Greetings All,

In today’s edition of lower than pond scum scammers, I received a call from a number with the same prefix as myself, “446” Red Flag #1. It is an automated call, telling me they are from Microsoft and that my Windows license is going to be canceled because parties from several countries have hacked my IP address. Red Flag #2.

IF You happen to get a call from such a scammer just hang up. It is not real and they are trying to take advantage of your lack of experience. Please don’t fall for this. It is a spoofed number and they match up your prefix so it looks like it is someone calling from your area. My cell number is (XXX)-446-XXXX so any calls from (SAME)-446-XXXX are SPAM.

Yep, you read that correctly, Microsoft has put out a Windows Defender browser plugin. This plugin works on the Chromium version of Edge, Chrome. This plugin in Windows as well as MacOS. This is a Microsoft created plugin and you Chrome or Edge to get it. Here is the link.

Sophos provides many free tools and even provides 10 seats free for home use. So what does that mean? This means you can create an account, and install Sophos on 10 Windows and Mac computers for Free at Home. Go to and create an account today.

This is a comparison was provided by Sophos.

A while ago I had purchased a couple of Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. The intention was to cluster them together  make some sort of cheap “super computer” out of them. I know  I know  I know, I would need a lot more than just two to make a “super computer”.

Time went on started using one for a . It worked pretty well. The only issue I had was with adding more and more plugins the Raspberry Pi quickly ran out of resources. So I built an old PC to replace it. With the other Pi I created a DNS server, I followed the instructions . It was pretty simple and it has been pretty solid for the last 6 months.

I was curious as to what my DNS server was doing and how it was acting, since there was no head on it (monitor, keyboard, and mouse). To allow me to control my Pi I decided to utilize a control panel called Webmin, it is Open Source and relatively simple to use. I used the following .

Now I am able to keep an eye on my Pi and also keep it up to date.

Secure your accounts

There is an article in  that talks about fraudulent Tech support scams, Identity theft, and Ransomware attacks. It also goes over some tips on how to prevent and, in the case where it happens to you, recover.
Some of the tips are to make your logins strong. It used to be that a user name and password were good enough, well not any more. There are three parts that can be used to authenticate you as being you.

The First is “Who you are” – this is a user name of some sort whether it is an email address or your name.

The Second is “What you know” – this is a password. It should be strong (At least 8 characters, upper and lower case letters, numbers, and some sort of special character). The password would should also not be a word found in the dictionary. For example, this would be considered a strong password: ugS1QdAz3%5g
You could also use a sentence or phrase that may be easier to remember, for example: ILoveToDrinkCoffee@3am

The Third is “What you have” – this is an added layer of security that is something you possess such as a finger print, a retina scan also called “iris scanner”, or an APP such as “Google Authenticator” which has a randomly generated number which you will have to enter along with your user name and password. The Third is also known as “2-Step Verification” or “2-Step Authentication”.

Please keep in mind, that every website has their own security standards, so if your bank site does not have “2-Step Verification” you can’t use it.

Keep a good backup. A cloud backup service like for about $5/month paid yearly @ $59.99/year, is short money for knowing your files are safe. You don’t have to use the Carbonite service, I am not affiliated with them nor am I promoting for them. I am merely suggesting a service “like”

Keep your computer clean. As an IT professional the question I get all the time is “What is the best Anti-Virus software out there?” and to be 100% honest I don’t review software. However an article from stated that McAfee Anti-virus Plus (2017) was the best.
Also keep your computer up to date. Updates are important to close exploits or “holes” in your computer.

And the most important tip, is if it looks fishy flush it. A good Tech Support engineer should NEVER ask for your password. The assumption is that you will be right there with that person to enter it when and if it is needed.

Thanks for reading

Keith

As you can gather from the title I am going to compare people to Veople (Virtual People). I would like to start off by stating that I am NOT a professional in any field of human behavior. I am an IT Professional in my 40s. I am just someone who observes and puts two and two together.
The technology today is great as it is making life easier and easier, but there is a cost associated with that “ease”. For example: car manufacturers are creating cars that park themselves. The cost? We no longer need to know how to back into a parking spot and we lose that knowledge. The biggest loss is our ability to interact with each other. When today’s youth goes into the work force and have to speak with people and not Veople, they will be lost. They don’t know how to laugh, but they know how to “LOL” and “LMFAO”. As Veople we don’t have the non-verbal communication skills needed to hold a meaningful conversation. Words are words and only a fraction of a conversation: there are actions, pitches, and volume in someone voice that no matter what is said is taken a certain way. So what does that mean for us Veople? The people of today’s society that can’t view or hear those variations? It means they never learn how to effectively use them and they then become monotone and lack passion or conviction when they have to speak with someone face to face.
When did this start you may be asking yourself. Well, to be honest, I believe it started with the invention of the television set. At first, it was a gathering place for families to sit and be entertained. Then it grew into a babysitter (mostly because both parents had to work to make ends meet) and from there it has spiraled out of control.
How do we fix this? Do we go “DARK” and hope for the best? Do we evolve technology to show emotion? What if, and only if, we teach our children at a young age how to speak with someone, and what it is like to have passion and conviction without being rude? What if 2 or 3 hours out of the day, parents, the biggest influence in a child’s world, have “Analog Time” where all technology is off and in the other room and conversations are held with meaning? Who knows? Those are only a few ideas as I go back to my first sentence: I am NOT a professional; I am only someone who observes.
In conclusion, the smarter we make technology the less intelligent we make “Joe Public”. We are losing the ability to hold verbal conversation with someone, the ability to park a car, drive a stick shift, and soon even drive a car all together. We are all slowly becoming Veople with no end in sight. The only world I can change is mine and hope others adopt my culture. So the next time you are having a conversation with someone via text: be it AIM, Skype, or Facebook, pick up the phone and call that person. The sound of your voice would mean a lot more.

I would like to thank my wonderful girlfriend for giving this the once over.

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Security Alert CVE-2016-0603 Released for Windows

On February 5, 2016 Oracle posted a blog entry stating the re was a Security Exploit that would allow attackers to compromise a computer without users ever knowing. The exploit is rather complex and can only happen during the install process, it is still there. Oracle advises you get the latest update level of your current release.

“Java users who have downloaded any old version of Java prior to 6u113, 7u97 or 8u73, should discard these old downloads and replace them with 6u113, 7u97 or 8u73 or later.”

You can read the blog entry or you can get your patch along with a description here

In the beginning of the second quarter of 2015, Apple released update for Yosemite. This update is over 1.2GB in size and adds new features like the new . Although, that is not the reason why I am blogging, the reason is simple, it crashed my laptop HARD. Yep, after the install my laptop rebooted and then displayed a kernel panic.

It took me a few searches to find the a solution.

This is what I found, there is an app called that controls the webcam on your Mac and PC that was installed on my laptop. And wouldn’t you know, the kernel extension it uses is not compatible with update 10.10.3.

The resolution pretty easy;

1. Boot into Safe Mode (Hold the shift key down once you hear the start up sound, and release it once you see the apple) as noted .

2. Uninstall ManyCam

3. Open Finder and navigate to Library/Extensions  and delete the ManyCamVideoDeviceDriver.kext as outlined .

4. Reboot your computer

Please note, if you have encrypted drives you will be required to enter your password while opening the computer in Safe Mode.

After reading the forums on Apple’s site about the update I feel we could be seeing a few more updates in the near future.

Thank you for reading, I hope this was informative.

Recently I added a Samsung Galaxy S5 Active to my cell phone household. When doing so I noticed that my Facebook app took a very long time to load pictures and even indicated that there was a network error.
Being an IT guy this drove me nuts. I would put the phone in airplane mode and turn WiFi on and it would work without issues. It seemed to only be happening when WiFi and cellular were on, almost like they were fighting. After searching around the internet I thought I would try a few things to alleviate the issue. Below is a list of some steps taken that failed to produce the desired results:
1. Turns the WiFi to 802.11g
2. Turned down the security to WPA
3. Removed the security
4. Throttled the throughput to 54Mbps
5. Connected the phone to 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz
6. Downloaded and ran WiFi Fixer app on the phone
7. Downloaded and ran WiFi Analyzer app on the phone
8. Set a static IP on the phone
9. Checked for firmware updates on the phone as it is still on 4.4.2 (Come on AT&T feel free to update us soon)
10. checked for a firmware for my router
11. Contacted Samsung and did a factor reset on my phone (I tried to avoid that as much as possible)

And to no avail none of the of the above worked.

My router is a NetGear WNDR4500 on Firmware version V1.0.1.40_1.0.68, and it is about 3 years old.
Phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5 Active from AT&T running 4.4.2

After a few months of scratching my head and killing my data I was just about to setup a different router when I stumbled on something. I remember reading a few forum posts complaining about how the phones didn’t like “new routers”, so that got me thinking, what’s “new” in the networking world. Then it hit me AHHH HAAAA IPV6. I turned off IPV6 and BAAAAAMMMMMM the phone connects to the internet, images on FaceBook load without issue. Go figure!!!

IPV6 was developed to allow for the growing number of network connected devices in the world. The issue I have is my little network of say 15 devices will not running out of IPs so IPV6 is not needed at my house.

To sum it up, my router had IPV6 turned on by default and wasn’t causing any issues until just recently. Turning it off turned out to fix my issues. Hope this helps anyone else struggling with this same issue.