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Welcome to the 3nd Edition of SWI Community News!! This month we have a number of lists for you and my usual rant. We hope you enjoy our newsletter and invite you to comment. We would like to get an idea of how many people are reading our efforts and whether it is something you would like to see continue, so we ask that you respond to the poll here:
http://www.spywarein...howtopic=102687
We also want to know what you like, what you don't like and what you would like to see in future editions. Post a comment in to poll topic if you have some ideas. If you enjoy it and find it helpful, please let people know that it is here.
And here is the disclaimer:
Opinions and information expressed in this publication are not the responsibility of SpywareInfo.Com or it's owner, administrators or hosting services. Information and opinions posted here are the property of the respective author.
That also means that the material is subject to the copyright of the author and you need to cite the author if you quote any material from this publication elsewhere.
And as usual -- to get notification when a new SWI Community News is available, subscribe to the subscription topic and we will add notices of publishing to that topic so you will receive an email notice if you are set to receive notices of topics you are subscribed to.
And an announcement: By the time you read this, the forum will be upgraded to the latest version of Invision 2.3.x. The announcement of the upgrade promised a performance improvement. We'd love to hear if you have seen a difference. Obviously, the forum does look different, is it working any quicker/easier for you??
And, on a related note, the forum was upgraded by Maddoktor2 who is also dealing with a personal crisis involving finding homes for his cats... If you live in the Seattle area and might be able to take a cat, please send him a PM.
And now for your perusal:
Budfred's Rant
Computer psychics??
If you fight malware for a while, you begin to notice that many people want you to be psychic. People will give us only minimal information about a problem and expect us to know what is going on and tell them how to fix it. For example: "my computer has popups that are gross, what can I do to stop them??" If that were one comment among many, it might be enough. When it is the only comment, it requires that someone first guess whether or not it is a malware issue and then ask for more information. This delays the person who is asking for help from getting that help and it takes time from a helper who is probably struggling to keep up with an overwhelming number of requests for help. So what do we need from you in order to help you?? Here are 7 hints:
1. Read the FAQ -- We put a lot of effort into creating the FAQ to help you attempt to figure out your problem and to give us the information we need if you are not able to fix it yourself.
2. Tell the helper in detail what the problems are and let that helper know how things are evolving as you go through the fix for your problem. Keep in mind that the more clearly you describe the problem, the more effectively the helper can help you.
3. Read the pinned topics and descriptions of the forums. We end up spending a lot of time just moving topics to the correct forums since people ignore the big notices in red to not post HijackThis logs in that forum. Many of the questions you might ask are already answered and pinned at the top of the forums so that they don't need to be answered again.
4. Don't post in someone else's malware topic to say that you have a similar problem and will watch the responses to that topic. You can actually interfere with the other person receiving help when you do that.
5. Don't post offering help with malware issues unless you are a trained member of the SWI staff. We often waste time cleaning up problems created by people doing that, even when their intentions are honorable.
6. If you receive advice from someone who is not SWI staff, please do not follow it since it may make things worse. In addition to those who really want to help, not everyone is honorable, we have had malware criminals post instructions that will worsen or create infections.
7. If you see a post advertising a product posted in an SWI forum it is almost certainly not endorsed by SWI and it is likely to be a scam. If it is clearly a scam, such as ads for porn, commercial software or electronics, please send a Private Message to one of the Admins or Moderators so that we can deal with it promptly. If you decide to actually look into it, keep in mind that there is a good possibility that you will infect your computer, get ripped off and/or have your identity stolen.
Our esteemed Mother Lion, cnm, adds this comment:
When a SWI helper replies to your thread, do respond back. We need feedback! Here are some possible replies:
* That worked! everything fine now.
* That didn't work, I still have problems. Describe symptoms.
* I don't have time now, but I'll be back next week and do what you said.
* I didn't understand the instructions.
We need to know what works and what doesn't - you might have a new infection that we haven't seen before.. Your helper will suggest a different attack if the first one didn't work.
And we are always happy to hear that our help was effective.
