Another nasty scam doing the rounds in recent months/(years?) is an unsolicited phone call from someone saying they are calling from Microsoft’s Service Centre or IT Support.

They will say something along the lines of they have detected a problem with your PC – something that you will not be aware of yourself.  They will want a payment by dredit card to help you download and install some software onto your PC to fix the problem.

Of course they are not calling from Microsoft at all but are (obviously) criminals intent on stealing money via your credit card (and installing something nasty on your PC that you didn’t actually have in the first place).

Just to confirm: Microsoft will never call you out of the blue to help you fix your PC!

Do NOT proceed with anything if you get such a call. Just hang up and ignore it.

Here is Microsoft’s statement on the scam:

Microsoft does not make unsolicited phone calls to help you fix your computer

In this scam cybercriminals call you and claim to be from Microsoft Tech Support. They offer to help solve your computer problems. Once the crooks have gained your trust, they attempt to steal from you and damage your computer with malicious software including viruses and spyware.

Although law enforcement can trace phone numbers, perpetrators often use pay phones, disposable cellular phones, or stolen cellular phone numbers. It’s better to avoid being conned rather than try to repair the damage afterwards.

Treat all unsolicited phone calls with skepticism. Do not provide any personal information

If you receive an unsolicited call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft Tech Support, hang up. We do not make these kinds of calls.

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/online-privacy/msname.aspx

Suddenly find your old Epson Stylus Color printer refuses to do anything and all the LEDs on the front panel are flashing at you?

This usually means the printer has gone into Service Request mode and Epson would like you to call for a technician to come and service the waste ink pads.

If you don’t want to go to this expense and want to take a gamble on pushing your printer a little further then you can use the following work-around to re-set the printer:

1. Turn off the printer at the mains and disconnect the USB or Parallel data cable.
2. Hold down both the ink and the paper buttons.
3. Re-connect power and turn the printer back on (hopefully you have enough fingers/hands) while still holding down the buttons.
4. As soon as the paper light flashes, release both the buttons then hold down the ink button for about 10 seconds and release.
5. The printer should now be ok again.

(You may need a few attempts to get it to work)

Firefox has been an excellent alternative to IE for many years now. There have been plenty of free add-ons published to enhance the features of Firefox. Here are 5 useful examples:

The Camelizer

1. Ad Block Plus – as the name suggests this add-on reduces the number of annoying ads displayed as youbrowse the web. You can switch it on and off easily or allow/disallow ads for certain pages.
2. The Camelizer – most of us will have used the online retailer Amazon at some stage duringour internet activities. This add-on will show you the price history of any product you are looking at on Amazon thus giving you an idea whether or not you are about to pay over the odds or get a bargain!
3. VideoTap (was Karbon) -  This add-on allows you to save a copy of any video or music you are watching/listening to on a web page to your hard drive so you can view it later.
4. Web Developer – This one is really for the professional or hobbyist web designer. It gives you loads of information about the web page you are viewing, such as style sheets, layouts, fonts, images etc and also allows to to turn on and off selected elements.
5. FastestFox – Will speed up repetitive tasks, parallel downloads, auto-load pages etc for a faster browsing experience.

Most of these have been around for years now – since PCs that had the windows key on the keyboard, but you may not know all of these handy shortcuts (hold down the windows key and press one of the following other keys):

• +    This opens up the Windows File Explorer
• +    Opens the windows search
•   + Toggle the desktop view
• +  Lock the PC/Switch user
• +  Open the Run box
• +  Open the Ease of Access panel
• +  Start the on-screen magnifier (+ ESC to close)
• +  Open the System Information panel
• +  Cycle through open windows with the fancy Aero style (Vista & Win 7)

There are quite a few more available which haven’t been mentioned.

A sneaky scam that crops up now and then is one where a company contacts you claiming that they are a domain name registration company who have just received an application from another company to register a domain name similar to one of yours. Usually these emails will come from China or Hong Kong.

Here is a typical example:

Dear Principal,

Super day for you!

We get your email address from the Internet . It is glad to write to you with keen hope to open a business relationship with you in the future.

We are professional IT outsourcing service company in HongKong.On the Mar. 26, 2011, we received an application formally from our client. They want to apply the domain name and internet brand name “your-company-name” for registration from us.

After our initial examination, we found that the brand name and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. We need to know the comment of your company because the domain names and Internet brand name may relate to the copyright of brand name on internet. Now we have not finished the registration of them yet, in order to deal with this issue better, Please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible.

If you want to need professional IT outsourcing service, please kindly visit our website: www.scammersURL.com

Have a nice working day !

Best regards,

Christina

Domain Name Manager

Now the idea here is to scare you into buying an expensive and unnecessary domain name.

You can rest assured that no-one is actually trying to register the domain names, as if they had wanted to, they would already have registered them.

If you receive an email like this then just delete it.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” – however there is such thing as a free useful software utility. Here are 5 examples:

1. Irfanview image viewer – simple and effective way of viewing all types of image file. Handles just about any image type and also gives you easy image conversion and simple editing.
2. Malwarebytes anti-malware. Mentioned in a previous post, this is one of the most effective ways of getting rid of unwanted parasites on your PC. Keep it up to date though and run it frequently. Use it conjunction with your normal anti-virus software.
3. Ccleaner – cleans up all the junk files that various programs leave behind, including temporary web files, history and cookies. Helps keep your PC nice and uncluttered.
4. PDF Creator – An easy way to generate PDF files from your Word documents or web pages etc. Basically works the same way as a print driver, but instead of printing to paper it creates a PDF document for you.
5. VLC media Player – does for video and music what Irfanview does for photos & images. Simple and efficient player for all your movies and internet streaming. Plays just about everything.

We have noticed lately an increase in the numbers of PCs seen in the local area infected with viruses and malware.

If you do notice strange behaviour when using your PC, such as:

• Web pages diverting to the wrong site
• Links going to unexpected pages
• Unusual pop-ups when browsing
• Programs not opening correctly
• PC unusually slow
• Windows features greyed out or not responding
• Unexpected shut-downs

then you must act immediately and check your system for viruses. Chances are your anti-virus software will not be able to catch all the viruses and malware that are around – especially if it is not kept up to date. So don’t think things will fix themselves – it will usually just get worse!

If you act promptly you can often get rid of the viruses/malware/spyware by downloading and running free utilities such as Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

However many viruses will disable your capability to run such utilities. If unable to remove the infections then call us on 01684 585320 and we can arrange for you to bring your PC in to us where we can remove infections for a fixed fee.

One common and particularly nasty type of infection is known as “scareware”. This type of infection tries to make itself look like an official Microsoft security warning and goes by names such as:

• XP Security 2011
• Vista Security 2011
• Win 7 Security 2011

Screenshot from Scareware

These are fake anti-virus programs that claim that your PC is infected with dozens of viruses and you need to follow their instructions to remove them. Of course their instructions end up leading to a page where you enter your credit card details in exchange for virus removal. Obviously DO NOT DO THIS!

Unfortunately this type of infection is particularly nasty because it will make changes to your operating system so that no matter what program you try and start, it will start a copy of the fake anti-virus program instead, leaving you stuck.

Again, we will be able to help you remove such infections if you are unfortunate enough to pick one up (which is easy to do as your PC can get infected just by visiting the wrong web site.)

Welcome to the Just Systems Tech Blog.

Here we hope to bring you useful tech tips hints and solutions as we experience them as part our daily IT support services.