How to

Flash is a software product that is used widely to deliver video streams and animations to your computer. If you’ve ever used YouTube, RTE player or BBC iPlayer, you almost certainly have Adobe Flash Player and/or its close cousin Adobe Air installed on your computer. In the past couple of years as the core parts of Windows have become increasingly hardened to malicious software attacks, common software such as Flash and Air have become a favoured target of the malicious software developers.
Adobe released the version 11 of Adobe Flash Player and version 3 of Adobe Air on October 4th. This represents as good a time as any to have a look at what you’re currently running and update to the current, more secure version.

If you go into your Control Panel and into “Add or Remove Programs” (Windows XP) or “Programs and Features” (Windows 7), you’ll be able to see what version of each you are running. If you want to be ultra-cautious, you could remove whatever version you have before getting the new version.

Click on the following links to get the latest versions of Flash and Adobe Air.

Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Air

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If you are suffering from this or any other problem please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to help.

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Microsoft have steadily improved the security of Windows over the past few years, making it much harder for Virus and other Malware producers to exploit weaknesses in it. As a result, many of the bad guys have been focussing their attacks on the addon programs that most of us have installed on our computers. For example, if you want to watch Youtube, you need Flash installed. Many online banking services require Java and if you want to read many documents on the web, you’ll need Adobe Reader. As a result these free applications (Java, Flash, Reader and many others) have become very common and have been softer targets in recent years for Malware.
I was over at the Information Security Conference in London a couple of weeks ago and was interested to see a presentation by Qualys who were presenting a new, free service that allows you to check all the addons in your internet browser for security status. I’d encourage all of you to take a look at it. It’s located at http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ and is well worth a look. In a single stroke it will allow you to assess which addons you need to update and provides a link to the update. The results page looks like the picture below. Just click on anything that isn’t showing “Green” status to get the updated version. Very neat.

Currently one of the top ways of viruses gaining access to a system is through an out-of-date Java environment. So in this blog post, we’re going to show you how to update your Java to prevent your system to be compromised. I’ll give a little background information about the update first though:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/readme-142177.html

As listed in the link above, the Java 6 Update 24, according to Oracle, “ fixes 21 security vulnerabilities, 19 of which allow attackers to remotely install malicious software on end-user machines”. This alone makes it an important upgrade to say the least. So, onto updating the Java environment:

Firstly, one must go to the http://java.com/en/ website. Here you can find a link that says “Do I Have Java” underneath the big red “Free Java Download” button. Once this is clicked, it will bring you to the page in the screenshot above. Click the “Verify Java version” button and you will be brought to a page like this:

After this page you will get one of the following screens, depending on whether you have the Update (Picture 2) or not (Picture 1) (click pictures to view):

If you end up having the top screen (as in no Update installed on the machine), the following steps are required:

Click “Download Java Now”. This will bring you to the following screen -

Click the “Agree and Start Free Download” button and a Run/Save screen should show up like so:

Choose “Run” as this will install it straight away, giving you peace of mind. A Java welcome screen shows up next and after this a second screen asks to close all browsers and browser windows so that the software can install.

Then:

The software should install now, to be sure that it is you should see something like this:

And thats it, your Java should be updated. Keep an eye out on future updates as they will cure any other vunerabilities in the system or system software.

We all have to write letters, documents and reports from time to time. But what do you do when you need to check on a word or look for an alternative to the word you’ve already used a couple of times. Many people don’t know that there is a great dictionary and thesaurus built right into Microsoft Word. All you need to is select the word you’re using, then hold down the Alt key and click on the work again. If you’re using Word 2007 or Word 2010, a dictionary and thesaurus frame will pop up on the right hand side of the window. So easy and so handy…

A new survey by iSuppli last week showed that memory prices have dropped to new lows in December. So if your machine has been running a bit slow over the past while or you’d just like to give it a shot in the arm, now might be the right time to invest in more memory.  If your computer is running Windows XP, we would recommend that you have at least 1 GB (Gigabyte) of memory installed. For Windows Vista and Windows 7, 2GB is a more appropriate lower limit. Many modern computers are able to take up to 4GB and some will take much more. However, certain versions of Windows including most installations of Windows XP cannot make full use of 4GB, so it’s not always a case that more is better.

If you want to find out how much memory your machine currently has, click on the Start button, right click on “Computer” or “My Computer” and then click “Properties”. You should get a window that looks something like this (the exact format varies depending on which version of Windows you have).

Installing memory is normally very straight-forward, even on a laptop. So it may well be something you’d be willing to try yourself. If not, we at Home Helptech are happy to install it for you. Installation can cost  as little as €20 so don’t be afraid to give us a call for a quote.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

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| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

If you have a PC, it’s almost certain that you have Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash installed on your PC. Adobe Reader is used to open documents such as the manuals you get with digital camera, printers, MP3 players and pretty much everything else. Adobe Flash is used for webpage animations and for video – for example, you can’t see the video on YouTube and many other websites if you don’t have Adobe Flash installed.

Unfortunately, that fact these two products are so ubiquitous means that they have become a major target for virus and malware creators world wide. On June 6th, Adobe announced that a critical problem had been found with both Reader and Flash which allowed the bad guys to exploit these programs to run other programs of their choosing (click here for more details). The fix to this critical problem has now been released in the past few days and we”d encourage you to get updated as quickly as possible.

Updating Adobe Reader

In order to update Adobe Reader, click on Start -> All Programs and then click Adobe Reader, which is normally near the top of the programs list. Once Adobe Reader has started click on Help and then click on “Check for Updates…” as highlighted by the red ring in the picture below.

Updating Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash should update automatically. To manually update it, you can do the following.

1. Go to http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

2. Click on “Get the Latest Version” and follow the prompts.

We recommend that you don’t delay – do it now – it might save you from a costly virus infection.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

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| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Taking a screenshot of your desktop has many advantages. If you are receiving  an error message or just a simple message you are unsure about you can take a picture of your screen which then you can email it to us or the person that is answering the question. We find here at Home Helptech that when our customers take screenshots it leads us directly to the problem where we can diagnose it alot faster. There are two types of screenshots you can take, the first is a screenshot of the window currently open and the other will take a screenshot of your whole screen.

Screenshot of current window:

To take a screenshot  of your current window such as Microsoft word, Internet Explorer (Modzilla Firefox, Google Crome) or your email client press Ctrl + Alt + Print Screen together. The next step is to open up Microsoft Paint by navigating to start > Accessories > Paint. Once paint is open right click on the blank area and click on the right hand mouse button to bring up a menu. In the menu select Paste. The screenshot you captured will now be in Microsoft Paint. Save this file and send it by attaching the file to your email.

Screenshot of whole desktop:
To take a screenshot like the image below press Alt + Print Screen together. This is the best screenshot to take if Windows is showing multiple errors or if a virus has infected your computer and is showing multiple fake programs running.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Worried about what the world can find out about you from Facebook? No? Maybe you should be. The story of facebook has been a story of the slow creep of personal information into the public domain. The EU Data Protection people have recently criticised them for the the way they regularly change their privacy policies and how default privacy settings change on their social network platform.

Since April 21st, Facebook has allowed software developers to mine their public information directly which has resulted in the Openbook website (click here). Take a look at it, it’s an excellent example of why some people should be more careful with what they say on the web.  Then type in your local town’s name, the name of someone you know or some questionable phrase and see who’s up to what.

When you’ve worried yourself sufficiently, head on over to reclaimprivacy.org and follow the instructions to check your Facebook privacy settings.

I think the best advice is always to assume that at some point anything you ever publish on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site could be available to everyone, worldwide, forever. Take thirty seconds before you finish your next status update to think about that, and see if you edit your posting….

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

When I’m working on people’s PCs, one of the most common comments goes along the lines of “you’re so fast working on my machine”. A lot of this comes down to knowing some of the shortcuts that you can use to make things move along a little quicker. One of those “handy to know” things is that if you are using Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer, hitting the F11 key immediately makes it full screen. So if you’re searching for a file in Windows Explorer or that website is too long or wide to display on the small window you have, try touching the F11 key and you get the immediate benefit of the full screen.

In Internet Explorer, you’ll also notice that the title bar disappears to maximise the area viewable on your screen. Don’t worry, it hasn’t gone anywhere, just move your mouse to the top of the screen and it will reappear again.

And to get back to the original size, just touch F11 again and the window will return to normal.

Simple, but very handy.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone. It’s a damp, grey start to the morning here in Ireland but at least you can brighten up your Mozilla Firefox browser with a St Patrick’s day theme (click here). 

There are two designs in the theme, I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to discover what they are. You switch between them with the big friendly “switch” button just about the main web  page. There are also buttons that allow you to send ecards and views St Patrick’s day videos.

So if you’re not going to a parade today or joining in the festivities, why not shamrock your screen or leprechaun your laptop.

Happy St Patrick’s Day from the Home Helptech Team

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00