Bryans Blog

Excerpted From Foxnews

If you use a Macintosh computer running OS X, you’re a potential target in a scheme designed to convince you that paying up is the only way to free your computer from being paralyzed, the FBI warned.

Those who click on a site that contains the so-called ransomware end up downloading and installing a program that opens browser windows and sends a scary message. The message appears to be coming from the FBI.

"The warning accuses victims of violating various U.S. laws, then locks the user’s computer," the FBI said. "To unlock the computer and avoid legal issues, victims are told they must pay a $300 fine via a prepaid money card. Attempts to close the warning page result in additional messages that reappear each time victims try to close their web browser."

The idea is to collect the payment — use of a prepaid cash card makes it virtually a cash transaction and, therefore, impossible to reverse — before victims realize they can get out of the jam on their own. In fact, the FBI said, those who actually pay the "fine" don’t receive any relief from the situation.

Release of the ransomware comes when a user is on normal websites, particularly when they query certain popular search terms, the FBI said. At that point, the pop-up pretending to be from the FBI appears.

A similar scheme was reported last year when a warning was issued by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Here’s what the FBI says to do if you run into this scheme:

•     Do not make any payments if you get one of the ransom messages.
•     Report the attack to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
•     Go to the Safari menu and choose "Reset Safari" and make sure all the boxes are selected.
•     When you relaunch Safari, hold down the shift key — that prevents the same windows and tabs that were just closed from re-opening.

 Alternatively, you can go to the system preferences on OS X and disable the re-opening function.from the "general" pane of system preferences.

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan

Going The Green Way

Email instead of Printing   – With a little configuration CounterPoint has the built-in ability to email receipts. By using this feature, you will find that not only are you buying less receipt paper but your customers love getting their receipts via email where it is filed automatically.

Preview instead of Printing – Anywhere you can print in NCR CounterPoint (CPSQL), you also have the ability to preview.Again, using this feature will save on toner and paper.  The preview of your report can be saved in PDF format and emailed to your vendors, or a report can be shared with a colleague.  NCR Counterpoint has many view screens built-in to allow you to see the data on screen that you might normally view on paper.

Use Less Power – If you have been thinking about adding a new register or having a sidewalk sale, rather than purchasing a new terminal, consider using NCR Counterpoint Mobile instead.  NCR Counterpoint Mobile runs off your IPhone, Ipad or IPod and uses far less power than a traditional terminal while still allowing you to ring sales.

Recycle Gift Cards and Employee Cards – If you are using the Gift Card feature built into NCR Counterpoint, you have the ability to reuse the physical plastic card. When a customer spends their gift card, simply ask them if you can recycle it.After a reasonable amount of time (around 30 days), you can “purge” or “delete” that gift card number from the system, and re-use the card.

Use Green Marketing – By using an email marketing system, like NCR Counterpoint’s Customer Connect, your marketing becomes very eco-friendly. Again, you’re using electronic forms instead of paper mailings reduces consumption. Of course, you’re going to save money on postage as well.  An added bonus with NCR Customer Connect is the ability to segment your customers based on data from your NCR Counterpoint system.

Text versus reports – NCR Counterpoint’s Smart Alert tool will replace many printed reports by sending you text or email messages. Most retailers print some kind of flash sales report daily, so why not have that data sent in text or email? Or, instead of printing security reports, receive a text or email telling you that an excessive number of tickets were voided and act immediately when a potentially fraudulent situation occurs.  There are many other options available with Smart Alerts.Another such option is alerting you if a register is not open at a certain time, or if your End Of Day or Credit Card Settlements have been processed.

There are many other ways that NCR Counterpoint can help you go or stay green.  If you would like more information, call the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department at 800.672.4806 or email us!

-Bryan

From KOMONEWS

Before Google and Bing, there was once a search engine called AltaVista.  Do you remember?  Well on Monday, it was shutdown by its owners.

Once up on a time, there was a popular search engine called AltaVista. It lives no more.

On Monday, its owner Yahoo Inc. sent AltaVista.com to the Internet graveyard to rest alongside order-almost-anything venture Kozmo.com and the butler from Ask Jeeves.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based AltaVista was introduced in 1995, three years before Google Inc. was founded. Eclipsed by Google in the early 2000s, AltaVista’s star had already faded by the time Yahoo acquired it as part of its $1.7 billion purchase of Overture Services Inc. in July 2003. Overture had bought AltaVista earlier that year from Massachusetts-based CMGI Inc.

Yahoo announced AltaVista’s fate on its Tumblr page late last month. Search industry expert Danny Sullivan likened AltaVista to a bright child neglected by its parents.

"You were loved. You really were," Sullivan wrote in a blog post eulogizing the site. "People did not want to leave you. But despite adding new features, some of which Google copied, you couldn’t keep up with the pace and innovation of that company, which decided against becoming a portal like your corporate masters ordered for you."

Indeed, AltaVista’s decline began after it expanded to become more like Yahoo, offering a bevy of online services instead of sticking solely with search. By the time the site reversed course, it was too late. Its finances were sinking and Google was on the rise.

Yahoo’s June 28 announcement of AltaVista’s end is brief. It’s buried as the eighth item on a list of other services the company is shutting down. Along with the mention of AltaVista’s July 8 expiration date, the post says only: "Please visit Yahoo Search for all of your searching needs."

According to data from online research firm comScore, most people in the U.S. use Google for their search needs, followed by Microsoft’s Bing. Yahoo is in third place.

-Bryan

Summer PC Cleaning Regiment.

Its that time of year again.  Summer!! So what does that mean? Well for most of us it will be warmer out. Which means your PC will get warmer also. As I have explained before, your PC does not like the heat. Its time to clean out your PC of all the dust bunnies that have built up since last time it was cleaned.

Overheating can cause all types of weird errors.  Blue Screens, application errors, printer errors, and PC shutdowns without notice.

Make sure you shutdown and unplug your PC before you start cleaning it.  Pulling off the side cover and using some canned air will make sure all the dust build up gets cleaned from your PC so the fans will properly cool the electronics.

NEVER use a vacuum cleaner to clean your PC, unless it blows out and not suck in.  Small pieces like jumpers could accidentally be sucked up if you are not careful.

If you are not comfortable cleaning your PC out,  give the CCS Retail Systems Support Department a call at 800.672.4806 so we can schedule a time to come clean your PC’s and Servers.  You can even email us!!

-Bryan

Smartphone Theft Wildfire

Excerpted From KOMONEWS

The top prosecutors in San Francisco and New York planned Thursday to announce the formation of a nationwide initiative and coalition of police, prosecutors and other officials in an attempt to thwart a surge in smartphone thefts.

Officials said San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were set to launch what they call the Secure Our Smartphones Initiative at a New York news conference on Thursday.

The coalition includes prosecutors, police and political officials and consumer advocates from more than a dozen states and intends to put pressure on smartphone companies and their shareholders to help dry up the secondary market in stolen phones.

The announcement comes on the same day Gascon and Schneiderman are scheduled to co-host a "Smartphone Summit" with representatives from major smartphone makers Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Among the moves the prosecutors seek is the industry-wide introduction of a "kill switch" that would render stolen phones worthless.

Apple said at a conference of web developers this week that such a feature would be part of its iOS7 smartphone software to be released in the fall. Gascon and Schneiderman said in a statement they were "appreciative of the gesture" but would reserve judgment until they could "understand its actual functionality."

Almost 1 in 3 robberies nationwide involves the theft of a mobile phone, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

"The epidemic of violent street crime involving the theft and resale of mobile devices is a very real and growing threat in communities all across America," Schneiderman said in a statement. "According to reports, roughly 113 smartphones are stolen or lost each minute in the United states, with too many of those thefts turning violent."

In New York, police have coined the term "Apple-picking" to describe thefts of the popular iPhone and other mobile products like iPads.

Although there are apps available to wipe, lock and track your phone, there is nothing stopping someone from re-installing the firmware or resetting your phone back to factory defaults and reselling your phone on the blackmarket.  I think this functionality is a step in the right direction.

-Bryan

New PC does NOT connect to the LAN

Over the past few month, i have replaced some older PC’s with newer more powerful one’s.  I have noticed that some of these new PC’s have network problems after connecting them to the network.  The cause seems to be older network infrastructure.  

Newer PC’s come with Gigabit network cards, most older network equipment such as "Hubs" (as opposed to switches) seem to have a problem with these faster network cards.

The symptoms vary.  At first, browsing the network and connecting to shared resources seem fine, but trying to access or surf the web seems to be where the problem is.  The PC looks as if it will show the page, but nothing ever comes up.  I’ve recently seen a newer PC cause slowness for other PC’s trying to browse the Internet.

The solution is quite simple, and depending on your network, can be reasonably cheap.  Replacing the older "Hubs" with "switches" have worked every time so far.  We can provide these for you and make sure you get the correct products at the best prices.

Although the 2 devices (hub and switch) do the same thing, they are different in a few ways.  Switches cause less traffic on the network, plus it can handle the flow of data from Gigabit equipped PC’s.

A temporary workaround can be to slow down the new PC’s network card (yes!!, there are ways to do this). This has worked for me on several occasions until a switch can be put in place of an older hub.

Keep this in mind when planning to replace an older PC with a more powerful newer one.  You may want to check with you IT department to see if the infrastructure can handle it.

If you need replacement equipment or have any system or infrastructure questions or other concerns, call the CCS Retail Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan

Did you know you can print QR codes on your shelf labels? 

Whats a QR code you ask?
 
Well QR Codes were originally designed for industrial uses, QR codes have become common in consumer advertising. Typically, a smartphone is used as a QR-code scanner, displaying the code and converting it to some useful form (such as a standard URL for a website, thereby obviating the need for a user to type it manually into a web browser).

For example, a recent support call from a liquor store customer asked about QR Codes on labels for their shelves so customers can "scan" it with their phone to get more information about the product.  His example was Jim Beam bourbon, that when the code was scanned it would bring your phones web browser to the products "official" page on the Jim Beam website.

The one caveat is that you will need to use an empty field in the items setup to insert the URL.  Most URL’s (or web address) are fairly short, for example "www.jimbeam.com", but when trying to get to a specific page that is not the home page, they can become quite long.  By using the additional descriptions fields on the item, it will allow up to 50 characters which should be plenty for most web URL’s.  But you are not limited to the Internet.  If you have your own website, the QR Code can be set to point to your own description along with any other extra information. Or it can point to a picture of the item with other items that might go well with it.  Using the liquor store example, the QR Code, when scanned, can show a picture of the product with any mixers that may be available, or even a shot glass if you prefer.

The possibilities are endless!!!

If you have any system questions or concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan

From Fox News

Happy birthday, world wide web!

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee developed a technology to help physicists in universities and institutes around the world share information. On April 30, 1993, the European science agency CERN — where Berners-Lee worked — officially made Berners-Lee’s W3 software public domain, letting the public at large access it.

Yadda yadda yadda: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the rest.

‘I was lucky enough to invent the Web at the time when the Internet already existed.’

– Tim Berners-Lee

“There is no sector of society that has not been transformed by the invention, in a physics laboratory, of the web,” Rolf Heuer, CERN director general, said in a statement. “From research to business and education, the web has been reshaping the way we communicate, work innovate and live. The web is a powerful example of the way that basic research benefits humankind.”

To help celebrate what they label “the birth of the web,” CERN has launched a project to preserve and recreate the digital assets associated with the birth of the web.

“For a start we would like to restore the first URL — put back the files that were there at their earliest possible iterations. Then we will look at the first web servers at CERN and see what assets from them we can preserve and share,” the agency writes on a website associated with the project.

That website — the first in the world — was hosted on Berners-Lee’s NeXT computer, a cutting edge computer from the company of the same name that was built by Steve Jobs after he left Apple. The website described the basic features of the web; how to access other people’s documents and how to set up your own server.

The NeXT machine — the original web server — is still at CERN, the agency said. But the world’s first website was no longer online at its original address, the world’s first URL: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Up until this morning, it simply redirected the browser to CERN’s front page. In honor of the 20^th anniversary, that URL is back up and running, using the archived copy of the site that CERN has kept on its server the whole time.

For the record, Berners-Lee — who is often called The Godfather of the Internet — did not “invent” the Internet, and is quick to dispel any such rumors. In a post on his website, he explains the distinctions between the web protocol he developed and the larger Internet.

“I was lucky enough to invent the Web at the time when the Internet already existed — and had for a decade and a half. If you are looking for fathers of the Internet, try Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn who defined the “Internet Protocol” (IP) by which packets are sent on from one computer to another until they reach their destination.”

Also for the record, no word on whether Al Gore baked a birthday cake.

Excerpted from Fox News

CTRL+S (Save)
There are dozens of shortcuts, from pressing Ctrl+A to select everything in a window to pressing Ctrl+B to make selected text bold. Press Ctrl+F to find a word in a document or web page. When you want to print something, press Ctrl+P. (Most of the shortcuts are the same on a Mac, except you use the CMD key instead of the CTRL key.)

The first thing I stress to anyone learning to use a computer is SAVE YOUR WORK OFTEN! You never know when the program you’re using, or your entire computer, is going to crash.

For the last decade, many programs have included auto-save features that save your work every 5 to 10 minutes. That’s fine as a last resort, but I still prefer to make a habit of manual saving. It comes in handy when you use programs that don’t have auto-save.

That’s why the CTRL+S shortcut is so handy. It works in nearly every program in existence and takes only a fraction of a second to type. You don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard and move the mouse cursor up to the Save icon.

When writing, I generally press CTRL+S after every few paragraphs I type or whenever I pause for a new thought.

CTRL+Z (Undo)
One of the best things about using a computer for content creation is the Undo feature. With a typewriter, handwriting or traditional photo manipulation, undoing a mistake is a major process.

With a computer, the Undo button gives you the freedom to experiment and make mistakes, and then change things back if you don’t like it. I use it all the time when creating labels or adding logos to reciepts.

Many computer users don’t even realize the Undo feature exists.

Using the CTRL+Z shortcut, you can undo a mistake very quickly. Hitting CTRL+Z several times will often undo the last several changes. If you go too far back, hit CTRL+Y to Redo

CTRL+C (Copy), CTRL+V (Paste)
Another joy of using a computer is copying and pasting. It makes moving text, photos, files, folders and everything else a breeze.

Every program has Copy and Paste icons, and if you right-click on files and folders in Windows, you’ll see Copy and Paste as options. For those who do a lot of copying and pasting, however, the keyboard shortcuts are a big time-saver.

Just use the mouse to select what you want to copy, hit CTRL+C, click the mouse where you want to paste, and hit CTRL+V. You’re done!

Bonus tip: In cases where you want to move something instead of copy it, use CTRL+X (Cut) instead of CTRL+C.

CTRL++(Zoom in)
Thanks to larger, high-resolution monitors for laptops and desktops, many websites and programs are hard to read. The text just looks too small.

Instead of moving closer to the screen and squinting, hit CTRL++ (that’s a plus sign) a few times. This will increase the zoom level in most browsers and some programs. To zoom out again, just hit CTRL+- (that’s a minus sign). To reset the zoom level to 100 percent, hit CTRL+0 (that’s a zero).

Bonus tip: If you already have one hand on your mouse, you can also hold CTRL and scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

CTRL+ALT+DEL (also known as “the 3-finger salute”) or CMD+OPT+ESC (OS X)

Years ago, this was the first keyboard shortcut most people learned. In the olden days of computers, it rebooted your computer if it was acting up, which happened quite a bit. You could solve a lot of problems with these three keys.

Bonus history: CTRL+ALT+DEL was first added to computers in the ’80s by David Bradley, an engineer at IBM. He wanted a quick way to reboot test systems that were locked. Ironically, he never intended for the public to actually use it.

-Bryan

With the end of security patches and updates for Windows XP its time to consider upgrading because Hackers are constantly coming up with new methods of compromising users’ systems, and a lack of security updates from Microsoft will only make it easier to do so. There may be independent XP from the security community, but tech-savvy users generally migrated away from Windows XP (at least as their primary system) a long time ago.

The easiest way to avoid security vulnerabilities after XP’s updates slip quietly into the night will be to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. Unfortunately, the system requirements on newer versions of Windows are considerably higher than those for XP. Vista and Windows 8 in particular are notorious resource hogs.

Even if you choose not to update, there are still a number of ways to protect yourself from security vulnerabilities. Be sure to stay current with Windows Updates until April 2014, and run regular anti-virus and malware scans after that. Stay away from suspicious websites and email attachments. Even on older systems, a judicious application of common sense will prevent the vast majority of system exploits.

For business users and others with lots of sensitive data, general caution and hoping for the best is probably not the best strategy. It may be time to invest in a new OS. If your desktop can’t run it, then it’s time to save up for a new computer.

For a system and software review, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Depart Department at 800.672.4806 or email us.

-Bryan