Change of Ownership

Dan Ritter will be the new owner/manager very soon.  He has worked for Safe & Sound before, and it is an honor for us to have him continue the Safe & Sound philosophy!  Dan has already been working with Safe & Sound customers recently, and all computer concerns can be directed to him.

Contact Dan at:

Phone: 250-724-0644

Email: dan@safesound.ca

Please note that the address in the header above is incorrect – Safe & Sound is no longer at 3042 3rd Avenue.  Dan is performing mobile computer services so the address is irrelevant at this time.

Tony will still do some freelance work, mostly films and video editing, but soon will be leaving Port Alberni to pursue other endeavours.

WE HAVE MOVED!

Safe & Sound no longer has a storefront.

Computer Services:

We now primarily offer onsite service for business ($99/hr plus travel) and residential (starting at $89/hr within Port Alberni).  Sales consulting is only available to businesses.

Multimedia Services:

Our private studio (by appointment only) is being built at this time, and we will continue to perform all the film to video conversion, tape to CD, and video production services that we have offered in the past.

Having a private office means we can work for you undisturbed, which translates to better service turn-around, among other benefits. 

Same number, Same email

Primary contact is Tony McKimm:

Office: 250-720-2165

Cell: 250-730-1267 (business emergencies only, please!)

Email: tech @ safesound . ca

“Malvertising” explained. Yes, the Internet just got worse.

The following is from http://www.spywareremove.com/security/hackers-still-using-ads-to-spread-malware/

Hackers Still Using Ads To Spread Malware

So you think you’ve got your PC security all sorted out?

Have you clicked on an advertisement on a website lately and it didn’t take you to anything related to the original ad? If so, you are not alone.

You may ignore strange pop-up quizzes, and give invitations to look at Anna Kournikova’s.ru site a miss. You don’t open any attachments from unknown sources, and your antivirus software has never let you down.

Guess what? Your computer may still be infected. Right now evil hackers may be sifting your hard drive for passwords, bank account numbers and personal documents.

The latest threat for Internet users is malvertising, which is basically the use of ad networks for distributing malicious software. Computer security experts say the latest product of botnet scientists is designed to run on mainstream websites, slipping under the radar of the major ad agencies who place the banner ads and pop-ups. But what’s scary is this new class of malware requires no interaction from users. It simply attacks the latest flaws and vulnerabilities in Adobe or Java.

The malvertisers are using the good name of the website or ad agency to point browsers at their servers, which load up the malware concealed in PDF, Flash, Java or similar files. The banner could include a single pixel iframe, which has a malicious PDF. If the machine is like most Outlook set-ups, it will automatically be opened by Acrobat and the machine then joins a botnet.

The machines sending the message could be anywhere and best protection is as always to patch and patch and patch. Users should also switch to Firefox rather than Internet Explorer, and make use of their preference panels so the browser does not automatically open PDFs.

Hackers are trying their best to stay one step ahead of cyber security, which is why using a reliable antivirus program is of utmost importance for the safety of your computer.

————-

Tony’s advice:  Use Firefox or Chrome with the “Ad-Block” extension.  This hides ads on webpages.  They look better and reduce this risk greatly.  Call or email for details!

Now on Twitter and Facebook!

Follow us on twitter, and we’re Safe & Sound Computers and Media on Facebook!

Confusing AVG FREE upgrades?!

DOWNLOAD AVG FREE EDITION 9 HERE

Many people have observed that AVG has been notifying them to upgrade from version 8.5 to 9, and then making them pay for a full version. There still is a Free Edition available, only it is hidden in the fine print on the upgrade page. After clicking there, and a few more clicks, you can finally download it. To make it easy, just click here!

-Tony. (updated Jan 14, 2010)

HDMI Cables: Are the monsterously priced cables worth it?

We here at Safe and Sound like our customers to have accurate information about the products we sell. Today I’d like to address a commonly asked question normally surrounded with misinformation: “Is there any difference in the video or sound quality supplied by a cheap HDMI cable compared to an expensive ($70-$250+) cable?”. The short and simple answer is “no”.

The long and complicated answer “is no, and this is why-”. HDMI cables supply a DIGITAL signal (as opposed to analogue). There are key differences between the two technologies.

I found an excellent explanation on ‘boardsus.playstation.com‘ (HERE)

Wires send electrical signals… Plain and simple.  Anything sent over a wire is ultimately just a voltage/current applied to that cable.  Let’s say we’re talking about an analog video signal that’s 1 volt peak to peak… In other words, measuring from the LOWEST voltage to the HIGHEST voltage will give a result of 1 volt… With an analog signal you have “slices” of time that are “lines” of signal… It’s too complex to go into here, but basically you have a “front porch” which is known as the “setup”… This is what helps your tv “lock onto” and sets the “black level” for the signal.  After that you’ve got each line of the image (455 half cycles per line).  Again I won’t go into how chrominance (color information) and luminance (picture or brightness information) is combined, separated, etc.. It’s too complex for this discussion, but irregardless, just know that following that porch you’ve got all the lines of the picture (and some that don’t show up on the picture… these carry closed captioning, test signals, etc…).

Analogue Signals: If you look at one VERY SMALL timeslice of the waveform of an ANALOGUE signal, the EXACT position of the form (i.e. what voltage is present) represents what information is at that position…
Because of this, it’s VERY EASY for other radiated signals to get “mixed in” with that information.  When this happens, the more “noise” you get mixed into the signal, the more degraded the picture will be… You’ll start to get snow, lines, weird colors, etc… Because “information” is getting into the waveform that doesn’t belong there…With digital however, (i.e. the signal sent over an HDMI cable), the information is encoded differently… At it’s lowest level, it’s nothing but a string of bits… In other words, each signal is either ON or OFF…  It doesn’t care if a particular timeslice is 4.323 volts or 4.927 volts… It’s just ON…  For each “slice” of the signal, the “bit” is either on (if the signal is high) or off (if it’s low)…

Now, for a slightly easier to understand analogy…
Think of it this way… Let’s say you have a ladder with 200 steps on it… An “analog” signal represent information by WHICH step the person is on at a certain time. As you move further and further away (get “noise or interference in the signal), it’s very easy to start making mistakes… For example, if the person is on the 101st step, you might say he’s on 102nd, or as you get further away, you might start making more and more mistakes… At some point you won’t know if the person is on the 13th step or the 50th step….
NOW… In a digital signal, we don’t care if he’s on the 13th or 14th or 15th step… All we care about is rather he’s at the TOP or the BOTTOM… So now, as we back you up further and further (introduce more noise), you might have no idea what STEP he’s on, but you’ll STILL be able to tell if he’s a “1″ or a “0″…
THIS is why digital signals aren’t affected by cheaper cables, etc… Now eventually if you keep moving further and further back, there may come a point where you can no longer tell if he’s up or down… But the good news is, digital signals don’t “guess”… If they SEE the signal, they work… If they DON’T, they DON’T.. LOL

So if anyone ever tells you they can “see the difference” between HDMI cables, etc… You can knowingly laugh to yourself and think about how much money the poor sole wasted on something that was pointless.
Now, I’ve seen others say that they make a difference in audio… ALL audio carried over HDMI is STILL in digital format… So again, since it’s a digital signal, it will not make ANY difference at all….

File Safety Assured!

We have a proven track record of removing viruses without removing your important data.  Your data is kept “safe and sound”, while infections are properly treated.

Media Converion

Transfer your priceless home videos, or your old record collection to a safe format that you can use and share. We can transfer almost any audio or video to CD or DVD including: film reels, VHS & Beta, camcorder tapes, audio tapes, records, reel to reel audio, and many more!

Web page re-construction…

As any frequent visitor of safesound.ca may have already noticed- our page is looking a little sparse at the moment. This is because we are in the process of re-building our website so that it will have more great content and features than ever. Thank you for your patience in the mean time, and check back often for exciting new additions.

BEFORE INSTALLING INTERNET EXPLORER 8!

Dozens of computers have come to us with different internet issues.  They don’t bring up web pages, are terribly slow, or might not even work right at all.  One of the first things we look for is whether Internet Explorer 8 has been installed, as this buggy release seems to crash a great many computers, whether XP or Vista.

My advice is to avoid IE8, or even change your automatic updates to “Notify me, but don’t automatically download or install them.” For more information, please check this very informative article at Computerworld.com.  – Tony