Thor Schrock

I will be launching a Maintenance Checkup sale on Compute This this Saturday. For one week only our in-shop Maintenance Checkup service will be discounted from $59.99 to only $9.99.

This sale applies to computers serviced in one of our Service Centers only, and not to in-home visits or the Maintenance Checkup Home Edition.

Typically when I launch this sale we take in between 15 and 30 computers between Saturday and Monday alone. If you want to beat the rush by bringing your system early, just mention you read about it on Thor's blog and you will get the discount before the sale "officially" begins on Saturday.

After a quiet spell from the makers of the SmitFraud spyware family, a new variant called SpyLocked has started infecting computers across the Internet.

The infection method for SpyLocked is similar, but there are rumors that the Trojan used to spread the spyware may be exploiting the Animated Cursor Vulnerability to infect and reinfect its victims.

The SpyLocked infection displays a large pop-up when you start your computer as well as repeated alerts as you use your computer that appear to come from the Windows Security Center.

The alerts tell the user that their computer is infected with spyware and that the only way to remove the spyware is to buy the commercial version of SpyLocked. In reality, SpyLocked is the infection and it is what needs to be removed.

Schrock Innovations has posted a Complete SpyLocked Removal Tutorial that does not require you to buy any additional products or services.

Today I decided it was time to do some housekeeping on my Windows Vista notebook (after all, how much of a hipocrite would I be if I did not get a Maintenance Checkup myself once in a while?) .

I started with the basics like a disk cleanup and a disk defragmentation. As I moved therough the new Vista Disk Cleanup menu, I noticed that Microsoft has add a few new items to the list. Without much thought I started checking all of the items on the list, because when your hard drive is down to 5 GB of free space, everything that is not needed has got to go.

As I went check-happy down the list I saw a new item that gave me pause. There was a check box for remove hibrination file. The hibrination file is the file taht allows a notebook computer to save all of its memory contents to the hard drive and completely power down in between uses. It is easier on battery life (because with Vista sucking power like the Bat Signal every watt counts) and takes significantly less time to start up than the computer normall would. Why would I want to save 1.8 GB by removing that file?

I did a little research and found that if I would have removed that file my computer's hibrination feature would have stopped working. Turning it back on is no dream either, and for most people it owuld require the assistance of a qualified computer repair technician.

So a word of caution to all of you do-it-your-self technicians out there. Watch out for this nifty little "space saver." Of course, if you don't use the hibrination feature and do not think you ever will, feel free to take back the 2 GB this file can take up.

Other new additions to the Disk Cleanup menu include the ability to remove old files that have been olsoleted by Windows Update, as well as an assortment of other log files and setup files that the old version of the utility did not detect or remove.

You can access Windows Disk Cleanup on your Windows Vista computer by clicking on Start, then All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools and finally Disk Cleanup.

I will be the featured speaker at this month's meeting of the Nebraska People Making Money Online Group.  The NPMMOL group was organized by Shoemoney for people in Nebraska that are making money (or want to start making money) on the Internet.

At this time, there are still 12 seats open for the April 24th meetup.  You must RSVP for this event (use the link above). 

I can also tell you that I will be giving away some cool promotional stuff that I ordered yesterday from Infinity Promotions.  I promise you this meetup will not be the typical "how to blog" stuff you can find on the Internet.  I will be presenting new and fresh research data as well as some great concepts that the professionals use to raise money from their blogs.

My remarks will be focused on the important roles a blog can play in the success of your online or brick-and-mortar business.  I will be covering the basics for those who are new to blogging, such as:

• What is a blog
• How do you get a blog
• What should you write about
• How to get readers

For the more advanced in the audience I will also be covering:

• How to promote your blog with various online ranking websites
• The top 10 plugins you HAVE to install on your blog, and more
• New ideas to help you monetize your blog
• Five must-know Technorati ranking tips

The location of the meetup will be in Omaha, NE, however the exact room and address is yet to be announced.  If you RSVP for the meetup, you will be sent an email notification when the additional information is available.

RSVP today before the seats fill up because I will be announcing this on my radio show tomorrow morning.  I will see you there!

I successfully migrated my Nucleus CMS database to WordPress using a nifty automated script.

I will be out of town for the next few days, but I will try to post if I can. Honestly though, most of my attention will be focused on getting this blog looking sleek and cool, so don't expect anything too profound.

By the way, for my visually impaired users out there... How does this interface sound on your text to speech programs?

Syndicate This While it may appear to be a conflict of interest I wanted to take a moment to let you know about my interactions with John Spatz, candidate for Lincoln's 4th district City Council seat.

Schrock Innovations designed a website for John's campaign (hence the possible conflict of interest), and in the process of working with him personally I have learned a great deal about John's personality, his tendencies, and his moral compass.

We have designed and hosted campaign websites before and 9 times out of ten getting content out of a candidate for a website is like extracting sap from a petrified tree. Then, when we would finally get some content for the site (pictures, videos, copy) it was drier than cotton mouth.

This was not the case with John. John embraced the idea of using his website as a conduit to communicate with the constituents in the city. He was able to learn from visitor's concerns, raise a little campaign money, and use his blog to respond to current events as they unfolded in Lincoln.

John expressed to me from the start that he did not want any online shenanigans. He wanted a clean online campaign that helped him get his message out to people that the traditional media could not (or would not) reach. And that is exactly what we did.

Today is election day in Lincoln and I would encourage you to vote for a candidate who knows the meaning of hard work and dedication. John Spatz is a natural leader who **shocker** is really in this race to better the city of Lincoln. If you are undecided about who you will vote for in the 4th district City Council race, I would encourage you to visit John's website and learn more about him. He is a good man and will make a legendary city council person.

Syndicate This After I exposed the defacement of the NOAA's website last month, I was approached by a company contracting for the Defense Department in Qatar (pronounced cutter), a country outside of Iraq. They managed some servers for the troops in Iraq and needed a network administrator. They offered me $100,000/year plus benefits to take the job.

Of course, I refused the generous offer, but it highlights the fact that in today's world, unsolicited job offers can be real and they can come out of the blue. While it is always a compliment to be specifically recruited, caution is needed to protect yourself from the wide array of possible scams that arise from such offers. In a world where many people post their resumes online, all sorts of undesirables can end up contacting you.

Take for example an email I received this afternoon from a company called Expanxion, a California-based recruiting firm that scrapes the resumes you put online and then spams your inbox with poorly targeted job offers. This particular email made it through not one, not two, but three separate email filters I had in place.

The email was from Matthew Strassberg and he was offering me a job as a Security Researcher. Ironically, the skill-set they were looking for was the exact skill-set that would be required to put together a system to scrape email addresses from websites and then send unsolicited email to them.

I was in a bit of a playful mood, so I decided to give Matthew a call to see if he was a real person, or if there was some spammer out there soiling this company's name. It turned out that Matthew was indeed a real person, and he did indeed have a job for me if my skills match the position. But I thought that is why you send me an illegal spam message in the first place Matthew... Now the fun really began!

His email read (edited for length):

Hello,
I work with Expanxion, a recruiting firm that places technology professionals in full-time permanent jobs.
I came across your resume, and you appear to have some of the skills necessary for the position below. Please let me know if you or anyone you know may be interested in this, or would like to hear about some of our many other opportunities throughout Northern and Southern California. If qualified and interested in applying for this job please attach your resume in Word format.

Matthew Strassberg
Manager, Sr. Technical Recruiter
Expanxion
3182 Campus Drive #227
San Mateo, CA 94403
Tel: 650-261-0211 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              650-261-0211      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

I asked Matthew how he got my name on his mailing list and he admitted to me that they use an automated program to harvest email addresses, match them up with job offers and send the resulting messages to those addresses.

But wait... It gets better. Next I asked him to remove me from his mailing list, and he advised me that I should just configure my spam filers to block his emails. Keep in mind that his message penetrated a Barracuda Spam Firewall, a commercial anti-spam program I run on my laptop, as well as my Outlook 2007 spam filter. My guess is if Matthew wants to send me an email, he will find a way.

Lastly I informed him that what he was doing was a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. I asked him why there was no removal link in the email or no form on his website, as required by law. Matthew didn't really have a good answer for me, but he wished me well in my job search (which of course I haven't done in over 9 years) and ended the call.

Matthew, the whole point of this post is to point out that with a little more effort you could at least make your company operate within the law. Now I am not saying that a "remove" link would make me want to get your poorly targeted email messages. However, I have reported your activity to the FTC via their online form, and I would encourage anyone else that gets these emails to do the same. Its not very often you get to pin a spam email message on a specific person, but this is definitely one of those delicious opportunities.

Syndicate This Last Friday the Nebraska State Legislature gave first round approval to LB415. The bill would prohibit teens 18 and younger from using a wireless device like a cell phone while driving.

The bill makes no differentiation between hand-held devices and wireless phones (phones equipped with Bluetooth for example). Fourteen other states have similar laws that restrict a teen's use of wireless communication devices while driving.

Before every teen who reads this goes completely nuclear, it is also of interest to point out that the bill only allows teens to be ticketed if they are pulled over for another offense and happen to be on the phone. So if you are speeding or get into an accident and the officer asks you if you were using the phone, exactly what will you say now?

You heard it here first folks! Google is offering free in-home high speed wireless Internet service to anyone who signs up for it today only! Visit http://www.google.com/tisp/ for more information!

Syndicate This I have been hinting around for the past few months that something new is coming, and after FINALLY signing the last of the paperwork this morning, I can confirm publicly that Schrock Innovations has been purchased By Best Buy's Geek Squad.

Current Schrock customers will be able to bring their computers to Schrock's Lincoln and Omaha Service Centers for the next few months until the Schrock staff is fully integrated into the Geek Squad. Most employees will be absorbed into the Lincoln Geek Squad location, while Omaha employees will be sent to Kansas City to work in the Best Buy software divisions in supporting roles.

So I know the question I am going to get all day long is why did I sell out? Why would I take an established brand name like Schrock Innovations and sell it to Best Buy. How could I subject my customers to standing in line at a window waiting for a computer repair? What about all of the "Modular" computers that we have out there? Who will support them...

These are all questions that will be answered in the coming few days here on this blog. Why did I sell out? There were two primary reasons. First they knew that Schrock Innovations had a service reputation that exceeded all others in Nebraska, so they offered me a BOATLOAD of money to sell.

Secondly, the Geek Squad assured me that my current customers would be given preference in any circumstance that allowed it. By selling my business to Best Buy and the Geek Squad, I am indirectly helping thousands of people in Nebraska that we currently do not reach by training their staff and managers in proper service techniques.

So I guess there is not much else to say. I will be maintaining this blog as a separate website, so please feel free to direct your personal questions and help requests to me using the comments section below.

Thank you for 8 years of great relationships, fun, and success.

Syndicate This. You might begin to notice that all of my new posts will be beginning with a link that says "Syndicate This."

As the readership of my blog increases and it climbs in the rankings and search results, more and more people are taking the content that I write and using it on their own blogs.

Don't get me wrong, I will gladly allow anyone (well almost anyone) to take any part of this blog and reproduce it on their blog. The only thing I ask is that they shoot me a link back so people know where the content came from.

The honest bloggers out there do this anyway, but the automated content scrappers do not. While the link is ugly, it will get scraped like the rest of my content and credit will be given.

I signed the final paperwork today on a deal that should prove to be very interesting. Schrock Innovations is now accepting the TradeBank card for website development services. TradeBank is a barter system that uses “trade dollars” as a substitute currency so that businesses can trade their services for other services they need.

In many other barter systems, it can be difficult to seal a trade deal because two people need to have products and services which they are each interested in. TradeBank solves that problem with their “trade dollars.” For example, if Schrock Innovations develops a website for a TradeBank client, that client can pay Schrock in “trade dollars” which are deposited into a quasi-cash account just like at a bank.

Within 24 hours of signing on with TradeBank we have inked a deal for one website and have a solid lead on a second one. It is almost like having an online business manager seeking out customers for us!

Once we have completed the website job we landed, if Schrock Innovations needs a service offered by another TradeBank member (accounting services for example) we can pay them using the “trade dollars” we have in our account from the development of the website.

When I was first approached about this by Aubyn Fowler, the TradeBank of Omaha Broker, I was a bit skeptical. I didn’t really think we would see very much “trade dollar” income and I was concerned that there were not enough local TradeBank business members to provide a nice selection of merchants with which we could spend our trade dollars.

But my worries were soon laid to rest as we have earned more than $2,000 trade dollars from one deal alone. Naturally, we then started looking around for a place to spend the company's new-found resource.

In a matter of hours we found a custom marketing company in Wichita, Kansas that designs pens, mugs and the like. We found a new company that will trade alarm monitoring, and we located a local vehicle repair center that we can trade out vehicle repair labor with.

The best part is that we don’t really have to do the leg work on the trades wither. Our Broker, Aubyn takes calls all day long from people looking for things they need. She spreads the word about our development services for us and we reap the rewards.

If you are a business owner and you are not a member of TradeBank I would STRONGLY suggest you join. Its an awesome opportunity. If you want some additional information drop me an email and I can send a brochure your way.

I had never realized how much my family depends on having two vehicles available until my truck had to go into the body shop for 10 days and my wife graciously shared her minivan with me.

During the last blizzard (yes the one two days before the 70-degree weather) I chose to drive my truck into the office to complete a computer for a customer who HAD to have the PC back that day so he could leave town.

In retrospect, it was not the wisest choice I have made in a while, but I thought my 4-wheel-drive and good tires would keep me safe and get me where I needed to be. Technically, the truck did great getting me where I needed to go. I managed to make the typically 15-minute drive in just under an hour. I completed the computer and took advantage of the quiet time in the office to catch up on emails and do some blogging and development work.

Once I was done, I hit the road again for home. The conditions were about as bad as when I had driven in, so I took it slow again. I was doing 35 MPH on the interstate when I was cut off by another vehicle that thought it would be ok to drive 55 MPH through a snow drift. Quickly they figured out why I was driving so slowly, and decided they should slow down too. Right in front of me. Suddenly. *sigh*

I had two choices – rear end a brand new Lexus (didn’t even have plates on it yet), or take the center wall. I chose the wall, and completely demolished my truck’s grill, right front fender, bumper, and headlight assembly. Needless to say I uttered some choice words as the guy driving the Lexus didn’t even look back to see the results of his fine driving.

I ended up having my truck repaired at Dingman’s collision center in Omaha, and that is why I am blogging about this today. I got my baby back this afternoon, and the work that they did was phenomenal. They lived up to their claim of being the best in town, as their staff (especially Mary who fielded my repeated phone calls for status reports) painstakingly restored every aspect of my vehicle to precise specification.

The truck looks and runs absolutely perfectly again thanks to the fine work of Dingman’s Collision Center and the prompt payment from American Family Insurance (Thanks for talking me into the full coverage Jeff Johnson).

I will definitely be thinking twice before I assume that a 4x4 with good tires can conquer any terrain. Let this be a lesson to you children! 4-wheel drive may keep your vehicle moving in the right direction, but there will always be somebody else to watch out for on the road and they may not be so well equipped!

The latest edition of Smart Computing Magazine is hitting subscribers today and my article on how to remove Spyware from your PC got front cover attention this month.

I have a featured article in this month's Smart Computing magazine on page 39 that tells you in a step-by-step way how to remove malware from your computer using the free programs AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy.

Smart Computing is a great magazine for people who love their computers but are not geeks. If you are not a subscriber, I would highly recommend you look into it!

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is insisting on deposing a 10-year old girl in relation to her disabled mother's counterclaim against the organization.

This is a case that many in the Internet community will be watching closely. The RIAA employs a number of tactics to catch those who download and share music files illegally from their homes, including alleged "data farming". Data farming is the act of suing an Internet service provider to obtain the IP Addresses (the address of their customer's computers) in an effort to identify likely file sharing suspects.

Tanya Andersen, a 41 year old disabled single mother found herself to be the target of one of the RIAA's cases in Oregon. The only problem is that she claims to never have downloaded or shared a song on the computer in her life. The RIAA doesn't really care much about denials, but the Association may have bitten off more than they can chew this time.

Rather than rolling over and toeing the RIAA line, she has decided to fight back. Andersen is alleging that the RIAA engaged in violations of the RICO act (originally enacted to stop organized crime), fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, the tort of "outrage", and deceptive business practices.

The counter claim, originally filed in October of 2005, has a new twist now as the RIAA is demanding that the woman's ten year old daughter be put under oath in the case.

It is rare that anyone ever publicly fights back against the RIAA. According to Ms. Andersen, the RIAA sued her Internet Service Provider to get her IP address, and then hired a third party company to break into her computer and spy on her activities. In addition her claim alleges that the RIAA then failed to notify Ms. Andersen that she was being sued, and obtained a default judgement when she failed to appear in court. That judgement was then allegedly turned over to the RIAA's internal collection agency who did have enough information to demand thousands of dollars from Ms. Andersen to settle the "debt."

If the RIAA wins this case, not a whole lot will change about how the organization operates. If Ms. Andersen wins however, the RIAA could be slapped with punitive damages for the thousands and thousands of people they subjected to the same alleged process who simply paid the bill rather than fighting the multi-billion dollar association. Keep an eye on this one, as it is going to get interesting!