Posts Tagged ‘study’

Using An Antivirus Software Suite

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Computers run so much of our lives nowadays. They run our payroll, our bank account, our school and company records, our governments and, for lots of people, our entertainment, so anything that disrupts computers has the potential to completely muck up our lives in the short term.

This state of affairs is bad enough, but there are also people out there who get their kicks out of composing and releasing viruses to infect our computers and mess up our lives. I am not talking of criminals, we have always had to put up with them, I mean teenagers and others who compose and release viruses to damage our computers for fun.

These days, lots of families are dispersed because members have travelled to other cities to study or work and occasionally this means going to other countries too. Most of these people rely on computers and the Internet to stay in touch. A bug could mean the disruption of these contacts and even the obliteration of family photo albums.

You may conclude that we rely on computers too much and many people would agree with you, especially those who have lost vital information to computer viruses. At worst, you could have your identity stolen and have our financial life completely disrupted, but even losing your computer for a few days while it is repaired ‘in the shop’ is bad enough.

In my case, this would mean loss of income, for others it may mean a violation of privacy or even theft. So, what should we do to safeguard ourselves?

Antivirus software is the solution.

Antivirus software used to mean a program to scan files coming into your computer, but nowadays it means much more. Decent AV software will now include a firewall to protect your computer from being hacked and a malware scanner to stop incoming files from dropping trojans and worms etc onto your hard disk.

These small programs can read the keys that you press and send the information back to their creator. These key presses can be analyzed to disclose your preferences on search engines (in order to spam you) or your log in particulars to your bank (in order to steal from you).

So, you have to install either a good antivirus software suite, which will include all of the above or you could get the components individually. Not so long ago, you would have had to purchase all these things, but now some are built into Windows. Windows now comes with a firewall and antivirus software, which will also scan email.

This is powerfull enough for most users, but if you would like to take your computer’s safety to a higher level, you ought to add a dedicated malware scanner, of which there are loads of good free ones. If you consider that it takes too much time to run two or three individual programs and keep them up to date or if you would like a higher level of protection, you may think about buying an AV software suite.

There are plenty of good ones like Norton, Nod, Kaspersky and others which cost little over $30 a year for total peace of mind.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the cheap antivirus software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

Advice On Spyware, Adware And Computer Viruses

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

To a lot of computer users spyware, adware and computer viruses are all the same. In a way they are: they have all been sneaked onto your computer and none of them are going to benefit you, the computer user. They are all a royal pain in the neck.

However, there are differences between them and, as a computer owner, you may just as well know what those differences are so that you can correctly make a decision how many resources you are going to dedicate to getting rid of them.

Spyware: spyware is like a parasite. It can be delivered to your computer via email attachments, as part of a free program or even as part of a program you paid for. Often, spyware is attached to something useful that individuals pass about because it is helpful, humorous or pornographic.

Once the ebook or email is opened, the parasitic spyware goes off and hides somewhere in your computer. Spyware can do lots of things, but like all good parasites, it is not there to harm your computer.

It is there to read your key presses, scan your disk drives and record the websites you visit. Then, say, once a week, while the computer is inactive, it sends all this knowledge home to its creator. The creator can then use this knowledge as he or she wants, but first they have to untangle it all. Software will do that.

The least that will occur is that the data will show that you have been searching for, say, new shoes on line and you will receive heaps of spam on new shoes. One of the worst things that can happen is that it will have read your banking details and there might be an attempt on your bank account.

Adware: adware is comparable, but it is seen as almost legitimate. Typically, a useful program like a download accelerator will note where it has downloaded files for you from and it will report that back to its creator and you will be spammed again.

Robbery is not part of the raison d’etre of adware. Look in your cookies and you will see dozens of these little programs collecting knowledge on your every move. Most of the big names in the computer world, including Google, use Adware in the form of cookies to find out what you would like before anyone else does, so that they can be the first to serve it up to you.

Computer Viruses: include Trojans, worms and all the other types of malware to most individuals. These are usually disruptive or destructive in nature and intended to ruin your computing or surfing experience. It is easy to understand why someone would create spyware and adware, but not viruses. Some people seem to get a thrill out of causing mayhem for others.

The only manner to keep spyware, adware and computer viruses off your computer is by using powerful antivirus software and a firewall. Numerous people are happy with the amount of protection that the free Windows firewall and AV software provides.

Others use the free Windows firewall, but use a third party free AV program. Yet others purchase a commercial package that has its own firewall and AV software. It really depends on the level of protection that you are comfortable with and whether you are prepared to pay for it.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the cheap antivirus software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

Planning For Computer Data Recovery

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

If you earn your money by using a computer, you ought to protect yourself against any computer disasters. If you were a taxi driver, you would take out car and public liability insurance. If you were an employer, you might take out plant and equipment insurance. If you were a landlord you would take out property insurance and loss of earnings insurance.

However, what do you do if you toil on line? Well, when you work with computers, data is your most precious resource, but you cannot insure against losing it because you cannot prove that you ever had it. So, what can you do? The answer is that you need to have reliable backups and several of them.

The problem is that computers do not really break down very often so we become lulled into the false feeling of security that we can make backups tomorrow instead of right now. However, the longer that you work with IT, the more you comprehend that there are no warning signs when you are about to lose all your data, which may be your entire earnings stream.

For example, say you make web sites for a living and update them frequently so that the search engines find them interesting. What would occur if your hard drive crashed or if they were destroyed by a virus? You might say that you would download them from your Internet host and begin again, but that is not possible, because most HTML editors will not decompile a completed website.

That would mean that you could never refresh those web sites again, so they would become less and less interesting to the search engines, so your ranking would fall and your income would plummet. And why? Because you failed to insure your business by taking adequate backups. You did not make provision for data recovery in the event of data loss.

However, no matter how often you backup your data on physical media, you will always be running a risk because anything physical, any item is prone to failure and deterioration. CD’s do not last as long as we were promised. I have lost tons of work that I considered was secure on CD’s and hard drives are apt to fail with no notice whatsoever.

Even if you do conquer these problems of storage, what occurs if there is a fire or a thief really steals all your disks and computers? Your hardware would be insured but your source of revenue, your data would be gone forever. All that hard work. Your source of income. Gone. Forever.

There is a different alternative and that is not to keep your data on your computer, in your office or anywhere within a thousand miles of yourself. This is known as cloud storage or cloud data storage. Microsoft calls it Sky Drive and offers 25 GB of free, password-protected, storage accessible from anywhere in the world. This kind of storage is the best in secure storage providing the best value recovery planning for computer data.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

Free Malware Programs

Monday, June 20th, 2011

Most individuals are conscious of the proliferation of viruses, bugs, trojans, worms, spyware and other malicious malware on the Internet, but millions of individuals, including long-time surfers get hit each day. How can that happen, you may ask.

Well, sometimes, people forget to set automatic updates of the virus database, sometimes the antivirus software is not set up properly and sometimes it merely gets turned off by accident or by software.

It is not unheard of for automatic antivirus software updates to become turned off by accident or design. It has happened to me twice this year already. Luckily, Windows 7 warned me and I took notice of that admonition and, most importantly, I corrected the problem.

This is the most important point. If your computer warns you about something, especially regarding security, do not put off doing something about it. In fact, stop what you are doing and fix the issue instantly.

If you leave you computer open to attack by malevolent software, you will suffer. It is no use imagining that you are safe because you do not perform online banking or because you do not have sensitive information on your computer, because you have.

Your friends and colleagues entrusted you with their email addresses and names on the understanding that you take care of their confidentiality.

Some malware just looks for the addresses in your email client software. Then it will gather those details and spam your friends to distraction. Two of my friends let that happen this year and the only solution for both of them was to open a new email address and reformat their hard drive.

For instance, I was getting financial advice from my next door neighbour’s ten-year old kid. It was spam coming from Eastern Europe but it was prepared as if it came from him. He had been hacked and his address book had been copied to spammers. I had hundreds of junk email for months.

And do not think that you can merely create a filter to send it to the bin. You cannot, because they forge the email headers so that it seems to your anti spam software that every email comes from a new address, the result of which is that your spam filter does not recognise it as spam.

This is bad enough, but it can be far worse. Spyware can sit on your computer reading the keys that you press and sending the information back to the person in charge so that they can spam you on what you just typed.

Does that sound familiar? One day you send email to a friend saying that you are going to repaper and the next day you receive unsolicited email advertising about paint and wallpaper.

If all this sounds familiar, then you have to take action. Enter ‘free anti virus software’ into a search engine and set it up properly. If you have AV software already, check the settings. You need to enable automatic updates.

If you leave your computer always on that is all you have to do, but if you switch it off whilst not in use, set the updates to take place when you switch it on.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

Calendars And How To Appreciate Them

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

The calendar is such a routine, ordinary thing, but how much do you actually know about the working of it. Why is it like that?

A DAY: The Earth rotates at a reasonably steady pace about the imaginary line running between the North and South Poles called the Earth’s Axis. The time it takes to revolve once is called a ‘rotation’ and this takes just under twenty-four hours. Nevertheless, because the Earth is continuously travelling around the Sun, the precise time from noon one day to noon the next is 3 minutes 56 seconds longer and this makes a day almost exactly twenty-four hours in length.

The actual time from noon to noon differs depending where the Earth is on its celestial course around the Sun, but if you average the days in a year out, it comes to precisely twenty-four hours.

A YEAR: All nine planets in our solar system travel around the Sun in almost perfectly circular routes called orbits. Each trip around the Sun is called a revolution and all the planets revolve around the Sun in the same direction. The direction the Earth takes can be verified by noting its location against the background stars.

In view of the fact that you cannot see the Sun and the stars at the same time, it is necessary to note the position of the Sun in the morning and the see which stars come out there in the night. You will see that the Sun seems to pass through the twelve constellations of the zodiac during a year.

Earth’s journey around the Sun, which seems like the Sun travelling through the zodiac takes about 365.25 days. This is different from year to year, so astronomers add or delete a second in some years to keep their time accurate with the Earth’s motion.

THE SEASONS: The seasons indicate the variation in the pattern of daylight over the course of a year. Because the Earth is tilted off centre, different parts of it get different amounts of sunlight on different stages of its path around the Sun, a path that we call a year. So, between about the 21st September and late March, the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun, which creates Autumn and Winter, giving less than twelve hours of daylight per day.

From April to the 20th September, the Northern Hemisphere receives more than twelve hours of daylight a day, producing Spring and Summer. The exact opposite occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Equinoxes take place at the points in the year when there is exactly twelve hours of sunlight and darkness in the day. So, the vernal or Spring equinox is on or around the 21st March and the autumnal equinox is on or around the 21st September. Summer officially commences on the day with the greatest amount of daylight, the 21st June or summer solstice.

The winter solstice occurs on the shortest day, the 21st December. ‘Solstice’ is a combination of two words meaning ‘sun standing still’ and the days are so called because they are the days when the apparent movement of the Sun reaches its limits and reverses course again.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our web site now at Promotional Desk Calendars

categories: calendars,astronomy,time,hobbies,recreation,study,school,education,science,outdoors,other,uncategorized,astrology,weather

The Ancient History of Barry, South Wales: Part Two

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

In the 1700′s, dishes, saws, knives, flints, a scraper, a prehistoric horn celt with strange markings, a spokeshave and some arrowheads from the Neolithic Period were found. These are now safely housed in the museum in Cardiff, but at the time no one thought to organize an excavation and later a housing estate was built on the site.

They also found an ancient Roman kitchen complete with utensils and food remains which appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry like the Marie Celeste. That wasn’t investigated either. In 1533, the King’s Antiquary, Leland, was told to tour all places where records were held. It took him nine years and his description of the island was as follows:

“It is about a mile in circumference and has good corn, grass and some wood, and there is no dwelling on the Island, but in the midst of it is a fair little Chapel of St. Baruch which is visited by many pilgrims. It took the name Barri from this holy man who was buried there and whose remains are yet on the Island”. (The Welsh name for Barry is Y Barri).

Vikings ravaged the coast of South Wales in the tenth century. They often took hostages from the monasteries, but they did not seem to want to live in the area. For a long tim, the island was known as the “Saints’ Retreat” or the “Island of Saints”. Afterwards, in the sixteenth century, it was inhabited by smugglers and pirates and was called the “Smugglers’ Fortress”. This became serious as it grew simultaneously with the rise of Bristol, Britain’s second largest port.

Barry Island became the centre of piracy in the Bristol Channel. In 1784, the island was known as the Fortress of Knight. Knight was the top smuggler and pirate in the area and people were frightened of testifying against him, although he was also something of a local hero. His armed brig’s name was John O’ Combe. He was eventually moved on to Lundy Island, which he also turned into a fortress, although he and his successor, Arthur, still returned so often to Barry, that H.M. Customs requested the government to permanently post a cutter to Penarth and 60 light infantry to Barry.

The small seaside village of Rhoose, five miles from Barry, was so well-known for its wreckers that George II sent troops to break up them up. They landed at Aberthaw, just up the coast a bit further, “the Rhoose men’s favourite landing zone, from where they could easily transport the contraband along Port Road to Cardiff, the main market for such things”. While digging out for the docks at Barry in the late nineteenth century, several large caves were filled in. They had probably been used by the pirates who were moved on in about 1850.

If you are interested in Welsh corgi puppies, or Wales in general, visit our website at Welsh Products Online

Adware and Spyware Blockers

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

I want to tell you the story of a law school student whose thesis was about money laundering. She often used to Google the term to come up with a useful list of online references. This proved to be helpful to her and the whole procedure of writing her paper became easier for it. After a few months, she came across several problems like being sent to a URL which was completely irrelevant to money laundering every time she typed in that search term.

At first, she thought it was just a glitch in the Internet system and then she thought that perhaps it was a problem with the search engine she is using, but the continual recurrence of the problem, made her think that she had picked up a virus of some sort. We all can’t stand people bugging us, but people we can fend of.

What this law student was confronted with was a computer bug that she could not fend off on her own. In the first place, she was not a technologically-savvy person and in the second place she never used her laptop for anything other than scholastic study and the actual writing of her documents.

The condition above is not an isolated case. There are many people who find themselves caught up in technological problems that are mystifying, but which can actually be described in two words: spyware and adware. The notorious term ‘spyware’ was first used in the year 1995 but it was popularized in the year 2000. Spyware is computer software smuggled into a personal computer in order to get hold of the personal data of the user.

This is done by capturing your keystrokes, web browsing history and even scanning the user?s hard drive. It may sound like something you see in James Bond films, but that is wrong because anyone can become a victim of spyware. Spyware can be utilized to spy on criminals because it is helpful to society, but how what about the use of spyware to seize credit card details and the like?

What people can do to guard themselves is to block spyware and other software like it such as adware and malware. This can be done quite simply by loading an adware and spyware blocker. The function of these blocking programs include removing or disabling existing spyware or to prevent the installation of these malicious programs.

Spyware, adware and malware are not like viruses or worms that replicate themselves, but they are just as much hassle because they interrupt your computer’s activities. One of the most common problems caused by these programs is the slowing down of the computer which is really exasperating.

In some infections, spyware is not even obvious as the cause of the problem. Therefore, it is best to have a blocker set up on your computer to avoid the infection in the first place. It is far easier to prevent than cure and it is also far better to be safe than sorry

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

categories: adware,spyware,software,home business,family,security,internet,computers,hacking,entertainment,recreation,study,advice,other

Players In The Antivirus Industry

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Most computer users in the United States have heard of the foremost American antivirus vendors. Manufacturers such as Symantec, McAfee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro. These organizations have a market leading presence in the United States. Microsoft, too, has aspirations to become a key player in this enormous growth industry.

In fact, Microsoft acquired intellectual property and technology rights from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in Bucharest, Romania. They also purchased Pelican Software, which had a behaviour orientated security product, as well as the Giant Company Software for spyware and Sybari Software, which managed virus, spam, and phishing filtering.

A great deal of debate centered on whether Microsoft would end up in a dominant place in the antivirus market by simply bundling its newly acquired software technologies up with its Windows operating systems at no cost. This is a comparable technique that has been applied in other markets such as word processing and Internet browsers. In fact, this is exactly what did happen. Microsoft has come out with a free product called Microsoft Security Essentials.

It is too soon for me to advise whether MS Security Essentials is a world-class antivirus product, but it is not free to everyone. Microsoft has been battling Windows piracy for a while now with its Windows Genuine Advantage sneaky download and sure enough, this new product from Microsoft will only work on Windows systems and even then, only with operating systems that pass the Windows Genuine Advantage test. (Please click the link at the bottom the page to find out more).

There is nothing wrong with that per se, but it does mean that scarcely anyone in the Third World will be able to make use of it, because a pirated operating system comes bundled with every computer that I have ever seen in Asia and probably elsewhere too. People save for years in order to be able to buy a computer and the last thing they care about when they plug it in is whether the operating system is genuine or not.

Of course there is a number of other antivirus manufacturers prominent in this market. There are many companies with great market presence in other countries that are beginning to become more widely recognized. These vendors include GriSoft from the Czech Republic, Sophos from the United Kingdom, Panda Software from Spain, Kaspersky from Russia, SoftWin from Romania, F-Secure from Finland, Norman from Norway, Arcabit from Poland, VirusBuster from Hungary, Nod from Thailand and AhnLab from South Korea.

It is not yet apparent where the industry is heading and everyone in this market is confronted by a swiftly changing landscape. The amount of effort necessary to discover and deliver updates for new viruses is quite staggering. Malicious programs are getting more and more complex and the quantity of them is increasing.

Many companies may find themselves without the capital to match the hard work of those truly determined to create mayhem. The antivirus companies are getting hundreds of new samples of viruses a day! What is more, the new viruses are getting “cleverer” in that they spread themselves quickly and they often hide themselves too. Some are even smart enough to move around in a system by renaming themselves in an effort to make it difficult to remove them.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the Microsoft antivirus software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

categories: anti-virus,software,home business,kids and teens,family,security,internet,computers,hacking,entertainment,recreation,study,advice,other

How To Ward Off Viruses

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Protecting your computer from viruses is getting more and |more difficult each day. While it may sound a little paranoid, it is true that you cannot let your defense down for one moment. Even corporate giant Microsoft has found its own computers compromised on more than one occasion.

Do you remember the ‘good old days’, before the arrival of the Internet and downloadable programs? Life was straightforward then in terms of computer viruses. The primary way to catch a virus then was via floppy disks. By today’s standards, it used to take quite a while before a virus was able to infect a computer and slow down the system. The antivirus software of that time was usually able to identify and eradicate viruses before they caused too much damage. Moreover, computer users were pretty knowledgeable about how to defend themselves by scanning all floppy disks before using them.

The Internet changed all that. The Internet provided a medium by which viruses could move from host to host with lightening speed. A computer user had to begin to think about email, email attachments, peer-to-peer file sharing, instant messaging, and software downloads as virus entry points. Today’s viruses can attack through multiple entry points, propagate without human intervention, and take full advantage of weaknesses within a system or program. With technology advancing everyday, and the convergence of computers with other mobile devices, the potential for new types of threats also increases.

Fortunately, the development of antivirus software has kept pace with the virus threats. Antivirus software is indispensable to a computer’s ability to ward off viruses and other malicious programs. These software products are designed to guard against the ability of a virus to enter a computer through email, web browsers, file servers and desktops. Moreover, these programs offer a control feature that handles deployment, configuration and updating. A computer user should remain diligent and follow a couple of simple steps to guard against the threat of a virus:

You should appraise your current computer security system. With the danger of a new generation of viruses being able to attack in a multitude of ways, the approach of having just one sort of antivirus software has become outdated. You have to be certain that you have protected all aspects of your computer system from the desktop to the network, and from the gateway to the server. Think about a more comprehensive security system which encompasses several features including antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and intrusion detection. This type of system will make it more difficult for the virus to infiltrate your system.

You should install antivirus software created by a well-known, highly regarded company, because new viruses come out daily, so it is important that you update your antivirus software daily. Become au fait with your software’s real-time scan feature and configure it to start automatically each time you start up your computer. This will protect your system by automatically checking your computer each time it is powered up.

Set your antivirus software to scan all new programs or files no matter from where they come from and apply caution when opening binary, Word, or Excel documents of unknown origin particularly if they were received during an online chat or as an attachment to an email.

Make sure you perform regular backups in case your system is corrupted. It could be the only way to recover your data if you computer becomes compromised.

There are numerous applications available to consumers, so with a little research, you should be able to pick the program that is right for you. Many programs provide a trial version which allows you to download the program and test its capabilities. However, be aware that some anti-virus programs can be difficult to uninstall, so as a precaution make sure you set up a System Restore point and take back-ups before installing it.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the cheap antivirus software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software

categories: antivirus,software,home business,kids and teens,family,security,internet,computers,hacking,entertainment,recreation,study,advice,other

Antivirus, Adware and Spyware

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Adware, spyware and anti-virus software share some similarities, one of which is that all three are major nuisances for computer users. Let’s make a distinction between the three.

Spyware is software that does not necessarily harm your computer. What it does is build links whereby someone else apart from the computer owner can communicate from that computer. Normally spyware records the different kinds of web sites you go to and sends that information to web advertisers, who then later send you unwanted emails and pop-ups.

Which is why spyware is unpopular and shunned. It is more intrusive than adware. Spyware has its own separate executable programs, which allow it to record your keystrokes, scan files on your hard disks and look at other applications that you use, including but not limited to chat programs, cookies and Web browser settings.

Spyware then sends the information that it had gathered to the spyware author. The author will then use this data for advertising and marketing purposes. They also sell the information to advertisers and other parties.

Adware, on the other hand, is a more legitimate form of software.. It is similar to spyware but adware is advertising spyware which is bundled into free software or a free program and is installed automatically once that particular program or software is loaded into your computer system.

Some forms of adware, on the other hand, download advertising content when a particular application is being run. Some adware behaves like spyware in that it tracks and reports user data to the program’s writers.

The signs of spyware infection include pop-up ads that seem to be unrelated to the site you are looking at. Sometimes spyware pop-ups are advertisements about adult contents. Furthermore, if you become aware of your computer slowing down, there is a big chance that spyware and its components have found their way into your operating system. If Windows desktop takes a long time to load, it is best to scan your computer for spyware infections.

Viruses, on the other hand, are a harmful kind of software. They were designed and created for one reason alone and that is to inflict chaos on your computer. They may destroy whatever data they come in contact with, can instigate self replication and then infect as many components of the computer’s operating system or network as possible.

These days, a lot of anti-virus software also provides spyware and adware scanning and removal utilities. They then remove it as well as its components located in the system registry and other locations on your computer. It is therefore, good practice to regularly update your anti-virus and anti-spyware scanner to ensure that your computer is protected from the thousands of spyware and viruses in the Internet. Beware of free add-ons or free anything really.

Adware could be spyware in disguise and could be just waiting to be deployed for its writers to gather your information. Learn how to set up a firewall and pop-up blocker in order to minimize the risk of computer infection and ensure the security of all your computer files.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching the best virus protection software. If you have an interest in such software, please go over to our website now at Computer Antivirus Software