Education: The Only Way to Beat Malware

In the PC universe viruses, spyware, and other malware claim their stake on millions of users' computers unchecked. The only way for people to avoid malware altogether is to become educated and aware of the threats.

Whenever I help a friend who says their computer is slow, either spyware, an overflowing startup menu, or fragmentation is to blame. With the amount of spyware going unchecked on computers today, it's more than likely that I have to have to take out the digital garbage that's been accumulating without the users knowledge. A little bit of education could go a long way here.

Even a computer user with all of the best (and paid for) anti-virus, firewall, and spyware software can be hampered with a lack of knowledge to avoid the threats in the first place. The first thing I always recommend is Firefox. Hands down it's an easy way to avoid a lot of the types of adware and spyware roaming the digital hills. Firefox will not install add-ons without the user's permission (Internet Explorer 7 is starting to go in the right direction). This means you won't see a bunch of extra toolbars clogging up your browser that you don't remember installing. Firefox is not tied into the operating system in the way that Internet Explorer is. Using Firefox also protects you from ActiveX exploits and other security issues only affecting Internet Explorer.

I would guess that computer users who have teenage children tends to have more spyware, adware, and other junk on their machine. Teenagers who are fairly new to computers will accept a lot of the free downloads that come bundled with adware/spyware. They also tend to visit questionable sites that could install a drive-by download or expose Windows to other malware. Even in the Mac world, just recently a virus was circulating on porn sites. Read about the security bulletin from Intego.

The best way to avoid malware in Windows is to simply avoid questionable sites, download software only from reputable sites, run an anti-virus scan on any downloaded material, no matter what it's source, use the Firefox browser, keep a Firewall updated and running, keep Anti-Virus software updating and running, don't install software that comes with other "bundled" applications, and of course, don't forget to run regular anti-virus and anti-spyware scans.

It took using computers on a frequent basis, and even making the mistakes of a rookie user to realize what measures need to be in place to become secure. Sitting down to other computers that were plagued with spyware and adware taught me to recognize the threats and steer clear of the traps.

With all of these considerations in mind, I would go as far as saying that using a computer should be like driving a car, a test should be required to ensure basic competence before a person can use it. If people had to own "licenses" to use computers, millions of machines wouldn't become infected with viruses; it's very Orwellian and restrictive for millions of rookies, but it could help solve the security problems.

Learn more:

PC Magazine - How to Avoid Spyware
PC World - Think before you click and avoid viruses and scams
PC Magazine - Know your enemy
PC Magazine - Keep Your PC Safe

How Social Bookmarking Changed my Life

Since I discovered the social bookmarking site del.icio.us about three months ago, the way I surf and work on the web has been completely changed. Even now, as I am on my vacation and using a public hotel computer, I bookmarked several lifehacker posts to del.icio.us this evening, and previously I would have copied and pasted all the URLs in a email to myself--and most likely visit the same pages weeks later.

Del.ico.us allows me to "bookmark" any site and add it to my public page. This way I can easily access a site I previously saved from any computer, no need to try and synchronize my Firefox bookmarks or implement some other workaround. This can be a lifesaver when using a public computer and you don't have access to the Firefox bookmarks on your personal computer.

After discovering del.icio.us, I've been able to tremendously clean up my Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar to the point where I only have 10 or 15 bookmarks to frequent sites, rather than several hundred bookmarked sites to trudge through. If you get into social bookmarking, seriously consider saving all your bookmarks into your account (this can be done quickly through importing and exporting).

On an average day, especially when browsing Lifehacker or PC Magazine, I save about 10 or more individual pages to del.icio.us. These might be articles I want to read again, share with friends, or simply use as a reference months or weeks from now. Now hardly a day goes by that I don't add a site to del.icio.us.

The beauty of social bookmarking lies in the "tags". I have a weekly tag for sites that I want to visit regularly, a "reading" tag for pages I want to go back and read the content if I only had a chance to scan it before saving the page. If I'm doing a research project for school, I'll simply create a new tag, eg: "biology-research", and then assign every page for the project to that tag, soI'll have an easy way to go back and visit the sites, and I'll be able to build a bibliography without copying and pasting the URLs until the end. Any page that I want to share with someone later has been given a "share" tag.

Another bonus to the social bookmarking idea is that you can see others who have saved the same pages you have, discover people with similar interests, and browse other users' bookmarks, etc.

If you use Firefox, and you should be, check out the Del.icio.us Buttons extension that integrates right next to the home button on the toolbar and will allow you to open a save box with one click or go to your del.icio.us page instantly.

Also see: What can I use del.icio.us for?

The Road ahead: Leopard and Vista

Leopard or Vista, choose your future OS wisely

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, or you don't follow technology, the decision between Leopard and Vista or staying with you current operating system has probably been made. (Sorry Linux devotees, I use lots of peripherals and Photoshop).


From just about every angle, Vista has been a disappointment. I've worked with and enjoyed PC's for the last nine years. A friend of mine bought a new desktop with Vista, and I was impressed with some of the features, but not compelled enough to go out and drop $220 on Newegg to get the retail version and install on a new computer I would have to buy. (My laptop runs great on XP, but I doubt it would meet my needs with Vista). Beyond all the eye candy, there are really minimal improvements at best. The "gadgets" Microsoft has added are essentially a clone of the widgets in Mac OS X. Vista was supposed to have extra features that were abandoned along the way. The aero interface is interesting, and maybe an attempt to one-up Exposé on the mac.



For Vista's 4-5 years of development, it has relatively little to show for it. The explorer interface is better, especially the folder paths being displayed. Vista's only real strength, however, are the new media center capabilities and the "reinvented" start menu.


Ironically enough, Leopard, "arguably" the most advanced operating system, sells for $130 MSRP, compared to a crippled and essentially worthless version of Vista; Home basic, which retails for around $200.

I had decided several months ago because of all potential upgrade hassles and very low adoption rates of Vista, that Leopard would be a much better solution. Even before this decision was made, Vista was out of the question until the first service pack would be released. I expect things to just work, I would never adopt Vista when things worked smoothly and perfectly in XP.

Apple is going to get a real shot in the arm from everyone that is avoiding Vista, not to mention average home users who are weary from spyware and virus problems.

Until Microsoft can bring Vista up to speed on hardware and peripheral compatibility, people will continue downgrading to Windows XP or switching to the Mac. Redmond had a good thing in Windows XP, but let's hope Microsoft won't become complacent with the billions they've already raked in with Vista.

Savvy Windows Troubleshooting

You know the drill. Windows starts to show error messages, slows to a crawl when opening programs, and never seems as fast as it used to be. The one universal solution (unless it's hardware related) is to reinstall Windows and start over fresh.

Instead of spending hours troubleshooting or waiting for a machine that's never been defragmented, reinstalling Windows could be real time saver. Yes, you'll need to dig up your driver CD's that are stashed in a closet somewhere and backup all your files. After that's done, it's only a few hours to have "new" computer again.

Reinstalling Windows is the best possible way to speed up your computer rather than installing new hardware. It frees your computer from debilitating and crash inducing fragmentation and eliminates all the junk that Windows has accumulated over the months or years it's been installed. Your computer will be completely fresh again, with a new lease on life, and no spyware, adware, or other garbage clogging up the works. . . Maybe this time around use Firefox and don't visit questionable websites or download software from strange places.

I decided months ago, that whenever Windows starts heading south, or if there's an issue I've spent more than a few hours troubleshooting, I'll simply reinstall Windows, that is assuming, that I've kept a complete backup of my documents, photos, and music. This is easy to do with an external drive as they are getting cheaper all the time.

My mother's home computer is years overdue for a reinstall. I tried to defrag the machine over a year ago, and remember the progress hanging around 6% for over an hour. . Reinstall to the rescue!

If you've never reinstalled Windows, backup all your files and call the most capable geek that you know. Be sure to provide all the CD's that came with your computer and have the documentation/receipt that came with your computer in case the geek needs to find drivers.

If you're lucky enough to be running Windows on a virtual machine, a reintall should take less than an hour. Parallels installed Windows XP virtually in about 20 minutes on friends' new iMac. Most virutal machine software wil also enable you to create "snapshots" to save the current state of the virtual machine. When windows gets hit by a virus or serious crash, reverting to the snapshot will save time reintalling Windows on the virutal machine over again. (Of course your documents saved after the snapshot was created will not be spared, so keep a backup). Create a snapshot of a fresh installation of windows, or a snapshot after your essential programs are installed, or keep both. Then you'll be on your feet and using a fast, new virutal Windows in less than 10 minutes, just in time for that meeting with a client who is running PC-only software.