Yes, it is that time of year again…that time of year where you can expect many deliveries from FedEx, UPS, the Post Office and possibly others.

A scam email that picks up steam this time of year is an email that plays upon this delivery expectation.

Here is how the scam works:

• You receive an email that says you missed a delivery
• Part of this email is an attachment that is your “tracking number” or “notification”
• In the excitement you click that attachment and…BLAMMO! you are not infected.

Realize this: the delivery companies do not send you attachements.

The tracking number will be plain text in the email.
If it is not plain text, go to Google and type in the tracking number.
Google will then direct you to the correct tracking website.

Here is an example of one of these fake emails:

It’s that time again, time for AVG to push out a major update to their anti-virus package.

To reduce confusion I have taken some screen shots to help walk y0u through this process.

Be aware: there is an addition to this version of AVG that will completely eliminate your browser history upon installation.

For those of you that do not open multiple browser tabs during your web browsing experience, while not saving the sites at bookmarks, this is not an issue.

Start by clicking the Free Update button.

If you are using the Free version of AVG, and want to continue this way, click Basic Protection on the screen.
If you want to upgrade to the paid version, click Full Protection below.

Finalize by filling in this last screen to your desire, the click Restart Now.

We see a number of “issues” with Skype, specifically with Windows 7.

Basically, you start Skype “like you always do”, but nobody can hear you.

The issue is this: Win 7 tries to manage you speakers and microphone based on what software is running.

If you didn’t plug things in, and start software in the right order, you may have things a bit twisted up.

If you can’t get Skype to work properly do this:

1. Close Skype – not just minimize, CLOSE it.
2. Unplug your headset, count to 3, then plug your headset in again
3. Restart Skype

Everything should now be working fine.

To prevent this from happening in the future, just make sure you do not start Skype before you have your headset plugged in.

We just got a call from a client in a panic.

Somebody had plugged a vacuum cleaner into the battery backup.

Not something I’ve ever really considered.

Want to know what happens?

Pretty quickly the circuit breaker on the battery backup pops…and everything plugged into that battery backup dies.

The whole point of battery backup is to be able to save and close documents when a power failure occurs.
Also, a battery backup will save you when you get that little power “blip” that will shut down your computer and you’ll lose everything if not saved.

So, when you zap your battery backup, you defeat your protective system quickly.

No electronics appear to be damages, but the router did have all setting wiped somehow.

Just to be clear: do NOT plug a vacuum cleaner into your battery backup.

For years I’ve received a notification that I need to update my yellow pages ad.

I receive a mailer stating the new book is about to be published, blah, blah.

The thing is, I don’t have a yellow pages ad…haven’t for years.

In a larger office, that may just habitually be process by someone.

The same thing is happening with domain names.

You, the URL or website address that all websites have.

Officially, that is referred to as a domain name.

For the last few years, I’ve received a mailer like the one below (click on it so view in larger size).

Though it may be a bit strong to call this a scam…it sure is a sham.

These guys are counting on the fact that you, or someone in your office see this and says, “hmm, don’t want to lose our domain name”.

This then gets processed.

There are a few issues:

1. These guys are expensive
2. If you accidentally do this, un-doing it is challenging

Wherever you have your domain name, to make sure you have it protected, do the following:

• Ensure you are on auto-renew,
• Pay for more than 1 year at a time,
• “Lock” the domain – this makes moving it accidentally more challenging

Basically do yourself a favor, ignore this when it arrives in the mail.