Check this site out often for interesting information on the computer industry!

Compass News

12-23-2000

Our application for Wingate reseller has been accepted.  I am very excited about this software.  It allows one modem to be shared by multiple PCs.  I feel this will be a great thing for customers that want to save money on buying multiple modems plus allow flexibility with their network.

Our new website look is being developed and soon should be uploaded, YEAH!

We are getting involved in a venture that will allow online shopping.  This looks like a very good deal.  Watch the Whittum Enterprises link on the main page for details.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12-2-2000

I have started building websites for clients.  We set up our first host site this week.  We are designing sites with Microsoft Frontpage.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12-1-2000

Pony Computers has offered us a deal in which we setup computers for FREE at waiting areas with high speed Internet Access.  See the Pony page for details.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11-23-2000

We have two options for selling PC Computers.  One plan is generic and the other involves selling a brand of computer built by Pony Computers in Denver.  I think this will be a great deal for the consumer.  We can sell PC units in the $1250.00 and up range.  Pony offers a 3 year parts and service warranty built into the product.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11-19-2000

Well the site is finally up and running.  Hopefully I will have our own domain name in the future, for now this will work.

I am working on a new shop that will be able to handle a higher demand of business. It should have all the goodies in it and allow me to better test PC computers.

Also, for you that are wondering if we will sell brand new PC systems, I am also working with a couple of companies to get the best deal.  With the industry competition as it is it will be real hard to keep a PC under $1000.00 but I will try to stay close.  Service will obviously have to be a deciding role in PC purchase.

John

Computer News/FAQ Page

Computer Virus Information - Are you at Risk?

- December 2000

Viruses are the colds and flu of computer security: ubiquitous, at times impossible to avoid despite the best efforts and often very costly to an organization's productivity.

NIST recommends using a two-tiered approach for detecting and preventing viruses from spreading:

Anti-virus software should be installed when the personal computer is initially configured. The software should be updated weekly with new virus definitions, and your vendor may provide an automated update feature. Organizations may benefit from using several brands of anti-virus software.

For an updated website of virus information, check out the Federal Computer Incident Response Capability (FedCIRC's) virus database. The WildList site provides a list of viruses that are currently loose "in the wild," or active and infecting systems at the current moment.

Please see our NIST disclaimer: Any mention of commercial products within NIST web pages is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement by NIST.

What are computer viruses?

Now before you begin, you should get some facts straight about viruses. Firstly, they are not actually living creatures. They are just a program like any other, except that they copy themselves on to other programs, they 'infect' it. They cannot actually run by themselves. To 'activate' a virus, you need to run the program which was infected. To be a classified as a virus, a program needs to be able to copy itself to another program ('replicate'), by executing its code.

This is the best definition that I have found: A computer virus is a self-replicating program containing code that explicitly copies itself and that can "infect" other programs by modifying them or their environment such that a call to an infected program implies a call to a possibly evolved copy of the virus. This comes from the comp.virus FAQ , an excellent (but lengthy) piece of information about viruses.

From all of this information, you should be able to see, that you cannot get infected by a computer virus, by just reading e-mail, or opening a word document. Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. There is a programming language, called WordBasic. This is used to write macros for Microsoft Word. It is also used, by some evil (and bored) people to write virii. These would be started when a document, which is already infected is opened.

How do I prevent a virus infection?

Well the simplest solution is to always leave your computer turned off, but that might not be too useful (and then there is no point in owning a computer). Otherwise, be careful with any new things that you install on your computer, that is any floppies, and anything of the 'net.
A note on floppies, if you are just going to be reading it, it's worth putting the lock on it, to disable writing. If you read someone else's floppy on your computer, always scan it.
Another thing that you should always do, is watch anybody that uses your computer. They could bring a virus on, even if they don't mean to! Of course that is not always possible, so you should consider, using a scanner that stays in memory. It checks all files before you open them, and also scans memory when you load it.

I think I have a virus, what do I do?

So, you think you have a virus? Well, maybe you don't. Many people just think that they have a virus, because something is wrong. The computer is slower, you can't read floppy disks any more... These are not sure signs of infection. There could be some hardware problem (maybe your floppy drive is getting old), or it could be caused by a new software that you have installed, or even a change in config files.

The first step to take to check for virus infection, is to use a reliable virus checker. However, no matter how much they tell you how good they are, I recommend using at least two of them. The more famous ones are (note that these are in ALPHABETICAL ORDER, not performance) :
AVP
F-prot
Mcafee
Norton anti-virus
Thunderbyte

After you have installed them, run them to see if they find a virus on your computer. Be sure to turn "heuristics" off if you can, as this will greatly reduce the number of false alarms. If there is only one infection, it may be a false alarm. This simply means that the computer thinks you have a virus when in fact you don't. If the scanner tells you it can clean them, you should make a back up copy of all the infected files. You can then let the anti-virus clean the originals only (not the backups). After you have cleaned them, try running the programs, to see if they work. If they appear to be working well, then all is fine, and you can delete the backups. If however they are not working, then you should delete them, and restore your backups. You should try other scanners, to see if they can remove it. Scanners can usually remove some viruses that others can't. If you can't find anything that will remove it, and you have an uninfected backup, then you should re-install it. If you haven't got any backups, then I'm afraid you will have to wait a while for a new update of your anti-virus scanner, so that they will be able to remove it. During this time, you should not run the infected program under any conditions. If the program is not important, you can always delete it. If you do not know what the file is used for, do not delete it!

After you have finished your new scan, you should do another scan, with a different scanner. This should be done, to pick up the viruses that might have been missed by other scanners

Know your enemy!

To fully fight a virus infection, you need to now how viruses work, i.e. how they infect other files.
There are three ways of writing viruses. The first method consists of overwriting the beginning of the file they are infecting with their own code. This method isn’t too good, as 99% of the times, the infected file will not run properly. When the computer reaches the end of the virus code, it will continue with the code that is left from before, if it doesn’t exit back to the system. However this will create lots of errors, as the start will be missing. You will usually realize very quickly something is wrong. Also, this type of virus usually cause the computer to crash, as the rest of the code is not working. However if the virus exits with an error message, you might not realize how wrong things are.
The second type of virus, works by adding a jump to the end of the program, where its code is located, and then continuing with a jump back to the beginning where it left off. If this is well written, the program shouldn’t crash, and everything should work fine (except of course the virus in memory). The only thing that you can usually detect is the drop of memory.
The third type of virus works by appending itself to the beginning without making changes to the original. This means that in some cases the original works as it used to, but in others it doesn’t. It depends on how well written it is.

Special Thanks to Pascal Hakim his interesting articles on viruses and the CSRC Home Page.

These articles are taken from the Internet and Computer Associates claims no responsibility for damage.

Protecting your PC from the EVIL Electricity Demons

- November 2000

Power Problems FAQ

What Are They?
Power surges are an increase in the voltage that powers your electrical equipment.

Surges often go unnoticed, often lasting only 1/120^th of a second, but they are much more common and destructive than you might think. According to recent studies, your electrical equipment is constantly experiencing surges of varying power. Some of them can be absorbed by your power supply while others can only be handled by a quality surge suppressor. The most destructive power surges will wipe out anything that gets in their way!

Where Do They Come From?
In this power-hungry computer age, utility power systems are often pushed beyond their capacity, resulting in unstable, unreliable power for consumers. Overburdened power grids can generate powerful surges as they switch between sources or generate "rolling surges" when power is momentarily disrupted. Local sources can also generate surges - for example, if your neighbor starts up an electrical motor or the office on the floor below you blows a fuse.

What About Lightning?
A lightning strike can send a spectacular power surge along power lines, damaging equipment that is plugged into nearby AC and phone outlets. The severity of these surges can only be neutralized by quality surge suppression. All Tripp Lite Surge Suppressors and UPS Systems provide surge protection on ALL AC outlets. Select models include RJ11 modem/fax line surge suppression as well, preventing damage to modems and phone systems. The best protection of all is our Ultimate Lifetime Insurance. All Tripp Lite Surge Suppressors and UPS Systems include up to $100,000 Ultimate Lifetime Insurance to protect connected equipment against surges, including direct lightning strikes…for life!

What Can I Do?
Power surges are a fact of life, but protecting yourself is relatively easy with Tripp Lite power protection. All our high-quality Surge Suppressors, Line Conditioners and UPS Systems feature exceptional surge handling circuitry. Our systems come with Ultimate Lifetime Insurance covering all your connected equipment - even against direct lightning strikes! With Tripp Lite Ultimate Lifetime Insurance, if your connected equipment is ever directly damaged by a power surge from any source, Tripp Lite will pay up to the level of the unit’s policy to have it replaced or repaired.

How can I compare and choose the level of protection I need?
There are many rating systems that measure surge protection:

Joule Ratings - The Bigger The Better! Joule ratings measure your surge suppressors ability to absorb surges. Joules are a way of measuring energy. Unfortunately some companies may inflate their joule ratings without adding any extra protection circuitry to their products! In general, 200 joules will give you basic protection, 400 joules provide good protection and anything with over 600 joules can be considered exceptional. Tripp Lite surge suppressors boast ratings of up to 1500 joules - and have the advanced circuitry to back them up!

Surge Amp Ratings - Higher Ratings Offer More Protection. Although often replaced by Joule ratings, Amp levels are another important factor in determining surge strength. Once again, you should go for the highest amp protection levels you can find.

UL 1449 Voltage Let-through Ratings - 500, 400 & 330 Underwriter Laboratories tests each surge suppressor and rates them according to the amount of voltage they let-through to your equipment. The lower the let-through voltage, the better the surge suppressor is. UL established the 330 volt let-through as the benchmark because lower ratings added no real benefit to equipment protection, while surge components, forced to work harder, failed prematurely. Be wary of companies claiming lower let-through ratings! Not only are they misleading, they’re also an admission that a product may not have the specs to tell it like it is!

Line Noise

What Is It?
The term "line noise" refers to random fluctuations - electrical impulses that are carried along with standard AC current. Turning on the florescent lights overhead, your refrigerator, laser printers, working near a radio station, using a power generator, or simply working during a lightning storm can all introduce line noise into your systems.

Ever notice the "snow" on your TV when you use a blender or a hair-dryer? That’s line noise being sent back into your electrical system and up into your TV.

What Can It Do?
Line noise interference can result in many different symptoms depending on your particular situation. Noise can introduce glitches and errors into programs and files. Hard Drive components can be damaged. Televisions and computer monitors can display interference as "static" or "snow," and audio systems experience increased distortion levels.

What Can I Do?
Tripp Lite Surge Suppressors, Line Conditioners and UPS units include special noise filters that remove line noise. The amount of filtration is indicated in the technical specifications for each unit. Noise suppression is stated as Decibel level (Db) at a specific frequency (KHz or MHz). The higher the Db, the greater the protection. Be wary of "surge/noise suppressors" that don’t provide this information!

Isobar surge suppressors take noise suppression to a new level with their exclusive Isolated Filter Banks. These special banks prevent line noise generated from one device from traveling through the surge suppressor to interfere with other connected equipment. So if you use a laser printer (a notorious source for line noise) you can connect it to the same Isobar that powers your computer without putting your equipment in danger.

For more details on how TRIPP-LITE products can help you contact John TODAY!

[ Up ]

Send mail to [email protected] with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright � 2000 Computer Associates FM

Last modified: December 23, 2000