Of course you’ve heard of the other woman or man. The words conjure up a mysterious, sexy individual involved in daring, clandestine activites. Yet in actuality, most likely the other woman or man is just an ordinary and somewhat lonely person having an affair with a married person. Perhaps not that mysterious after all.

The other woman is actually probably in reality quite ordinary.

Yet, as fascinating as relationships and affairs and clandestine activities are to Ms. Ducktoes, this post is about another hidden, mysterious, sexy “other” thing, the other Inbox on Facebook.

Yes, mysterious and sort of hidden, but unlike “the other woman” nothing to get too upset about.

If you have a Facebook account you do have an “other Inbox,” and there are messages in there you don’t know about. Messages Facebook assumes are spammy but may be messages of importance to you, at least messages you do indeed want to see.

That’s what some people are upset about. That Facebook has hidden some messages intended for them that they know nothing about, messages the senders assume they have received. Some of the messages have been reportedly quite important.

You can read about it here. http://mashable.com/2011/12/09/hidden-facebook-message-inbox/

Or watch the video below.

I looked in my hidden inbox and found a message from a handsome stranger, probably half my age, from Manchester, England who thinks I’m looking good in my profile. And how very true, I am looking good in my profile since I weed out photos where I don’t look good. Yet, instead of being Facebook friends with some handsome stranger, I’d rather sit on the sofa with my husband who accepts me as I am, who thinks I look better in my old robe without any makeup than I do in my Facebook profile. I mean when he’s not on his financial news websites, that is. So it’s a message I don’t mind missing.

However, there are other messages about events I might have wanted to attend, writing events, for instance, if I weren’t so busy as an owner of a Calgary computer repair business. Those might be worth getting upset about, at least a little, if in fact I could attend them. Yet, like the “other woman” the “other inbox” is in actuality not so sexy or mysterious, just an ordinary and lonely spam Inbox, lonely because no one ever looks in it.

A handsome stranger

Well, actually, I did try to get some use of the message from the handsome stranger. I thought it might make my husband a look up from his news website and pay attention to me a bit. I said, I got a message from a handsome stranger in Manchester, England. He thinks I’m looking good in my profile.

My husband was engrossed in some podcast on the decline of the stock market. “Huh?” he said.

I repeated myself about the handsome stranger.

“He thinks I’m looking good, too,” my husband said.

My husband has a guy with a really weird beard as his profile photo. He thinks its funny.

My husband's profile photo

“Oh,” I said.

To find your hidden Inbox go to your wall on Facebook, then, look on the left hand under your name and you’ll see the word “Messages.” Click once on “Messages” and under that you’ll see the word “Other.” That’s your “Other Inbox.” And maybe some handsome stranger thinks you are looking good in your profile too.

I like AVG…no bones about it. And I recommend it to my clients because it’s easy to use and it’s reliable and now with version 9.0 it’s also faster again. On the comparative tests at Virus.gr, AVG Free removed 97% of the viruses. I have clients–with teenage sons— who used to hire me every six months to clean their computers of malware, I convinced them to try AVG and voila, two years later, and they still haven’t needed me to clean viruses again. I know, amazing!! And so much easier on the budget than computer repair bills.

If a client calls and asks me how to get AVG for their computer, I tell them to search for AVG on Google, but this week a client named Anna accidentally downloaded a virus from Google instead. Among all the legitimate links for AVG in her Google search results, she managed to click on a link that lead to Antivirus 2010, a rogue anti-virus which I remove several times a week from other clients’ computers.

Here’s where she clicked:

Don't download this one!

All the rest of the links are good. Look for http://avg.com or http://free.avg.com. Or you can use the one I use from CNET’s download.com: http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html Since it’s Cnet, you know it’s safe. Just scroll down further in the Google search results for AVG.

Be careful out there, it’s a wild web!!

If you have spyware or just want to manage and repair your computer better, this is the blog for you. Ducktoes Calgary Computer Repair is in Calgary, Alberta Canada. For a start you might try this post. Or read this tutorial about how to speed up your computer. And don’t forget to say hi or leave a comment.

1.First I ran Combofix. (I did this in Safe Mode with Networking.)

To get into Safe Mode, I had to tap F8 as the computer booted. If you tap at just the right time, a list of options in black and white is displayed on your screen. If you get the usual Windows boot up, you’ve missed Safe Mode so you’ll have to restart and tap again.

Pick Safe Mode with Networking. Then you’ll see a message asking if you’re sure you want to go into Safe Mode or if you’d rather use System Restore. Click yes you do want to go into Safe Mode. In Safe Mode you can then download and run Combofix.

When you get to the page, you’ll have to scroll down. I usually pick the Bleeping Computer link.. you’ll have to scroll down. It looks like this.

This is a photo of the Bleeping Computer website where you download Combofix.

Download Combofix here.

If you can’t download or run Combofix then you have very serious virus problems so see this post.

After I ran Combofix, enough spyware had been removed so that I could do the following in regular Windows mode.

2. Downloaded and installed AVG.

3. Downloaded and installed Malwarebytes.

4. Ran Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes caught quite a few Trojans. Also when I ran Malwarebytes, AVG’s residential shield caught a few more things that Malwarebytes going through the files seemed to stir up.

4. Ran a full scan of AVG. The AVG is what caught our friend Trojan Horse Clicker.

At Ducktoes we try to get rid of spyware without reformatting your hard drive. But once in awhile a reformat is the only thing that will work–it’s not nearly as often as many techies will have you think–but occasionally it’s the only solution. A reformat is so much easier and cheaper if you have your installation and recovery disks. That is what they’re for. It’s much more difficult to go on-line and search for all the drivers, a process that can take hours, depending on the make and brand of your computer. So protect your investment and save your disks. Keep them in their original sleeves, since sometimes the product key is printed on the sleeve. You may end repurchasing the operating system software without the disks, or spending more than necessary on a reformat.

Also keep your disks for your printer, scanner, video card, or any new devices you buy for your computer. Keep them all in one place and remember where they are.

If you live in Calgary, use Ducktoes for all your computer repair and services. Ducktoes to the rescue!!