Best of Gwinnett

Fortify I.T. was selected as Best of Gwinnett Honorable Mention for 2014!!! I was floored when I read the email come through for this award. I have always wanted to get into Best of Gwinnett. This means that I was somewhere in position 6-10 and not in the top 5.  I'm just super happy about this award!  I work so hard for my clients and this is a testament for how I work for my clients. 

Best of Lawrenceville

Fortify I.T. recieved Best of Lawrenceville for 2014 in August 2014 for Best Computer and Network Support!  I'm really excited for that award and very proud of it as I work very hard for my clients! 

Windows 10 Preview

I've been using Windows 10 preview and it's so far and above 8/8.1 it's not even funny!  The start menu is back, just shuffled around but I'll figure it out quickly but it's a nice addition (restoration more like it).  8's stupid full screen apps are windows. I know there is a dedicated 8 touch mode but I have a mouse and keyboard so it recognizes the difference and boots accordingly (so I have heard ). I won't have a problem with upgrading to 10 if it gets better than what it is now. Remember Microsoft's track record, every other release of a product is the good one and 10 is looking to be the good one. 

Antivirus Swaps

People if you get a message your antivirus is outbid date, for instance you get a 3 month subscription to McAfee or Symantec and it runs out, you need to uninstall it before you put on something else. If you do not, they will fight and scan the same files and cause your system to be really slow. 

Uninstall AV first then install new Antivirus.  

Fortify I.T. Inc, Best of Lawrenceville 2014!

I received an email the other morning saying that I received the Best of Lawrenceville for Computer and Network Support for 2014!  I'm really excited about that news.  I work really really hard at providing the best support that I can for my clients and that means I put in many long days but that means my clients are able to be productive.  I'm glad I got some recognition for how hard I work for my clients!

Press Release

Fortify I.T., Inc Receives 2014 Best of Lawrenceville Award

Lawrenceville Award Program Honors the Achievement

LAWRENCEVILLE August 21, 2014 -- Fortify IT, Inc has been selected for the 2014 Best of Lawrenceville Award in the Computer & Network Support category by the Lawrenceville Award Program.

Each year, the Lawrenceville Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Lawrenceville area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2014 Lawrenceville Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Lawrenceville Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Lawrenceville Award Program

The Lawrenceville Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Lawrenceville area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Lawrenceville Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Lawrenceville Award Program

Cat5 cabling

This is cat5 cabling done horribly wrong. Cat5 can't be split and daisy chained to the next port like these people tried to do. Pretty funny stuff. 

Stupid Microsoft

Microsoft is stupid. If you bring back the start menu now, it'll somewhat help to restore the crappy PC market. So stupid. 

 "Microsoft recently announced plans to reintroduce the Start Menu to Windows in an upcoming version of the operating system. While the plan was to roll out an update to Windows 8.1 and offer the Start menu later this year, it seems like this is no longer the case. Now Microsoft is reportedly looking to release the Start Menu with Windows 9, which is expected in April of 2015. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have faced a boat load of criticism and hatred, partly due to the removal of the Start button and Start menu. The restoration of a visible Start button on the taskbar was one of the key features of the Windows 8.1 update, released back in October of 2013."

XP updates until 2019!

Just read this. XP embedded will be updated until 2019 and XP can get the updates with a simple registry hack. 

From ZDNet.com (link to ZDNet at bottom):

As reported by Wayne Williams at Betanews and confirmed by us, a simple registry hack to a Windows XP system tricks Windows Update into providing updates for it.

Williams says that the hack, included just below, makes the system look like Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 which will continue to receive updated until April 9, 2019.

To apply the hack, create a text file with a .reg extension and the contents below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady] 
"Installed"=dword:00000001

Run it by double-clicking in Windows Explorer. After this is done, if you run Windows Update, it will find several updates, as illustrated in this screen capture:

(Image: ZDNet/CBS Interactive)

The screen capture is from our own tests, which appear to work. Notice that two of the displayed updates are for WEPOS (Windows Embedded Point of Service) and Windows POSReady 2009. The others are for Windows Server 2003, which runs the same kernel and many other components as Windows XP.

This specific hack works only on 32-bit systems, but a 64-bit workaround is available at this page, which may have been Williams's source for the 32-bit hack.

We asked Microsoft for a comment, but due to the holiday we don't expect one immediately. If we hear back from them we will update this story.

As we would anticipate them saying, Windows XP has reached end of service for a reason: its underlying technology is old and inferior to that of current Windows versions. Despite receiving security updates, it is not possible to secure the system properly. The systems being impersonated, WEPOS and POSReady 2009, are embedded applications that are not designed to be used like regular desktop systems.

http://www.zdnet.com/registry-hack-enables-continued-updates-for-windows-xp-7000029851/

iPhone backup

Was at a client's today and they went around asking for people's phone numbers because they tried to update to the latest iOS, she has a 4s, so not sure what she was on before but she tried to updated it over the air and it failed to boot.   So she lost everything.

If you are going to update your iPhone or Android, backup your stuff with iTunes or however you backup an Android because I do not know.  If that happened and she had a iTunes backup, it would have said ok we need to do a clean boot and then restore and they would have been back up and running in no time instead of wasting days trying to get phone numbers back and whatever else they lost (apps, pics etc).

Backup THEN upgrade.  You've been warned.

Windows 8.1 Update 1

Windows 8.1 Update 1 is out and it does a lot to make the keyboard/mouse people a lot happier.  It will detect what you are using and adjust accordingly, from how I understand it.   But anyway, it's more fixing for the colossal failure that is Windows 8.   Go to Control panel (if you can find it) and go to Windows Update.  There is another way to get it from the settings somewhere in the modern interface but I don't have a clue how to find it without having to hunt around for a very long time.

XP End of Life

Well XP End of Life date (April 8th 2013) has come and gone.   You should upgrade XP for a few good reasons, of course the support updates that won't be coming down to your computer any more leaving you wide open for attack.  If you must have XP, get a really good antivirus, AVG internet security would be a great choice because it'll be all encompassing (do not get Symantec, Norton, or McAfee, they are just be bloated beasts).  

The other reason to get rid of XP is because if you have an XP machine, that machine will be from at least 2009 or older because you couldn't get XP any more when Windows 7 came out.  So the computer you're on is older than 5 years.  The internet is a VERY DYNAMIC beast and you need a lot of horsepower that the old processor that is in your Windows XP machine just won't have any more and your web surfing will be very very slowly to build.  It's only going to get worse.

Tigerdirect.com has a huge selection of Windows 7 machines.  Do yourself a favor and don't get windows 8.  Windows 8 is just a big pile of stinky mess.

Start Menu Returning

This is the best news regarding Windows 8. Now it'll be useful for normal people and not teenagers and early 20 something's who have grown up on touching stuff.  Plus it's just awesome to see Microsoft keep admitting they royally screwed up. Love it!

At Microsoft's BUILD conference today, the company announced that the Start Menu will officially be returning to Windows 8.1. It will combine the Windows 7 Start Menu with a handful of Metro-style tiles. They're also making it so Windows 8 apps can run in windows using the normal desktop environment. In addition to the desktop announcements, Microsoft also talked about big changes for Windows on mobile devices and Internet-of-Things devices. The company will be giving Windows away for free to OEMs making phones and tablets (9" screens and smaller), and for IoT devices that can run it. Microsoft also finally unveiled Cortana, their digital assistant software that's similar to Siri.

Slashdot.org 

Major Website Redesign

I've been redesigning the website and I have the basic redesign done and now I just have to update the text to include more information and just clean things up some more.  But I do think the website looks a whole lot better than what it was before.  I've been wanting to update the website for a long time but I've just been so busy with everything that I just haven't had a chance to spend any time on it.  It's been slow the last week so I've been able to think about it and finally could get moving on it.  I hope you like the changes.  I'll be working on it to clean it up and get more and pertinent information on it.

The web address is http://fortifyit.biz, if you like it, hit the G+ icon. 

Domain Registry Services Host Company Scam?

A couple of my clients got an email from Domain Registry Services indicating that their domain name was set to expire...they were all 3 months away from expiring.  They were saying we can renew your domain...etc.  Their domains were hosted by GoDaddy and I can't remember the other host site so be prepared to look for that and ignore them.  If you have any questions, you can go to http://Who.Is and look up your domain name and see all the exact specs of your website information.  I recommend doing that at least yearly to see where things sit with your domain.  Be Careful of Scams!  If it doesn't make sense, question it and do your research.

Windows XP End of Life

Windows XP is about to be put out to pasture, April 8th, by Microsoft.  This means that there will not be any more security updates for it to fix vulnerabilities.  There will be nothing wrong with the system so you can continue to use it but you will be increasing your risk with every passing day of an attack. So make sure your antivirus is update to date and that you use malwarebytes to protect your XP system the best you can.  Better yet, upgrade to Windows 7.

Windows 8.1 update 1

 Here we go! We're getting close to bringing back win 7 to 8.  All this does is reconfirm that Windows 8 is the worst Windows that Microsoft has out out far eclipsing ME by long mile and at least Vista was usable, not all optimized but at least usable. 

Microsoft is once again planning to alter the way its Start Screen works in Windows 8.1 Update 1. While the software giant originally released Windows 8.1 last year with an option to bypass the "Metro" interface at boot, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed to The Verge that the upcoming "Update 1" for Windows 8.1 will enable this by default. Like many other changes in Update 1, weâre told the reason for the reversal is to improve the OS for keyboard and mouse users. Wow, a touch interface does not work with a mouse and keyboard. Who saw that coming. I expect photos of many people eating crow. - slashdot.org

Ad blocking maybe can't to an end????

I hate ads when I surf, they are annoying but I know the point of them so make them smaller and less intrusively annoying.   Hopefully the hackers will figure something out how to keep blocking the ads.  I'm sure most people don't block the ads, only the smart ones which is a slim few percentage. 

An anonymous reader writes "This article discusses the ethics and the mechanics of ad-blocking software. Toward the end, it goes into some of the tech that's been built to circumvent ad blockers. Quoting: 'PageFair offers a free JavaScript program that, when inserted into a Web page, monitors ad blocking activity. CEO Sean Blanchfield says he developed the monitoring tool after he noticed a problem on his own multiplayer gaming site. PageFair collects statistics on ad blocking activity, identifies which users are blocking ads and can display an appeal to users to add the publisher's website to their ad-blocking tool's personal whitelist. But Blanchfield acknowledges that the user appeal approach hasn't been very effective. ClarityRay takes a more active role. Like PageFair, it provides a tool that lets publishers monitor blocking activity to show them that they have a problem — and then sells them a remedy. ClarityRay offers a service that CEO Ido Yablonka says fools ad blockers into allowing ads through. "Ad blockers try to make a distinction between content elements and advertorial elements. We make that distinction impossible," he says.' Is this arms race winnable? By which side?"

Scuba improvements - I know not computer related

This is just too cool!!  Breathing under water may be getting a whole lot better. 

 "With the Triton Oxygen Respirator, it might be possible to breathe beneath the surface of the water as if you were a fish. Requiring no bulky tank to keep your lungs pumping properly. The regulator comprises a plastic mouthpiece that requires you to simply bite down. There are two arms that branch out to the sides of the scuba mask that have been developed to function like the efficient gills of a marine creature. The scaly texture conceals small holes in the material where water is sucked in. Chambers inside separate the oxygen and release the liquid so that you can breath comfortably in the ocean."

Malware and huge websites

Be careful on the Internet!! 

"The United States is the leading malware hosting nation, with 44 percent of all malware hosted domestically, according to Solutionary. The U.S. hosts approximately 5 times more malware than the second-leading malware-hosting nation, Germany, which is responsible for 9 percent of the detected malware. The cloud is allowing malware distributors to create, host and remove websites rapidly, and major hosting providers such as Amazon, GoDaddy and Google have made it economical for malicious actors to use their services to infect millions of computers and vast numbers of enterprise systems."

XP Support Extended

Microsoft extended XP support for 3 more months from April to July. 

"Microsoft today announced it will continue to provide updates to its security products for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015. Previously, the company said it would halt all updates on the end of support date for Windows XP: April 8, 2014. For consumers, this means Microsoft Security Essentials will continue to get updates after support ends for Windows XP. For enterprise customers, the same goes for System Center Endpoint Protection, Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Windows Intune running on Windows XP" slashdot.org. 

Windows 9

Looks like Windows 9 will ship April 2015 to cover the crap that Windows 8 is. Hopefully they fix the hell out of 8 or Windows will be all but dead and so will the traditional PC market as tablets (read that iPad and Android not Windows tablets) take over.  I can do almost everything I need to on my iPad and it's only going to get better as the cloud becomes better. 

In the meantime, Windows 7 is still going strong so buy a PC with that on it instead. 

McAfee AV Sucks

Found this very humorous, even John McAfee things his products are total crap!!  McAfee and Norton/Symantec always try and take over your system and they slow it down because it's so bloated.   Saw this at slashdot.org. 

"At CES 2014 today, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced the McAfee brand name will be phased out and replaced by 'Intel Security,' which will identify Intel products and services in the security segment. The rebranding will begin immediately, but the transition will take up to a year before it is complete." The BBC reports that John McAfee is happy with the decision: "'I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet. These are not my words, but the words of millions of irate users. ... My elation at Intel's decision is beyond words.'"