Techs-on-Call Computer Blog

We've all seen them, claims of cleaning up your registry to increase performance. The truth is registry cleaners are a waste of money. Don't waste your money or your time with these registry cleaners. Especially when you can get something that does the exact same job for free. Registry cleaner programs play off ignorance. Do you know what the registry really is? Probably not. It sure does sound important and complex.

So what really is the registry? It is an efficient database that has everything about everything for the operating system currently running. The registry concept is not limited to Windows. The fact is the registry is already very efficient. You are not going to speed it up. In fact, if you are not careful, messing with the registry can cause problems so severe, you may have to re-install Windows. Some poor registry cleaners can also cause severe problems to your operating system.

What registry cleaners do is remove entries in it that are accidently left behind and entries that are automatically generated by the operating system based on your actions. For example, recently used programs are put in the registry automatically by Windows. In every instance like that, the operating system is doing something to try and make your life easier. A bad registry cleaner will remove entries it thinks are left behind but really are not causing severe problems.

A problem with registry cleaners is they lack the ability to get rid of certain registry entries that are purposefully left behind. For example, you install a trial program. This program creates an entry in the registry saying when the trial was installed and other information, such as data required for the program to work and personal preference and so on. When you uninstall this program, it purposefully leaves behind that data. Then if you want to re-install the trial, it knows right away when you first installed the program. A registry cleaner cannot get rid of entries like these because it cannot know which entry is related to programs currently installed or programs that have been uninstalled.

Don't waste your money. A free program called CCleaner can do the exact same thing as these pay registry cleaners. CCleaner removes temporary files freeing up hard drive space. It also has the ability to remove obsolete registry entries too. And it is free. Now that your know, don't waste your money.

By now, you probably have gotten an email for cheap Canadian drugs. It is one of the most common forms of spam email. Cybercriminals use a variety of techniques to make a person's computer a spam sending machine. One of our earlier blog entries described how spammers make $1600 per day on Canadian pharmacy spam.

The FDA decided to take action. The FDA shut down 136 Canadian pharmacy websites. But that was not all. The FDA took steps to make it harder to operate a Canadian pharmacy website by sending warning letters to domain name registrars and some web site operators. Of course, cybercriminals are persistant and smart. As much money as they make, it is not in their financial interests to go down quietly into the night. Already, the cybercriminals take efforts so that if one site is shut down, your spam email link will just send you to another website.

It cannot be stated enough, do not click on spam emails. The most effective defense against spam is to ignore it. If it is not profitable or effective, the greedy cybercriminals will just move on to another scam. Just remember that spammers don't have your best interests at heart.

References: FDA takes aim at illegal net pharmacies from The Register

Sophos security research Dmitry Samosseiko recently published research into the economics of spam email. One of the biggest spamming groups is the Russian Partnerka. Dmitry Samosseiko was able to examine one of the tens of thousands of online Canadian pharmacy websites. His research proves one of the main reason spam is still around is because spam work.

Spam is, of course, not the potted meat but the unsolicited bulk advertising found in email, message board, blog posts, instant messanging programs, social networking sites, and on any other internet related activity. To make it harder to track and to increase the amount of spam, spam is rarely carried out by a person directly anymore. One of our earlier blog posts pointed out how bad spam really is. Somewhere between 90% to 97% of email is now spam. Spammers quite often infect computers with malware to send out spam in various forms. In the case of Partnerka, they infect both Windows and Macs.

Read more...

It is a common Microsoft practice to limit what editions of Windows can be used with each disc. For example, with Windows XP, the Home edition and the Pro edition each required their own disc. Not only that, there are different discs for retail discs and OEM discs. The result is that someone who may need to re-install Windows XP now needs 4 different discs. This is very annoying because the only difference between each disc is one file which tells the installer which edition and being used. Every other file was the exact same and found on all the discs. Windows Vista did away with this requirement. So it was hoped that Windows 7 would as well. As it turns out, this is not the case.

But there is good news. You can make your Windows 7 discs universal. All you then need are 2 discs, one for the 32-bit version and one for the 64-bit version. This tutorial will show you how to make a master Windows 7 disc. You still an appropriate product key for each edition. This will not allow you to get Windows 7 for free.

Read more...

One of the biggest annoyances today is SPAM, unsolicited bulk electronic messages sent by various means. The most common spam is, by far, spam e-mail. A distant second is usenet spam. The usenet is also called newsgroups and is like an older message board. A select few usenet servers are regulated and moderated but most allow blind posting. There is also message board spam and comment spam where spam is posted in places which allow people to write and leave a message. There is also instant messaging spam, mobile phone spam, online gaming spam, wiki spam (spam which updates entries in online wikis), and other types of spam.

According to Spamhaus, 90% of the e-mail sent today from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia is spam. That is to say 9 out of every 10 e-mails sent is spam. Microsoft estimates 97% of the e-mail sent is spam. This is a serious problem. It is estimated that hundreds of billions of spam e-mails are sent every year. That is more than 100,000,000,000 unwanted e-mails sent every year. And these numbers are rising. Spam messages are sent to sell prescription drugs and other products, to swindle people, to send viruses, to overload and thus takedown e-mail server, and other reasons. Most are sent by what are called spambots, which are discussed below. Very few are sent by a real live human beings.

Read more...