The WeWillFixIT Blog spotlight

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Microsoft playing by the EC book

Last modified on 2010-02-26 10:30:35 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

A new Windows update has recently been release and some of you may have only just noticed it now.

You can’t get away from noticing it really, it makes its presence felt as soon as you restart Windows.

There is no warning of it and it can give you quite a shock when it pops up on the screen and you could be mistaken for thinking that your PC has been infected with a Virus or a piece of Malware, and if you ignore it, it will not go away either.

 

Back In December 2009, the European Commission and Microsoft agreed on a number of ongoing competition law issues. Microsoft resided to agreeing to allow PC Manufacturers and PC users to continue installing any Web browser of their choice and to have the option to turn Internet Explorer on or off. Let’s face it, IE has not been the most secure or the most reliable browser lately has it, so users do not want to be left with no choice but to use it!

Microsoft and the EC agreed that the best way to resolve this resolved was to add the Browser Choices software to Windows Update. The Browser Choice screen allows the user to choose to install any of the alternative browsers listed, there is also a MORE INFORMATION button so that you can read a little more on the Browser and decide whether you would like to install it or not. You can of course just stick with Internet Explorer.

This Windows Update is currently in a test phase and will be released across the rest of Europe on the 1^st March.

Maybe Microsoft could have branded the box a little better, so that users do not automatically think that they have been infected with a Virus or Malware. Apart from that, it is a useful update.

How would you cope if disaster struck!

Last modified on 2010-02-18 08:52:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Have you ever thought about how you would cope if a disaster struck?

A disaster such as:

• Fire
• Flood
• Theft
• Failed hard drive
• Lost USB Key
• Electrical Damage

Can destroy your data in seconds, leaving you with one question……do I have an up to date backup of my data?

If the answer is “yes”, then well done, you are on your way to rebuilding your business and getting back to work.

If on the other hand the answer was “no”, then unless you have a record of every single piece of data that was stored on your Hard Drive, the chances are that you will not be on your way back to rebuilding your business, you may well be out of business completely.

As horrible as that may sound, it is a fact.

The easiest way of preventing this from happening is to introduce a reliable backup method into your business day.

This could be in the form of a simple file copy to a USB key, but just remember USB keys are small and can be easily lost, so try not to rely on this method.

Some reliable methods are:

USB Hard Disk:

Connected in the morning and run a simple backup within the last 15 minutes of the day, then disconnect the drive and take it with you.

NAS:

Network Attached Storage devices are becoming increasingly popular, not just in the work place but also in our daily lives.

With the advent of digital media, new operating systems such as Windows 7 now allow us to actively share and stream our music, videos and photos throughout the home. This leads to incredibly large amounts of precious data sitting on laptops.

NAS units allow you to have a single storage device connected to your home or office network, with the option of several hard disks to store the data on, not only do you have the option to backup your laptops or pc’s to one of the hard disks, but the NAS units can replicate the same data onto a second available hard disk so should the Primary Hard Disk become faulty, don’t worry, you can just swap it with the second Hard Disk in the unit. There are also some NAS units that can stream your ITunes libraries with some home Music Centre’s.

NAS units come in many different forms for home and business use, depending on your business these can range from small 2 bay units to 4 bay units or even rack mounted NAS units.

Online backups:

Together with an onsite backup (NAS for example) this is the most reliable way of backing up your data.

Choosing the right host is imperative, especially if you are a business that stores customer data, as you could find yourself breaking the Data Protection Laws set by your country.

Once you have chosen your online backup host, you simply select what you will be backing up and how often you will be backing up. Then you leave it to backup. The first backup will take a long time depending on how much data you are backing up, once the first backup is complete, from then on it will be incremental, so only new or amended files.

It is worth noting that if your only means of Internet Connection is a Dial up connection or a 3G connection then this method will not be of any use to you.

Would you like some more information?

Whether you are a business looking to discuss your current Backup methods or a home user looking for some further advice, please feel free to contact us.

Microsoft confirm second security flaw in IE this year

Last modified on 2010-02-04 22:31:49 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Microsoft have today confirmed a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, the second this year alone.

This new security vulnerability could allow a hacker or cyber criminals to access data stored on the infected computer, This can easily be done by redirecting the user to a Website posing as an authentic site but which is infected with malicious code. As soon as the user clicks on to the web page, the malicious code is automatically downloaded to their PC, giving the hacker access to the computer and all files and documents.

Back in January, Microsoft hadto release an emergency patch to plug a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 that allowed criminals to hack in to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists and Chinese dissidents, and attack Google.

Only computer users running Windows XP, the operating system launched in 2001, are at risk from the vulnerability, said Microsoft. It recommended that users enable a feature within XP known as the “network protocol lockdown”

Users running Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 in Protected Mode are not at risk, said Microsoft, and nor are those users running Windows Vista and the most recent Microsoft operating system, Windows 7.