Keep Your System Neat & Tidy
October 27, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
One of the easiest ways for EVERYONE to keep their system clean and running smoothly, is to download a freeware program called “CCleaner“. This program has been out long before the hordes of costly ‘System Cleaners and Optimizers” have been out robbing your pocketbooks.
CCleaner does everything that you need for daily PMS (Preventive Maintenance). With one click, It cleans out every type of temp file your system potential has stored, like a squirrel gathering for the winter. With another click, your registry is combed through, finding and eliminating missing values and corrupt entries.
Another click, your startup is cleaned up, allowing your system to get from powered down, to ready to go, quicker. Not to mention a clean and faster loading way to uninstall those unwanted programs.
It is highly recommended that the average daily user run this program often, to help keep their machines in tip-top shape!
STOP paying for software that CCleaner does for free!
LAN Parties are Great
October 5, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
Battlefield 2 might be a few years dated, but when throw in a handful of computers all manned by your friends, it makes for a good time. When closing time rolls around at the shop, we fire up the computers and prepare to unleash the days stress on each other. Nothing relaxes you more then virutally knifing the guy right next to you, or putting landmines on the road
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Net Neutrality vs. “do no evil”
October 4, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
The various net neutrality proposals now in process in the U.S. Congress are intended to establish government oversight on all public networks in the United States in the stated interest of ensuring that carriers neither charge extra for, nor artificially retard or accelerate, packets based on origin or content.
When web services go bad: Ticketmaster’s outrageous tax on culture
October 4, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
( Im posting this, because I found it quite abrasive, seeing how I spent most of my younger days feeding the Tickmasters Coffers. - Larry )
Original Story Located on Zdnet
Conficker Continues
September 26, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
I must admit, when I first heard of the Conficker scare being broadcast all over the T.V throughout all hours of the day months ago, I chuckled and thought to myself that it was just a nice clever rouse of Big Brother to take our minds of current events in our Country.
Of the almost 500 computers I have repaired in Harrison County Ohio, I have never once seen the Conficker virus. That is, until two weeks ago.
While I will not suddenly jump on the Hysterics bandwagon, I will say this. The Conficker virus and all its multi-colored variants are no joke. It has to be the _worst_ virus I ever had to contain, control and clean up, to date.
I watched an infected PC, that was accidently plugged into the network for mere seconds before being unplugged, spread across 17 other computers on the network. Within a blink of an eye, each system was now a carrier of this virus.
External hard drives, thumbdrives, etc were all now infected.
It was a mess. A really big mess. It took the greater part of the weekend to isolate, contain and destroy this virus throughout every system and network device. While it caused no real damage to my system, it did cause me to expend a weekends worth of time to get it under control.
The virus, at its most obvious point, blocks 99% of known Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware websites. Your Mcafee products, and your Norton products have been taken out back and put down, and are rendered useless.
You can not even access a website that contains information about the symptoms your computer has. Keywords are blocked.
It is quite frustrating I assure you.
This virus can spread to any device, connected to the infected system, via external drives, or through a wired, or wireless network.
The EASIEST way to see if you have the Conficker virus, is to open up Internet Explorer and attempt to go to mcafee.com, or a Symantic (norton) website. If you can not, chances are, you got the bug.
A great resource to learn about this virus is on wikipedia
Clean up of this virus, and the mess it takes, usually consumes the greater part of the day. IF you think you have been infected with this virus, please call 888.374.1567 (MylocalPCpro)
New ‘Scareware’ Virus Looks Like AVG
September 26, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
Scareware Description:
Any time ANYTHING pops up on your Windows task tray, informing you that you have viruses and that you should scan right now, is most likely a virus. Any reputiable anti-virus software will notify you of the threats at hand and deal with them accordingly, not pester you with incesant pop-ups, or change your desktop wallpaper. etc. If you use a program such as Norton, or Mcafee, and a program that you never heard of pops up and says you have a virus, consider your Norton or Mcafee K.I.A, and that your system is now infected.
Personal Antivirus is a rogue anti-spyware tool designed to deceive people into paying for its registered commercial software, no matter how illicit its tactics may be. Personal Antivirus propagates through backdoor Trojans or insecure downloads on the web. The latent intrusion is always followed by Personal Antivirus launching its misleading campaign on your computer. It means you will keep getting multiple alerts and scanners trying to get you alarmed about the security of your PC.
Personal Antivirus pop-ups and scanners report infections that supposedly inhabit your machine. These deceitful techniques practised by Personal Antivirus are all about tricking you into downloading and registering the paid commercial version of Personal Antivirus. In reality, Personal Antivirus is not capable of removing any actual infections because it’s not developed on a legitimate antivirus engine. Therefore, purchasing Personal Antivirus is probably the most unreasonable to do.
On the other hand, though, ignoring Personal Antivirus in your system will soon turn its obsessive pranks into a major system disruption and further malware invasion resulting in getting your privacy violated. Last but not least - there has appeared an updated version of Personal Antivirus - it’s called Alpha Antivirus.
This new rogue is known to be exploiting the same fraudulent payment system, similar browser hijacking practices and inherited equally rapid propagation rate as compared with PAV infection. For the time being, Personal Antivirus and Alpha Antivirus are acting concurrently, so one should beware of Alpha Antivirus as well since it’s just as dangerous as its clone rogue. So it’s highly recommended to remove Personal Antivirus or Alpha Antivirus once you spot their signs on your computer.
How to remove Personal Antivirus and affiliated threats manually:
Manual removal of Personal Antivirus is a feasible objective if you have sufficient expertise in dealing with program files, processes, .dll files and registry entries.
The files to be deleted are listed below:
- %Documents and Settings%\All Users\Desktop\Personal Antivirus.lnk
- %Documents and Settings%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus
- %Documents and Settings%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Personal Antivirus Home Page.lnk
- %Documents and Settings%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Personal Antivirus.lnk
- %Documents and Settings%\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Purchase License.lnk
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Personal Antivirus.lnk
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\settings.ini
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\uill.ini
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\unins000.exe
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\Uninstall Personal Antivirus.lnk
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\config.cfg
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\Timeout.inf
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\Urls.inf
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\log.txt
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\pguard.ini
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\services.exe
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\activate.ico
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Explorer.ico
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\PerAvir.exe
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\unins000.dat
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\uninstall.ico
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\working.log
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\db
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\db\DBInfo.ver
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\db\ia080614.db
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\db\ia080618x.db
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Languages
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAEs.lng
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAFr.lng
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAGer.lng
- %Program Files%\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAIt.lng
- %WINDOWS%\system32\log.txt
- %UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\winlogon.exe
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iGSh.png
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iMSh.png
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iPSh.png
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iv.exe
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\log.txt
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\pguard.ini
- %UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\services.exe
The registry entries that need to be removed are as follows:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Personal Antivirus_is1
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ITGRDENGINE
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ITGrdEngine
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer “PrS”
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “Personal Antivirus”
Please, be aware that manual removal of Personal Antivirus is a cumbersome process and does not always ensure complete deletion of the malware, due to the fact that some files might be hidden or may get reanimated automatically afterwards. Moreover, manual interference of this kind may cause damage to the system
This type of malware is just another in the massive string of ‘Scareware’ Viruses being released into the wild. Usually by the means of Social Networking Sites, via Advertising systems.
ThisIsMyCounty.com Launched!
July 11, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
myLocalPCpro.com has launched a county service called “ThisIsMyCounty.com” After many incidents of frustration when trying to find out about news that was missing, events that weren’t promoted the best that they could be, and the lack of fresh news,
Harrison County Fair Derby
July 11, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · 1 Comment
The #17 Car, Driven by Josh Carter placed third in the featured heat, of the 2009 Harrison County Fair, Demolition Derby. The #17 car was proudly sponsored by mylocalpcpro. Outstanding Driving Josh! It was an outstanding pleasure watching the derby this year, and interacting with the drivers involved.
myLocalPCpro also sponsored the second place trophy this year as well. And while some found it difficult to pronounce mylocalpcpro, Im pretty sure everyone knew who it was. Thank you everyone for a fantastic event!
Josh Carter also won best of show this year. For a demo car, you have to admit, it was pretty sharp.
Outstanding Statistics
June 19, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
- Identitify Your PC
We have built our 30th Custom PC for our clients as of today, and in less then a year, we have serviced over 328 personal computers, servers, laptops and PDA’s. With a new office location, some great friends made, and over a month to go until we can celebrate our one year anniversary here in Cadiz.
Terrific Time Wasters!
June 19, 2009 by Larry Bertolino · Leave a Comment
Supremacy 1914
Nothing is better then wasting time playing games online, when you should be working. You know, that I know, that you sneak in some flash games while at home or work ( I won’t tell ). Or you tune into Youtube or hulu..
