Hello everyone,

I really never thought I’d be writing a post about dial-up access, but here I am! A nice lady called me the other day and asked me if I could take a look at her non-functioning dial-up connection. She lived in a rural area of Tennessee and had no other way to connect to the Internet. It’s only the second time that I’ve had to deal with a dial-up situation in the past three years, so I was excited about doing something different! Here’s what I found:

1) Her ISP was EarthLink and she had installed the EarthLink “dialer software” from a CD. She was paying EarthLink $9.95 a month for the access.

2) Every time that I activated the EarthLink software I noticed that her CPU would max out at 100% and the computer would of course “freeze/hang”.

3) I took a look at the EarthLink software and noticed that it had come bundled with all kinds of unnecessary “features” (a.k.a. “crap”). Stuff like EarthLink Protection Control Center, EarthLink Toolbar, EarthLink Accelerator, and maybe even a couple of other things!

4) I took a look at the old computers CPU and saw that I was dealing with a AMD Athlon working at a “whopping” 1.20 GHz!!

5) I didn’t have to look anymore. I uninstalled all of the EarthLink software and created a simple dial-up connection in Windows XP. I did this:

Create a new dial-up connection

1. To start the Network Connections tool, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Network Connections, and then click Create a new connection in the left pane.
2. Click Set up my connection manually, click Next, click Connect using a Dial Up modem, and then click Next.
3. Type a descriptive name for the Internet service provider (ISP) that you are using in this connection, and then click Next.
4. Type the phone number that was provided to you by your ISP. Note that you may need to check with your ISP about long distance or access charges. Click Next.
5. Choose whether you want this connection to be shared by all users (Anyone’s use) of this computer, or only for yourself (My use only).
6. In the next screen, type the logon information that was provided by your ISP to access their service.
7. Click Next, and then click Finish to end the setup process.

6) Case closed! Right click the dial-up connection that now appears in the network connections area of the control panel (or better yet put a shortcut on your desktop), enter the three pieces of information that is required by your ISP (usually ISP username, ISP password, and the local ISP access number to dial). And you my friend will connect to the Internet “as smooth as silk”.

Professor Randy says: Don’t use the “dialer software” that is supplied by your Internet Service Provider! It will slow your computer down and waste precious bandwidth. Create a dial-up connection yourself by using the above method. Enjoy!

Hello everyone,

Here is some great tech news and information. Just click on your link of choice. Enjoy!

1) New Google Accounts Require Gmail And Google+

2) Symantec: Anonymous Stole Source Code, Users Should Disable pcAnywhere

3) Report: Enterprises See One Tablet Request Per Every Three Smartphones

4) The Dirty, Not-So-Little Secret Of High-Tech Manufacturing

5) A Clash Of Media Worlds (And Generations): SOPA and PIPA

6) Who Says Intel Is Weak? Just Look At Those Crazy Numbers!

7) New TWIT Show: Before You Buy

8) Facebook’s App Explosion Will Take Annoying To A Whole New Level

9) 2012: The Year Of Microsoft

10) The Mess That Google Has Made Of Android

11) Free eBook: 20 Things You Can Do Right Now To Improve Your Computer Business

12) Video: The Nokia Lumia 900

13) What I Use: Hotmail and Exchange For Email

14) Does Changing Or Disabling The Broadcast Of My Wireless SSID Make Me More Secure?

15) Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Professor Randy quotes Steve Jobs: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Hello everyone,

In the past year and a half or so I’ve repaired over 350 computers. In this series I’m describing the very repair tools that I use daily. If you would like, you can see the entire series by following these links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 10.1 and part 10.2.

Part 10.3: Continuing what I started in part 10, 10.1 and 10.2,  in the next few posts I’ll show you the repair tools that I have on my USB flash drives and tell you what they are used for. At the moment I carry around six USB drives so let’s take a look at some more programs that I have on flash drive #2:

1) Virus Effect Remover: A gifted group of ex-students (Avinash Sachen, John Fensome, and a third who likes to remain anonymous), saw a problem with ALL of the Windows Operating Systems and came up with this one. Virus Effects Remover (V.E.R.), is a tool to help end-users remove the effects of either a live virus, or the effects left-over by a virus, in any Windows Operating System. Instead of having to do a complete reinstall, V.E.R. will repair/fix the important damaged Operating System  items, like the Windows TaskManager, RegEditor, MSConfig, as well as the Operating System’s folder options, and Windows AutoUpdate, and many other OS things as well.

2) Undeleteable SafeBoot Key: A very sharp Belgian guy named Didier Stevens came up with this nifty tool. You know how some malware, viruses, etc. mess up your PC so you can’t get into Windows? One of the normal routes would be to reboot to safe mode and attack the problem from there, but how many times has your safe mode been inaccessible? Often malware is written to “clobber” safe mode to protect its existence. This “cool tool” by Stevens will bullet proof your safe mode so it doesn’t get disabled!

3) Take Ownership: This great program has saved my “bacon” several times! Taking ownership of system files or folders in Windows 7 or Vista is not a simple task. Whether you use the GUI or the command line, it takes far too many steps. Thankfully somebody created a registry hack that will give you a menu item for “Take Ownership” that will handle all the steps for you. After you install this registry hack, “Take Ownership” will show up in your right click menu and you’ll be able to access any file or folder. Great stuff!

4) WhoCrashed: Man, this is a great one! Whenever a computer running Windows suddenly reboots without displaying any notice or blue screen of death, the first thing that is often thought about is a hardware failure. In reality, most crashes are caused by malfunctioning device drivers and kernel modules. In case of a kernel error, most computers running Windows do not show a blue screen unless they are configured to do so. Instead these systems suddenly reboot without any notice. WhoCrashed shows the drivers which have been crashing your computer with a single click. In most cases it can pinpoint the offending drivers which have been causing misery on your computer system in the past. It does post-mortem crashdump analysis and presents all gathered information in a comprehensible way. Normally, debugging skills and a set of debugging tools are required to do post-mortem crash dump analysis. By using this utility you do not need any debugging skills to be able to find out what drivers are causing trouble to your computer.

5) Fix IE Utility: A valuable little tool by Raghu Boddu! If you face any problems while running IE, maybe after recovering from a malware attack, and if you find that the Reset Internet Explorer feature does not help you, run this tool to re-register around 89 dll & ocx files, which are required for the smooth running of Internet Explorer. Fix IE Utility has been tested on IE 7, IE 8 and IE 9, on Windows Vista & Windows 7.  Before running the utility, make sure that all your Internet Explorer windows are closed. A must tool for your USB flash drive!

Professor Randy says: A computer repair technician without great tools is like milk without cookies! Pointless! Fill your flash drive up with great tools and you’ll have the solution to the problem in the palm of your hand!

Hello everyone,

In the past year and a half or so I’ve repaired over 350 computers. In this series I’m describing the very repair tools that I use daily. If you would like, you can see the entire series by following these links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 10.1.

Part 10.2: Continuing what I started in part 10 and part 10.1, in the next few posts I’ll show you the repair tools that I have on my USB flash drives and tell you what they are used for. At the moment I carry around six USB drives so let’s take a look at some more programs that I have on flash drive #2:

1) Comodo Cleaning Essentials: This is a tool that I have been using a lot lately and it has been very effective in removing malware that other programs miss. Takes a while to update and scan but very effective. I usually run it while I’m out on another call. I really like it!

• KillSwitch – an advanced system monitoring tool that allows users to identify, monitor and stop any unsafe processes that are running on their system.

• Malware scanner – Fully customizable scanner capable of unearthing and removing viruses, rootkits, hidden files and malicious registry keys hidden deep in your system.

CCE is a lightweight, portable application which requires no installation and can be run directly from removable media such as a USB key, CD or DVD. Home users can quickly and easily run scans and operate the software with the minimum of fuss. More experienced users will enjoy the high levels of visibility and control over system processes and the ability to configure customized scans from the granular options menu.

2) Hitman Pro 3: Hitman Pro is very fast and I love the Scan Cloud feature. If a file is suspicious, Hitman Pro will have it checked by five different malware scanners and report back to you. Great stuff!

Hitman Pro is a second opinion scanner, designed to rescue your computer from malware (viruses, trojans, rootkits, etc.) that have infected your computer despite all the security measures you have taken (such as anti virus software, firewalls, etc.). Hitman Pro is designed to work alongside existing security programs without any conflicts. It scans the computer quickly (less than 5 minutes) and does not slow down the computer (except for the few minutes it is scanning). Hitman Pro does not need to be installed. It can be run straight from a USB flash drive, a CD/DVD, local or network attached hard drive.

3) ComboFix: I must tell you that ComboFix is my #1 malware cleaner! I cannot tell you how many times it has “done the job” when other cleaners have come up a bit short. The latest version will disinfect the dreaded ZeroAccess rootkit that “holes up” in the TCP/IP stack. I usually run ComboFix last (after I have run several other malware cleaners), and I’m always impressed with the effectiveness of this great program. In the past ten days alone I have had six infected machines (all with ZeroAccess) and ComboFix has cleaned them all!

ComboFix is a program, created by sUBs, that scans your computer for known malware, and when found, attempts to clean these infections automatically. In addition to being able to remove a large amount of the most common and current malware, ComboFix also displays a report that can be used by trained helpers to remove malware that is not automatically removed by the program.

4) Rogue Removal Kit: There is some overlap here with other individual tools that I use, but this guy John (check out his website), has put many of them into a single “kit”. Great to have on your USB flash drive!

A robust kit from John at EliteKiller.com. John put together this kit  using some of the finest tools that detect and remove assorted trojans, rootkits (including the nasty TDL3 & 4 variants), and other rogue antivirus/antispyware that are capable of hiding files on your computer. This form of malware includes those with fake security alerts that goad the end user into downloading and/or purchasing rogue software. Please check the README and follow the directions. In addition, do not be alarmed if some programs detect certain executables in this kit as a “Trojan” and/or “RiskTool”. AV programs cannot distinguish between “good” and “malicious” use of such programs, therefore they may alert the user.

5) aswMBR 0.9.9: I just started using this about ten days ago. MBR rootkits will disable your machine and you have to be very careful when you remove this type of malware or you will end up “wiping out” the Master Boot Record and you’ll be sitting there with a Hard Drive that won’t boot! I use this program and ComboFix for this type of malware.

aswMBR is a anti-rootkit scanner that searchs your computer for Rootkits that infect the Master Boot Record, or MBR, of your computer. This includes the TDL4/3, MBRoot (Sinowal), and Whistler rootkits. For this program to properly work it must first download the Avast virus definitions, so you will need an active Internet connection before using it.

A rootkit is a malware program that is designed to hide itself or other computer infections on your computer. These types of programs are typically harder to remove than generic malware, which is the reason that stand-alone utilities such as TDSSKiller have been developed.

When you run aswMBR, if it is shutdown automatically, then it is most likely the infection detecting that aswMBR is running and terminating it. In this situation you should rename executable to iexplore.exe before you attempt to run it.

Professor Randy says: A computer repair technician without great tools is like milk without cookies! Pointless! Fill your flash drive up with great tools and you’ll have the solution to the problem in the palm of your hand!

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year! On this the first day of 2012 I would like to give you ten great tech links (actually eight because #1 is my personal Happy New Years wish to you, and #9 is some great motivation for success). These eight links will take you to eight great sites full of useful tech information and more (don’t miss #9 & #10). Enjoy!!

1) My Personal Happy New Year Wish To You

2) 5 Lessons From The Most Popular Social Media Stories Of  The Year

3) Paul’s Tech Tips For 2012

4) 5 Resolutions To Change The World In 2012

5) Top 10 Cool Sites Of 2011

6) How To Survive Your First Year As An Entrepreneur

7) The Best Tech Products We Bought In 2011

8) Video: The Top 5 Gadgets Of 2011

9) Video: Build Your Foundation – “Path Towards Success”

10) Video: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Professor Randy says: Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my site!!

Hello everyone,

I like to watch The Buzz Report. Just in case you missed some of these reports, here are the best of 2011. Enjoy!

Professor Randy says: Check out “The Buzz Report”. Tech news presented in an interesting and fun way!

Hello everyone,

Here is a great video for your enjoyment. If you haven’t seen it yet, be prepared to be amazed! The true story of Christmas told in a modern digital manner! Awesome!!

Professor Randy quotes Roy L. Smith: “He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.”

Hello everyone,

Merry Christmas! My wife and I were in Indiana last Christmas visiting my sister, her husband and the entire family. My brother-in-law was having problems with his computer and I helped him out by fixing a couple of things. He was very appreciative for the help I had given him and wrote the following letter. Today (Dec. 23, 2011) I would like to share with you what my brother-in-law wrote to me last Christmas:

“My brother-in-law worked over my computer last night – took him nearly two hours of his time. I sat next to him to learn but I confess even though he’s a good teacher, it made me progressively more nervous.

He opened programs which I didn’t know even existed, which became more and more foreign to me and uncomfortable. Randy was running programs to eliminate files “I didn’t need”. I wondered quietly -”How does he know?” I never delete anything! There was lot’s of “trash” on my hard drive. How did he know? Was it that obvious? It’s true, I admit my hard drive is full of garbage.

Then he ran another program to help me “boot up” faster. I had too many programs which automatically start up and Randy says “slow me down”. I agree that my “boot up” is slow and getting slower, but eliminating things which work automatically sounds counter intuitive to me. Anything that works automatic should be left alone! But off it came!

Next he checked for malware. I asked “what is malware”? His explanation was somewhat confusing but he used words like “spy”, “virus”, “bad”, “let destructive programs into your computer” and “destroy your motherboard”. Enough, enough! The mal was the mal of maleficient, malfunction, malinger, malignant; he was looking into my computers soul; which I saw as a reflection on me!!

Lastly, he was going to run a program which he said could take all night! It was to defragment my hard drive. It helps put things in order – “there is a lot of wasted space”. It was just as well that I went to bed, I’d rather sleep through a defragmentation I thought to myself.

Well, I know this – I’m glad it was my trusted “Tech Professor” doing the cleansing of my computer. It’s not everyone that I would want to let in to see these inner workings.

I couldn’t help but think on the day before Christmas as our family gathered that the little boy whose birth we are about to celebrate had done the same thing for me in a much more important and profound way. Through His love he cleansed my motherboard and His Holy Spirit guides me to keep it clean. There is still a threat of malware but I have His ever presence with me.

So this Christmas – the best gift besides maybe the “Tech Professor” is to let God’s Son cleanse and defragment you and make you whole again. Merry Christmas”!

Professor Randy says: Have a wonderful day! Merry Christmas!!

Hello everyone,

Christmas is upon us and so is plenty of great tech information. Enjoy both!

1) Why Google Needs Firefox Now More Than Ever

2) PCMAG: MacBook Air vs. Ultrabooks

3) The Decline And Fall Of Tech Journalism, Flash Division

4) How Microsoft Can Fix Windows Phone In 2012

5) What’s Really Behind Twitter’s Staff Exodus

6) With Hard Drives In Short Supply, Seagate And Western Digital Slash Warranties

7) Think You Want An iPhone With LTE? Think Again!

8) Rules To Stop Pupil And Teacher From Getting Too Social Online

9) 100 Excellent Hints And Tips For Every Computer User

10) Video: Leo Laporte Reviews The Galaxy Nexus

11) 6 Great Gifts For Computer Consultants

12) The Real Reason Steve Ballmer Canned The Head Of Windows Mobile

13) Meet The Genius Behind Tweetbot, The Twitter App For iPhone Everyone’s Crazy About

14) The Windows IQ Test

15) Digital Music Meets Its Match In Apple iCloud

Professor Randy quotes Josh Billings: “Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.”

Hello everyone,

In the past year and a half or so I’ve repaired over 300 computers. In this series I’m describing the very repair tools that I use daily. If you would like, you can see the entire series by following these links: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10.

Part 10.1: Continuing what I started in part 10, in the next few posts I’ll show you the repair tools that I have on my USB flash drives and tell you what they are used for. At the moment I carry around six USB drives so let’s take a look at some more programs that I have on flash drive #1:

1) RAMMap 1.11: This is an awesome Sysinternals tool that will tell you what is eating all of your memory! RAMMap gives you a detailed overview of how your computer’s main memory is used. For instance, you can easily identify the amount of memory being taken up by processes (programs and services) or from device drivers. Even more importantly, RAMMap shows you all of the files that Windows has currently loaded into RAM. However, please note that RAMMap is for Windows Vista, 7, and Server 2008 only. No installation required. An absolutely great tool to diagnose PC hang-ups by indicating what programs are hogging resources.

2) Task Manager Fix: Task Manager Fix is a freeware system utility to fix a task manager disabled by spyware, trojans and other malicious software. The error message: “Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator“, tells you that these “bugs” have blocked access to Windows Task Manager. This error message appears due to restriction placed in the Windows Registry. Task Manager Fix will go into the registry and enable a disabled task manager. A very useful tool!

3) Unhide.exe: I cannot tell you how many times I have used this small program in the past few months. Many of the current “rogue” infections will hide your files and folders and make you think that they are gone! Not so, the unscrupulous, phony antivirus rogue has simply made them invisible so that you will panic! The little program Unhide.exe makes your files and folders visible again after you have cleaned out the rouge antivirus. Great stuff!

4) Ultra Virus Killer (UVK): This is a relatively new tool that looks promising! The application can be set to scan with MalwareBytes, SUPERAntiSpyware, and Hitman Pro (these applications will be automatically downloaded and installed, if not already on your system). Additionally, you may choose to run Kaspersky TDSS Killer and ComboFix. The real strength of the application however lies in the repair tools which have been designed to repair Windows (if necessary), after the disinfection. On top of that – users may create and run scripts that perform complete system repair and maintenance. UVK has a very simple and intuitive interface and comes in a portable version also.

5) Windows XP EXE Registry Fix: Many viruses will attack a computer and remove the .exe file association. The end result is when you attempt to open an executable file the “Open With Dialog” box will appear every time and you will not be able to open these files. Executable Files Will Not Load! You could go into your Windows Registry and edit it, but there is an easier way. Just download the above file, unzip it, and double click on the file. You will get an “Are you sure dialog box”. Click yes and this should fix your problem.

Professor Randy says: A computer repair technician without great tools is like milk without cookies! Pointless! Fill your flash drive up with great tools and you’ll have the solution to the problem in the palm of your hand!