ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: It was just coincidental that the letter from the young lady concerning using e-cards to send viruses appeared when it did, because last week I received notice that I’d been sent an E-card.  A zipped file was attached.  I thought the screen should have had some color in it, but it was just black and white.  That was a clue that something was not right.   The next day I received notice of updated information on my Amazon order.  Again a zipped file was attached.  I hadn’t ordered anything from Amazon for quite a few months, so I knew this was bogus.  I guess they’ll try anything to infect your machine.  I’m wondering now where they got my email address. 

– Roger W.
Shalimar, Fla

A: You’re seeing the other side of the coin, Roger.  Being on legitimate e-card websites, like Deb mentioned in her e-mail is not, as a rule, risky activity.  What you are describing, however, is exactly the kind of thing that gets people’s machines infected.  I commend you on spotting those phony come ons – you probably saved yourself a big headache.  Unfortunately, the scams you mentioned are only two among millions of other scams that bombard our e-mail boxes every day, and the bad-guys are thinking up new ones all the time.  One attempt that’s gaining popularity is the use of current events, such as a natural disaster or a celebrity death.  The e-mail claims to contain breaking news, or even pictures, if only you’ll click on that little file attachment to see for yourself.  Still others attempt to appeal to our desire to help others, by claiming, for example, to have photos or information on a sick or missing child.  It is up to each e-mail user learn how to spot these fraudulent e-mails, and delete them before they can do any damage.  If you don’t know the sender, the e-mail is automatically suspicious.  Avoid even opening it unless you can verify its legitimacy.  If the e-mail wants you to open some kind of attachment, particularly a .com, .exe, or .pdf file, or worse yet, download some type of software, it is almost certainly a scam.  There are lots of good articles online about this topic.  If you want to learn more (and I hope everybody does) enter “how to spot e-mail fraud” into your favorite search engine.

Q: My new, HP, with windows 7 wakes from a sound sleep in the morning.  It was about 4:30 AM, but now, with day light savings time, it is an hour later.  This morning (Sunday) it was 5:35AM. Yesterday it was 5:42 AM.  I know because I happened to be in the room at that time.  How the heck do I tell it to sleep till I wake it up? 

– Dick R.
Crestview, Fla

A: Well, Dick, I can’t necessarily give you a definitive answer, but I can give you some ideas.  The first thing I would do is check your virus scanner to see what time it downloads its virus signatures, and what time it performs its daily scan.  Beyond that, there are several things that can wake your computer up.  There is a feature called “Wake On LAN” that can be toggled on/off in your system BIOS that could be allowing something on your network to wake the machine up.  Try unplugging your LAN cable one night, and see if it stays sleeping.  Also, do you have a cat?  If so, have you made sure it’s not jostling your mouse or keyboard in the middle of the night?