Ok... so the intent of this place is to discuss or ask questions about your computers, AV toys, tablets, tech things in general. I am biased on many of these things. Experience lends itself to such. I like linux, and my underlying answer to all computer problems is to use this or that linux. I will spare you that answer to these questions as I have prefaced the thread with that. So... you have a problem with your computer... lets diagnose it and fix it. "What kind of phone should I get, an iPhone or an android" is not really a good question... it is like "what sort of woman should I go for, blonde or brunette?". The answer will depend on personal preferences and uses. I can tell you whatever you want to know about the tech to better help you reach your own answer though. Other nerds will drop in and disagree with me. I will almost always be right. I will always admit when I am not. So... got a printer you can't make work, or a webcam... want to better secure (harden) your data/network... ask away. I will try to distinguish between facts and opinions... though they are often blurry... because my opinions are so awesome... and delivered with such humility.
I will begin defining some largely misunderstood terms. I will also provide novice user tools to address the problems. all can be found at http://majorgeeks.com which is just a great resource Malware = Any software that is designed to do something outside of the users desires or will. This is sort of a generic catch all term that literally means "bad software". A lot of this software is designed by huge companies like, for instance, HP... but mostly what people are referring to are more malicious than that. *Anti-malware software I like for windows: SuperAntiSpyware *shareware hijack this *freeware On occasion, Malware Bytes *shareware will tag something SAS misses... but it is a pretty rare occasion. Should not be run in conjunction with SAS Virus = Malicious code that exploits vulnerabilities in an operating system, namely Windows, that you are not responsible for installing... like a virus, you simply catch it when you are in proximity to it, whether you found it some place, or it was sent to you. *Anti-virus software I like for windows: Eset NOD32 *commercial Kaspersky *commercial Avira Anti-Virus *free, with ads I will spare you the list of AV I hate, or the varying degrees and reasons... but the above is the only list I suggest one uses. Only ever install/run ONE Anti-Virus at a time. Trojan = A bit of code, disguised as something else, or wrapped inside of something legitimate after the fact, which you are responsible for installing, that allows outside access to the machine by some means. Anti-trojan software: see malware Worm = Standalone program that replicates itself to spread over a network, looking for vulnerabilities on systems in the network. Anti-worm software: see malware Rootkit = Particularly nasty bit of business designed to hide processes from detection to obscure its function. This is either unknowingly installed by the user with root privilege, or by someone who has gained root access to a machine externally. Rootkit remover I like for windows: Kaspersky TDSSKiller *freeware Hack = Changing a thing to make it work differently than it was intended, or as traditionally used. This can be an object, a methodology, or code. Hacker = One who hacks. Hacked = Typically means someone has done some sort of hack to some property. Hacking is not bad... it is a wonderful thing. Hacking other peoples things without permission is a bad thing. Like me coming to your house with a grinder and turning your hard top car into a convertible, without permission. That would be a bad hack.
One day I allowed Pop ups to appear, as I was doing a class assignment. Now I get these random popups. 1. How do adjust my ad blocker? 2. If that doesn't work, what's your favorite ad blocker?
What browser(s) do you use? What do you mean by popup? Is it a new window that opens in its own browser session, or is it a floating sort of window generated by a cascading stylesheet/flash? Screenshots are always helpful if you do not understand the question btw.
Firefox. A box in the bottom right of my screen will sometimes appear. The box then plays an ad. I can cancel out of it. How would I make one.
Screenshots: The native brutish way to take a screenshot on a windows system without installing anything is ctrl + prt scr(print screen) for a full desktop, or alt + prt scr for the active window . This will copy the image into clipboard. You can then paste it into ms paint, or another paint program. Vista forward has the "snipping tool". Alternatively I keep a very old tool around for this. I cannot find a download for it... but my requirement of a screen capture program is that I can specify the region and file type output. I don't want to edit a file... I just want to show what I want to show. I would try http://www.majorgeeks.com/DuckCapture_d7254.html Bottom right sounds like malware. I would recommend downloading SAS and after update, doing a complete scan. http://majorgeeks.com/SUPERAntiSpyware_d5116.html You can alternatively download hijack this at http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html and create a log and post it.
To access the pop-up blocker settings: At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options Select the Content panel. In the content panel: Block pop-up windows: Uncheck this to disable the pop-up blocker altogether. Exceptions: This is a list of sites that you want to allow to display pop-ups. The dialog has the following choices: Allow: Click this to add a website to the exceptions list. Remove Site: Click this to remove a website from the exceptions list. Remove All Sites: Click this to remove all of the websites in the exceptions list. http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pop-blocker-settings-exceptions-troubleshooting
A continual video playing "pop-up" in the lower right of the frame, smells like malware. If it were only on a single web page this happens, what you suggest would be able to have an effect. Nice detailed solution for those WITH that problem, so thanks!
By the way, SAS does not do active protection for free, and I don't like its resource usage or success rate using the paid active scanner. For this reason I uninstall it after doing a full update, and complete scan. It doesn't provide a benefit worth its resource requirements. That reminds me of another thing. Anti-Virus Scanning: Active scanning is really good and will snatch 70% of bad things, but, depending on usage, you should be doing a FULL scan (enabling options to search archives and for mutexes... ask and I will show you how to do that, give details on AV and version) every 1 week to 1 month. I will be happy to show you how to schedule this so you don't have to think about it unless it finds something and leaves an alert up. As you have people who understand what they are, you can prevent data loss by enabling options which produce false positives. Norton does not wan't to be sued for deleting data for sake of prudence. This is why there are many options disabled by default... that they still give you some control over. You can post screenshots here... and a community of folks will tell you whether or not to keep it. I will never allow someone to provide personal or identifiable information. I am what is referred to as a white hat. You should never ever trust someone online who suggests they are out to help you, or that they are a white hat. I am a complete and utter stranger to you with a strong command of technology you use. For this reason, do not PM me with computer information of ANY kind. Nor do I recommend you PM computer information of ANY kind to anyone who participates in this thread.
I also program in dozens of languages... so if you need help with something non-proprietary in a language or script, I may be able to help you. I am fluent in all web languages, most OOPs. Weirdos like erlang and FORTH... I am not proficient in everything... and there will certainly be programmers of a given deviation who can improve on my answers... the only requirement is that anything I help you develop is open source... available to the public via the GNU 3 General Public License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Great piece of technology. I personally use the asus transformer series. I have an eeePad Slider, because a keyboard is just a necessity for what I do, and a built in keyboard is just very well suited to my use of a tablet. For other general uses I have tf700t's, ... because it is utterly brilliant and light weight.
As of 14.x firefox's spell check developed a bug that is very picky about how the contentEditable code on given sites work... particularly problematic with WordPress... and furthermore there are individual issues that can cause the problem... specifically not having a language set, or certain extentions (for instance "Multi Links") which conflict with the spell check intermittently. Check that your language IS set If you want to give me a list of extentions you are using we can see if that is the problem. If you do not have (or know you have and do not use) these extentions I would do a factory reset of firefox and see if that does not resolve the problem... but this will cause you to loose pretty much everything you have done to customize it... other than bookmarks I would guess... I am sure it keeps bookmarks... but you might back them up before trying. Here is a walkthrough and suggestions for this problem. http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/935242 What version of firefox are you using? (Help/about)
Less than an ipad? I got the slider for 330. The tf700ts hit the wallet a bit harder at 450 each, plus the keyboard was 130. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230481 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834989154 Another thing I forgot to mention about the tf700t's are the durability... Those things are bulletproof. Gorilla glass, aluminium casing... kids drop them all the time.
Hmm... while the complaint is often lodged that chrome always "just works", I have not run into anyone who did a full reset who had this continue. I will dig a bit further... but that is the general solution... start over fresh.
I'm having some trouble with my USB headset. Windows 7 is detecting them as USB speakers, rather than a headset, and as a result the difference between volume 1 and volume 10 is the difference between louder than it should be and blowing my head off. Do you know of a fix for this? It seems a lot of windows users have this problem, but google has not been friendly to me on my search... My motherboard is the ASRock 1555 Z77, if that helps at all.
Did you install the headset manufacturer's drivers? Windows does it's best to install appropriate drivers and set up new devices automatically. It usually does a pretty good job, but it doesn't always get it right. Try downloading and installing the manufacturer's latest drivers specifically.
This is a known issue. It is related to flash. I would try and un-sandbox chrome, and disable acceleration on flash to see if it has an effect. There is not an open bug report however. It would help them out if you could fill out a new one. Here is how NOT to do it. http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=83312 After properly filling out a bug report, reference this: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/4B0WtAcEMM4 For corroboration. It is basically a bunch of people having the same problem wondering what the problem is. Flash in chrome is different than the other flashes. I expect they had some Chinese guys doing the plumbing.
I'm in need of a new phone. I currently own a IPhone 3 that I purchased 3 years ago, but I've torn it all to hell and its time for an upgrade. I basically just use it for talking, taking pictures, surfing the net and checking my email. Am I going overboard if I buy a new iPhone 5?
