As long as it relates to computers or related technologies we van write about it.  If we don’t know the answer already we can research it for you and post our findings for all of our readers to learn and enjoy.

Just post your suggestions as a comment to this post or fill out our contact form to submit by email.  Don’t forget to subscribe to our feeds and mailing lists so you will be notified when we publish your response.

Several months ago, I discover an eBay auction from an eBay Power Seller that caught my attention.  It was for an in-house training class on Blogging in Florida.  That sounded like a great idea, but I had no money to get all the way to Florida for the class, so I sent PowerSellingMom a question and asked if the class could be done by webinar.  She was more than willing to accommodate me, which made a huge impression.  Let me tell you, this lady hosts great webinars and radio talk shows, and much more.

Since I then I have joined Danna’s (eBay PowerSellingMom) group Virtual Online Learning and I have learned a lot.  This group is great for sharing ideas, learning from each other and Danna.  I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to start blogging, eBay selling, setting up you own website, and for many other reasons.

When you join Virtual Online Learning you are guaranteed at least 2 FREE webinars each month.  They do charge a small fee for some classes, but they are worth every penny.

Hope to see your there! If you have any questions about the group feel free to post them in the comments below.

They have a free version which is perfect for most people, however if you need more advanced features they a professional paid edition as well.

I have used LogMeIn Products for a few years now and I have to say they are top quality and very reliable.  I will post more about all of there products later on, but for now go to there website http://www.logmeinfree.com and try them out.

http://www.myfreesitehost.com

http://www.zagzone.net

http://www.facebook.com/TrainSignal

http://www.facebook.com/askthecomputerlady

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129178858025

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=103670915892

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=179501065844

http://www.facebook.com/FroggyIT

Hope you enjoy these groups and pages.  Let me know what you think.  Of course the last two listed are Froggy’s pages in Facebook.

http://twitter.com/tech_mattters

http://twitter.com/ElectronicsDiva

http://twitter.com/ComputerSlinger

http://twitter.com/CustomersOnWeb

I constantly looking for more resources to add. I hope you find there tweets very informative and helpful. Of course you should definitely follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FroggyIT.

I have used a password manager for years called Roboform, although it is a great password manager, it has its flaws. First off, it is not free by any means. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind paying a fair value for something that is useful, in my opinion it is way over priced. Secondly it can be tedious maintaining a sync between all your computers and your portable Roboform. They do have an online version which is ok.

If you are looking for a great FREE password manager, you must check out LastPass.  They provide a lot of the features Roboform offers, except for free.  They are also cross-platform compatible which means you can use them on Windows as well as Linux and Mac.  LastPass works with Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. All of your password and form data is encrypted then sent to their secure servers.

If you need extended features such mobile phone support, you can get their Premium edition for only $12/year.  Not a bad deal.   I have been using them as a Premium member almost a year now and I love it.  Check them out at their website www.lastpass.com.

This is NOT a paid endorsement for LastPass, just a happy subscriber.  Enjoy!

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You have probably been surfing or working across the internet before, then suddenly, a box pops up and says: “You have been infected with X amount of viruses, trojans, and spyware,” or something similar. Then asks you to click here to run a full scan.

Now this is not something you should panic over, but rather calmly assess the situation before making any sudden attempts to fix it yourself. First, do not immediately click to scan your system, because if this is a rogue virus, then clicking scan will further infect your system and pull down more nasty programs.

At this point, if you are at your place of employment, you should immediately contact your IT Department and let them handle it from here.

For everyone else, check to make sure this program is not your systems antivirus program, read everything on the page carefully. If you cannot determine this, do not click anything and never give them your credit card or other personal information.

Immediately attempt to close it out with task manager by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del, then click Task Manager. Go to your processes tab and close out any unfamiliar processes until the windows goes away. Do not worry about closing out the wrong thing, except maybe unsaved work, the rest of the processes will reload when you restart your computer.

Now once you have the program closed out, run a few scans to make sure you are not infected. Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware are great tools to get this accomplished.

What happens if you are infected and cannot bring up the Task Manager? You can find out more on how to remove these in the article named: How to remove fake or rogue antivirus software.

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A rogue or fake antivirus is a program crafted to took look like a genuine antivirus program, though it is in fact a virus that has or has attempted to infect your computer. To learn more about recognizing these programs refer to How to recognize fake or rogue antivirus software.

Now that you know this program is bad, how do you get rid of it? The biggest obstacle most people face is that they cannot run or install any programs to remedy the situation. The rogue antivirus locks everything down and will not allow any executables to run.

The trick to overcome this, is to bring up the Task Manager before the virus loads. If you can accomplish this, most rogue viruses cannot close the Task Manager out if it is already running. Once you have the Task Manager up, do not close it out. Leave the Task Manager open the entire time, you may need it again. This will allow you to find and kill the virus processes.

Restart the system, if you do not have to log in, then start hitting the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys as soon as you see the mouse pointer appear. If you need to log in, then start hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del as soon as you hit enter after typing in your password. Once the Task Panel appears, choose Task Manager. This may take a few attempts, so keep trying until you get it to come up.

Now click on the processes tab and start searching for the bad processes. Since these rogue processes can have many different names, you will have to try to close ones you are not familiar with, experiment with this a little. If you close out a wrong process, the system may reboot, just try it again, but try to remember the ones you already attempted or write them down.

Now that you have more control over your computer, let’s download some software. They’re four programs you will need to completely scan and remove these viruses. Click and download these free tools Ccleaner, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, and Spybot S&D.

Once these are downloaded and installed, then proceed to cleanup your system. First, to save scan times and reduce risk of reinfection, turn off Windows System Restore. This process will vary depending on which version of Windows you are running. In XP, just right-click on “My Computer” and select properties, then click the System Restore tab.

Then run CCleaner on your system to remove the temp and junk files, viruses like to hide there. After that, click on Tools > Startup in CCleaner and delete the start-up entries for the virus processes you killed out with Task Manager.

Next run the other programs SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, and Spybot S&D, respectively and follow the steps to remove everything that is found. Running the scans a second time is a good idea, just to make sure all the harmful stuff is gone.

Before opening Internet Explorer again, reset it back to manufacturer settings by Right-Clicking on the icon and clicking properties. Go to the advanced tab and click reset at the very bottom. This only applies to Internet Explorer 7 or above.

All it takes is for your hard drive to go out and that is it, unless you have a backup plan.  What about the unexpected, like a fire, tornado, flood, or any other major catastrophe, we all hope it won’t happen, but it could.  Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place to retrieve all your precious data when or if something like this happens.

A local backup to an external hard drive or DVD is great if your hard drive fails, but what if some other disaster strikes, then even your local backup copies could be destroyed.  Now I am not try to scare you, but let’s face reality, it can and does happen quite frequently.  If it does, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to recover all of your hard work, pictures of family and friends, music, and more.

There are many different online backup companies out there that provide a great service.  You can simply install a small program and configure it to constantly monitor and backup your data automatically while you are connected to the internet.  Some services will  configure itself and then allow you to make changes to what you want backed up.

Most of these companies do not charge a lot for this type of service, especially when they offer you a physically secure and encrypted backup of all your data.  We have become affiliated with a couple  such companies. Mozy offers 2GB of backup for free and unlimited backup for only $4.95/Month/PC.  Elephant Drive is another excellent choice, they also start at $4.95/MO.  Elephant Drive does not have a free account, but they do offer a 15 day FREE TRIAL. Go ahead and try them out below.

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