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McAfee Security Scan Problems

It was reported by one of our Windows XP users that they were getting a message from McAfee Security Scan® with a request to Check My Security Status. As we protect all of our Windows PCs using McAfee, this message was not out of place, and the user clicked Scan Now. The alarm bells started when the Security Scan reported that there was no anti-virus software installed, which just is not true.

A cursory glance (right click on the Shield in the system tools) shows that VirusScan Enterprise was alive and well on his machine, and the consol showed that the last auto-update was successful. Initial attempts to uninstall the unwanted program using Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs were unsuccessful. Googling the phrase How do I get rid of McAfee Security Scan turned up several suggestions involving booting into Safe Mode or installing anti-malware programs. There were also several suggestions that McAfee Security Scan is downloaded with an update to Adobe Reader, which our user had recently installed.

This is the removal method which worked for us:

  • Run msconfig using the Start, Run dialoge
  • When msconfig has loaded, click on the Startup tab
  • Find the entry for McAfee Security Scan, and uncheck the box
  • Then click on Apply

This will prevent the application from reloading next time you start up. Next you need to uninstall the application:

  • Call up Windows Task Manager
  • Click on the Applications tab
  • Click on McAfee Security Scan then click the End Task button
  • Fire up Control Panel then double click Add or Remove Programs
  • Wait a minute and McAfee Security Scan will relaunch and appear again in Task Manager, just like malware!
  • In Task Manager, click McAfee Security Scan, then End Task again
  • In Control Panel, immediately click Change for McAfee Security Scan, then Remove

If you have found this program installing itself without your conscious intent or consent we suggest that you voice your disapproval to Adobe. If enough people post their disapproval of this forced installation of annoying software to Adobe, they might just change their policy.

To any Adobe directors reading this, let me be the first to admit that you market some brilliant software, which is a credit to your company. Why risk your excellent corporate image with this offensive and shoddy software installation tactic?

For anyone else who is installing or upgrading Adobe Flash or Reader, take special note that there is an optional McAfee Scan listed in the installation that must be unchecked if you do not want to install McAfee Security Scan.

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MacBook Pro Dark Screen Rescue Sequence?

I was recently working on a MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with OSx 10.5.8) when the dreaded dark screen goblin paid a visit. I had actually left the machine to make a cup of coffee, and the screen was dark when I got back. Well not completely dark, as the faintest outline of the authenticate dialogue box was visible if you looked hard enough.

The unusual thing is, I could see that the machine was still running, as I had a second display plugged into the external graphics adaptor, and the screensaver had been showing there. Moving the mouse pointer to the second display stopped the screensaver, and I was able to successful log on, even though I could not see the main screen. This brought up the desktop on the external display, which showed that machine was still running.

After I Googled MacBook Pro Dark Screen, which showed lots of people have had the same problem, I concluded that there are a lot of expensive sounding fixes involving changing Screens, Inverters and Reed switches! I really want a simple, no cost, fix for the dark screen problem. I tried the recommended F5 keyboard backlit dim followed by F6 brighten sequence, but to no avail. I also tried a Command-Option-P-R sequence, as someone suggested that it might be a power management problem.

The idea that the MacBook Pro power management may have become confused gave me an idea. Yes I know that is anthropomorphism, but sometimes it helps to understand what is going at a higher level of abstraction, without bothering about details like facts. So having made that mental leap, I tried the following sequence:

  • Repeatedly press F5 until the keyboard went dark
  • Pull out the magnetic power connector.
  • Close the lid as if putting the MacBook Pro away for the night.
  • Open the lid and reinsert the power connector as if waking it up.

As if by magic, the machine sprang back to life and displayed the login box, and all was well. This was the first time I had experienced the dark screen without resorting to rebooting to fix it. Celebrations all round!

Now logic would suggest that pressing backlit buttons F5 and F6 could have no impact on the screen. Pulling out the magnetic power connector has never made a difference to the dreaded dark screen before, nor has closing the lid and reopening it. How about the sequence of steps, exactly as listed? Well I have never tried it before, in my recollection, so perhaps it is the sequence? We will see, next time the dark screen occurs.

In the meantime, if anybody actually knows what causes the dreaded MacBook Pro Dark Screen, or repeats my sequence and has it work for them, please let me know. You can click here to contact me via TechCo Support, or post a comment below.

Remember that all sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic! Have a Happy New Year!

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Advice at the Intersection of Work and Life

Featured WordPress blog: Brazen Careerist – Advice at the intersection of Work and Life

This week we are visiting a blog which is a wonderful place to draw inspiration if you are a writer or blogger, and highly entertaining for everyone, even if they are neither. It is titled Brazen Careerist, by Penelope Trunk, with the subtitle Advice at the intersection of Work and Life. It contains such gems as “if you want to be an idea person, you should sit down and write an idea first thing in the morning”.

Penelope Trunk is the founder of 3 internet companies, most recently Brazen Careerist, a social network to help young people manage their careers. As an entrepreneur she got a column in a national magazine and started giving advice in places like Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the London Times. Her career advice now appears in more than 200 newspapers.

As she points out in Penelope’s Guide to Blogging, a blog is a great way to figure out what you want to do with yourself because writing regularly is a path to self-discovery. For that blinding insight alone she deserves a visit, but believe me, the rest of the site is filled with the same sort of wisdom which bloggers, job seekers, and Internet savvy in general should be immersed in every day.

Another point she has made in her blog is that personal responsibility is the most important trait of a successful career. This is one right out of our business coaching manual and a sentiment we have been able to identify with in other ventures such as life coaching and presentation skills training.

Would be bloggers would befit from reading Penelope’s post entitled What makes a blog successful? This contains some interesting views about why you should blog; we might even make it required reading on our Getting Started With WordPress training!

To read more from this entertaining blogger, click here to visit Brazen Careerist

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How To Manage Themes in WordPress

One of the most frequent questions a new WordPress blogger will ask is “How do I change the Theme?” or “How do I alter the appearance of my WordPress site?”. This post will take you through the simple steps to changing the appearance of your site. After completing this exercise you will be able to download and activate a new theme for your WordPress site.

First of all, log on to the wp-admin pages using the account details you used when setting up, or an account with Administrator role. On the left Menu click on Appearance and the Manage Themes page will appear.

The current theme will be displayed at the top, and any alternative layouts will be displayed under the heading Available Themes. If this is a fresh installation, there will likely be one one alternative, which will be WordPress Classic.

You can see what your current blog would look like using the Classic theme by clicking on the Preview link under the thumbnail view. After a few seconds your current blog will be displayed in the WordPress Classic style. If you wish to change the appearance of the site to Classic, then you can do so by clicking on Activate WordPress Classic at the top right of the preview screen, and you will be taken back to the Manage Themes page. The rest of the world can now see you blog in it’s new style.

As there are thousands of WordPress themes available for free, the next step is to see what themes appeal to you. Click on Add New Themes (under the Appearance menu item) and the Install Themes page displays.

You can Search for themes by keyword, author, or tag, by entering the string in the search box and clicking Search. Enter a string and search to see any themes which match your criteria displayed in the Search Results. At this point you can either:

  • Select Preview to display a sample of it on screen.
  • Click on Install, to see a small view of the screen, then click on Install Now, to add the theme to your blog.

If you select Install, you should see a number of messages somthing like the following:

  • Downloading install package from…
  • Unpacking the package.
  • Installing the theme…
  • Successfully installed the theme…

Afterwards you will be offered a choice of Actions: Preview, Activate or Return to Theme Installer. Selecting Return to Theme Installer will take you to the Install Themes page so that you can search for another theme. Finally clicking on Themes will allow you to return you to the Manage Themes page, where you will see your new thumbnail picture under Available Themes, or as your current theme, depending on your earlier choice.

Congratulations, you are now able to download and activate a new theme for your WordPress site. In the next post in this series, we will look at How To Manage Plugins in WordPress. Happy blogging!

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More WordPress Configuration Tips

A common question which is often asked of our support staff is “After Installing WordPress how do you customize it?” So it is about time for More WordPress Configuration Tips, to take you to the next step.

First of all, log on to the wp-admin pages using the account details you used when setting up. In order to make the site your own after installation, we suggest that you customize WordPress by completing the following steps:

In the WordPress General Settings (Settings, then General)

  • Set up your Blog Title and Tagline, if not already to your liking
  • Set the Date Format by clicking on one of the existing examples, or setting a Custom format; we normally use a custom j F Y to show the date in UK format 30 November 2009
  • Click on Save Changes

In the WordPress Writing Settings (Settings, then Writing)

  • Change the size of the Writing window if required
  • Check WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically
  • Add any further Update Services to which you wish to subscribe (For more about this, see Update Services on the Codex.)
  • Click on Save Changes

In the WordPress Discussion Settings (Settings, then Discussion)

  • Check Users must be registered and logged in to comment in Other comment settings
  • If You are particularly keen on keeping a tight rein on comments, check An administrator must always approve the comment Before a comment appears.
  • Click on Save Changes

Once you are ready for your Blog to see the world (or is it the world to see your Blog?), in the WordPress Privacy Settings (Settings, then Privacy)

  • click on I would like my blog to be visible to everyone,
  • Click on Save Changes

In the next installment, we will show you how to install your new WordPress theme, in order to change the Appearance of your WordPress Blog rather than the default theme.

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Screen Capture in Mac OS X

The other day someone needed to screen print in Mac OS X, but as a Windows user they focused on the the absence of the Print Screen button on a Mac keyboard, which leads to the inevitable question “How do I Print Screen on a Mac?” As this is not the first time that requirement has surfaced, here are few ways to accomplish screen capture in Mac OS X.

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 3, then release all keys
  3. Use your mouse to click on the screen

You will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the captured image file.

You can Print Screen (screen capture) just a portion of your screen, which is really useful if you are wanting to focus on a particular part, say an icon.

  1. Switch to the application or screen where you want to screen capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 4, then release all keys
  3. You will see the mouse cursor has changed to +
  4. Use your mouse to select the portion you wish to capture.

You will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the screen capture image.

If you want to print screen for a particular application window you can

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to screen capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 4, then release all keys
  3. You will see the mouse cursor has changed to +
  4. Press the space bar once
  5. You will now see the mouse cursor has changed to a camera
  6. Use the camera to select which application window to screen capture

As before, you will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the captured image file.

However as Windows users are used to the captured image going straight to the clipboard, you can mimic this behavior on a Mac as follows:

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Control + Shift + 3, then release all keys
  3. Use your mouse to click on the screen

The captured image is now in the clipboard, ready to for you to paste into your chosen application.

The full list of built-in Mac Screenshot Commands are as follows:

Command+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and save to file
Command+Control+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and copy to clipboard
Command+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and save as to file
Command+Control+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and copy to clipboard
Command+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save to file
Command+Control+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to clipboard
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Matt Mullenweg: 10 blogs to make you think

Regular bloggers will already know that Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of the WordPress blogging software and founder of Automattic, a company that runs WordPress.com and Gravatar. He has just published an article on cnn.com entitled 10 blogs to make you think. His stated job as the co-founder of WordPress is to help many more people start blogging, and his top ten list is a great place to start reading if you are new to blogging, or a seasoned vetran.

His first recomendation is Scripting News by Dave Winer, who pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software. We particularly like Dave’s blog about the Android operating system, Droidie. This is a blog about the Droid phone from Motorola with the Verizon service and Android 2.0 operating system. We are interested in anything to do with Android OS at the moment, having just taken delivery of an HTC Hero.

Other notable blogs and sites nominated by Matt include Open by Glyn Moody, Raw Thought from Aaron Swartz (check out his FBI file!) and the daily comic XKCD

To read the full article by Matt click here to read Mullenweg: 10 blogs to make you think on the cnn website

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Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins

While most people using WordPress are happy just to have an excelent blogging platform, there are some people we support who are seriously in to developing web based applications, and tweeking WordPress for the good and benefit of all.

While looking for the solution to a problem on a WordPress site we are setting up, we came accross this gem from Ozh Richard called Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins. Actually, to give full credit, there are about eighteen common mistakes listed, and we have probably made (no surely we mean seen!) all of them at some time.

The top ten most frequent bad code bits are listed here for a quick reference, but for the detail and a good laugh, visit Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins

  1. It’s not a plugin, it’s a mess
  2. Way too generic function names
  3. What? 87 new rows in the option table?
  4. You create new tables for what?
  5. No uninstall function
  6. Custom javascript or CSS added on each and every admin pages
  7. Plugin forms with no security, or nonces misunderstood
  8. Actions triggered from unchecked GET data
  9. Trust user input and pass it to SQL
  10. Localization done wrong

To read the full post, visit and enjoy Top 10 Most Common Coding Mistakes in WordPress Plugins.

While you are at it, check out the succinct The Definitive Guide To Using WordPress as a CMS on the same site

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Avoid Spreading Virus Hoaxes

Today we recieved one of the emails that you get occasionally, which promises a masivly damaging virus is just about to strike. This one had the headline HUGE VIRUS COMING! PLEASE READ & FORWARD!

We always advise people to check these messages out via a reputable website like McAfee or Sophos, because many of them are hoaxes. In fact they are realy a form of computer virus that is spread by well meaning people. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipient to forward it to everyone they know. Some IT specialists consider virus hoaxes and other chain e-mails to be a computer worm in and of themselves, as they replicate by exploiting users’ ignorance or emotional responses.

McAfee advise users who receive the email to delete it and DO NOT pass it on, as this is how an email HOAX propagates.

Click here to visit McAfee Virus Hoaxes
Click here to visit Sophos Don’t fall for a virus hoax