Geekologist - Your Technology Forecast! » Malware

IE 7 Opens then Closes Issue Resolved

whoknew — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:45:11 +0000

Today I ran into an interesting problem where a virus infection on a computer caused a major issue with IE7. After doing some research and messing around on my own I found the easiest way to get IE7 back up and running if you run into a similar issue.

Description of the issue:
Internet Explorer 7 will only open for a brief period of time and closes. Users are unable to get into internet options from control panel or by right clicking on the IE7 icon on the desktop.

Cause of issue:
This issue is most likely caused by some type of malware on the system. Please before you attempt any repairs of IE7 run your virus protection software to ensure the system is clean of infection before you continue.

Resolution to issue:

First and foremost if SP3 is installed please remove it from the system. This will allow you to uninstall IE7 and have it roll back to IE6.
After you have removed SP3 reboot and remove IE7.
I highly recommend after IE7 is removed that you rerun your virus scanning software to ensure the infection has been removed off the system.
After confirming the infection has been removed run windows updates to reinstall both SP3 and IE7.

Conclusion:
I am making this post because I could not find any resource on the web that would give me a straight answer. If you have any questions just leave a comment below or shoot me an email at support@geekologist.net

Your Universal Guide to Windows (Part 2)

Zetacon — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:35:12 +0000

As I have said time and time again, no operating system is created equal, nor do they present themselves as better than another. Such a statement can be applied to Windows because, hopefully, everyone knows Windows is prone to crashing. If you haven’t backed up your important and even your not-so-important files recently, getting those files back can be a pain…until now.

Note: If you plan on reformatting your system, please refer to Your Universal Guide to Windows (Part 1) before proceeding with this article for necessary download links to free security software. If you are attempting to recover your Windows machine from a crash, it would be wise to access those downloads from another computer and transfer them to an external storage source.

You could use a file recovery program to attempt to get your files back after reformatting, but that doesn’t guarantee you will get them all back and retrieve 100% of the data. If you want a sure fire way to get all your data back, one of your best bets is to use a Linux distribution on a Live CD. If you have never used Linux before, this walkthrough will be a nice introductory to Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is a nice stepping stone for those that have not ventured the Linux path, allowing users to get a feel for the Linux software and even a decent grasp of the Linux command line.

If you do not have an Ubuntu disc or have the ISO downloaded and burned to a disc, visit DistroWatch or the Ubuntu website to download the ISO image and burn it to a disc with ImgBurn or another ISO image writer. Afterwards, follow the instructions to learn how to view your hard drive.

1. Insert your new Ubuntu Linux disc into your CD drive and reboot. Your PC will boot Ubuntu from the disc.

2. A menu will appear with a list of options. Select Try Ubuntu without any changes to your computer and press enter.

3. Allow Ubuntu to boot. At the very top of the screen, you will see a task bar with a number of options. Click on Places and then Computer. This will show you your hard drive as well as other hard drives on your system, if it applies.

4. Double click on your Windows drive to view the contents. If it opens immediately, skip to step 11 and read on. If not, continue on with the next step.

If you receive an “Unable to mount the volume” error, the next few steps will show you how to force the drive to open to view the contents.

5. Click on the Details link on the “Unable to mount the volume” error message, which will include a command line to force the drive to mount. Copy that command line down.

6. Go back to the top taskbar and click on Applications, then Accessories, and then Terminal. This application will allow you to use the Linux command line.

7. In order to force the mount of your hard drive, we will need to change to the administrator mode (Linux terms: root). Type in the following command:

sudo /bin/bash

8. Hard drives are either in NTFS format or Fat32. If you do not know what kind of drive you have, type the follow command:

fdisk -1

9. A directory must be created in order to mount the drive. Use the following command:

mkdir /media/disk

10. The following command is what you will type next, with a slight variation. Where it is bolded, replace that with what you copied down from the error details. This command is for those with an NTFS drive.

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force

If you have a FAT32 drive, use the following command line:

mount -t vfat -o umask=000 /dev/sda1 /media/disk

If you do not know what type of drive you have, refer to step 8 again.

11. If you completed all of the steps correctly, you should be able to see your hard drive contents.

Now would be a good time to have your external hard drive or other storage content with you. Please note that not all external hard drives are compatible with Linux. Please be sure to check to see that yours is.

Explore your hard drive as you normally would on Windows. Assess the amount of space used and how fast Ubuntu is retrieving the data. If you have a lot of data and Ubuntu seems to be lagging some, stop the data retrieval and look at the contents it has acquired. If there are a lot of useless old files, delete them. If there are a lot of .tmp files, delete them. Afterwards, try and read the folder again and do the same.

Once the hard drive has been cleaned and your file have been backed up, congratulations! You can now reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows!

Mac World 09′

whoknew — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:07:37 +0000

As some of you might already know this week was Mac World 09′. Most of you may know this because it was Apples last keynote at Mac World. In the video I will go into details about my thoughts on Philip Schillers keynote and the innovations apple brought to the table this year.

Topic:

iLife 09′ – Going into detail about some cool new features in iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garage Band. Including some amazing stuff that you can now do in iMovie.

iWork 09′ – Collaboration at it’s best. Some really cool features that make it even easier to manage and collaborate with others.

iTunes - Finally you can get every song on iTunes DRM free. Plus some new pricing points on music.

Mac Book Pro 17′ – This is the most revolutionary notebook on the market. The lightest thinest and longest battery life of any notebook of it’s class for sale today.

Enjoy the video and please leave any question or comments below!

Geekologist Radio — Episode #2 — More than 8 inches

David — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:00:08 +0000

Hosts:
David Ford
Keaton Taylor
Dan Peters

Topics:

Malware most often spread by visiting malicious Web sites
Google releases Chrome 1.0
More 10-inch Acer Aspire One rumors trickle out

Click to Listen