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Information Technology Corner

Advice and commentary on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of IT & Internet. ============================================================

Today's Topic:

Beware of virus creators and hackers paddling antivirus software on the net

True story, and you have to absolutely watch out.

Just before Christmas, I was looking for some nice holiday clipart on the net. Suddenly, a big Microsoft security screen popped up warning me that my computer was infected by a list of viruses. The site offered me an untivirus software to download and install immediately to remove the so called viruses. However, I knew better and called their bluff.

Essentially this was a site getting me to install their malware. From that point on, they could do a number of things ranging from infecting my computer to collecting my usernames and password for everything including banking. A friend who didn't know any better proceeded to install one such program and the computer stopped working.

Moral of the story: never download and install antivirus or any other security software offered over the Internet. All you need to do is ensure you have a reputable antivirus running on your computer and update the virus signatures (or DAT files) very frequently.

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Today's Murphy's Law

Among economists, the real world is often a special case

Assessing Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics
Oh, what two weeks and some it has been! Simply know as the Vancouver 2010, after a couple of days of stumbles, tragedy and bad press, the Olympics finally steadied. And what a party it has been.
Own the podium? Well, not quite, but you could say Canada more or less did with her lead in gold medals. For that matter, the most gold by a Olympics host country. Not bad, eh!

More important, Canada beat US in hockey finals in OT. Thaaaat is good enough for me!
I'm a realist. There will be a hang-over and financial migraine headaches for especially British Columbians. Hopefully, it doesn't take us 30 years to pay the bill s Montreal did.
For now, enjoy. Oooooh Canada!