All posts by remotehelpexpert

Windows 10 Upgrade App, or “What’s That Doohickey by the Clock?”

Technical Tips

Taskbar: The bar, normally at the bottom of your screen, in Windows.

System tray: The notification area normally at the right side of the taskbar, near where the clock usually is. it has little icons that provide notifications and status of certain programs.

Some of you running computers with Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 may have recently noticed a new, previously unseen icon in the system tray, that looks like this:

gwx

This is the result of a recent Windows Update which is set to do several things as the release of Windows 10 nears (the release is currently set for the end of July). The idea being to get users to upgrade to Windows 10.

As explained in my last article, you’ll need to decide whether or not Windows 10 is an upgrade you want. If yes, don’t need to do anything at this point. If not, you can uninstall the Windows Update that installed this “Get Windows 10” app. If you are familiar with how to do that, you can find the update, KB3035583, and uninstall it. If you want to do it but need help, let me know.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Windows 10, an Update

Technical Tips

We are now roughly at the midway point between when Windows 10 Technical Preview was released (at which point I published my first impression about it), and when it’s supposed to be released in its final (RTM – Release to Manufacturer) version. There have been quite some changes about how it works, and there are more changes to come in the following months before its final version is released.

In my opinion, there is more than one type of public for this new Operating System and therefore Windows 10 will have different reception of it, depending on the type of public that looks at it:

First there’s the type of public that is not fond of changing operating system versions every few years. They liked XP and even Windows 7 was too much of a change (not to mention Windows Vista). For them, Windows 8 or Windows 10 will look similar enough (and too different from what they’re used to) to be liked. If they haven’t moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 yet, I suggest they do, as soon as possible. If they have moved on to Windows 7, I suggest they stay there for now as for as long as they can (maybe up to a few years).

Then there’s the type of public that can adapt to new versions of operating system being released every few years, but are not fond of lost features or buggy new features. They were able to move from Windows XP to 7 and even Vista in between, and can sort of make Windows 8 work. They will probably like Windows 10. If they are presently with Windows 7, they can consider moving on to Windows 10 within the next year or two. If they’re stuck with Windows 8 right now, they should upgrade as soon as Windows 10 is released.

Finally there’s the type of public that simply can make things work, no matter what. They will like Windows 10 as well and can move on from 7 or 8.

For those who are curious and haven’t had a chance to take a look at the current Windows 10 screens as they look at the time of this writing, here’s a sneak peak:

As you boot up, the initial screen looks the same as in Windows 8:

Win10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike Windows 8, once you log in Windows 10 goes into the traditional desktop view:

Win10-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice there is a fusion of the old style Start menu (on the left) and the Windows 8 style Start menu (the tiles on the right):Win10-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can, however, click on the upper right of the start menu and expand it to become full screen, if you fancy the Windows 8 style better:Win10-4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice that the background is still somewhat visible, in a hint of the Aero display theme that was used in Vista and Windows 7 and sort of died in Windows 8.

Careful readers will notice there is a tile in the above screenshot called Project Spartan. That is the code name of the new browser set to debut as the default web browser with Windows 10, and that will make Internet Explorer a secondary, backup browser. The name itself is not final and apparently is changing to Microsoft Edge.

The search function and other Windows apps are being enhanced by using Windows personal assistant, the chatty Cortana, the voice powered assistant whose name was taken from the AI – Artificial Intelligence – character in the famous video game Halo.

In short it seems Microsoft is seriously trying this time to come with an Operating System that will unify all computing devices, be it a traditional desktop, a laptop, a tablet or a phone. There are other features being developed as you read this, and some more are in the works for coming months. I’ll be following up closely on those and how Windows 10 develops, and will update again before the final release date, currently set for the end of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communication Privacy, Part II

Computer Security,

The first part of this article, written recently, went over secure instant messaging. This second part will take up secure email communications.

The subject is extensive enough that it is not easy to cover it comprehensibly in just 2 short articles, while also keeping it understandable for the non-geek. But here we go.

Secure emails: To a greater or lesser degree most people have heard about it. It is often accompanied by words like encryption, et cetera. The idea being that only the sender and the recipient, i.e. the intended parties, are able to access the contents of the emails.

As with everything, several degrees of security exist in different email systems models. The lowest, your “free” Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft email accounts are relatively easy to intercept, and are often scanned by the email providers themselves (as covered in their own Terms of Service you agree to when you get the email account) to search for content that can be used to market products to you. So much for free 🙂 .

A level up are providers like Hushmail, a Canadian company that has been around for about 17 years and which provides encrypted emails and the ability to send emails that require a password to decrypt (decipher, decode), is ad free, and provides a decent level of privacy. It has free and paid versions, depending on how many features are enabled.

Then you have StartMail, brought to you by the creators of Startpage/Ixquick (one of the most private search engines around). This only has a paid version (one can start with a free trial) and provides better security. Again, no ads, encryption based emails, only intended recipient and the sender can read the messages.

Finally my pick as the one that has the most potential for actual full privacy: ProtonMail. The main feature that sets ProtonMail above the rest is that the-end-to-end encryption/decryption happens in your computer/device (seriously, you need a password to get into your account and then a second password to decrypt your inbox on the spot), so even if the Swiss based servers were subverted somehow, it would be impossible to gain access to or decrypt any messages. Also a nice feature is the ability to set the longevity of the of the emails sent (how long after sent do they expire) if so desired.

ProtonMail has been around for a year in Beta (initial) testing stage and still only available by invitation (meaning you’ll be in a waiting list for a little while, as the demand for more users is met).

As a closing remark I’d like to remind you that absolute security is a nice concept, but to me it doesn’t exist. Specially when placed in the context of a rapidly evolving world of computing technology and telecommunications. But as of this writing and so far ProtonMail is the closest I’ve found to secure email communications.

Communication Privacy, Part I

Computer Security

There are probably a couple of articles I can write about current secure methods of communication. Here’s the first of them.

Inherent to the field of computer security is the privacy of telecommunications. On one side of the spectrum we have a hacked computer that has been subverted and it’s easy to access by unauthorized personnel in order to guess email passwords, past messages, contacts, etc. What’s on the other side of the spectrum?

When it comes to instant messaging: Wickr. What in heavens is Wickr?

At the expense of sounding like this is a commercial (it’s not, and it’s impossible to buy a good or bad review from me about a program or device), Wickr is currently my best answer to instant messaging privacy. It’s a program or application that allows for back and forth messaging at a secure level. I’ve been using it in my phone for some time now, from when it was in Beta testing (very early stages) last year. But recently the developers have expanded the type of devices it can be installed in, to include Windows based computers (Windows 7 and above), so I figured now I can write about it.

Why is it on the other side of the security spectrum?

Wickr uses encryption of the highest level and implemented in such a way that only the chosen, authorized devices possess the ability to decrypt the messages, true end-to-end encryption with no middle man. It also provides the ability to set how long a message sent will remain in the receiver’s screen before it’s deleted forever.

I don’t want to go into a lot of data about it because there’s plenty in the Wickr website, so for more information visit the link I just gave you and study the data for yourself. Warning: Prepare to look up a word or two if you go into the details of how it all works.

Stay tuned for my next article, where I’ll tackle the most secure email system I’ve found to date.

Don’t Be Fooled About Spoof Emails

Computer Security, Technical Tips

Picture this scenario if you will: You get an email from somebody who’s name you recognize, but something is wrong. The email makes no sense, or is asking you to click on a link or some other suspicious request. You correctly spot that the email was not actually written by your acquaintance.  And sometimes it’s because that person’s email has been compromised and someone is having a field day with it, sending unsolicited emails to all the person’s contacts. This happens sort of often these days.

But although the first assumption is that the person’s email has been stolen or compromised, that is not necessarily the case. As you know, when setting up an email account you normally have an email address itself AND your name. These are two separate bits of information that can be stored in an email. So strictly speaking, that can be used to “spoof” emails. How?

Let’s say Joe Blow is my friend, and by one method or another, somebody finds that out, and my email address. Now that person can send a spoofed email from a “badguy@hell.com” email address, but he fills out “Joe Blow” as the name. When one sees the email, many times one will see the “Joe Blow ” part, and not realize that the email address has nothing to do with that person.

If you pay close attention to those fields in an email, you can see the actual email address and then can decide whether the actual email account has been stolen/compromised/hacked or somebody is just spoofing it. The section of the email that has all that information is called headers.

So pay attention to the headers and you won’t be so easily fooled.

The above is not the only method used to spoof emails. There are actually ways to spoof the email address the email is coming from so you think the email address is correct as well as the name. Those require more expertise to recognize and identify and go beyond the scope of this article. But at least anyone can recognize the above scenario and avoid been fooled.

Computer Basics – Another Computer Term You Should Be Familiar with

Glossary, Technical Tips

In the past I’ve written a series of articles on computer basics. Anybody who wants to improve their grasp of the basics on the subject should study them in the following sequence:

First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth

To those we will now add this one.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens between you turning on your computer and the computer being fully booted up to the point where you can open programs and files etc., today is your lucky day. The computer term we’re covering today addresses that. When you turn on the computer, four things are in play:

First, there is a Power-on Self Test (where the computer checks itself and its basic components). That’s abbreviated POST. For example, if the computer is set to alert you if a keyboard is not connected to it, and you unplug the keyboard and turn the computer on, you’ll see an error that reads something like “no keyboard present or keyboard error”. The POST is what gave you that message.

Second, the computer must find a device to boot from. Whether is your hard drive, a CD, or something else, the computer checks in a pre-determined sequence all the possible sources it can boot from. And then it turns over control to that device, which then loads the operating system. Classically, that’s when you see the Windows logo on your screen for the first time. If, however, the computer goes through all devices that can potentially provide an operating system to boot from and it doesn’t find it in any of them, you’re likely to see an error message like “No device to boot from” or maybe “Boot file missing” or something to that effect.

Third, the computer must have information on what different components are connected to it and how to control them.

And fourth, the computer must have a program where it can store basic information about what devices there are, the date and time, and some other settings related to the computer (such as what’s mentioned above about in what sequence should the computer look for a booting device).

All the above elements are handled by the Basic Input/Output System. You might have run across the computer term BIOS. That’s the abbreviation for it.

So, BIOS is a chip (a set of electric circuits) in your computer that performs all the above mentioned functions. It can remember basic information stored in it, even if you power the computer off and unplug it, because it draws power from a small battery that allows it to do so. And some of the most basic information it can store regardless of whether it is powered or not.

I have covered today’s basic computer concept while trying to avoid mentioning terms that are not defined in this article. However I do recommend going over the above mentioned first 5 articles that cover the computer basics from scratch to have a better understanding of today’s term.

Hope this helps.

The Most Common Type of Malicious Software Currently Prevalent

Technical Tips

Trojans: This has been a dominant type of malware over the last few years, and it only keeps increasing in terms of its share of the “malwareverse” (just coined that one for “the realm of malware” 🙂 ). It has gone from 56% in early 2011 to 78% in late 2014.

One interesting type of Trojan is labeled Ransomware: Aptly named because this type of infection usually locks your computer or your data (by encrypting it) and then asks for a ransom to unlock it. A “rising star”, this type of malware has been in the increase in recent times, and is one of the reasons I’ve been recently advocating having a data backup plan in place – because this type of infection usually encrypts your documents and files (rendering them useless to you) and some of them do not allow decryption by any  known methods, which means the only way to recover from such an attack (not in terms of eliminating the active threat but in terms of damage control) is to restore your data from your latest backup.

Also because some of these infections will encrypt any external hard drives attached to a computer, I have recommended in the past not to leave your external hard drive (containing your data backup) connected permanently to your computer. In other words, unless actively in the process of updating a backup, the external hard drive should not be connected to your computer.

So beware of these types of infections AND have a sound security plan in place which includes a periodically updated data backup.

 

Seriously, BACK UP Your Data

Technical Tips

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, and with emphasis this time. I’m only being emphatic because I care. I hate to see people lose their data. If you have a computer, having a backup data plan is not an option, is not a nice thing to have, it’s a MUST.

There are data corruption issues, physical failures for the main storage device in your computer(s), and in more recent times, specialized types of malware that will encrypt your data – and if you don’t have a data backup plan in place, even if the infection is removed, you can kiss your data good-bye.

It only takes one encounter with one of those specialized type of malware to fall victim of its nasty business.

Don’t be a statistic. If you don’t have one in place, implement a data backup plan, ASAP. This is a very opportune time of the year, since you can add it to your recent new year’s resolutions and then get it done. 🙂

If you have any questions on the subject, don’t hesitate to ask.