bruceb news

Previously:
Battle Of The Browser Updates
Comparing The New Internet Browsers
Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Firefox 4 And Chrome 10
Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Internet Explorer 9

Windows 7 and Vista users are also likely to be seeing prompts to install Internet Explorer 9. Like Windows 7 Service Pack 1, IE9 will not be installed automatically by Windows or by my monitoring service.

Although theoretically Internet Explorer 9 is optional, you should install it when you’re ready. It’s safer and faster than previous versions of Internet Explorer, and it supports new technology that will slowly come to be used on the web sites you visit. […] continued

These are the rules for being safe using a Windows computer in 2011. Memorize them, tape them to your refrigerator, pass them on to your friends!

Install updates from Microsoft promptly. Look in the lower right corner for the gold shield (WinXP) or update icon (Win7/Vista).

Install updates to Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Flash, Java, and Quicktime promptly. Each will alert you from the lower right corner.

• The best way to keep up with updates: sign up for the Bruceb Consulting monitoring service.

Install antivirus software and keep it up to date.

Know the name of your antivirus software. […] continued

A large collection of patches and updates will be delivered tonight, Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month. Last month was a paltry bunch of updates, not really worth mentioning, but this month brings 17 security bulletins fixing 64 different vulnerabilities, the most ever fixed in one month. Here is Microsoft’s official notification about the bulletins, and here’s an article with some more details about the individual fixes.

When you walk away from your computer at the end of the day on Tuesday, close all open programs and leave your computer turned on. You should be greeted by a login screen on Wednesday morning after the system has restarted. […] continued

If you use Microsoft Security Essentials for antivirus protection, keep an eye on the icon in the lower right. The exclamation point means it’s ready to install the upgrade to version 2, released a few weeks ago as a manual upgrade and now being rolled out to everyone using the program. Double-click on the icon and click on the “Upgrade Now” button for a painless process that should take only take 3-4 minutes.

You may be asked to restart the computer when the upgrade has been installed. (I’m not sure when that’s required, but I’ve only had to restart on about half the computers I’ve worked on.)

If you don’t see the exclamation point, no worries – either it hasn’t been rolled out to you yet, or it’s already been installed. […] continued

Previously:
Bruceb Consulting Offers New Patch Management Service

Yesterday I announced that my monitoring software will also install patches and updates for my clients. Let me give you a few more details about that service.

This works just as well for home computers and laptops. Monitoring a single home computer is easy and effective and just as important as protecting an office computer. I can bill you once for a year of service (separately from the office account, if you like), and have you up and running in five minutes. Drop me a line or give me a call to get started! […] continued

I am excited to announce a new service for all my clients – patching and updating your workstations.

Bruceb Consulting Monitoring will review and install updates to Windows, Office, Firefox, Java, Flash, Adobe Reader, and other important programs and utilities – automatically and silently.

I will review the updates that are necessary for you to be safe online, and I’ll install them on your computers.

There’s a monthly charge for my monitoring service. It’s a small price to pay for two important reasons:

• SECURITY You’ll be at less risk from malware delivered by poisoned web sites, because browser add-ins like Java and Flash will be up to date on your computer.

[…] continued

Windows 7 has a lovely built-in backup routine – significantly improved from Vista’s backup program. You can attach an external USB hard drive and set up scheduled backups to it in a few seconds. (Windows 7 Professional can back up to a shared network folder or NAS, also.) It runs automatically and reliably, even waking the computer up from sleep if the backups are set for the middle of the night. By default it saves an image of the entire computer in addition to backing up individual files – multiple ways to restore your computer and your data when necessary.

For no particular reason, I just got three separate reports about backups that threw up an error message similar to the above, complaining that the “backup did not complete successfully” – two on Windows 7, one on Vista. […] continued

Microsoft has released version 2 of Microsoft Security Essentials, with some nice improvements and new features. It is visually almost unchanged; MSE continues to be almost invisible while it operates, providing all the protection that you need with a minimum of fuss. It continues to be my preferred solution for individuals and very small businesses – the only security program that you need to run on your computer if you also use common sense and follow the rules of safe computing.

The version 2 update can be downloaded and installed manually from the MSE web site, but you do not have to do anything. […] continued

Your computer will restart on Tuesday night, after getting a particularly large collection of updates for Windows and Office. Close any open programs or files but leave your computers turned on when you leave the office on Tuesday.

It’s Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month, and it’s one of the largest groups of patches that Microsoft has ever delivered. (An equally large collection was installed in October, followed by a relative handful of patches in November.)

You are all well-behaved, safe computing citizens and you install these routinely, right? If you’ve turned off Automatic Updates or you see the update icon by the clock on Wednesday, pay attention. […] continued

Here’s a moderately geeky tip about how to fix a nagging problem when a mapped drive disappears during installation of a program from a shared folder on another computer on the network.

Until a small business starts to use a document management system, it almost always stores business files in shared folders that appear on each person’s computer with a mapped drive letter. In Small Business Server 2003 it was the “Company” folder; in other businesses it’s “FirmDocs” or “Network Files” or the like.

In network parlance, the files are located at \sbsserverfirmdocs, but the employees always refer to it by the drive letter. […] continued