Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

The blog of John Chow, a Technorati top 100 blogger mysteriously went offline yesterday. This is highly unusual for a man who makes his living by marketing on the Internet, and reportedly may be the result of an attack by the “Turkish Hacker” who defaced Shoemoney’s blog a few months ago.

John Chow makes a name for himself by pushing the line between whitehat SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and blackhat SEO by finding ways to manipulate online systems to his financial advantage. He has at one time or another been banned by sites like Digg, Technorati (but was later reinstated) and others.

While his activities may skirt the boundaries of acceptability by some, the data he collects and distributes from his blog is an invaluable help to others who want to know how far they bend the rules before breaking them. So it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that Chow would take his own site down, blame it on the famous Turkish Hacker and then reap the whirlwind of backlinks from the blogosphere.

Time will tell whether he was actually attacked by a hacker, or if this is yet another Chow game of Internet chess.

From time to time I get an email or a comment on this blog asking to confirm if an Internet myth is true. In fact, a couple weeks ago I received a MySpace bulletin that said if you lock your keys in your car, and you have remote access that you can call your wife and have her hold her remote up to the phone and press the unlock button while you hold your phone up to the car.

Obviously that does not work, but it was plausible enough to get pushed around the Internet from inbox to inbox for years now.

There is another Internet myth that some of you may have heard of. reportedly there was a Popular Mechanics article in 1954 that portrayed what a home computer would look like in 2004. The picture, show below, was complete with a steering wheel, a black and white television, and a wall-full of bells and whistles.

This image has been floating around the Internet for years now, and it is actually a hoax. The image was originally taken from the Smithsonian Cold War Submarine Exhibit and was manipulated to add home computer elements. The altered image was obviously never published in Popular Mechanics.

If you have forwarded that image to someone and believed it was real, you have been taken by an Internet myth. This one is probably not explosive enough to make it onto the Myth Busters TV program, but some Photoshop guru somewhere has been chuckling for years over this little prank.

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.

Everyone knows that computers need maintenance to continue working properly over time. The problem is that many people either don’t have the time or the technical knowledge to properly maintain their computers.

To address this situation, Schrock Innovations created a service we called the PC Maintenance Checkup.

During the Maintenance Checkup, Schrock Innovations does all of the basic maintenance tasks that every computer user should be doing like defragging and scanning their hard drives, downloading Windows Updates, and removing unnecessary files from the hard drive (Vista users be careful with disk cleanup).

But in addition to the standard maintenance tasks, we also do some additional work that most home users do not have the capacity or desire to do. For example, during the Maintenance Checkup Schrock Innovations:

• Scans your computer’s memory (Vital for Vista users)
• Blows dust and debris out of cooling fans
• Checks fan rotation speeds and cooling effectiveness
• Ensures your installed Antivirus is effective and updated
• Test all drives
• Checks hard drive for masked bad sectors
• Cleans computer exterior if needed
• Repairs errors in the Windows Registry
• Performs an advanced hard drive cleaning
• Installs critical system support software
• Scans for and removes malware
• Scans for viruses and Trojans

The Maintenance Checkup costs $69.99 and typically takes a day to two days to complete in our Lincoln or Omaha Service Centers.

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.

Microsoft rushed out a patch for the Animated Cursor Flaw, knowing that the patch would disable network communication and sound on thousands of computers.

Last Tuesday Microsoft released a critical patch to plug a hole that existed in Internet Explorer 7 running under Windows Vista and Windows XP. The vulnerability could allow an attacker to take control of a computer when a user simply visits an infected website or views an infected email message.

But now users are having problems with the Microsoft Patch. At this time, Realtec networking cards and audio chipsets are definitely impacted by the patch. These cards and chipsets are often used in computers with integrated audio and networking components. These devices WILL FAIL after the patch is installed.

Early last week, Ryan Naraine reported on his blog that Microsoft was privately warned about the vulnerability in December of 2006. Microsoft started working on the problem, but also stated:

There are many factors that impact the length of time between the discovery of a vulnerability and the release of a security update, and every vulnerability presents its own unique challenges.

This is certainly the case with this patch. Microsoft released the update knowing it would debilitate thousands of computers across the globe.

In addition, there are scattered reports that the patch is also impacting programs like ElsterFormular, TUGZip and CD-Tag. Microsoft plans to release a second patch (yes, a patch for the patch) tomorrow morning.

Personally, I think it is a bit cruel to offer an online patch to fix a problem that prevents you from getting on the Internet. It’s kind of like when you call your Internet service provider because you can’t get online and their on-hold recording tells you to visit their website for faster support.

How are users with Realtec Ethernet adapters supposed to get the patch? Something tells me it’s going to be a busy couple of days at Schrock Innovations…

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.

Super kudos to my developers at Schrock Innovations for meeting their deadline and getting the new LIBA website launched on time. 

The deadline was important because this weekend Strictly Business Magazine will hit mailboxes in Lincoln and surrounding communities.  This month the magazine has a feature on LIBA.

Schrock Innovations won a juried bidding competition by unanimous decision against several other local design companies.  The roll-out of the public side of the website is the first phase in the three phase process.  Additional work is scheduled to allow even faster updating and more data-base driven content.

 The most noticeable among the changes to the site is the new banner.  The banner is comprised of three images, each representing one of LIBA’s pillars.  Special thanks to Kimberly Schrock Photography for taking the awesome images for the new LIBA banner.

The first is a picture of the statue of Abraham Lincoln outside the capitol building.  This represents LIBA’s influence on the growth of government and the organization’s saying, “Get into politics or get out of business.”

The second is a picture of a building from the UNL campus to symbolize LIBA’s ongoing dedication to continuing education and its financial support of college bound high school students.

Lastly, the Haymarket Water tower rounds out the banner.  This image symbolizes Lincoln’s business community and the possibilities that can be unlocked by the private sector to make our community a better place.

LIBA has many exciting ideas planned for their website, so be sure to bookmark www.liba.org and revisit the site often!

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 am a little late getting the show from 3/31 up, but it has now been uploaded to the Schrock Innovations website at http://www.schrockinnovations.com/radio.php. 

I am out of town for Easter weekend, but I was not about to stick my listeners with a “best of” show.  This Saturday’s show is pre-recorded and will air on KFOR 1240 AM in Lincoln, NE on Saturday at 10:00.  You can listen online from the Schrock website when the show is airing, or you can listen to it ahead of time by listening to the mp3 on the Schrock website.

 I figure than posting tomorrow’s show a day early should make up for posting last week’s show a few days late.  Have a great Easter everyone!