Triona's Tech Tips

I am seeing a rash of people whose Twitter accounts have been hacked. If you receive a DM (direct message) to your Twitter account saying “is this you???” with a shortened URL, DO NOT CLICK on the URL. Notify your friend via another means and encourage him or her to change Twitter passwords.

Note that it’s the person sending the DM who is the one hacked. But if you receive a message like this, it doesn’t hurt to visit twitter.com directly (DON’T click the DM link!) and change your password anyway.

It is vital to use strong passwords (mix of letters, numbers, upper and lower case, symbols where permitted; no plain dictionary words or easily identifiable names like your spouse, your kids, or your dog). You also need to use a different password on every system, even if you think it’s a pain to do so. If you use the same password in more than one place, the hacker then has entry into the rest of your accounts, like email, web sites and–heaven forbid–bank accounts. In fact, you might want to make an afternoon of it and change all of your passwords everywhere, which is a good thing to do on a regular basis. And don’t cycle passwords between accounts, you never know if one might be compromised. New passwords, strong passwords, different passwords for every system.

This particular worm has been around for a while but like all viruses tends to keep propagating. Be wary of suspicious links and use a site like ExpandURL to investigate shortened links before you click on them. When in doubt you are always better off manually typing in a Web address instead of clicking on a link. These scams are not limited to Twitter but can encompass any type of computer login.

Those glossy ads for inexpensive computers look good, don’t they? Imagine a brand new PC for less than $500! But there’s a catch: those computers may not last long enough for you to get your money’s worth.

In my experience, bargain-basement PCs are typically made with less-than-stellar components, so they break down faster and cost more to repair. They often come with minimal memory and hard drive space, meaning you’ll have to upgrade sooner than you would with a midrange model. That’s assuming you’re able to upgrade at all. Some of the low-end models don’t have the capacity to be upgraded, or use proprietary parts that cost a fortune.

Bear in mind that the practical lifespan of a computer is about 3 years. Yes, most of us use ours longer, but the manufacturers design computers with that lifespan in mind. You can buy a $1,200 PC that lasts you 3 years or longer, or you can buy a $500 PC that lasts you less than a year. The computer manufacturers love that because they can pretend they’re saving you money while locking you into a continual re-purchase cycle.

Consider your computer an investment. The more you spend up-front, the longer that investment will last.

Subscribe free to Tech Tips and receive bonus tips, tricks and product reviews. Click here to subscribe or send email to techtips-request-at-guidryconsulting-dot-com, subject “subscribe”.

The next time you do an online search for something, pause before you click. Some of the results you receive are poisoned links to malicious sites that may infect your computer with viruses and malware.

Search engines don’t verify that keywords match results, nor that sites are free from infection. Sponsored ads are particularly notorious. If you do a search for “Windows antivirus”, the paid results are often links to fake antivirus programs just waiting to lure you in.

I advocate the use of link-checkers such as McAfee SiteAdvisor or LinkExtend for Firefox. These free add-ons indicate through red, yellow or green icons whether links are safe to visit. Even so, you should always be cautious. Make sure your security software is up to date and that you have the latest versions of programs like Adobe Reader and Flash (here’s why). You can also run Secunia’s Online Software Inspector to check the status of your security protections.

Subscribe free to Tech Tips and receive bonus tips, tricks and product reviews. Click here to subscribe or send email to techtips-request-at-guidryconsulting-dot-com, subject “subscribe”.

There are continuing reports of problems with Apple’s 27″ iMac, which is now delayed indefinitely. Unconfirmed reports say that Apple has suspended production of their flagship iMac until the problems can be resolved.

If you have a 27″ iMac, you should install the most recent firmware updates to fix any flickering display problems. If your display remains black after the update you should contact AppleCare for assistance. Note that there are now two firmware updates for this model. The first was the 27″ iMac Graphics Firmware Update 1.0. This most recently released one is the 27″ iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0. Yeah, that’s not confusing at all.

You can find a great deal of discussion on this topic on Apple’s forums. At fault appears to be the particular graphics card used in the computer.