What does the Fox say?

[MetsFan]

Not very old, I think it came out a couple years ago and I bought it last year. I'll check the drivers, but I always update when that geforce thing pops up. When the sound cuts out, the receiver says "decoder off" and I can't change it.

 

[Supe]

Fox:

If I wanted a small form factor HTPC with the following attributes, how cheap could I get away with it?

-Wireless networking

-BluRay drive

-Decent media storage/sorting software for ripped DVD's/BluRays (have no desire to copy them, just store them on the HD. Software suggestions?)

-HDMI output

-Decent graphics package

Basically, wanting something I can access in the theater room with a wireless remote or mouse/keyboard combo that I can store movies/music on, but more importantly, play my Steam games on the big screen. Even better if its small enough to fit on a component rack. I don't have a TON of movies or music, so I don't think I'd have to get crazy with the storage. I will stream more than I will play from the HD.

 

[knight1fox3]

I just built a small form-factor ITX rig for a client similar to your requirements with the following specs:

• Silverstone RAVEN Series RVZ01B Black Reinforced plastic outer shell, steel body Mini-ITX Desktop PC Case

• ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

• Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell Dual-Core 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W CPU Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34130

• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK

• Silverstone 12.7 mm SATA Interface Slot Load 8X (BLK) CD/DVD RW Drive SATA 3.0 Gb-s Optical Drv SOD02B

• Samsung 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW 2.5" 500GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

• Silverstone ST45SF-G 450W SFX12V SLI CrossFire 80+ GOLD Cert Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

• Silverstone NT07-115X Super Slim Profile CPU Cooler LGA 1156/1155/1150 Intel LGA115X

This utilized the Haswell on-chip video graphics which is decent for minimal graphics processing. However this could certainly be beefed up as needed. Total cost (tax/labor not included) was about $915. Runs great and has wireless AC/N/B/G in addition to BT 4.0. Pretty slick.

 

[Supe]

Anything there that can be whittled down for the budget-conscious consumer? Thanks.

 

[knight1fox3]

Anything there that can be whittled down for the budget-conscious consumer? Thanks.

Could probably get it down around $700. Maybe lower with some ebay auction-watching. Could also load Linux instead of 8.1 and save another $100. But really all the parts listed are the bare necessity. Might axe the optical drive and go with a lower-cost external solution.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Fox,

General annoyance with Chrome on my work PC lately. When I visit Facebook, for some reason a random selection of pictures just won't load. About 60% load right away, but the rest stay blank. If I leave it for a minute a few of the blanks will load, but then the rest come up with that typical icon indicating the pic won't load (blocked, bad link, etc). If I close Chrome and come back in an hour or so, sometimes everything loads like nothing was wrong, other times a different 60% load, and a few times the same pics don't load. It's really weird when someone uploads multiple pics because some will load and others wont. Same post, same user, same source, just some load and others dont. When Chrome does this, I can then go to the ESPN website and I will only get a partial page there. When FB loads properly, ESPN will too. None of the other sites seem effected (EB.com, MSN, Camaro5.com, etc). I've tried clearing the cache, restarting the computer, restarting chrome and every combo of the 3, but the problem persists. Chrome on my phone does not have the same problem, nor do I have the issue with Chrome at home. I should also mention that once the picture refuses to load in the main feed, it won't load if I go to that person's page or check through a group list.

And I can't seem to get the Adobe reader to update either. I get the standard error: Adobe Reader was blocked because it is out of date, "Update plug-in...", "Run this time". I've tried updating it and that won't update.

 

[knight1fox3]

Well just got a call from one of my larger business clients that they were infected by the CryptoLocker virus. Which is in essence, a form of ransom for encrypted files (aka ransomware). Pay $$$ and we will give you the decryption for the affected files. Each week the ransom increases by $500. B@stards. No way at this point to break the encryption on your own. The only good way to protect against it, is to make sure you're performing regular data back-ups folks. If anyone would like to know more, I can provide some info/recommendations for back-up intervals and corresponding utilities. I make monthly back-ups to my server which is encrypted and runs Linux. :210:

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Can you give me a quick once over on the HP Stream 7? Looking for a cheap tablet for my 7 year old that is able to play music and stream Netflix on (Xmas present for her).

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Stream-7-Signature-Edition-Tablet/productID.308781500

 

[blybrook PE]

Another good way to prevent cryptolocker is to setup some group policies to prevent the executable from running in the first place.

Sure, it can be painful to open zip files or most program installs, but it makes you THINK about what you are running.

 

[knight1fox3]

Another good way to prevent cryptolocker is to setup some group policies to prevent the executable from running in the first place.

Sure, it can be painful to open zip files or most program installs, but it makes you THINK about what you are running.

Yep. Some group policy changes and a few registry edits tends to do the trick.

 

[Lumber Jim]

Well just got a call from one of my larger business clients that they were infected by the CryptoLocker virus. Which is in essence, a form of ransom for encrypted files (aka ransomware). Pay $$$ and we will give you the decryption for the affected files. Each week the ransom increases by $500. B@stards. No way at this point to break the encryption on your own. The only good way to protect against it, is to make sure you're performing regular data back-ups folks. If anyone would like to know more, I can provide some info/recommendations for back-up intervals and corresponding utilities. I make monthly back-ups to my server which is encrypted and runs Linux. :210:

I know first hand how bad these types of viruses work. We had to pay 2 ransoms, one of the codes that we received didn't work, we lost a bunch of data, and didn't get to ask for the right password because the Russians stopped responding...

All because one of our employees who pays the UPS bills opened an email and our backups were corrupted before it was caught. (We now keep more backups) Should have never happened but it did.

Bad.

 

[MetsFan]

Didn't they figure out how to decrypt cryptolocker? Or did the bastards create a new way to do it?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28661463

 

[MA_PE]

wow. I've never heard of cryptolocker. Pretty scary stuff.

 

[csb]

What are Fox's holiday recommendation for tablets with attachable keyboards?

 

[knight1fox3]

Well just got a call from one of my larger business clients that they were infected by the CryptoLocker virus. Which is in essence, a form of ransom for encrypted files (aka ransomware). Pay $$$ and we will give you the decryption for the affected files. Each week the ransom increases by $500. B@stards. No way at this point to break the encryption on your own. The only good way to protect against it, is to make sure you're performing regular data back-ups folks. If anyone would like to know more, I can provide some info/recommendations for back-up intervals and corresponding utilities. I make monthly back-ups to my server which is encrypted and runs Linux. :210:

I know first hand how bad these types of viruses work. We had to pay 2 ransoms, one of the codes that we received didn't work, we lost a bunch of data, and didn't get to ask for the right password because the Russians stopped responding...

All because one of our employees who pays the UPS bills opened an email and our backups were corrupted before it was caught. (We now keep more backups) Should have never happened but it did.

Bad.

Yep. Based on what I've read, the infectious files are disguised as PDFs. Very clever because how often do we all use PDFs? About every day. LOL

Didn't they figure out how to decrypt cryptolocker? Or did the bastards create a new way to do it?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28661463

Only if you were one of those 500,000 that were initially affected. v2.0 is now alive and well, unfortunately.

What are Fox's holiday recommendation for tablets with attachable keyboards?

ASUS Transformer or MS Surface. Look for deals where they come bundled w/ MS Office.

 

[knight1fox3]

Fox,

General annoyance with Chrome on my work PC lately. When I visit Facebook, for some reason a random selection of pictures just won't load. About 60% load right away, but the rest stay blank. If I leave it for a minute a few of the blanks will load, but then the rest come up with that typical icon indicating the pic won't load (blocked, bad link, etc). If I close Chrome and come back in an hour or so, sometimes everything loads like nothing was wrong, other times a different 60% load, and a few times the same pics don't load. It's really weird when someone uploads multiple pics because some will load and others wont. Same post, same user, same source, just some load and others dont. When Chrome does this, I can then go to the ESPN website and I will only get a partial page there. When FB loads properly, ESPN will too. None of the other sites seem effected (EB.com, MSN, Camaro5.com, etc). I've tried clearing the cache, restarting the computer, restarting chrome and every combo of the 3, but the problem persists. Chrome on my phone does not have the same problem, nor do I have the issue with Chrome at home. I should also mention that once the picture refuses to load in the main feed, it won't load if I go to that person's page or check through a group list.

And I can't seem to get the Adobe reader to update either. I get the standard error: Adobe Reader was blocked because it is out of date, "Update plug-in...", "Run this time". I've tried updating it and that won't update.

This sounds very reminiscent of an issue with UAC security settings. Especially since this is a work computer. I assume Chrome, Flash player, and Java are all up to date and that no other previous versions exist on the PC (Java is notorious for this). It would be interesting to test a non-work PC on your work network to see if it exhibits the same symptoms.

For Adobe reader, I'd uninstall completely and re-install the latest version. Sounds like a botched original install.

Can you give me a quick once over on the HP Stream 7? Looking for a cheap tablet for my 7 year old that is able to play music and stream Netflix on (Xmas present for her).

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/HP-Stream-7-Signature-Edition-Tablet/productID.308781500

Wow, tough to beat that price. Sounds perfect for a "kids tablet" given the low end specs and low price tag. However, my one observation would be the system memory. Trying to run a full version of Win8.1 with only 1GB of system RAM seems futile to me. I'd suggest trying to find something that runs Android with those specs. Would be more immune to any malware too.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Thanks fox. I found a Kurio Xtreme for the same price and it seems to be a bit better for the kiddos. It's designed for kids, but it's a full Android OS that has "Mommy mode" that allows the adults to use the full system.

I'll look into making sure the Java, Flash, and Chrome are up to date. Not much I can do about the Adobe since it insists on Admin rights for any install.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

It appears Chrome was not up to date, but I'm checking the rest of the soft ware while I'm at it.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

I just tried updating Adobe Reader again and it gives me the pop-up:

View attachment 6882

 

[wilheldp_PE]

soSucks!are

LOL...I guess F. T. W. now gets autocorrected to Sucks!