So You Think Your Computer Is Protected

Jun 12th, 10 / Comments Off

Think about this:

Is a simple antivirus application enough to protect your computer against all threats?

No longer are viruses the only threat on the internet. In recent years other threats have evolved which include spyware, adware, hacking, identity theft, information theft, pop-ups and the loss of information. Let’s begin with the basics. We all need to protect our computer in the same way we protect our home, car and bank account. We wouldn’t give a stranger the keys to our car, home or bank account now would we. If you don’t protect your computer it is like giving the keys to a stranger and letting him/her have full access to your computer. Once the stranger has the keys they can snoop around and take whatever they want. I know, you’re thinking how can they do this, my computer is in my house and my doors are locked. Well, today you can be anywhere in the world and access someone’s computer via the internet. Since the introduction of cable modems and DSL everyone’s computer is online all the time and accessible.


 Why do I need to protect my PC, I don’t keep any important information on it?
Ask yourself a couple of questions.

  • Am I online?
  • Do I surf the internet?
  • Do I bank online?
  • Do I shop online?
  • Do I create documents, spreadsheets?
  • Do I let other people use my computer?
  • Do I download music, files onto my computer?

If you answered YES to any of these questions then your computer is vulnerable.

If you surf the internet you and you end up on a dangerous website it will infectyour computer, you don’t have to download anything to get the infection, justopening the website in your browser and whamo your computer is infected.If you bank online then you are sending personal confidential information to your bank via the Internet. For Example: Let’s say you are infected with spyware and you are typing in your account number plus password. A spyware installation can record key strokes and then send them off to a site on the internet. Now the person who setup the site has your account number and password to your bank.Here is one more example, if you answered yes to I let other people use my pc,here is what happens. The other person decides that they like this new cool piece of software. They download and double click on the exe, msi or whatever installs the software. The spyware or virus installs. Now the infection is installed and now it can start stealing confidential information or cause havoc on your computer. You get onto the computer as always, since you don’t know this has happened and start doing what you always do, type documents, go to chat rooms, do your banking online, reconcile your banking with quicken and all this time your confidential information is stolen and you are completely unaware that this occurred.

Here is a question you need to ask yourself.

How do I know if you have Spyware on your computer?

That’s just it, you don’t know until its to late, don’t let it be to late.

I have noticed that when you start accumulating spyware on your computer it starts to slow down.  When your computer slows down it is like your computer is trying to tell you that there is something wrong.

Take action today and download the software





Computer Spyware

5 Ways Protect Your Computer From Slowness

Jun 14th, 10 / Comments Off

There are many people out there talking about how to speed up the computer.  Well from my experience there are a couple things you need to look at first to see if these are the root cause.

Lets start from the simplest things to check on first and we will work down the list.

1. Is your computer running out of resources:

  • Does your computer have enough disk space and memory
  • Check the memory by going to the task manager (hold ctrl | shift | esc) at the same time. Click on the performance tab and look at the memory, good rule of thumb if  free memory is close to zero get some more
  • Check to see if you are running out of disk space, click computer and then right click on your drive, left click on properties.  How much free space is left.

2. Defrag your hard drive:  Sometime your hard drive gets fragmented. This is when bits of files are saved all over your hard drive.  When your hard drive tries to access these files it has to work harder. What defraging the drive does is it puts all the files together.

  • Windows XP
  • Open My Computer.
  • Right-click the local disk that you need to defrag
  • Then click Properties.
  • On the Tools tab, click Defrag Now.
  • Click Defragment

Windows Vista

  • Click All Programs go to accessories, and then click system tools.
  • Open Disk Defragmenter.
  • It might ask for admin password, just type it in.
  • Click Defragment Now.

Windows 7

  • Go to Start button and click on search and type defrag and click enter
  • Use the scheduler to set it up.

3. Clean your registry: Sometime the registry needs to be cleaned. The registry is holds all the command that windows follows, you could say it is the brains of the operations.  Every time you install software registry entries are made in the registry.  When you uninstall software these entries are not always deleted.   Every so often you need to clean the registry. A good tool to do this is called CCleaner

4. Scan your computer for viruses: Everyone needs to have a virus software on their computer in working order. If you don’t you are taking a big risk.  Many people don’t realize that the virus software that comes with your computer is usually a 30 day trial, and many do not purchase it so there is no virus protection.  If you have virus software make sure it is configured for the following.

  • Virus updates are set to automatically check and download
  • Real-time scanning is enabled for file download and email.
  • Deep scan scheduled weekly
  • Clean viruses when found.

If you don’t have a virus software a very good product is called Computer Associates.  Here is discount coupon for you.
5. Check for runaway processes:  You are probably asking yourself what is a runaway process.  This is software that goes crazy and uses up all the resources on your computer.  To check to see if this is a problem, click task manager and then click the process tab. If you see system idle running between 90-99 this is normal.  If you see another CPU process running very high, you might have a problem.  What I mean by high is anywhere from 40-80.  Write down the name and Google it, find out what it is. If it is something you installed call the manufacturer to see if they have a fix for it.  Sometimes there are programming bugs in software and this happens. 6. Scan your computer for spyware:  Spyware will slow your computer down.  How does it do this?  Lets say you have more than one piece of spyware software installed.  These pieces of software are running collection information (spying on you).  What do they collect or do?

  • Collect Personal Information
  • Record Key strokes
  • Track your movements on the internet

When many are running on your computer they will slow it down and cause strange things to happen.  If you have spyware make sure the following is configured.

  • Update is set to everyday
  • Real-time scanning is enabled
  • Scan weekly
  • Clean spyware when found

If you don’t have spyware software I recommend you get this one quickly. its called StopZilla

Computer Slowness

Everybody Watches TV, Watch It On Your Computer

Jun 12th, 10 / Comments Off

Hey its me again, after you are finished protecting your computer watch some TV. I like watching TV and I like watching shows and getting all different channels. One day I was thinking to myself wouldn’t it be great to watch TV right on your computer. So I started looking around for software that will do this.

Guess what, someone else had the same great idea I had of watching TV on the computer and they went ahead and created the software.


Cool Software

Infected Slow Computer: A True Story

Jun 12th, 10 / Comments Off

I have been working in the computer industry for over 20 years, I have seen a lot.  I have worked with major financial institutions and supported servers and users. I secured computers against threats.

I got a call from my wifes uncle and aunt telling me their was something wrong with their computer.  The computer is running slow, not responding to any commands.  I told them that I would be over to take a look.

I got to their house and the first thing I did as to do a virus scan, but first I did a virus signature update to make sure I had the latest virus protection.  This came up clean, it took a while for it scan but it did it.

The next thing I did was to download spyware software.  I finally got installed on the computer.  I kicked off a scan to check the entire computer.  When the scan was complete their computer was infected by 67 different types of spyware.  I couldn’t believe it, never saw anything like this.

After the scan I cleaned up the spyware by using the software.  I configured the software to real-time scanning so this would never happen again.

I asked why they didn’t have spyware software on their computer.  They told me when they purchased the computer it came with a trial virus software and we purchased it when the trial ran out.  He thought that this is all they needed to protect their computer.

Now I don’t know what information they took, or how long the spyware was on their computer.  For all we know it could have been on the computer for years collecting information.  That is scary.

Do yourself a favor and protect yourself






Computer Spyware

Is My PC Vulnerable on the Internet?

Jun 12th, 10 / Comments Off

No longer are viruses the only threat on the internet. In recent years other threats have evolved which include spyware, adware, hacking, identity theft, information theft, pop-ups and the loss of information.

Let’s begin with the basics. We all need to protect our PC in the same way we protect our home, car and bank account. We wouldn’t give a stranger the keys to our car, home or bank account now would we. If you don’t protect your PC it is like giving the keys to a stranger and letting him/her have full access to your PC. Once the stranger has the keys they can snoop around and take whatever they want. I know, your thinking how can they do this, my computer is in my house and my doors are locked. Well, today you can be anywhere in the world and access someone’s computer via the internet. Since the introduction of cable modems and DSL everyone’s PC is online all the time and accessible.

Why do I need to protect my PC, I don’t keep any important information on it? Ask yourself a couple of questions.

1. Do I bank online?

2. Do I shop online?

3. Do I create documents, spreadsheets?

4. Do I let other people use my PC?

5. Do I download music, files onto my PC?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then your PC is vulnerable. If you bank online then you are sending personal confidential information to your bank via the Internet. For Example: Let’s say you are infected with spyware and you are typing in your account number plus password. A spyware installation can record key strokes and then send them off to a site on the internet. Now the person who setup the site has your account number and password to your bank. Here is one more example, if you answered yes to I let other people use my pc, here is what happens. The other person decides that they like this new cool piece of software. They download and double click on the exe, msi or whatever installs the software. The adware, spyware or virus installs. Now the infection is installed and now it can start stealing confidential information or cause havoc on your PC. You get onto the PC as always, since you don’t know this has happened and start doing what you always do, type documents, go to chat rooms, do your banking online, reconcile your banking with quicken and all this time your confidential information is stolen and you are completely unaware that this occurred.

The million dollar question, what do I do? Well, you can follow this approach.

1. Install a Spyware application and install and configure correctly. If you already have spyware application installed make sure it is up to date and make sure that is configured properly.

2. Install an Adware application and install and configure properly. If you already have adware application installed make sure it is up to date and make sure that is configured properly.

3. Install an AntiVirus application and install and configure properly. If you already have antivirus application installed make sure it is up to date and make sure that is configured properly.

4. Install backup software, why because if something does get through your defenses or delete something by accident you always have a way of retrieving the information. You should try to backup your system at least every other day.

5. Install Encryption software. This software will encrypt files like word docs, spreadsheets, banking file on quicken. This way if someone does steal your information they will not be able to read it.

6. Install a Firewall. The Firewall can either be software or hardware based. I would install both especially if you bring your laptop with you and connect to the internet at different locations. The Firewall will block hackers trying to scan your system while you are on the Internet.

Many people have these applications installed but they do not configure them correctly. Just installing the application does not mean that the application is working properly to stop the threat/infection. On some applications you need to configure the setting to make the application work the way it was designed to. Find out how to configure and install the software properly either by reading a how to book or getting someone to help. If you already have the application installed make sure it is up to date and make sure that is configured properly. All of the software needs to be up to date and kept current. As new threats are release on the internet, all applications will need the current updates to fight these threats.





Computer Virus