At this location, we will be providing similar services that we offer in our Evansville, IN location

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Thank you for your support over the years! Without our awesome customers referring us to their friends, we would not be growing and expanding. Thanks Again!

One of our brilliant technicians logged into the server for a regular checkup, and found that drive number 3 was in a FAILED status. We ordered a replacement drive, and I quickly went on-site to replace the drive.  Although the server continues to operate in the event of a single drive failure, you always want to act rapidly to get the failed drive replaced. The danger lies in that if a second drive fails before the first failed drive is replaced, your server siezes to function. At which point a new hard drive system needs to be set up and the server must be restored from your latest backup. This will cause downtime for the customer and this is to be avoided at all cost.

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If you have done business with us before, you know that we LOVE free stuff (who doesn’t?). One of our long-time technology partners, opendns.org has a new product they call Family Shield.

This isn’t software…this is a setting that we can program into your home router. This works by changing the way your computers translate Domain names (ex: yahoo.com) to IP addresses  (ex: 192.0.0.1).

It only takes a few minutes to change this setting, and immediately your network will be filtered of pornographic websites, spyware, and other junk that you wish to keep out.

Pros: FREE, easy to set up, no software

Cons: Not user configurable, no easy Instant-allow type option, Easy to bypass
If you want to try out this service, you can read the How-To section of the Family Shield website, or for a limited time, if you LIKE us on Facebook,  we will set it up on your network FREE of charge.*

Call us Now to get started: 812-499-9587

*Free service is only available over remote support connections.  If on-site service is necessary, it must be charged our regular hourly rate. Offer Ends: August 31st 2010

Summary: While it doesn’t have the grangular controls that some other software-based filtering systems can give you…the price is right. This service is much better than NO filtering and we can set up your home for protection TODAY.

Who are We?

PC TLC, Inc. provides computer repair service and technology solutions to business and residential customers in the Evansville area. If your computer is running slowly, you have a virus infection, or you just need some help with things -we are here to help.

“Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”  ~Colin Sautar

Little things like choosing complex passwords, clicking links in random emails, and online banking used to be harmless daily activities. With the explosion of social networking, global broadband accessibility, and usage of online banking, the perfect storm has formed for hackers and thieves to gain access to your personal information.

There is a common delusion in the public that “I won’t be a target, I don’t have much money”. It’s true, these digital thieves used to go after the big fish , attempting to steal tens of thousands of dollars at a time. These days however, it is much easier to steal $1000 from ten people that it is to steal $10,000 from one person. Cyber-thieves are smart, efficient, and patient. They are targeting individual citizens and small businesses in record numbers. Maybe they will target you next?

How do they get my info?

There are hundreds of different methods they can use to gain access to your financial information. A common method is to find out the target’s email password go from there. Many people don’t see a need to make their email password very complex. I have heard people say “hey if somebody gets access to my email it wouldn’t be that big of a deal”. Quite the contrary if you think about it. Your email connects everything. Your online banking login, bill payments, social networking, you get the idea. If someone gets access to your email, in a matter of minutes, that person can reset your email password (so you no longer get any emails), and gain access to all of your contacts, your bank account, and your LIFE.

Perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic, but this situation can happen in a matter of minutes and it can take a person months to clean up the ‘damage’ from an identity theft occurrence.

What can I do to keep my computer and online accounts safe?

1. Form complex passwords! A few simple guidelines are:

-Password should be at LEAST 10 characters

-Don’t use any dictionary words

-Use each of the following: Capital letter, Lower case letter, number, punctuation point

-I like to use a sentence as the groundwork for my password. Here is an example. “My first date with Anna was at lonestar steakhouse”. I will now take the first letter of each word in this sentence and make a phrase: “MfdwAwaLS”. This is pretty good password by itself, but to make it even more complex, I will add a number to each side of the phrase with a period between the numbers and letters = “2002.MfdwAwaLS.2002”.

As you can see, this is a very complex password that would be next-to-impossible to guess. However, it is very easy to me to remember.

2. Fill out the “password reminder questions” with things that are very difficult to guess. Take them seriously and never reveal to anyone what your answers might be. Things like “In what state were you born?” are way too easy. Kick it up a notch! These systems usually allow you to create your own security question. I recommend using this feature, and cross-referencing another password. For example, you can make your security question “What is the password about my first date?” –the answer to this question being the password I created in bullet point number 1.

3. Use different passwords for every online login account.

4. Run a current version of an Antivirus program on your computer. AVG Free Edition, AVAST Antivirus, and Microsoft Security Essentials are all FREE antivirus packages that offer a good baseline of protection.

5. Don’t click every link you see on Facebook J Seriously, anyone can link to ANYthing, and there are plenty of account-hijackers out there that can take control of your friend’s facebook account. When this happens, you will see link, messages, and wall posts all trying to get you to click a link. Just think before you click.

Following these five steps will keep you fairly protected. But if the ‘bad guys’ still come knocking at your door and causing problems, it is best to seek out the services of a competent computer services professional. You know how to find us.

If you found this article useful, please click SHARE and spread the word. Thanks!

Brian Vance

http://pctlc.com

812-499-9587

]]> http://pctlc.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=51 0 http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=46 http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=46#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:12:59 +0000 Brian http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=46 In the ‘good old days’ of the Internet, virus writers were just out to make computers do silly things like play a song randomly or change the desktop background to something dirty. In recent years, virus writing has become a big (evil) business. Virus writers have gotten very smart and very tricky.

There are many different psychological angles virus writes can take when they attempt to infiltrate your computer. The following paragraph is only describing one of the MANY methods a virus can attack your computer. The attack I will describe below is what I would call a “hybrid phishing” scheme.

I received this email early Sunday morning from an address I did not recognize (warning sign #1). My immediate suspicions were confirmed when I read the subject line “your Adds have stopped running!”. I knew the email was a fake because the only online ads I run are through Google and Facebook, and this sender’s email matched neither.

You can read the email below. It uses poor spelling and says they have received a wire transfer of $25K from my company. The virus writer is asking what services the money was for and they suggested that the attached (infected) file included information about this wire transfer.

Kids, don’t try this at home…

Knowing this was very likely a virus file, I VERY CAREFULLY downloaded the file and uploaded the file to an online virus scan service. I have pasted the results below that confirmed my suspicion; this is a brand new virus.

Only about 1/3 of the antivirus engines out there even know this virus exists. We call this a “Zero Day Attack”. Because the virus is released and spreads before the antivirus companies can catch on and release updates to protect you from infection.

How can you stay protected? Here are the basics:

1.) Keep your antivirus program up to date. If you have a business network, use a server-based managed antivirus solution. (contact me for details)

2.) Keep your operating system fully up to date through Windows Updates

3.) DELETE emails from people you don’t know

4.) Be very cautious of email attachments, even from people you know and trust

5.) If you get an email that appears to be from your bank, paypal, facebook, or any other institution…DO NOT CLICK a link in the email. Instead, go directly to the company’s website by typing the address into your browser.

It’s a dangerous world out there, folks. Call me for a FREE network analysis to make sure that your network has all of the protections it needs.

Brian Vance

President

PC TLC, Inc.

812-499-9587

www.pctlc.com

The email I received is pasted here:

we have received an $25,122 wire transfer from your company. We have no ideea how this transfer was placed in our account but your email address was in the note for beneficiary section. Attached is a copy of the incomming transfer provided by our bank.Please reply and let us know for what services was the transfer sent to our account…

File Attached: ntkr.doc (virus)

Here are the results from the Online Virus Scan Service:

]]> http://pctlc.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=46 0 http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=39 http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=39#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:57:30 +0000 Brian http://pctlc.com/blog/?p=39 November 12, 2009

PC TLC, Inc.
308 E. Fourth St.
Huntingburg, Ind. 47542
brian@pctlc.com

Huntingburg native expands business to Fourth Street

HUNTINGBURG __ Brian Vance loves computers and wants you to love yours too. That’s why he’s expanded his Evansville-based company to Fourth Street.

“Computers can be an outstanding nuisance or an incredible blessing,” said Vance, owner of PC TLC, Inc. “We prefer the latter.”

Vance and his two trained technicians can help residential and business computer users in Dubois County solve common computer problems at their new location inside Hometown Music, opening Saturday.

“In our industry, there are a lot of geeks. We are just regular people who happen to be brilliant with computers,” Vance said. “We have the lowest prices around, and a long line of happy customers behind us to vouch that we are the best.”

Vance and his team of CompTia A+-certified technicians are passionate about computers.

“This passion, drive, and enthusiasm is what has grown our business during the last seven years,” Vance said. “As I hired technicians to support this growth, one of the primary things I looked for was a passion for technology.”

PC TLC, Inc. specializes in small business networking and helping those customers use their technology more efficiently.

“We love to come into a business and provide an evaluation of their network and infrastructure,” Vance said. “We compare their existing operations with the industry standards for security, stability, and speed. We let them know what they are doing right, and we use our expertise to pinpoint what can be improved. In almost every case, we help companies save money through lowering technology costs and increasing efficiency.”

Vance’s company, started in 2002, provides free computer repair evaluations on all makes and models of computers, including servers, laptops, desktops, and Windows and Apple operating systems. PC TLC, Inc. also provides the following services:

* Network design and administration
* Secure remote backup systems
* Web site hosting and custom development
* On-site and remote systems maintenance
* Secure e-mail hosting and spam blocking
* Data recovery on hard drives and memory sticks

Vance, who grew up in Huntingburg and lives in Evansville, is a graduate of Southridge High School, and holds degrees in computer information systems from Ivy Tech and the University of Southern Indiana. He is president of PC TLC, Inc.

“I keep my finger on the pulse of the local economy,” he said. “Recent national survey data shows that there are approximately 1.2 computers per household in the U.S.; Huntingburg is no different. With the opening of this new PC TLC, Inc. location, Huntingburg residents no longer have to take their computer all the way to Jasper or Evansville for repair.”

You can find PC TLC, Inc.:
online at www.pctlc.com
at 308 E. Fourth St. in Huntingburg
by calling (812) 683-0200
by e-mailing service@pctlc.com

We recover files from hard drives,  removable media, floppy disks, optical disks, flash drives, and other types of media. We have a team of educated and certified technicians that provide quick, reliable emergency service to customers experiencing data loss due to hardware failure, software corruption, or natural disaster.

We have many customers come to us with SERIOUS data loss issues. These customer have lost their accounting database files from Peachtree, Quickbooks, or Microsoft Money programs. We have a 100% success rate of recovering accounting databases for customers.

Laptop Drives, Desktop Disks, RAID Systems, Flash Drives, we can perform our Recovery Services on any disk.

We have recovered data from computers in floods,  user reformatted, virus infection, dropped from tables, had various substances spilled into them, and those disks  that simply died from natural causes.

Time is of the essence. If you believe your hard drive is in trouble, power of the computer right away and call us for service.

(812)-488-9587

Since the release of Vista, we have sold hundreds of computers and NOT ONE person has requested Windows Vista. Everyone seems to want Windows XP because they have heard all of the fuss about Vista being terrible.

Well a couple of years have passed and Microsoft has released countless updates to the Vista software via the Windows Update Service.

A couple of months ago, I built a new office computer and I used Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit.  I must say I have been VERY impressed by it. One issue with Vista is that it runs slowly on computers with inadequate hardware. A Dual Core Processor and at LEAST 2GB of System Memory (RAM) are needed for Vista to perform at an acceptable level.

On my system I used a fast AMD Dual Core Processor and 8GB of RAM. Overkill, for sure…but RAM is cheap so I went ahead and maxed out the motherboard with memory.

If your Vista computer is running slow and having problems, we can help make your computer run FAST and reliably. Call us today to schedule a service call. Or bring your computer into our shop any day M-F from 8-5. We offer SAME DAY service and FREE diagnostics.
So far, so good. A couple of our technicians are experimenting with the new Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate). Windows 7 is due out this Christmas or early 2010 http://ecommerce.ulitzer.com/node/964871

Hopefully Windows 7 will have a better first couple of years than Windows Vista had.

In any case, the brilliant technicians here at PC TLC, Inc. are here to help.

Whether you have Windows 2000, XP, Vista, MAC, Linux, we can help.

Why do hard drives fail?

A hard drive is the hardest working piece of equipment in a computer. Modern hard drives are small boxes inside your computer. Inside these drives are a stack of metalic disks that spin at very high speed. They can spin anywhere from 4000-15,000 revolutions per minute, which equals nearly 170 miles per hour ! When things are moving that quickly, the smallest of internal errors or malfunction can mean disaster for your data.

Some common signs of a failing hard drive are:

• Disappearing files
• Very long wait when opening files
• Errors about “file corruption”
• Reoccuring error messages when moving/copying files
• A grinding, clicking, or buzzing type sound (this is VERY bad!! Power down your computer and bring it to us right away)

If any of the above events are happening, it is imperitave that you bring in your computer as quickly as possible. We are the area experts in data recovery. We can use our specialized software and equipment to recovery your data and restore your computer to perfect running condition.

GOOD NEWS. We are here to help. Our experienced, educated, and certified technicians are trained to identify the major issues with your computer or network and resolve those issues as quickly and cost effectively as possible. We are the best in the business, and your business deserves the best.

We may be able to save your company thousands of dollars per month in unnecessary labor, equipment, and software costs just by applying some TLC to your PCs

Call us today for a FREE consultation. We will gladly take a look at your computer network at no charge and make recommendations on how to improve your office communications. (812) 499-9587