"The world is against me and I can't take it anymore!" cried the distraught woman. She had just called a crisis hotline desperate for someone to help her. "Last week I was in a car accident, my house was broken into, and now my computer has crashed and erased all of my business files!" This woman was already having a bad week, but it was that stupid computer that finally made her snap.

A New and Growing Anxiety  Disorder Affecting Americans

According to a Washington Post report, there is a fast-growing disorder that is affecting millions of American called "computer rage" - and psychologists and crisis hotlines are starting to see more people and more computer rage cases cropping up. Kent Norman, a University of Maryland psychology professor, studies computer rage and its effects. According to Norman, "In the workplace and at home, we're smashing computer screens, beating on keyboards, and throwing equipment out the window." What's interesting about this phenomenon is that most people do not destroy, smash, or beat on non-electronic items like cars and furniture; it seems completely directed towards electronics, and more specifically computers.

Don't Be A Victim!

Since most people spend their entire day working at a computer, problematic PCs are certainly a huge contributor to stress and anxiety. If you already have enough to worry about and want to make sure your computer isn't adding to your stress and anxiety levels, call us today at 518-320-8906 about our MyNetworks plan. For a flat-rate fee, we'll monitor and maintain your computer network to make sure you never want to throw your keyboard through the monitor!

    You may have heard about the new "Buy Back" program being offered by Best Buy. The premise behind Best Buy's Buy Back program is simple: Buy a technology product in certain categories - mobile phones (but not pre-paid phones), laptops, netbooks, tablet computers and TVs - from Best Buy, and the store will let you bring it back and receive a portion of the purchase price. Of course, there are "catches".

    A phishing e-mail is an e-mail sent by a hacker designed to fool the recipient into downloading a virus, giving up their credit card number, personal information (like a social security number), or account or login information to a particular web site. Often these e-mails are well designed to look exactly like an official notification from the site they are trying to emulate.

 For example, a recent phishing e-mail was circulated that appeared to come from Facebook stating that videos or photos of Osama Bin Laden's death were posted online. These e-mails looked exactly like a legitimate Facebook e-mail and even appeared to come from "Facebookmail.com." Once you clicked on the e-mail the phishing site would attempt to install a virus on your machine.

And now due to recent security breaches with Sony and e-mail marketer Epsilon, phishing attacks are going to increase, and they are going to get more sophisticated and harder to distinguish from legitimate e-mails. That's because the hackers that were able to access the private databases of the above mentioned companies now have the name, e-mail and interests of the subscribers, and in some cases birthdays, addresses and more. That means a phishing e-mail can be personalized with relevant information that the user provided Sony, making the e-mail appear to be more legitimate and the user more likely to click on the links provided and take the actions requested. Now, more than ever, it's critical that you are wary of e-mail notifications and the actions they request you take. Even having good anti-virus software installed won't protect you if you give your account information away freely.