St. George UT PC Doctor

You're living in a cave if you haven't at least heard about G's intention to "build" a new computer Operating System based on their highly promoted and little used "Chrome" web browser.  Based on the reaction in the blogosphere, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "wait and see" attitude from the people actually paying attention to this stuff.   The Google fanboys and girls have soiled themselves in naivete` while the nay sayers are raising privacy concerns and question the motivation of such a plan.  Drudge went so far as to headline it as a "death blow" to Redmond, WA based Microsoft.   God knows Drudge has never been over the top.

I'm open minded enough to wait and see what ultimately comes out of Mountainview, but I for one am not holding my breath that this is going to be a "game changer" on a large scale.  Google conveniently omitted any real detail in the press release so one can only guess the new OS, in reality will be a shell or GUI running on top of Linux or other Open Source OS.  Not even the whiz kids can build a viable operating system from scratch and take it to market in the time frame announced.  If I am right, it won't be a true stand alone "Operating System", but rather akin to Windows 3.0 and 3.1 in that it will be a "Chrome" based GUI running on top of Linux, and we all know how painful that was.

Here is what I want to know:  Is Google really trying to build disruptive technology, or just trying to be disruptive?  Is this just a ploy to deflect the watchful eyes of Wall Street away from the sinking earnings reports and other failures?   Memo to Eric (Schmidt, CEO of Google), not EVERYONE has a stick up their ass for Bill Gates and Microsoft like you do.  Don't presume that the typical PC user sees Microsoft the same way you do.  Many of us are starting to see you as the new predatory and evil empire.

What's your take?

Tags: chrome, google, microsoft, os

Windows 7 Release Candidate has been available on bit torrents and to a small group of testers for several days now, but the official release and download from Microsoft was just made available today for widespread distribution.

You can find the full version in 32 bit or 64 bit here.

Now is a great opportunity for you to familiarize yourself with what looks to be an extremely potent and capable operating system. Be sure you read up on the system requirements before making the leap. Remember, this is not a full release and only serious techies should consider it for their fulltime OS. If you just want to see what all the hype is about, you may wish to consider running the OS in a "Virtual Machine". It's a great way to test out the new OS while leaving your existing system unchanged.

Tags: release candidates, windows 7, virtual machine

Now that the news media and computer security firms have managed to stir the entire computing world into an almost out of control frenzy, what's really going on?  The dreaded Conficker evolution of April 1 was, for most US users, a big yawn right up there with the feared Y2K meltdown.  That is not to say you have nothing to fear and there is no danger of your computer becoming infected with this or some other form of malware.

There's good and bad to come from both the Conficker and Y2K hype.  On the upside, any news that heightens awareness among computer users of their computing environment and the potential dangers and methods used by the bad guys is a good thing.  The downside is, anytime an event is so overly hyped, it's easy to become complacent when nothing bad happens in our immediate little universe.

I've talked about dangers of fake Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware products in the past.  I mention this because it appears the underlying plan of Conficker's payload is to ultimately sucker you into the same kind of trap.  Security firm Trend Micro says some machines have recently been updated  with fake antivirus software in an apparent attempt by Conficker's authors to profit from their massive botnet.

Consider yourself warned, if you receive ANY messages on screen from anything other than your already installed security solution claiming your computer is infected, it could be Conficker, or any of the many other rogue programs out there designed to make your computing life hell while extorting your money.

If you suspect your computer may be infected, don't wait and wonder, contact the St. George PC Doctor today.

Tags: conficker, malware, alerts, y2k

See this link for a great collection of Conficker detection and removal tools.

Tags: conficker, malware, alerts