Archive for February, 2008

AVOID AVG 8.0 AT ALL COSTS!

I hate to use caps in a title, but this time I’m forced to. Whatever you do, avoid AVG 8.0 which was released yesterday (2/28/08) . For that matter, avoid AVG altogether. I installed AVG Antivirus Network Edition on all the workstations at a clients’ and everything started to crash. EVERYTHING! Servers and workstations. I can only blame myself for installing a brand new version without testing (bad, bad mistake). I’ve used AVG extensively in the past, and I’ve never encountered any problems. As a matter of fact, I prefered using AVG because of its easy to administrate (install, monitor and update all the clients from the server) and because of its small footprint on the systems. My second choise has always been Bitdefender, and only because it costs about twice as much as AVG, but now it is my only choice.

Again, avoid AVG 8.0, at least until they get their act together. I believe they rushed version 8.0 out the door and therefor delivered an extremely buggy program. I can’t trust company like this anymore. It was nice to know you, AVG.

My new favorite antivirus is Avast. They offer a free version, but it really shines when you buy More >

Website Review: Jean Costa

In the spirit of attracting visitors to this website, I’ll review JeanCosta’s website, which in turn will (hopefully) result in a review of my site.

What’s JeanCosta.com about?

Jean Costa is a self-proclaimed “internet entrepreneur and college student”. He owns many domains and makes a profit from it (by the way, I’d love to see a post where he explains how he makes money from this, that is, if he isn’t revealing his secret formula). He blogs on numerous (mostly internet-related) subjects on a regular basis (a new post about every other day). Overall he has good grammar and his subjects are usually very interesting. I found his blog thanks to Entrecard, and the post that grasped my attention at first was one titled “Former Software Engineer”, where he describes how he decided to change career paths. (more…)

The best password-remembering tip you’ll ever encounter

I’ll admit it. I’ve used the same password for many of my online accounts, which is terribly dangerous in today’s online-driven society. I changed this unsafe practice by coming up with a very unique system and in this article I’ll show you how to create unique and easy-to-remember passwords for all your online needs.

Imagine for a second having the same password for all your accounts, and somehow (either using social engineering or other tactics, such as a key logger) someone gets a hold of it and has locked you out of everything. Your Gmail, your online banking accounts, your goDaddy account and your domains, etc. Now imagine trying to regain possession of all of these accounts. Surely, a nightmare. (more…)

paypal

What’s up with Paypal?

 

Ever since Paypal redesigned their whole interface I’ve been having all sorts of issues. First of all, it is almost impossible to change your address. In my case, I needed to add the apt/unit number on the second line of my address. I tried several times, after adding new credit cards/deleting credit cards, but nothing worked. I finally gave up and decided to contact support via phone. After being on hold for about 45 minutes, the service rep (with a very heavy Indian-accent) added my aptartment number.

The second issue I’ve had with them is trying to obtain another debit card. The last step on the website just takes you back to the main profile page. I contacted support via email, and 2 days later I was told that they had ordered the card manually for me, but it never arrived.

I came across these issues about 2 months ago, right after they added some web 2.0 spice, and they still haven’t been addressed. In my opinion, Paypal just jumped into the new interface without fully testing it, and they still haven’t fixed all the bugs. Rather disappointing for such a huge company (they’re owned by eBay,  after all).

More >

Settting up and maintaining Mozy properly

I’m a big fan of Mozy backup. I use it on my personal server to protect and secure all my personal files (read more about my home setup here), I recommend it to all my home/small office clients, and I install Mozy Pro on most of the servers I maintain. It pretty much runs automatically and its just “set it and forget it”, except for a couple of reasons, which you should keep an eye out for. (more…)

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