1. Stop using Internet Explorer and make the switch to Firefox, it’s more secure, plain and simple.
2. Get Spybot Search and Destroy and immediately update it.
3. Get Adaware SE and immediately update it.
(Use both as a 1-2 punch on infected client computers and between the two there’s not much they won’t kill)
4. Update your antivirus
5. Boot into safe mode and run all three scans
6. While the scans are going check your registry (Click start –> Run and type regedit to get intot he registry) and look in HKEY_CurrentUser/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run & HKEY_Local_Machine/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run. Verify that all programs listed are legitimate and wanted.
7. If or when your antivirus scan comes across anything, search for that file name in your registry and delete it.
8. Use explorer to go to the windows/system32 folder and sort by date. If you haven’t already done so, make sure you can see the entire file names. click Tools –> Folder Options and unclick the box labeled “Hide extensions for known file types” and under Hidden files and folders click “Show hidden files and folders.” However, make sure you choose “Hide protected operating system files” so you don’t accidentally remove anything that would cripple your computer.. You are looking for recent files with names ending with .exe and .dll that look suspicious. Major culprits will have gibberish names such as alkjdlkjfa.exe.
9. Once you can get clean scans in safe mode, reboot in normal mode and scan all over again. If you can’t get a clean scan in regular mode then you have something more persistant that could take more research.
10. Make sure your firewall doesn’t have strange exceptions.
11. If you suspect anything that is going wrong with your computer is the action of a stalker, on a more secure system change all your passwords.
12. If your system has been specifically targeted and hacked you can never be 100% sure that your system is no longer compromised so start with 11, make backups of personal files on the infected system and format and re-install Windows. Good luck!

The forth tip video from PCWizKid. Remove the Windows Vista sidebar from starting up every time you start windows. This tip is for those that find the sidebar crowds their desktop or just don’t have use for it. Kick it out with these simple steps…

The third tip video by PCWizKid. For Windows Vista Users the “Run command” menu option has been replaced with “Search” which is different. If you would like the run command option, follow these easy steps to enable it.

We’ve been working on moving to a new server all week, and we’ve just finished the transition. Best of all, we’ve switched to the new servers without any downtime in-between. Our new server is a 1.86 GHz Core 2 Duo and with 3GB of DDR2 RAM - all thanks to the awesome guys and gals at Lunarpages, the best host there is.

A lot of work has gone into this transition in hopes of raising the performance - and more importantly, the reliability - of our server. In the past year (since we first started our hosting with LP), we’ve gone from several million hits a month to dozens of millions, and our old server took quite a hit. To that end, we’ve focused on deploying lightweight and highly-optimized code all around; hopefully there will be no more un-expected downtime… ever.

Our current software setup is very complicated, but hopefully it’ll take us all the way to 0.00 minutes of downtime - that’s our goal! We have multiple application servers and programs running in the background each doing what they best - instead of the traditional have-the-web-server-do-it-all way. At the moment, we currently have a software stack comprising of a tightly-knit mesh of these products:

Probably the biggest category of problems that can be traced to
violating COM single-threaded apartment rules in the shell is
using an object from the wrong thread.
Of course, nobody admits to doing this up front,
They just report that the shell is broken. Read More……(read more)

The indexing service is responsible for two things really: Making search boxes run super quickly (like under the control panel, and your program files) which is a blessing, as it does run very fast. It is also responsible for doing the same thing over all your files that you choose to let it index. This can be good if you do a lot of searches, or bad if you have a lot of files in these areas, but don’t ever search them. Or even if you do search them, it can cause your indexing service to cause a lot of strain on your hard drive (or at least slow you down as it is hard drive intensive). I personnaly would not turn *off* Indexing services, but I would recommend disabling for everything else but the start menu/control panel, etc. (more…)

hard drive, indexing service, indexing services, indication, Internet, modify button, open control panel, program files, strain, trees, vista, Windows