Category: Internet

Panatech PX-500 PCMCIA Sprint EVDO BroadBand Card

Paul

[ad#tmi-right-1-1]The Pantech PX-500 wireless mobile broadband card for Sprint gives you data communication access for your PC laptop anywhere you roam on the Sprint network at faster speeds than ever before. EV-DO rev A compatibility gives you download speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps and beefy upload speeds of up to 1.8 Mbps. Simple to use, the Pantech PX-500 wireless mobile broadband card lets you surf the Internet, send and receive email and text messages, and connect to corporate networks from just about anywhere.

Technical Specs:

  • Dimensions – 4.57 in x 2.13 in x 0.51 in

  • Weight – 1.8 oz

  • Data Download Speed – EV-DO rev A (Up to 3.1 Mbps Down/1.8 Mbps Up), EV-DO rev 0 (2.4 Mbps Down/153 Kbps Up), 1xRTT

  • Download Protocol – CDMA 850, 1900

  • Compatible Carrier – Sprint PCS

  • Network Compatibility – CDMA 850, 1900

  • 3G Data Speeds – Yes

Compatibility Features

  • Device Supports Data Plans – Yes

  • Available For Purchase Without Service Plan – Yes

Saw this card and did a little digging.  I looks like the newest updated software and drivers for this card can also make it Vista and Linux compatible.   Although with any card you will use up more battery life but it is a small price to pay to check email and surf the web. Also if you have an newer laptop or am about to upgrade I’d suggest Getting a Sierra Wireless Compass 597 USB Modem from Sprint! This is good for anyone who wants to surf the web and not have to buy the hardware to do it with.  Both are free to buy and ship with a two year contract. If in doubt please get the USB card that way you know you know you will be able to use it.

Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

Paul

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

[ad#ad2-right]These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

So How do you backup your data? This is controversial and somewhat depends on how much people want to spend to keep there data safe and not loose pictures or music. There are several ways to do it, each way has it’s pitfalls or short comings and requires a little more effort:

Kinds of Backup

Hard Medium – DVD, CD, External Hard drive

Although,  The hard medium is usually used that doesn’t mean you can have a backup other than hard.   Here are some ways to back up on the internet.

Internet Medium:

  • Jungle Disk — Provides online storage through the Amazon s3 service.   Only pay for what you use.   It works well with most Operating system.  I’ve used it on Vista so it is really nice.

  • Carbonite Online backup –Another good Online storage.

  • Some Other Online backup — Here a list from Amazon to better help you find the type of software that you might need.

These are just a few options, if you want to look for other you can.  The important thing to do is BACKUP because if you need some data that gets wiped or destroyed.  You will be kicking yourself for not backing up.

Microsoft to Release KB961051 on the Dec 17, 2008

Paul

According to McAfee and I will quote:

December 16, 2008: Microsoft has announced an out-of-cycle patch release for a critical, remote-code-execution, vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer (CVE-2008-4844). The patch, to be released on December 17, will address the vulnerability across multiple versions on Internet Explorer running on supported Windows platforms.

[via McAfee Threat Center]

[ad#ad2-right]From what I am understanding it will be KB961051 and will be a critical update on all Windows platforms.  Microsoft issued a security advisory for this on there Technet support website.   This will probably be put online sometime tomorrow and will be available to download after 10am PST although this is just a rumor because when I go to that article they talk about the work around and how to fix it temporary until they release the patch.  This is releated to the IE Vulnerability that is in the wild and has been causing havok on the internet.

Signs of a Computer Infection!

Paul

So I was thinking this morning what I missed and I totally missed on how you might be able to tell if you have a computer virus. It does me no good to talk about a virus if you don’t know you’re infected. I was thinking of the times I had a client who had trouble but wasn’t what I thought.

So How do you know?

Some people would say it depends on factors but here are what I call clues that make me suspect a virus:[ad#ad2-right]

  1. Slow or Sluggish computers —  Here is what I know if the computer is really slowing down and have a dual core or quad core.  If you are running a system and sees a lot of hard drive activity even when the computer is idle then it might be a virus or it could be a program doing what it is supposed to be doing.  So this is somewhat of an indication but not always.

  2. Slow internet connection on the computer or on the network — Due to the fact that most people have a router that is connected to all the computers and if you internet connection on all your systems are slower than normal then you could have a virus.  I use Speed Test website to help determine this.

  3. Corrupt files or Missing files —  Sometimes you have a text documents or files that are missing and you have to pay to get them back.   It’s an old scheme and usually once your files have been encrypted you can’t get them unencrypted.  So this is why I added this one also because it varies from virus to virus.

  4. Programs don’t work like they used to —  This is also a very common association with a virus because virus makers don’t have time to test it out on a variety.   Most of the time if you get a call that a program is no longer working tat would be the first thing I’d look at, if not check to see what other programs have been installed lately.

  5. In some cases more files are the Hard drive —  This can be a indication of a virus because the virus might be using the system to host files or other such illegal activity.   Although this is happening less and less it can still be a possibility and should be checked out.   I like to use a graphical tree size program to determine if that is the truth.

  6. Pop ups or Browser redirects — this is a common thing along the way.  It’s always the same and saying something like “you have a virus” or “You unprotected and you might have a virus”.  The theme here is to scare the user into buying there product that does not do anything.   It sometimes even looks like a real anti-virus program or spyware program but in truth it is just a scam.  In some cases it will send you to a site because it keeps wanting you to buy the product.

  7. DNS Changes on you — Some hackers like to have you go through there server so they can watch everything you do online.  They are wanting to get the sensitive information of bank account, and other important accounts.  This is really the ones that need to get off your system asap.

[ad#ad2-left]These are the signs I’ve seen in the past that would indicate a virus but as with any problem.  You will need to check for all the possibilities.   It is always going to be an issue with people because most people don’t know about the signs, now you do and you can now be a better computer user.  It is you who can only fight viruses by knowing all the possible system and only you can defeat a virus.  In the next article I will talk about the tools to help you find and defeat a virus.   This will be a big blog post because I have so much to teach and explain.   If you like these post by all means leave a comment and help spread the word.

Cricket Wireless Broadband Card — How to get better speed!

Paul1 Reply

After buying the card last month,  I did a quick review about the broadband card. I wanted to talk about the speed problems that I had when I first used the modem.  Here is how to possibly getting better speeds when you use your card.   First off, you will need to disconnect from the internet and go to your quicklink mobile application:

cricket-wireless

You will click on “Tools”  and then hit ‘Activation’.   If you have it fail on your the first time you should reboot your system then try to do the activation after reboot that should fix the activation problem.
newspeedtestAs you can see after I did the activation of the modem, my speed went way up from the last review.  I thought I should talk about how you could possibly fix this.  I called tech support over this to get a better speed.  

This is where I learned about the activation.  If you move or go to another City or travel to far, you will need to tell the modem that there is a new tower closer to you.   It seemed to of really boosted my performance when I go to places on the internet.   So if you come up with some cool tips or tricks to help others by all means leave a comment. After this problem is fixed and the speed seems to be coming more and more, I’d like to recommend everyone who reads this article to go buy the A600. It is really a fast little modem and more reliable to boot. My other review was incomplete because of the speed problems I had but now it is fixed and I am really happy!!!