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

A previously unknown security flaw in Microsoft Word 2000 was discovered today as malicious attackers used it to execute code on infected computers. The vulnerability only impacts computers running Windows 2000 AND Microsoft Word 2000.

The Trojan MDropper.Q virus started exploiting the security flaw on Tuesday and uses a 2-step assault to take control of a computer.
The virus uses the security vulnerability in Microsoft Word vulnerability to place a second Trojan virus on your computer, Backdoor.Femo.

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In August two programs surfaced on the Internet that allowed users to remove the Digital Rights Management (DRM) copyright protection that prevents the songs from being duplicated without permission nor payment.

One of the programs targeted Apple’s FairPlay DRM protection and the other circumvented Windows Media DRM protection. While attempts to circumvent copyright protection on online music services is not new, Microsoft was forced to hastily release a patch to close the vulnerability in Media DRM, while Apple plans to solve its most recent woes in an update to its popular iTunes software package.

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We have finalized the specifications for this year’s Holiday special, and I need one more person who wants a computer that will run circles around anything else out there for years to come.

As many of you know, each year at Schrock we put together an amazing computer for the holiday season and sell a limited number of them at our cost. The system always retails for $1,499.99, and has become know in Lincoln and Omaha as a unique opportunity to lay your hands on an extremely advanced system.

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We have been on a quest for the past two months to find firm pricing numbers on Window Vista that has lead us to Microsoft conferences, channel partner phone calls, and countless blogs. Ironically enough, the answer came today on Amazon.com.

After numerous delays that pushed the retail availability of Windows Vista back beyond Christmas, Microsoft has set a firm release date of January 30, 2007.

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If you own a laptop or a notebook equipped with an Intel Centrino processor, you need to manually install a patch NOW, or your computer could be taken over by anyone with some technical savvy. Oh, by the way, if you have already installed the patch, keep reading. You are not out of the woods yet.

Over the past week, a vulnerability has been exposed in Intel’s PROSet wireless networking software that comes preinstalled on all notebook computers equipped with an Intel Centrino processor. Apparently, there is a security flaw in the PROSet wireless software that can allow an unauthorized user to take complete control of a laptop or notebook computer that is equipped with an Intel Centrino processor. You can download the Schrock Innovatiosn “Detect and Patch” utility here to see if your system is effected.

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In April of 2005 I brought you a story on our radio show Compute This (Saturdays from 10-11 in Lincoln, NE) about a small Fremont law firm that managed to successfully sue Microsoft for 22.6 million for anti-competitive practices in the state of Nebraska.You can listen to the archived interview here.

Microsoft settled the class action suit and agreed to pay 50% of any unclaimed funds from the settlement in the form of technology vouchers to Nebraska’s public schools. Schools were awarded the vouchers based upon need as measured by participation in the Federal School Lunch Program.

Based on those calculations, the Omaha World Herald reported today that Omaha Public Schools was awarded $4.05 Million after filing some grueling paperwork to prove that they were qualified to receive the funds under the settlement.

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Today on Compute This I had the opportunity to speak on the air with Jeff Schwartz, of the Law Offices of Manuel H. Miller from California. Jeff is the attorney who is working to assemble a class action lawsuit against the makers of the MovieLand, MoviePass, and Popcorn.net spyware infections.

For those of you who are not aware, these three software programs solicit people on the web to install a “free” 3-day trial service that allows them to download movies and other media files from the Internet. However, unless you cancel the 3-day trial before it expires, you will be haunted by continual pop-ups that nearly debilitate your computer until you pay their subscription fees.

If you missed the show, you can listen to the entire interview here.

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With everything going on this past week, Microsoft’s visit to Omaha for a technical seminar was unfortunately buried in the news. However, our own Blaze was in attendance and asked the questions our customers have passed to us about Office 2007 and Vista over the past few months.

The question I have been asked more often than not is how much the products would cost. The question caught the presenter off guard, as he seemed very qualified to speak to the technical aspects of the software rather than the business and supply channel plans. He told Blaze that he was not absolutely certain, but he could not imagine Vista costing more than Windows XP does now.

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As many of you heard, Schrock Innovations began accepting E-waste (old computers and computer equipment) at no cost early this month from businesses and consumers. Many people believe that we are making a profit on sending E-Waste to recycling facilities, despite my comments to the contrary.

Unfortunately circumstances which I did not anticipate are forcing us to make changes to our recycling program. Some of these situations include two of our local Lincoln competitors who took advantage of our recycling program by dropping more than 10 truckloads of computer waste in front of our door in the dead of night. Additionally, we have had two prowlers and two attempted burglaries in the past week alone. Because of situations like this, we must take steps to limit the scope of what we will accept in our recycling program.

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I was just informed today that Schrock Innovations was voted the #1 Independent Computer Repair Company in the 2006 KFOR Best of Lincoln Survey for the 4th year in a row! Thank you to all of our radio show listeners and KFOR fans who voted for us.

This year we will be trying something new with the radio show. Typically we move to Sunday mornings during the Husker season to avoid any potential conflicts with football game coverage. this year we are going to buck that trend and stay on at 10:00 on Saturday mornings. Listeners have told us that they lose track of our show for a few weeks when we move to Sundays, and again when we move back to Saturdays after the season concludes (hopefully in January this year!).

We understand that priorities are priorities, so we will continue to make our previous radio shows available free of advertising on our website. In addition, we will be having special “Game Day Only” sales that offer products and services at drastically reduces prices, but only on that Saturday from 12-5.

I had the opportunity to listen in person to Steve Pederson talk about the outlook for the Husker season off camera, and he managed to get me fired up for this year’s team. Go Huskers, and thank you for making Schrock Innovations #1 in Lincoln again!