Craig Knows Things

You’ll need;

• Spybot Search & Destroy
• Ad-Aware
• Hijackthis
• AVG Free Edition

What to do:

• Turn off Startup Items, restart computer
• Install then run HijackThis, restart computer
• Run Spybot- Fix Problems, Run Ad-Aware- Fix Problems, Run AVG scan- Fix Problems
• Restart computer, run HijackThis again
• Evaluate problems, take additional action.

First
On your computer click start and then click run (Win+R). If you can’t get to the run command from the start menu you can press the windows key plus r.

In the run command type, “msconfig“.

Next choose startup. Then choose to disable all.

This will uncheck all programs that are set to automatically start when the computer turns on. After fixing your computer you can go back into msconfig and reselect the programs you’d like to start when the computer starts such as aim.

Step two
Once your computer has been restarted and is running again it’s time to install the programs listed at the top of this page.

First install HijackThis. Run HijackThis and select all the startup programs that seem shady. Restart the computer.

After restarting the computer install Spybot Search & Destroy. The installer is pretty self explanatory. It’ll ask you to;

1. Make a backup, do it.
2. Download updates, do that.
3. To immunize your system, do that.

Once it’s installed run a scan, fix the problems.

Now for AdAware. Once installed run a scan and choose to fix the problems.

After AdAware is installed install AVG Free Edition run a scan and fix those problems.

Lastly, I’d run HijackThis again, check the boxes next everything I’d like to get rid of, then restart.

Our last step is to evaluate our efforts and figure out what it is we haven’t been able to remove. A particular pesky virus I come across quite often is the trojan / virus vundo.

1. Download combofix from any of these links and save it to Desktop:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

**You’re going to need to save and run the file from the desktop**

2. Double click combofix.exe & follow the prompts.

*Attention*
Do not click combofix’s window while it’s running. That can cause it to freeze.

Combofix shouldn’t take more then 20 minutes to run.
If it does, (press ctrl, alt and del at the same time) this will opeb the Task Manager click the processes tab and end the processes that are findstr, find, sed or swreg, that should cause combofix continue.

If you have problems with Combofix visit how-to-use-combofix

I received a question the other day in my email and realized that this issue comes up more often then I would have expected.

Basically when people are minimizing their windows to the taskbar the windows disappear. Not just when they minimize something like firefox, which seems to have its own minimizing issues, but when the minimize ANYTHING.

Many ways exist to get to your now hidden minimized files. Alt+Tab, the task manager found using CTRL+ALT+DLT, alt+space, and so on. The following fix should make these temporary solutions unnecessary.

Download the following file, save it to your computer, run it. I guaranty it’s virus free. If you don’t believe me though go ahead and download AVG Free Edition which it an excellent virus scanner!

xp_taskbar_desktop_fix_all

Right click the link above and choose save target as. You should now be presented with an option asking you where on your computer you’d like to save it. Choose a place you’ll remember that is easy to find. Once downloaded, run the script from the location you saved it at. Restart.

Imagine, if you will, you’ve lost an important file. You can’t figure out where you put it. You do however remember its name. What you need now is the ability to run a search.

In OSX it’s quite easy to find a file you’ve lost. Simply click the little magnifying glass at the top right of the screen and type in the file’s name. You are then instantly presented with results.

This instant search technology on a mac is called spotlight. Windows Vista offers a functionality which is similar. Vista’s instant search is located in the start menu. If you’re using Windows XP google offers an excellent instant search application called Google Desktop.

To activate spotlight, as mentioned before, you can click the magnifying class toward the top right of your screen. Alternatively you have the option to press command+spacebar. This opens the spotlight typing area. You can now start typing. Use your arrow keys to select the file you want and then press enter to open the file. Also, you could click on the specific file you want to open.

Another amazing feature spotlight offers is the ability to do math. It can do some fairly simple stuff such as 1+1 but it also has the ability to do some pretty powerful math such as 10! which is the equivalent of 10×9x8×7x6×5x4×3x2×1.

Spotlight also has the ability to look up definitions. For more details about using spotlight check out the following video.

Video Example - Using Spotlight

Get off the computer and go plant a tree or something! :]

      About a month ago the office I work for was cleaning shop. They gave a spare computer to our secretary’s husband for use at his new company. A few days ago he went to use it for the first time and realized he didn’t have any passwords for it. When he called us he informed us the only accounts on the computer were those of two of our resale agents, agents that had left the company over five months ago. No one knew the password. I had an idea however! You see the administrator account on xp systems usually doesn’t ever get a password assigned to it. Here’s what you can do if you fall victim to the same problem.

The following method only works if no password is assigned to the administrator account.

This method can be used to reset a users password, delete a user, or add a new user.

• Start the computer in safe mode.
• Log in as the Administrator using the username administrator with no password. (most users never set a password for the administrative account)
• Access the Control Panel
• Select Users

Starting the computer in safe mode

• Turn the computer off and wait 30 or so seconds.
• Turn the computer on and start tapping the F8 key.
• A Windows Advanced Options Menu should appear. If you get any sort of message such as keyboard error you probably pressed the key too soon. Simply restart the computer and try again.
• Use your arrows to select Safe mode then press Enter.

This should have started safe mode. If it did not another way to get the Windows Advanced Options Menu to appear is to force a computer off as it’s booting into xp. When you turn the computer back on it should inform you there was an error and give you an option to start safemode.

Logging in as Administrator

Now you should have a window that is asking you for a username and password. Use the following;

Username: Administrator
Password:                      

Password is intentionally left blank above. As I mentioned earlier most people never set the admin password. This is how we’re getting in! Through carelessness on our own/ someone elses part which has left the computer vulnerable.

Accessing the Control Panel and using the users panel

Once logged in we can open the Start Menu and then choose the Control Panel. Sometimes the Control Panel is located to the right of the word Settings in the Start Menu. The Control Panel has a few different views but nomatter which it opens in just look for the option User Accounts.

Once in User Account area you can choose various users. You have options once you have chosen a user to delete the accounts, to reset their passwords, and to perform other various actions. You can also add a new user with a password that you’ll actually know.

Once finished adding, removing, and modifying account you can close the window and restart the computer. Viola! You’re not able to log in!

So you’re using your computer but you can’t be bothered to use that pesky keyboard of yours or maybe your bluetooth ran out of juice. There are many reasons to need to use an onscreen keyboard and here’s how.

• Open System preferences found by clicking the apple at the top right of your computer.



• Choose international in the top row



• Click the Input Menu tab



• Choose the box next to the Keyboard Viewer option

You may now close all open windows.

To access the onscreen keyboard you just enabled click the flag that has appaeared at the top right of your screen and then choose to show the kayboard viewer

Video Example of Enabling the Onscreen Keyboard

Saving a screenshot on the desktop.

• Command+Shift+3: This will take a picture of the entire screen.
• Command+Shift+4: This turns your mouse into a crosshairs. To take the screenshot just click where you’re like to begun your picture, hold the click and drag, let go when you have a rectangle over the area.
• Command+Shift+4, then space: Your mouse will turn into a picture of a camera. The camera will take a screenshot of a window. By pressing space again the camera will turn back into a crosshairs.

Video example of making screenshots

Copying a screenshot to the clipboard.

(The clipboard is the place things go when you copy them, once in the clibboard they can easily be pasted into various programs such as word)

• Command+Control+Shift+3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard.
• Command+Control+Shift+4: This turns your mouse into a crosshairs. To take the screenshot just click where you’re like to begun your picture, hold the click and drag, let go when you have a rectangle over the area.
• Command+Control+Shift+4, then space: Your mouse will turn into a picture of a camera. The camera will take a screenshot of a window. By pressing space again the camera will turn back into a crosshairs.

These files will all save in a format called PNG if you’re using Tiger or Leopard. If you’re using Panther it’ll be PDF and if you’re using Jaguar it’ll be JPG.

To choose which file you’d prefer to save them there’s a neat hack.

Open the application called terminal located in the utilities folder which is located in the applications folder.

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Type the following two commands into the terminal window and press enter after each:

“defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format“

then

“killall SystemUIServer”

 

image_format above can be whatever you’d like it to be; jpg, tiff, pdf, png, bmp and others.

Video Example of Changing the File Type in the Terminal Application

It’s a copyright issue. They think you’re going to be doing things you’re not allowed to. If you really need to however all you need is VLC media player. Start the DVD and take a screenshot when you’re where you want.

For more info on installing and using VLC media player visit this link.

Open up Garageband.

Drag an MP3 file into Garageband.

Choose Share –> Send to Ringtone

It’ll tell you to set this bar thing to be under 30 seconds.

Choose Share –> Send to Ringtone again

It’ll then show up in iTunes under ringtones. Tell your iPhone sync area the sync that ringtone and you’re done! It’s easy to do. Honest.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307108

To keep iPhoto from opening when you plug in your iPhone simply open the program Image Capture which is located in the Applications folder.

Once Image Capture is running choose Preferences.

From Preferences simply change the “iPhoto” option to “No application”.

Tada! :] Close the window and quit out of Image Capture. Now iPhoto shouldn’t open when you plug in your iPhone and it had new pictures. 

Video Example