I hate computers!!

Long ago, it became painfully obvious there were two professions expected to give free advice- doctors and electronics technicians. In the days when home electronics were repairable, you were not safe at a party or out in public before someone ambushed you and began pumping for free assistance. Times have not changed much except now their problems are with computers. So, your “buddy†calls and complains his daughter’s computer is crashing and he will drop it off for you to fix- but try not erase any files because she hasn’t backed up anything. From 1 pm yesterday to 3 am this morning and then from 9:30 am today until… well it is 6 pm and still trying to track down and eliminate all of the virus/malware infections.

Shop time has been non-existant  this week. Here is a picture of an old project that may be useful to you or a family member who wears hearing aids. Mine is on my keychain so it is always handy when the batteries die.

 

The holder is made from maple and walnut. The brass rod is a piece of brazing rod peened over on one end, inserted thru a hole in the back of the holder and captured by a spring ring which also attaches the holder to a key ring. The threads were cut with a metal working tap and die.

 

This week’s web site is another of my favorites because of the diversity of the material. The link will take you to lathe specific material but please take some time to investigate other areas.

http://woodgears.ca/lathe/homemade.html

Hope you find the site interesting.

Don't forget to post your projects and ideas!

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

Thanks, Charles!

I've pulled the batteries and about everything else that's not soldered down. I have it working but the AV is constantly blocking attempts to access malicious sites even when the browser's not open. It's a back door Trojan buried somewhere in the registry. Malwarebytes find/deletes it only to have it back on restart.

 

Charles Nicholls said:

OK I see a need to jump in here a bit although it will probably take 5 minutes to type because of the bad keyboard.

 

Love the design on this one Lew.

Don't forget to pull the battery from the laptop if it is accessible (while the computer is off) to get rid of any memory resident viruses.

Yep, I was a computer tech for several years and built my own a few times. I had to pull the battery more than once for this reason

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Charles Nicholls
Site Host
nicholls61@att.net
http://www.nichollswoodworks.com
This website is new so it doesn't have much to it yet but you are welcome to take a look

Believe it or not, I think I finally got t. At least the AV hasn't popped up any warnings now for about 20 minutes. It was an svchost.exe that kept on redirecting the browser along with rootkit.boot.pihar.b. I think I downloaded and ran every antivirus/malware program on the internet. Each one found a little more. Now just need to turn SystemRestore back- which the owner turned of and really made things difficult.

 

Charles Nicholls said:

Then yea its definitely stuck in the registry, and i don't suppose it gives any clue as to what program caused it? If so you may be able to skate by by removing all references to that program.

Unfortunately this may be one of those situations where everything is a loss, if they have not donea backup recently you may have no choice but to format and start over without backup.

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Charles Nicholls
Site Host
nicholls61@att.net
http://www.nichollswoodworks.com
This website is new so it doesn't have much to it yet but you are welcome to take a look

Lew,

I just went through a computer that had a virus called Easy Hook Trojan Malware. It gets into the registry, master boot record, and will also infect the restore partition to the point it is useless. It makes it so the restore discs that you make when you first get an HP product will not be recognized by the PC. Very Nasty Virus. The only recourse was to wipe the drive, reformat and start over. I thought I had it fixed by using a full install disc of Windows 7 to do a repair, only to have the virus come back again after two weeks.

I contacted HP and when I told them the virus's name, they informed me the only recourse was to wipe the drive and start over, otherwise it would be back again. So the owner bought restore disks from HP, and so far so good. From what the HP tech told me this particular virus plays hide and seek, but because it also infects the restore partition the only sure cure is to wipe and reformat the drive. He said that from what they have discovered it is a self replicating virus and unless the drive is wiped clean, and reformatted it will return. I don't know how but it can hide in a drive image (restore partition)

The calls I really like are the ones when the person expects you to fix it over the phone!

Larry

OWWM Forum Host

I will be surprised if this one is actually fixed!

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!