Never buy software that claims to fix your computer from an Infomercial!

Maybe you've seen the ads on the Internet or on TV in the wee hours of the morning. They make lofty promises: get rid of blue screens and error messages! Increase your speed! Clean up your system! But even when these PC cleanup apps aren't just malware in disguise, the things they're doing for your PC are often dubious. Many either replicate tasks that can be handled by built-in utilities or do things that could cause more problems than they solve.

To highlight just why you and your loved ones should never let these applications anywhere near your PC, we picked one that we'd recently seen ads for: MyCleanPC. It's the archetypal Windows cleanup app—and you probably shouldn't install it.  Read more here or click on the article link to the left under "What's New"

Thanks to Ars Technica for the information!

Windows 8 Pro on the cheap for only 4 more days

When Microsoft announced last year a "limited time offer" for Windows 8 upgrade pricing, some thought -- or at least hoped -- the discounted price might be indefinite.

Microsoft officials announced on January 18 that this will not be the case.

After January 31, the $40 upgrade price will end. Starting February 1, the Windows 8 upgrade (from previous Windows home/consumer SKUs) will cost $120. The Windows 8 Pro upgrade will cost $200.

Currently, Microsoft is charging $40 for an upgrade license to Windows 8 Pro from Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

Testers who've been working with Windows 8 preview builds also have been eligible for the $40 upgrade price. The Windows 8 preview builds (Developer Preview, Consumer Preview, and Release Preview) all expired earlier this week. After that time, users with those builds will notice that Windows 8 will restart every hour "until they've installed a released (RTM) version of Windows," a Microsoft representative confirmed earlier this week.

Here's information on what users upgrading from XP, Vista, and Windows 7 can expect to migrate (and not) when upgrading to Windows 8.

Microsoft Office 2013 Pricing announced..

With Office 2013, Microsoft is moving its most dominant product line to an attractive new subscription-based pricing and packaging model. Yes, you’ll be able to acquire Office 2013 the old-fashioned way. But the benefits and pricing of the subscription plans are so attractive you won’t want to.

What’s attractive, you ask? The Office 365 Home Premium subscription, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access, SkyDrive with an additional 20 GB of storage, and 60 minutes of free Skype calls each month, will cost just $99.99 a year. This subscription comes with a new “household license,” meaning that you can install the PC applications on up to 5 PCs (or Macs) around your home. Yes, that’s right: Microsoft is explicitly supporting installing and using Office on up to 5 different users’ PCs.

Luddites will still be able to buy individual retail copies of three Office 2013 suites, or acquire the software that way with new PCs. But why would they? Office 2013 Home & Student will cost $139.99, can be installed on just one PC, and only comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Assuming you only need those applications, it would cost you about $700 to purchase five copies of this suite for your family. For that amount of money, you could subscribe to Office 365 Home Premium for a full 7 years and, during that time, benefit from all of the upgrades that occur, including whatever full new Office versions are released. Combined with the additional benefits of the subscription, it’s a no brainer.

And somehow it still bothers the heck out of me to not own the software.  When you subscribe, you are really just renting.  If I'm spending $100 or $700 dollars, I want to own it!  This only makes Google Docs more attractive.

In case you wondered how you got all those toolbars...

Remember the Ask search engine? Oracle sure does—and by extension, so do Java users. Oracle has taken the practice of bundling useless add-ons and toolbars with legitimate software to new heights while collecting a commission each time it tricks a user into installing an Ask toolbar.

That's what Windows expert and legendary skeptic Ed Bott of ZDNet reports after examining Java's installation and update practices. Bott has done extensive reporting on "foistware," previously crowning Adobe and Skype as the worst offenders. But over the past year, Adobe and Skype have reformed themselves a little bit, while Oracle's Java now deserves the crown for "king of foistware," he wrote today.

"The evidence against Oracle is overwhelming," Bott wrote, continuing:

• When you use Java’s automatic updater to install crucial security updates for Windows, third-party software is always included. The two additional packages delivered to users are the Ask Toolbar and McAfee Security Scanner.
• With every Java update, you must specifically opt out of the additional software installations. If you are busy or distracted or naïve enough to trust Java’s 'recommendation,' you end up with unwanted software on your PC.
• IAC, which partners with Oracle to deliver the Ask toolbar, uses deceptive techniques to install its software. These techniques include social engineering that appears to be aimed at both novices and experienced computer users, behavior that may well be illegal in some jurisdictions.
• The Ask.com search page delivers inferior search results and uses misleading and possibly illegal techniques to deceive visitors into clicking paid ads instead of organic search results.

Installing Java on a Windows PC for the first time also installs an Ask toolbar into Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox, and makes Ask the user's default search provider, unless a box is unchecked:

ZDNet

The same happens when you install Java security updates. Ask sort of hides its actions by delaying installation for 10 minutes, so it won't show up in the Control Panel's "Programs and Features" list right away. "I’ve never seen a legitimate program with an installer that behaves this way," Bott wrote.

Bott did his sleuthing in conjunction with Harvard professor Ben Edelman, who studies deceptive software practices. Edelman weighed in with an extensive analysis of his own today. Noting a recent update to Java to fix a security problem, he wrote "It is troubling to see Oracle profit from this security flaw by using a security update as an opportunity to push users to install extra advertising software. … A security update should never serve as an opportunity to push additional software." The Ask installation "takes over default search, address bar search, and error handling," Edelman further notes.

The Ask bundling with Java isn't new, but Bott notes that frequent security updates necessitated by Java flaws give users more opportunities to accidentally install the toolbar.

If all of this feels very "old-school," it's because major software companies are generally moving away from these sorts of annoying practices. Adobe and Skype have stopped some of their worst bundling practices, and the newest versions of IE, Firefox, and Chrome have ways to block new add-ons by default.

Laptops Available section coming!

Due to a recent surge in laptops that I have acquired, it is about time I put an "Available Laptops" section on the site.   There I will list the available laptops I have for sale with all of the specifications.  Previously I have always had some available, but found that listing the 1 or 2 to be tedious, since they would typically be sold quickly.  Currently the inventory is approaching 10, so time for a new section. 

The Hypocrites in Congress....Bit Torrent style

Congress has become gun-shy about putting together Internet-related legislation after the attempt to pass SOPA generated unprecedented public outrage, but Internet piracy is still on its radar.

Still, it turns out that digital copies of pirated movies and TV shows aren't just the subject of committee debates on Capitol Hill—they're also being downloaded onto Capitol Hill computers. A post today in US News & World Report's tech blog published new information from anti-piracy forensics company ScanEye, a company that offers BitTorrent monitoring services in the name of fighting piracy. The ScanEye report [PDF] shows apparently pirated movie files being downloaded via IP addresses associated with the US House of Representatives.

Congressional employees downloaded episodes of Glee, CSI, Dexter, and Home and Away in October and early November. There are more TV episodes downloaded than movies, but the report also shows downloads of films, such as Iron Sky, which was downloaded by a Congress-owned computer on Oct. 4; Life of Pi, downloaded on Oct. 27; and the Dark Knight Rises, downloaded on Oct. 25. Another download listed is Bad Santa 2, a movie which has not been released yet.

There's no way of knowing, of course, whether any downloads were done by actual lawmakers, or just by their aides and staff. It isn't the first time a report has been released accusing Congress' computers of aiding in illegal downloads though. During the height of the SOPA debate in late 2011, BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak catalogued a variety of content it alleged was downloaded by Congress. That report left off the accused IP addresses and also noted downloads of books and of copyrighted software like Windows 7.