Author: Donald Brown
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Many people wonder whether or not their computer is secure. They fear that someone might be looking through their files, copying, altering, or erasing them. They are uneasy about the thought that someone might be monitoring their every move in cyberspace. These concerns come to mind when reminded of the problem of hackers, viruses, and other security risks that abound in the Internet. Fortunately it’s easy to prevent these problems by following a few simple tips.
Update
Perhaps the most important step for computer security is to keep it updated. Install the latest critical updates and service packs from Microsoft's download center. This is made easy by configuring the system to utilize Automatic Updates, if available. If not, updates can be downloaded directly from Microsoft's download center. Currently, Service Pack 2 (SP2) is the most current Service Pack for Windows XP.
Firewall
The easiest way to increase the security level of a computer is by using a firewall. Firewalls monitor all activity that occurs on a connection between one or more computers. They act as a “wall” with one or more computers on one side, and one or more computers (usually the Internet) on the other. Information transfer by suspicious programs are immediately cut off, preventing them from entering the protected side of the firewall. This way denying access to anything coming from unauthorized and unknown sources prevents possible infection by viruses, worms, and other malicious codes.
Anti-Virus and Anti Spy-ware
Even if a computer is protected by a firewall it is still necessary to use anti-virus and anti spy-ware. This is because a firewall only prevents unauthorized outside access, and cannot distinguish between malicious and benign access. It is still possible to inadvertently make a request for information that is harmful, which the firewall views as an authorized transfer. Anti-virus and anti spy-ware provides another layer of armor for a computer, making it harder for hackers and their malicious programs to penetrate and control a computer. Some well-known anti-virus programs include Norton, Trend Micro PC-cillin, and McAffee. Anti spy-ware programs are also important as they reduce the chances of spy-ware getting into a computer. Spy-ware behaves differently than viruses, making it necessary to use different programs to catch it. Spy-ware can monitor any activity a computer infected with it performs, or even act as a gateway to download additional spy-ware or viruses. Hackers typically use spy-ware to obtain important information that must remain confidential like credit card numbers, social security numbers, and police records.
Protect Home Networks
It is possible for a computer owner to be unaware they are using a network at home. If more than one computer shares the same Internet connection or if wireless Internet access is being used, a home network is present. Securing a single computer is not much use if it is part of a network. The whole network must be protected as well to prevent malicious software from simply hopping from computer to computer to avoid attack. Different kinds of home networks face different kinds of risks. In the case of a wireless connection, anyone within the broadcast range of the network may be able to look at any data contained within the network.
Most networking devices employ their own security mechanisms. Using this in combination with security defenses installed on each computer's should provide enough protection to thwart attempts from hackers to hi-jack the network and use the computers connected to it. Most routers function as Network Address Translators (NAT) which makes them a safe connection to the Internet.
While no measure can guarantee total immunity from attack, these steps should increase the security of a computer or network enough to protect against any typical attack.
Donald Brown enjoys writing for several web sites, especially http://sixal.com and http://tyrop.com.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
How to remove spyware for good!
Author: Jason Frovich
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Spyware and adware often slows your computer down or you begin to notice that you are seeing pop-ups every time you use your computer. You also discover that someone has access to your identifying information such as IDS, passwords, credit card information, or even that suddenly your homepage has changed, which is known as hijacking.
It is important that you know how to remove spyware, what to do if hijacked and what tools you can use to get rid of spyware.
How to remove spyware
The first method of combating spyware or adware is asking people you know questions like where can I find free spyware software or where can I find free adware removal websites. If your friends or family members cannot help you in this area, you should turn to search engines to help find the answers.
One excellent program for removing spyware is Spy Sweeper. Spy Sweeper allows you to keep your computer safe from spyware even while downloading things such as videos, music, or pictures and surfing the internet. This program delivers the highest form of computer protection available today by removing spyware programs that have infected your computer, as well as blocking any from ever entering again.
Why do we need anti-spyware protection?
Without anti-spyware protection, your computer is vulnerable every time you surf the web. Any time you access the internet, without some form of protection, like Spy Sweeper on your computer, you are putting yourself at risk for infection. Spyware is extremely malicious and can significantly slow down the processes of your computer, your internet performance or the very worst scenario might be completely rendering your computer useless.
When wanting to learn how to remove spyware and why we need anti-spyware, Spy Sweeper is a great place to start. Not everyone who uses a computer can detect which type of download might be infected; Spy Sweeper can do that for you. It will always provide you with protection thanks to their Smart Shields, which keep the emerging and known threats at bay while using the internet. This program has the capabilities of detecting, removing and blocking more than 140,000 variants of spyware, greater than any other anti-spyware program available on the market.
Where can I get the latest free spyware removal software?
Your favorite search engine is a very valuable tool when it comes to searching for anti-spyware programs. There are many available. However, you will want to be careful of which one you choose to download. While many will advertise removal, in reality, they may actually install the spyware. So be sure to get recommendations from people you trust. Some great programs include Spy Sweeper, Microsoft Defender, Spybot and Ad-Aware.
About The Author:
New forms of malicious Spyware and Adware are constantly created and in order to protect your computer from infestations you must choose a high-quality program and keep it updated. Supportcave.com offer all this and more
Supportcave.com offers new and enhanced spyware removal Software. Not only will these programs effectively check and clean your computer from Spyware, once installed they will also shield your computer from future Spyware intrusions.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Spyware and adware often slows your computer down or you begin to notice that you are seeing pop-ups every time you use your computer. You also discover that someone has access to your identifying information such as IDS, passwords, credit card information, or even that suddenly your homepage has changed, which is known as hijacking.
It is important that you know how to remove spyware, what to do if hijacked and what tools you can use to get rid of spyware.
How to remove spyware
The first method of combating spyware or adware is asking people you know questions like where can I find free spyware software or where can I find free adware removal websites. If your friends or family members cannot help you in this area, you should turn to search engines to help find the answers.
One excellent program for removing spyware is Spy Sweeper. Spy Sweeper allows you to keep your computer safe from spyware even while downloading things such as videos, music, or pictures and surfing the internet. This program delivers the highest form of computer protection available today by removing spyware programs that have infected your computer, as well as blocking any from ever entering again.
Why do we need anti-spyware protection?
Without anti-spyware protection, your computer is vulnerable every time you surf the web. Any time you access the internet, without some form of protection, like Spy Sweeper on your computer, you are putting yourself at risk for infection. Spyware is extremely malicious and can significantly slow down the processes of your computer, your internet performance or the very worst scenario might be completely rendering your computer useless.
When wanting to learn how to remove spyware and why we need anti-spyware, Spy Sweeper is a great place to start. Not everyone who uses a computer can detect which type of download might be infected; Spy Sweeper can do that for you. It will always provide you with protection thanks to their Smart Shields, which keep the emerging and known threats at bay while using the internet. This program has the capabilities of detecting, removing and blocking more than 140,000 variants of spyware, greater than any other anti-spyware program available on the market.
Where can I get the latest free spyware removal software?
Your favorite search engine is a very valuable tool when it comes to searching for anti-spyware programs. There are many available. However, you will want to be careful of which one you choose to download. While many will advertise removal, in reality, they may actually install the spyware. So be sure to get recommendations from people you trust. Some great programs include Spy Sweeper, Microsoft Defender, Spybot and Ad-Aware.
About The Author:
New forms of malicious Spyware and Adware are constantly created and in order to protect your computer from infestations you must choose a high-quality program and keep it updated. Supportcave.com offer all this and more
Supportcave.com offers new and enhanced spyware removal Software. Not only will these programs effectively check and clean your computer from Spyware, once installed they will also shield your computer from future Spyware intrusions.
FAT Drive Recovery
Author: Data Recovery
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Data Recovery has announced that fat recovery software for window operating system supports fat 12, FAT 16, FAT 32, VFAT file systems. Fat partition recovery tool supports recovery of storage media damaged due to virus infection, Power failure overwritten, crashed, hardware-software malfunction. Recovery software restore virus infected accidentally deleted data recover formatted crashed hard disks drive files like acrobat PDF TXT HTML MS Office excel word access power point outlook PST outlook express MBX DBX files. Retrieve undetected root directory damaged storage media including IDE ATA PATA SATA SCSI iSCSI EIDE. Tool recovers Compressed and encrypted data lost by power surges inaccessible disk. Data recovery software for all windows FAT file systems partition hard disk drive files folders provides rescue from data loss due to unexpected shutdown of system, accidentally deleted crashed disk data. Recovery software scans inaccessible hard disk, retrieve data and restore at safe location on your storage media.
Utility provides recovery of deleted data on Window 95, 98, 2000, 2003, NT, ME, WinNT 3.x, WinNT 4.x, Window XP and Windows XP media center edition 2005 operating system.
Features:
* Software is user friendly and provide graphical user interface GUI.
* Powerful and cost effective software.
* No technical knowledge is required
* Software provides recovery from previously existing partition.
* Full support for long files names, encrypted and compressed files.
* Logically damaged or corrupted partition can be recovered by the software
* Software is read only and non destructive support windows operating systems.
* Provides recovery of crashed and disaster data loss of your hard disk drive.
* It can restore the files and folders even if they have been deleted with shift+Del key combination or have been deleted from recycle bin.
* Recover the inaccessible, overwritten or undetected files folders.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Data Recovery has announced that fat recovery software for window operating system supports fat 12, FAT 16, FAT 32, VFAT file systems. Fat partition recovery tool supports recovery of storage media damaged due to virus infection, Power failure overwritten, crashed, hardware-software malfunction. Recovery software restore virus infected accidentally deleted data recover formatted crashed hard disks drive files like acrobat PDF TXT HTML MS Office excel word access power point outlook PST outlook express MBX DBX files. Retrieve undetected root directory damaged storage media including IDE ATA PATA SATA SCSI iSCSI EIDE. Tool recovers Compressed and encrypted data lost by power surges inaccessible disk. Data recovery software for all windows FAT file systems partition hard disk drive files folders provides rescue from data loss due to unexpected shutdown of system, accidentally deleted crashed disk data. Recovery software scans inaccessible hard disk, retrieve data and restore at safe location on your storage media.
Utility provides recovery of deleted data on Window 95, 98, 2000, 2003, NT, ME, WinNT 3.x, WinNT 4.x, Window XP and Windows XP media center edition 2005 operating system.
Features:
* Software is user friendly and provide graphical user interface GUI.
* Powerful and cost effective software.
* No technical knowledge is required
* Software provides recovery from previously existing partition.
* Full support for long files names, encrypted and compressed files.
* Logically damaged or corrupted partition can be recovered by the software
* Software is read only and non destructive support windows operating systems.
* Provides recovery of crashed and disaster data loss of your hard disk drive.
* It can restore the files and folders even if they have been deleted with shift+Del key combination or have been deleted from recycle bin.
* Recover the inaccessible, overwritten or undetected files folders.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Computers..How to tell if your getting a rabbit not a turtle
Author: John McCollim
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Normally you go to your local computer retailer to buy a new computer. The salesman may boast looky here this one has a such & such speed, this much memory, a huge hard drive, etc. You read the box and sure enough it seems like a powerhouse. But is it?
What the salesman or the box for that matter, fail to tell you is all computers run on whats called Front Side Bus (FSB). In a nutshell its how fast each component can communicate with each other. FSB's can be anywhere from 100MHz to 2000MHz.(even 33MHz or 66MHz on very old systems) Its like trying to fill a swimming pool with 1 garden hose as compared to trying it with a few fire trucks with fire hoses. Hence the higher the FSB the faster all of your data tranfers to all the hardware components. For instance the CPU, Motherboard, Memory(ram), Graphics card, Hard drive etc. all are made with different speeds and have a different speed FSB.
Here is an example of various CPU's SPEED - INTERFACE - FRONT SIDE BUS SPEED - PRICE
64 3200+ / 2.00GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $84.99
64 3500+ / 2.20GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $94.99
64 3800+ / 2.40GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $114.99
64 3800+ / 2.40GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $116.99
SP 2800+ / 1.60GHz Socket AM2 800MHz $55.97
SP 3200+ / 1.80GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $69.99
SP 3400+ / 1.8GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $75.99
SP 3600+ / 2.0GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $107.99
355 / 3.33GHz Socket 775 533MHz $69.99
351 / 3.20GHz Socket 775 533MHz $39.99*
As you can see in this example The first cpu on the list(64 3200+) runs at 2 Gigs and has a FSB of 2000MHz. The last cpu on the list(351) is a 3.2 Gig and runs on a FSB of 533. In fact i have seen low end computer makers boast of a computer with a fast cpu but with further examination the motherboard could only run a FSB of 100. The end result is a bottle-necked system. The Cpu does a fast job every few milliseconds only to wait on the data to travel to the other components at turtle speed. You want a system that basically runs at the same or near the same FSB speeds on all the components. That goes for the CPU, Motherboard, Memory and somewhat the Hard Drive.
In the fowolling example i will show the differences in the speed of various Hard Drives.(NOTE by no means am i trying to refer one hard drive manufactorer over the other. I picked these at random. These manufactorers make various hard drives with varying capacities and speeds!)
1.Seagate / 20GB / 5400 / 2MB / ATA-100 / IDE / OEM / Hard Drive
2.Seagate / Barracuda 7200.10 / 400GB / 7200 / 16MB / ATA-100 / EIDE / OEM / Hard Drive
3.Hitachi / Deskstar 7K160 / 80GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-133 / EIDE / OEM / Hard Drive
1. The seagate in this example holds 20 gigs of data/ spins at 5400rpm/(ATA-100) has a FSB of 100.
2. The seagate barracuda in this example holds 400gigs of data/spins at 7200rpm wich is 33% faster than 5400. So it delivers data to the mainstream 33% faster and boots up 33% faster. But it only has a FSB of 100.
3. The hitachi in this example holds 80gigs of data/spins at 7200rpm and has a FSB of 133 wich is by far the quickest of the three. So you can see from this example its not the size(gigs) of the drive but the spindle speed and FSB that make it fast.You can even get a SATA Hard Drive wich deliver data even quicker.
I could go on and on with various examples with other computer components but by now you should be getting a good idea by now. Of why some computers give blazing speed while others crawl along showing the hourglass as you wait.But how do you get this information you ask? Its easy, buy your next system online. At TigerDirect You can purchase a Deeply discounted hi-quality system. Whereas you can check on the speed of each component to be sure you are truly getting a rabbit and not a turtle!
Personally i repair, build and upgrade computers, After years of looking for the best sources of parts, I chose Tigerdirect. Just compare the quality and prices with any other store or site and im sure that you will agree that Tigerdirect is the best.
The author(webmaster)operates an article directory http://www.articles-and.bestfinancenews.com/index ... A informative Hybrid Cars site. http://www.activehybrid.com And proudly refers TigerDirect http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=TsLMFyxXF2o&offerid=102327&type=3&subid=0 For hi-quality, lowest cost computer systems and accesories.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Normally you go to your local computer retailer to buy a new computer. The salesman may boast looky here this one has a such & such speed, this much memory, a huge hard drive, etc. You read the box and sure enough it seems like a powerhouse. But is it?
What the salesman or the box for that matter, fail to tell you is all computers run on whats called Front Side Bus (FSB). In a nutshell its how fast each component can communicate with each other. FSB's can be anywhere from 100MHz to 2000MHz.(even 33MHz or 66MHz on very old systems) Its like trying to fill a swimming pool with 1 garden hose as compared to trying it with a few fire trucks with fire hoses. Hence the higher the FSB the faster all of your data tranfers to all the hardware components. For instance the CPU, Motherboard, Memory(ram), Graphics card, Hard drive etc. all are made with different speeds and have a different speed FSB.
Here is an example of various CPU's SPEED - INTERFACE - FRONT SIDE BUS SPEED - PRICE
64 3200+ / 2.00GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $84.99
64 3500+ / 2.20GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $94.99
64 3800+ / 2.40GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $114.99
64 3800+ / 2.40GHz Socket AM2 2000MHz $116.99
SP 2800+ / 1.60GHz Socket AM2 800MHz $55.97
SP 3200+ / 1.80GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $69.99
SP 3400+ / 1.8GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $75.99
SP 3600+ / 2.0GHz Socket AM2 1600MHz $107.99
355 / 3.33GHz Socket 775 533MHz $69.99
351 / 3.20GHz Socket 775 533MHz $39.99*
As you can see in this example The first cpu on the list(64 3200+) runs at 2 Gigs and has a FSB of 2000MHz. The last cpu on the list(351) is a 3.2 Gig and runs on a FSB of 533. In fact i have seen low end computer makers boast of a computer with a fast cpu but with further examination the motherboard could only run a FSB of 100. The end result is a bottle-necked system. The Cpu does a fast job every few milliseconds only to wait on the data to travel to the other components at turtle speed. You want a system that basically runs at the same or near the same FSB speeds on all the components. That goes for the CPU, Motherboard, Memory and somewhat the Hard Drive.
In the fowolling example i will show the differences in the speed of various Hard Drives.(NOTE by no means am i trying to refer one hard drive manufactorer over the other. I picked these at random. These manufactorers make various hard drives with varying capacities and speeds!)
1.Seagate / 20GB / 5400 / 2MB / ATA-100 / IDE / OEM / Hard Drive
2.Seagate / Barracuda 7200.10 / 400GB / 7200 / 16MB / ATA-100 / EIDE / OEM / Hard Drive
3.Hitachi / Deskstar 7K160 / 80GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-133 / EIDE / OEM / Hard Drive
1. The seagate in this example holds 20 gigs of data/ spins at 5400rpm/(ATA-100) has a FSB of 100.
2. The seagate barracuda in this example holds 400gigs of data/spins at 7200rpm wich is 33% faster than 5400. So it delivers data to the mainstream 33% faster and boots up 33% faster. But it only has a FSB of 100.
3. The hitachi in this example holds 80gigs of data/spins at 7200rpm and has a FSB of 133 wich is by far the quickest of the three. So you can see from this example its not the size(gigs) of the drive but the spindle speed and FSB that make it fast.You can even get a SATA Hard Drive wich deliver data even quicker.
I could go on and on with various examples with other computer components but by now you should be getting a good idea by now. Of why some computers give blazing speed while others crawl along showing the hourglass as you wait.But how do you get this information you ask? Its easy, buy your next system online. At TigerDirect You can purchase a Deeply discounted hi-quality system. Whereas you can check on the speed of each component to be sure you are truly getting a rabbit and not a turtle!
Personally i repair, build and upgrade computers, After years of looking for the best sources of parts, I chose Tigerdirect. Just compare the quality and prices with any other store or site and im sure that you will agree that Tigerdirect is the best.
The author(webmaster)operates an article directory http://www.articles-and.bestfinancenews.com/index ... A informative Hybrid Cars site. http://www.activehybrid.com And proudly refers TigerDirect http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=TsLMFyxXF2o&offerid=102327&type=3&subid=0 For hi-quality, lowest cost computer systems and accesories.
Computer Repair And Cracking Passwords!
Author: John Dow
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
I spend a lot of time cracking passwords! No, not for stealing software or information, for doing computer repair!
One of the most common home or small business computer service repair calls I get is that Bob, fill in the blank here – lost his password / forgot his password / left the company and never told anyone his password, and we can’t use the computer or software.
If you have physical access, most times you can reset a password on any version of Windows XP. Some vertical applications get a little trickier but I still can usually figure out a way to get in to clear the existing password and then let the customer reset it.
And no, I’m not going to teach you how in this article, sorry. But what I can do is help you figure out a way to never forget a password without writing down. An especially bad practice that I see all the time is someone will write down the password on a post-it note and put it on the monitor. Which is a particularly ugly breach in security.
But I can understand the problem. Chances are you have many passwords to remember if you use a computer at home or at work. And since many of the systems automatically force the user to change their password every 90 days, this becomes quite a challenge to remember them all.
There are some good ways to create a password so that you can’t forget it. And you can easily meet the minimum requirements of at least 8 characters with at least three being punctuation or numerals too. But the best is 15 characters (I won’t go technical on you but let’s just say that the stored password of over 14 characters are much more difficult to crack). I can’t even remember who taught me this method but I’ve been using it for years.
The first thing to remember is not to use children’s names, birthdays, or any information that someone might guess. This includes common names found in the dictionary or some other know source. The reason for this is there are many cracker programs out there that use these common sources to check against password to break them. So stay away from common words or expressions.
Even the programs that generate random characters can be beat by another program designed to emulate that type of software. The idea behind them is good and they can provide a stronger password but for most user that creates a bigger problem since who can remember W#8hY*2l-Km$!1d, let alone type it.
So what’s the secret? The easiest way I’ve found to remember a password is to associate it with a person or event that you’ll never forget. Something that even a good friend might not know but also something that you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to if you tried.
If the password is for windows or a windows program you have up to 127 characters most times. So use a phrase instead of just one word. So if you have a phrase (or song lyric) burned into your brain you could use it too. When I need a quick password when working at a client’s I normally look at the machine or something on the wall and use it for the password. One of my favorites is “I hate Compaq’s model 2780!” or use any computer name).
When I was five we moved to the corner of 85th street and pacific. Most people I know now don’t know that and I doubt it would come up in any conversation. So if I used 085TH@pacificst5 that contains something I can easily remember and also meets the high end password requirements.
Or how about the first love of my life (which dumped me in about 2 weeks)? I won’t use her real name to protect the guilty but here’s that one, 2wKJeN06.OrGan, I added organ since she was organic (I think). See how this works? I’ll bet we all have lots of things, events, people, and the date or age we experienced them to use.
One weakness any password can have is if someone slips in a keylogger program on your computer. Keyloggers record all the keystrokes that a user makes and regardless how tough you make your password, if they can see the key strokes, they’ve got you. And it’s much easier than you think to do a stealth install.
There is one way to get around this issue, use extended characters. If you hold down the alt key, then press one or more numerals you get one of those weird characters with double dots on top or a symbol. But the keylogger still shows the character, but a way around it is to use Alt 0160. This extended character is a space and hides the fact that you used the Alt method to create it. So they won’t be able to duplicate it even if they see it.
There is no perfect solution for passwords. But you can and should take some steps to insure that you take the appropriate precautions whenever you create one. Keep it over 15 characters, use numerals, punctuation, and alphabetical characters. Combine elements that are easy to remember but not common information like birth dates or children’s names. Use associations that make it easy to remember.
And never communicate your password in any documentation or emails. Don’t display them on your computer or loan them to friends or associates. Random generators can be helpful but aren’t bullet proof. Change your passwords on a regular basis just in case. Always have a master or Administrator password that can be used to go in and change user’s passwords when necessary.
I’d much rather fix hardware or software problems than crack passwords on a computer repair service call. It makes my job a little easier and can save you a lot of money.
John Dow owns www.powersolutionscd.com, a website that specializes in computer troubleshooting, security, and repair utilities. His Power Solutions CD has helped thousands of customers protect their computer and data, by providing a collection of utilities and how to articles to fix and repair ANY hard drive or computer problem. Click here to learn more: Best Computer Repair CD.
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
I spend a lot of time cracking passwords! No, not for stealing software or information, for doing computer repair!
One of the most common home or small business computer service repair calls I get is that Bob, fill in the blank here – lost his password / forgot his password / left the company and never told anyone his password, and we can’t use the computer or software.
If you have physical access, most times you can reset a password on any version of Windows XP. Some vertical applications get a little trickier but I still can usually figure out a way to get in to clear the existing password and then let the customer reset it.
And no, I’m not going to teach you how in this article, sorry. But what I can do is help you figure out a way to never forget a password without writing down. An especially bad practice that I see all the time is someone will write down the password on a post-it note and put it on the monitor. Which is a particularly ugly breach in security.
But I can understand the problem. Chances are you have many passwords to remember if you use a computer at home or at work. And since many of the systems automatically force the user to change their password every 90 days, this becomes quite a challenge to remember them all.
There are some good ways to create a password so that you can’t forget it. And you can easily meet the minimum requirements of at least 8 characters with at least three being punctuation or numerals too. But the best is 15 characters (I won’t go technical on you but let’s just say that the stored password of over 14 characters are much more difficult to crack). I can’t even remember who taught me this method but I’ve been using it for years.
The first thing to remember is not to use children’s names, birthdays, or any information that someone might guess. This includes common names found in the dictionary or some other know source. The reason for this is there are many cracker programs out there that use these common sources to check against password to break them. So stay away from common words or expressions.
Even the programs that generate random characters can be beat by another program designed to emulate that type of software. The idea behind them is good and they can provide a stronger password but for most user that creates a bigger problem since who can remember W#8hY*2l-Km$!1d, let alone type it.
So what’s the secret? The easiest way I’ve found to remember a password is to associate it with a person or event that you’ll never forget. Something that even a good friend might not know but also something that you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to if you tried.
If the password is for windows or a windows program you have up to 127 characters most times. So use a phrase instead of just one word. So if you have a phrase (or song lyric) burned into your brain you could use it too. When I need a quick password when working at a client’s I normally look at the machine or something on the wall and use it for the password. One of my favorites is “I hate Compaq’s model 2780!” or use any computer name).
When I was five we moved to the corner of 85th street and pacific. Most people I know now don’t know that and I doubt it would come up in any conversation. So if I used 085TH@pacificst5 that contains something I can easily remember and also meets the high end password requirements.
Or how about the first love of my life (which dumped me in about 2 weeks)? I won’t use her real name to protect the guilty but here’s that one, 2wKJeN06.OrGan, I added organ since she was organic (I think). See how this works? I’ll bet we all have lots of things, events, people, and the date or age we experienced them to use.
One weakness any password can have is if someone slips in a keylogger program on your computer. Keyloggers record all the keystrokes that a user makes and regardless how tough you make your password, if they can see the key strokes, they’ve got you. And it’s much easier than you think to do a stealth install.
There is one way to get around this issue, use extended characters. If you hold down the alt key, then press one or more numerals you get one of those weird characters with double dots on top or a symbol. But the keylogger still shows the character, but a way around it is to use Alt 0160. This extended character is a space and hides the fact that you used the Alt method to create it. So they won’t be able to duplicate it even if they see it.
There is no perfect solution for passwords. But you can and should take some steps to insure that you take the appropriate precautions whenever you create one. Keep it over 15 characters, use numerals, punctuation, and alphabetical characters. Combine elements that are easy to remember but not common information like birth dates or children’s names. Use associations that make it easy to remember.
And never communicate your password in any documentation or emails. Don’t display them on your computer or loan them to friends or associates. Random generators can be helpful but aren’t bullet proof. Change your passwords on a regular basis just in case. Always have a master or Administrator password that can be used to go in and change user’s passwords when necessary.
I’d much rather fix hardware or software problems than crack passwords on a computer repair service call. It makes my job a little easier and can save you a lot of money.
John Dow owns www.powersolutionscd.com, a website that specializes in computer troubleshooting, security, and repair utilities. His Power Solutions CD has helped thousands of customers protect their computer and data, by providing a collection of utilities and how to articles to fix and repair ANY hard drive or computer problem. Click here to learn more: Best Computer Repair CD.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Computer No Longer Fast?
Author: Anthony Elias
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Ahh...Remember that first day you brought your computer home, plugged everything in, it was a beautiful site, it was fast, web pages loaded quickly and programs launched within seconds or faster. But after a few months or weeks things began to slow down, and you think oh man what a piece of *@&* this thing only lasted a month. Let's take a look at what happened.
Disk Drive Clutter
What you may not have realized is that in all that time you were surfing the net and downloading programs installing, and uninstalling software, is that in all that time junk has been building up on your hard drive, temporary internet files, software that you tried but did not like, but never bothered to uninstall, emails from friends and family, that are sitting in your inbox and sent items. All that junk is slowing down your computer.
When you’re hard drive becomes cluttered it begins to slow down. Your computer performance is degraded substantially. The more files you have stored on your hard drive the more they get scattered and fragmented, which in turn slows down how fast programs respond to your clicks. Think about your hard drive as a huge filing cabinet, when all the files are neatly organized and labeled, it is easy to find what you are looking for, but take that same filing cabinet and dump it all over the ground, it well take longer to find that certain file or folder that you were looking for. A computers hard drive is the same way, as files become fragmented your computer takes more time to gather the correct files and execute your commands.
In addition the more files you have fragmented the less space on your hard drive your computer has, resulting in less virtual memory. That open area or unused space on the hard drive is used as virtual memory by your computer, if you have limited free disk space for data swapping your computer will become sluggish and slow to respond to commands, so keep your hard drive clean and remove or uninstall any programs or files that you don’t need and you will see a marked difference in the way your computer performs.
There are five major factors that contribute to a computers performance
1. The type of processor you have in your computer. Not all processors are created equal. Budget brand or bargain brand processors such as the Intel Celeron or the AMD Duron are lower end processors. If you want a high performance computer stay away from the lower end processors.
2. Along with processors type comes with the maximum available cache in a processor. The large cache a CPU has the less time it needs to access the computer memory.
3. Front side bus, once again the larger or faster a computer front size bus is the better a computer will perform. The front side bus is what carries all the data between the CPU and all the devices on board the computers motherboard.
4. Hard Drive, once again it comes down to speed, typically most home PC’s will have either a 5800rpm hard drive or a 7200rpm hard drive. The faster the hard drives spins the faster the CPU can access data on the hard drive.
5. And finally memory. The quality and performance of computer memory or RAM has increase significantly the past couple of years. DDR RAM set in channels of the computers mother board has substantially increased the speed and performance of today’s computers. With that said, the more memory you have the better your computer will perform. However there is a point where too much memory becomes just a waste of money. If you are a gamer you can probably never have too much memory, but if you use your computer for web surfing and email, 256-512MB is plenty good on a Windows XP machine.
Anthony Elias has been in the information technology field for over 10 years. If you need more information on computer software, hardware or networking please visit us at http://www.amecomputers.com.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Ahh...Remember that first day you brought your computer home, plugged everything in, it was a beautiful site, it was fast, web pages loaded quickly and programs launched within seconds or faster. But after a few months or weeks things began to slow down, and you think oh man what a piece of *@&* this thing only lasted a month. Let's take a look at what happened.
Disk Drive Clutter
What you may not have realized is that in all that time you were surfing the net and downloading programs installing, and uninstalling software, is that in all that time junk has been building up on your hard drive, temporary internet files, software that you tried but did not like, but never bothered to uninstall, emails from friends and family, that are sitting in your inbox and sent items. All that junk is slowing down your computer.
When you’re hard drive becomes cluttered it begins to slow down. Your computer performance is degraded substantially. The more files you have stored on your hard drive the more they get scattered and fragmented, which in turn slows down how fast programs respond to your clicks. Think about your hard drive as a huge filing cabinet, when all the files are neatly organized and labeled, it is easy to find what you are looking for, but take that same filing cabinet and dump it all over the ground, it well take longer to find that certain file or folder that you were looking for. A computers hard drive is the same way, as files become fragmented your computer takes more time to gather the correct files and execute your commands.
In addition the more files you have fragmented the less space on your hard drive your computer has, resulting in less virtual memory. That open area or unused space on the hard drive is used as virtual memory by your computer, if you have limited free disk space for data swapping your computer will become sluggish and slow to respond to commands, so keep your hard drive clean and remove or uninstall any programs or files that you don’t need and you will see a marked difference in the way your computer performs.
There are five major factors that contribute to a computers performance
1. The type of processor you have in your computer. Not all processors are created equal. Budget brand or bargain brand processors such as the Intel Celeron or the AMD Duron are lower end processors. If you want a high performance computer stay away from the lower end processors.
2. Along with processors type comes with the maximum available cache in a processor. The large cache a CPU has the less time it needs to access the computer memory.
3. Front side bus, once again the larger or faster a computer front size bus is the better a computer will perform. The front side bus is what carries all the data between the CPU and all the devices on board the computers motherboard.
4. Hard Drive, once again it comes down to speed, typically most home PC’s will have either a 5800rpm hard drive or a 7200rpm hard drive. The faster the hard drives spins the faster the CPU can access data on the hard drive.
5. And finally memory. The quality and performance of computer memory or RAM has increase significantly the past couple of years. DDR RAM set in channels of the computers mother board has substantially increased the speed and performance of today’s computers. With that said, the more memory you have the better your computer will perform. However there is a point where too much memory becomes just a waste of money. If you are a gamer you can probably never have too much memory, but if you use your computer for web surfing and email, 256-512MB is plenty good on a Windows XP machine.
Anthony Elias has been in the information technology field for over 10 years. If you need more information on computer software, hardware or networking please visit us at http://www.amecomputers.com.
Speed Up Your Computer With Free Registry Repair
Author: Nathan Strauss
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
How do I speed up my computer? Tough question, if you are not familiar to the computer and software, but not to worry I have found a free registry repair software.
The free registry repair works like a charm. Do you know how many millions of unused files laying in the system? Some clear the browser cache and use windows XP disk clean up and still is difficult as more are created by the third party programs, installers, java cache files, adware and virus programs etc, so why not use the free registry repair. I am sure this free registry repair will not slow your computer daily database operation.
Keep in mind that, thousands are recorded daily, every single time, when you change, install or move software, or hardware. So use the free registry repair to assist you.
A lot of time spends to check the file locations, hardware driver aspects, and many of the different settings, so I use the free registry repair to improve the quality performance.
It is not a lot of fun to know what files or settings are no longer needed. It is impossible when repairing the computer and the free registry repair will come in handy.
Tune UP Utilities will clean up as well as delete all the old inactive files. The free registry repair does not removes many of the uninstall programs, but only the files and installation that get cluttered up. And so does the speed on boot up and day-to-day operations. It’s a noticeable difference before and after you run the free registry repair. The free registry repair has a support area and forum on their web site for any questions and issues that you have when using the free registry repair software.
Most computer sites and magazines have given Tune UP Utilities, one of the free registry repairs, the highest marks for both reliability and results. It shows how good the free registry repair is, since these expert web sites are pretty thorough in testing and don’t give high rankings all that often.
This free registry repair helps any computer speed up both the boot process and daily operations. This Tune UP Utility, one of the free registry repair, always make sure that there are no pesky viruses or adware first when release the latest version.
Did I mention that this great free registry repair is also free? I am not joking, it’s free for you, and if you are happy and find it useful, donate something so that the free registry repairs can continue their great work to make more free registry repair programs for you.
Nathan Staruss is a system administrator for a small IT company. Realising the importance of security and system maintanance, he writes articles on how to improve and keep your computer safe http://www.registryrepairhelp.com.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
How do I speed up my computer? Tough question, if you are not familiar to the computer and software, but not to worry I have found a free registry repair software.
The free registry repair works like a charm. Do you know how many millions of unused files laying in the system? Some clear the browser cache and use windows XP disk clean up and still is difficult as more are created by the third party programs, installers, java cache files, adware and virus programs etc, so why not use the free registry repair. I am sure this free registry repair will not slow your computer daily database operation.
Keep in mind that, thousands are recorded daily, every single time, when you change, install or move software, or hardware. So use the free registry repair to assist you.
A lot of time spends to check the file locations, hardware driver aspects, and many of the different settings, so I use the free registry repair to improve the quality performance.
It is not a lot of fun to know what files or settings are no longer needed. It is impossible when repairing the computer and the free registry repair will come in handy.
Tune UP Utilities will clean up as well as delete all the old inactive files. The free registry repair does not removes many of the uninstall programs, but only the files and installation that get cluttered up. And so does the speed on boot up and day-to-day operations. It’s a noticeable difference before and after you run the free registry repair. The free registry repair has a support area and forum on their web site for any questions and issues that you have when using the free registry repair software.
Most computer sites and magazines have given Tune UP Utilities, one of the free registry repairs, the highest marks for both reliability and results. It shows how good the free registry repair is, since these expert web sites are pretty thorough in testing and don’t give high rankings all that often.
This free registry repair helps any computer speed up both the boot process and daily operations. This Tune UP Utility, one of the free registry repair, always make sure that there are no pesky viruses or adware first when release the latest version.
Did I mention that this great free registry repair is also free? I am not joking, it’s free for you, and if you are happy and find it useful, donate something so that the free registry repairs can continue their great work to make more free registry repair programs for you.
Nathan Staruss is a system administrator for a small IT company. Realising the importance of security and system maintanance, he writes articles on how to improve and keep your computer safe http://www.registryrepairhelp.com.
Choosing DVD Burning Media
Author: Carolynn Wong
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
There are many reasons why it's particularly important that we get to choose the most ideal type and, most of all, best DVD there is, especially if you're considering DVD burning. Low quality media can freeze or skip and may even not be recognized at all. Cyclic redundancy errors or “I/O” errors are also prevalent with these types of DVD media. These errors may mean that you are dealing with a dirty disco or that your DVD burner is not accepting the low quality media.
Another error that you can face is a "power calibration error." This type of error can also often be due to low quality media. What you could try to help is shut down the DVD software, eject the disc, and restart the program while re-inserting freshly cleaned media.
If you are trying to save up, cheap media can be fine for text or data sheets, even .jpg or .gif pictures but it’s not recommended for your DVD backups.
What you can do is download an identifier for your DVD in order to figure out what quality it is.
What you want and what you are after here is prime quality media for your DVD backups. Any type of media which may make use of superior dye and dye application paired with a quality composite disc are perfect for DVD backups. Gambling your DVD backups on lower quality media can very well waste your time and effort in DVD burning. Starting with good quality media will ensure you of quality results.
Remember, low quality media refers to the composite the manufacturer uses. This includes the dye method application and quality control of manufacturing. This does not necessarily refer directly to the price!
Aiming for the best burn!
When you are trying to get the best DVD burn, you may opt to decrease burn speed to 4x. Using a new 16x DL burner you could try burning at 6x. But 8x or over may result in coasters even while utilizing good quality media.
Backup life of a cheap disc
You may believe that data on a DVD backup may very well last forever, but make sure that you do not throw your originals down the drain. Frankly, you may end up needing them sooner than you think. Low quality discs can break down, some even within a year from burning. This is why quality is a key component in any type of DVD burning. Keep in mind that quality is an important factor in choosing all elements involved in DVD burning.
Carolynn Wong is a law student and a web design beginner. For more information about DVD burning, you can visit http://www.easydvdburning.com/General/index.php.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
There are many reasons why it's particularly important that we get to choose the most ideal type and, most of all, best DVD there is, especially if you're considering DVD burning. Low quality media can freeze or skip and may even not be recognized at all. Cyclic redundancy errors or “I/O” errors are also prevalent with these types of DVD media. These errors may mean that you are dealing with a dirty disco or that your DVD burner is not accepting the low quality media.
Another error that you can face is a "power calibration error." This type of error can also often be due to low quality media. What you could try to help is shut down the DVD software, eject the disc, and restart the program while re-inserting freshly cleaned media.
If you are trying to save up, cheap media can be fine for text or data sheets, even .jpg or .gif pictures but it’s not recommended for your DVD backups.
What you can do is download an identifier for your DVD in order to figure out what quality it is.
What you want and what you are after here is prime quality media for your DVD backups. Any type of media which may make use of superior dye and dye application paired with a quality composite disc are perfect for DVD backups. Gambling your DVD backups on lower quality media can very well waste your time and effort in DVD burning. Starting with good quality media will ensure you of quality results.
Remember, low quality media refers to the composite the manufacturer uses. This includes the dye method application and quality control of manufacturing. This does not necessarily refer directly to the price!
Aiming for the best burn!
When you are trying to get the best DVD burn, you may opt to decrease burn speed to 4x. Using a new 16x DL burner you could try burning at 6x. But 8x or over may result in coasters even while utilizing good quality media.
Backup life of a cheap disc
You may believe that data on a DVD backup may very well last forever, but make sure that you do not throw your originals down the drain. Frankly, you may end up needing them sooner than you think. Low quality discs can break down, some even within a year from burning. This is why quality is a key component in any type of DVD burning. Keep in mind that quality is an important factor in choosing all elements involved in DVD burning.
Carolynn Wong is a law student and a web design beginner. For more information about DVD burning, you can visit http://www.easydvdburning.com/General/index.php.
Cost Of Spam And Why Use Anti-Spam Filter
Author: Julia Gulevich
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
E-mail is now being abused. The flow of spam on the Internet is the proof. It is annoying to download hundreds of disgusting spam emails into the inbox looking for some legitimate messages. Not only you waste your valuable time to delete junk emails by hand, you also waste your money as each spam message in your inbox takes precious kilobytes of bandwidth you paid for. In addition, spam messages can contain viruses, which can infect your computer system, and hidden tracking codes, which work as soon as you click on the message and let the spammer know that your email address is valid. With all that said, it would be great to delete the messages that you don’t want to receive beforehand and launch your email client to pull down only good emails. Anti-spam software can do this for you. It helps you fight against annoying spam.
There is a wide choice of anti-spam filters available on the Internet. The common services or features they offer are:
• Whitelist and Blacklist. The decision whether an email message is spam or good is taken based on the sender’s email address. The whitelist contains “friendly” email addresses, and the blacklist contains potential spammers, or simply people you don’t want to communicate with.
• Filtering based on the message subject or content. Some words or phrases are met in spam emails more often than others. These are usually vulgar or adult words (sometimes too offending). Thus, filtering based on a keyword is rather helpful.
• Virus scanning. There is possibility that spam email contains a virus in the attachment. Certain anti-spam programs allow you block emails with various suspicious attachments.
• Automatic spam detection. Some anti-spam filters can check inbound email and delete the emails they consider as spam automatically at a regular basis.
• Email recovering. Some spam blockers provide you with the ability to move spam emails to a quarantine folder and keep them for a fixed number of days. In addition, there is the possibility to recover an email from the trash if you need it.
So, with the great features and benefits that antispam software offers, you can now easily block the majority of spam emails.
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/. More information can be found at http://www.glocksoft.net/sc/anti-spam/
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
E-mail is now being abused. The flow of spam on the Internet is the proof. It is annoying to download hundreds of disgusting spam emails into the inbox looking for some legitimate messages. Not only you waste your valuable time to delete junk emails by hand, you also waste your money as each spam message in your inbox takes precious kilobytes of bandwidth you paid for. In addition, spam messages can contain viruses, which can infect your computer system, and hidden tracking codes, which work as soon as you click on the message and let the spammer know that your email address is valid. With all that said, it would be great to delete the messages that you don’t want to receive beforehand and launch your email client to pull down only good emails. Anti-spam software can do this for you. It helps you fight against annoying spam.
There is a wide choice of anti-spam filters available on the Internet. The common services or features they offer are:
• Whitelist and Blacklist. The decision whether an email message is spam or good is taken based on the sender’s email address. The whitelist contains “friendly” email addresses, and the blacklist contains potential spammers, or simply people you don’t want to communicate with.
• Filtering based on the message subject or content. Some words or phrases are met in spam emails more often than others. These are usually vulgar or adult words (sometimes too offending). Thus, filtering based on a keyword is rather helpful.
• Virus scanning. There is possibility that spam email contains a virus in the attachment. Certain anti-spam programs allow you block emails with various suspicious attachments.
• Automatic spam detection. Some anti-spam filters can check inbound email and delete the emails they consider as spam automatically at a regular basis.
• Email recovering. Some spam blockers provide you with the ability to move spam emails to a quarantine folder and keep them for a fixed number of days. In addition, there is the possibility to recover an email from the trash if you need it.
So, with the great features and benefits that antispam software offers, you can now easily block the majority of spam emails.
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/. More information can be found at http://www.glocksoft.net/sc/anti-spam/
Recovery From PC Failure Using Windows XP's Restore Point
Author: Otis Cooper
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Have you ever done something to make an improvement and later regretted it?It would be awesome to be able to go back in time and undo the the thing that were supposed to make an improvement.
While life in general will not allow us to return to an earlier time to make changes, we computer users do have such an option should we experience problems with our Windows XP operating systems.
If you update or install the wrong device driver for your video card, and you delete accidentally delete a critical Windows file, so what.
You can simply use Windows XP's Restore Point feature and, Tada, you're back on track and recovered that deleted file.
Restore Points are snapshots of the state your operating system was in during that time.Windows XP automatically creates a restore point when it senses a major change in your operating system.And Restore Points are created every 24 hours as a safety measure.But you can create a Restore Point manually any time you feel there is a need.
If you have a change of some sort that causes problems with the operating system, you can tell Windows XP to revert to any Restore Point established before the problem occured.After the rollback, every change in the operating system that happened after that Restore Point is eliminated.
Restore Points are generally used when you experience such pc problems as extremely slow performance of the system. Your computer responds far more slowly that it did before you installed or updated something.
Other times to run Restore Point is when your system stops responding after an update or installation. Be sure to create a Restore Point before making any significant change to your computer's software or configuration.
To set a Restore Point, click on Start, point to All Programs, click on Accessories, System Tools, and then click on System Restore.When the System Restore windows appears, click on the button labeled "Create A Restore Point" and click Next.
Enter a description of the restore point, something like "Before scanner device driver install" and click the Create button.A notification will inform you that a Restore Point was made.Now click the Close button and you're all set.
Reverting to a Restore Point is as easy as create one.Click on Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, System Tools, and System Restore.When the System Restore window appears, click on the "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time" and then click on the Next button.
Choose the date on which you set the Restore Point and click the Next button.Review the information presented and save any open files.Shut down any other programs that may be running.
Click on the Next button and now your computer will restart. As it restarts, it will present a message informing you of the restore point. Click OK and you're done.
After reading all about setting and reverting to restore points, you should make a known restore point if you have not done so already.Whatever you do after reading this article, don't say I'll get to it soon.Familarize yourself with this feature and create a restore point one.
You should try Restore Point and see how it works before you need it.Create a Restore Point now and update something.You can update Windows Media Player for example.
After the update or the installation of a program,wait a day or so and go back to Restore Point.Revert to the Restore Point you created and see if the old version of Windows Media Player comes back.Or see if that old device driver is present.
Doing a simple task like this can and will boost your computer skills and give you much more confidence in yourself and the Windows XP operating system.
Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user. Sign up to receive his informative articles every month and learn PC Repair absolutely free. Sign up now at http://www.repairarticles.com.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Have you ever done something to make an improvement and later regretted it?It would be awesome to be able to go back in time and undo the the thing that were supposed to make an improvement.
While life in general will not allow us to return to an earlier time to make changes, we computer users do have such an option should we experience problems with our Windows XP operating systems.
If you update or install the wrong device driver for your video card, and you delete accidentally delete a critical Windows file, so what.
You can simply use Windows XP's Restore Point feature and, Tada, you're back on track and recovered that deleted file.
Restore Points are snapshots of the state your operating system was in during that time.Windows XP automatically creates a restore point when it senses a major change in your operating system.And Restore Points are created every 24 hours as a safety measure.But you can create a Restore Point manually any time you feel there is a need.
If you have a change of some sort that causes problems with the operating system, you can tell Windows XP to revert to any Restore Point established before the problem occured.After the rollback, every change in the operating system that happened after that Restore Point is eliminated.
Restore Points are generally used when you experience such pc problems as extremely slow performance of the system. Your computer responds far more slowly that it did before you installed or updated something.
Other times to run Restore Point is when your system stops responding after an update or installation. Be sure to create a Restore Point before making any significant change to your computer's software or configuration.
To set a Restore Point, click on Start, point to All Programs, click on Accessories, System Tools, and then click on System Restore.When the System Restore windows appears, click on the button labeled "Create A Restore Point" and click Next.
Enter a description of the restore point, something like "Before scanner device driver install" and click the Create button.A notification will inform you that a Restore Point was made.Now click the Close button and you're all set.
Reverting to a Restore Point is as easy as create one.Click on Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, System Tools, and System Restore.When the System Restore window appears, click on the "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time" and then click on the Next button.
Choose the date on which you set the Restore Point and click the Next button.Review the information presented and save any open files.Shut down any other programs that may be running.
Click on the Next button and now your computer will restart. As it restarts, it will present a message informing you of the restore point. Click OK and you're done.
After reading all about setting and reverting to restore points, you should make a known restore point if you have not done so already.Whatever you do after reading this article, don't say I'll get to it soon.Familarize yourself with this feature and create a restore point one.
You should try Restore Point and see how it works before you need it.Create a Restore Point now and update something.You can update Windows Media Player for example.
After the update or the installation of a program,wait a day or so and go back to Restore Point.Revert to the Restore Point you created and see if the old version of Windows Media Player comes back.Or see if that old device driver is present.
Doing a simple task like this can and will boost your computer skills and give you much more confidence in yourself and the Windows XP operating system.
Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user. Sign up to receive his informative articles every month and learn PC Repair absolutely free. Sign up now at http://www.repairarticles.com.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Why is Pegasus Opera II the best Accountancy Software?
Author: Carolyn Clayton
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
By Carolyn Clayton
Pegasus Opera II is the best accounting software on the market. Why? Well for one it is one of the leading providers for financial management. It is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Obviously choosing the right type of accounting software can make a huge impact on any business. And also choosing the wrong software can have devastating effects on your business. Pegasus is the fastest selling accounting systems in the UK, within a couple of years it had reached over 20,000 users. Obviously if you purchase accounting software only to find out it doesn’t offer what you need for your particular business this can be quite disastrous. You may notice a few months down the line as your business expands that the software cannot handle all the extra accounts, so it is good to be aware of the future of your business needs. Every businesses needs are different and this needs to be taken into consideration when buying accounting software. Pegasus is ideal for companies wanting to install new accounting software or for existing businesses to upgrade from an existing system. It is software that grows and adapts as you and your business do which is what makes it unique and the best on the market. Opera II enables users to select the components that match their current business model, whilst also making it possible to add further functionality as business requirements change.
Compared to other software Pegasus is more flexible, more adaptable and it can be built to match the requirements of your business exactly. With Pegasus software they are always evolving because of their active involvement in future technology and the development on modern day businesses. So with Pegasus you can be happy in the knowledge that they are always looking to better their products and they are always taking into consideration the requirements of the individual users and new legislation.
Pegasus Opera II is based on Pegasus Opera which is one of the leading modular accounting software solutions. Each module includes features that will give you the ability to use additional functionality if required, these features are, sales history, multi-currency Sales, multi-currency purchase, multi-location stock, multi-currency nominal purchase history, purchase invoice register, advanced POP, electronic payment and stock traceability. Other impressive features include eCommerce web trading, comprehensive security facilities and budgeting. It is also email and internet enabled so that statements and remittances, sales/purchase documents and also reports can be emailed to suppliers, customers or employees.
Another great feature is the Pegasus instant messenger (PIM). It is an easy to configure instant messaging facility which provides organisations on-line collaboration by allowing PIM clients to discuss and respond to business issues and forward pop-up messages, which enables organisations to increase efficiency and levels of customer service.
The software has been completely redeveloped and is totally Microsoft Windows compatible. It can be completely integrated with many other areas of your business and Microsoft based office products. With Pegasus you can be sure that it is giving you concise and accurate data so you will know exactly what's going on in your business at any time.
Carolyn is the webmaster of Synergy Technology a leading UK reseller of Pegasus Opera accounting software.
This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.
Accident consult is one of the Uk's leading accident claim online services offering No win no fee services.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
By Carolyn Clayton
Pegasus Opera II is the best accounting software on the market. Why? Well for one it is one of the leading providers for financial management. It is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Obviously choosing the right type of accounting software can make a huge impact on any business. And also choosing the wrong software can have devastating effects on your business. Pegasus is the fastest selling accounting systems in the UK, within a couple of years it had reached over 20,000 users. Obviously if you purchase accounting software only to find out it doesn’t offer what you need for your particular business this can be quite disastrous. You may notice a few months down the line as your business expands that the software cannot handle all the extra accounts, so it is good to be aware of the future of your business needs. Every businesses needs are different and this needs to be taken into consideration when buying accounting software. Pegasus is ideal for companies wanting to install new accounting software or for existing businesses to upgrade from an existing system. It is software that grows and adapts as you and your business do which is what makes it unique and the best on the market. Opera II enables users to select the components that match their current business model, whilst also making it possible to add further functionality as business requirements change.
Compared to other software Pegasus is more flexible, more adaptable and it can be built to match the requirements of your business exactly. With Pegasus software they are always evolving because of their active involvement in future technology and the development on modern day businesses. So with Pegasus you can be happy in the knowledge that they are always looking to better their products and they are always taking into consideration the requirements of the individual users and new legislation.
Pegasus Opera II is based on Pegasus Opera which is one of the leading modular accounting software solutions. Each module includes features that will give you the ability to use additional functionality if required, these features are, sales history, multi-currency Sales, multi-currency purchase, multi-location stock, multi-currency nominal purchase history, purchase invoice register, advanced POP, electronic payment and stock traceability. Other impressive features include eCommerce web trading, comprehensive security facilities and budgeting. It is also email and internet enabled so that statements and remittances, sales/purchase documents and also reports can be emailed to suppliers, customers or employees.
Another great feature is the Pegasus instant messenger (PIM). It is an easy to configure instant messaging facility which provides organisations on-line collaboration by allowing PIM clients to discuss and respond to business issues and forward pop-up messages, which enables organisations to increase efficiency and levels of customer service.
The software has been completely redeveloped and is totally Microsoft Windows compatible. It can be completely integrated with many other areas of your business and Microsoft based office products. With Pegasus you can be sure that it is giving you concise and accurate data so you will know exactly what's going on in your business at any time.
Carolyn is the webmaster of Synergy Technology a leading UK reseller of Pegasus Opera accounting software.
This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.
Accident consult is one of the Uk's leading accident claim online services offering No win no fee services.
Pegasus Accountancy Software Opera II
Author: Carolyn Clayton
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
By Carolyn Clayton
With advancing technology of computers and the internet more and more people self employed and setting up businesses from home. If your business is lucky enough to be growing rapidly you may have trouble keeping a track of all your finances.
The best way forward would be to look at buying some accounting software. This will make managing your accounts and finances a lot easier and will save lots of time.
Choosing the right accounting software is very important to each individual business. The trouble with this is the amount of available software on the market. They range in price and the more expensive are not necessarily the more effective or user friendly.
To find the very best software you need to evaluate what your particular business needs are. Accounting software such as Pegasus Opera II makes online filing and accounting easy. Because filling and accounting takes a lot of time, Pegasus Opera II is a great business software solution which will save a lot of hours which could be better utilised within the business.
One of the leading providers for financial management is the Pegasus Accountancy Software; it is software that has an in-depth understanding for the small and medium-sized business market. Pegasus software is always evolving because of their active involvement in future technology. They are continually enhancing their product with user requirements in mind and with the latest legislation.
If you choose to use Pegasus it can help you run your business much more effectively. It will keep an eye on the day to day running of your business so as to allow you do spend your time more productively. Up until recently accounting systems were very complicated and had inflexible reporting tools. Pegasus makes reporting a lot easier with seamless integration, great reporting power, ease of use, accuracy and security. It is also the ideal solution for complicated payroll procedures.
The Pegasus Opera II Financials will give you the integrated tools to fully control your business and can help you drive it forward. It can help you keep track and analyse key information which can improve productivity and help you make informed strategic decisions.
So when making a decision on which accounting software to use make sure you take a look at Pegasus Accounting software reviews as you will find them to be one of the best if not the best.
Carolyn is the webmaster of Synergy Technology a leading UK reseller of Pegasus Opera accounting software.
This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.
Accident consult is one of the Uk's leading accident claim online services offering No win no fee services.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
By Carolyn Clayton
With advancing technology of computers and the internet more and more people self employed and setting up businesses from home. If your business is lucky enough to be growing rapidly you may have trouble keeping a track of all your finances.
The best way forward would be to look at buying some accounting software. This will make managing your accounts and finances a lot easier and will save lots of time.
Choosing the right accounting software is very important to each individual business. The trouble with this is the amount of available software on the market. They range in price and the more expensive are not necessarily the more effective or user friendly.
To find the very best software you need to evaluate what your particular business needs are. Accounting software such as Pegasus Opera II makes online filing and accounting easy. Because filling and accounting takes a lot of time, Pegasus Opera II is a great business software solution which will save a lot of hours which could be better utilised within the business.
One of the leading providers for financial management is the Pegasus Accountancy Software; it is software that has an in-depth understanding for the small and medium-sized business market. Pegasus software is always evolving because of their active involvement in future technology. They are continually enhancing their product with user requirements in mind and with the latest legislation.
If you choose to use Pegasus it can help you run your business much more effectively. It will keep an eye on the day to day running of your business so as to allow you do spend your time more productively. Up until recently accounting systems were very complicated and had inflexible reporting tools. Pegasus makes reporting a lot easier with seamless integration, great reporting power, ease of use, accuracy and security. It is also the ideal solution for complicated payroll procedures.
The Pegasus Opera II Financials will give you the integrated tools to fully control your business and can help you drive it forward. It can help you keep track and analyse key information which can improve productivity and help you make informed strategic decisions.
So when making a decision on which accounting software to use make sure you take a look at Pegasus Accounting software reviews as you will find them to be one of the best if not the best.
Carolyn is the webmaster of Synergy Technology a leading UK reseller of Pegasus Opera accounting software.
This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.
Accident consult is one of the Uk's leading accident claim online services offering No win no fee services.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Wibree vs. Bluetooth
Author: Alex Martin Techtelecom
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
Nokia and other tech companies have announced that they will be launching a new wireless networking technology called Wibree.
During October 2006, several tech companies, mainly Nokia, have announced that they will be launching a new wireless networking technology called Wibree. However, Wibree will not be related to current Wi-Fi technologies, due to the fact that it will not have the range and bandwidth that Wi-Fi has. Instead, Wibree capacities will be more comparable to Bluetooth, with a range of approximately 30 feet (10m) and similar bandwidth as Bluetooth (1Mbps).
The advantage of Wibree over Bluetooth is that it is a lot more power efficient, which makes it ideal for use in smaller and less costly devices than the ones currently using Bluetooth. The immediate uses once the standard is approved is to connect peripherals, like keyboards, to computers, but its lows cost may make it applicable to smaller devices such as toys, wrist watches, or sports gear.
The main features of Wibree are:
- Ultra low power consumption - Ultra low cost - Reduced size for human interface devices (HID) - Global interoperability
Additionally, Wibree can be implemented in both a stand-alone chip or dual-mode chip that can include both Bluetooth and Wibree.
Companies are now submitting Wibree through a standardization process in order to obtain wider acceptance and, once completed, hopefully schedule to launch it sometime in 2007.
Alex Martin is a consultant for several top Technology & Telecom companies, as well as Information Systems Manager for a Software development company. He is also currently in charge technology articles for www.techtelecoms.com
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
Nokia and other tech companies have announced that they will be launching a new wireless networking technology called Wibree.
During October 2006, several tech companies, mainly Nokia, have announced that they will be launching a new wireless networking technology called Wibree. However, Wibree will not be related to current Wi-Fi technologies, due to the fact that it will not have the range and bandwidth that Wi-Fi has. Instead, Wibree capacities will be more comparable to Bluetooth, with a range of approximately 30 feet (10m) and similar bandwidth as Bluetooth (1Mbps).
The advantage of Wibree over Bluetooth is that it is a lot more power efficient, which makes it ideal for use in smaller and less costly devices than the ones currently using Bluetooth. The immediate uses once the standard is approved is to connect peripherals, like keyboards, to computers, but its lows cost may make it applicable to smaller devices such as toys, wrist watches, or sports gear.
The main features of Wibree are:
- Ultra low power consumption - Ultra low cost - Reduced size for human interface devices (HID) - Global interoperability
Additionally, Wibree can be implemented in both a stand-alone chip or dual-mode chip that can include both Bluetooth and Wibree.
Companies are now submitting Wibree through a standardization process in order to obtain wider acceptance and, once completed, hopefully schedule to launch it sometime in 2007.
Alex Martin is a consultant for several top Technology & Telecom companies, as well as Information Systems Manager for a Software development company. He is also currently in charge technology articles for www.techtelecoms.com
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Play Free Myspace Games
Author: Paul Pzelf
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Myspace.com has become a success story like no other in the history of the Net. Side by side with its success it has been instrumental for the creation of some brilliant websites which provide support and content to the myspace page. One such excellent website is redpython.com. You will find on this webpage the links of the most popular and latest games on the Net.It is true that myspace.com is spreading like wildfire totally encompassing the globe roping in youngsters from all over the world.
It is also true that myspace games page is self sufficient in many ways, i.e. it provides links and helps you to be as creative as you would like to be. Even so, web pages like redpython.com are exceptionally useful when it comes to entertainment upgradation. Instead of limiting yourself to the games posted on the myspace games page, you can use the redpython.com as the source and pepper your myspace page with the latest and most popular games on the Net.
You can choose from a huge library of games – as many as 2300 free games – to post on your page to make the stay of your friends and invitees as relaxing and entertaining as you want. There are new games added every week, so you will never run out of stock or feel that you need to repeat any game. Not only redpython.com has excellent choice of games, it also chooses only games which have passed their stringent quality tests. You will not find any broken links or un-uploadable links on this page because there are continuous quality controls checks which assure that whatever is showcased on Red Python is of the highest quality.
This is why millions chose this website as their source for online games. In spite of having such a huge library (2300 free games ready to be linked, downloaded or played at the click of the mouse) the redpython.com is extremely easy to navigate and you can find the game you want in matters of seconds.
The myspace games on your myspace page will be highly enriched once you link yourself to redpython.com. Check out the many links that are posted on the site and add it to your myspace games page. Your friends will love you all the more for it. You will feel good about your page because it is loaded with the latest games and the most popular ones too.
In order to have an exceptional myspace page, you will need to have a good amount of interesting information and entertainment so your visitors can enjoy their stop over and recommend your page to others. There is nothing more inviting that the listing of the latest games available on the Net right there on your myspace games page – ready to be played with, ready to be enjoyed. All your friend and visitors will appreciate your collection and definitely recommend this site to other games enthusiasts. You will get all that and much more from redpython.com. Stay in touch!
Paul Pzelf works for http://redpython.com - Myspace Games Myspace Codes - a website which provides 2300 Myspace Games. Play free online games for and add them to your MySpace, Xanga, Friendster profile, orkut, blogs etc.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
Myspace.com has become a success story like no other in the history of the Net. Side by side with its success it has been instrumental for the creation of some brilliant websites which provide support and content to the myspace page. One such excellent website is redpython.com. You will find on this webpage the links of the most popular and latest games on the Net.It is true that myspace.com is spreading like wildfire totally encompassing the globe roping in youngsters from all over the world.
It is also true that myspace games page is self sufficient in many ways, i.e. it provides links and helps you to be as creative as you would like to be. Even so, web pages like redpython.com are exceptionally useful when it comes to entertainment upgradation. Instead of limiting yourself to the games posted on the myspace games page, you can use the redpython.com as the source and pepper your myspace page with the latest and most popular games on the Net.
You can choose from a huge library of games – as many as 2300 free games – to post on your page to make the stay of your friends and invitees as relaxing and entertaining as you want. There are new games added every week, so you will never run out of stock or feel that you need to repeat any game. Not only redpython.com has excellent choice of games, it also chooses only games which have passed their stringent quality tests. You will not find any broken links or un-uploadable links on this page because there are continuous quality controls checks which assure that whatever is showcased on Red Python is of the highest quality.
This is why millions chose this website as their source for online games. In spite of having such a huge library (2300 free games ready to be linked, downloaded or played at the click of the mouse) the redpython.com is extremely easy to navigate and you can find the game you want in matters of seconds.
The myspace games on your myspace page will be highly enriched once you link yourself to redpython.com. Check out the many links that are posted on the site and add it to your myspace games page. Your friends will love you all the more for it. You will feel good about your page because it is loaded with the latest games and the most popular ones too.
In order to have an exceptional myspace page, you will need to have a good amount of interesting information and entertainment so your visitors can enjoy their stop over and recommend your page to others. There is nothing more inviting that the listing of the latest games available on the Net right there on your myspace games page – ready to be played with, ready to be enjoyed. All your friend and visitors will appreciate your collection and definitely recommend this site to other games enthusiasts. You will get all that and much more from redpython.com. Stay in touch!
Paul Pzelf works for http://redpython.com - Myspace Games Myspace Codes - a website which provides 2300 Myspace Games. Play free online games for and add them to your MySpace, Xanga, Friendster profile, orkut, blogs etc.
CompTIA Network+ Certification Exam Tutorial: Antivirus Programs
Author: Chris Bryant
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
Knowing all about antivirus programs is important for passing the Network+ Exam as well as succeeding with real-world networks. Learn the basics from Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933.
In the first part of this CompTIA Network+ certification exam tutorial, we looked at the different types of viruses and other invaders trying to get into our network, and how antivirus programs help to stop them. Today, we’ll discuss some tips on how to get the maximum protection from your antivirus program.
I strongly recommend you choose an antivirus program that offers automatic updates. If you rely on manual updates - that is, relying on remembering to go out and check for updates yourself instead of having them automatically downloaded when new updates are available - I can practically guarantee you're going to forget to do so, and this can be a fatal mistake for both your network and your career.
Why is this so important? The #1 mistake network administrators and home PC owners alike make with antivirus software is not keeping the program up-to-date. New viruses are being created every minute of every day, and reputable antivirus program vendors such as Symantec are monitoring that situation, looking for new viruses and writing virus signature updates or virus definitions regularly. (A virus signature is the actual binary pattern of a virus, and just as your signature identifies you, a virus signature identifies the virus.) It's not enough for the vendors to create these updates - they've got to be downloaded to your computers and servers.
Most vendors offer some kind of automatic download for virus definitions, so when new updates are created, they're automatically downloaded by the antivirus program. For example, Symantec offers LiveUpdate, which will download new virus definitions to their popular Norton Antivirus program when new ones are available. Another popular antivirus program, Kaspersky Antivirus, will download several new virus updates several times a day! Identifying viruses and writing new definitions to defend against them is a never-ending battle, so make sure you have the latest protection.
These updates do cost money, but it's money well-spent. Most antivirus vendors give you 30 or 60 days of free updates, but after that you must purchase a subscription to the service.
Regardless of which antivirus program you choose, I urge you to use automatic updates if they're available. As busy as we get, it's easy to forget these important updates, and they're too important to be forgotten.
The only viruses you're totally unprotected against are the unknown ones, and the only way for your network hosts and servers to know about new viruses is to keep them updated!
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by seeing that your servers all have the latest updates. Every single workstation and server in your network must have an antivirus program with the latest updates running. I know that neither you or I have the time to walk around to every workstation every day checking on this, so I recommend you check two separate PCs on your network each day. That only takes a few minutes, and if you see one PC with outdated definitions, there's a good chance that other PCs on the network have the same problem. Believe me, that's one problem you want to fix now.
When you configure antivirus software, you'll have the option of setting a time when a virus scan should run on the host, as well as what files should be scanned for viruses. If your network PCs are left on at night, setting the antivirus program to run a full scan at 1 AM is a great idea.
If a host or server has too many files to scan them all at once, you may have to pick which files should be scanned. First on your list should be any file whose extension is .com, .exe, .ocx, or .dll. These are all executable files, which are primary carriers and targets of viruses. I personally like to scan a host's Microsoft Word documents as well, since those files are passed from user to user more often than any other file type.
Additionally, most network administrators have been in a position where they've had to turn the antivirus program off, and you may have installed programs on your own PC where the installation program recommends you to turn the antivirus program off.
If you're downloading software from a vendor you're not familiar with, realize that when you comply with their request to turn the antivirus off, you're trusting them with the health of your network. Maybe they're asking you to turn it off in order to correctly install the software, and maybe they're asking you to turn it off to make it easier for the download to launch a virus.
Legitimate vendors often have you turn antivirus protection off during a software install. I personally scan any disk or downloaded file before I begin the install process, and I recommend you do so as well. And if you do turn the antivirus off ... make sure to turn it back on. I once saw an entire network go down because a virus managed to launch on an email server that had become infected one day earlier - and the infection occurred when the admin turned the antivirus off to install a program on the server and then forgot to turn it back on. The next morning, that server was toast. Don't let that happen to you or your servers.
Knowing the basics of antivirus programs is great preparation for passing your CompTIA Network+ certification exam, but as you can see, it’s also a vital part of protecting the real-world networks that you and I are in charge of. Keep your virus definitions up to date!
Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com).
Article source: http://www.articlesfactory.com/. Used with author's permission.
Knowing all about antivirus programs is important for passing the Network+ Exam as well as succeeding with real-world networks. Learn the basics from Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933.
In the first part of this CompTIA Network+ certification exam tutorial, we looked at the different types of viruses and other invaders trying to get into our network, and how antivirus programs help to stop them. Today, we’ll discuss some tips on how to get the maximum protection from your antivirus program.
I strongly recommend you choose an antivirus program that offers automatic updates. If you rely on manual updates - that is, relying on remembering to go out and check for updates yourself instead of having them automatically downloaded when new updates are available - I can practically guarantee you're going to forget to do so, and this can be a fatal mistake for both your network and your career.
Why is this so important? The #1 mistake network administrators and home PC owners alike make with antivirus software is not keeping the program up-to-date. New viruses are being created every minute of every day, and reputable antivirus program vendors such as Symantec are monitoring that situation, looking for new viruses and writing virus signature updates or virus definitions regularly. (A virus signature is the actual binary pattern of a virus, and just as your signature identifies you, a virus signature identifies the virus.) It's not enough for the vendors to create these updates - they've got to be downloaded to your computers and servers.
Most vendors offer some kind of automatic download for virus definitions, so when new updates are created, they're automatically downloaded by the antivirus program. For example, Symantec offers LiveUpdate, which will download new virus definitions to their popular Norton Antivirus program when new ones are available. Another popular antivirus program, Kaspersky Antivirus, will download several new virus updates several times a day! Identifying viruses and writing new definitions to defend against them is a never-ending battle, so make sure you have the latest protection.
These updates do cost money, but it's money well-spent. Most antivirus vendors give you 30 or 60 days of free updates, but after that you must purchase a subscription to the service.
Regardless of which antivirus program you choose, I urge you to use automatic updates if they're available. As busy as we get, it's easy to forget these important updates, and they're too important to be forgotten.
The only viruses you're totally unprotected against are the unknown ones, and the only way for your network hosts and servers to know about new viruses is to keep them updated!
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security by seeing that your servers all have the latest updates. Every single workstation and server in your network must have an antivirus program with the latest updates running. I know that neither you or I have the time to walk around to every workstation every day checking on this, so I recommend you check two separate PCs on your network each day. That only takes a few minutes, and if you see one PC with outdated definitions, there's a good chance that other PCs on the network have the same problem. Believe me, that's one problem you want to fix now.
When you configure antivirus software, you'll have the option of setting a time when a virus scan should run on the host, as well as what files should be scanned for viruses. If your network PCs are left on at night, setting the antivirus program to run a full scan at 1 AM is a great idea.
If a host or server has too many files to scan them all at once, you may have to pick which files should be scanned. First on your list should be any file whose extension is .com, .exe, .ocx, or .dll. These are all executable files, which are primary carriers and targets of viruses. I personally like to scan a host's Microsoft Word documents as well, since those files are passed from user to user more often than any other file type.
Additionally, most network administrators have been in a position where they've had to turn the antivirus program off, and you may have installed programs on your own PC where the installation program recommends you to turn the antivirus program off.
If you're downloading software from a vendor you're not familiar with, realize that when you comply with their request to turn the antivirus off, you're trusting them with the health of your network. Maybe they're asking you to turn it off in order to correctly install the software, and maybe they're asking you to turn it off to make it easier for the download to launch a virus.
Legitimate vendors often have you turn antivirus protection off during a software install. I personally scan any disk or downloaded file before I begin the install process, and I recommend you do so as well. And if you do turn the antivirus off ... make sure to turn it back on. I once saw an entire network go down because a virus managed to launch on an email server that had become infected one day earlier - and the infection occurred when the admin turned the antivirus off to install a program on the server and then forgot to turn it back on. The next morning, that server was toast. Don't let that happen to you or your servers.
Knowing the basics of antivirus programs is great preparation for passing your CompTIA Network+ certification exam, but as you can see, it’s also a vital part of protecting the real-world networks that you and I are in charge of. Keep your virus definitions up to date!
Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com).
USB Memory Stick Recovery
Author: Bharat Bista
Typically USB flash storage devices are small, lightweight, handy, low cost, rewriteable and removable; USB flash drives are NAND-type memory, a data storage device integrated with a USB interface. There are several advantages over other portable storage devices; predominantly on conservative storage devices like floppy disk, USB Drives are faster, grasp more data, and are considered more dependable than any other storage devices available in market today.
By comparison to 88.2 million USB flash drives shipped in 2005, and 115.7 million shipped in 2006, Gartner Dataquest statistics shows average 100% raise on number of USB memory drives user worldwide. SanDisk ranks No. 60 on FORTUNE's 100 fastest-Growing Companies List.
USB flash drives are a relatively dense form of storage, even the cheapest and smallest flash memory chips will store dozens of floppy disks worth of data. Most flash memory chips today can hold more data than a CD. Top of the line flash drives can even hold more data than a DVD. CompactFlash storage devices ready to hit the market soon include 64 GB's of PRAM memory. The most common USB flash memory devices are 1GB in size Recent industry reports indicate a rise for the first time in over a year for these 1GB USB storage devices due to their popularity. The flash memory market had recently only been experiencing drops in prices. This is an indicator that the profit margins on memory products may see much more positive profits this quarter.
Most modern operating systems can read and write to USB flash drives without any supplementary device drivers. Instead of exposing the composite technical detail of the underlying USB flash memory devices, the USB flash drives export a simple block-structured logical unit to the host operating system. The operating system can use whatever type of file system or block addressing scheme it wants.
Most USB flash drives do not utilize a write-protect mechanism. Such a switch on the housing of the drive itself would keep the host computer from writing or modifying data on the drive. Write-protection would make a device suitable for repairing virus-contaminated host computers without infecting the USB flash drive itself.
USB flash drives are more tolerant of abuse than mechanical drives, but the rate of USB flash drive failure under eprovided.com statistic shows 300% raise each year due to quality-control problems, mishandling and an increasing number of poorly manufactured devices on the market.
According to expert Bruce Cullen, president of data recovery services eProvided.com, "Similar to other mechanical storage devices USB flash drives also have mechanical storage and threshold margins, and face issues with potential fragmentation problems. This fragmentation occurs when documents are created and then saved or erased and when the new files are bigger than the available adjacent space. The data in these files is broken up and is randomly placed on the drive cells, resulting files start to become fragmented. Issues related to fragmentation are not known to consumers, so consumers aren't defragging their flash drives properly."
Generally a consumer is expected to find that a standard single level cell of a NAND flash drive can acknowledged 100,000 read-write cycles, usually an immeasurable amount of read-writes for common users. Issues like virus attacks, damage causes by extreme heat/cold, power outages, shock, etc. can shorten the life span of the drive or cause it to malfunction suddenly in many cases.
However, the real problem for the colossal rise of USB drive failures is manufacturing & quality control issues; faulty flash drives with poorly manufactured specifications in the market are dominating compared to the quality high price drives with similar configurations.
"I expect a dramatic rises in problems with USB flash drives as there are a lot of mushroom companies growing and manufacturing flash storage devices these days" Bruce Cullen said. "Most of the USB flash storage producers are based in Taiwan, Singapore and China, due to price competition these companies are disregarding quality controls, and due to this price competition even quality manufactures are manufacturing and selling products using low-grade flash memory circuits, capacitors and crystals, resulting in massive increases in USB Drive failure rates and reliability issues. This is creating flash memory technology questions on quality" he further added.
Typically USB flash storage devices are small, lightweight, handy, low cost, rewriteable and removable; USB flash drives are NAND-type memory, a data storage device integrated with a USB interface. There are several advantages over other portable storage devices; predominantly on conservative storage devices like floppy disk, USB Drives are faster, grasp more data, and are considered more dependable than any other storage devices available in market today.
By comparison to 88.2 million USB flash drives shipped in 2005, and 115.7 million shipped in 2006, Gartner Dataquest statistics shows average 100% raise on number of USB memory drives user worldwide. SanDisk ranks No. 60 on FORTUNE's 100 fastest-Growing Companies List.
USB flash drives are a relatively dense form of storage, even the cheapest and smallest flash memory chips will store dozens of floppy disks worth of data. Most flash memory chips today can hold more data than a CD. Top of the line flash drives can even hold more data than a DVD. CompactFlash storage devices ready to hit the market soon include 64 GB's of PRAM memory. The most common USB flash memory devices are 1GB in size Recent industry reports indicate a rise for the first time in over a year for these 1GB USB storage devices due to their popularity. The flash memory market had recently only been experiencing drops in prices. This is an indicator that the profit margins on memory products may see much more positive profits this quarter.
Most modern operating systems can read and write to USB flash drives without any supplementary device drivers. Instead of exposing the composite technical detail of the underlying USB flash memory devices, the USB flash drives export a simple block-structured logical unit to the host operating system. The operating system can use whatever type of file system or block addressing scheme it wants.
Most USB flash drives do not utilize a write-protect mechanism. Such a switch on the housing of the drive itself would keep the host computer from writing or modifying data on the drive. Write-protection would make a device suitable for repairing virus-contaminated host computers without infecting the USB flash drive itself.
USB flash drives are more tolerant of abuse than mechanical drives, but the rate of USB flash drive failure under eprovided.com statistic shows 300% raise each year due to quality-control problems, mishandling and an increasing number of poorly manufactured devices on the market.
According to expert Bruce Cullen, president of data recovery services eProvided.com, "Similar to other mechanical storage devices USB flash drives also have mechanical storage and threshold margins, and face issues with potential fragmentation problems. This fragmentation occurs when documents are created and then saved or erased and when the new files are bigger than the available adjacent space. The data in these files is broken up and is randomly placed on the drive cells, resulting files start to become fragmented. Issues related to fragmentation are not known to consumers, so consumers aren't defragging their flash drives properly."
Generally a consumer is expected to find that a standard single level cell of a NAND flash drive can acknowledged 100,000 read-write cycles, usually an immeasurable amount of read-writes for common users. Issues like virus attacks, damage causes by extreme heat/cold, power outages, shock, etc. can shorten the life span of the drive or cause it to malfunction suddenly in many cases.
However, the real problem for the colossal rise of USB drive failures is manufacturing & quality control issues; faulty flash drives with poorly manufactured specifications in the market are dominating compared to the quality high price drives with similar configurations.
"I expect a dramatic rises in problems with USB flash drives as there are a lot of mushroom companies growing and manufacturing flash storage devices these days" Bruce Cullen said. "Most of the USB flash storage producers are based in Taiwan, Singapore and China, due to price competition these companies are disregarding quality controls, and due to this price competition even quality manufactures are manufacturing and selling products using low-grade flash memory circuits, capacitors and crystals, resulting in massive increases in USB Drive failure rates and reliability issues. This is creating flash memory technology questions on quality" he further added.
Monday, October 30, 2006
How To Create A Windows XP Boot Disk
Author: Robert Palmer
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
When you press the power button on your computer and it just sit there with none of those clicking and beeping sounds along with the monitor still having that blank screen,you know that you're going to have a bad day.
A computer that fails to boot can be one of the most pain staking things that can happen to a pc user.And in most cases, the user don't have a clue as to what procedures they can take to get the PC up and running again.
When you do experience pc bootup failure, always start your troubleshooting by checking the obvious.It the cord plugged into the wall outlet and is the other end securely plugged in the rear of the system unit.
In many cases the cause is a corrupted startup file which prevent the computer from going through the bootup from start to finish.In this case, an easy way to start your PC is to have an emergency boot disk handy.
A Boot Disk contain copies of critical files needed for startup that you should have made earlier.To use the floppy disk, all you need do is to place it in the floppy drive and reboot the computer.
As the computer start the boot process, Windows will use the good files to get itself going.The Windows XP boot disk will enable you to resolve a corrupt Ntbootdd.sys driver, missing or corrupt Ntdr or Ntdetect.com files.
These files are used by Windows XP and are crucial to its startup and configuration.The boot disk have also repair a damaged MBR or Master Boot Record.
The MBR is a small program executed when the PC boots and resides on the first sector of the hard driveIt looks up the partition on the hard drive.You can create a MBR with the FDISK /MBR coomand
A damaged boot sector can also be corrected with the boot disk.Your Windows XP boot disk will be a life saver when you have pc bootup failure and you need that file for your next interview.
A sector is the smallest unit that can be accessed on a disk.When a disk is low level formatted, it will be divided tracks and sectors
When making a boot disk make a mental note of the files being copied.This will give you added knowledge when you will need to help in making their boot disk.To make a boot disk, perform the following.
Place a blank formatted floppy disk in your floppy drive and go to My Computer in Windows XP.Click the hard drive icon and on the toolbar, click Tools, Folder Options, and then click the View Tab.
And scroll down and check "Show hidden files and folders" and just below uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (recommended). Now we're getting a little slower.
Take note of this process and as you become more familiar with this task, you'll be able to make a boot disk for others in no time and help them save on down time.
After unchecking "Hide protected operating system files, click OK.Some grayed out files will now be visible in the drive window.These files are protected system files.
Now you're ready to select the boot, the NTDETECT, and the ntldr files.Now right-click, click Send To, and select Floppy ( A: ).When you have copied all files to the floppy, you now have a Windows XP boot disk.
You should make two or more boot disks and place them in a safe place away from any type of magnetic or static charges.Before putting them away don't forget to label your life saving floppy disks.
Should you be unfortunate enough to have to put one of your boot floppies to use, remember to replace the startup files on the hard drive with the ones on the floppy.
If you overlook this critical step, you'll have the same boot up problem every time.Take your time as you copy the files and be sure not to reverse the copy procedure.
This is why its important to make two or more boot disks. This way should you have an accident with one disk, so what, you paid attention here and made several copies.
You've done it.You're now armed with a repair tool should your XP computer fail to boot.All Windows 98, 2000, and Me users also have the resources to create a book disk.
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Otis F. Cooper is solely dedicated to boosting the knowledge and confidence of every computer user.
Features And Benefits Of Spam Filter
Author: Julia Gulevich
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
The ideal anti-spam software is the one that ensures you your privacy and blocks 100 percent of the emails you do not want to receive. But it is never going to be possible. Spammers are always inventing new techniques to trick the filters, and the developers of anti-spam software try not to overlook it.
Most anti-spam programs can be customized to your needs, and only the approved emails come into your inbox. Let’s look at the features and benefits of anti-spam software.
Deleting spam before it reaches the inbox. Certain anti-spam solutions take the decision about spam messages not only based on the sender’s email address, they also analyze the subject lines and the message content. Some anti-spam programs allow you block emails with various types of attachments. Most anti-spam solutions catch and delete detected spam emails before they slip into your inbox.
Filter updates. Most programs for filtering spam come with hundreds of filters built in. In addition, the developers of those programs release new anti-spam filters regularly. This ensures that your anti-spam software is always up-to-date.
Custom filters. Certain anti-spam filters allow you tailor built in filters to your personal needs as well as create your own filters, depending on the spam and legitimate emails you receive.
Quarantining spam. Spam blockers prevent junk emails from entering your inbox and move them to a specific quarantine or trash folder. Quarantined emails are stored there for a number of days and then deleted forever. This delay allows you review deleted emails to check if all of them are spam.
Recovering emails. Certain anti-spam filters store quarantined emails for a fixed number of days in the specific trash folder and allow you to recover any email.
Your personal whitelist and blacklist. You can maintain your own lists of trusted email senders (whitelist) and suspicious email addresses, from which you are used to receive spam (blacklist). You can always update your whitelist and blacklist as you want.
Monitoring multiple email accounts. This feature allows you monitor and filter your email from multiple email accounts. You to filter your home email from the office, and vice versa.
Automatic mode. Certain anti-spam programs can check inbound mail at fixed time intervals and delete spam without your participation.
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like Advanced Administrative Tools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Spam Blocker Software http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/
How To Choose Anti-Spam Filter?
Author: Julia Gulevich
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
The damage spam brings you is huge: loss of time, bandwidth and money, risk to delete a legitimate message together with junk emails. So, an anti-spam filter is not a whim but a necessity for almost all PC users who actively use email.
What criteria should you follow to choose the right spam filtering program? What capabilities must an anti-spam tool have to filter and cut off spam mail in most effective way?
Here are the main features a good anti-spam software must have to block spam effectively:
1) it should be a standalone spam filtering tool, which checks all incoming emails on the server, detects and deletes spam messages.
2) deletion of spam without receiving it in your inbox. This way you won't download all the superfluous kilobytes into your inbox and you won't see annoying spam mail.
3) powerful antispam filters built in one program that analyze the message from "outside" and "inside": message header, message body, and message source. Flexible whitelist and blacklist easy to edit and update are also very useful as they help save much time when filtering emails. Good anti-spam software must also have the Bayesian filter in its arsenal of spam filtering tools.
4) easy and safe method to preview emails marked as spam. Inherent in antispam technology is the fact that there will be false positives and false negatives, i.e., email can be flagged as spam even though it is not actually spam and vice versa.
5) flexible spam filtering. Spam emails should be moved to a separate folder. A good spam filtering software should provide the ability to recover an email if it was accidentally marked as spam and trashed.
Simply put, an anti-spam program must be a standalone, easy-to-use software supplied with powerful anti-spam filters able to be adjusted by every user for his personal needs. Now with all that said above you can choose the right anti-spam software among all spam filtering programs available on the Internet.
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like Advanced Administrative Tools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Anti-Spam Software http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
The damage spam brings you is huge: loss of time, bandwidth and money, risk to delete a legitimate message together with junk emails. So, an anti-spam filter is not a whim but a necessity for almost all PC users who actively use email.
What criteria should you follow to choose the right spam filtering program? What capabilities must an anti-spam tool have to filter and cut off spam mail in most effective way?
Here are the main features a good anti-spam software must have to block spam effectively:
1) it should be a standalone spam filtering tool, which checks all incoming emails on the server, detects and deletes spam messages.
2) deletion of spam without receiving it in your inbox. This way you won't download all the superfluous kilobytes into your inbox and you won't see annoying spam mail.
3) powerful antispam filters built in one program that analyze the message from "outside" and "inside": message header, message body, and message source. Flexible whitelist and blacklist easy to edit and update are also very useful as they help save much time when filtering emails. Good anti-spam software must also have the Bayesian filter in its arsenal of spam filtering tools.
4) easy and safe method to preview emails marked as spam. Inherent in antispam technology is the fact that there will be false positives and false negatives, i.e., email can be flagged as spam even though it is not actually spam and vice versa.
5) flexible spam filtering. Spam emails should be moved to a separate folder. A good spam filtering software should provide the ability to recover an email if it was accidentally marked as spam and trashed.
Simply put, an anti-spam program must be a standalone, easy-to-use software supplied with powerful anti-spam filters able to be adjusted by every user for his personal needs. Now with all that said above you can choose the right anti-spam software among all spam filtering programs available on the Internet.
Julia Gulevich is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like Advanced Administrative Tools, Advanced Email Verifier, G-Lock EasyMail, Anti-Spam Software http://www.glocksoft.com/sc/.
Backup Data On Your Laptop
Author: Daniel Travers
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
You would be surprised to learn the quantum of data on laptops which have been irretrievably lost. Yet we don’t take time off to create essential backups on our laptops.
Lets face it - a computer is not a hundred percent trustworthy machine. The hard drive can crash, laptops get misplaced or dropped rendering it useless. To make sure that our precious information that is stored is never lost forever, we must keep back ups of the information stored.
Did you know that over the past years, over a million of laptops have been stolen in the United States alone ? when a laptop is stolen, chances are that it will never be found. In that case, the owner is not only without a laptop, but also without any information!
Back up data is all the more important if you have business information stored in your computer. Like desktop computers where you can create back ups, you can create back ups in your laptop as well. Using online services, remote back up operations, or many other methods are available which help you to store back up information on your laptop.
One of the best ways to store data is to burn a data CD. These data CDs have 700 MB memory space, which can hold a lot of data and files. To do this you need a CD/RW burner built in to your laptop. Most of the newer models carry this facility.
The biggest drawback of laptops is that the storage capacity and security system is not as proficient as a desktop. Since desktops are more powerful, they can store data, including backups in a jiffy.
Laptops were designed for people on the move – so the idea of keeping back up data never crossed anyone’s mind. When it does occur, it is perhaps too late.
As already mentioned the quickest and simplest way to create back up for your laptop is to use online back up services. Based on the speed of your internet connection, the operation can take from several minutes to several hours. Though the process is time consuming, but it is worth your while as at the end of the day, you are left safe and secure.
Keeping a back up data is always safe whether you use a laptop for personal or official use. Try and create your back ups at least once a month or more often, depending on the quantity of information you store everyday.
Daniel Travers is a staff writer at http://www.computing-times.com and is an occasional contributor to several other websites, including http://www.gamesenthusiast.com.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
You would be surprised to learn the quantum of data on laptops which have been irretrievably lost. Yet we don’t take time off to create essential backups on our laptops.
Lets face it - a computer is not a hundred percent trustworthy machine. The hard drive can crash, laptops get misplaced or dropped rendering it useless. To make sure that our precious information that is stored is never lost forever, we must keep back ups of the information stored.
Did you know that over the past years, over a million of laptops have been stolen in the United States alone ? when a laptop is stolen, chances are that it will never be found. In that case, the owner is not only without a laptop, but also without any information!
Back up data is all the more important if you have business information stored in your computer. Like desktop computers where you can create back ups, you can create back ups in your laptop as well. Using online services, remote back up operations, or many other methods are available which help you to store back up information on your laptop.
One of the best ways to store data is to burn a data CD. These data CDs have 700 MB memory space, which can hold a lot of data and files. To do this you need a CD/RW burner built in to your laptop. Most of the newer models carry this facility.
The biggest drawback of laptops is that the storage capacity and security system is not as proficient as a desktop. Since desktops are more powerful, they can store data, including backups in a jiffy.
Laptops were designed for people on the move – so the idea of keeping back up data never crossed anyone’s mind. When it does occur, it is perhaps too late.
As already mentioned the quickest and simplest way to create back up for your laptop is to use online back up services. Based on the speed of your internet connection, the operation can take from several minutes to several hours. Though the process is time consuming, but it is worth your while as at the end of the day, you are left safe and secure.
Keeping a back up data is always safe whether you use a laptop for personal or official use. Try and create your back ups at least once a month or more often, depending on the quantity of information you store everyday.
Daniel Travers is a staff writer at http://www.computing-times.com and is an occasional contributor to several other websites, including http://www.gamesenthusiast.com.
Why Should I Have Data Recovery Software?
Author: Greg Eiskins
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
If you are like most other computer users, you have probably some time accidently deleted some of the important data or documents from your computer. The good news if that there is data recovery software out there that is capable to recover the data you have lost, there is no reason to despair. Since data viruses have been a part of computer users' everyday life there are chances that a virus program would have deleted some of your important data from your system. Software used for recovering data is your assurance and functions pretty much the same way as an insurance policy.
There are lots of programs available in the market for recovering your lost files and for those files that were once rendered inaccessible. Data recovery software can "undelete" files or information that have previously been deleted recover any information lost after uncontrollable instances like virus attacks, power cut, software failures and more.
Since we all know how unpredictable technology can be, we must always be prepared for the worst scenario.
One of these recovery programs are called "GetDataBack". This is one of the most popular software for data recovery. It is one of the best selling pieces in the market today because of the frequency that people are losing valuable pieces of information and valuable files. This software functions easily, as do most other recovery software products, to recover entire drives. You can achieve this just by clicking a few buttons.
Are there data recovery services available?
There are also lots of data recovery services or so called "hotlines" that can be called to help assist you with recovery of some of your lost data. It is always helpful to have a little knowledge of your computer system because this helps you to describe the problem adequately to the customer service operator of the data recovery company and they can give you as much information as poinal settings in the computer.
Data recovery is defined as the process by which lost data is retrieved from a damaged or infected hard drive or any other piece of computer or electronic equipment. Computer users today use a special software for data recovery to get back the lost information from their personal computers, business computer systems, cellular phones, Blackberries, and any other electronic systems that store vital information. There are also cases where data simply disappears for no obvious reason at all. However, the software meant for data recovery can back the data to normal.
If you are an active computer user, it is important to have a backup plan and a good software for recovering data in case you lose your data accidentally or due to a virus sweep. Data recovery software is a must for your business and very important for computer amateurs as well.
Greg Eiskins is a writer and internet publisher who likes to publish data recovery and related info. Read more at the website http://www.datarecovery2020.com.
Article source: http://www.articlecity.com/. Used with author's permission.
If you are like most other computer users, you have probably some time accidently deleted some of the important data or documents from your computer. The good news if that there is data recovery software out there that is capable to recover the data you have lost, there is no reason to despair. Since data viruses have been a part of computer users' everyday life there are chances that a virus program would have deleted some of your important data from your system. Software used for recovering data is your assurance and functions pretty much the same way as an insurance policy.
There are lots of programs available in the market for recovering your lost files and for those files that were once rendered inaccessible. Data recovery software can "undelete" files or information that have previously been deleted recover any information lost after uncontrollable instances like virus attacks, power cut, software failures and more.
Since we all know how unpredictable technology can be, we must always be prepared for the worst scenario.
One of these recovery programs are called "GetDataBack". This is one of the most popular software for data recovery. It is one of the best selling pieces in the market today because of the frequency that people are losing valuable pieces of information and valuable files. This software functions easily, as do most other recovery software products, to recover entire drives. You can achieve this just by clicking a few buttons.
Are there data recovery services available?
There are also lots of data recovery services or so called "hotlines" that can be called to help assist you with recovery of some of your lost data. It is always helpful to have a little knowledge of your computer system because this helps you to describe the problem adequately to the customer service operator of the data recovery company and they can give you as much information as poinal settings in the computer.
Data recovery is defined as the process by which lost data is retrieved from a damaged or infected hard drive or any other piece of computer or electronic equipment. Computer users today use a special software for data recovery to get back the lost information from their personal computers, business computer systems, cellular phones, Blackberries, and any other electronic systems that store vital information. There are also cases where data simply disappears for no obvious reason at all. However, the software meant for data recovery can back the data to normal.
If you are an active computer user, it is important to have a backup plan and a good software for recovering data in case you lose your data accidentally or due to a virus sweep. Data recovery software is a must for your business and very important for computer amateurs as well.
Greg Eiskins is a writer and internet publisher who likes to publish data recovery and related info. Read more at the website http://www.datarecovery2020.com.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
How to Speed Up Your Computer: Part 3
Slow running computer? Performance issues? The problem could be your hard drive.
This week we're going to look at other options for speeding up your computer. We've covered many issues that could be slowing your system down in previous newsletters. Today, our main focus is the hard drive.
One thing to consider when running your computer is how many programs you have operating at any given time. This is less of an issue on a desktop system, but is crucial on a laptop.
Essentially, if you have too many programs running, that will slow down the performance of your computer. On a laptop, the problem is even worse, due to the slower speed of the hard drive (usually around 5400 RPM, but some are even slower - at 4200 RPM). An additional problem is if you have the latest version of Photoshop or another image editing application. If the hard drive is too slow, your program won't run properly.
On a laptop, I recommend that you use as few programs as possible at any one time - preferably only one. If you have a slower hard drive, I recommend using an earlier version, such as Photoshop 7 or PHOTO-PAINT 12. The current versions will be too demanding if your hard drive is too slow.
Here's the thing, if you're looking at speeding up your computer, the first place to look is at your hard drive. Here are a few things to consider: one is that while other components on your computer have advanced considerably, hard drive technology hasn't changed much in 5+ years. Also, despite having fast RAM, video cards, processors, etc., it's the hard drive that governs how fast this data is accessed. If your hard drive is slow, your system will be slow, it's that simple.
If you're building a desktop graphics platform, I recommend that you buy a hard drive with a speed of no less than 7200 RPM and make sure it has a fast cache (the cache is an important factor in determining how fast the data is transferred). I don't recommend buying a faster drive than this because you'll run into noise and cooling problems.
If you're using a laptop, the same rule applies, but the size of drive you can use is smaller and the resulting speed is slower. In this case, get a 5400 RPM 80 GB drive with a fast cache. The difference in performance will surprise you. I did this on my Toshiba A70 Satellite and it felt like I had a brand new machine.
The second bit of hardware to look at is RAM. Few people realize that Photoshop is a major RAM hog. As an example, let's say you're running a Windows XP system and it performs reasonably well with 256 MB of RAM. And let's say you now open Photoshop and start working on a 40MB file with multiple layers.
I guarantee that your system will slow down to a crawl very quickly. Why? Becuase a file of this type requires 3 x 5 times the amount of the file size in RAM in order for Photoshop to function properly. In this case, that's from 120 to 200 MB of RAM for the file alone, not to mention the RAM requirements for Photoshop itself and for the operating system. The problem becomes even worse if you have multiple programs running.
My recommendation is this, if you want to speed up your computer look at your hard drive first, then consider your RAM requirements and what types of images you work with.
Next week, we'll look at other options for speeding up your computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Segal boosts your PHOTO-PAINT productivity with proven tips, tools and techniques to create better scans, images and prints in his book, The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 Insider. Visit his blog for free weekly graphics/photography tips.
This week we're going to look at other options for speeding up your computer. We've covered many issues that could be slowing your system down in previous newsletters. Today, our main focus is the hard drive.
One thing to consider when running your computer is how many programs you have operating at any given time. This is less of an issue on a desktop system, but is crucial on a laptop.
Essentially, if you have too many programs running, that will slow down the performance of your computer. On a laptop, the problem is even worse, due to the slower speed of the hard drive (usually around 5400 RPM, but some are even slower - at 4200 RPM). An additional problem is if you have the latest version of Photoshop or another image editing application. If the hard drive is too slow, your program won't run properly.
On a laptop, I recommend that you use as few programs as possible at any one time - preferably only one. If you have a slower hard drive, I recommend using an earlier version, such as Photoshop 7 or PHOTO-PAINT 12. The current versions will be too demanding if your hard drive is too slow.
Here's the thing, if you're looking at speeding up your computer, the first place to look is at your hard drive. Here are a few things to consider: one is that while other components on your computer have advanced considerably, hard drive technology hasn't changed much in 5+ years. Also, despite having fast RAM, video cards, processors, etc., it's the hard drive that governs how fast this data is accessed. If your hard drive is slow, your system will be slow, it's that simple.
If you're building a desktop graphics platform, I recommend that you buy a hard drive with a speed of no less than 7200 RPM and make sure it has a fast cache (the cache is an important factor in determining how fast the data is transferred). I don't recommend buying a faster drive than this because you'll run into noise and cooling problems.
If you're using a laptop, the same rule applies, but the size of drive you can use is smaller and the resulting speed is slower. In this case, get a 5400 RPM 80 GB drive with a fast cache. The difference in performance will surprise you. I did this on my Toshiba A70 Satellite and it felt like I had a brand new machine.
The second bit of hardware to look at is RAM. Few people realize that Photoshop is a major RAM hog. As an example, let's say you're running a Windows XP system and it performs reasonably well with 256 MB of RAM. And let's say you now open Photoshop and start working on a 40MB file with multiple layers.
I guarantee that your system will slow down to a crawl very quickly. Why? Becuase a file of this type requires 3 x 5 times the amount of the file size in RAM in order for Photoshop to function properly. In this case, that's from 120 to 200 MB of RAM for the file alone, not to mention the RAM requirements for Photoshop itself and for the operating system. The problem becomes even worse if you have multiple programs running.
My recommendation is this, if you want to speed up your computer look at your hard drive first, then consider your RAM requirements and what types of images you work with.
Next week, we'll look at other options for speeding up your computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Segal boosts your PHOTO-PAINT productivity with proven tips, tools and techniques to create better scans, images and prints in his book, The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 Insider. Visit his blog for free weekly graphics/photography tips.
How to Speed Up Your Computer: Part 2
Slow running computer? Problems with annoying random popups and system instability? Chances are you have Spyware. Learn how to get rid of it in part 2 of this series.
Q: My computer is running slowly. How do I speed it up?
As I'd mentioned last time, a couple of quick fixes were to reduce the number of programs that load at startup by using msconfig from the Start menu (assuming you're working on a Windows platform) or to defrag your hard drive.
If you're running a Macintosh with OS 9 or earlier, your programs use extensions upon starting the computer. Having too many of those running will bog down your system resources. The way to deal with that is to create different startup options so that only the programs you need will have the relevant extensions loaded. That will improve your system performance. OS 10 and later performs differently, so it's unlikely that you'll have problems there.
Assuming you follow the steps outlined in the previous article and your computer is still running slowly, then your problem might be spyware.
For those of you who don't know what spyware is, it's software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes.
It resembles a Trojan horse in some ways as users unwittingly download the software. Among other things, spyware steals steals from resources on your computer and also eats up bandwidth. The result can be a slow running computer, system instability and crashes.
Some spyware has the ability to scan your hard drive, snoop your applications, hijack your web browser and more. Some of the worst offenders monitor your keystrokes (aka keyloggers that capture your keystroke data and send it to a third party without your knowledge), and extortionware (where you have to pay a fee to get the spyware remvoved from your system).
Hence, the need to eiminate (and prevent) future incursions on your machine is extremely important, not just for performance, but for your personal security.
Here's one fast way that you can find out if you have spyware on your computer. Visit the Trend Micro Web site at: http://www.trendmicro.com/ and run a scan for spyware on your computer.
The results may surprise you.
On an ongoing basis, I recommend that you purchase two anti-spyware programs for your computer. These are Pest Patrol and Spyware Sweeper Spyware Sweeper. Pest Patrol works fairly quickly and takes a snapsot of your hard drive. It's good for many spyware issues, but if you have a persistent problem, I recommend Spyware Sweeper for an intensive system scan. I don't recommend using Spyware Sweeper on Startup, as it slows down your system. Pest Patrol is a better option.
Next time, we'll look at other options for speeding up your computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Segal boosts your PHOTO-PAINT productivity with proven tips, tools and techniques to create better scans, images and prints in his book, The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 Insider. Visit his blog for free weekly graphics/photography tips.
Q: My computer is running slowly. How do I speed it up?
As I'd mentioned last time, a couple of quick fixes were to reduce the number of programs that load at startup by using msconfig from the Start menu (assuming you're working on a Windows platform) or to defrag your hard drive.
If you're running a Macintosh with OS 9 or earlier, your programs use extensions upon starting the computer. Having too many of those running will bog down your system resources. The way to deal with that is to create different startup options so that only the programs you need will have the relevant extensions loaded. That will improve your system performance. OS 10 and later performs differently, so it's unlikely that you'll have problems there.
Assuming you follow the steps outlined in the previous article and your computer is still running slowly, then your problem might be spyware.
For those of you who don't know what spyware is, it's software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes.
It resembles a Trojan horse in some ways as users unwittingly download the software. Among other things, spyware steals steals from resources on your computer and also eats up bandwidth. The result can be a slow running computer, system instability and crashes.
Some spyware has the ability to scan your hard drive, snoop your applications, hijack your web browser and more. Some of the worst offenders monitor your keystrokes (aka keyloggers that capture your keystroke data and send it to a third party without your knowledge), and extortionware (where you have to pay a fee to get the spyware remvoved from your system).
Hence, the need to eiminate (and prevent) future incursions on your machine is extremely important, not just for performance, but for your personal security.
Here's one fast way that you can find out if you have spyware on your computer. Visit the Trend Micro Web site at: http://www.trendmicro.com/ and run a scan for spyware on your computer.
The results may surprise you.
On an ongoing basis, I recommend that you purchase two anti-spyware programs for your computer. These are Pest Patrol and Spyware Sweeper Spyware Sweeper. Pest Patrol works fairly quickly and takes a snapsot of your hard drive. It's good for many spyware issues, but if you have a persistent problem, I recommend Spyware Sweeper for an intensive system scan. I don't recommend using Spyware Sweeper on Startup, as it slows down your system. Pest Patrol is a better option.
Next time, we'll look at other options for speeding up your computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Segal boosts your PHOTO-PAINT productivity with proven tips, tools and techniques to create better scans, images and prints in his book, The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 Insider. Visit his blog for free weekly graphics/photography tips.
Want To Speed Up Your Computer?
Being in the computer repair business, I often get asked, “How do I speed up my computer?” This is a tough question to answer without any knowledge of the computer and software that a user might have. But I do have one recommendation that usually helps out most people.
If you’ve had your computer for more than a year, there are 1000’s if not millions of unused files just laying around your system. Most people know about clearing their browser cache, and maybe even using Windows XP Disk Clean Up through the properties of your C:/Drive. And both of those programs help.
But there are large amounts of files that are created by third party programs, installers, Java cache files, and etc. It’s difficult to even find these files let alone clean them out on a regular basis. Several of the more active adware and virus programs use these areas to operate from too.
And then there’s all the registry entries that go with these files. The registry is a database on your computer that is used by the system to register any software, hardware, and activities. On a brand new computer it is huge in both size and number of entries. But over time this database can become quite bloated and slow down daily operations.
Every time you do something to change your user, software, or hardware settings this activity is recorded in the registry database. Think about it for a minute, every single time you install, change, or even move things around it is recorded. The number of entries on any daily session can be in the 1000’s.
Every day when you boot up, your system runs through every setting in the registry to know how, where, and what is on your computer. As time goes on, and new entries are made, this becomes a more time consuming task. And during the normal operation, the registry is check 1000’s of times for file locations, hardware driver aspects, and many of the different settings.
So the bigger the registry, the more computing power and time is needed to complete these checks. And this type of access is going on every time you click or type during your daily computing chores. Anything you can do to keep the registry mean and lean can improve the performance of your computer.
But doing a manual clean up of your files, and the registry can be difficult. Knowing what files and what settings are no longer needed is almost impossible. One of the reasons is the registry listings can be in multiple sections and many places. And it’s about as easy to decipher as our wonderful tax laws. I get to do it often when repairing a computer but it’s not a lot of fun nor is it always very straight forward.
But the is a good way to approach this clean up. There are some very smart folks over at a company called CCleaner.com. They have written a small utility called CCleaner and it cleans out the registry and deletes all the old inactive files everywhere.
Normally I’m not to wild about turning loose a program that deletes files and registry entries on any of my computers. But I’ve tested this utility on every computer in the shop and it works flawlessly every time. It’s fast too. We use a couple of computers to test new software and hardware and they get cluttered up with old files and installations. Many of the uninstall programs don’t remove all the files and registry entries.
We use CCleaner after all our tests now and it removes all the left overs fast. And the speed on boot up and day-to-day operations does speed up. It’s a noticeable difference before and after you run CCleaner. They also have a support area and forum on their web site for any questions and issues that anyone would have using their software.
Many of the major computer sites and magazines have given CCleaner the highest marks for both reliability and results. That says a lot right there since most of these expert web sites are pretty thorough in testing and don’t give out high rankings all that often.
I’ve added CCleaner to my basic recommendations of a good virus protection software and adware remover. It goes the extra mile in clean up that can really help any computer speed up both the boot process and daily operations.
If your computer is acting sluggish and slow, this would be an excellent utility to run. Always make sure that there are no pesky viruses or adware first. And always make sure you have the latest version of both virus definitions and any new adware protection.
Did I mention that this great little utility is also free? That’s right, it’s free for the using. They do take donations so if you use the program and like it, why not go ahead and give them a few bucks for their great work. That’s a good way keep this and other great software free.
You can get CCleaner at http://www.ccleaner.com. Just follow the instructions on the installation and operation and I’ll bet you see a big difference afterward. Good utilities are hard to find, and free ones almost impossible. This is a great tool to help anyone clean out their system and get back some of the original speed of their computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Dow owns www.powersolutionscd.com, a website that specializes in computer troubleshooting, security, and repair utilities. His Power Solutions CD has helped thousands of customers protect their computer and data, by providing a collection of utilities and how to articles to fix and repair ANY hard drive or computer problem. Click here to learn more: http://www.powersolutionscd.com.
If you’ve had your computer for more than a year, there are 1000’s if not millions of unused files just laying around your system. Most people know about clearing their browser cache, and maybe even using Windows XP Disk Clean Up through the properties of your C:/Drive. And both of those programs help.
But there are large amounts of files that are created by third party programs, installers, Java cache files, and etc. It’s difficult to even find these files let alone clean them out on a regular basis. Several of the more active adware and virus programs use these areas to operate from too.
And then there’s all the registry entries that go with these files. The registry is a database on your computer that is used by the system to register any software, hardware, and activities. On a brand new computer it is huge in both size and number of entries. But over time this database can become quite bloated and slow down daily operations.
Every time you do something to change your user, software, or hardware settings this activity is recorded in the registry database. Think about it for a minute, every single time you install, change, or even move things around it is recorded. The number of entries on any daily session can be in the 1000’s.
Every day when you boot up, your system runs through every setting in the registry to know how, where, and what is on your computer. As time goes on, and new entries are made, this becomes a more time consuming task. And during the normal operation, the registry is check 1000’s of times for file locations, hardware driver aspects, and many of the different settings.
So the bigger the registry, the more computing power and time is needed to complete these checks. And this type of access is going on every time you click or type during your daily computing chores. Anything you can do to keep the registry mean and lean can improve the performance of your computer.
But doing a manual clean up of your files, and the registry can be difficult. Knowing what files and what settings are no longer needed is almost impossible. One of the reasons is the registry listings can be in multiple sections and many places. And it’s about as easy to decipher as our wonderful tax laws. I get to do it often when repairing a computer but it’s not a lot of fun nor is it always very straight forward.
But the is a good way to approach this clean up. There are some very smart folks over at a company called CCleaner.com. They have written a small utility called CCleaner and it cleans out the registry and deletes all the old inactive files everywhere.
Normally I’m not to wild about turning loose a program that deletes files and registry entries on any of my computers. But I’ve tested this utility on every computer in the shop and it works flawlessly every time. It’s fast too. We use a couple of computers to test new software and hardware and they get cluttered up with old files and installations. Many of the uninstall programs don’t remove all the files and registry entries.
We use CCleaner after all our tests now and it removes all the left overs fast. And the speed on boot up and day-to-day operations does speed up. It’s a noticeable difference before and after you run CCleaner. They also have a support area and forum on their web site for any questions and issues that anyone would have using their software.
Many of the major computer sites and magazines have given CCleaner the highest marks for both reliability and results. That says a lot right there since most of these expert web sites are pretty thorough in testing and don’t give out high rankings all that often.
I’ve added CCleaner to my basic recommendations of a good virus protection software and adware remover. It goes the extra mile in clean up that can really help any computer speed up both the boot process and daily operations.
If your computer is acting sluggish and slow, this would be an excellent utility to run. Always make sure that there are no pesky viruses or adware first. And always make sure you have the latest version of both virus definitions and any new adware protection.
Did I mention that this great little utility is also free? That’s right, it’s free for the using. They do take donations so if you use the program and like it, why not go ahead and give them a few bucks for their great work. That’s a good way keep this and other great software free.
You can get CCleaner at http://www.ccleaner.com. Just follow the instructions on the installation and operation and I’ll bet you see a big difference afterward. Good utilities are hard to find, and free ones almost impossible. This is a great tool to help anyone clean out their system and get back some of the original speed of their computer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Dow owns www.powersolutionscd.com, a website that specializes in computer troubleshooting, security, and repair utilities. His Power Solutions CD has helped thousands of customers protect their computer and data, by providing a collection of utilities and how to articles to fix and repair ANY hard drive or computer problem. Click here to learn more: http://www.powersolutionscd.com.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Data Recovery Software
Author: Data Recovery
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Website URL-http://www.datadoctor.inData Doctor Recovery is easy safe Read-only and Non-Destructive Data recovery software tool. Data Recovery Doctor for FAT NTFS recovers data files and folders lost due to overwritten/deleted/formatted/damaged/corrupted partitions from FAT and NTFS based operating systems such as Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/2003 from the hard disk or other storage media such as Pen drive, Floppy disk, Memory Card, Flash memory, Zip drives, iPODs, Digital cameras, mobile communicators memory card etc. Windows data recovery software Data Recovery Doctor for Windows partition recovery is quick, simple easy to use with extremely attractive Graphical user interface (GUI) and helpful software utility tool for restoring lost or deleted partitions, files and folders. Data Doctor Recovery users are licensed to use the software for Lifetime without any Renewal. Also, there is no restriction of Number of machines on which software can be installed. Features:: * Supports all storage media including Hard disk, Pen drive, Floppy disk, Memory Card, Flash memory, Zip drives, iPODs, Digital cameras, mobile communicators memory card * Best Graphical user interface (GUI) for easy and quick data recovery * In-built step-by-step data recovery help * Recovers data lost due to overwritten, deleted, formatted, damaged or corrupted partitions in all logical crashes * Also Recovers Data from previously Existing Partitions * Recovers data even from Bad sectors affected storage media * Helpful in computer Forensics * Long File Name files and Folders recovery support * Support for FAT VFAT FAT12 FAT16 FAT32 NTFS NTFS5 file systems * Recovers deleted files and folders even after use of (Shift+Del) key and emptied recycle bin, lost/missing/deleted partition formatted logical drives, missing or lost files and folders * Multi storage support( up to 128 storage media at a time ) for hard disks and/or other storage media including all IDE, SATA, EIDE and SCSI disk devices.
Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
Website URL-http://www.datadoctor.inData Doctor Recovery is easy safe Read-only and Non-Destructive Data recovery software tool. Data Recovery Doctor for FAT NTFS recovers data files and folders lost due to overwritten/deleted/formatted/damaged/corrupted partitions from FAT and NTFS based operating systems such as Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/2003 from the hard disk or other storage media such as Pen drive, Floppy disk, Memory Card, Flash memory, Zip drives, iPODs, Digital cameras, mobile communicators memory card etc. Windows data recovery software Data Recovery Doctor for Windows partition recovery is quick, simple easy to use with extremely attractive Graphical user interface (GUI) and helpful software utility tool for restoring lost or deleted partitions, files and folders. Data Doctor Recovery users are licensed to use the software for Lifetime without any Renewal. Also, there is no restriction of Number of machines on which software can be installed. Features:: * Supports all storage media including Hard disk, Pen drive, Floppy disk, Memory Card, Flash memory, Zip drives, iPODs, Digital cameras, mobile communicators memory card * Best Graphical user interface (GUI) for easy and quick data recovery * In-built step-by-step data recovery help * Recovers data lost due to overwritten, deleted, formatted, damaged or corrupted partitions in all logical crashes * Also Recovers Data from previously Existing Partitions * Recovers data even from Bad sectors affected storage media * Helpful in computer Forensics * Long File Name files and Folders recovery support * Support for FAT VFAT FAT12 FAT16 FAT32 NTFS NTFS5 file systems * Recovers deleted files and folders even after use of (Shift+Del) key and emptied recycle bin, lost/missing/deleted partition formatted logical drives, missing or lost files and folders * Multi storage support( up to 128 storage media at a time ) for hard disks and/or other storage media including all IDE, SATA, EIDE and SCSI disk devices.
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