Scammers are trying to trick Windows users into paying to fix bogus hard drive errors that have apparently erased important files, a researcher said today.

The con is a variant of "scareware," also called "rogueware," software that pretends to be legitimate but actually is just a sales pitch based on spooking users into panicking. Most scareware masquerades as antivirus software. Users are getting wise to the fake infection messages, so the malware writers created a new message, with a new, authentic-looking popup picture, to scare people into coughing up their money.

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Backup Tips for the 21st Century: Backup procedures so easy, your Mom could (and should) do it

This guide is not specifically geared toward IT pros. Rather, this is a guide that you should give to anyone and everyone you know with a computer. IT backup and restore procedures will be significantly different than this. This is for "regular Joe and Jane" with one, two or maybe three computers in the house. You never know what is going to happen to your data. There are seven things you need to do to keep absolutely safe. If you did just one, you would still be better off than most people. Doing all seven is a near guarantee you will not be "up the creek when the water really hits."

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A few years back, social networking (SN) was just for kids. Sites such as MySpace and Facebook were used primarily by teenagers and college students to interact with friends. Now as we approach the second decade of the twenty-first century, social networking has grown up and entered the mainstream. Everybody who’s anybody has at least dabbled in it, and the demographics are definitely changing. People of all ages, from eight to eighty, are using social networking sites.

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What is Cloud Computing? Well, what is the Cloud for that matter?

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We have become aware of yet another phishing attack. Phishing is the process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy source in an email.

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