We have had several reports of people receiving emails from an address appearing to be Scanner@company.com using their own domain name, i.e. scanner@tlptech.co.uk was sent to us. This email appears to be getting through many spam filters.

Upon investigation the attachment contains malware and if the executable is run a trojan is installed that will make the desktop connect to a remote server. It then downloads further trojans and adds the desktop to a botnet which is a group of computers controlled remotely and can be used to send spam emails and perform various denial of service attacks.

I would suggest that you delete any copies of the email and perhaps forward a warning to other users to look out for this. If you continue to receive these emails please let us know and we will look at configuring your spam filter to block them.

Why do IT companies take making money too far?

It seems to be a worrying trend in the IT industry. More and more often we at TLP Technology have new customers come to us with the following complaints:

- My IT company don't do what I want they do what they want

- I can't get hold of my IT company/I am not getting the service I was promised

- My IT company made me do something and it doesn't work

- I have left my IT company but I don't have any of the details to get access to my servers

Now I will be the first to admit that I am not the most technically capable IT Engineer. Neither will I claim I never make a mistake. However, I have always done the best possible job that I could, and gave people advice that I thought was the best option for them. On most occasions, this involves not offering people the option that will generate me/the company I work for the most money.

But there seem to be so many people out there who just don't have the mentality of providing customer service. It seems there are many companies out there looking to make a quick quid, and if that means the customer doesn't stay, then no matter.

I know what people will be saying. Why are you complaining, it is giving you work. I know that. I know. But that doesn't make it OK. It doesn't mean that people should have to suffer it.

So I want every single organisation out there - you don't have to put up with poor service, you don't have to put up with following advice without explanation, and you shouldn't expect the company providing your IT support to ignore their expected standards. So go out there, and find one of the hundreds of companies/individuals that do it right.

Review: Sharkoon QuickPort Combo for Sata and IDE HDD

Here in the office we are dealing with hard drives nearly ever day. Whether it is getting data off a drive removed from a laptop, checking to see if a drive is working properly to many other reasons. We have historically used an old 3.5" caddy and fiddle with it until it works... Not any more!

We got the Sharkoon QuickPort for £33.37 from Amazon so that whenever we need to carry work out on a hard drive we can just drop the disk in, do our work and it is as simple as that!

The dock supports 2.5" and 3.5" SATA disks and holds both form factors securely in place with a reassuringly solid click. IDE drives are attached using the plug adapters on the front (using the cables that come provided in the box). All in all it covers all bases fantastically well, with no drivers requiring installation, a literal Plug & Play device - although this is not the case when using IDE.

Ludicrously simple to set up, and ticking all the boxes in use, a must buy for anyone who manages multiple disks, and a great solution if you want to use HDs for your backup!

Tab key stopped working? Try this!

OK, another How To, and another problem that has had me absolutely stumped! A user rang up and reported that his Tab key had stopped working, and his Windows key had stopped working for shortcuts... Now I have heard of this happening when someone has a file on a key by accident, or accidentally switched Sticky Keys on, but having checked for both of these I ran out of ideas.

Then I pulled together various suggestions, which I think would be a "Go-To" list to fix this issue. Try each of these points and then see if the keys work as normal again:

1. Press the "Windows" Key twice - this will turn off sticky-keys if it has been accidentally enabled.

2. Press Alt twice.

3. Press Ctrl twice.

4. Change the keyboard language in Control Panel from your current (Normally English - UK for us Brits) and then back to what it was before.

5. Reboot your machine.

If none of these work, try going to Device Manager (Under Administrative Tools) and then under the Keyboard tree, uninstall the Keyboard driver. This will stop your keyboard from working. Then reboot your machine again and see if this resolves the issue.

I can offer no explanation of what this issue is, what the cause is, or why any of these fixes (other than the last) fix it. But hopefully this will save you a bit of time if you ever come across this problem!

Most ironic employee name goes to...

Sam Sung, a specialist apparently working for Apple. I know, you couldn't write it could you!

This story originates from The Loop (original story here) but was just too good not to share!

Do you have any funny employee names? Let us know in the comments section!

Beware Mobile Dongle Outlook Issues!!!!

Following a sadly familiar merry-go-round affair between a customer and BT with regards to their business broadband, I advised them to purchase a cheap Mobile Broadband Dongle as a temporary measure so that one machine could connect to the company emails. They did this, and were very impressed when their emails (all 150 of them) began downloading.

With a well practiced "I fixed it no problem" smug walk off into the distance I returned to my office, and then received a call from the customer informing me that they could still receive emails fine, but could not send.

For some reason, the provider of this mobile dongle deems opening Port 25 (the default for sending mail from Outlook and most other mail clients) far too dangerous to allow. Thankfully, the first thing I tried was changing the port over to 587 (I will cover this in a later post) worked and the user got a 5 minute fix - and I got to do my smug walk again! However, if you use a Mobile Broadband Dongle for working while on the road, beware this little nasty, and make sure mail exits your Outbox!

Review: Brother HL-3070CW Laserjet Printer

This small affordable Brother Laserjet printer is exactly the sort of thing Small Businesses should be looking at moving to if they are currently using Inkjet/Officejet style printers. Colour, Wireless and a Laserjet, and the model we supplied came in at under £180 including V.A.T. (Although the printer is listed as £216 inc. V.A.T. on the Brother website).

The printer looks and feels sturdy and not at all as "Budget" as the price suggests, and although not really small enough to share a desk with a computer/monitor, it is still smaller than the traditional HP Laserjets which are so popular in office environments.

Set up was relatively easy, although it is slightly frustrating that you have to use the supplied CD to set the machine up on a wireless network - although it does support Secure Easy Setup and other 1-touch wireless setup technologies such as AOSS. Once on the network, the drivers were simple to install on the computer as well, and a real plus is the "Driver Only" option, which will only install the required printer drivers onto the computer, and no unwanted Third Party applications that will never get used.

Print quality was good, producing bright colours although blacks aren't quite as deep as you would expect from a higher end Laserjet. Finally, one of the most impressive things about this machine from a budget perspective is the Pages Per Minute statistics, traditionally very poor when you dip below £250 for a Colour Laserjet. Not here, with equal speed for colour and black & white of up to 16ppm.

All in all, a very impressive offering from Brother at an equally impressive price, my recommended option for any small business looking for a new colour printer without big bucks to spend.