Another AVG false alarm

AVG Free appears to be falsely detecting soundcard drivers, sysaudio.sys, as being infected with the Trojan Dowloader.Delf.BUY

avg-false-alarm-2

If you delete or move these files to the virus vault, you will disable the sound on your system.

This is the third time in two months Grisoft have done this and they are losing credibility. There are plenty of free and paid for alternatives such as Avast! and AntiVir and it’s difficult to continue recommending AVG.

If you are receiving the message sysaudio.sys is infected with Dowloader.Delf and are concerned then download and run Malwarebytes or follow the Removing a Trojan instructions on the IT Queries webpage to check you aren’t infected with anything nasty.

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Closing early

shop-closedI’ve been a customer of my local Mail Boxes Etc branch since shortly after it opened 13 years ago.

While generally happy, one frustration I’ve had with them is they have a habit of closing early. Today they were closed 15 minutes earlier than their normal closing time.

In the last two working days before Christmas, this is madness as small business owners rush to get things done and pick up courier deliveries.

But what’s worse is they lost at least four customers. I saw two disappointed customers outside the firmly locked doors and while browsing in the newsagents next door, two customers came in wanting to use the photocopier as they couldn’t use the ones in MBE.

In these tough times, it’s crazy to be turning away customers and upsetting existing loyal customers.

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Apple and the recession

A couple of weeks ago I gave my opinions why Apple shouldn’t chase the Windows market down the cheap netbook path. Philip Elmer-DeWitt’s makes a similar comment on his Fortune blog quoting Turley Muller’s analysis of Apple’s prospects.

The big challenge for all businesses in this downturn is to focus on core values and products. For a company in Apple’s position, to be distracted by a venture into low margin, cheap products would be a terrible waste of management time and resources.

There’s no doubt Apple will be affected by this storm, they are going to lose sales and profits will suffer. The key to survival is to limit that damage and come through the other end with loyal customers and good products.

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Control freakery

Further to my earlier post about Apple pulling out of Macworld, CNBC opines they are doing it so they can control the messages, to quote;

The fact is, Apple hosting its own events gives the company complete and total control over its own message. More and more companies are leaving traditional trade shows in favor of enjoying the total spotlight at their own events. I’ve reported recently that some big names are either dramatically reducing, or exiting all together, the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.

If this is true then it’s a shortsighted policy by Apple and anyone else that thinks this way. The days of total control has passed, if it ever existed.

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Apple leaving Macworld

Apple’s decision to leave Macworld is strange and disappointing.

Macworld gives Apple a captive audience of dedicated fans. Any other business would kill for the same opportunity to roll out their new products to such an enraptured audience.

While there’s not doubt the Internet and the Apple Store channels have diluted the importance of the trade show, the Macworld event is still an important part of the tech industry’s calendar.

I’m a bit baffled why Apple would be doing this, I think it’s an asset they should treasure.

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Why you shouldn’t use Internet Explorer

Why you shouldn’t use Internet explorer

Last week’s zero day exploit is just getting worse and wise heads are advising users to ditch Internet Explorer.

This is good advice and I expand on that on the IT Queries site today with some alternatives to IE.

I tied the zero day exploit into my Smart Company column on Tuesday. It illustrates why you shouldn’t be diving on to the net straight after starting your computer from a two week break.

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Web 2.0 is dead?

Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter feed put me onto Peter Schwartz’s Death of Web 2.0 article.

It’s an interesting idea the future of web2.0 technologies rests in the hands of social networking sites like Facebook.

Facebook incurs most of Peter’s wrath and I can understand that countless hugs, vampire bites and who knows what else is banal, but 16 year olds getting sick of this sort of thing doesn’t affect the business model.

The real question is whether Facebook can make money from those kisses and “most people like you” surveys.

Personally I think they will struggle because, as Peter points out, people aren’t prepared to pay for this stuff.

Whether this means Facebook is doomed remains to be seen, however it’s clear the site is not worth 15 billion dollars and online advertising is going to decline with the rest of the economy.

I suspect Peter’s right about Facebook being way overvalued, as was MySpace, Second Life and countless other web 2.0 properties, but that’s simply the effect of the hype that surrounded this space over the last few years. It really has nothing to have nothing to the underlying web 2.0 technologies.

Peter has a good point about the sustainability of many of these sites and it’s going to be very interesting to see how the business models develop as try to convince users these services are worth paying for.

But to call the web 2.0 as being dead simply because some web sites fail is a bit of a long bow.

What may be true is the term “web2.0” is dying. That probably wouldn’t be a bad thing as it was a bad, overused label anyway.

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