Mike's Mostly Tech blog

MacDefender trojan/malware is currently spreading on Mac systems – let’s kill it!

MacDefender, is the rogue antimalware trojan currently spreading on Mac systems. This malware is known by a variety of names, including "Mac Defender", "MacProtector", "Mac Security", "Apple Security", and "Apple Security Center". It is a great example of how ‘social engineering’ can be used to trick people into harming themselves. Below are clear and easy procedures for removing it, read the quick summary or follow the links at the end for walk-throughs with loads of screen shots

I have written recently about this here, but it appears more people are being ‘snagged’.

Apple support is being of absolutely NO help either! In fact they are telling their people,"Do not attempt to remove malware.." Read about that BS here if you wish. So I thought I’d again provide some tips.

Here is the simple summary of what to do:

In Safari under "Preferences", at the bottom of the "General" tab (the first tab), uncheck "Open safe files". This will prevent Safari from starting threats like MacDefender automatically after downloading them.
Open up "Activity Monitor" (this is in your Utilities folder within Applications)
Find "MacDefender" (or whatever the malware is being called, MacProtector, Mac Security, etc)
Highlight it then click "Quit Process" which looks like a big red stop sign at the top right of the Activity Monitor screen.
Next, open System Preferences, and go to "Accounts". When it appears click on the "Login Items" button, select the program, and then click the "minus" button to remove it from Login Items.
Next, navigate to your Applications folder, find the program, drag it to the trashcan, and then empty the trashcan. Yes. It’s really that simple to remove.

Here are the two best links I could find for simple walk-throughs. I would rather not repeat the tutorials they have already taken the time to do.
Their work is much appreciated.

Now the super links with detailed screen shots and some additional tips:
The HowToGeek.com site has a great walk through here.

VRT-blog has some good information on this also, read that here.

Folks, if you use a Mac and you connect it to any systems – especially the internet, please realize that you are vulnerable to attacks and hacks. NO system is immune to attack! Although Mac’s and Linux systems have benefited by a more secure file system/OS structure (for the most part) than previous Windows systems AND the fact that their numbers were small – about 8% of all network connected desktop machines and presented a ‘low volume’ target they are now increasingly being attacked. This is especially true since many Apple uses have been lied to and told they are invulnerable to attacks.

BE SAFE FOLKS!

How to create a VPN Connection on MAC OS X 10.5 Leopard

How to create a VPN Connection on MAC OS X 10.5 Leopard

This is a step-by-step guide on how to create a VPN Connection on a MAC OS X 10.5 Leopard System.

I recently had to do this again for some of our remote staff, so I thought I’d post it as a reminder to me and maybe help others who have asked in the past.

1. Go to ‘Apple’ –> ‘System Preferences’

2. Select ‘Network‘ from system preferences

3. In ‘Network‘ system preferences, click the ‘+‘ icon on the bottom left cover of window to make a new VPN Conection.

4. As shown in the image below, a new window appears. Click on the ‘Interface’ menu and see the list of choices and select ‘VPN’.

5. Next, Change the ‘VPN type‘ from ‘L2TP over IPSec’ to ‘PPTP‘. And then In the ‘Service Name’ field, type in ‘VPN Office’ or ‘Company Name VPN’ or make one up. Once you have done, Click on ‘Create’

6. Next, we need to make a configuration. Select the ‘Confguration’ drop menu and select ‘Add Configuration’

7. A window will pop up, asking to name your new configuration. Type you ‘Company Name VPN’ here and then click ‘create’

8. Next, enter in your company’s ‘Server Address’ example; ‘server.domain.com’ or ‘72.14.213.x’ and ‘Username’, for example ‘administrator’ or ‘LarryHolmes’ or what ever

9. Next, Select the ‘Authentication settings’ button

10. Enter in Your ‘password’ and click ‘OK’

11. Next, Click on the ‘Advanced’ Button

12. Make sure that ‘Send all traffic over VPN Connection’ is unticked. Then Click ‘OK’

14. Once you have done that, click ‘Apply’. And connect to your New Vpn Connection by clicking on ‘Connect’.

There you go…

New Mac Trojan horse and Security tips from the NSA

There is a new Mac Trojan horse masquerades as virus scanner – read about that here . This is another example of social engineering – tricking users into making security mistakes.
Users looking for legitimate protection against viruses on their Macs might be duped into downloading and installing this. Essentially this is ‘ransomware’. It requires payment to ‘stop’ the ‘infection’. AND the payment information is often then sold to other nefarious people.

Remember that NO operating system is immune to attack. And since every system is utilized by humans they remain the biggest weak link – humans that is.

Also in other security news the NSA has released some good advice and documents for better security practices with your home network, and Operating Systems (including Mac OSX).
Read about that here. [via PCMAG Security watch blog].

Nearly all of this contains information that I and other security people have been saying for years but is well worth reading.

Updating to Firefox 4

I’ve written previously of my heavy reliance on Firefox and the many add-ons I use to make my time more productive and enjoyable while using the Internet.

Read here.

Now Mozilla has release the final version of Firefox 4.

Firefox 4 provides a MUCH faster and integrated browsing experience than version 3.x. The speed improvement will be noticed more on systems that allow for ‘hardware acceleration’ (more on that later) but it is still much faster on older systems.

Here is how I went about doing the upgrade.

1^st download and install the latest version of Mozbackup here:

Download location here

Information page here

This application is wonderful. It completely backs up your profile; bookmarks, settings and extensions.

Run Mozbackup and back up your profile(s) completely.

Download/install Add-on Compatibility Reporter. This requires a few Firefox restarts to be properly loaded.

This add-on will let extensions that are not explicitly ‘approved’ for version 4 to run.

And it will provide a nice interface to report those that don’t work correctly to Mozilla and/or the developer.

[If you use LogMeIn (and you should, if you need remote access to machines – Mac or PC!) here is the process to get the older add-on working in version 4:

Download by right-clicking and choosing to ‘save link as’ to your desktop or wherever this file: https://secure.logmein.com/activex/npRACtrl_ff3.xpi and then open the file with a zip extractor:  (this is zip-file, you can use Winzip, 7-Zip or Winrar. I use 7zip,)

extract the file:

install.rdf

modify it the part ‘3.6 – to read 4.6 here: <em:maxVersion>4.6.*</em:maxVersion>

Then save the file and ‘put it back into the xpi (zip file) overwriting the original.

In the xpi file (opened via 7zip or whatever) delete zigbert.rsa in /META-INF folder

Save all back to single xpi file.

Open Firefox then go to the menu bar on top and choose ‘File>Open File’ and select the xpi file and install it.]

OK so let’s get to it!

Download Firefox 4 here and install/upgrade.

I had very few issues with the upgrade on all my machines. So I’ll address them here.

Once installed there are a few things that may need adjusting. I had to do this on some machines and not others.

If your ‘Menu’ bar disappears it can be brought back very simply. Just right-click on free space in one of the toolbars and the selection of ‘Menu Bar’ switches back to the old layout. I also check the ‘Navigation Toolbar’, the ‘Add-on Bar’, and the ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’.

By choosing ‘Customize’ you can select more items to add to the toolbar and place them where you like.

If you have ‘blurry fonts’ you may have an issue with ‘hardware acceleration’.

Simply go to the Options section from the ‘Tools’ context menu. Then in the Advance then General tab you can ‘uncheck’ the ‘Use hardware acceleration when available’.

Tabs on top? The new version puts them there. I don’t like that, you may. Firefox displays tabs on top by default which is a big change for Firefox 3 users. The customize menu has an option to move tabs back down. The entry Tabs on top needs to be unselected to move them below the address bar again.

On my OS X Machines there was one peculiar thing during the installation. Once the dmg was downloaded and mounted I could not copy the install to the applications directory until I trashed the existing Firefox application. Once installed, most of the above still apply.

On Linux (at least on my Ubuntu installs) Firefox 4 is real fast too!

UPDATE:

Lifehacker.com has some great tips on ‘fixing’ some of the quirks with Firefox 4

Well I hope this help some.

SMS from GMail

I’ve written many times about how awesome a tool Google Apps Gmail is. Check out these links.

One

Two

Three

Four and I’m sure there are more just look.

And I’ve also written about how to send and SMS text to a phone via email.
Here
But that does require you know the service provider of your recipient.

BUT you can also send SMS messages directly to any telephone number from Gmail/Google Chat. A super useful tool if you are in front of a computer and the party you need to contact is not.
To do so from Gmail:

Enter your contact’s name in the ‘Search or invite friends’ box in Chat, and select Send SMS from the box of options that appears to the right of your contact’s name. Or, if you already have a Chat window open for this contact, just click Options, and select Send SMS.
In the dialog box, enter a phone number in the ‘Send SMS messages to this number’ field. For now, this feature works only on United States phone numbers. If you’re outside the US, you can still use it, but you won’t see the SMS option in Chat until you enable it manually in the Chat settings page.
Click Save.
A Chat window appears. Just type your message as you would normally. When you hit Enter, the message will be sent to the phone number you entered.

If your contact replies, the text message response will appear as a reply in Chat. These conversations are stored in your Chat history just like regular chats (but keep in mind that you can’t go off the record while communicating via SMS).

Note regarding mobile phone subscribers in North America: depending on which mobile plans your contacts in North America have, they may be charged by their mobile providers for receiving text messages.
Read about more about it here:

Note that as you ‘use’ SMS quota you can increase the number you are allowed to send very easily.
A quota is an allocation of SMS (text messages) that you’re able to send to a mobile phone:

Initially, you’re granted a quota of fifty messages.
Every time you send a message, your quota decreases by one.
Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a phone user replies to one of your messages) your quota increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.

If your quota goes down to zero at any point, it will increase back up to one 24 hours later. So, you won’t ever be locked out of the system

SMS in Chat Commands:
Here are some commands that might come in handy for you down the road when using SMS with Chat:

HELP: Text this command to any Gmail SMS number and you’ll get a response reminding you of some of the basics of SMS and a refresher of some of the other useful commands
STOP: This command will block all SMS messages from Gmail
START: Re-enables you to receive SMS messages from Gmail if you’re currently blocking them
BLOCK: Send to the code number for a particular contact to block messages from that specific person
UNBLOCK: Allows a blocked contact to send you SMS messages in the future

Mac OS X Trojan catches Sophos’ eye

Two very recent article point out what most security people know and the rest should know – NO technology, especially computers connected to any network, are completely secure!

An article here points this out:

"It appears there is a new backdoor Trojan in town and it targets users of Mac OS X. As even the malware itself admits, it is not yet finished, but it could be indicative of more underground programmers taking note of Apple’s increasing market share."

And from another one here:

"More than half of Americans believe that PCs are "very" or "extremely" vulnerable to cybercrime attacks, while only 20 percent say the same about Macs, according to this ESET survey.
(Credit: ESET)"

ESET released the results of a survey in November related to awareness of cybercrime in the U.S. The survey of more than 1,000 people found that while both PC and Mac users perceive the Mac as being safer, Mac users are victims of cybercrime just as frequently as PC users.

Meanwhile, Mac users are just as vulnerable to Web-based attacks like phishing as PC users are, and Mac users who fall prey to phishing tend to lose more money on average than PC users do, the survey found. "Viruses are a diminishing percentage of what we’re seeing," said Randy Adams, director of technical education at ESET. "A lot of attacks have to do with social engineering and that kind of attack is platform agnostic."

Please folks, practice safe computing practices. I’ve written extensively on that so I won’t go into that here, just search my blog(s) for security items.

For those of you that are interested in an antivirus product for Mac Eset makes a fantastic one. You can check it out here.

By the way Eset’s products are top notch! If I were to buy a security solution it would be theirs.

Keep safe folks.

Improving productivity and fun with browser add-ons and scripts

I spend all day working online and managing information systems.
I was asked again how come I don’t have the same ‘bad experiences’ others do when browsing the internet. Why I don’t get things like getting ‘drive by Trojans’, bogus Anti-virus pop-ups, and obtrusive music or videos that play no matter what.
I mentioned that besides the obvious of keeping all of my systems AND applications(browsers, Acrobat etc.)up to date with the latest security patches, always making sure I have the latest Anti-Virus/anti-spyware updates and not going places I know I shouldn’t or clicking on suspicious links, the most likely reason beyond that is the web browser and add-ons I use that make my browsing more productive and fun. I also spend a great deal of time furthering my education, catching up with friends and family and just plane wasting what little free time I may have being entertained online.
I have put together many tools and configuration additions that make all of the things I do with my systems way simpler and easier.
I hope these may help some of you be more productive and provide for a more pleasurable internet experience.
I work with lot’s of different people with varied technical skill sets from absolute newbie’s all the way to the guys with lot’s of CC’s and MS’s after their names, and when they see how much I can ‘just do’ from the browser they are often just amazed.
I am a believer in ‘Kaizen’. Why not try to do everything better if you can. Work, play, rest, worship and just plain life in general. So I hope some will take the time and try and use some of these tools and tips and have some more fun and a more pleasant and rewarding internet experience.
First off I must start off with the ‘machine’ with which I connect to the internet with 90+% of the time.
That is Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
I use Firefox not because it is not any more secure than IE (compared to IE8 it is definitely not, but that is news for another post.), Safari, Chrome or Opera, but I use it because the ‘browser is the machine or portal’ that gets you to all of the ‘stuff out there’ and Firefox has ALL these custom tools and add-ons available to make just about everything I do easier, faster, funner and more efficient.
I use IE only when absolutely needed; usually with custom built applications that require some of IE’s more integrated Windows ‘hooks’. I actually like the way Internet Explorer renders pages better than Firefox. But the lack of add-ons stop me from using it.
Google’s Chrome is a fast simple browser but all of the extensions for Firefox have not been ported yet. AND I really dislike how the ‘Google updater’ is continuously running and connected to Google. As much as I like lots of things Google, especially Gmail and Google Docs, I try to restrict some of the information they are gathering on me.
[While I do love my Gmail, Google is getting more like big digital brother than imagined.]
I used to recommend the Google Toolbar for Firefox and IE but I have now removed it from ALL of my machines. I now recommend that everyone do the same. Seems Google is being even more sneaky and still tracking you even when you disable ‘sending of usage statistics’! I realize it is for ‘marketing’ – to provide you with targeted adds. People forget Google is in the ADVERTISING business; and they are very profitable at it. But I just don’t need that much data collected on me. Here is one article describing the issue. And here is another.]

I was recently asked about these tools and items so I just updated the links and information and added a few items. I hope you all enjoy.
Here are the Firefox Extensions I use:

After the Deadline
After the Deadline checks spelling, misused words, style, and grammar using artificial intelligence and natural language processing.
Now you can use it in your browser. Write better blog comments, tweet with correct grammar, and compose professional messages.

Better Gmail 2:
Developed by the founder of Lifehacker.com Better Gmail 2 compiles the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Gmail into a single package. Adds useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons, and more.

BetterPrivacy
Super-Cookie Safeguard (protects from LSO Flash Objects, DOM Storage Objects).

DownloadHelper:
I use this A LOT. Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item. It is also possible to capture all the images from a gallery in a single operation.

Adblock Plus:
Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.

FaviconizeTab:
Alows you to right click on a tab and ‘Faviconize’ it.

FireFTP:
FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

gui:conif:
Adds a graphical interface for Firefox about:config tweaking. Useful for the non-geek crowd.

Ghostery:
Ghostery allows you to detect trackers on the sites you visit, learn more about the companies behind them, and control their visibility into your online behavior.

Firesheep:
A Firefox extension that demonstrates HTTP session hijacking attacks. Nice to know if someone is ‘sniffing’ your wireless browsing!

IE Tab 2
Allows you to use IE to display web pages in a tab within FireFox. This updated version includes support for FireFox 3.6 and will continue to be updated with new features and enhancements.

MultirowBookmarksToolbar:
Multi Row Bookmarks Toolbar.

PDF Download:
Use PDF Download to do whatever you like with PDF files on the Web. Regain control and eliminate browser problems, view PDFs directly in Firefox as HTML, and use the all-new Web-to-PDF toolbar to save and share Web pages as high-quality PDF files.

Perspectives:
Perspectives is a new approach to help clients securely identify Internet servers in order to avoid "man-in-the-middle" attacks.

RightToClick:
Defeats a wide varity of javascript annoyances like disabled right click (contextmenu) , disabled text selection, disabled drag&drop and many more.
Enables right-click, text selection, context-menu, drag&drop and much more where it is disabled by Javascript.
Puts little ‘Arrow’ in bottom corner allowing you to enable, then highlight and right-click and/or copy text!

StopAutoplay:
Disable the autoplay of the embedded music and movies. User action (clicking on the play arrow) is then required to hear or see ‘active content’. Some people don’t like this because the want to click on a YouTube link and have it play right away. I DON’T. Being the control freak I am I want things to play ONLY when I choose them to. I would rather go to the page and use DownloadHelper add-on mentioned above, to download the file and view it with out all the buffering and such. Most web videos are ‘Flash’ video format, and can be played back via a freeware flash player like the one from Martijn de Visser his site is here and the actual player download is here.
I love this one! Stops that lousy music or videos from playing automatically playing on certain sites.

TinEye Reverse Image Search:
TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version.

User Agent Switcher:
The User Agent Switcher extension adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser. The extension is available for Firefox and will run on any platform that this browser supports including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Helpful for sites that require specific browsers and versions.

Download Context Menu:
Shows the Explorer context (right click) menu of downloaded files in the Downloads list.

Open Bookmarks in New Tab
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13784

Vacuum Places:
Defragments your Firefox "Places" database (history/bookmarks). This greatly reduces the lag while typing in the address bar and the start-up time.

BetterPrivacy:
Better Privacy serves to protect against not delete-able long-term cookies, a new generation of ‘Super-Cookie’, which silently conquered the internet.

VTzilla:
VTzilla is a Mozilla Firefox browser plugin that simplifies the process of scanning Internet resources with VirusTotal. It allows you to download files directly with VirusTotal’s web application prior to storing them in your PC. Moreover, it will not only scan files, but also URLs.

WiseStamp:
WiseStamp Email Apps enable users to bring social functionality in every email they send.

Greasemonkey:
Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and functions by adding additional scripts.
Hundreds of scripts are already available for free. And if you’re the tinkerer sort, you can also write your own.

[ultimate greasemonkey repository – if there is a script it is here:http://userscripts.org/ ]

Remove Facebook Ads:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46560

Greasemonkey scripts I don’t use but have heard good things about:
I don’t go on Facebook much but if I were a real ‘facebooker’ I would use this one too:
UnFuck Facebook:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/11992

Another one I don’t use but for people who would like to have ‘folders’ in Gmail:
Folders4Gmail:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8810

Now to keep all tidy consistant in all places.
I use MS SyncToy to synchronize my Mozilla Firefox profiles from machine to machine too:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID;=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52

Pretty good Tutorial:
http://www.pchell.com/support/synctoy.shtml

Location of your Firefox profiles for synching:
Windows/Mac/Linux:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles#How_to_find_your_profile

Lastly even more geeky.
I have a portable version of Firefox on most of my usb flash drives so I can work on machines that might have had their browsers ‘compromised’ by maleware and virii.
To get more information on ‘Portable Firefox’go here:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
Here the more technically savvy will find out how to install, configure and update your portable edition.

Mac vs Windows Personal Computers – PC’s

People very often ask me about the differences between Apple products and Microsoft’s.
My usual answer is this simple – one sells hardware (Apple) the other software (Microsoft). Both provide Operating systems that run PC’s (Personal Computers where the abbreviation PC really comes from!); Apple’s Operating system is OS X, Microsoft’s is Windows 7 (both latest). Both are fantastic. But there are many other distinct differences in the philosophies that drive each company.
I just spend another good bit of time trying to explain this to a few folks so I thought I’d pass on some of my points.

Microsoft does software primarily (yes there are some good hardware products by Microsoft like the Xbox and K’nect) – operating systems and applications and let’s just about anybody ‘build’ the hardware ‘around’ that software. In fact Microsoft was the premier software provider that helped Apple really get started in the 80’s.
Heck after Apple ousted Steve Job’s and nearly imploded, it was Microsoft that, along with the ‘re-hiring’ of Jobs literally saved the company with loads of cash and promises to continue software development for Apple!! Without Bill Gates, today’s Apple probably wouldn’t exist! Lets go back to Aug 6th, 1997 …Read here and Read here.

Apple is primarily a hardware seller. They tightly, and I mean very tightly, control the hardware that they allow their software (OS) to run on. In fact it is against the licensing agreement for OS X to run it on anything but Apple hardware! This helps Apple deliver hardware (with the associated software OS) that is usually of fairly good quality. But of course at a premium price.

Apple is great at ‘user interfaces’. The iPod and iPhone are simple and very easy to use, very intuitive. With such a large following the iPhone(and iPad now) also now have many great applications. The iPod took a technology that had existed for while and made it unbelievably user friendly Same with the iPad. Again simplicity of software interface to pretty hardware. Something that is sometimes missed is that ‘prettiness’ and the price people are willing to pay for it.
Apple has an awesome marketing department.
Apple ‘Fan-boys’ far out number any others.

My primary systems are MS Windows machines and servers of course. But I also run some Linux servers and a few Apple desktops. And I have been intimately working with all of them for decades (Linux being a ‘build/port’ of Unix that has been around for over 30 years). And my knowledge is simply not just web surfing or printing pictures. I have and do continue to use all of these in business production environments – digital pre-press, medical fields, financial fields, government and many other industries. [I also won’t even go into the ‘more stable’ argument I often here from some fan-boys because I’m sure they have never RIP’d a 300+MB file on a Mac vs a PC or had to crunch massive digital files. Suffice it to say all systems crash but in my personal experience it has been Mac’s that do so more than any other under heavy processing]

Before you jump on me; I have had apples since my first Apple IIe. I still have lots of Apple hardware. So don’t call me a hater. I just don’t like being ‘locked’ into items or forced to spend loads of cash for hardware upgrades just to keep my software up to date.
As an illustration of that point.
"If you took your car in for service and they welded your hood shut, you wouldn’t be very happy,"- Apple shutting owners out of their iPhones.
http://goo.gl/HDmNY

Another VERY important thing for many to consider is the cost of hardware of each system. Apple systems do and will cost you a HIGH premium over similar Windows based systems. AND Apple is very good at making sure you will have to replace your system every few years! I am not kidding. If you have an Apple machine that is over 3 or 4 years old there is most likely no way you could run the latest version of their OS (OS X Snow Leopard). If you have a ten year old Windows PC sitting around you could still put Windows 7 on it and also upgrade most of the hardware too!!

However please remember the ‘best’ product is one that will do what you want it to (or minimum you will accept) and provides the user experience you desire.
That’s it!

Technology is only a tool, a means to an end. Not the end in and of itself.

I also won’t waste the space here to go over the VERY false argument that Mac’s are immune to being hacked or compromised. This is a statement NEVER made by anyone who deals with security on a regular basis such as myself and many of my colleagues! Mac’s have just had a much smaller ‘target’ on their head in the past but are still just as easily compromised as PCs.

If you have been using a Mac or Windows PC and it works for you stick with it unless you have some other overriding need to switch. The learning curve for Windows 7 and OS X is very short now days compared to the differences of even a decade ago.

If you are primarily just going to be browsing the web, looking at photos and some simple office type application work you will do OK with either one.

Now some entertaining illustrations:

Great Simple How To & Tech Support videos from Google

These videos are from Google’s "Send Your Parents A Tech Support Package" site.

Basically it is a site that lets the techies (usually the younger generation) send some ‘canned support’ to their parents and elders. But these are also especially useful to those that are either new to computers and technology or just a little less tech savvy.

The short videos are actually very well thought out and clearly and quickly presented so that just about anyone can learn from them.

I believe that many folks who ‘think they know it all’ should just take a look anyways. In my line of work I am amazed that people who literally work for 8+ hours on a computer do not know how to do many of these simple tasks.
The reasons, I think, are that many people are afraid to ask for help, they think they can just ‘figure it out’, or truly don’t care to learn how to more efficiently or properly use technology. Some people refuse to learn out of some warped sense of ego or pride too.
Don’t be one of those. No one’s head has every exploded from learning how to do something new or more efficiently.

I am going to link to all the videos directly so you can peruse them at your leisure. This is very large post with LOADS of great information. I really hope many of you will take the time and view these very short helpful videos. If you wish to watch them full screen you can click on the ‘arrow’ below the YouTube icon on the lower right hand corner and choose ‘full screen modes’.

So let’s start with the first category – THE BASICS:

COPY & PASTE

ADJUST THE TIME ON YOUR CLOCK

CHANGE YOUR DESKTOP BACKROUND – MAC

CHANGE YOUR DESKTOP WALLPAPER – PC

MAKE TEXT BIGGER OR SMALLER

TAKE A SCREENSHOT

CHANGE YOUR SCREEN SAVER – MAC

CHANGE YOUR SCREEN SAVER – PC

Next – WORLD WIDE WEB (INTERNET)

CREATE A STRONG PASSWORD

MAKE BOOKMARKS

MAKE A BLOG

SHORTEN A LONG URL

CHANGE YOUR DEFAULT HOME PAGE

CREATE AN ONLINE CALENDAR

BROWSE THE WEB WITH TABS

Next – COMMUNICATION

SET UP AN EMAIL AUTO-RESPONDER

TRANSLATE TEXT

MAKE CALLS FROM YOUR COMPUTER

CHECK YOUR SPELLING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=En8e79YvA0Y

CHAT

VIDEO CHAT

GET A NEW PHONE NUMBER

CREATE A MAILING LIST

CREATE AN EMAIL SIGNATURE

CHECK YOUR EMAIL ON YOUR PHONE

Next – MEDIA

RESIZE A PICTURE

SHARE A BIG FILE

ATTACH A FILE TO AN EMAIL

SHARE PHOTOS

CROP PHOTOS

SHARE VIDEOS

TRANSFER FILES BETWEEN COMPUTERS

KEEP TRACK OF FREQUENT FLIER MILES

Lastly – FINDING INFORMATION

FIND A PIZZA(OR OTHER) RESTAURANT NEAR YOU

GET MOVIE SHOWTIMES

FIND THE DEFINITION OF A WORD

GET DRIVING DIRECTIONS

TRACK A FLIGHT’S STATUS

CONVERT CURRENCY

USE GOOGLE AS A CALCULATOR

GET PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION DIRECTIONS

FIND A BUSINESS’S PHONE NUMBER

GET STOCK QUOTES

FIND RESTAURANT REVIEWS

VIEW LIVE TRAFFIC

Learning Photoshop and tips

Photoshop left you confused?

Start at the Beginning!

Check out the How-To Geek’s Guide to Learning Photoshop.

I’ve been in and around Graphic Arts, printing pre-press and service bureaus for over two decades and this is one of the simplest and well thought out basic how to’s for Photoshop I’ve seen in a long time. I hope it helps some of you. I’m sure it will if you take the time.

Part 8: Filters