When it comes to security and computers, most people think the well-advertised threats of viruses, spyware or adware.

But the fact is that most of us are more vulnerable to the prying eyes of our neighbours, bosses, friends, or the people in the coffee shops next to use who might be reading our e-mail than we are to malicious trojan horses and worms.

Secure Your File

Password-protection of files on a pc could be done at application level. That means you would use the application that created the file to create the password protection.

Use password in Word through Tool menu, select Options and then from the Security tab, put a password in the ‘Password to open’ box. Certain mainstream applications allow such security, as well. Consult the Help file of the application to find out.

One way to password-protect other kinds of files is by using a file compression utility such as Winzip or Winrar, and assign a password to the resulting Zip or Rar file. Or you could enlist the help of a third party utility that will encrypt files and folders for you such as AxCrypt or FolderLock.

Senders of spam and potentially harmful e-mail use a number of tactics to secure your e-mail address. If you have posted your e-mail address anywhere on the internet, it can be “harvested” by programs designed to scour the internet and retrieve freely available e-mail addresses.

To prevent this from happening, never post your e-mail address anywhere on the internet - including message boards and personal websites - in an altered form.

If you must post your address somewhere online, write it in a form that is understandable by humans but not by a machine, such as “yourname - at - hotmail.com”

Also, take advantage of the multiple e-mail accounts provided by most internet service providers (ISP) today, and set yourself up at least two accounts: One that you hand out only to friends and collegues, and another that you give to anyone else - including online stores.

When you give out your e-mail address to anyone online, you simply never know whether that address may ultimately end up in the hands of mass marketers or spammers.

Related Topics:

E-mail ‘Bomb’?

How Secure is the Windows Firewall?

Want Some Cookies?

Should ‘I Agree’ to Spyware

An email ‘bomb’ refers to an immense number of email messages sent to an account in an effort to bring the account down.

When an email server is flooded with email messages, it is unable to devote cycles to other email users and effectively become useless. An account that receives an email bomb will also experience an interruption in the transfer and processing of legitimate mail, as well.

Email bombs are particularly problematic because even if an email server is brought down in an attempt to stave off the problem, the email server will resume where it left off when it is restarted, continuing to deliver the messages that constitute the bomb.

Hackers can send email bombs using tools that are not too difficult to obtain. Another type of bombing occurs when a user signs someone up to multiple newsletter services and other automatic email generation services that can bring a person’s inbox to its knees.

The good news is that most individual users rarely have trouble with email bombs.

The bad news is that the only way to recover from en email bomb is probably to contact your internet service provider to obtain help. It may be necessary for you to disable or change your email address, at least temporarily.

Since Service Pack 2 of XP, each new version of Windows already has a firewall on board. But what is the Microsoft Firewall suited for?

Windows XP
Microsoft felt compelled to do something about the security of their operating system only after the Blaster 2003 worm massacred Windows computer. Unfortunately, the XP firewall cannot do much either. Even simple things such as checking the outgoing connections do not work. But nevertheless, the programs protects against worm attacks. That at least helps temporarily when you are unprotected, before you get a real firewall and Windows updates.

Windows Vista
For the first time ever, Microsoft developed an “Out-Bound-Firewall” for Vista to check the outgoing connections as well. However, since many inexperienced users had problems in the beta test with this function and certain programs, this feature was immediately deactivated. However, you can bring the enhanced functions back to life: Enter “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security” in the program search of the Vista start menu in order to open the detailed settings menu on your screen. Note that the Vista firewall is not as safe and comfortable as its commercial contemporaries.

1- Cleaning of Data Storage Medium:

Clean the hard disk of all types of junk files. This can be done at night or alongside your daily work. Download CCleaner and install it with standard settings. Subsequently, the tool starts and clears the hard disk of any junk data. You can choose from Windows or applications in the cleaner settings under which there are a range of diverse file options

2- Defragmentation

Defragmentation is a part of hard disk cleaning. The data storage medium cleaning and defragmentation cannot start simultaneously. This is best done at night because you should not work on your PC when defragmentation is in process. Moreover, data fragmentation must not be carried out too frequently. Windows provides its own tool yet I’m not recommend it but it’s just enough and no more. Try the free IOBit SmartDefrag.

3- Virus Scan

The scan should always run in the background; this is provided by almost all virus scanners.
Updates regularly and scan manually at least once a week.

4- Windows Update

Always update the operating system for security and stability reasons.

5- Anti-Spyware

Like the virus scanner, anti-spyware should always run in the background despite a regular updates and weekly manual scan by user.

6- Backup

Avoid crises of hard disk crash with backup that can be run at night.

7- Data Synchronization

Before a meeting, business travelers need not spend two hours on the laptop synchronizing data. Instead update data regularly.

Related Topics:

myFree Personal Software Listing
myFree AntiVirus
myFree AntiSpyware
Solutions for Booting Problems for XP

Initiating Kernels - The NTLoader gives the command to the Windows kernel

Error: Computer hangs - The PC hangs when it shows the message “Windows is booting…”.

Solutions: Microsoft Help further - The Windows developers present several solutions for the numerous errors under http://support.microsoft.com/KB/314477

Starting Windows Services - The Smss.exe, winlogon.exe, Isass.exe and services.exe services are started

Error: It’s raining bluescreens! System crashes due to bluescreens or cryptic error messages - Windows simply hangs from time to time

Solutions: Checking the system for viruses - It is possible that you have fallen prey to trojans. Boot in the safe mode and remove the virus. Repair XP with the help of the Setup CD if you do not reach the desktop.

Logging In - Windows ask you to enter user name and password

Error: No Access! - Error message “Incorrect user name or password”

Solutions: Canceling the password - If you have made the password resetting disk, you can access you computer with it. Or else, the Linux based “System Rescue Disk” at http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page is quite useful

XP Revs UP - Desktop. icons and programs that start automatically are loaded. Windows can now be operated.

Error: All types of errors - The system hangs, there are system crashes, bluscreens; anything is possible here

Solutions: Checking the system throughly - Check all auto-starts with “msconfig.exe”, use a virus scanner. The problem can be solved in the safe mode.

Related Topics:

Solutions for Booting Problems for XP (I)
Solutions for Booting Problems for XP (II)
Startup Tuner
myFree Personal Software
myFree Antivirus Listing

Cookies are harmless, but some people consider a website’s depositing a cookie on the machine as an invasion of piracy, so antispyware programs often alert you to the existence of them.

Generally, however you will note that the results of potential spyware threats are flagged with different colors/symbols/rates by the various antispyware applications.

Cookies are rarely flagged with as highly dangerous however. You will save time if you use the options available in your antispyware application to identify the level of threat you wish to ignore.

You should also regularly allow the antispyware software to update its signature or definitions files since errors in spyware detections or overly aggressive behaviour is sometimes corrected in these updates.

Let’s say you found a nice website and you downloaded an unknown software which you thought would be useful. During installation, there is the end user license agreement (EULA), and you say or click ‘I agree’ without reading it. Have you ever read the EULA? not many people read it and so do I. Why? Mostly because it would require an attorney to truly understand it.Some malicious software developer or hackers use this as a method to intrude into your system. On agreeing, you unintentionally allow the software to take control over your computer resulting in a security breach.

Some software install spyware and adware agents or codes and certain EULA acquires access to your address book to spam existing contacts. Before installing new software, make sure that the source is genuine or you might be a guinea-pig used by software developers to test their products.

A Useful Freeware: EULAlyzer

The Benefits

• Discover potentially hidden behavior about the software you’re going to install
• Pick up on things you missed when reading license agreements
• Keep a saved database of the license agreements you view
• Instant results - super-fast analysis in just a second

Bootmen - The “boot.ini” file displays the boot menu; the user select Windows XP

Error:  Missing File - The message “boot.ini file missing” is displayed

Solutions: Repairing Boot Sector - Enter “bootcfg /rebuild” in the repair console

NTDetect - Examination of all the hardware components installed

Error: Crash due to error message -You either get the message “ntdetect file not found” or something like “DISK I/O Error Error=000010000 NTDETECT”

Solutions: Copy Files Again - Copy the file “ntdetect.com”

with ‘copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:

from the XP setup CD on the hard disk

Kernel/HAL - Windows kernel and hardware abstraction layer (HAL) are loaded.

Error: Crash due to Bluescreen - The booting is aborted due to the Bluescreen “kernel error”

Solutions: Repairing XP Partition - Boot the computer with the XP setup CD and select “Repair Existing Windows Partition”. Reinstallation is the only solution if this fail.

Loading the Driver - XP loads all the essential drivers and records them as ‘activated’ in the Registry

Error: Crash due to Bluescreen - You will get a Bluescreen message “IRQ_LESS_OR_EQUAL”.

Solutions: Starting safely - Boot up Windows in Safe Mode and remove the defective driver. If this does not work, delete the hardware component of the driver.

If you click the My Computer icon on your Windows XP desktop, it will open a single pane window showing the drives and resources on your PC.

You can open My Computer in dual-pane mode - the default for the familiar Windows Explorer file manager - by holding down the Shift key while you double click the My Computer icon.

Dual-pane mode allows you to keep an overview of your PC visible in the left pane while showing you the contents of the selected drive or folder in the right hand pane.