Why does my browser show messages about Site Certificates?

Site Certificates, ie the pop-up warnings that the site doesn't have a certificate, can be a nucance. But the warnings shouldn't be entirely dismissed. The problem is that some time, maybe the majority of the time, the warnings are "false positives." I don't have any guidance I can give on how to know other than to make sure the site has an "https:" beginning the links on the page are consistent with the site's url (same site name). When in doubt, I look at the source code (View.Page Source). That's a techy thing. So, when you are in doubt, then make a phone call to the site in question and tell them about your problem.

Kim Komando has some background on these Certificate Messages. (link)

Critical updates (AGAIN) on Tues 7/28!

Make sure you update on 7/28 to get two sets of updates, one critical and one important. Microsoft continues to have problems delivering reliable, secure code. Even the updates have security vulnerabilities that have to be patched at a later time!

Some good PC websites.

Here are some websites I scour for information that might be of interest to you. It may be that at times I forget to cite a source of my information, so I thought I would list some I use here:

• PCWorld magazine and their website.
• eweek. I have signed up for probably a dozen of their daily newsletters.
• cnet. Especially good when buying things.
• Kim Komando's web site (On WORD radio Sunday afternoon)
  

A really, really bad trojan/virus: W32.Lovgate.AC@mm

I found this really bad trojan on my father's computer. It's relatively old, but what it can do is a nightmare. I wonder if this was what was wrong with Mike's computer.

Here's a link to a description of this thing: link. To summarize, it decapitates your computer, destroys part of your registry, and starts sending emails to your email list. It's extremely difficult to get all of it out. You have to use several programs to clean up everything. And... well, read on.

The symptom that alerted me to the problem was when I ran the Glary Utilities Startup routine and found the program TKBELLEXE.EXE as a program that runs when the computer starts. I looked that up and found it was associated with this trojan. I ran SpyBot Search and Destroy, the free version, and got a bunch of entries that talked about MyWebSearch. A couple of entries referenced this trojan.

It's always important to take the SpyBot warning seriously, but to really research the entries it identifies. That's because SpyBot can have "false positives" or/and identify some entries that are technically "spyware" but that you have chosen to use on your computer; ie, you have accepted the risk of sharing some of your personal info.

I discovered that I could not install Windows (security) updates. Every time I tried to get an update, even manually, the update would fail. I got a couple of different messages, one giving an error code of 0x80240020.

That was the clincher, as far as I was concerned, that there was something majorly wrong.

So, after a couple day tour of duty with Windows support, I've learned how to remove this monster and fix the registry so download will work.

If you have trouble with Windows updates, and you get an error that looks something like above, it is time to contact me. I'll save you a lot of time, a whole lot of time, and a lot of money fixing the problem.

Interesting Pictures of Earth from the Space Station

I read Kim Komando's emails every day and sometimes, when a topic comes up that I know you have an interest, I'll summarize it here and maybe give a link. In this case, these are some neat pictures she linked today: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/recent_scenes_from_the_iss.html

Security Release for the week of 7/19/2009: Firefox

For those of you that use Firefox, Firefox 3.0.12 patches five 'critical' problems. Read about it here. What this means is that you should upgrade to the patches or download the new 3.5 version. To access updates, click on Help on the menubar and then click "Check for Updates."

Important Microsoft Updates the week of July 13

For those who don't have their windows update set to automatic install, or set a time and their machine was turned off when the update was scheduled for an install:
- Tuesday, July 14 MS released about 10 updates to the Windows operating system (all versions), Office, and Internet Explore. 6 of these were labeled "critical."
- Sometime last week or the late the week before Windows Internet Explorer Version 8 was released. Most users will have this included in the automatic updates.

Don't miss either of these installs. The updates really are critical! Internet Explorer 8 contains a necessary and new security features and it is much faster than IE 7. If you need help, give me a call.