Computer, Email, & Website Passwords

Don’t use the same password for your email that you use for anything else. Why? Guess what happens if someone hacks your email? They now have your password that they could (but probably won’t) try on other web sites. Several large websites have gotten hacked recently like Sony. If you use the same login for Sony that you use for Hotmail for example, as a hacker guess what I am going to try to do? Right. And don’t keep your passwords on scraps of paper. I know when I’m at a client and they start rifling through napkins on their desk for their wifi password that they have no idea where it is and we’re going to have to reset it.

People complain to me all the time about the passwords that they need to remember. Think about all the conveniences and advantages of online anytime access. I think it certainly trumps the pains of maintaining a password list. It’s like when I used to sell software to vendors to Wal-Mart and they used to complain about having to build and support the infra-structure to be able to do business with the world’s largest retailer.

When to Repair/Replace a Computer

Consumer Reports has said that if a computer breaks in the first 2 years, fix it, in the second two years, think about it based upon price of repair, and after that, chuck it into Lake Lanier. Well, dispose of it the right way (see above). I think this is a little aggressive but it shows how much they consider a computer a commodity.

The value of a computer is the data on it and that is why a backup solution like Carbonite or Mozy (which I don’t know as well) is so important. Data on a computer can be divided into the operating system (Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OSX), the applications (word, excel, powerpoint, quicken) and the data (pictures, videos, emails, music). Carbonite and the like will back up the data. Should you have a catastrophic failure of your computer, you will have to replace the hard drive (or reformat if it’s a virus), install the operating system and applications again, and then import your data with Carbonite. You can download Carbonite here: Carbonite Sign-Up.

IPads and Tablets

Apparently Apple does have competitors for their tablets. Since Costco and Apple aren’t the best of friends right now, you can find no less than 3 competitors for iPads there. I still don’t know anyone who’s got one, but I am sure that they are selling them. I am going to be selling my iPad and buying a Barnes and Noble Nook. The Nook is basically an android tablet for $249. I am going to ‘adjust it’ so that it more full featured and comparable to an iPad. If you’ve got a non-Apple tablet, let me know what you think. I’ve heard that the Blackberry Playbook is awful, the HP Web-OS based tablet is neat but still early in its development cycle, and most Android tablets are roughly the same, so shop by cost.

By the way, I have an iPad 1st generation. I’ve played around with it enough to be a resource on what apps are good and what are wastes of money. If you’ve perused the App Store, you’ll note that the majority of apps out there are garbage and it’s always good to have someone pointing you in the right direction.

What To Do When Your Email Gets Hacked

If you feel that someone has broken into your email account and sent out emails to people in your address book, there are a few questions to determine to what level of hacking has occurred and how to respond effectively and efficiently. First of all, where are the contacts located that are getting the SPAM email? More often than not they are in your online address book, meaning that the hack took place online with Hotmail, gmail, yahoo etc and chances are there’s not remnants of a bad program on your computer. The first thing I would is to change your password to your email. Obviously, this will affect your email access capability on your iPad, Outlook/Outlook Express/Windows Live Mail accounts as well as your cell phone, so be prepared to change it everywhere. I would also recommend logging in from another computer that you feel is clean in order to execute the changes. Then make sure your computer has updated antivirus and a clean bill of health from a tool like Malwarebytes (a complement, not a replacement for your antivirus). A very important thing to recognize is that when a hack of your email happens in this manner, the hack MAY NOT have happened on your computer. It could have happened ANYWHERE and it just so happens that you were on your computer when you noticed. Since people commonly use their email password as other website passwords, it only needs to be hacked in one of those locations for a bad guy to cross reference and say “well, Frank Smith @ gmail.com used 123abc as his Georgia Power login, I wonder if he uses the same password on gmail”. (see below, Passwords)

Now, if your email gets hacked on your computer and you can definitely tell because all the bad SPAM messages are sitting in your SENT ITEMS in Outlook/Outlook Express/Windows Live Mail, that’s a much bigger problem. That means that there is probably a keystroke logger watching your computer and it’s time to call Dunwoody PC to clean up the viruses.

Electronics Recycling in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs Area

People ask me all the time where they can dispose of their old electronics. There’s a recycle center at Morgan Falls in Sandy Springs that I used to exclusively recommend, but now Goodwill in Dunwoody takes equipment. They don’t charge for TVs and CRT monitors like most places. I dropped off a laundry basket full of stuff today and they were happy to do it. Goodwill is at 1165 Perimeter Center West, in Dunwoody. I don’t know if the satellite location in ‘East Dunwoody’ near East 48th Street and China Garden does the same thing. As always, should you want to dispose of a computer, REMOVE THE HARD DRIVE (where your data is stored) and keep or destroy it. Dunwoody PC charges $50/computer for each computer that you like us to remove the hard drive before you dispose of it, $75/computer if you want to us to get rid of everything.