Firewall Upgrade – 1/15/2015
We will be updating our firewalls this Thursday the 15th of January 2015. There are significant patches we have to apply for security reasons.
The upgrades will take place shortly after 9pm EST for approximately 1/2 hour. The upgrade could take longer if issues arise. This is the only time the security company had to help us with the upgrade.
The maintenance will affect everyone and downtime will be at a minimum. We will have to apply the update and then reboot.
Please check back here at our blog for any additional information:
www.atomicx.com/blog
Computer Technology for Those with Disabilities
For those with disabilities, computer technology can sometimes be a hassle. We decided to give you some great new technologies that will enhance computing for those with disabilities, in no particular order below:
Ablenet’s Impulse System
For those with amputated, paralyzed, or impaired limbs, the Impulse System Specialized software interprets the user’s commands so they can surf the web, type on the computer’s screen, and use pretty much every aspect of a computer. Electromyography technology is used by attaching a device to the user’s skin and interpreting the movements. It is available as a two-week trial and $2100 in total, with $100 for 120 disposable electrodes.
Compusuit’s Jouse2
With the Jouse2, users can control their computer with simple puffs of air or mouth movement. This sells for $1400 and can be plugged into the USB port of a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. Works as both a mouse and a keyboard!
The Lomak
This amazing invention made it all the way into New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The Lomak uses a head-mounted device that shoots a laser beam to a keyboard replacement that has 105 photo-sensitive spots arranged in circles that correspond to letters and numbers, punctuation and mouse movements. After aiming the device at what you want, and moves the beam to the Confirm button at each circle’s center, Lomak carries out the command. (There’s also an LED hand pointer for those with limited hand movement.) It doesn’t require any extra calibration and costs $2500. Works with Mac and Windows.
With the holidays right around the corner, make sure that everyone in your family can operate a computer! We hope these products have helped you. Thanks for visiting Atomic!
Read EULA’s CAREFULLY!
When browsing the web for free software, it is important to read the fine print when you are in the install process. There is no such thing as completely free software. Someone somewhere is paying the bill for any and all free software on the internet. Typically it is installed with check boxes that appear during the install process with messages such as, “I agree to install secure search with the install of my free software.” I see it every day. Someone’s internet browser is hijacked through adware due to not reading the fine print during an install of whatever “free” software they obtained. The most common question is “Why didn’t my antivirus software remove that if it is malicious in nature?” The answer to that question is simple, anti-viral software does not protect you from yourself.
When installing “free” software from any location, it is important that you read thru some of the fine print to avoid adware installs. The publishers of the “free” software oftentimes have agreed to include certain adware in with their software packages to help pay for the “free” software. This is done by placing a check box that asks for your permission to install such adware. If you continually click the “Next” button without reading the text that is near this check box, then you have agreed to have this potentially harmful software installed on any and all browsers on your machine. Since you have now agreed to install the Adware on your computer, the anti-viral software that you are using will no longer consider it as an active threat! If you agreed to install the adware, the anti-viral software does not see it as an exploit or spam, and takes no action no matter how many times you scan. There are programs out there that can detect and remove any and all PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) from your windows install that are free to try. They will even offer you a limited version of the program, but those have check boxes all over the place during the install process. It is imperative that you read through or at least skim any EULA before you click the next button to ensure that there are no surprise installs awaiting you in the end result. It’s hard to tell if it is a legit advertisement, if it is going to give you a Trojan or Malware, or something even worse that might require a professional like me to remove. Next time you are thinking about downloading free software, remember to pay close attention to the fine print, and always read what is next to any checkbox during the installation process.
I hope you have found this post both informative and useful! Feel free to contact us with any questions, comments, or concerns about your computer issues right here on the site.
Dominos Pizza Embraces and Invests into their Technology
Domino’s Pizza is an interesting study in technology and advancement, particularly in its Pizza Tracker service. For a company as large as Domino’s to emphasize transparency within this technology is truly groundbreaking.
When a customer orders a pizza from their web site, the Pizza Tracker shows up, and the order is automatically sent to the appropriate store. While the pizza is being made, a real-time meter shows up, updating the customer on the progress of the order until it is delivered safely. Compared to other online ordering places, and pizza places in general, this is far and away the easiest system. From Prep, to Bake, to Box, to Delivery, this is the way of the future for companies. Domino’s recognizes this, and has seen results, where their stock hit a record high, while Pizza Hut and Papa John’s have mostly stayed flat.
Domino’s single largest department is their IT Department. Their newest focus is Dom, a version of Apple’s Siri technology. Dom lets you order pizza anytime, anywhere from your mobile device after a simple download. It can handle taking an order for carryout or delivery, handling saved Easy Orders, suggesting additions to a meal, and finding coupons for the best deals.
Dominos spent $205 million on measured media in 2013, and continues to invest in future projects that use technology to get pizzas to consumers quickly. They also partnered with Ford for the first in-car ordering system on Ford Sync vehicles.
With technology like this, Domino’s is proving quick to adapt to new trends and implement them in a way that builds customer loyalty (and makes money) all at once. Domino’s has come a long way from admitting in a commercial in 2009 to less-than-favorable pizza reviews being accurate to being on the cutting edge of new technology and making more sales than ever.
Bing: No Plans To Boost Rank For HTTPS URLS
Vincent Wehren, the Lead Program Manager for Bing’s Webmaster Tools has recently announced there will be no boost in Bing rankings for companies that switch to the more secure HTTPS urls.
This strategy goes against their rival Google’s decision in regards to the issue. It was announced in August that Google would be giving websites a minor ranking increase as an incentive for switching over to HTTPS.
Bing however feels that this element should not be a ranking factor and would prefer to “give searchers content they want.”
German Justice Minister says Google Should Reveal Algorithm
Google has been stuck in a long ongoing battle between anti-trust unions in Europe. Critics claims Google needs to become more transparent with their business practices. German justice minister Heiko Maas recently expanded on this notion by stating Google should reveal the algorithm they use to rank sites in their search engine.
This demand is not likely to be met, as their algorithm is essentially their “secret recipe” and a key part of their business model.
Google has opened up on this issue in the past, repeatedly saying their algorithm will not be revealed to the public to prevent spammers from manipulating the system. This fact however does not mean there is no solution to make both parties happy.
European privacy regulations has been tackling issues such as the NSA and charges against Uber, many of which are against American companies.
One proposed solution is to split Google into several smaller companies with less influence going to each field.
What do you think? Should Google reveal their algorithm?
CryptoLocker Removal Tool
We jus
t recently found out that there is a way you can recover your files from the CryptoLocker Virus. FireEye and Fox-IT have somehow managed to gain access to the private encryption keys used by the CryptoLocker’s programmers. They were also able to reverse-engineer the virus code and create a website that will allow you to recover your files from this devastating virus.
All you need to do to repair the CryptoLocker virus is go to , Enter your email address, and upload one of your infected files and then you will be presented with the decryption key necessary to unlock the rest of your files.
One small downfall is that if you have been infected by a variant of the CryptoLocker virus this fix may not work. Variants start out as the same virus and then are modified to meet the wants and needs of that particular programmer.
How do you get the CryptoLocker virus? The virus is can be received in many ways, but the ones we have worked on are coming through as email attachments. For example: “UPS Shipment”, “Paypal”, “Tax Updates”, or any ZIP file extension. This may come from someone you know if they have been infected with malware or another virus.
What does the CryptoLocker affect? The virus adds cryptography to all of the word documents, excel, pictures, mp3, text documents and .ini files. The CryptoLocker virus will even seek out files on your network drives. One thing we have come across is that the virus will only affect what you have access to. If you are denied access to a drive on the network it will not be able to reach any files on that drive. You will know that the file in infected because it will give you a pop-up that says this file has been protected or locked. The pop-up will usually be a red screen that will say “Your personal files are encrypted” and show you a countdown clock. The countdown clock shows when your price to buy the key goes up. So if you do not purchase the $300’s in Bitcoin’s or Moneypak to fix the virus $300 will go up.
The virus infects the files by making a copy of the file, injecting the cryptography and then deleting the original file. By the time you figure out that you have the virus, it is too late. If you are lucky enough to find the originating computer before it spreads to your network, you can save yourself a ton of work. Since this procedure works in the background it is totally undetectable until someone opens up an infected file.
How to figure out who has a virus on the network? So far this has been pretty easy for us to tell who the culprit has been. In all of our cases we could deduce the person who had the virus because their personal drive on the network had the viruses. When we setup a network our default settings we assign a user drive that syncs with their “My Documents” directory. By doing folder syncing the files are always safe on the server if the laptop were to get stolen or broken, plus their files are backed up via the backup utility. (One caveat: This can be a pain in the rump with the new MS Outlook because it stores the PST in the My Documents folder, which you will have to relocate back to the old directory in the “users” directory.) One could also deduce the person with the virus by figuring out the access rights to the drives that were infected.
Before the fix was available, you had three options. 1. Pay the Money, 2. Restore your files from an earlier date, 3. Lose your data and cry. We have worked on this virus for other companies and we ended up restoring the data piece by piece, which took 11 hours but it was less time than just doing a full restore. Be glad that some one put forth the effort to remedy this virus, for free.
If you are having trouble with Viruses, Computer Issues or Network Administration, let us know.
Lightning Strike Server Outage
On Saturday 7/26/2014 our office was hit by lightning. We lost some equipment, including but limited to one server and a network switch. We have always stated to our customers that even the best equipment cannot protect from something like this happening.
We have transferred over all of the sites and email to different server. Let us know if you are having any issues.
Atomic is sorry for any interruption that occurred because of the weather.
Apple Releases Cheaper iPod Touch Model
A new and cheaper iPod Touch with a 5 megapixel camera has been announced by Apple.
This new iPod will begin at 200 dollars for a 16 GB model, 30 dollars cheaper than the last iteration in the Touch series. The new iPod will also include the iSight camera, which was missing from the previous model.
In addition to the new camera and multitude of colors, the lower cost iPod Touch has an A5 processor, Facetime abilities, and a 4 inch retina display. iOS 7 comes installed on the new iPod, but it will be compatible with iOS 8 which launches in a few months.
The new iPod Touch is currently available in stores in the United States. It will be released worldwide within the next few days. The 23 and 64 GB models will sell for 250 and 300 dollars.