Change Background of a Single PowerPoint 2007 Slide

Mark Berry July 13, 2010

It’s infuriating when something you’ve done for years in Office 2003 suddenly seems impossible in Office 2007. Case in point:  changing the background of a single PowerPoint slide.

It seems logical that you could go to the Design tab in the ribbon bar and choose a different Background Style. But that changes the whole presentation!

The trick is to click on the little arrow in the lower right corner of the Background section:

That brings up the Format Background dialog, where you can click on the Color button to choose the new color, then click on Close:

Office 2007 Tip Look for that little arrow in the lower right corner of various menu bar sections. When available, it usually opens the most detailed options (often similar to the Office 2003 choices).

Remove a Contact from an Outlook 2007 Distribution List

Mark Berry June 23, 2010

You may have learned the hard way that if you open a distribution list in Outlook 2007, highlight one contact, and click on Delete, the entire distribution list is deleted!

The trick is to click on Remove instead of Delete in the distribution list ribbon bar:

Tip:  if you do accidentally delete the entire distribution list, check you Deleted Items folder. If you’ve already cleared your Deleted Items contact MCB Systems. We may be able to restore the distribution list from a backup.

Facebook: Scam Central

Mark Berry June 3, 2010

In the last 24 hours I received two invitations from different Facebook friends to sign up for “events.” Both emails actually came from Facebook, and both included the first and last name of my friend as the person extending the invitation. The first promised me a $1000 Best Buy gift certificate:

The second was “only” for free ring tones, but besides the sender, it actually lists two other people I know as invitees:

Generous as they were, I didn’t accept these invitations, since I figured that would lead either to a virus site, a phishing site, or (worst) sending the invitation to all of my Facebook friends.

A few rules of thumb:

• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• If out of the blue, friends suddenly invite you to “events” that are supposedly product giveaways, don’t accept. You might send them a private email suggesting that they change their Facebook password in case it’s been hacked.
• Facebook is not a secure platform. Assume that anything you put on Facebook will be available to any Page, fan club, event, or friend that somehow earns the trust or interest of one of your friends. Set your privacy settings as high as possible, don’t post your birthday, and consider blocking Facebook access on work computers.

Phony Facebook Email

Mark Berry June 3, 2010

Recently I received a very legitimate-looking email supposedly from Facebook. It wanted me to click on a link to read a message. Even though the visible link text shows the link going to facebook.com, the actual link would have taken me to a Romanian web site.

The trick:  in Outlook 2007, hover over (do not click on) the link with your mouse. The real destination will appear in a small window. If the address doesn’t match the one in the email, or if you are not sure it is the valid address of a trusted vendor, don’t click on it!

Tricky PDF Virus Evades Virus Scanners

Mark Berry April 27, 2010

On April 27, multiple users at a San Diego client site received emails purporting to come from the “operator” of the email server. The text of the email was written to try to get the recipient to open the attached PDF file. Opening the PDF file and clicking on a couple of confirmations would install a virus on the recipient’s computer. At first, most virus scanners did not recognize the PDF file or the included virus, so simply running current anti-virus programs would not have stopped this infection.

MCB Systems has taken additional measures on all client computers to remove the ability of PDF files to launch programs, including virus programs.

There are a few “take-aways” here:

• PDF files can contain viruses. Long considered safe, PDF files are increasingly used as “carriers” for viruses.
• When you receive an email that you are not expecting, slow down for a moment and run it through your “is this real?” filter. For example, this one was spoofed to show it coming from operator@clientdomain.org, which is not a real address. It was sent at 3:48AM, an unlikely time for a human to send an email. Often these attempts at social engineering will contain errors in grammar, as this one does.
• Make sure you have current backups in place. Often the only way to get rid of a virus is to wipe everything on the computer and re-install the operating system. Ideally you want to use an image-based backup, which allows quickly restoring the entire computer to a previous point in time. MCB Systems can help you choose the best backup solution for your business.

Thousands of new viruses are created every day, and anti-virus software is always playing catch-up. The best defense is still for users to be aware of the threat and to remain safety-conscious when online!