I was looking around for other sites that are similar to mine, and I was dissapointed to find very few.
Most either had no useful information, or they had a few months worth of posts (with maybe 5 posts in one day, and then nothing for a month or two).
However, I did find 2 that stood out from the crowd.
The first one is Security Fix, a good rundown of computer security issues by Brian Krebs. Here is some of the latest information from Security Fix:
- Cyber criminals based in Ukraine stole $415,000 from the coffers of Bullitt County, Kentucky this week. The crooks were aided by more than two dozen co-conspirators in the United States, as well as a strain of malicious software capable of defeating online security measures put in place by many banks. Bullitt County Attorney Walt Sholar said the trouble began on June 22, when someone started making unauthorized wire transfers of $10,000 or less from the county's payroll to accounts belonging to at least 25 individuals around the country (some individuals received multiple payments). On June 29, the county's bank realized something was wrong, and began requesting that the banks receiving those transfers start reversing them, Sholar said. "Our bank told us they would know by Thursday how many of those transactions would be able to be reversed," Sholar said. "They told us they thought we would get some of the
- Google published a report on spam rates this past quarter indicating that spam volumes declined roughly 30 percent following the Federal Trade Commission's takedown of the troubled online hosting provider 3FN early last month. Google says spammers have already made up a significant amount of ground, climbing 14 percent from the initial drop. The stats differ from other figures Security Fix collected about the impact of the 3FN takedown. Google's spam data was drawn from Postini, the company's e-mail security and archiving service. The following graph shows Postini's view of spam volumes over the past six months: Read more about Google's view of spam trends, at their quarterly report, available here.
- This past week has been a bustling one for cyber justice. The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement in its ongoing case against scareware purveyors; a notorious hacker admitted stealing roughly two million credit card numbers; the Justice Department has charged a software developer from Arkansas with launching a series of debilitating online attacks against several online news sites that carried embarrassing stories about him. Finally, a federal appeals court decision gives security vendors added protection against spurious lawsuits by adware companies. -- Last week, the FTC said it had settled with James Reno and his company ByteHosting Internet Services LLC. Both were named in the commission's broad sweep last year against purveyors of "scareware," programs that uses bogus security alerts to frighten people into paying for worthless security software. The settlement imposes a judgment of $1.9 million against Reno and Bytehosting, yet the court overseeing the case suspended all
- Every so often, a new piece of malicious software comes along that introduces a subtle yet evolutionary technological leap, a quickly-mimicked shift that allows cyber crooks to be far more stealthy in plying their trade. According to research released last week, this happened most recently in the realm of click fraud, a rapidly growing problem that inflates online advertising costs for legitimate companies and ad networks. For years, hackers have used malicious software to perpetrate click fraud by hijacking the results displayed when users search for something online. The trouble is, these scams can be rather clumsy: Victims often figure out pretty quickly that something is wrong, usually because their searches are redirected to an unfamiliar search portal, as opposed to their regular default search provider. But a new Trojan horse program being distributed by tens of thousands of recently hacked Web sites hijacks search results so that Google.com users
- Former Department of Homeland Security cyber chief Rod A. Beckstrom has been tapped to be the new president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the California based non-profit that oversees the Internet's address system. Most recently, Beckstrom was director of the National Cyber Security Center -- an organization created to coordinate security efforts across the intelligence community. Beckstrom resigned that post in March, citing a lack of funding and authority. Beckstrom joins ICANN as the Internet governance body faces some of the most complex and contentious proposed changes to the Internet's addressing system in the organization's entire 11-year history. For example: -- The United States is under considerable pressure to give up control over ICANN and turn it over to international supervision and management. ICANN currently operates under a Joint Project Agreement with the U.S. government, but that agreement is due to expire at the end
- Adobe Systems Inc. on Tuesday issued a software update to fix a critical security flaw in its Shockwave Player, a commonly installed Web browser plug-in. According to Adobe, a malicious or hacked site could use the security hole to install malicious software if the visitor merely browses the site with a vulnerable version of the media player software. The flaw exists in Shockwave Player (also known as Macromedia Shockwave Player) version 11.5.0.596 and earlier. To find out whether Shockwave is installed and which version may be on your PC, visit this site. In a posting to its security blog, Adobe said it is not aware of any exploits in the wild for this vulnerability. Adobe recommends Shockwave Player users on Windows uninstall Shockwave version 11.5.0.596 and earlier on their systems, restart and install Shockwave version 11.5.0.600, available here. Readers should be aware that by default this patch will also try
- Microsoft on Tuesday released a beta version of its new free anti-virus offering, Microsoft Security Essentials (a.k.a "Morro"). My review, in short: the program is a fast, easy to use and unobtrusive new addition to the stable of free anti-virus options available today. MSE is basically the next generation of Microsoft's Windows Live Onecare anti-virus and anti-spyware service, but without all of the extras, such as a firewall, data backup solution or PC performance tuning (Microsoft announced in Nov. 2008 that it would stop selling Onecare through its retail channels at the end of June 2009). The toughest part was getting the program installed. MSE can run on Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions), but it failed to install on an XP Pro system I tried to use as my initial test machine -- leaving me with nothing more than a failure message and cryptic
- 
- Alan Ralsky, a 64-year-old Michigan man that federal investigators say was among the world's top spam kingpins, pleaded guilty on Monday to running a multi-million dollar international stock fraud scam powered by junk e-mail. Ralsky (pictured at right, courtesy of Spamhaus) and his son-in-law and chief financial officer Scott K. Bradley, 38, also of Michigan, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Ralsky faces as much as 87 months in prison and a $1 million fine, while Bradley could get as much as 78 months in prison and a $1 million fine under the federal sentencing guidelines. The Ralsky plea caps a long effort by the government to nab one of the most prolific spammers. In September 2005, the FBI raided Ralsky's home, but it wasn't until early 2008 that the government indicted Ralsky
- For the most part, cyber gangs that create malicious software and spread spam operate as shadowy, exclusive organizations that toil in secrecy, usually in Eastern Europe. But with just a few clicks, anyone can jump into business with even the most notorious of these organizations by opening up the equivalent of a franchise operation. Some of the most active of these franchises help distribute malicious software through so-called pay-per-install programs, which pay tiny commissions to the franchise operators, or so-called affiliates, each time a supplied program is installed on an unsuspecting victim's PC. These installer programs will often hijack the victim's search results, or steal data from the infected computer. Typically, affiliates will secretly bundle the installers with popular pirated software titles that are made available for download on peer-to-peer file-trading sites. In other cases, the installers are stitched into legitimate, hacked Web sites and quietly foisted upon PCs when
- Rogue employees and hackers were the most commonly cited sources of data breaches reported during the first half of 2009, according to figures released this week by the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego based nonprofit. The ID Theft Center found that of the roughly 250 data breaches publicly reported in the United States between Jan. 1 and Jun. 12, victims blamed the largest share of incidents on theft by employees (18.4 percent) and hacking (18 percent). Taken together, breaches attributed to these two types of malicious attacks have increased about 10 percent over the same period in 2008. Some 44 states and the District of Columbia now have laws requiring entities that experience a breach to publicly disclose that fact. Yet, few breached entities report having done anything to safeguard data in the event that it is lost or stolen. The ITRC found only a single breach in
- Apple on Wednesday released the much anticipated 3.0 update for the iPhone, bundling at least 46 security fixes into a new version of the iPhone operating system that includes essential functionality such as cut-and-paste and Spotlight search. Included in the 3.0 bundle are security patches for vulnerabilities in a broad range of iPhone components, including Safari and Mail. The mail flaw, for example, could allow a malicious app or attacker to place a phone call without user interaction. A host of other security holes fixed by this update could allow a remote attacker or Web site to run malicious code on the device or cause it to crash. The update is available only through iTunes. My colleague Rob Pegoraro has a more in-depth post about the new features built into this update, but he was having trouble grabbing the update yesterday. Apple says that the automatic update process may take
- Andy Kordopatis is the proprietor of Odyssey Bar, a modest watering hole in Pocatello, Idaho, a few blocks away from Idaho State University. Most of his customers pay for their drinks with cash, but about three times a day he receives a phone call from someone he's never served -- in most cases someone who's never even been to Idaho -- asking why their credit or debit card has been charged a small amount by his establishment. Kordopatis says he can usually tell what's coming next when the caller immediately asks to speak with the manager or owner. "That's when I start telling them that I know why they're calling, and about the Russian hackers who are using my business," Kordopatis said. The Odyssey Bar is but one of dozens of small establishments throughout the United States seemingly picked at random by organized cyber criminals to serve as unwitting pawns
- A who's-who of more than three dozen high-tech and security experts from industry and academia is urging Google to beef up the privacy and security settings of its Gmail, Google Docs and Calendar online services. At issue is whether Google is doing enough to block hackers from hijacking a user's Webmail account or intercepting information from online documents. An increasing number of free, publicly available tools may make it simple for even novice hackers to launch such attacks. "Google's default settings put customers at risk unnecessarily. Google's services protect customers' usernames and passwords from interception and theft," said the experts, including luminaries from AT&T, PGP Corp. and top researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Purdue. "However, when a user composes email, documents, spreadsheets, presentations and calendar plans, this potentially sensitive content is transferred to Google's servers in the clear, allowing anyone with the right tools to steal that information."
- Apple on Monday shipped updates to plug more than two dozen security holes in its version of Java, including a particularly dangerous flaw that Java maker Sun patched back in early December. Last month, Security Fix and others took Apple to task for taking too long to fix Java vulnerabilities. In fact, I found that Apple patches Java flaws on average about six months after Sun had shipped its own updates to fix the same vulnerabilities. At least two different researchers even released proof-of-concept exploits to shame Apple into quickly fixing an easy-to-exploit vulnerability that potential attackers had known about for six months. This Java update appears to address most of the outstanding Java vulnerabilities. From looking at the common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) numbers attached to each of the flaws fixed by Apple's Java rollup, it looks like this update brings Mac OS X systems to the equivalent of
The second one is Absolute Raleigh Laptop Repair Blog, which (obviously) deals with laptop repairs. Here are some current posts from the site:
- Starting July 11, 2009 we'll be open on Saturday from 9:00AM to 2:00PM.
These new hours will be a trial run but we think the changes will be permanent. - Happy Fourth of July!!
- Melissa Foster of Apex, NC has written a bad check to Absolute Computers. Over the last few months she had contacted us and told us she would make good on the check but failed to do so. She also refused to return the stolen merchandise.
Do not accept her checks as they are worthless and an attempt to defraud you. The bank account is not even open. She is a criminal with an arrest record and a probation officer.
We located and informed her current probation officer that she is still defrauding local businesses.
She is currently in hiding but if you have a current address or phone number we can reach Melissa Foster at please contact us with it so that we can turn her over to the proper authorities and proceed with legal actions. (We will keep your information anonymous if you wish.) - We've noticed on some occasions the Dell Inspiron 1526 (AMD based) laptops do not have a p/n on their motherboard. The P/N is GY997. - We were working hard all last week to bring you these deals, this week only, while supplies last.
$379: NEW Lenovo 3000, 1Year Warranty, 15" screen, Intel Celeron M 430, Vista Home Basic, 2GB RAM, Ethernet, Wireless, DVD/CDRW.
$649: NEW ThinkPad T61, 3Year Warranty, Core 2 Duo T7100 CPU, XP Pro, 14" Widescreen, DVD, 2GB RAM, 80GB HD, Gigabit Ethernet, ABG Wireless. These are rock solid machines & at $649 these will be gone in the next day or two. Call Monday if you want one!
$449: Refurb ThinkPad R60, 1Year Warranty, Core2Duo, 14", DVD/CDRW, 3GB RAM, 100GB HD, Ethernet, ABG Wireless, XP Pro. Call for the rest of the specs.
$299: Used ThinkPad T30, P4M 1.8ghz, 1GB RAM, Ethernet, Wireless, DVD, XP Pro.
$479: Used Dell Inspiron 9300, Pentium M 1.6Ghz, Nvidia Graphics, New 17" LCD.
$299: Used Toshiba Celeron 2.6Ghz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HD, 15", DVDRW, Wireless.
$199: Used ThinkPad T20, P3 800Mhz, 256MB, 20GB, DVD, XP, Basic, reliable units.
$149: Used Dell 8000 laptops, P3, 512MB, 20GB, XP. Basic.
Absolute Computers
2436 SW Cary Pkwy
Cary NC 27513
919-468-3999
www.AbsoluteRaleigh.com - A couple of days ago we blogged about the Lenovo warehouse sale near Greensboro, NC.
If the below price sheet is correct, this will be a WICKED SALE! Let's put it this way, we've bought and sold thousands of ThinkPad laptops, and this price list made our jaws hit the floor. These are priced way too cheap, some machine 80% current retail prices.
Price List.
Please note, the price list below may or may not be legit, we just bumped into it online. But the warehouse sale IS legit and there will be deals there. - 
Above is a pic of an X9000 processor. We recently pulled this out of a dead Alienware Area 51 M15x laptop. Little did we know this would be in there. This rare processor goes for $400 on eBay. The X9000 is the fastest CPU for mobile 965 chipset. It features a 2.8Ghz clock speed and a 6MB cache. It is a 45nm Micro-FCPGA.
We sold this to someone who will drop it into a Dell XPS M1730 & OC it. - 
A question we're rarely asked is: how much memory can a Fujitsu P1610 hold? The P1610 and P1620 accept a rare, 2GB stick. We have one in at the moment but it will be gone soon. The RAM currently sells for around $250/chip. That is $125/GB! The RAM is a rare MicroDIMM for Fujitsu laptops. If you're looking around online for the memory we recommend the actual Fujitsu memory which is PC2-4200 DDR2 533MHz 2Rx8 CL4.
To aid your search look for the following part numbers:
D2P533-2GMEJFJ6
PC2-4200-444-10-Z1 2Rx8 CL=4 Micro DIMM Laptop Memory - Lenovo warehouse sale:
8AM - 4PM
Lenovo U.S. Fulfillment Center
6540 Franz Warner Parkway
Whitsett, NC 27377
An announcement on craigslist says "Laptops, desktops and more will be available at deeply discounted prices. Cash and credit cards accepted (no checks)." - Here is a neat utility. On some occasions some people need a different version of flash. Flash Switcher will allow Firefox to run Flash9 instead of Flash10. Useless to many but an extremely useful tool for people that need it! - HP has another battery recall. In rare cases the recalled lithium-ion batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. (CPSC Link).
To see if your laptop battery has been recalled, visit HP's battery replacement page here. To just see the newly recalled models go here. - On some of the P series laptops, such as the Gateway P-6825, P-6215, etc. the part# for the keyboard can be hard to find. Below is a small list of cross compatible keyboards. The keyboards from the M685 & MX8000 Gateway laptops work in the P series laptops.
904V607S01814A72CD2200
904V607S01812006BCVCA1
90.4V607.S01
8016828R
7010905R
AEPA6TAU120
AEPA6TAU020 - It is well known that many of the HP DV9000 laptops suffer a problem where the left hinge falls apart rendering the laptop unusable. The lid assembly then needs to be replaced. After X amount of opening and closing it will break. There is a recall, or as HP calls it, a "limited service enhancement", out for this specific problem.
Most DV9000 laptops came with a 1yr warranty. The HP warranty service enhancement only covers this factory defect until May 31, 2009, and some customers have already been told their machine will not be covered. That is nice that they are covering it, but, if you have used your laptop sparingly should you be punished? Getting this fixed by a third party is costly ($200-$300 here, or $400 at HP). HP is in the media's spotlight right now after releasing several problematic models and not standing behind them. They aren't even manufactured by HP, one would think they'd save face with their customers and go after Quanta (the real manufacturer) for coverage but that doesn't seem to be happening for whatever reason.
HP's web page regarding the hinge defect is here.
If your DV9000 is out of warranty and you need the hinge fixed, we'll be happy to fix it here. Please email us here for current pricing. We'll give you a discounted price and beat HP's price.
According to HP's site, models affected and covered are some dv9000/dv9100/dv9200/dv9400 including:
DV90**:
ES716AV GG551EA RE373EA RR110EA RU972UA
EW680AV GG552EA RE374EA RR111EA RU974UA
EZ452UA GG553EA RE375EA RR112EA RU975UA
EZ453UA GG555EA RE376EA RR113EA RV112UA
EZ456UA GG556EA RE377EA RR114EA RV116UA
EZ457UA GH766EA RE379EA RR115EA RV118UA
EZ458UA GH767EA RE380EA RR116EA RV119UA
EZ459UA GH768EA RE381EA RR117EA RV121UA
EZ460UA GH769EA RE382EA RR118EA RV767AS
EZ461UA GH770EA RE383EA RR186AV RW753EA
EZ462UA GH771EA RF079AV RR323EA RW754EA
EZ468UA GH836EA RF080AV RR324EA RW755EA
EZ470UA GH837EA RF081AV RR327EA RW756EA
GA074UA GH838EA RF082AV RR328EA RW757EA
GA075UA GH839EA RG139AS RR329EA RW758EA
GA076UA GH840EA RG335UA RR330EA RW759EA
GA077UA GH841EA RG339UA RR331EA RX568LA
GA078UA GH842EA RG340UA RR332EA RY285PA
GA182UA GH843EA RG341UA RR333EA RY527EA
GA183UA GH844EA RG343UA RR335EA RY528EA
GA184UA GH845EA RG346UA RR336EA RY529EA
GA354UA GH846EA RH283AS RR337EA RY530EA
GA355UA GH847EA RL765PA RR338EA RY531EA
GA356UA GH848EA RL766PA RR342EA RY541EA
GA358UA GH849EA RM675LA RR343EA RY542EA
GA359UA GH850EA RP114UA RR345EA RY543EA
GA361UA GH851EA RP115UA RR346EA RY682EA
GF715EA GH853EA RP116UA RR347EA RY683EA
GF716EA GJ156PA RP122UA RR348EA RY684EA
GF717EA GL880UA RP243UA RR349EA RY685EA
GF718EA GL885UA RP245UA RR350EA RY686EA
GF719EA GL886UA RP246UA RR351EA RY687EA
GF720EA GL887UA RP247UA RR352EA RY688EA
GF721EA GL888UA RP248UA RR353EA RY689EA
GF722EA GL889UA RP249UA RR354EA RY690EA
GF723EA GL890UA RP250UA RR356EA RY695EA
GF724EA GL891UA RP282UA RR357EA RY696EA
GF725EA GL892UA RP588AS RR359EA RY697EA
GF726EA KB189UA RP617EA RR360EA RY698EA
GF727EA PC620AV RP618EA RR361EA RY700EA
GF728EA PE926AV RP619EA RR362EA RY702EA
GF729EA RC278AV RP620EA RR363EA RY703EA
GF730EA RC279AV RP622EA RR364EA RY704EA
GF731EA RD017AV RP623EA RS553EA RY705EA
GF732EA RD018AV RP624EA RS554EA RY706EA
GF733EA RD019AV RP625EA RS555EA RY707EA
GF734EA RD020AV RP626EA RS556EA RY708EA
GF735EA RD021AV RP913EA RS557EA RY709EA
GF736EA RD022AV RP914EA RS558EA RY710EA
GF737EA RD023AV RP915EA RS559EA RY711EA
GF738EA RD024AV RP916EA RS560EA RY712EA
GF739EA RD025AV RP917EA RS561EA RY713EA
GF743EA RD026AV RP919EA RS562EA RY714EA
GF744EA RD027AV RP920EA RU312UA RY715EA
GF745EA RD028AV RP921EA RU313UA RY716EA
GF746EA RE042PA RP922EA RU314UA RY717EA
GF755EA RE043PA RP923EA RU688UA RY851LA
GG190PA RE045PA RP925EA RU689UA RZ595EA
GG192PA RE164PA RP927EA RU690UA RZ828PA
GG543EA RE364EA RP928EA RU876PA RZ899PA
GG544EA RE365EA RP929EA RU895PA RZ900PA
GG545EA RE367EA RP930EA RU896PA RZ916PA
GG546EA RE368EA RP931EA RU933PA
GG548EA RE369EA RP932EA RU948PA
GG549EA RE371EA RP933EA RU949PA
GG550EA RE372EA RR109EA RU971UA
DV91**:
ES716AV EZ379AV PC620AV PE926AV RR186AV
DV92**:
CC894AV ES716AV RL015AV RL022AV RX746AV
CC895AV EZ345AV RL018AV RL024AV RX747AV
CC896AV PC620AV RL020AV RL025AV RX748AV
CC897AV PE926AV RL021AV RR186AV
DV93**:
ES716AV GD574AV PC620AV PE926AV RR186AV - 
Wyzo Beta is here. It is a new web browser powered by mozilla that we're playing with here today. It is neat and supports download of torrents. - Windows 7 RC is now available here.
I’ll be adding more to this list (as I find them).
If you know of a good (reliable) blog on Computer Repairs, let me know, and I’ll add it to this list.
If you found this post helpful, please consider donating (I'm not wealthy, so every little bit helps my family):
