded the budget for the AIM service. We are asking that you send this exact message to 20 other AIM users to ensure us that you're an active AIM user. Our system tracking devise will pick up this message to keep you on our active list. You have 72 hours to complete this task or your service will be cancelled immediately. Starting JulY 30, 2005, we will be charging a small fee for registering of a screen name for AIM. Thank you for your time and for using AOL or AIM.Sincerely,Mark Jenkins AOL Owner and Founder

Facebook - 2010:

Dear Facebook Members,

Facebook is suppose to be closing down March 15th it has recently becoming very overpopulated. There have been many members complaining that Facebook is becoming very slow. Records show that the reason is that there are many active Facebook members and, on the other side, many new Facebook members.

We will be sending this message around to see if members are active or not. If you are active please send to at least 15 other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are still active. *Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks will be deleted without hesitation to create more space.*

Send this message to all your friends and to show me that your still active and you will not be deleted.

Founder of Facebook,

Mark Zuckerberg .

Another Facebook - July 2011 (before the changes):

Its official.. signal at 12;20 it even passed on tv. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message if not your count will be deleted. p.s, this is serious the icon turns blue, So please put this as your status

Anyone see a pattern here?

Update; I just found these and they need to be added here:

 

48 hours of Windows 8

Before I really get into this, please let me point out that at the time of this writing, Windows 8 is in a Developer's Preview (pre-beta) so it is VERY rough. I would also like to point out that I did early testing for both Windows Vista (Longhorn) and Windows 7 and I absolutely HATED both of them. Upon actual release, however, I loved them, so keep that in mind as you read on.

The Windows Developer Preview (Windows 8) can be found HERE for any of you brave enough to try it yourself. This is NOT a stable release however so do not expect it to run perfectly.

First Impressions
After downloading the 64-bit version .iso and burning it to a disk I performed a clean install. The very first thing I noticed was that it did not ask me for a username and password, instead it asked for my Windows Live credentials and used them.

I was not overly thrilled about that since I barely use my Windows Live account, but it's not really any different than Android using Google accounts so I played along.

Once the installation was finished, I was presented with this screen... this is the new Metro Start ...page? menu? whatever you call it, it's pretty Metro.

You may be asking why I am using camera shots, and not screenshots... at this point I still had no idea how to take screenshots with Windows 8. Here is the Start screen scrolled to the far right.

As you can see, I had already pinned Facebook to the start screen. It appears kind of like a widget on a phone OS and can be moved around to any location on the Start screen.

My first impression: I did not like it... this was not my phone it was my computer, but I decided to keep an open mind. 

Figuring Things Out

The interface was obviously made for a touch screen. The manipulation of the screen is a bit awkward with a mouse, especially when you are supposed to swipe (click and drag with a mouse). Shortly after installation the OS installed some updates and I was prompted to reboot. What appeared on reboot was a pleasant picture with a clock. And that's it. Only after clicking around did I (accidentally) figure out I was supposed to swipe the picture up to gain access to the login screen.

After a bit more fumbling around, I found the Desktop. This screenshot shows both monitors as I saw them:

here is a closeup of the watermark:

The quality is kinda bad, but that's because it was taken with the camera on my phone and the monitor sits at an angle on my desk.

I started playing with some of the Apps Yes, I said Apps, that's what they are called in this version. When you install a new program, you are told you have installed a new App (short for application). Not sure why, I guess App is more Metro than Program... but I digress...

The pre-installed apps were pretty much useless, some were little time-killer games, and some flat out refused to work...
This one is called Paint Play:

It is kind of like paint, only much more useless. As far as I can tell all you can do with it is draw... different pen sizes and colors... neato. I assume you can collaborate with friends on it, as that would be its only saving grace.


The Socialite app, on the other hand is pretty cool. Like its Apple OS predecessor, Socialite is a social networking all-in-one collaboration kind of like Friend Stream for Android. It allows you to view friend streams from multiple sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc...

This is the main page, once you connect it to accounts the pictures here are replaces with ones from your actual feeds.

Here is a picture of the screenshot sharing through Socialite, unfortunately, I never figured out how to hide the green side panel... it wasn't really a priority.

Why I Went Back to Windows 7
I never intended on leaving this OS on my system, but I wanted to use it at least a week. Unfortunately, I was unable to because I need my computer to be able perform basic functions. One of the most basic functions, that of my standard SATA DVD-RW was not working. The same DVD-RW I used to burn the .iso and install Windows 8. The device still showed up fine in BIOS but was missing in Windows 8. That was the killing blow, but not the only problem. Other problems included:

• My anti-virus would not install (Vipre)
• My wife HATED it
• My DVD-RW was not found
• iMon (my front-panel LCD software) would not load
• This:

 Seemingly random, if I walked away from the computer for a few minutes, I had about a 1/3 chance of returning to this screen. It is solid black with a clock flashing 12:00. I could not get rid of it, no matter what I tried. I always had to do a hard reboot to get rid of it.

In Conclusion
Windows 8 looks like a cross between Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7. I think it will be an interesting OS, and be great for mobile devices (tablets, netbooks, phones, etc.) but I am still unconvinced that it is going to be a great computer OS. Windows Explorer (the bread-and-butter of the file system) seems to be an afterthought. While many believe that the future of computers is cloud-based software, there are still those of us that use our computers as computers... not as internet appliances.

Tip: Get a second opinion.

I am going to let everyone in on a trade secret. This may get me hate mail or even death threats from the "computer geek" crowd, but I am sick of people getting screwed because of incompetence.... so here it is:

If a "computer geek" can not figure out a problem, they will try to save face by talking over your head and telling you it is not fixable. They will never tell you they don't know; no matter what their skill level is the answer will be if I can't fix it, its not fixable.

I met a customer this week who has a "computer geek" friend he lets work on all his stuff. He called me with a laptop that his friend had messed up while trying to install Windows 7. After I fixed it, and explained to him (nicely) that his friend didn't know what the hell he was doing, he started telling me about all of the other "un-fixable" computers he had.

The guy starts bringing out computers from a back room that he has been told by the "computer geek friend" could not be fixed. About that time, his friend showed up and there was one computer that he assured me was "fried". He explained to me that it overheated and either the MB or CPU was junk.

The customer was upset about it because it was his favorite computer so I told him I would take a look at it and if there was nothing I could do, I wouldn't charge him. The friend scoffed and started talking to me about all the stuff he knew, apparently trying to test my knowledge.

People who know me know I am a bit cocky when it comes to my abilities of computer work, but I do not brag to people, I just let my work do the talking. That changes in the presence of self-proclaimed gurus. I love to call them out on their bullshit.

Among other things, he starts telling me about this brand-new OS coming out called Ubuntu and asks if I have ever seen it. (Ubuntu has been out a bit over 6 years now) He starts telling me about how great it is and how its going to kill Windows... and how Bill Gates is a greedy bastard (For those that don't know, Bill Gates is no longer CEO of Microsoft and spends the majority of his time with his wife giving his mass fortune away to charities via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

He continues to tell me about how dangerous water-cooling systems are, how a router can make a single computer internet connection faster, and how most motherboards can use either an AMD or Intel CPU (all of which is bullshit by the way) and once I was finished schooling him on all that I took the customer's poor un-fixable computer with me.

Long story, but here's the punchline: The un-fixable computer had a loose wire from the power supply and is now up and running fine. It's a miracle I tell ya.

Staying clean while doing dirty - Part One: FrostWire

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Thanks for reading! I look forward to your comments!

You can never find a virus when you want one.

For a long time now, I have been wanting to write a piece on avoiding and removing the "Fake Anti-virus Virus (AKA Antivirus 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. etc.). I figured since it is the most common virus I see when customers bring me computers, it must be easy to get.

Today I set out to get the damn thing on purpose. I first disabled active protection on both my anti virus ( I use Vipre), and Malwarebytes anti-malware (Which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone without sufficient malware protection). Then I thought of a list of places that are likely to have viruses:

• Porn sites
• Warez / Serialz sites
• Shock sites
• Free Games sites
• Free cursors / browser add-ons / IM smileys / screensavers
• Free computer Tune Up programs (registry cleaners, speed up my PC crap, etc.)

I surfed and clicked randomly on all of the above sites for about an hour (some more than others *cough*) and tried like crazy to get a virus. I installed a few programs: UniBlue Registry Booster, PCKeeper, some keygen downloader for AVG serials, and some virtual pet browser addon called Guffins all while making sure NOT to un-check the added garbage options.

I was sure by this point I had a virus. Knowing that the Fake Antivirus viruses only launch on reboot, I rebooted my computer to see what I had. The first thing I noticed is that there were several more icons on my desktop, even more than the trash I installed:

But nothing at all that could be considered a virus. I opened Internet Explorer, and became optomistic when I saw Malwarebytes (which had re-enabled itself on reboot) post this:

 After clicking quarantine about 6 times to get rid of all the warnings, I was a bit disappointed to find that it was only Ad-ware, not the virus I was seeking.

The programs installed were annoying. They kept warning me about potential problems with popups that wanted me to buy the "full version" of their software, but if they were removable with Windows add-and-remove programs feature, they weren't viruses.

As I began to uninstall them I noticed there were a few more programs on the list I had not installed:

• WeatherBug
• more Free Games
• Play MY Games
• File Hunter

 Again, annoying, but not viruses. But my question is: If I can not get this virus in an hour of TRYING TO, how the heck are my customers getting it so often?


I guess I will have to wait on posting about the Fake Anti-virus Virus until I get another customer with it. That is unless someone can clue me in on where to get it.

Internet Explorer 9 is trying to break me and Microsoft up

I am what you would call a fan of Microsoft. Until recently, I have been in love with almost all of their software (Microsoft Security Essentials ended up being too needy so I dumped it). When I first heard about Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) I was giddy! I have been using IE for what seems like forever.

I would cheat on IE occasionally... I used Firefox and Chrome for some Facebook games but IE was always my go-to (default) browser. I have always been into beta testing software (trying the software before it is officially released to the public) and IE9 was no different. The day it was released in beta I did not hesitate to download and install it.

At first, everything seemed great! A nice, fast browser that seemed to flow perfectly with the rest of my computer. Over the course of several days, I started to notice that a lot of sites with form data were not working correctly. I thought little of it until I was on a government site filling out my FASFA information. I received a warning that my version of IE was not supported, but I ignored it thinking  Bah! Microsoft wouldn't release anything that wasn't backward compatible out of the box, it will work fine!  Well, when I went to submit my information, the browser locked up and I was unable to submit my information.

Oh, silly me, I should use compatibility mode, its just a temporary bug, they will work it out soon. It's new! Give em a break!

Compatibility mode didn't work either. Then I remembered all of the other sites I had been to where the form data didn't work. I did some testing and, sure enough, other browsers worked fine on those sites; IE9 did not. To hell with this, I uninstalled IE 9 and rolled back to 8 and I had my lovely relationship back... for a while

A few months later, IE9 was released as an optional download for Windows. Surely all the bugs had been worked out by now, right? I downloaded it again and this time, when I opened it for the first time, it took a LONG time to open... like 30 seconds or more on a fresh install (I have a30Mbps cable connection). I was a bit upset, but still kept playing with it... the initial lag in opening was soon forgotten and I continued to surf with my new best friend. For a few days, things went smooth... I was annoyed that the initial start up of the program took a while, but I remedied that by leaving it open whenever I could.

And then the crashes came. For no damn reason IE9 would crash and have to recover. I could just be reading a page and it would crash and recover... not too often, but the fact that it was happening at all was pissing me off. I uninstalled IE9 and once again rolled back to 8. I was very disappointed, but I was confident it would be fixed soon.

Eventually, IE9 became a "recommended" update and my computer, like an unattended child, installed the unwanted software. Now, I thought, it has to be fixed! Nope. Same long delay in opening, same form problems, same random crashes. My heart is broken.

I am currently writing this from Firefox. I still have IE9, but I loathe using it for anything. It is simply clunky and unreliable. The only thing I use it for now is streaming media (Netflix, Hulu, etc.). Firefox and Chrome are now the bread-and-butter of my Internet experience.

I still love Microsoft, but I hate it when I have to tell a customer Yea, I have that same problem with IE9. Your choices are to deal with it, or we get you another browser... And I, am just a little bit dead inside. I am actually ashamed FOR Microsoft about IE9.

About this blog.

Greetings folks,

I am a 36 year old computer repair and support business owner from Warsaw, Indiana. I have over 13 years experience of hands-on computer experience ranging from basic coding to designing and installing complete custom systems. I am currently back in school working on the 4th year of my bachelor's degree in Information Technology Support. My intentions with this blog are to help everyday users understand their computers and help them have a more pleasant experience on the Internet.

I know there are plenty of sites on the web offering help, but I plan to do things a bit different: I will take the time to understand the questions and instead of just provide an answer, I will attempt to explain the reasons behind them in realistic terms.

In addition, I will use this blog to write about computer-related experiences and rants that may help other readers as well... or just help me not climb a clock tower... whichever.