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Facebook and Phishing

Andy Carroll — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:57:49 +0000

Recently I discussed Facebook in my Tech Talk feature in the Goole Times. Facebook is an extremely popular website and it is a great way of keeping in touch with friends and family. It has its problems though, as in order to keep the website free, Facebook have opened it up to advertisers and to application developers. These adverts and games aren’t all that innocent and you should be careful what you accept and what you agree to install within Facebook.

Here are some tips for safe browsing on Facebook

1. No such thing as a Free Lunch

When someone sends you a ‘gift’ and you are asked to allow the application access to your profile, remember that you are sharing that information with people you do not know, and they might not be trustworthy.
if in doubt – don’t run it

2. Privates on parade?

Learn to manage your privacy settings.
They are under the settings link on the right hand side of your FaceBook account
There are choices for how people can view your profile, photos, personal information etc.
You can choose only your friends, friends of friends, even everyone.
Make sure you know who can see you and what they can see.

3. Emails – cloak & daggers

Hiding false links in an email is easy – taking you to a site that looks like facebook but it’s really a mask
As you enter your details, they are being stolen and stored!
Beware of emails coming from FaceBook.
NEVER click on a link in an email which is supposed to have come from FaceBook.
It is always better to go to the FaceBook website – eg type into your browser directly and login there

4. Say ‘NO’ to Trojan horses

Some FaceBook applications or adverts will try and download toolbars, or change settings on your computer.
Be sure to read every alert and do not just click allow or yes to everything.
Some of these toolbars are very malicious and extremely difficult to remove after they have been installed

5 Card Sharp

Check your credit card account when you get it
If you have an online service, check your account weekly
The sooner your bank knows there is an issue, the sooner they can handle it for you
We hope that you find these tips useful, but overall would suggest that you take your time when you are online and FaceBooking
The ads, gifts and games are all designed to get you to do something on impulse – if you make a rule to wait and read it again a day later, you’ll find that you don’t get drawn in so much

How was Windows 7 Designed?

Andy Carroll — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:31:04 +0000

Windows 7 is now out and many of our customers are upgrading to take advantage of some of its new features. We have already upgraded a number of our office machines and those users who have upgraded really like Microsoft’s new operating system. Reading around the web I found this article explaining some of the design decisions the Microsoft team made whilst working on Windows 7. This from MSDN;

The taskbar has undergone a facelift. We’ve enabled large icons by default (as seen in Windows 1.0 and also an option of Quick Launch since Windows 95 with IE 4). This affords a richer icon language, improves identification of programs and improves targeting for both the mouse and touch. Yet, one of the most important advantages large icons provide is a means to promote the taskbar as the central place to launch everyday tasks. We joke that the new taskbar is the “beachfront property of the Windows OS” and in turn, we are already seeing many people populating the UI with their commonly used programs. Somewhat if a visual trick, the taskbar is only 10 pixels (at 96 DPI) higher than its Vista counterpart (when used as a single row, since multiple rows are still supported, along with positioning around the screen edges).

If you are thinking about upgrading to Windows 7 then give us a call.

Website Workshop Announced: 6th May, The Courtyard, Goole

Andy Carroll — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:34:53 +0000

Announcing our next workshop focussed on helping local businesses get more business out of the internet. Meet us at The Courtyard in Goole, for a 7:45 to 8 AM start, and see what you can learn to help you get the most out of your web activities.

How to Increase Sales from your Website

Andy Carroll — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:06:28 +0000

Our Next Executive Briefing will be focussing on Increasing Sales from your Website. The venue is The Courtyard, Goole and we start at 7:45, aiming to finish about 9:30 am, on Thursday, 2nd April.

Like other network meetings you’ve been to recently, we’ll have set aside a slot for exchanging cards and networking. The event consists of an informal workshop cum presentation, focuussing on how your business can make the most from internet marketing and your website. This is the 4th in our series and we are focussing this time on sales.

We’ll talk about 4 key ways you can improve the sales from your website

1. How to create a website customers will trust.

2. How to get that first sale, subscription, or enquiry

3. Creating successful product listings and pages which increase sales

4. How testing can improve your sales performance

Now I’m really looking forward to this workshop as there’s a lot of material here which we share with our clients and I am sure you will find something of interest for your own business. And some surprises I am sure.

Default Site will not start using Vista and IIS 7

Andy Carroll — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:01:18 +0000

The error message is something like

The process can not access the file because it is being used by another process. (Exception from HRESULT: 0 x 80070020)

The answer in my case was Skype. By shutting Skype down and then starting the default site successfully, I then restarted Skype and all was well.

Skype uses the same port 80 as the default site needed, so if this error occurs with you then check which applications might be using port 80 and close them, then try and start your default site.