Printers, cables, parts, and pieces — we have a bit of everything ready to go at incredible prices. Need a DVI monitor cable? How about a buck. Optical drive on the fritz? DVD-RW drives for as little as $10. You can pick up an all-in-one HP G85 for $50 or a PC tower for $40.

John and Steve discuss how to avoid this and other pieces of malware, and how to deal with things if you are already a victim.

Dust and dirt are terrible for your computer system, but cleaning your machine improperly can cause more damage than good. John tells us how to take care of our expensive equipment to ensure a long life of computing.

Listen to this week’s TechTalk to see if replacing your traditional hard drive with an SSD is a good idea in your situation.

The technique enables an attacker to launch commands and open file attachments on users’ machines. The attack produces a warning dialogue box, but users are accustomed to seeing, and ignoring, those in many situations. In this particular new malware campaign, the attackers have used that tactic, along with adding some extra white space to the dialogue box to make it look less suspicious.

Some emails also arrive bearing subjects such as “invoice,” “statement” or “bill” and contain no text in the body. If the attached PDF is opened using a vulnerable version of Adobe software, the machine will execute code that lowers Windows security settings and installs a bevy of nasty malware, according to the SANS Internet Storm Center.

John and Steve discuss the benefits of buying a computer system with “enough power” rather than wasting resources just to check your email.

USB flash drives are convenient for storing, backing up, and transferring data, but did you know that there’s another use for them? ReadyBoost is a technology introduced with Windows Vista that uses compatible flash drives and SD cards, and certain types of memory, to speed up your system. John gives a primer on the tech in this episode of TechTalk.

Social media is perfect for connecting with old and new friends, no matter where they live. But did you know that your small business can benefit from services like Twitter and Facebook as well? Kevin and Steve talk about how to effectively promote your company or organization in a fresh new way.

Hard drive file systems of yesteryear required time-consuming maintenance that was a bit too much for the average user. With time, however, these systems have evolved and the procedures to maintain your data have become much easier. John and Steve talk about how you can ensure your data is safe and optimized to help keep your PC running smoothly.