Well now there’s a website for the Occupy Movement in Prescott at OccupyPrescott.org.  I suppose I have to give Mr. Adcock some credit for beating everyone else to the domain name and slapping a blog on it.  However, if this is a serious attempt to enable the local 99% to fight the 1%, then I’m disappointed.

But just to make sure I wasn’t being unfair, I thoroughly searched the Occupy Movement’s website for any mention of Prescott.  I found nothing.  Once again, I am disappointed to find that “action” has been limited to a blog and a smattering of Facebook comments.  Once again, I can’t rely on the local groups, local media, and not even CNN.  They’re too busy name-calling.  No sir, I have to go to a foreign media source like Al Jazeera to find out what’s really happening with the 99%.

I’m not saying the 99% are right, or wrong.  I think both sides have legitimate and illegitimate gripes.  There are rich who prey upon the innocent.  There are poor people of good conscious who are powerless to stop them.  Then again, there are beneficent rich people, and poor who reek with the stench of villainy.  Greed is the real problem.  There’s greed on both sides.

If we want to fix greed, then we must make politicians live by the same rules the rest of us do.  Congress is on the take, and everybody knows it.  Congress is owned by the greedy with money.  Force them to stop accepting what I call “bribes”, take away their special privileges and retirement plans. Make them live under the same laws that the rest of us do.  I just wish I knew how to make that change happen.

OMG, really?  $1,096 for a 3.3-foot HDMI cable?  Why??  Because Monster Cables was monopolizing the ridiculously overpriced and under-performing cable market?

Once upon a time, I used to be in the Audiophile business.  Audiophiles are the people who take their music very seriously and sometimes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their equipment (CD players, amplifiers, speakers, wires).  I’ve even known a few to buy the $6,000 power cord for their turn-table because it sounded that much better than the $4,000 one they already owned.  And believe it or not, it actually can make a difference (if you can hear it).  So if anybody was going to spend $1,096 on that HDMI cable, it would be these guys (or videophiles).

But they don’t.  Why?  Because it’s the signal going through the HDMI cable is “digital”.  That’s important because traditional “analog” audio signals are sensitive to their environment; things like light-ballasts, vacuum cleaners, old electronics, and even electromagnetic waves from other cables can make the audio sound bad.  None of that happens with digital.  Digital is ones and zeros, on and off.  Another way of thinking of digital is you get 100% or you get zero percent, there’s no in-between.  In fact, most Audiophiles hate digital because of the absolute rigidity of the digital signal.

So if there’s no in-between, then why all the buzz about extra-special digital cables?  Because uninformed people are taken advantage of.  My advice to anyone is that before dropping thousands of dollars on equipment, give us a call, or somebody you trust with tech, or Google it at the very minimum.  Do a little fact-checking.

Via: Geekologie

In another fine article from the Chino Valley Review, we see that our local friendly ambulance company has upgraded the technology that they employ on a daily basis.  Here’s what caught my eye:

Before the software existed, Kasprzyk said a paramedic took a cellphone camera shot a of the electrocardiogram print out and send that to the Emergency Room, where a doctor would look for abnormalities.

“If the photo was sent, the quality was usually very poor and many times we couldn’t even tell what was going on,” said Yavapai Regional Medical Center Dr. Christopher Lampe. “Now you get these perfect images as if they’re being done in the emergency department.”

I’m just amazed. I see hacks all the time, and just when I think my skin is thick enough, along comes another marvel of “how did it come to this?”.  Seriously, at some point, some EMT had enough creativity and ingenuity to snap a cell phone picture and send it, which was probably far better than what was done previously.  And then it became standard procedure.  I’m certainly glad technology has come far enough along to allow Life Line to upgrade to something that should have existed since the 80′s.

It wasn’t that long ago that CableOne made their 50Mbps available to residential customers.  Now with their DOCSIS 3.0 technology fully implemented, both business and residential customers alike will have to seriously consider the power of 50Mbps over the offerings of anyone else.

However, throughput limits are in effect on some of the packages.  Any current CableOne customer can log into their account and see their current throughput to determine if the limits will effect them or not.  Also, CableOne uses an in browser popup warning system to make sure that users are well aware of the potential of exceeding their limit.

There are a lot more questions to answer for any business considering a move to CableOne.  What are the bundles?  What are the potential savings?  If phone service is added, will that save money?  What about existing contracts?  The thing to do is to speak with a CableOne Business Account Representative.  Every business has unique needs, and they are the only ones qualified to fully answer any question for any situation.

The CableOne Business Account Representative that we do business with and prefer is Maryanne DeMarco.  She prefers to be reached on her cell phone at (928) 202-1963.  Tell her Hill Top IT sent you. 

Google recently introduced a new service to detect if a user’s computer was infected with malware and then inform the user. The warning appears as an in browser pop-up above the Google search bar. The warning is bright yellow and contains a link to another Google page where the user can learn what to do about their possible malware problem.

The service is the product of an investigation to determine the source of unusual activity patterns that were detected in Google’s data centers. It turns out that the activity was actually coming from machines that were infected with malware. Since it was a simple matter to detect the individual activity patterns, Google’s engineers capitalized on the opportunity to warn users of the potential threat in real time.

The good news is that there are a lot of computer users on the internet with no anti-virus protection what-s0-ever. Google’s new service, and future services like it, may be the only thing that saves someone from a serious malware problem. It’s quite possible that Google may eventually spin-off a cloud anti-virus service and make it available to Google App users, or anyone with a Google account, or the entire general public. They may even bundle such a service with their Chrome browser and OS.

However, the bad news is that there may be a problem with Google’s new service as it stands right now. For years, IT departments and computer repair professionals have been warning users not to trust anti-virus or malware notifications outside of the software they know they have installed on their individual systems. The problem is that there are many fake anti-virus programs that appear in browser windows and attempt to fool the user into believing that there is a serious infection. These fake anti-virus programs ask the user to purchase their software (which does no good), or install other free software which are actually Trojan programs. Even with users being aware of Google’s new service, a malware process could impersonate that service in a web page; at that point it’s no different than any other fake anti-virus program, except that it uses Google’s good name to lend it credibility.

It may turn out that Google’s good intentions will complicate an already difficult issue for many uninformed users. Only time will tell. But that’s not the only issue. There’s the question of whether companies have the right to detect infections (or anything else) on a machine without the owners explicit permission. There also doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off these notifications.

It also appears that Google’s recommendations for cleaning up your system includes a very short list of specific commercial products to scan for malware. While Google is a private company and can make any endorsement it wants, it does seem a bit unfair to have a multi-billion dollar company prominently backing only one anti-malware product effectively throwing every other malware company under the bus.

Their instructions also tell the operator to disable the Windows System Restore in their haphazard attempt to deal with the malware, and then to only seek help from a professional as the very last thing to do. Shutting down the System Restore can result in significant data loss. In fact, using the System Restore can eliminate the malware in about 50% of the cases (depending); but at no point do the instructions say to attempt a System Restore.

To use a little bit of hyperbole: It’s like calling the Doctor after attempting to perform an appendectomy on one’s self at home with a butter-knife and a bottle of alcohol. Perhaps it would be safer, and wiser, for people infected with malware to contact a trusted professional at the start.

“This leak has names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, social security numbers, online dating account info, voicemails, chat logs, and seductive girlfriend pictures belonging to a dozen Arizona police officers. We found more internal police reports, cops forwarding racist chain emails, k9 drug unit cops who use percocets, and a convicted sex offender who was part of FOP Maricopa Lodge Five,” the [hacker] group said.

Now technically I don’t think any of that is illegal, but the statement does certainly paint the police in a bad light.  In my personal opinion, the police should hold themselves to the highest standard of morality and ethics and should be ready to stand inspection and be accountable for anything found to be less than exceptional.  However, cops are people too and they have a reasonable expectation to privacy that should not be violated by anyone.

Never the less, this is a lesson and prime example to the rest of us to not trust anything connected to the Internet.  If the cops can get pwned, where does that leave the rest of us?  My personal rule:  If it can transmit, don’t trust it.  Of course, it also helps if one is not a racist drug-abusing sex offender. 

Via: Daily Courier

First, watch the anti-piracy PSA I’ve posted.  The moral of the story is “if you download free movies, some innocent boom operator loses her job”.  Ok, now that you’ve watched the video and realized that some people have no souls, here’s the secret knowledge:

A)  There are a lot of thieves.  What’s amusing are the thieves who steal movies, music, and software justify it by making claims like “if you don’t lock your house then you deserve to be robbed”.  No, they really are just petty thieves; actually thieves and liars.  They don’t care about hurting innocent people, especially when they can save 99-cents.

B)  These thieves don’t actually go into the stores and steal whatever it is directly (too risky).  They just download whatever they want from other thieves (much safer and more convenient).  This creates mob mentality and peer pressure.  After all, if everybody is doing it, then everybody’s doing it; and much like voting, one person can’t possibly make a difference.  That’s why we had so much fun with cocaine and break-dancing back in the 80′s.

C)  Nearly everyone who is downloading pirated material from other thieves don’t realize that there’s no honor among thieves.  Cyber-criminals intentionally dope their various warez with all kinds of malware which is then downloaded by everyone else.  Aha!  Remember (A), if you don’t lock your house then you deserve to be robbed.  Or more accurately if you’re stupid enough to download pirated warez from cyber-criminals then you deserved to be infected by a virus, worm, trojan, logic bomb, fake anti-virus program, bot-net, or whatever they want.

Which leads right back to the moral of the story.  If someone doesn’t care about harming the innocent when they download pirated stuff, then the cyber-criminals won’t care about hurting that someone back.  What a vicious little circle.  And that leads to why I sarcastically love piracy.  Piracy provides me with a lot of business.  In fact, 99% of the business that comes into my shop is virus/malware removal.  Based on what I see, I’m guessing about 70% of those people got infected by downloading pirated materials.  More often than not I find that personal data has been lost such as family photos, documents, business data, and of course the music/movies/software has to be erased.

So much like a police officer telling people not to drink and drive, I am once again going to tell everybody who will listen not to illegally download copyrighted material.  Few really ever listen, but I like to say it anyways.

Personally, I support those industries that provide me with the things that I want or need.

Mac Defender is a fake anti-virus program for the Mac OS and it’s designed to steal people’s credit card information and other personal information.  It’s MalWare.  It’s on a Mac.  It’s very real.  I know there’s a lot of people that think that Mac’s are virus-proof, but that’s simply not true.  Apple has removal instructions on their website.  The 1st virus for Mac OSX appeared in February 2006:

Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos’s global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have announced the discovery of the first virus for the Apple Mac OS X platform. The virus, named OSX/Leap-A (also known as OSX/Oompa-A) spreads via instant messaging systems.

How is Apple responding to the flood of customer calls about installations of the Mac Defender malware?  Apple continues to tell support reps: do not help with Mac malware.  Now that may sound bad, but in reality it’s not Apple’s responsibility to teach users how to use a Mac properly or how to secure it. 

We see this kind of thing on Windows all the time.  Fake anti-virus programs that suddenly appear warning of massive infections that can only be corrected with a Visa or MasterCard.  They can instantly disable Internet access, interrupt normal program function, erase system recovery points, lock users out of administrative access, and transmit confidential information.  They all have one thing in common: no significant anti-virus protection, which is exactly where most Mac users are at.

Mac users have enjoyed virtual immunity from the cyber-criminals who have focused almost all of their efforts on Microsoft products.  But now that Apple has become a tech name bigger than Microsoft, and the Mac OS is now on millions of computers, that time is no more.  Cyber criminals have no brand loyalty, they are only motivated by theft and greed.  The Apple is ripe for the picking.  Mac Defender isn’t going away.  It will be copied, changed, altered, replicated, and will inspire other cyber criminals to succeed where Mac Defender failed.

While there is a small part of me that will enjoy watching that smile getting slapped off the smug faces of those self-important Apple religious-fanatics (you know who you are), I also feel a great swell of pity for the many innocent people who will be victimized in the near future because some fool told them Mac’s were virus-proof.  Well, if you own a Mac, you can now switch to a Linux because it’s “virus-proof” too.  Or you can get a real anti-virus program for the Mac OS.  Here’s what I found that’s available: