Tech Geek and More
Technology Explained for All
And More! Thank you to everyone who has visited TGM – October 2009 was the best month yet
Nov 5th
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Thank you to everyone who has visited TechGeekandMore, as you can see we had 2,157 visitors for October. As I said in previous months, when I started TGM, I figured this would be something I could use to share information with family, friends, and a few of my clients. At no point did I ever think that I would have over 2,000 hits in a month.
TGM was started to help inform people about Tech related in as simple English as possible. I consider myself a Geek and I have had issues understanding some of the information that I have found on the web concerning technology, I can only image what some of that information looks to someone who isn’t schooled in the language of Geek-speak.
TGM will continue to inform on everything Tech and Geek and even More (Name fits doesn’t it), using simple English to inform its readers.
Thank you once again for visiting TechGeekandMore
Alex
Alert: Hiya:) Email – Just another attempt to get you to click on a link that you REALLY SHOULD NOT!
Nov 4th
I’m not sure how many times I have said “Be careful with messages (Instant Message, Email, Facebook, etc) don’t trust them even if they say they are from someone you know”. The following email is supposed to be from a family member** of mine. I talked to them about the email and they didnt realize that when they received the email from someone they knew and clicked on the link in the email that the email had automatically forwarded itself, even making it look like the family member was the one sending it. (**I did ask for permission from this relative prior to using his email) 
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/hotmailmessagetryitfree NULL.jpg)
Malware writers have been using these social engineering tricks for years in an attempt to get people to drop there guard and click on email links or download attachments. In real life, we hear news stories of bad guys dressing up as city employee’s or law enforcement and then tricking home owners into letting them in, where the bad guys then proceed to steal from the home owner (Here is a release by the Chicago Police Department concerning crooks who use fake uniforms for access http://www.chicagopolice.org/MailingList/PressAttachment/YourCastle.pdf (http://www NULL.chicagopolice NULL.org/MailingList/PressAttachment/YourCastle NULL.pdf)). This email (and those like like it) can be considered the cyber equivalent of the fake cop or fake city worker.
In real life we understand that if you aren’t expecting the gas company or phone company and someone shows up at your door asking to check something in your home, that you question them, check there uniform, ID, see if they have a company vehicle, and even call the business that they are claiming to be from to make sure that the person at your door is actually from where they say they are. In cyber space, it seems because no one really understand how things work (TGM is working hard to change that), that most people just assume if it has someone’s name on it that they know that “it must be from them”. Well Nope and lets go over a few things in this email that clearly show it wasn’t from my relative –
- “To:” – Its not addressed to me, since To: is blank even though it is supposed to be an email from someone I know to me.
- “Was bored so planned to write you” – I know my relative and there are 2 points here.
- 1 – He knows English and knows how to write in complete sentences
- 2 – He would not say something like “Was bored so planned to write you”.
- “i’m pretty sure your gonna smile after checking it…….:) ” – I know my family member, if they were going to send me a link or attachment would say something about it and try and explain what it is they are sending me, not just tell me hey check this out.
- “It’s easy, secure and free / Try it now” – Again what am I trying. Would you go to a store and my a food product without a label to tell you what it is, simply on the idea that its a food product in a store, so it must be good? I dont think you would (would you?)
- “Yours Truly” – This is supposed to be a family member, that a little formal dont you think?
Ok with that being said, again as always, in cyberspace act the same as you would if you were somewhere outside of your home in real life, pay attention to your surrounding, and for pete-sake if you run into someone on a street corner selling you Jack’s Magic Beans, dont buy them.
And More!: The World Series 2009 – On assignment
Nov 4th
There hasn’t been a post in a few days due to a job assignment for my real job. The past few days I spent at the stadium in Philadelphia, on assignment making sure that some of the terminals worked during Games 3, 4, 5 of the World Series.
It’s pretty sweet being able to say that you were at 3 World Series games. However, when you are there on a work assignment you don’t really get to enjoy the game like people would think. Imagine going to an amusement park and not being able to get on the rides, or going to a casino and not being able to gamble.
You can find some of the pictures I was able to take during the 3 games on the “Life of Alex” page ( http://anovelo.posterous.com/tag/worldseries2009 (http://anovelo NULL.posterous NULL.com/tag/worldseries2009)).
And More!: Announcing a few changes to TechGeekandMore
Oct 31st
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/computer_cartoon NULL.jpg) Hello Everyone. There are a couple of new changes that I’m very happy to report on.
1st Change – TechGeekandMore is growing up. We are now TechGeekandMore.com, The original address for TGM at TechGeekandMore.wordpress.com will now send you automatically to TechGeekandMore.com.
2nd Change – We have an addition and now I guess I can call it a staff for TGM. Andrew Schooler has joined me on the TGM project. Andrew is a fellow tech with years of experience in the support area, so he has heard pretty much everything to do with that thing-a-ma-bob. His 1st post for TGM Software: Organizing web sites, it’s all in the Icon. A Tweak for your web browser. (http://techgeekandmore NULL.com/2009/10/30/organizing-web-sites-its-all-in-the-icon/) involves a very simple tweak that you can use in either Firefox or Chrome (As tested but could work in other browsers too) where you can create multiple browser launch icons and have each icon open a different set of homepages. Its a simple idea, but it had never occurred to me, so I’m sure others out there will think the same thing.
We have a few more things in the plans soon for TGM (including we hope some stuff to giveaway), we hope the information we post here helps those of you who have been stopping in the TGM. The idea for TGM came from the fact that as a tech I get the same questions 10 to 20 times a day, virtually every day (even weekends). So now TGM is here to post those answers, because if you have a question concerning technology, I can guarantee you that I can find a lot of other people with the same question as you. TGM was started to try to explain and more importantly answer those question in simple English (or your native language if you are using the site translator), not in tech-speak or geek-speak. We know there are many choices out there for technology information (just do a Bing or Google search and see) but most of those sites use the languages of Tech or Geek (and yes are considered foreign languages to many). TGM will always do its best to make sure the explanations are in a way that normal people can understand.
Thank you for your support of TechGeekandMore
Alex
Software: Organizing web sites, it’s all in the Icon. A Tweak for your web browser. (Works with Firefox and Chrome)
Oct 30th
Like a lot of people I belong to a few Social Networking websites (Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, etc..) and a lot of times when you want to check on one you want to check up on all of them. The issue I had was that I didn’t want to change my home pages. I say pages because I take advantage of the multiple tab feature of today’s browsers, and with the click of an icon I’m up to date on several blogs that I follow.
So I don’t want to change my favorites but I want to open up multiple pages, what to do? After a quick search on the internet I found that with Mozilla Firefox you can make a quick addition to the short cut to open up a different set of web pages.
Keep in mind these directions are only for Firefox, but will work similarly for Google Chrome. If you are using Internet Explorer 7 or 8 these instructions are not going to work for you.
The first step involves adding a short cut to your desktop. To do this;
1. Right mouse click on a blank portion of your desktop.
2. From the menu choose “New”. A Sub-menu will be generated.
3. Choose “Shortcut” from your list of options.
4. The following Dialog box should appear.
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5. Click the Browse button and navigate to the following directory, c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox. From the list of files choose the Firefox.exe, and then click the Okay button.
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6. Finish by choosing the “Next” button and then the “Finish” Button. This will add the Firefox icon to your desktop.
These steps also work for putting a short cut to Google Chrome on your desktop, but the path to the Chrome.exe is different.
7. Once the Shortcut has been created right mouse click on it and from the menu choose “Properties”. The Properties dialog box should appear. Select the Shortcut tab.
8. You will see the “Target:” field and in the field should be the path to the Firefox executable. Eg. “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe”. At the end of the statement add any and all websites you want, just add a space between each address.
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- I repeat the process grouping the websites with common functionality to a different Icon
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As an example:
Let’s look at the Firefox Icon I’ve set up to follow some video games I’m interested in. I edit the Target: field to read as the following,
“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” http://www.starcraft2.com http://www.commandandconquer.com http://www.bungie.net
In the properties this will appear as one long line without line breaks. As you can see though there are spaces in between each web site I want to open.
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/image4 NULL.png)
If I open my regular Firefox Icon I see the home page that I’ve set up.
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/image5 NULL.png)
If I double click the Icon I’ve set up for my favorite video games, you’ll see that my browser now only opens up those web sites I’ve told it to in the target path.
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/image6 NULL.png)
Keep in mind I am opening multiple web sites, it will take longer to open up because I’m asking the web browser to do more work.
I didn’t have a chance to test out doing this for any other browser, so if you use Netscape, or Safari or any other browser, drop us a line and let us know if you tried it and how it turned out.
TGM Q&A: Cisco VPN Error 56 – VPN wont start (Update from 6/9/09 post)
Oct 28th
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ciscovpn NULL.jpg) The post from June 9th, Software : Cisco VPN software / Error 56 (http://techgeekandmore NULL.wordpress NULL.com/2009/06/06/software-cisco-vpn-software-error-56/), talked about what to do if you got Error 56 when trying to start the Cisco VPN software. Since then I have received a number of reports that the post was a solution but not for everyone, that a few people still had the problem even after making the recommended changes.
So here is some additional information that I hope helps resolve the issue for those who are still battling with this.
Vista/Windows 7
1st thing if you are trying to install the VPN software on Windows Vista or Windows 7, you need to install this signed in on an account with administrative rights and additionally with the UAC (User Account Control) settings in the off position.
To do this you need to go to Start –> Control Panel –> User Accounts –> in the user account screen (select your sign-in name if you see more than one 1sted). Look at the line directly under your name make sure it says administrator (If it doesn’t click where it says change your account type and select administrator), then select the User Account Control settings selection in the middle of the page
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Then from The UAC move the selection to Never notify.
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/uacpic1 NULL.jpg)
The UAC “aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level” or in other words, makes you just a user on your machine, unless you tell it (each time the prompt appears) that its ok to be admin by entering your password. The problem with Cisco VPN software is that the versions that exist require full administrative rights (The Cisco software was designed before the UAC existed).
Once you have made the change you must reboot (The change in the UAC only takes place after reboot).
Once you have rebooted and signed back in. Uninstall the Cisco VPN software using Programs and Features which is located at start –> Control Panel –> Programs and Features. Select the CiscoVPN software and select uninstall. Once the uninstall completes, reboot again.
Once you have signed back in from this reboot, you can then reinstall the VPN software. At the end of the reinstall, reboot 1 more time and then try and use the Cisco VPN Software.
All Users
Another thing to try involves setting the ICS (Internet Connection setting) to disabled. In the original post I said that you could set ICS to manual. For some setting ICS to disabled seems to work as well.
If this helps let me know, if the issue still continues please provide as much detail as possible as to the type of pc and versions of software installed (OS, Version of Cisco VPN, Type of Anti-Virus) and I will continue to work on a solution.
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June 6, 2009
Software : Cisco VPN software / Error 56 (http://techgeekandmore NULL.wordpress NULL.com/2009/06/06/software-cisco-vpn-software-error-56/)
Filed under: Cisco (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/cisco/), Computer (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/computer/), Software (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/software/), Tech (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/tech/), VPN (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/vpn/) — techgeekandmore @ 8:13 am Edit This (http://techgeekandmore NULL.wordpress NULL.com/wp-admin/post NULL.php?action=edit&post=260)
Tags: Cisco (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/cisco/), Cisco VPN (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/ciso-vpn/), Error 56 (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/error-56/), VPN (http://en NULL.wordpress NULL.com/tag/vpn/)
(http://www NULL.rj-diamond NULL.com/alex/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ciscovpn696 NULL.png)
If you use the Cisco VPN software you may get a message that says “Error 56: The Cisco Systems, Inc. VPN Service has not been started”.
The problem is as a result of the windows service ccvpnd.exe (Services are in Control panel – Administrative tools – services) which may be listed as automatic start but will not start. Even if you manually attempt to start it, it will shut down just seconds after starting.
The solution is actually a simple one. The problem is caused by Internet connection sharing (ICS) service also being set to automatically start. So in the same service area look for Internet Connection Sharing service, turn it from Automatically starting to Manual (By right clicking – select properties – and the select manual in the drop menu where it says automatic, and also press the stop button just above the drop menu before hitting ok) , and then go back and start the Cisco service on the list. Cisco service will not be killed again.
ICS set to manual does not affect internet services, it just means that it will not start at pc boot up, it will start at the point that the service is needed. In the majority of cases that will be never unless you connect to the internet via another pc, most everyone connects to the internet via a modem connection or a wireless or wired router (Linksys / D-Link) connection.
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