PC SECURITY RECOMMENDATIONS
With access to the UE system, you're especially vulnerable to
viruses and malicious access that can shut down your PC and sometimes the
entire UE system. Protect your PC and all of us:
(1) BACK-UP: Periodically, backup your My Documents folder to a 2-4GB flash drive or SD card ($5-10) -- avoid agony and grief!
Use free “skydrives” with Windows Live and Google Docs to store copies of
important files.
(2) AUTOMATICALLY UPDATE BROWSERS:
For Windows XP, click the
bottom-left-corner All Programs >
Accessories > System Tools > Security Center. For Windows Vista or 7, click the
top-right-bar Safety > Windows Update
> Change Setting > and make sure the recommended “Install updates
automatically…” shows along with the greed safety shield. For Mozilla FireFox click top-left-bar Tools > Options > Update tab to check boxes. For the new faster Google Chrome go to top-right Wrench icon > About Google Chrome to see if updates
are available.
(3)
ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM: WINDOWS XP, VISTA, and 7:
Probably the best recommendation is the free
Microsoft Security Essentials – you
never know it’s there until there’s a real problem. I also prefer the free avast! (frequent updates). Other rated free antivirus programs are AVG Free (most
popular) are AntiVir PersonalEdition (highest rating but periodic popup ads for pay version). All of these antivirus programs are about as good
as anything you can buy -- use only one of them. Otherwise, Norton and BitDefender are currently rated high at $50-80 annually.
(4) SECOND ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS: WINDOWS
XP, VISTA and 7: With a lot of web-surfing, some also install the free ThreatFire AntiVirus (periodic
pop-up ads for the pay version) as backup – it looks
for suspicious behavior to identify viruses compared to just checking for the
file names of known viruses.
(5) WEBSITE SAFTEY MONITOR: For those who Google
and surf, the best protection may be the free new WOT Extensions or Add-On for the major web
browsers (Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome). WOT stands for “Web of Trust” and users
contribute ratings of sites for dangers.
I never click on a Google search link without their green-ring
symbol.
(6) SPAM CONTROL: Use
good judgment! If you don’t know the sender, just permanently delete it (Shift+Delete). Never Reply to spam. Never ever open a spam Attachment. Never click on a spam hyperlink. Never provide your social security number,
birth date, or bank account information online. Use a credit card only with
well-known vendors (Newegg, eCost, Amazon, Dell, Staples, etc.) that you
have accessed directly (beware of common spelling errors that may lead to a
phony look-alike site.
(7) IF YOU BECOME A VICTIM
OF FRAUD: Click What to do? and follow the
directions. To prevent ID thieves from using your
information click Security Freeze and follow the
directions in your state's PDF file.
“UPGRADING” YOUR OLD PC: Lot of folks still
running a Pentium 4 (Benchmark = 489), Windows XL, and maybe 512MB RAM with a
smaller hard drive (<100GB), and they know and like it! But it may be slower than when new:
You can usually speed things up with
good maintenance : FIRST, (1) Install
the free CCleaner and Defraggler utilities at Piriform.com, (2) Use Ccleaner’s Cleaner, Registry, and Tools (Uninstall to get rid of old
unused programs and Startup to get rid of unnecessary startup programs
that load and run automatically), (3) Use Defragger to defrag and
compact your hard drive, (4) Lastly, go to Start
> My Computer > Local Disk (CJ and right click for the window – click “Properties” at the bottom, then
click the top “Tools” tab – click the Error-checking “Check Now…” button, check
both boxes for “Automatically fix file system errors…” and “Scan for
and attempt to recover bad sectors…”, the click the “Start” button, then
click “Yes” when asked. Restart your PC
and do something else for the next couple of hours. SECOND, if it’s still slow and you have
less than 1GB, add RAM – do a Crucial System Scan to find what you need
(about $15 per 512MB). If you need more
disk drive space, get a small USB connected and
powered (no bulky transformer) [$50 for 300GB). THIRD, if it’s still slow, reinstall WINDOWS, the
operating system (from the CDs that came with the PC or from their location on
the hard drive burned to a CD. All of
your programs will have to be reinstalled but WINDOWS will update itself fair
quickly – lot of work but some do it annually to keep a fast machine. It’s not
worth upgrading to WINDOWS 7, but try Chrome as a browser
(supposed to be faster and leaner). If
it’s still too slow, it’s new PC time – and the new CPUs are really
faster.
BUYING A NEW PC: You should get Windows
7, at least a dual-core CPU (Passmark
Benchmark = 1500+), and at least
2GB RAM: HP and Toshiba laptops with a
T4400 (Benchmark = 1589) and 4GB RAM go on sale for about $400. Check out http://bensbargains.net, http://dealnews.com and http://techbargains.com for the “deals” – locally check out Best Buy, Office Depot and
Staples. Student discounts for
Microsoft OFFICE (WORD, Excel, and PowerPoint) are available at Software
Discounts.— you want the new OFFICE 2010. As an
alternative to OFFICE, check out the free Google Docs – online availability
of basic WORD-like, Exel-like, and
PowerPoint-like programs with a 10 MB Skydrive.
DISCARDING YOUR OLD PC:
“ERASE” OLD FILES: Your
hard drive can still be accessed to retrieve “deleted” files (it’s really easy). To prevent this, install the free Eraser to actually “erase” those old files
that contain sensitive information. Otherwise, you can re-format the
hard drive (*click Start, My Computer, Local Disk (CJ, Format… but to recycle, you must re-install Windows XP). If you’re junking the old PC, you can remove
the hard drive, put it in an “external enclosure” ($10-20 at Newegg), and use
it as an external hard drive.
FULL UE MAIL BOX: If you allow spam
and email to accumulate, it may fill up your disk space and shut down your
account. Remember to (1) Delete files from your Inbox folder,
(2) Delete files from you Sent Items folder, then (3)
Delete files from your Deleted Items folder. (Your assigned disk
space includes all of your folders, not just the Inbox folder.)