Month: June 2009

19
Jun
2009

Review: Dells Warranty

So, I have a friend who bought a Dell, I told her to buy a Mac, she said she was going to buy a Mac, then someone at the last minute convinced her into getting a Dell.

No Problem, Dells aren’t *too* bad I figured (despite having 3 friends with other random issues with their Dell laptops).

The problem is, her Escape key broke. Not only did the key break off, but it broke IN HALF. Even with 30 kids in a computer lab for upto 5 hours a day banging away at keyboards, I have never seen a key actually break in half.  Thing is, she didn’t really put any stress on the key anyway, so it appears that either Dell is making their keyboards out of crap, or it’s a fluke that it broke.

She lodged a call with Dell to get it replaced. My first thoughts were that they would either send her a new key to click on, or tell her to take it to an authorised repairer where they will conduct the repair. This wasn’t the case however. She indicated to the person arranging the warranty that she was an intermediate computer user.

Time Line:
12th – Submitted support request via Email
15th – Reply from Dell asking for a photo of the Key – Reply with photo sent off on this day
16th – Email back from Dell saying they will replace the part
17th – Replacement Part Sent
18th – Replacement Part arrived
19th – Taken to me to install for her

Total time: 6 days.   Not too bad really.

keyboardThey sent her a replacement keyboard and an addressed package to mail the return part back in. No instructions on how to install the keyboard either. With no clue on how to install the keyboard, she brought it to me.  I had a quick poke at it to see if it was one of the easy types of keyboard to get it (the pull it back a bit and it just pops out type). But no, it was screwed in somewhere.  I turned to the service manual. (took me a few minutes to find that too…)

Following the instructions I was able to work most of it out, however there was one unclear step:

Disconnect the keyboard cable from the keyboard connector on the system board by rotating the keyboard connector latch towards the front of the computer.

insideAfter scratching my head and looking at the unclear diagram I worked out that the step was wrong. You have to flick the latch to the BACK of the computer (white bit is lifted upwards and swings back).   There’s no way that that is an “Intermediate Computer User” repair job.

Thankfully everything worked fine.

working

In Summary – How good is Dell Warranty?
Speed: 8/10
Quality of Service: 3/10
Overall: 5/10

Posted by duck in IT Issues, Reviews
02
Jun
2009

“HELP MY MSN GOT HACKED” – What you can do!

Update: 27/1/17 – MSN Messenger is gone now. This page is no longer relevant.

Quite often I will see a friend of mine has had their MSN account hacked, the hacked account will then send out spam to all their contacts that will look something like this:

2:46:51 AM ***Name Removed***: phewww +o( unbelivable, is that you??? who ever is it…is really similar to you lol …

http://***Link Removed***.com/pic_gallery.html

There are a few ways that your password can be stolen:

  1. Through a Key Logger on your computer – A program that is designed to record everything you type on the keyboard and sends it off to a computer somewhere else in the world. (Unlikely, but possible)
  2. A virus on your computer that is sending out the spam or stealing your password (also unlikely, but still common)
  3. An exploit that gains your password if you’ve got the “Remember Password” option ticked in MSN Messenger, this one most people don’t see coming and I’ve heard it is common on websites that have flash games on them. (Sorry, no source for this one, if you do find a source please leave a comment and let me know and I’ll update the post)
  4. Through a Phishing attack. This occurs when you come across a page asking for your MSN Account details, it could look exactly like the MSN Website. To check if you’re on the official MSN Webpage, it should have something like:  http://something.live.com/, if it’s not that, don’t enter your password.
  5. By clicking the link sent to you by someone from a hacked account. The link will be either a download, a phishing page or a malware infested page that does one of the things from above to get into your account.

The question is: What can I do about it?  Well here’s your answer:

First up, change your password!
You can do this by going to https://account.live.com this is the official MSN account management page.
This method usually stops most types of spam right away.

What if you have forgotten your password or it has changed?
On the Live Account management page, there is an option for forgotten password, click the link and follow the instructions there to reset your password. If you can’t remember your security question then there is nothing else you can do.

What Next?

There are some other extra things you can to do help protect yourself. If you don’t have any antivirus installed, I suggest you go get some ASAP. I recommend AVG, it’s free and seems to do the job quite well.

If you already have antivirus installed but you’re not quite sure if you can trust it, it helps to get a second opinion, the Panda Security Active Scan is a good free scanner that does a good job at removing anything major. Best of all, it doesn’t need to install itself to run, it runs entirely in your web browser.

Next, if you’re still using Internet Explorer, I suggest you get Firefox, it’s way more secure than Internet Explorer and acts as another layer of protection from certain Internet Explorer only exploits.

Windows Updates – If you have updates turned off on your computer, I suggest you at least go and update it once a month or so. The Windows Updates include patches that block a lot of the exploits that viruses use to get into your computer.
You can get to this by going: Start -> Control Panel -> Security -> Windows Update

These methods have helped keep my MSN account hack free and have worked for friends of mine to help them get their MSN accounts back in their control.

Ducky

Posted by duck in Home, How-To Guides, IT Issues