Posts Tagged ‘study’

How To Recover Computer Data

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

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

But what do you do if you work on line? Well, when you work with computers, data is your most valuable 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 have to have dependable backups and a number of of them.

The difficulty is that computers do not often break down so we are lulled into the false feeling of security that we can take backups tomorrow instead of right now. However, the longer that you work with IT, the more you comprehend that there are no warning signs if you are about to lose all your data, which might be your entire income stream.

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

That would mean that you could never update those web sites again, so they would become less and less interesting to the search engines, so your ranking would fall and your earnings would plunge. And why? Because you failed to insure your business by taking adequate backups. You failed to make proviso for data recovery in the event of data loss.

However, no matter how frequently you backup your data on physical media, you will always be running a danger because anything physical, any device is subject to failure and deterioration. CD’s do not last as long as we were promised. I have lost loads of work that I thought was safe on CD’s and hard drives are prone 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 another alternative and that is not to hold your data on your computer, in your office or anywhere within a thousand miles of yourself. This is called cloud storage or cloud data storage. Microsoft calls it Sky Drive and offers 25 GB of free, password-protected, storage available 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

What About Free Antivirus Programs?

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Most individuals are aware of the proliferation of viruses, bugs, trojans, worms, spyware and other malicious malware on the Net, but millions of people, including long-time surfers are hit every day. How can that happen, you might ask.

It so happens that, sometimes, people forget to set automatic updates of the virus database, sometimes the antivirus software is not set up properly and sometimes it just gets switched 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, particularly regarding security, do not put off doing something about it. In fact, drop what you are doing and fix the problem immediately.

If you leave you computer exposed to assault by malicious software, you will suffer. It is no use thinking 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 safeguard their confidentiality.

Some malware only looks for the addresses in your email client software. Then it will harvest 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 acquire a new email address and reformat their hard drive.

For example, I was receiving 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 sent to spammers. I had thousands of junk email for months.

And do not think that you can just make 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 each email comes from a different address, the result of which is that your spam filter does not recognise it as spam.

This is bad enough, but it can be a lot worse. Spyware can sit on your computer reading the keys that you press and sending the data back to the boss 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. Type ‘free anti virus software’ into a search engine and set it up in the correct manner. If you have AV software already, check the settings. You have to enable automatic updates.

If you leave your computer always switched 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

How To Protect Your Computer With Antivirus Software

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

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

This state of affairs is bad enough, but there are also individuals out there who get their thrills out of writing and releasing viruses to infect our computers and screw up our lives. I am not talking about criminals, we have always had to put up with them, I mean teenagers and others who write and release viruses to attack 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 might come to the conclusion that we rely on computers too much and lots of people would agree with you, especially those who have lost crucial 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 couple of days whilst 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 these days it means a lot 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 good enough for most users, but if you would like to take your computer’s safety to a higher level, you should add a dedicated malware scanner, of which there are many decent free ones. If you consider that it takes too much time to run two or three separate programs and keep them up to date or if you would like a higher level of protection, you might consider buying an AV software suite.

There are lots of decent ones like Norton, Nod, Kaspersky and others which cost little more than $30 a year for absolute 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

The Antivirus Industry

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

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 bought intellectual property and technology rights from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in Bucharest, Romania. They also acquired Pelican Software, which had a behaviour based 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 domineering position 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 used in other markets such as word processing and Internet browsers. In fact, this is precisely what did take place. Microsoft has come out with a free product called Microsoft Security Essentials.

It is too soon for me to tell whether MS Security Essentials is a world-class antivirus product, but it is not free to everyone. Microsoft has been struggling with Windows piracy for a while now with its Windows Genuine Advantage devious 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 check. (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 hardly anyone in the Third World will be able to use 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 afford a computer and the last thing they care about when they plug it in is whether the operating system is authentic 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 faces a rapidly changing landscape. The amount of effort required to find and provide updates for new viruses is quite staggering. Malware programs are becoming more and more complicated and the quantity of them is increasing.

Many companies may find themselves without the resources to equal the hard work of those truly bent on creating chaos. The antivirus companies are receiving hundreds of new examples of viruses a day! What is more, the new viruses are getting “cleverer” in that they propagate 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 hard 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

Calendars And How To Appreciate Them

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

The calendar is such a commonplace, everyday item, but how much do you really know about the operation of it. Why is it like that?

A DAY: The Earth turns at a reasonably steady speed about the imaginary line running between the North and South Poles named the Earth’s Axis. The time it takes to spin once is called a ‘rotation’ and this takes just under twenty-four hours. Nevertheless, because the Earth is constantly 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 precisely 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 paths called orbits. Each trip around the Sun is called a revolution and all the planets orbit around the Sun in the same direction. The course the Earth takes can be verified by noting its position 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 mark the change in the pattern of daylight over the span of a year. Because the Earth is tilted off centre, different parts of it receive different amounts of sunlight on different stages of its path around the Sun, a path that we call a year. So, between approximately the 21st September and late March, the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun, which produces Autumn and Winter, giving less than twelve hours of daylight per day.

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

The Equinoxes occur 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 begins 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 piece, writes on many subjects, 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 website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

Fighting Off Viruses

Friday, May 28th, 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 drop for one second. Even commercial giant Microsoft has found its own systems compromised on more than one occasion.

Do you remember the ‘good old days’, before the arrival of the Internet and downloadable programs? Life was simple 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 eliminate viruses before they caused too much harm. Additionally, computer users were fairly 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, reputable company, because new viruses come out daily, so it is vital that you update your antivirus software daily. Become familiar 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 originate from and exercise caution when opening binary, Word, or Excel documents of unknown sources 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 retrieve your data if you computer becomes infected.

There are many 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 permits 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

The Ancient History of Barry, South Wales: Part Two

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

In the 18th. Century evidence of Neolithic man was discovered in the form of dishes, saws, knives, flints, a scraper, a prehistoric horn celt with obscure markings, a spokeshave and some arrowheads, amongst other things. Unfortunately, although these things reside safely in the Museum of Cardiff, no one thought it worth excavating at the time and now residences stand on the sites.

An ancient Roman kitchen, complete with remains and utensils underwent a similar fate. In 1533, Leland was made the Kings Antiquary and was directed to make a tour of all places where records were held. This took him nine years and his description of the island was:

“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 raided the coastline of south Wales in the Tenth Century often taking hostages from the monasteries, but they did not seek to settle the area. The island was known as the ‘Saints’ Retreat’ or the ‘Island of Saints’ for a long time. Later, in the Sixteenth Century, the island was used by smugglers and pirates and was known locally as the ‘Smugglers’ Fortress’. This occurred at the same time as Bristol, Britain’s second largest port, was growing rapidly.

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

Sunday, January 31st, 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 useful to her and the entire procedure of writing her manuscript became easier for it. After a few months, she came across several problems like being sent to a page which was totally unrelated to money laundering every time she entered that search term.

At first, she thought it was just a glitch in the Internet system and then she rationalized that perhaps it was a problem with the search engine she is using, but the persistent recurrence of the problem, made her consider that she had picked up a virus of some sort. We all hate people bugging us, but people we can fend of.

What this law student was confronted with was a computer bug that she could not ward 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 papers.

The situation above is not an unusual issue. 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 infiltrated into a personal computer in order to access 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 easily by loading an adware and spyware blocker. The function of these blocking programs include removing or disabling existing spyware or to inhibit the installation of these malevolent programs.

Spyware, adware and malware are not like viruses or worms which replicate themselves, but they cause just as much hassle because they disturb your computer’s behavior. One of the most common nuisances caused by these programs is the slowing down of the computer which is very annoying.

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

Antivirus Software

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

If you log on to the Internet, you definitely need anti-virus software. It does not matter whether you do not use a computer. Whatever you use to get on line you must have anti-virus software. Although there are hundreds of malicious idiots producing viruses to attack those who log on to the Internet from a computer, there is an increasing number who are focusing on mobile phone users as well.

It is more difficult to clear viruses from your cell phone as well, because there are less vendors for the anti-virus software and cell phone users are often less technologically knowledgeable than computer users, although the technique of clearing the virus is fairly analogous.

Let’s just use the example of using computers to go on line. If you go on line, your ant-virus software is your most important piece of software. It does not matter what you use the Internet for - transferring data back to base or receiving emails from friends - you are subject to attack.

For example, if you use the Internet only to communicate with your head office, a hacker could try to piggy-back your connection to gain admittance to the mainframe at head office and perhaps access financial or other personal data and if you just send to and receive emails from your friends and family, you are open to assault from malevolent fools around the world.

If you use webmail such as that offered by Yahoo, Hotmail and MSN to name only the most popular, you will be protected from the most obvious attacks, but still not secure. If you obtain your email via an email client such as Outlook or Outlook Express, then you do not even have that small amount of security.

If you do not use email, but only surf the Internet for study or whatever, you are still not safe, because some websites and loaded with viruses, trojans and worms, waiting to unload them onto unsuspecting visitors.

Therefore, whatever reason you surf the Internet for, you could do with some type of protection. Fortunately, anti-virus software for personal use is inexpensive and may even be free. Business users will normally get tax relief on their purchases.

However, be cautious with the free anti-virus software, because not all of it is effective enough. The exceptions that spring readily to mind are Avira and AVG. These are excellent items and have rightly achieved worldwide acclaim. Just Google the two names to get the download address.

The anti-virus software that costs something (typically $25-$50 per annum) invariably offer one to two months free examination before you buy and a reduction in price, if you pay for more than one year at a time. Names that fall into this class are Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton and Nod.

Once you have selected your software, the subsequent steps are the same for free and paid software. First install it and then configure it. If you are not certain how to do that do not be concerned, the default settings are fine for the overwhelming majority of users. The only choice you will get that it is vital you make correctly is to allow automatic updates.

New viruses are being discovered or fixed every day and for your anti-virus software to be effectual, you must allow it to update itself whenever it wishes to.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the network 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

Spyware, Adware and Antivirus

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 pathways whereby someone else apart from the computer owner can communicate from that computer. Normally spyware records the different kinds of web sites you visit and sends that information to web advertisers, who then later send you unsolicited 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 sort 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 types 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 authors.

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 destructive kind of software. They were designed and created for one reason alone and that is to cause chaos on your computer. They may destroy whatever data they come in contact with, can initiate 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 places 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 might be spyware in disguise and could be just waiting to be deployed for its writers to gather your data. 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 records.

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