Attaching a file to an e-mail using Outlook Express

John, one of our customers who uses Outlook Express, recently had issues attaching a file to an email message.  The issue was that the program association in Internet Explorer had been changed to use “Outlook” instead of “Outlook Express”.  This is how I fixed it – and as a follow-up – these are instructions for John to show how to attach files to an email message.  (Click the title to learn more ..)

Critical Security Update for Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft has notified us that they’ve released a security update to address the recent issue with Internet Explorer 7. During the analysis of this issue, they discovered that not only v7 was affected by this issue – but so was v5 and v6 – on all current variations of Windows (XP, Vista, and Server 2003).

If your system is setup for automatic updates, you should see an update come through for “MS08-78”. If your system is not setup for automatic updates—or if you don’t see that update come through—you will want to run the Windows update utility to get the latest updates.

If you need assistance – or if you are concerned that you may be missing security updates – we stand ready to help. Please call us at (269) 857-5517 to schedule time to get this done.

ALL Digital TV Coming February 17 2009

By law, all televisions have to be digital by February 17th.  The go-live started on December 15.  Chances are, if you have satelite or cable, you are already digital – or if you’ve gone out and bought a new television in the last couple years.  If you want to know – before you go out and spend the money on a digital converter or new television .. tune in to your local 6pm news on Wednesday.

Television stations around the country are planning to run several tests to verify that things are working.  The first of these, here in West Michigan, will air on Wednesday this week at 6:08 pm.  The test will run for 1-1/2 minutes – so you’ll miss if if you are not tuned in.  The good news is that they will be running several other tests between now and February 17th; you can get the full details for the southern West Michigan area here:

http://www.mlive.com/grpress/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/12/trial_runs_coming_this_week_to.html

 

*** Internet Explorer v7 Virus Warning !!

A new potentially serious issue has been found in Internet Explorer 7 – updates from Microsoft released on Dec 9th do NOT contain a fix for this issue and as of latest publications – a fix has not been found.

This thing downloads a trojan to your computer and can completely compromise your system.  It is infecting websites around the world – most of those published are not sites that our customers would typically use – but you never know how far it will go.  It is not affecting email at this time.

Microsoft has released a list of technical ‘workarounds’; but as usual, most of those are things the average user would not understand or know how to do without potentially breaking the functionality of the computer.

Our Recommendations:
– Don’t use Internet Explorer if you don’t have to (use an alternative like Firefox, Opera, or Safari)
– Make sure that your computer is current with its antivirus, spyware, and windows updates
– Use common sense when visiting sites that you don’t normally visit

If you would like to check it out yourself, these sites provide more information:
http://www.shadowserver.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Calendar.20081210
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/961051.mspx

We’ll keep an eye on it and let you know when they get it fixed.

************************************************
From Microsoft’s Security Bulletin 961051:

“Microsoft is investigating new public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Our investigation so far has shown that these attacks are against Windows Internet Explorer 7 on supported editions of Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008.”

Revisions to this bulletin:
December 10, 2008: Advisory published

December 11, 2008: Revised to include Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 6, and Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 as potentially vulnerable software. Also added more workarounds.

December 12, 2008: Revised to correct operating systems that support Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. Also added more workarounds and a reference to Microsoft Security Advisory (954462).  (This

December 13, 2008: Revised to add the workaround, Disable XML Island functionality. Also, in a FAQ entry, clarified the list of recommended workarounds and added the blog post URL for recommended workarounds.

What is an operating system?

Hi Betty,

In school I am taking a class call the Fundamentals of Operating Systems.

If I understand it right an operating system is like Windows Vista. And the operating system is the brain of the computer because it makes everything work together. Example: mouse, keyboard, monitor, and printer. It controls what is put into the computer and what comes out. Like when you strick a key on the keyboard it is the input and then when you see the typing on the screen this is the output.

Does this make any sense to you Betty? Am I understanding what an operating system is and what it does?

I am also taking a Unix class.
– Mary