Gimp Q and a IT Q

sallyanne · **Posted:** Sat Jul 27, 2013 8:36 am **(#1)**

GIMP Version: 2.8.4
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: 7 Home - Premium
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

List any relevant plug-ins or scripts:
NA

I haven't been able to paint with a brush for awhile. I can't even stamp at the moment. What could be the problem?

Now for the IT question. 'I'm assuming someone here can help.' I found an icon on my desktop today. Something I know I didn't download. It is removed now. Can people access your computer if the wireless is left on but the computer is turned off? Sometimes I leave it on sleep but mostly turn it off at the laptop.

GnuTux · **Posted:** Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:23 am **(#2)**

Icons showing up in your desktop is usually a sign of a malware attack, which can occur simply by surfing to the wrong website or opening the wrong email. You should be able to determine whether your anti-virus app caught the attack by checking its logs.

A couple of things you can do to help mitigate injection attacks is to to ensure your Anti-virus software, Windows, Flash, your Web Browser and Java are all up to date.

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

sallyanne wrote:

GIMP Version: 2.8.4
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: 7 Home - Premium
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

List any relevant plug-ins or scripts:
NA

I haven't been able to paint with a brush for awhile. I can't even stamp at the moment. What could be the problem?

Now for the IT question. 'I'm assuming someone here can help.' I found an icon on my desktop today. Something I know I didn't download. It is removed now. Can people access your computer if the wireless is left on but the computer is turned off? Sometimes I leave it on sleep but mostly turn it off at the laptop.

Paintbrush tool. Make sure brush is in normal mode and brush dynamics is off. If you don't know how, just press 'Reset to Default' button in tool options panel.
Since some settings are shared between painting tools (your Stamp tool) Shift-press the button to reset all tools options.

When your computer is off nobody can access it. But what makes you think that your presence when it's on would prevent anyone from accessing
your computer?

The icon. Best case scenario - it is something you downloaded recently, a few days ago maybe. A lot of garbage (adware, toolbars, etc.) comes with some MS installers (installer.exe type of downloads). Some of those malicious programs are activated only on start-up (look up Win start-up manager).
Worst case scenario - see GnuTux's answer.

ofnuts · **Joined:** Oct 25, 2010 **Posts:** 4812

sallyanne wrote:

Can people access your computer if the wireless is left on but the computer is turned off? Sometimes I leave it on sleep but mostly turn it off at the laptop.

No... a computer with an Ethernet wire link and the "wake-on-lan' feature enabled in the BIOS can be accessed by waking it up but this is really meant for servers.

Your main "danger" with a wireless router left on is someone connecting to the Internet through it. If this is done for unlawful purpose, they will trace the problem back to your home... But they can access the router when you are using it so the solution is mostly to use secure wireless protocol (WPA) (WEP is very easily cracked).

sallyanne · **Posted:** Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:42 pm **(#5)**

Thank you for all your answers. I know this is not a help centre for computers but I knew that some of you were cluey