If your business depends on Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, Advanced or Standard, then you should have received notification that WFBS 7.0 Patch 1 Build B1435 is now available.
The patches that have been released by Trend Micro allow for better integration into Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 for one thing, but also fix important issues which have been reported. Even if you are not experiencing the issues, such as slow saves of Microsoft Office documents, you should install the latest patch.
It is available from the Trend Micro download center, or you can call upon your favorite computer & network service and support experts to apply the patch to your server/s.
Should you wish to try Trend Micro WFBS for your business, or require assistance, we are a Trend Micro partner offering sales and support to Greenville and the Upstate of SC. Email info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748 for more information
What Friday isn’t good when you take it off?
Seriously though, in observation of Easter weekend, Homeland Secure IT will not open the office on Friday so everyone can spend time with family. We WILL be available via email and phone. Should the need arise, please do not hesitate to call us on Friday.
Have a very pleasant holiday weekend!
Our friend Brent with ShredDisk is offering free hard drive shredding and computer recycling during the Grow Expo event on May 17th!
Please read his blog post at http://www.shreddisk.com/blog/?p=146
Hard drive destruction remains the only 100% effective way to insure your data is protected when decommissioning a hard disk drive and this is a great opportunity to get rid of one you might have laying around from a computer upgrade or replacement.
If nothing else, be sure to stop by and see how it works!
If you are needing Microsoft products for your school in the Greenville / Upstate SC area, Homeland Secure IT may be able to save you money…
We are able to offer academic priced software through Microsoft Academic FPP, Open Agreement and School Subscription. The discounts can be substantial when compared to retail pricing!
To find out if your organization is qualified, or for Microsoft sales & support, please contact us at info@homelandsecureit.com or call 864.990.4748×201.
We all learned many valuable lessons after having the privilege of seeing A Lesson Before Dying the play at The Warehouse Theater based on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The powerful and moving production left my family slightly numb as we headed for our traditional pizza after every Warehouse Play. The silence was broken after John’s question at the dinner table, “Can you tell me any inconsistencies in the play that you noticed?” I was amazed at the tiny details my children had picked up on that went totally unnoticed to me as I was quite caught up in the emotion of the story. Brett (15 years old) quickly announced, the radio, the batteries, the generator to name a few of the things that were not quite in line with the 1940’s time period.
The ice was broken and the remainder of the night was spent discussing the plot and theme of the play in every detail. The next day my mother called specifically to ask how we enjoyed the play much to my surprise. She remembered my telling her that we planned to see the Saturday night production and read the review in the paper. Mom was quick to tell me that the storyline reminded her so much of the 1947 lynching of Willie Earle in Greenville. And, like most of my Mom’s stories, I’m best to just listen! As I have gotten older (no chuckles here please!), I’ve come to enjoy my mother’s stories and they hold a particular interest to me since my father’s passing. The time is coming when the chance to hear the tales will be gone. She recalled how she remembers distinctly hearing about the death of Willie Earle and the tale of what he’d been accused of… killing a taxi cab driver. Mom said she remembers feeling so certain that he was innocent. Living in Easley, my mother was at the center of the rumor mill and the place that this murder occurred since it happened in Pickens County along the Liberty-Pickens Highway. She was a sophomore at Easley High School at the time and everyone was discussing the events. Willie Earle, assumed guilty because of his race, was hunted down and driven out of the Pickens jail and killed by a mob of taxi cab drivers. Labeled the largest lynching in the United States, it also was a turning point for Greenville as it launched Greenville’s civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s and gave Greenville a national reputation. A.J. Whittenberg, a Greenville activist, stated, “It was the fertilizer for growth.”
How amazing that my children were fortunate to attend this production of A Lesson Before Dying and catch a glimpse of what life was like in the south for a black man in the 1940’s. How ironic that my mother was a part of such a similar story where a black man was wrongfully killed of a crime simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and because of his race, he was never given opportunity or support to state his case. Now the trial for Willie Earle never occurred, but the trial for Jefferson might as well not have… the outcome was both the same.
The Lesson for Jefferson was multi faceted in that he learned to feel compassion for others and to accept love and understanding towards himself while learning what it means to be a man in such a complicated world. The setting, costumes, and characters themselves were all staged so perfectly to blend together in what I believe to be a true portrayal of what must have been seen, felt, and heard in that time. Whether Bayonne, Louisiana or Greenville, South Carolina, we should all enter The Warehouse Theater and allow ourselves the chance to step back in time to a place that did not allow equality and judgment based on race and stature of the period. You definitely will walk away wondering if today our society has changed.
Reviewed by Pamela McAbee Hoyt
Homeland Secure IT Alert
Homeland Secure IT Alert for Monday, April 11th, 2011
You’ve waited a whole month for this, and Microsoft has not let you down. Updates galore are ‘a comin’ tomorrow, April 12th, 2011.
The Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification states that this Patch Tuesday will be a big one. A total of 17 fixes, addressing 64 security vulnerabilities are there for your enjoyment and they cover just about everything, from current versions of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems to Microsoft Office and even Microsoft Windows Server PowerPoint web app.
There are 9 critical, 8 important and two which address information disclosure/privilege threats.
One important update is the cumulative fix for the Internet Explorer browser which will address every supported Windows OS and covers IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8.
Microsoft will be sponsoring a webcast on April 13th at 11AM Pacific here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032455069&EventCategory=4
Should you have issues or concerns about these updates or any Microsoft Security or Support questions in the Greenville / Upstate, SC area, please call us at 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com
Homeland Secure IT Alert
I’ve held off on posting about this for a few days since the first mainstream announcements came too close to April Fool’s to suit me…
Yes, it is true, or so we are told, that the Commodore 64 will ride again. You can find out more about the Commodore 64x direct from Commodore USA.
Back in the day, I loved the Commodore systems. I ran my first BBS in 1982 on a Commodore and continued to run one continuously on Commodore based machines until 2004. I still have that Amiga box in my office, and I am considering putting it back online.
So are YOU going to buy a new Commodore 64? If so, why? If not, why not? I’m actually considering it.
A recurring issue we find is that people are having difficulty in using their Microsoft Office 2010 product to its fullest.
A common complain is that the software needs to download components over and over and that gets annoying. This is due to the fact that you purchased Office 2010 online, or installed it as a trial, then purchased.
To fix this, insure you have your MS Office Product Key, then uninstall Microsoft Office 2010 from your system. (Control Panel and remove programs). Next, return to where you made the purchase of Microsoft Office and sign in with the same ID you used to make that purchase.
Click the “My Account” link at the top of the page and select “Download” for the Office Suite but do opt to “Download Now”, instead, select “Advanced Options”. From there, select the non Click-to-Run product.
That should put the smile back on your face! If you need assistance, or would like to purchase Microsoft Office 2010, please call 864.990.4748 or email info@homelandsecureit.com
Watch out for emails from Intuit and other software and service providers that appear to be legitimate and make sense on the surface…
I was told by one of our friends/clients today that they had become infected after receiving an email from “software@quickbooks.com” which read something like this:
Subject: QuickBooks Update: Urgent
<Official Intuit QuickBooks Online logo here>
You will not be able to access your Intuit QuickBooks account without Intuit Security Tool (IST™) after 10th of April, 2011.
You can download Intuit Security Tool here.
After a successful download please run the setup for an automatic installation, then login to Intuit Quickbooks online to check that it is working properly.
—
Of course, they thought it looked official and followed the link through and actually authorized the installation of a malicious software package onto her computer.
Refuse to be a victim and stop clicking on every link that comes in email! If you question the authenticity, simply don’t click it!
If you require help in Greenville or Upstate SC, Homeland Secure IT is a phone call away! We provide computer and network security, anti-virus, virus cleanup & removal and computer repair and service. 864.990.4748 or info@homelandsecureit.com
We’ve been hearing about Epsilon’s security breach for several days now. Some thought it was an April Fool’s joke due to how vague the initial press release release was, but obviously it was no joke at all.
Epsilon has since updated their press release to indicate that this breach affects only 2% of total clients, but what exactly does that mean?
Well, customers of a long and growing list of companies serviced by Epsilon may have had their private information exposed, namely email addresses and names.
This will undoubtedly lead to a slew of emails that APPEAR to be from the companies, addressed to you, explaining you need to update your privacy settings or that your account has been locked due to unauthorized access and that you should login and reset your account.
I personally have received two myself in the last 24hrs from one company on this list from Mashable and also from Best Buy.
The emails contained warnings that my data was at risk, and that I should login immediately and reset my password. One even included a great link to help me out… Which did NOT route to the official site, it instead routed to a domain that didn’t even resemble the official company site.
Yes, your data may have been exposed, and as of now, it appears that only your email address, first and last name, and possibly some other identifying information like a city or state of residence could have been harvested. Certainly no passwords to official sites of companies as Epsilon’s primary purpose is to provide email marketing services, not handle logins to sites.
The biggest threat comes from emails addressed to you that are too attractive for you NOT to click on the links… Phishing or “Spearphishing” attempts will surely increase in the days to come.
Avoid being scammed into following links through, type in the addresses manually, and use some common sense. A bank is not going to ask you for personal information in email for instance.
If you have a question about an email being legitimate I’m sure it is for good reason.
