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Tay Valley "System Info"So the question is...how do I avoid getting viruses and if I'm unfortunate enough to get one (or more) what do I do about it? The answers are easier than you think. VIRII & OTHER MALWARE While we all get infected from time to time (even systems that travel in the best circles do...) there are some pretty basic steps to minimize the risk. As
a general rule don't open attachments unless you are sure of their origin and in
some cases even then its questionable as some contain virii and others are just a hoax but annoying nonetheless. If
you do contract something your virus scanner like AVG, Norton Anti-Virus, McAfee and others should find it (make SURE your definition files are up to
date) and provide a way to either delete it or to at least quarantine the
offending file. In
addition Symantec (Norton) has free removal tools available on their website.
Please read all the directions and pay particular attention to turning off
System Restore (Windows ME/XP et al) or you are wasting your time. The same goes for spyware, adware and a myriad of other offensive 'wares". First make sure you use a firewall. At a minimum make sure Windows firewall is turned on...but even better try something like ZoneAlarm which is much more robust. Avoid like the plague they are, products that use popups as a marketing ploy. We've all seen them...a popup window tells you you have 98 issues and then suggests you "click here" to clean them up. Then they ask for your credit card number or other payment method. At best its an underhanded marketing method. At worst...some of them are actually self fulfilling prophesies. I.E. they actually install infected files to find, so they can charge you to remove them. You are much better off to use a recognized product like Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, McAfee or others. SLOW SYSTEM As we load more and more software on our machine its a sure bet that at some time it will slow down, sometimes to the point of being almost unusable. In fact we've seen some running so slowly they appeared to be locked up (they weren't) as if there was some kind of serious problem. How do we fix this? There are a couple of tried and true steps that can sometimes provide a near miraculous recovery. First
- Try turning off hidden tasks When
you start your computer up, some software loads without asking you if it should. What
complicates matters is that usually there's no indication that its even running
when you get to your desktop. Sometimes
its necessary to make a programme function properly but with the notable
exceptions of system files, anti-virus and spyware killers, it usually isn't. This
is especially true when you consider that most software adds itself to your
start menu and/or puts a shortcut to itself on your desktop. In short, you can launch it at will anyway. The bottom line is that this can
affect system performance, sometimes grinding it down to a virtual halt. You
can help remedy this by clicking on START and RUN, type "msconfig" (no
quotes) in the OPEN box and press ENTER. This will open your system
configuration utility. Click
on the STARTUP tab in the new window and remove the checkmarks from unnecessary
items, (*Which
ones???? - see below*), click on APPLY, close the window and then restart your system. In
many cases your system should run leaner and faster. In fact, in some cases the
difference can be spectacular. For
the faint of heart, keep this in mind. These changes DO NOT uninstall any
software or delete any files it merely stops it from running automatically, so
if you are missing something crucial, reopen MS-CONFIG, put the checkmark back
restart again and you are back to square one. This
is a good way to determine what is bogging your computer down without actually
uninstalling the software beforehand. *How
do you tell what's important and what's not? That's
easier than you think. Make
a list of the information (especially the entries listed in the "COMMAND"
column) Log
onto the net and go to www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
, there you'll find a list of thousands of startup files, what they are, and
a note on whether they should be left running or not. It's not definitive but it
is one of the most complete lists we've seen yet. SLOW INTERNET CONNECTION -Delete those temporary files
Deleting temporary files, and changing the size of your cache can help speed up your web browsing and in some cases can even cure those annoying "can't display page" errors. In Internet Explorer 6 click on TOOLS, then on INTERNET OPTIONS and go from there. For other browsers such as Netscape and Firefox, check your help files for where to do these tasks. First delete the temporary files (cache). While they can help by letting the browser load the parts of a webpage quickly from your system (as opposed to downloading them from the website) these can accumulate over the course of normal surfing and frequently there are hundreds, if not thousands of unnecessary ones. This is especially true with sites you only visit once, or once in a while. You can also use a cleanup utility like CCleaner to perform this task. In fact, it does a better job of it than you can do manually because it seeks out ALL of the temporary internet files rather than the ones earmarked by Internet Explorer. CCleaner is free, its safe and very effective. You can get it here www.ccleaner.com. For more on this product and other useful freeware applications and tools see our other newsletter. Next,
note the original settings (write them down) so you can restore them if
necessary and reduce the size of the temporary folder to 10 MB if you have a
high speed (DSL) connection or 1024 MB if you use dial up. This will streamline
your browsing by limiting the number of files the software has to search through
before it decides to either load the webpage from your harddrive or download a
new version. A
couple of notes on the impact of this procedure. High
speed users can use a very small cache, because the files download so quickly
from the 'net' there's virtually no difference in performance. For dial-up
users, you may want to tinker a bit with the size of the cache until you achieve
a balance between the cached files and the downloads. Don't forget, the whole
idea of the cache in the first place was to avoid having to download entire
webpages every time you wanted to view them. And... if you have Internet Explorer or Firefox remember passwords and usernames make sure there is NO checkmark beside "Autocomplete Form History" in CCleaner. (By default, is is NOT checked...but look anyway, just in case.) Otherwise you will have to reenter them the next time you go to a website that requires a username and/or password. See our other newsletter which focuses on cookies, virii and our favourite downloads. -30- ©2008 Tay Valley Systems - Perth, Ontario, Canada |
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