Tips and Frequently Asked Questions
Things we've learned that you might find useful.
Q: XP Antivirus, Antivirus Suite, Defense Center - What is it?
Recently (July 2010) we have seen an increase in rogue antivirus infections. These are propagated by web sites and email attachments. They install themselves on your computer, take over your Internet Explorer and intercept all your web requests. They then initiate pop-up warnings that look like a real warning and ask if you want to "clean" your system with their product. If you say yes, a couple of things happen: (1) They install themselves more firmly in your system. (2) They ask you for money and of course that will mean access to a credit card or other payment resource.
We suspect these to be primarily used to harvest credit card numbers which are then sold on the black market. Plus, the software they purport to sell you is WORSE THAN WORTHLESS. And - it does not go away. If you see one of these on your computer, immediately close all applications and shut it down. The restart in Windows "Safe Mode" so you can start cleaning them out.
Your legitimate anti-virus and anti-spyware software will generally clean or quarantine any recognized threat and notify you via a small pop-up window that distinctly identifies itself with the legitimate company name and logo. You are usually not prompted to "do" anything, except to be aware that the product has worked.
The rogues are identifiable by their obnoxiousness and insistence on making you approve something by clicking a control, so they can propagate further and make you an offer you can't refuse. We've included some samples of the rogues and some instructions from Microsoft about their security products that can help. In addition we have found that MalwareBytes Anti-Malware free version does a good job of finding and cleaning the rogues. Download it from http://www.malwarebytes.org.
Link to some more info. on this site: Documentation
You can look up characteristics and cleaning tips on many malware critters from Microsoft's Malware Protection Center at
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/
A: There are a number of techniques. One is to review the backup job completion status. If it is anything other than perfect, dig deeper immediately. Backup systems can range from very simple batch or script programs that just copy files to another computer, to high-end automated storage backup and recovery systems (Like Legato, Veritas, and others). Windows comes with NTBackup, a relatively simple backup and recovery utility that can be run on-demand or automatically according to a regular schedule.
A good way find out is to select a folder of files that is very critical to your business operations, pretend that it is lost and attempt to restore the folder and its contents to an alternate location. If your files are all present and as recent as the last backup run, then you have some assurance that your backup system is working. Do this about once a month with different files. Any failures to restore reflect a need to examine and further test your backup scheme and programs.
Q: How can I get a free Office Live Small Business Site? A: Pretty easy. Go to
http://smallbusiness.officelive.com. You'll be getting an Office Live ID and can then proceed immediately to access the web and email service info. Initially you can use the OfficeLive-provided domain to try things out. If you decide to use it for real, you can get a registered domain name for $14.95 per year. (May be free 1st year depending on special offers.)
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Q: How can we get up to speed on Office 2007? A:
Q: Should we host our own E-Mail and Website? A: In the long run if your business is on-going and growing, you should consider hosting your own e-mail. If you have Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 or 2008, it already includes Exchange and setup is relatively easy. We have a long relationship with Exchange and can help. If you don't have SBS, we can help you upgrade inexpensively. There is administration overhead, but you have control over all the services that Exchange provides, mobile access, web access, etc. You can also host your website on SBS or other servers. Generally this is easy to do and not expensive since most of your expense is in creating and maintaining the web content. We have web content partners who can help with that part also.
Inexpensive hosting is available from Microsoft Office Live Small Business. You can manage your web site with its built-in content management system (CMS). We also support web sites via our affiliate 1and1.com which is also very inexpensive and has an excellent set of tools for general, business, social networking and e-commerce.
Milagro is an affiliate with 1and1.com, a major volume hosting service. We manage some of our other company projects there and provide full-service web hosting for a fee. Follow the link on our "
Affiliates" page to take a look. We will add additional affiliates going forward. Milagro Technologies is primarily a professional services company, so we try to select some of the best resources so you will have a choice of hosting services that we are familiar with and can provide service levels that you may need.
For more advanced services, such as SEO design and operation, our associate company Floodhammer Media can set up programs to bring many more customers to your website.
Q: How important is "malware" protection?
A: Very important. I rarely get a call to clean up virus infections. The anti-virus software in use is pretty good. It however does not always include "spyware" or "malware" protection. One very annoying example is the fake or "rogue" antivirus infections that come from infected websites and E-Mail. This vermin infects your browser, Windows directory, temporary files and the Windows registry to insert itself and propagate around your computer. It takes over your browser connection by establishing a fake proxy, and warns you incessantly of non-existent infections and tries to annoy you into signing up for their service or software (and getting your credit card info in the process). I have traced some of these to the usual locations in eastern Europe and Africa. Getting rid of them is not easy. Usually it requires sleuthing your system in safe mode, erasing files, removing registry entries, executables in various places (anywhere in the %PATH%) and running a tool like MalwareBytes to find and clean stuff you didn't find manually. We'll post details here as we discover instances of common malware animals.