Should I hit unsubscribe or not?

There are several things to consider in using the unsubscribe option, usually at the bottom of emails.  If the email is from a well-known site that you may have used at some time but no longer wish to see their marketing emails then using the unsubscribe is usually fine and will stop emails from that web-site. 

On the other hand, if this is from people or websites you never heard of be careful, some of these unsubscribe links are weaponized with Malware. It may look like it is unsubscribing you but you are clicking on at least 2 buttons to get there, potentially executing the Trojan.

There are ways to reduce spam, especially from bad actors. I will not go into that here but will post this week my top 5 best ways to reduce unwanted spam without having to hit unsubscribe. I will post in the Pelstar Forum. https://pelstar.com/forum/

This is a good read from Sophos.

Posted in Mike's Blog by bigmike.

Should I upgrade to Windows 11

First of all Windows 10 Is Supported Until October 2025.

We will be adding information regarding windows 11 as we see it, there is plenty of information about windows 11. We will add real world experience as we come across problems or issues. As with most OS changes Drivers have been the largest issue right now, audio and Video.

Posted in Mike's Blog by bigmike.

Hp Laptop Battery problems.

If you have a HP notebook check out the list below for possible battery problems.

HP said this week that it’s recalling about 50,000 consumer notebook batteries for free, which were originally sold as part of a HP notebook itself or as a standalone accessory. The company said it had received eight reports of those batteries “overheating, melting, or Getting Crispy.” Those reports included property damage and burns.
Specifically, the affected notebook models include the HP ProBooks (64x G2 and G3 series, 65x G2 and G3 series), the HP x360 310 G2, as well as the HP Envy m6, HP Pavilion x360, HP 11, HP ZBook (17 G3, 17 G4, and Studio G3) Mobile Workstations. The batteries were also sold as accessories or replacement batteries for the HP ZBook Studio G4 mobile workstation. In each case, the batteries could have been sold as part of the notebooks, or as replacements.
HP said the laptops and batteries had been distributed at popular retail outlets including Amazon, Best Buy, and HP.com., from December, 2015 though December, 2017. Although 50,000 of the affected batteries were sold within the United States, an additional 2,600 were sold within Canada, HP said.

Posted in Mike's Blog by bigmike.

Intellectual property theft is real. Turn off mass storage device on USB ports.

Turn off mass storage device on USB ports.

With the incredibly large size of thumb drives today Intellectual property theft is a real issue with even the smallest companies. Good management software can set this up and manage it to allow a thumb drive as needed. The software we use at Pelstar to control clients security and policies does this well, if you have an IT service provider ask them about it. It the past some of this software would cause problems with other USB devices such as keyboards and cameras. Now the software does a good job by automatically allowing devices that cannot be used as a mass storage device.
Here is a link to do it if you are in control of a domain using group policy.
https://prajwaldesai.com/how-to-disable-usb-devices-using-group-policy/

Here is how you do it on a single machine, WARNING! If you are not familiar with modifying permissions be very careful or you may block yourself out.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/823732/how-can-i-prevent-users-from-connecting-to-a-usb-storage-device

Posted in Mike's Blog by bigmike.

Is it worth to upgrade to an SSD

Many people are bringing new life to old machines by replacing the Spinner drive with an SSD, that’s a good thing.

If your computer has at least 4GB RAM (better to have 8) and has a cpu better than a dual core, (call me if you don’t know) you get impressive life out of older machines.

Posted in Mike's Blog by bigmike.