Protect your computer from the DNSChanger malware before July

Great June is finally here.  But there is a nasty new virus out that could effect your computer this July and your antivirus software may not necessarily detect or take care of the problem for you.  Here is an article with more information.  Also, here is a quick check to see if your computer infected.  If you see "green" your good.  "red" you are infected.  Subscribe to my blog and I'll do my best to inform readers of future viruses to look out for that antivirus software is unable to detect. 

Dish Network offers new 'Auto Hop' commercial skip feature

Dish Network now offers a commercial skip technology via their new Hopper DVR system.  This is not a fast forward feature it completely skips over the commercials.  Read more about it by clicking here.

Do you use catt.com email? Check this out....

Catt.com mail can do so much more than just email.  Next time you login to your catt mail via the "Check e-mail" button.  Look at the very top left of the screen.   You will see a button that says "Documents".  Click that button and you will something similar to this:

From here, you can do some pretty neat things all for free.  Create a word document, powerpoint, or excel spreadsheet.  It is like having Microsoft office for free.  When you save these documents they can be shared with others as they are saved in the "cloud".  You may also upload files using the little hard drive button to the right of the "create" button.  Here you can upload music, pictures, or even covert your older documents to the google format.  This way, you can store, save, and collaborate with others on the web.  Or, keep your files private so you may access them anywhere you have internet access. 

Update:  As of April 23rd, RTC Internet offers 5gb of online storage free with any High Speed Internet account.  Get more out of your RTC Internet account!

Level 3 concurs: Comcast appears to be prioritizing traffic

A recent article from Gigaom suggests Comcast is prioritizing traffic again despite an agreement with the FCC.  The data to back up this claim is very interesting per the article here.

In previous blogs, I have praised RTC Internet for being the only ISP provider in Ringgold that does not cap its users bandwidth or throttle the bandwidth in some way.  Comcast, Charter, Verizon 3G/4G, Sprint, etc are all doing it as a cost savings measure.  RTC does not do this nor does it prioritize or De-prioritize what you decide to do with your internet connection. 

iPad + Airplay!

Use Airplay to stream iPad video to your TV!

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/airplay/

No Phishing!

Working for an ISP I have gained some inside knowledge of some of the scams that occur from time to time.  For example, of 100% of all email sent and received over the Internet, an ISP typically filters about 80%+ of it as it is malicious, spam , etc. before it gets to you, the end user.  However, and as you know, sometimes you still get junk in your email despite our best efforts to filter it out first.  Therefore, you, the end user, must take precautions on that 20% you do receive. 

Something I see occurring more and more frequently is ‘spoofed’ email.  For example, you get an invoice saying you owe or just paid a $900 bill for paypal, mastercard, verizion mobile phone, etc.  It looks legit because it came from sales@paypal.com or info@mastercard.com.  But that could be a ‘spoofed’ email address which really comes from somewhere else.  Most have a natural instinct to obviously open that email and look at your online account by using the supplied link in the email!  Don’t do it.  If you roll over the link in the email, you will notice the URL (internet address) will not be paypal.com, mastercard.com, etc.  If you click it, the website may even look legit but is not.  These scammers are looking to phish (attempt to acquire info such as user, password, credit details, etc by appearing as a trustworthy source) your info.

In fact, I don’t even recommend opening that email at all.  If you want to be sure, instead, just login into your account like normal.  (not via an email link)  Or call the 8XX number (not the one in the email but on your last statement) and ask for customer service to confirm these charges have not been made or paid on your account. 

 Also, there are options to remove spam and phishing by right clicking on it in your web mail browser.  This will help ISP's improve their filtering.  Help us help you kind of approach.

This isn’t a new scam, phishing has been around for a long time but I am seeing it more and more frequently and many regular (non techy) folks are not even aware this is taking place.

So email users out there, be warned and aware of these online scammers!

Introducing Google Play

Now your favorite music, books, movies, apps, and games are all in one place that's accessible from the Web and any Android device. Discover, buy and share like never beforehttps://play.google.com/store