Retail Systems and Installation Advice: Bryan's Blog

Internet Explorer 32 and 64 Bit Differences

2012-01-26T18:58:39Z

Internet Explorer 32 bit and 64 bit Version Use

If you are running Windows 7 64 bit, you may have noticed that in the start menu there is a shortcut to Internet Explorer (64-bit). If you are wondering what it is for, Ill try to give you some information.

From the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Both versions of Internet Explorer are included to increase compatibility with existing programs and Web sites. The 32-bit version of Internet Explorer can host only native 32-bit ActiveX controls and other 32-bit Web page objects. The 64-bit
version of Internet Explorer can host only native 64-bit ActiveX controls and other 64-bit Web page objects.

Some More Information:
If you experience problems when you use the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, try to view the same Web site by using the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer. If the problem occurs in both versions of Internet Explorer, you must determine whether the problem is caused by a Web object or if the problem is caused by Internet Explorer.

To determine the version of Internet Explorer that you are running, click About Internet Explorer on the Help menu of Internet Explorer. If you are running the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, the About Internet Explorer window includes
a 64-bit descriptor label. The 32-bit version of Internet Explorer does not show a bit-level descriptor.

Interoperability with existing technologies:
The differences between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Internet Explorer can affect toolbar add-ins and Microsoft ActiveX controls. For example, 32-bit toolbar add-ins do not work in the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer. These add-ins include the MSN toolbar, the AOL toolbar, the eBay toolbar, and the Google toolbar. You can install 32-bit toolbars in the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer. However, the 32-bit toolbars will not appear in the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.

For example, when you start the Setup program for the 32-bit Google toolbar in the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, the Google Setup program closes the 64-bit Internet Explorer window. The Google Setup program opens a new 32-bit Internet Explorer window when setup is completed. The Google toolbar appears in the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer, and the toolbar works correctly. The 32-bit Google toolbar is not installed in the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.

By design, the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer cannot host 32-bit ActiveX controls. Additionally, the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer cannot host 64-bit ActiveX controls.

As you can see there are some differences between the two versions. If something does not work as expected in one version, try the other.

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan

Prepare Your PC Before You Donate It

2012-01-16T23:37:32Z

Reselling or Donating and old system

I've been asked many times what to do with old PC's that are going to be donated, re-sold, or given away.

The best way to make sure that your computer is safe and clean for resale is to run a full system recovery using the operating system discs that you either received in the packaging at the time of purchase or created yourself after
purchase. If you do not have the discs, you may be able to reformat from a recovery partition on your local hard drive. If neither of those options is viable, you can contact the manufacturer to acquire the discs often with a download of and ISO file (disc image)..

To run the recovery from a partition, you will need to access the advanced boot menu on your computer when you power it up, typically by pressing F8 repeatedly as you power on the unit. This will bring you to a screen on which you can select a "repair your computer" option, and from that selection you can run a full system recovery.

To run your recovery from the discs, you will want to turn on your computer, then restart it. During the post screen (the screen that shows the brand of your computer or motherboard) you will see a "Boot Menu" with the appropriate key to press to access this list next to it. Repeatedly press the designated key then select your CD/DVD drive when the list shows up. After this, follow the steps given to recover your computer!

A System Recovery will put your PC back to the way it was when you first opened the box, suitable for resale. For donation wiping the drive is more suitable. You want to protect yourself from any potential theft of your private information or licensed software. There are options for preparing/wiping your PC hardware only to be donated or re-sold. These include formatting your hard drive with no OS using a type of program that will format write 0's to all of the disc any number of times. This ensures the data that was on it can not be recovered in any easy manner. Although your PC will be unusable until an operating system is installed, it is probably the safest way to prepare your PC and protect you confidentiality.

If you have lost your original CD/DVD and no recovery/factory partition exists, there are several good shareware tools that included a wipe disk capability up to the DOD level of protection. For example: Ccleaner.

If you need help with this topic, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan

Some Interesting Mobile Stats from CES

2012-01-10T21:42:02Z

CES Show Mobile Devices

The CES show is the biggest electronics show in the country and attracts many of the biggest companies showing off their wares.

Here are a few notes on mobile devices.

there are now more than 6 billion cellular connections globally, including 1.5 billion with 3G mobile broadband.

1.2 billion people access news on mobile devices, more than all cable subscribers and (gulp) three times the circulation of all newspapers.

Total wireless industry revenues reached $1.3 trillion last year, "which is almost 2 percent of global GDP."

most people look at their phones about 150 times a day, or once every 6.5 minutes every waking hour.

In 2015 approximately half of all phones will ship into emerging markets that are more price sensitive. That's pushing hardware companies to develop more sub-$150 handsets.

Smart phone cover that's used to capture cardiograms by gripping the device, a product that a doctor said he used on a plane to diagnose a passenger's heart attack and call for an emergency landing.

The doctor also showed how a glucose sensor under the skin works with a smart phone app to display real-time glucose levels and chart them through the day.

I find it amazing how in such little time, that a cell phone went from being just a device to make phone calls, to being able to give glucose levels on a real time basis

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

The NEW SpyEye Trojan

2012-01-06T20:37:26Z

Excerpted from MSNBC

SPYEYE TROJAN: Bank Account Fraud.

Here is how it works:

The Trojan horse employs a powerful two-step process to commit the electronic crime. First, the virus lies in wait until a customer with an infected computer visits an online banking site, steals their login credentials and tricks the victim
into divulging additional personal information such as debit card information. Then, after the stolen card number is used for a fraudulent purchase, the virus intercepts any further visits to the victim's banking site and scrubs transaction
records clean of any fraud. That prevents -- or at least delays -- consumers from discovering fraud and reporting it to the bank, buying the fraudster critical extra time to complete the crime.

It is being called a "post transaction" attack, because much of the virus' effectiveness is attributable to its ability to control what victims see after fraudulent transactions occur. Scary!!!!!

The virus' evidence-covering techniques are elaborate. First, it keeps track of all fraud committed by the criminal, and makes sure to remove those line items from online transaction lists. It also edits balance amounts to prevent consumers
from getting suspicious.

Victim account holders who check their balance at an ATM -- or even at a second uninfected computer -- would be able to spot the fraudulent transactions. The virus doesn’t impact bank systems, merely the characters that are displayed within the infected system's Web browser. That means paper statements would reveal the fraud, too.

So besides keeping your Anti-virus/malware software up to date, it is also important to keep your browser and OS up to date.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Check Your PC's Date Or Time

2011-12-31T01:29:07Z

Keep Your Timestamp Accurate

Its a good idea to occasionally check the date and time settings on your PC. With the incorrect date and time, you software may try to create transactions with incorrect time stamps, and may not allow you to post your transactions or settle your credit card transactions.

Recently a customer called with a problem not being able to find a certain ticket. After doing a little searching, he found that there were about 30 tickets with a date in the past that were not and could not be posted because of the date. To fix the issue required exporting out the tickets, manually finding and fixing the date, and re-importing them back in. This is something I do not recommend doing on your own. Besides being very tedious, one mistake, meaning 1 extra space where one should not be can cause corruption of the whole file.

So while most of the time, your PC's time and date will be correct, the one time that it is not can create havoc.

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Ways To Protect Your Online Information

2011-12-21T00:50:58Z

Proactive Online Information Protection

excerpted from securitynewsdaily.com

Install a free anti-virus program. Macs and PCs are vulnerable to daily threats. Even if you don't open an email and never download a file or program, just visiting a website can put you in peril.

According to researchers, 85 percent of infections are from websites, often legitimate sites that have been unknowingly infected themselves.

Avoid "free" wireless networks. That gratis Wifi network in the local brewpub is probably a den of digital iniquity. Such networks usually aren't secured or encrypted, allowing strangers to track your online movements, record your passwords and make off with your credit-card information before you realize what's happened. Stay off them and use your own wireless subscription or service.
Use secure Web connections. The "HTTPS" acronym at the beginning of many Web addresses denotes a site that is using encryption (the "S" stands for secure).

Many websites have this option, but most of us don't know or don't bother to use it. You have to purposely set it in many Web-based email programs, for example. It can occasionally cause other programs to hiccup (Windows Live on HTTPS can conflict with Outlook Hotmail Connector, for example), but the inconvenience is worth it.

Don't be too social. Want to share your latest vacation pics on Facebook? Great — just wait until you get back from your trip.

Shop safely online. The convenience of letting a shopping site, especially one you visit frequently, save all your personal information and credit-card numbers is tempting — but don't do it.

Change your passwords, a lot. Since you cannot count on every site or business out there protecting your data — or even telling you when it's been stolen — one of the best protections is also the simplest.

Changing your password frequently can keep you one step ahead of the thieves. If your bank password has been stolen and is up for sale online, changing it will take away the criminal's keys to your account

Would you, could you on a train? Don't. Sitting in the commuter car or in any public place makes you vulnerable to "shoulder surfers," people who scan other people's laptop or smartphone screens looking for passwords or other personal information.

Many of these crooked cruisers don't even turn their heads; they just take a picture with their cellphones as they go by.

Avoid app attacks. Don't be the first kid to jump into the pool. In other words, when you discover a new app for your smartphone, tablet or browser, check it out before you tap "install."

Look carefully at the permissions it asks for. Better still, see how often it's been downloaded (the higher the number of times, the less likely it's malware) and read the reviews.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Keeping ALL Your Software Up To Date

2011-12-15T20:29:50Z

Missing Software Update Risks

It is important to make sure ALL of the software on your PC is updated, including browsers, Anti-Virus, camera and phone software, etc.

The reason I bring this up is, recently a customer updated their POS software and then had issues with certain functions. Part of the cause was the way the updated software changed how it was doing look-ups. The software started using a specialized service to enhance the view. But because of old anti-virus software, the specialized service was being marked as malicious and not allowed to run. The anti-virus software did not even log that it was blocking this
service from finishing its job.

Having multiple stores, where some were working and some were not, made troubleshooting this more difficult. A pattern was found and we were able to narrow the problem down to the version of the anti-virus software installed on the machines the were not working. Even though the anti-virus software was doing its job, it hampered the ability to use a piece of the POS software which was extensively used to look up past product sales performance.

As far as why a newer version of anti-virus saw this as a threat likely had to do with the way viruses have evolved over the years. Anti-virus software looks for patterns of other know malicious software to make a decision if an unknown file or services is malicious. In this case it was a false positive which was corrected in the new version of the anti-virus software.

As you can see having the latest version of software can eliminate a lot of frustration for both the users and your support team.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan

Mac Malware On The Rise

2011-11-30T23:16:46Z

Apple Products Targeted by Cyber-criminals

Mac users would be wise to be extra careful this holiday season. With Apple's PCs growing in popularity, cyber criminals have written a new wave of malware directed at Macs. MacAfee found 5,000 pieces of Mac-targeted malware as of late 2010, and that number has been increasing 10 percent month to month.

Also don't forget that smartphones are becoming targets of malware too. Some malware writers are even creating the QR codes (the square barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone) that direct your phones browser to malicious sites. Most of the more well known Anti-Virus makers are now making anti-virus apps for phones. AVG has an Android anti-virus application, and Blackberry has multiple anti-virus applications for Blackberry phones. You can be sure there is at least one anti-virus app on the Market that can and should be installed on your Apple Products like iPhone, iPad, and iPod..

If you have any system questions or concerns, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672-4806 or email us

-Bryan

Holiday Screen Savers

2011-11-30T23:04:29Z

Holiday Screen-Saver Malware

We have all seen them. Some of them even look pretty cool, but do you really know what you are installing?

I'm sure there are some safe or less intrusive holiday screen-savers out there, but most that I have seen either install spyware/malware, an obscure toolbar for some obscure search engine or both. If the site requires an email address to download the program, I would bet that you will be getting spam in your email inbox from the latest sale at your local grocery store to the latest sale at the Big Box stores.

So before giving out your email to some unknown site, or installing something that may (and probably will) install spyware. Think twice and be sure what you are installing is safe and malware/spyware free. Download the screen-saver install program and scan it before performing the installation to make sure.

If you have any system questions or concerns, please call the CCS retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us. We track many dangerous screen-savers by working with our customers.

Bryan.

25 Of The Worst Passwords For 2011

2011-11-18T21:17:21Z

Good and Bad Passwords - Create Complex Passwords for the Best Security

excepted from PC Mag

"Whenever simple passwords are discussed, the following story always comes up. Five years ago, a group of Slovak hackers hacked Slovakia's National Security Bureau (abbreviated NBU), which stores tons of classified information. It was an easy hack. The NBU's master login/password was simply nbusr/nbusr123. After cracking it, the hackers publicized the information, much to the NBU's embarrassment.

What's even worse? Days later, the password was still "nbu123."

That was five years ago, but bad passwords still abound. SplashData, a password management app maker, compiled a list of the 25 worst passwords of 2011, based on millions of stolen passwords that were dumped online. Typically after hackers compromise a server, like Sony's or CIA.gov's, they post all these personal details online.

Many of the passwords are sequential numbers like "12345" or "654321," while others contained messages like "letmein" and "trustno1". Even if you thought you were being clever with "qazwsx," (look at your keyboard, you'll get it) it's number 23 on the list. "Monkey," "password," and "qwerty" are ALWAYS on these lists. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but, seriously?

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

Having a tough-to-crack password won't thwart a sophisticated cybercriminal, who can use other methods to breach a server in which passwords are stored. But a solid password will at least deter the lowest common denominator like a nosy partner or a low-level hacker using a dictionary attack that simply tries thousands of passwords. "

So what is a good password then?

Here are some rules and some examples:

A secure password will contain a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and special characters like "@", and "#'. This makes guessing the password much harder, and blocks against a standard dictionary attack.

As for remembering such a password, there are some tricks that can make it easier. Let's take a very simple password like "freddie". If we change the case of a letter (I recommend a letter other than the first one, as that may be done in a dictionary attack), we get something like "freDDie". Better, but not great. Now substitute a number for a letter, and get "fr3DDie". Then a special character, and you get "fr3DD!e". That is a much more secure password, and yet is still easy to remember.

To summarize:

Don't use passwords that are based on personal information that can be easily accessed or guessed
Don't use words that can be found in any dictionary of any language
Use both lowercase and capital letters
Use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters
Use different passwords on different systems

After all, your system, and information, is only as secure as the weakest security link, and a weak password a sure way to invite the hackers into your system.

Examples:

Uuu8lRXpnVzRL4h5qHbn
g0U3YQ2TYcyeeJI2bZhT
9JMZ2N5ANy0Da4uk6qr1
EbzSv5PewUrcciOyJxHr
mCWAzxR3Tauy8sVFxPi6

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us

-Bryan