Project Get Off Your Can And Do What You Can is under way!! Last month, we posted an article that we would be accepting donations of older Windows XP computers, refurbishing them with Linux and then giving them away for free to folks that don't have a computer.  I am excited to annonce that the project is moving along nicely and seems to be taking a little bit of shape.  We have had a few computers donated so far and, in the availability section, we have two that are ready Eligibility Requirements We currently do not have the resources to determine who does and does not 'need' these computers so currently the only elegibility requirements are that you come by and ask for one.  If we have one ready, we'll…

  What's New PLEASE READ THIS - We reported that the Cryptolocker virus was making it's way around the Internet again back on 17 October 2013 and have reported a few additional times since then of specific incidences.  We have seen a few computers in the shop with this virus from people with no backups of their data and have had to deliver the unpleasant news that, without a backup, their options are a) pay up (typically between $1,000 and $4,000 USD) or b) lose the data.  The virus encrypts all pictures, documents, etc. with very strong encryption and, without the encryption key (which is what you purchase for $1,000 to $4,000 USD), there is no way to recover them.  Please stay on top of updates, make certain that your antivirus…

We have had 3 instances in as many days of clients having trouble connecting via wifi to AT&T Uverse routers.  The computers tend to connect everywhere else and, after manually releasing and renewing their IP addresses will connect to the AT&T Uverse routers but it's odd that it has only happened now.  I am curious to hear from anyone else out there that may be having the same problem or possibly even from any AT&T sources (you can remain anonymous, if you like) that may know what's going on.  Again, this seems specific to AT&T Uverse routers and is affecting computers that a) had were connecting just fine before and b) can connect fine to non-AT&T Uverse wireless access points / routers.

The 2014 Tax Season is upon us and the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US CERT, http://www.us-cert.gov/) is providing some good advice for the barrage of scams and malware campaigns that are certain to come.  We've already seen this story from the BBC that 360 million account credentials including email addresses and passwords were reportedly uncovered, many of which were tax preparers and I suspect will be used in spear phishing attacks as the criminals piece the data together.  We will be posting information about attacks on our Facebook page and Helpdesk news site as we find them but the the liklihood of us catching all of them is very low.  Take a moment to review the article over on US CERT and, anytime that you get online solicitations that are reportedly…

I haven't seen any reports of another Yahoo breach but we have seen a spike in the number of emails from yahoo.com users in the last 24 hours.  The format of the email is always the same, the subject is the reported sender's name and in the body is a link to a random site and a file called 'news.php'.  I haven't bothered to try the link to see what's behind it but suspect that it's not actually news.  If you have a Yahoo email account and are getting notices from friends, family, customers, vendors, etc. that you're sending out SPAM and / or viruses, this may be worth looking into.  If anyone has information from Yahoo (or anyone else) on the matter please forward it along.

We are having some intermittent issues with inbound calls to the office.  The calls are going through, but about 20% of the time there is no audio (e.g., you won't hear a ring).  We've identified the issue as a firewall configuration issue on a newly deployed firewall and are working to correct the issue now.  If you happen to call and are not able to get through, please either hang up and call back (the problem seems to be transient) or you can email support@cybertechcafe.net or open a support ticket directly at http://helpdesk.cybertechcafe.net .  I apologize for the inconvenience.

Get off your can and do what you can. That was the message Sunday at Church and it struck a chord with me.  We are knee deep replacing Windows XP computers with Windows 7 computers prior to the Windows XP end of life on 8 April 2014 and have been asked by a number of customers the best way to dispose of the old computers.  We also routinely get requests for older or refurbished computers by folks who, for one reason or another, don't have a computer and can't afford to buy a new one.  I don't really have a solid plan yet but, rather than waiting until I do have a plan (some of you have heard me talking about this for the last several months), I figure I'll…

The Cyber Tech Cafe mail server is currently blacklisted on a number of blacklists and, as a result, a number of emails are not being delivered.  We are working on the issue now and expect to have it resolved momentarily but wanted to let everyone know that they may not get the normal status updates on tickets via email.  If you have an open ticket and are not receiving updates via email, please check the helpdesk at http://helpdesk.cybertechcafe.net for the latest information.

We will be posting any weather-related schedule changes or closings to our Facebook Page at https://facebook.com/cybertechcafe .  If we are closed for weather-related reasons, we will still be monitoring voicemail (770.386.8900) and email.  For safety reasons, on-site visits may be delayed or rescheduled if the weather and / or road conditions get bad.  

SplashID servers up and down, why is that important? A HUGE thing in technology these days is security and a big part of that is passwords. For years, the folks in IT have been trying to come up with creative ways to keep users from using passwords like 'password' or '123456' and a big help in this has been password safes like Lastpass, Keepass and SplashID. The advantage of a password safe is that you can easily create long, complex and quasi-random passwords that you could never remember otherwise and have a separate password for everything that you do (one for your Facebook account, one for your Twitter account, one for your eBay account, one for your main email, one for ...., you get the idea). That way, the passwords…