The Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book was released a few weeks ago and the initial reviews are positive. If you are looking for a high-end Windows tablet that can also function as a laptop, then these devices definitely deserve a look. Though they come at a high price point, that price buys you some sturdy engineering and some good hardware. 

That's not to say that there aren't issues. Here is a list of problems (and potential solutions) mentioned by early adopters and review sites. It is important to note that these are new devices (and in the case of the Surface Book, first generation devices) so some issues out of the box are to be expected.

If you have any experience with a Surface Pro or Surface Book, please be sure to share your experience in our comments section.

Windows 10 was released yesterday, and many people have questions about the operating system in general or about whether they should take advantage of the free upgrade for their Windows 7 and 8 computers.

In general, we are recommending that business customers hold off on the free upgrade until they have confirmed that all of their hardware and software is fully compatible with Windows 10. For home users, the decision is more of a personal choice, but if you have Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, we believe that you will be happy with the upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 7 users, the interface of Windows 10 appears much improved, but will still require a bit of a learning curve to master the new operating system. There are a lot of advantages to the new OS, so if it's something you want to consider, be sure to contact us about your upgrade options.

For specific questions, submit them to us here or ask us by email. If we don't know the answer we'll figure it out for you. And if you want to see a Windows 10 machine in action, arrange to stop by our office and one of our technicians can introduce you to Windows 10 on a machine here at our Lee Street location.

A vulnerability was discovered in iOS 8.1.2 that could allow fake login prompts to be sent to users, possibly compromising sensitive account information.

This vulnerability was reported in January but remains unpatched even in the developer previews of iOS 8.4 and 9.0 Beta.

Identifying a fake login prompt is not impossible. With a genuine login prompt in iOS users must either press OK or Cancel to proceed past the prompt. A fake login prompt can be bypassed with the Home button.

We've talked about encryption viruses before, but this techrepublic article goes into more depth about one of the latest variants of encryption virus, and offers some suggestions about how to protect yourself.

The best chance for recovery from an encryption virus is a active backup with multiple revisions. InfinIT's monitored offsite backup options cost as little as $.75/GB, and for those with large amounts of static data (pictures, music, videos), we can leverage the power of our Cloud Sync software's backup feature to provide storage space of up to 100GB for as little as $10/month.

The best method of protection from encryption viruses is user education. Most of these viruses install themselves because of direct interaction from users. Maintain good security on your computers and make sure to follow links wisely!

One way a community hoping to grow and attract high-tech businesses, the kind that will likely be driving the economy over the next few decades, is to take its Internet service into its own hands and provide it as a utility to the community. By investing in a high speed infrastructure, municipalities can provide significantly faster Internet service at often significantly reduced rates than the Internet Service Providers in the area.

Investment in a public Internet infrastructure benefits both the residents of the community and provides a strong lure to businesses. Cities where municipal Internet is already provided or proposed (Lafayette, Cleveland, Chattanooga, etc.) are generating lots of buzz and have been able to provider their residents with speeds in excess of 1Gbps (about 10x faster than the fastest available Cox speeds) at significantly lower prices (prices and speeds more akin to what the rest of the world pays for service that is significantly better than ours.

Personally, I'd like to see the Internet service providers in the US provide speeds more than the average 34Mbps we currently enjoy, something more on par with tech savvy countries like Romania (65Mbps average). And that US average isn't adjusted for all of the areas of the country that don't have high speed access at all; it's just the aggregate.

Using Chattanooga as an example, they are currently offering home Internet service of 1Gbps for &70/month.

We received the following email from our Lenovo Partner Channel today, discussing the Superfish malware they were pre-installing on some models of residential laptop. 

Dear Valued Partner,

As you may have heard, select Lenovo consumer notebooks shipped after September 2014 included Superfish Visual Discovery software as a shopping aid to customers. Superfish is a TrustE certified third-party software vendor, with offices in Palo Alto, CA.

User feedback on the software was not positive and we received some reports of security concerns.

Please note that Lenovo has NOT loaded this software on any ThinkPad notebooks, nor any desktops, tablets, workstations, servers or smartphones. The only impacted models are the following consumer notebook series: Z-series, Y-Series, U-Series, G-Series, S-Series, Flex-Series, Yoga, Miix and E-Series. If you use any of these Lenovo consumer models in your enterprise, please refer to the Customer Support information below.

While this software does not impact the models typically used by businesses, we wanted to let you know that we take user feedback seriously at Lenovo. We know that millions of people rely on our devices every day, and it is our responsibility to deliver quality, reliability, innovation and security to each and every customer. We make every effort to provide a great user experience for our customers.

We recognize that the Superfish software has caused concern. Lenovo has taken steps to address that concern.


Though we do not condone Lenovo's decision to install suspicious software, we should note that when we run malware scans on new computers from almost any manufacturer, suspicious files and malware-associated bloatware is discovered. It is a good idea to remove unwanted software and/or scan your new devices for malware-associated files when you get it.


InfinIT Technology Group

 

 

 



• 

Superfish has completely disabled server side interactions (since January) on all Lenovo products so that the software is no longer active.

 

 

 

 

• 

Lenovo has stopped preloading the software and will not preload this software again in the future.

 

 

 

 

• 

Lenovo has provided instructions for uninstalling this software and will soon provide a software removal patch.

 

 

 

For more information on this, or for instructions on Superfish software removal, please visit http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish.

We appreciate your confidence in Lenovo.

A battery problem in some models of Sony VAIO Flipbook PCs can lead to overheating, leading to fire and burn hazards. If you have or know someone with a Flipbook, please advise them to contact Sony immediately.

http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Sony-Recalls-VAIO-Flip-PC-Laptops/

Following their recent acquisition of Nest, Google has purchased the company that makes Dropcam, a streaming webcam/security camera and associated Cloud Service.

The Interface is slick and simple, the devices and services are reasonably priced, and there's a lot of peace-of-mind that such an offering can provider.

However, as Extremetech points out, "Just imagine what Google could do with a real-time, high-res video feed of your home. Where the Nest thermostat might give Google some behavioral data — how warm/cold you like the house, your comings and goings — it pales in comparison to Dropcam. With Dropcam, Google would know exactly what you’re up to at any given time. If you’re preparing dinner, Google Now might automatically prompt you with “tips on how to make the perfect souffle.” If you’ve just brought a newborn baby back from the hospital, you might suddenly find lots of Google ads for diapers and strollers. If it hears you shouting at your game console, it might tailor your search results to show some different, less-antagonizing games."

We tend to fall more into the "Google is helpful" rather than the "Google is evil" category, but I have concerns about systems such as this and the current generation of gaming consoles, which is constantly streaming data off to some server somewhere else, with the only thing protecting me from how that data is used being the privacy policy that I didn't read and likely wouldn't understand in its nuanced legalese. Moreover, even if Google can be trusted, recent events have shown that once data is online, it can be hacked, and I'm not certain how comfortable I'd be with 7-30 days of my comings and goings available online for a would-be thief to study prior to breaking into my house.

Then again, this line of work has gone a long way to making me paranoid. So perhaps I'm overreacting. That Nest smoke detector does sound nice...

Cryptolocker is a form of ransomware that encrypts data on the infected computer, rendering the files unreadable without the decryption key. Affected users are prevented with a screen with a countdown timer informing them that unless they pay the ransom for their data in a certain number of hours, the decryption key will be deleted.

Initial Infection: The initial infection is usually received via an email attachment or "drive-by" download on an infected website. Once installed, the malware contacts its "command and control" center for instructions, which provides the malware with the encryption key and its list of targeted file types.

Repair: While the infection itself can be removed without much difficulty by qualified IT professionals, without the decryption key, restoration of the encrypted data is impossible. Without paying the ransom, there is no way to obtain the decryption key, and due to the large key size, brute force decryption techniques are generally considered impossible. Early versions of Cryptolocker could be circumvented with a good system restore point, but later versions also encrypt or delete the pre-existing restore points, rendering that repair option useless. Aside from paying the ransom, the only reliable way to recover encrypted data is from a good backup of the user files.

Prevention and Remediation: While there are no guarantees in regards to malware, having a reliable and up-to-date antivirus program running on a computer can help prevent the initial infection by Cryptolocker malware. Similarly, utilizing a high-quality firewall or network monitoring service that prevents the malware from contacting its command and control center can stop an infected machine from receiving its encryption key and instructions. Finally, if an infection with Cryptolocker does occur, having a reliable backup of critical information, or (even better) a disk image to restore from is the only way to recover data lost to encryption.

InfinIT Technology Group offers Managed Antivirus ($3/device/month), 24/7 Remote Monitoring ($3/device/month), and Web Protection & Content Filtering Services ($3/device per month), or bundle all three services for $7/device/month. InfinIT can also help design a local backup strategy, make a baseline disk image, or set up an offsite backup for customers interested in protecting their most important data.

If you are worried about the Heartbleed security flaw but don't know what passwords you need to change, mashable has provided a short list of major websites, and whether or not they were affected by the flaw. If you have any doubts or concerns about a site not on this list, better safe than sorry: change your login password to something new and secure.