Watch out for A360, AntiVirus 360, AV2009, and AntiVirus 2009.  These are extremely dangerous trojan/virus going around now.  As a side line I work on other peoples computers and this morning I had my 3rd experience with this nasty.  Here are some tips to prevent infection:

1. Don't click on popups, not even the 'X' that is supposed to close it.  Instead try the ALT-F4 to close the popup.  If that doesn't work do the old 3 finger salute and trying killing ALL running instances of your browser.  If this fails...press and hold the power switch until the computer shuts down. 
2. Don't click links in email unless you know 100% that it is safe.
3. Don't visit 'questionable' content sites (you know what I'm talking about.)  If you must, then consider running a virtual machine or sandbox type environment or go buy a mac.
4. TURN ON Automatic Microsoft updates. 

Now if you do end up with one the mentioned virus varients this is what worked for me today.

1. On a clean machine go to http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and download the free version and copy it to a USB flash drive.
2. Boot the infected machine into safe mode without network.
3. Log on as administrator if possible.
4. Insert the flash drive and wait for the computer to install it. 
5. Browse to the flash drive and double click the malware bytes set up program.  Just go with the defaults during the install.
6. Run the program and do the QUICK SCAN 1st. You should see that several items with a360 in the name are removed.
7. When the quick scan finishes do the FULL scan.  You may or may not see additional items to remove.
8. Shutdown the computer, remove the flash drive and reboot.
9. Run the malwarebytes program again but this time do an upgrade before you run the scan.
10.  You should be okay now.  As added precausions you might want to go to www.filehippo.com and download SpyBot S&D and run it.
11. The final thing I did on the machine this morning was to download CCleaner also from www.filehippo.com  and let it clean the system and do it's registry fix.

If the above doesn't work out for you send me an email and I talk to you about it. 






 

 
 

As we enjoy the warmth invading our locale today let’s take time to be thankful for what we have.  Times are tough; I fully expect to see some layoffs today at our plant.  I might be on the list…but am I worried?  Not really, I’ve finally come to the point in my life where I know it’s hopeless to rely on my own abilities and that my God is much more capable of looking after me.  I thank Him for what I have and how He is always there to pick me up when I fall.

I just made a trip outside and experienced the ‘spring in the air’ and my thoughts turned away from the job market, recession, war in Iraq and even my father’s poor health.  I started thinking about what I’m going to plant in the garden this year.  I’m wondering what to expect from the asparagus I planted last year.  And what about the strawberries I transplanted in the fall, did they survive.  If you’ve know me for any length of time you might be surprised at this train of thought.  But for the last two years I eagerly await the arrival of the seed catalogs.  I was never much of a gardener until 2 years ago when I read up on raised bed gardens and decided to give it a try.  It was so successful that I doubled the size of my garden after the first year and I look forward to trying some different crops this year. 

If you were to do a cost analysis of having a garden I’m not sure you would get a positive result especially in the first year.  But if you factor in the fun and relaxation and of course the tastes of the vegetables that you grew yourself, then you see that yes it is worth every penny.

And now for something completely off topic…

Don’t miss the March 12 (Thursday) WNC-SWUG meeting where:

Tom Wilson will report on his experience as our representative at SolidWorks World this year.  Tom will tell us what we can expect to see in the next release (SW2010) as well as this years “Ten most requested enhancements to SW”.   If his camera works, we may also see some of the products designed with SW and highlighted in the Product Showcase.  He may even bring back a tip or two from one of the many Break-out sessions he attended.  Following Toms presentation, I’ll share a few tips I’ve learned in using SW2009 these past few months.   

See the home page for more details.