Computers and Technology

What Will You Learn Within This Series?

Part 1 - Cleaning your computer of viruses

Part 2 - Cleaning your computer of spyware

Part 3 - Cleaning your computer registry

Part 4 - Defragmenting your computer, and disk cleanup

Part 5 - Useful keyboard shortcuts

All of these tips should be used on a regular basis. Your computer is like a car, you need to change the oil, replace the tires, clean the interior frequently to ensure that your car is runs smoothly, that it keeps you safe, and remains clean.

Cleaning Your Computer of Viruses:

I think I can make the assumption that most of you have heard of computer viruses before? For those who haven't, a computer virus is a program created by highly advanced programmers world wide with the intent on harming your computer in so many ways. Viruses can infect your computer, delete important files, corrupt your hard drive, or even make your computer unusable. Viruses can mean death to your computer. We are all subjectable to a virus attack, in fact millions of computers are infected with some form of virus right now as you read this, and your computer may be one of those infected.

Ways To Get Infected With A Virus:

• 1) - Firewall is not activated
• 2) - No anti-virus software
• 3) - Spam Email attachment
• 4) - File transfer via a messenger service
• 5) - Copying files from an infected CD, or floppy Disk
• 6) - Network of computers sharing files

A virus can infect your computer through any of the methods from above. Prevention is the key to making sure you don't keep your computer to such attacks.

How To Prevent Viruses From Coming In:

1) Activate Your System Firewall:

You want to make sure that your firewall is active. A firewall blocks hackers from finding loop-holes within your computer that gives them a gateway (doorway) in. A firewall can help to stop most hackers, but not all of them.

Activating your firewall:

Windows systems: START > CONTROL PANNEL > INTERNET CONNECTIONS > WINDOWS FIREWALL > "On (Recommended)".

Mac Users: APPLE MENU > SYSTEM PREFERENCES > SHARING PANE > FIREWALL > START

There you go; your firewall is now active!

2) Scan Your Computer With An Anti-Virus Software:

Installing an anti-virus software is key! An anti-virus software will help to monetize your computer for viruses. An anti-virus software will also help to perform a system wide scan of your computer for already infected areas.

Most newer computers come with an anti-virus software already installed; all you need to do is run the program.

Here are some of the top PAID anti-virus software's:

(No particular order)

• Norton Ani-Virus By Symantec
• McAfee Ani-Virus
• BitDefender
• Kaspersky

(No particular order)

• AntiVir Personal Edition Classic 6.32
• Active Virus Shield (AOL)
• Alwil Software Avast Home Edition 4.6
• Grisoft AVG Free Edition 7.1

For more anti-virus software's, with good editorial reviews go to: Download.com

Once installed, launch the program, and find a button that says "update virus definitions". This will help to make sure your virus definitions are up-to-date. Virus definitions have the most recently found viruses that just came on the market. Up-to-date definitions are key to finding newer, more powerful viruses.

Once you've updated your definitions, close all running programs and perform a "full system scan". Depending on your computers size, and speed, the scan can take up to a couple of hours to complete.

Once complete, hit a button that will say something like; "Quarantine Files", "Delete Infected Files", "Clean Up Files", "Remove Infected Files". This process will remove all files that have been flagged as a virus, and it will do this safely without harming your computer.

Things to know:

• Once a virus scan is complete, reboot your computer.
• Some viruses cannot be caught while your computer is running; they may have to be removed after a reboot (which should be automatic).
• You can setup a full system scan to start at 12 midnight every night.
• Scan your computer ATLEAST once a week if connected to the internet.

You'll probably start to notice that your computer is running faster, this is because the viruses which were there before, are no longer using your computers memory to run consistently.

Some viruses are extremely resilient and cannot be removed from a simple virus scan. Going through (Part 2 & Part 3) will help to attack these harder-to-find viruses.

3) Don't Open Suspicious Email attachments:

So many viruses are activated by people like yourself who open email attachments that they don't recognize. Most viruses are distributed this way. Part 6 - "Useful Email tips & fighting spam" from this mini-series will go into greater detail on fighting spam, but for those of you who won't get to read that article, I must mention a couple of things here:

• Do NOT open an email that you don't recognize, or didn't ask for!
• Do NOT open an attachment with the extension ".exe".
• Immediately delete emails from people you don't recognize
• Do NOT save emails onto your computer that you don't recognize
• Spammers will try to trick you into thinking they are your friend
• Pay close attention at the person, email, and content from each email
• Do NOT click "Unsubscribe" from a spam email, this will do the opposite
• Do NOT reply back to an email you don't recognize
• Do NOT forward an email that you don't recognize
• Report ALL spam to your internet service provider

These email tips I just mentioned are part of the basic foundations to helping you fight spam, and to ensure that you don't inadvertently activate a malicious virus onto your computer.

4) Avoid Using Messenger Services:

Messenger services, or "chat programs" on your computer are like leaving an open gateway pointing directly to your computer. Messenger services like "MSN Chat", or "Yahoo Chat" connect two computers together in order to talk to each other over and over again. This allows the two computers to give, and receive information through the software.

An Example of What Can Happen:

Many viruses have infiltrated millions of computers through this easy to hack service by disguising itself as "your chat friends" and by sending you a link to a virus file to open up onto your computer. The problem is, you have no idea what kind of file you're opening, because it seems as though the file came directly from your friend (who is infected by this virus), and it looks as though they are simply trying to send you a photo of themselves.

Personally, no one is allowed to have a messenger chat software installed on any of our computers. They are too easily misused, and can give a hacker a passport to your computer.

If your children use such a service, make sure to let them know of what can happen if they accept files from others. Tell them that it's better to send files via an email attachment, rather than through a messenger chat script. At least this way, an email can pass through various firewalls, and anti-virus software's before getting to your computer. This also ensures that you know exactly who is sending you the file.

5) Copying Files From An Infected CD, or Floppy Disk:

We've all done it, taken a disk from a friend, or co-worker, and inserted a disk into our computer in order to copy all the files from the disk. Did you ever think to scan the disk for viruses before copying any of the files?

Viruses come in all shapes & sizes, they are passed along from one computer to another. The person who gave you the disk could have had a virus lurking within their files, and they may have copied it onto the disk they just gave you. It happens all the time.

An easy way to protect yourself from getting viruses this way is to launch your anti-virus software, and scan your disk drive with the cd, or floppy disk in it. It takes only a couple of seconds to prevent a disaster.

6) Sharing Files From A Network of Computers:

Many companies network their computers together so that they can share files easily between the two, instead of always copying files onto a disk. The same thing happens at home as well when two computers are networked together. Make sure you have your firewall in place (step 1 above), and make sure your anti-virus software (step 2 above) is keeping an eye on your "shared folders" section. This just helps to prevent viruses from jumping one computer to another. Again, always perform a virus check within your "shared folder" when you receive files from others.

In Conclusion:

There you have it. You now have a good base of knowledge to help prevent viruses from getting into your computer. Make sure to make it a habit to double-check everything to ensure that you don't unwillingly leave an open doorway directly to your computer. When using software's like chat scripts, make sure not to accept files via your chat script. Never read, or open emails that you don't recognize, and always make it a habit to scan your disks, hard drive, and email attachments before something terrible happens.

Now that you have some knowledge against fighting viruses, let's move onto part 2 of this series which talks about fighting another form of attack against your computer, the deadly spyware!

Next: Part 2 - Cleaning your computer of spyware & ad-aware