Hey Al Quaida, here's your bomb recipe...

What a good direction to take hacking... The British hacked an online magazine that is ran by the Al Quaida. Did they shut it down or try to destroy it?? No, what they did is more brilliant and I think was a great idea.. Al Quaida had given would be terrorists a "make your own bomb in your mom's kitchen" link. The Brits replaced that link with cupcake recipes from the Ellen Degeneres Show.... As one person stated, "now we will have to look out for suitcases full of cupcakes outside buildings." About time hackers got something in the news with a positive light...


Tier III- your virtual helpdesk

"This Guy Has my Macbook"

Running through the Yahoo headlines this morning came across a tech related article that deserved sharing. Joshua Koffman from San Fransisco had his Macbook stolen from his apartment. Luckily for Joshua he had installed a program called Hidden. Once started the program took pictures of whom ever was in front of the camera and also linked the pictures to their location.

Joshua took this evidence to the police and was refused assistance. He then took the matter into his own hands by making it viral on the internet via social media, and a blog setup for the cause. The story caught media attention, which then finally got the police interested..  The man has since been arrested and the laptop returned. Starting at just $15 bucks, Hidden is a great tool for Mac users. One note, this software only works for Mac's... I will do some research to see if there is something similar for those of us with either Windows or Linux, but that's another post.. If you are interested in Hidden you can check it out at http://hiddenapp.com/.

Tier III- your virtual helpdesk.

Not just for pc's...

Tier III is more than your place for pc help, we are here for technical assistance. This includes televisions, installation of equipment, setting up gaming consoles, etc. Not to mention the fact that we support Windows, Solaris, Unix, and Linux platforms. Whatever your technical needs Tier III is here. And as I have said I know many of the answers to your questions, and if I don't know I will find it and get back to you in a timely manner.

Tier III- Welcome to your new helpdesk...

Memorial Day pause...

With today being Memorial Day I want to take a pause from IT and give some credit to our men and women in uniform... Being a veteran of the US Army I understand what you guys go through and appreciate everything you do. Stay safe over there and God bless America....

*everyone please take a moment of silence at 3pm local time wherever you are.

Got the antivirus, now onto a free firewall...

Now that we have gone over where to find the best free antivirus, the next step is to find a good free firewall. For those of you who don't know what a firewall does, it protects your system by filtering traffic on a network; more specifically, if you're at home if protects you from the crap on the internet. Making the list again is Comodo internet security, Comodo is a good all around free protection suite. Here is the top three..

1. Zone Alarm Free firewall- http://download.cnet.com/ZoneAlarm-Free-Firewall/3000-10435_4-10039884.html

2. PC tools firewall plus free edition- http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

3. Comodo internet security- http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html



Got a good one that didn't make the cut on this list... Let me know and I'll try to include it on the next one.
You can also view my list of the top free antivirus.

Did you turn it off and turn it back on??

Why is it we have heard this so many times from tech's.. Have you turned it off and turned it back on? The truth is if your system has been on for a substantial period of time it can have negative effects on the performance, and all to often that's all we need to do to get some speed back. 

But why is it on such a wide array of problems technicians start here? It's because alot of them are scripted, they are told what to say and what steps to take.. If I'm having trouble with something other than my system not responding as quickly as it should I don't want to start with powering down. Every problem has it's own solution and it's not always going to start with powering down. With Tier III there is no script, every problem is solved according to the issue at hand; not by what a piece of paper says is the correct procedure. Just give us a try and you will see the difference; not to mention the fact that with Tier III you won't have to spend your hard earned cash on someone with a script...

Post your questions...

It's what I'm here for. Having tech troubles?? Before you go to a repair shop and spend your cash send me the problem and see if we can resolve it for free..

I am a Tier III helpdesk tech and will work quickly to resolve your issues, just let me know...

Best free antivirus programs...

The first problem I see with most pc shops is that they charge an arm and a leg for virus removal, something which most competent people can do on their own. So here is a list of the best free antivirus programs, if you need anymore assistance with virus removal please let me know and keep in mind that there are always going to be some viruses out there that cannot be completely removed and in that case you will most likely have to reinstall the operating system. The top five below were compiled by pc world.

Top free antivirus programs...

1. Avast Free Antivirus 5- http://www.avast.com/index

2. Avira Antivir personal free antivirus 10- http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

3. Microsoft security essentials 1.0- http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx

4. Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.0- http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/download/cloud-antivirus/free

5. Comodo Internet Security Premium 5.0- http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php

And my personal favorite/ the one used by a repair shop I worked for (and people got charged $70 for virus removal with.)

AVG Free edition- http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free


Have any good one's that didn't get mentioned? Let me know and I will check them out and add them to the list. Thanks for reading...