I hope you are well.

Here’s a quick round up of the latest news from the computer world.

AVG Anti Virus

I have found recently that many of my customers who use AVG are having serious problems with their computer, to the point where it is running very slowly and other problems.

I’ve never been a great fan of AVG, and whenever I have a customer with problems who has AVG installed, I’ve found that by removing it, it usually makes a dramatic improvement to the computer’s performance.

The advantage with AVG is that it is free for home users. However, there are other free anti virus programmes that I can recommend, such as Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials.

However, as with most things in life, you get what you pay for. That’s why I ONLY recommend using Eset NOD32 as a proper AV solution. Its not free, it costs £30 for the first year, then £22 annual renewal. But in my opinion, it is the best AV programme available. It is completely automatic, doesn’t slow down your computer, and actually works, to stop viruses and malware from damaging your PC. That’s just for Anti Virus protection. If you prefer the full Internet Security package, which includes Firewall and Anti Spam protection, that costs a bit more, but is definitely worth it, for peace of mind.

It is increasingly important to make sure your computer is fully protected. I believe prevention is better than cure.

If you need any further advice or help, call or email me.

Microsoft Office 365

This is a new service from Microsoft, which is aimed at small-medium sized businesses, who have staff or team members, who would like to access and share their documents, calendar, contacts and emails, with other members of the team.

It works through ‘The Cloud’ so it is safe, secure and always has the latest versions of all the Microsoft Programmes.

It is a paid for monthly subscription service, starting at £4 per month. It allows you to work from almost anywhere and get automatically updated email, calendar, and contacts on the devices you use most, including PCs, Macintosh computers, iPhone, Android phones, BlackBerry smartphones, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phones.

For more information about this service, click on the link below.

If you would like help setting this up, I would be happy to help.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/online-software.aspx

Scam warning.

I’ve told you about this before, but some people don’t listen! One of my lovely customers last week received a phone call from ‘Microsoft’, informing her that they had detected that her computer had a serious security problem, and was being used to send out thousands of spam emails. Of course, they sounded genuine and really put the frighteners on her.

They said she needed to make various changes to her computer and would need to buy and download a programme to make her computer totally secure. They spent over an hour on the phone to her, and by the end, she had paid them £161 with her credit card.

If this happened to you, at what point would the alarm bells start ringing?

Of course this is a complete scam, designed to get control of your computer whenever they wish, get you to part with money, and harvest your credit card details.

So, let me make this perfectly clear. Microsoft is NEVER going to call you to tell you that they have detected a problem with your computer. You must NEVER allow anyone you don’t know, to get you to make changes to your computer. You NEVER give a stranger your bank or credit card details.

If you should ever get a phone call like this, there are only two words you need to say to them, and the second one is Off!!!

Speaking of Scam Alerts, I must tell you what happened to one of my customers this week. I received an email from her saying she was stranded in Wales(!) and had her bag stolen with her passport and purse. She was really sorry to ask but could I possibly send her some money so she could get home. There was a link to a site where I could deposit some money for her. Obviously I knew this wasn’t from her. Someone had illegally accessed her Yahoo email account and sent out this begging letter, in her name, to all her contacts. I went to see her the next day, to check her security on her computer. To our absolute horror, we discovered that the b******d that did this also wiped out every one of her 6,000 emails and subfolders and all her 300+ contacts too!!! Complete nightmare. Everything in her Yahoo Mail was completely deleted. Thankfully, I managed to have a live chat with a Yahoo technical man and explained the situation. They were brilliant. After a few hours, they successfully managed to restore everything as it was, which has saved her life.

The moral of the story is that if you use a web based email programme, such as Hotmail or Yahoo or Gmail, you potentially could have the same thing happen to you without warning. I doubt whether we would have had such a good result, had she had a Hotmail or Gmail account.

So what’s the answer? All PCs and Mac have their own email programme, such as Windows Live Mail. There are other excellent email programmes like Outlook or  Incredimail, Thunderbird or Mac Mail. It is not difficult to import everything in your webmail into any of these programmes. So should this nightmare ever happen to you, everything is backed up. It also makes good sense to regularly change your email password and security questions.

If you would like help doing this, please call or email me and I’d be happy to help.

BBC IPlayer

One of the most popular websites is the fantastic BBC Iplayer, which gives anyone with a PC, IPad or smartphone (Not Blackberry yet), free access to most BBC TV and radio programmes from the last 7 days.

However, I have only just found out this week, that it also offers you the same facility for NON BBC TV channels, such as ITV 1,2,3 and 4, Channels 4 and E4 & Channel 5 and a few others as well. Just go onto the main front page www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and at the left, below TV channels, next to BBC Channels, click on Other TV Channels, and hey presto, there they are. Brilliant!!

Gift Vouchers

As we are rapidly approaching the end of the year, you may be thinking about what to buy your loved ones. How about buying them.....ME!!!!!

You can now buy PC Basics gift vouchers, which would give someone an hour of my time, either for tuition, or a computer tune up and service. The usual cost is £50, but for the next few weeks, you can buy them for the reduced price of £40.00

And finally…….

Back by popular demand, here’s another 3D Stereogram. Can you spot the hidden image in this picture? First correct answer wins absolutely nothing.

And just before I go, I have finally decided that after many years of being a dedicated Blackberry user, I’ve succumbed to the new Apple IPhone 4S, which I’ll get shortly. Can’t wait to give you a full review next month.

That’s it for this month. The next one will be just before New Year. Where has this year gone? I’m getting old now so the years just Fly by, so if I don’t speak to you beforehand, I wish you a really happy Chanukah or Christmas

Henry