January 28, 2009
Written by George Mulford
Remember how, when we used floppies, they were the primary way viruses spread from computer to computer? As you’d expect, now that thumb drives (or USB flash drives, to be formal) are everywhere, viruses are using them to spread themselves. There have been reports of a rapidly-spreading but relatively harmless one on the UD campus; but in the wider world, the Conficker or Downadup worm has been reported to spread this way (as well as directly over the Internet to computers whose patches aren’t up to date).
OET recommends that you download and install a little utility called iKill that will warn you when a flash drive is attempting to install a program on your computer. You can get it from the CNET download site, http://www.download.com/iKill/3000-2239_4-10843779.html
January 28, 2009
Written by Joanne Jennings
Frequently, oet-help receives requests for sources of online technology training. The University of Delaware subscribes to two services, Virtual Training Company (VTC) and Lynda.com that provide convenient on-demand video training on a variety of technology topics including Office 2007, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, and Drupal (Lynda.com).
Although the total length of a course may span several hours, courses are broken into smaller, more manageable video segments that allow users to target information that interests them, and users can bookmark a section to return to later.
Information on how to access these services, which require a login and password, is available on IT’s web tutorials site. In addition, this site lists a variety of online Office 2007 tutorials from Microsoft.
January 21, 2009
Written by George Mulford
The latest fashion in software that will infect your computer is a notice that your computer is already infected and that you need to download antivirus or anti-malware software to clean the infection. One particularly virulent attack calls itself WinAntivirus 2009 and sports the official Microsoft Security Center logo. It pops up full-screen, and the ONLY way to protect yourself from infection is to turn your computer off immediately, since any click anywhere on the screen will download the attacking software. Call OET (8162) and don’t turn the computer on till we get there!
These programs are not just an annoyance: many of them will bury themselves deep in your operating system, steal personal information like passwords, and beam the information back to a central collecting point. Almost all of them will use your computer as a launching pad to attack other networked computers. As always, the best advice is to think twice before you go to a website that looks at all suspicious, and NEVER click on a link in an e-mail unless you’re sure it’s taking you somewhere safe.
George Mulford
January 9, 2009
Written by Ron Kelley
As you probably know, Outlook has a feature which builds a list of email addresses you have used before. This list is used for automatically completing the address when you begin typing into the “TO:” or “CC:” box on a new message.
Over time, the list can become rather long and might contain addresses that you no longer need in the list.
To delete an address from the list:
- Open a new message and begin typing an email recipient’s name or address in the “To:” box. Keep typing until the address you want to remove appears in the autocompete list.
- Using your arrow keys, highlight the address you want to delete.
- Hit the Delete key.
