One of my favorite e-magazines is Windows Secrets (http://windowssecrets.com).  This is a free and for-pay newsletter that gets to the bottom of many Windows (and other) issues.  Windows Secrets is also the voice of reason when deciding whether to run a Microsoft/Windows security, or other, update.  As you know, many updates issued by Microsoft have the Windows community recipients beta testing half-assed solutions to serious issues.  Almost always, the intrepid team at Windows Secrets has advised on the side of caution, having recipients wait until all testing had been done and showing issues so we could make informed decisions.

So, when Brian Livingston of Windows Secrets advises everyone to install the new MS patch without hesitation, you know it’s serious.  Brian states that this is the first time in 1-1/2 years that Microsoft has released an emergency fix outside of its monthly “Patch Tuesday” cycle. 

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There’s a fake Microsoft email message with a nasty file attachment wending it’s way around the internet.  It’s supposedly a Windows update .exe sent as an attachment to a Microsoft email.

Though almost all email programs block .exe attachment files by default, they don’t always send the entire email to the junk mail folder.  Although, having an executable as an attachment should tip the junk filter to the suspicious category and at least send it to the Junk Folder in an abundance of caution.

If you see this email message, DELETE it post haste.  Microsoft would NEVER send an .exe or .msi file through the email system.  Microsoft sends updates through the update process on your PC or MAC.

The current message supposedly comes from “Microsoft Update Center [securityassurance@microsoft.com]” and contains an attachment KB825559.exe - which should NOT be opened under any circumstances.

The complete message and details can be found on the Office Watch website http://news.office-watch.com/?699.

For those of you who are now the proud owners of your own website domains, there comes with it a whole new level of spam.  It’s important to be on your guard for seemingly legitimate requests or inquiries, especially in a field that is new to you and in a “language” that may be unfamiliar to you, but that may be phishing scams.

A phishing scam is a legitimate-looking request from a company or individual that is not legitimate, requesting personal and financial information from you that will be used in nefarious ways.  Many of these scams, in the form of emails, comes complete with the a legitimate company’s logo, colors and other distinguishing details, but which ultimately direct you to a site that is completely unrelated to the legitimate business.

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Make sure you’ve glanced over Part 1 to make sure this process is right for you.

Setting up your POP3 accounts into Outlook is a fairly simple process.  However, in order to do this, you need to have the following information from your POP3 email account provider: 

1. The Incoming Mail Server (POP3);
2. The Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP);
3. The Server Port Number (if it requires something other than the default).

Please note that each email provider can have different and specific information for each of these areas and you may need to visit their site or call them to get this information.
 

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Did you know that you can collect all of your various webmail, html, and POP3 email accounts into Outlook?  As of the date of this writing, I have over 40 POP3 accounts and a hotmail and msn account feed into my permanent Outlook account, making it easy for me to save attachments in appropriate client folders on my hard drive, keep my external accounts clean, and facilitate archiving (which will be another important topic for a later post).

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I came across an article I’d put aside regarding internet security. This article was well written and entitled “Internet safety for grandparents: What to do when you’ve been compromised.” I’d put it aside basically because it was information I was already aware of. But then I had to walk my daughter through an emergency clean up of her machine because somehow she’d gotten so infected she couldn’t even log onto her school site to do her assignments. The first thing I asked her was what type of anti-virus software she was using and I heard a lengthy silence on her end. She eventually admitted she had none. We tried a few clean up tricks, but her computer was too far gone. I ended up walking her through a restoration, which to you non-techies is a complete reformat of the hard drive and setting it back to the way it was when she bought it.

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Welcome to Solutions & Thoughts by dsh. I’ll try to publish useful information, tips, tricks, reviews, and thoughts to help you understand current technology, graphic & photographic design & branding, and web design, marketing, advertising, & maintenance.