Intuit and IRS email scam

 

Received this scam email this morning. Looks real but, as you see when I hover over the web link (do not click if you have the email) it shows a bogus web address not related to intuit or irs. As always think before you click!!

HP TouchPad 32gb version

Have been playing with the reduced price 32gb version of the HP TouchPad (TP) for three days now.  It has three buttons, the ‘home’ button on the front, the on/off button and the volume rocker button.  It does have a 1.3 mb front facing camera.   Here are a few pros and cons I have found so far:

  Pros:
reduced price ;)
front facing camera, no app out of box to use it with, can download skype (free)
size – diag 11”
do not have to attach to pc to use
does exchange activesync for email
ability to flick running programs up, for closing apps
does flash with browser
has a “Just type…” place on home screen to just type anything for quick access
includes 50gb Box account

  Cons:
no usb port
no sd card support
no rear camera
no camera app out of the box, have to download (free) app to use as camera
standard HP fingerprint magnet on black back
no logmein app, can view a desktop via browser but, can not use tp keyboard 
no rdp app

Verizon 4G/LTE live in Grand Rapids, MI

 

I am starting to hear from folks that Verizon didn’t wait till the 16th to turn on 4G/LTE in Grand Rapids, MI!!

Email from this morning:
”I just did a speed test and I was at 33.45mbps down and 5.86mbps up”

Speeds may not last long but 4G/LTE will

 

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2011/06/verizon_launches_high-speed_4g.html

Verizon Thunderbolt 4G/LTE

 

  Went to the SBS 2011 partner event in Southfield, MI this past Tuesday and was pleasantly surprised my Verizon Thunderbolt changed its network icon from 3g to 4g

  Turned on the Thunderbolts Hotspot, connected my tablet pc and the first test results were:

  12m down and 15m up is faster then my office AT&T DSL.

  As this is very new, we did have mixed results as Joe connected to my hotspot and was getting like 3m/3m and another Thunderbolt user was getting 9m/9m.  The up/down usually were very close on all the tests.  We seemed to get disconnected a few times at the start of the meeting around 11 but, it seemed to be fine after that.

  It has been announced that Grand Rapids, MI has been pushed up for 4G/LTE coverage for this year, maybe as early as this summer

Before forwarding email or reposting on Facebook

  Before forwarding email or reposting on Facebook, take a couple of minutes and check out www.snopes.com “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.”

  At www.snopes.com one can enter some info such as “facebook cartoon” and produce a result that indicates that the claim “will help end child abuse” is actually “False”.  www.snopes.com continues with some background info on the subject.

Facebook Vanity/Shortcut url

  Did you know you can have/use a vanity/shortcut url name for your personal and/or Fan Page?

  Using http://www.facebook.com/username, you can create a vanity/shortcut name like my personal Facebook page of www.facebook.com/RichardKenyon and my business Facebook page of www.facebook.com/hltechsolutions.

I would love your vote please nominate me for Top 150 SMB influencer's

How's Life?

  ;)

Folks in SMB are asking to be nominated as one of the top 150 influencer’s in SMB via a survey put on by SMB PC Magazine.  Such as Eric Ligman (I did vote for him) via facebook, http://www.facebook.com/EricLigman, post today of “Would love your vote for me in the SMB Top 150”

  I would also love your vote to be one of the top 150 SMB influencer's, please nominate me via the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHP9NTH, you can only vote once.

  The survey is two questions long (see snippet below)

1. How did you hear/learn about the survey
2. Enter up to 10 names that influence you

Please enter Richard Kenyon of HL tech solutions in the “other” box for #1
Please enter Richard Kenyon of HL tech solutions and nine other influencer’s for #2
After you click done you then can hit “exit this survey” in the upper right hand corner or just close the window

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHP9NTH

  Among the 10 I voted for include:
West Michigan Small Business Technology User Group
West Michigan Network Technology User Group
My Self ;)
Eric

Thank you for your support,
Richard Kenyon
HL tech solutions

iPad available this Saturday

Just watched this weeks ABC’s Modern Family Episode 19 “Game Changer” via Hulu which was a funny 20 min commercial on the iPad  ;)

Hulu - Modern Family: Game Changer - Watch the full episode now
http://goo.gl/KVrt

ABC’s even has a new Player for watching all their shows for free
Introducing the ABC Player for iPad - ABC.com
http://goo.gl/OnTR

Windows XP Mode now accessible to more PCs

Today, 03/18/10, Microsoft releases the update to Windows XP Mode that no longer requires hardware virtualization technology to run :)

Windows XP Mode now accessible to more PCs
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2010/03/18/windows-xp-mode-now-accessible-to-more-pcs.aspx

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Michigan colleges getting into iPhone, Android smartphone app game | - MLive.com

The article in today’s paper had “NO” mention of ‘Windows Mobile’ version or Microsoft of any kind.

From the web:
Michigan colleges getting into iPhone, Android smartphone app game - MLive.com
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/03/michigan_colleges_getting_into.html

On today’s (Sunday March 14, 2010) front page of the Grand Rapids Press the article is:
NEXT BIG THING IN COLLEGES?
App-titude test
Local schools score first on techware for smart phones
Plus, students are being trained to stay ahead on mobile apps.

Snippets:
”designing apps, a field that experts say will grow even more dramatically if tablet computers became as popular as techies expect”
“The Internet changed everything. Mobile will be the Internet on steroids. And the mobile revolution hasn’t even begun yet.“
“Thousands of apps are available via iTunes, and a smaller number on Google’s Marketplace, though Englesma said that will surge as the Android system — used on Google’s new phone, among others — grows in use.”
“He expects Google to rival Apple devices in popularity and number of apps, saying Google’s phone is easier to design software for, and the company is less restrictive about what products can be sold in its online Marketplace”

Run XP Mode on Windows 7 Machines Without Hardware Virtualization

Windows 7 XP Mode requires a computer that has hardware virtualization.  This tutorial from How-To Geek (www.howtogeek.com) shows how to use XP Mode with VMware Player on Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate or Enterprise.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10911/run-xp-mode-on-windows-7-machines-without-hardware-virtualization/

Windows XP Mode defined from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XP_Mode#Windows_XP_Mode

is a virtual machine package for Windows Virtual PC containing a pre-installed, licensed copy of Windows XP Professional SP3 as its guest OS. Pre-installed integration components allow applications running within the virtualized environment to appear as if running directly on the host, sharing the native desktop and Start Menu of Windows 7 as well as participating in file type associations. XP Mode applications run in a Terminal Services session in the virtualized Windows XP, and are accessed via Remote Desktop Protocol by a client running on the Windows 7 host.

Applications running in Windows XP mode do not have compatibility issues as they are actually running inside a Windows XP virtual machine and redirected using RDP to the Windows 7 host. Windows XP mode was not released for, and will fail to function on, any editions of Windows 7 below Professional Edition. However, running a copy of Windows XP in older versions of Virtual PC can have similar functionality likewise older copies of Windows on a virtual hard drive albeit with reduced functionality.

Windows Server IT Pro Community Tour

Come out and meet your local IT Professional Evangelist Matt Hester in Grand Rapids, MI on March 25th at 6:30pm
  He wants to meet you and get to know you. What a better way than with Windows Server 2008 R2, giveaways and food. He will be talking about the many administrative benefits of Windows Server 2008 R2. He will also talk about his experiences with his recently published book Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference , this should be a fun evening. He will have a couple copies of his book to give away and other fun stuff. Be sure to attend and learn more of what Windows Server 2008 R2 has to offer!  Must register via following link:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032445276&Culture=en-US

For other Cities:

http://blogs.technet.com/matthewms/archive/2010/03/05/register-now-it-pro-s-windows-server-it-pro-community-tour-coming-soon.aspx

HP MediaSmart 3.0 update available for order

 

I have my MediaSmart 3.0 update and 2gig ram upgrade ordered, looking forward to updating my EX475 soon.

Terry Walsh of We Got Served has a overview of the process:

http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/02/23/upgrading-the-hp-mediasmart-server-ex470ex480-series-with-the-3-0-update/

You may order you update for $25 +shipping from HP:

1. www.hp.com
2. support and drivers
3. step 1 – select download drivers
4. step 2 – select product, ex475 in my case
5. select operating system of your pc that you will use to do the upgrade
6. Continue with your order

HP MediaSmart 3.0 update for EX470/475 and EX485/487

per:
http://usingwindowshomeserver.com/2010/02/06/hp-mediasmart-software-version-3-0-update-update/

We may ‘soon’ be able to order the long awaited version update to our original HP MediaSmart Windows Home Servers models EX470/475 and EX485/487.

“Antivirus Soft” new malware :(

 

  Tho it seems to be a pest at first, thankfully it seems to be a pretty easy fix:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-antivirus-soft

1. Boot safe mode w/networking
2. Uncheck proxy in ie if it was changed
3. Download rkill to kill running stuff (was not required on the infected pc I was working on)
4. Download and run malwarebytes (I copied from my usb drive)
5. finished

Apple iPad first thoughts ;)

  Just got done watching the iPad announcement with Teresa.

  Looks pretty cool!  Love the ability to output the display to an external device like they used for the demo, that would have to be a must have cable.  Does it support active sync?  Still limited to storage space, have several folks already complaining that the storage is too small for their existing music collections on the iPod/iTouch.

  Beam me up Scotty!!!!

  Again this looks awesome for the consumer/kids/teens that are into watching/playing/listening/reading stuff by themselves in a non-family/group type environment, creating the BEST non face to face anti-social thing so far besides solitary confinement punishment in prison ;)  This is new babysitter and would save any ones sanity on a long road trip in a car.

  Can see two people on a date, each on their own iPad watching their own movie and sending messages back and forth to each other

  We see adding a universal remote app to iPad and it becoming the device sitting next to the couch for sure!

  And it makes an AWESOME picture frame!!

  We, being the minority, enjoy watching TV/movies on a big screen together or with others vs a 10 in screen alone.

  We do not listen to music with headphones by ourselves, not even in the car much.

  We do not play games without the pleasure of playing games with others.  Ok, Teresa loves bejeweled and Project Natal is going to be awesome for gaming.

  We do not read books or newspapers online or on paper :)  We use twitter/Facebook/blogs or as in Teresa’s case she actually listens to talk radio for the latest news ;)

  Since we canceled cable TV, we did not even think about the ball drop for New Year’s.  We had twelve people around a 19” computer screen watching the live show via the internet because we could not find a method to watch via the xbox, major dumb :)   Next year we will be watching the ball drop on the 65” TV even if we have to get cable for a month (under debate) ;) 

  Beam me up Scotty!!!!

  Oh, and we see the uptick trend for man bag sales!!!

  Good thing we can write it off as a business expense? ;)  Then again can it be ‘business’ expense?

  Steve Jobs comment on the crossroads of Technology and Liberal Arts sums it up.

Another Email Spam/Malware with “Your friend invited you to twitter!” in the subject

 

  Guess, now that Bill Gates has joined Twitter as www.twitter.com/BillGates we will see more attacks that are twitter related :(

  The message body on this one looks good and the links to “Sign up now” and “Sign in” are even valid.  It is the attached ZIP file that contains a file named:
”document.chm                                                            .exe”
  Notice the spaces between the chm (help file) and the real extension of .exe (executable).

==========================
attachment: Invitation Card.zip
from: invitations@twitter.com
subject: Your friend invited you to twitter!
message (along:

New to Twitter? Sign up now
Have an account? Sign in

 

Your friend invited you to twitter!

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question:

What are you doing?

To join or to see who invited you, check the attachment.
==========================

Another Email Spam/Malware with “settings file” in subject

 

The subject is “A new settings file for the (your_email_here) mailbox has just been released” and the body references “security upgrade of the mailing service” and the email is pretending to come from your own domain.

As we have mentioned before always check out the link before clicking on it.  The link that we see is only the text for the underlying web site that you would be redirected to,  When you highlight the link here you would see that the:

http://***hltechsolutions.com***/owa really is going to send you to

http://***hltechsolutions.com.molendf.or.kr***/owa

The email is pretending to come from your own domain

Another Spam/Malware to be aware of titled “your photo” via Facebook direct messaging

The subject was “your photo” with the message of “Is This Your Photo?!" “Warm regards!!!!!” and a link to a web site with the words uploaded, easyspace, photosbank, me, uk and file in it.

Received this message via Facebook tonight at 1:37am which showed from Facebook Mobile.  Now I know that this person would not be up at this time and I know they do not have a mobile device.

Do not click on the link, it goes to a web site that calls up the adobe reader and tries to download a file called photo.exe.  The photo file is a exe file and it will try and run itself to infect your computer.

Always think twice about clicking on links and then take a close look at where the link actually goes.  If it looks funny then it probably is, don’t click it.

Here is a snapshot of the message:

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 November 24th

 

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be available November 24th

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowshomeserver/archive/2009/11/19/windows-home-server-power-pack-3-available-november-24th-includes-enhancements-for-windows-7-based-computers.aspx