Managed Solutions

Joe Reviews SB10-242 Cert Report (Video)

Here is a review of this weeks Cert Advisory. This includes issues with Adobe products, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Be sure to update these products if you haven't recently. This is a weekly feature here at Managed Solutions. If you have questions about this video post a comment here or ask on our Facebook Fan Page.

Powerpoint Tip Slideshow in a Window (Video)

Ever try to record a screencast of a Powerpoint presentation? If you have you may have noticed like I did that you cannot easily run the presentation slideshow within a window small enough for a practical screencast. After doing some research I discovered that there are some not so well documented features for Powerpoint 2007/2010 that will allow you to run your presentation in a window. This would be particularly useful if you were doing some kind of mashup.

Dr. Dan wants to buy Real Estate (Phishing)

We're paid to be paranoid here at Managed Solutions. When this message arrived in my inbox today it was a rarity. Rare because it is one of very few phishing Emails that have bypassed my anti-spam mechanisms. Phishing is a process by which a criminal pretends to be a legitimate entity in an effort to gain passwords, identity, bank account or other private data. Here is the text of the message: I am interested in purchasing a private residence in your country or in any country you are well-acq...

Joe Reviews SB10-221 Cert Report (Video)

Here is a review of this weeks Cert Advisory. This update contains issues with Apple iTunes, Safari and Mozilla Firefox. Be sure to update these products if you haven't recently. This is a weekly feature here at Managed Solutions. If you have questions about this video post a comment here or ask on our Facebook Fan Page.

Using the proper Importance Flag with Email

I received an Email Friday from a friend, I receive a lot of Email so sometimes I don't get a chance to review non critical business Email until I have some free time. This morning while responding from the message I realized that part of the message involved a timely issue for Friday evening. The title did not indicate it and the message was flagged normally. This incident was a reminder to me of the usefulness and etiquette of the Importance options with Email correspondence. Here is my interp...

Plague of Adobe Acrobat and Reader Vulnerabilities Continues

I seem to write a post on this once a month minimum. When I opened this weeks Cert advisory there were 14 9.3 vulnerabilities for Adobe Reader and Acrobat. This plague of vulnerabilities and the related exploits that have popped up remind me of Internet Explorer 5 years ago. So here at Managed Solutions we are once again advising our clients to apply any updates to Adobe products when prompted or to exercise extra caution with .pdf files. Here is the menacing list of vulnerabilities announced on...

Quick Tip MrFixit for Windows Update Issues

Have you ever encountered errors with Windows Update or had it just stop prompting you all-together? This might be the solution to your problem. Either way it is a web page at Microsoft that will provide the right tool depending on what Operating system you are running. To run the utility navigate to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058 and click on the Microsoft Fix It icon or link: You will have one option that can be selected, only use this option if the first attempt without it che...

Update your iTunes or face potential exploitation

While reviewing this weeks CERT summary I noticed three vulnerabilities with a risk rating of 10 which is the highest. With the wide distribution of the iTunes software, these vulnerabilities have potentially serious ramifications. Since they involve remote code execution it is prudent that any and all users of iTunes upgrade to version 9.2 or newer. You can check the version you are running via help/about in the program menu. Here is a partial screen-shot of this portion of the Cert advisory fo...

Anatomy of a Phishing Email

I encountered a great opportunity this evening, the opportunity to share an inside look of a Phishing Email. What is Phishing? "In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." - Wikipedia What I noticed was an Email purportedly from Bank of America telling me that there was an "Accoun...

Speakeasy Business Voice Enchancements

Managed Solutions is a Speakeasy VOIP Certified partner, and we provide these services to many of our customers. Speakeasy notified us today of some significant improvements going into effect in May. We are pleased to announce starting May 5th customers will have the ability to make the following changes to their Business Voice account: o Edit a user’s - Phone number - Extension - Directory name - User name o Reset - User’s voice mail pass code - User’s voice web portal passwo...