thoughts and musings ... odds and endsTags: xp08 November 2008 For those of you who live here in the States, you’ve likely seen the commercial from one of the well known insurance companies, where the very nice gentleman describes how the unsuspecting person, while deep-frying his Thanksgiving turkey, had the cooker blow up his shed. Or the one for On Star, where a loyal customer is in an accident, and the compassionate agent is quickly going to send help. But what protection do you have when a computer crisis strikes? 02 November 2008 Word association! Quick - What comes to mind? Big…Heavy…Animal(istic)…Vicious fighters? Nope! We’re not gonna talk about big foot stomping chunky wrestlers in little thongy kinda things (I’m sure you’ve got a great visual going now don’t you? Don’t answer - I don’t want to know…) or humongous African animals floating in the river and their pounding charges after safari tourists. We’re gonna talk software update monitoring. Now that’s an exciting topic don’t you think? 30 October 2008 I’ve been wondering when it would happen, and wondering what was amassing n the meantime. I’ve had it for ages now - and who was cleaning up after it? 30 August 2008 One of the most frustrating things about doing spyware and virus scans is the amount of time it takes to run the many different programs. I realize you may not choose to run them all every week, as I do, but still it is a big time investment to do them. I’m not the most patient person in the world, and watching a scan is not my personal favorite thing to do either. But, it’s one of those necessary evils to keep one’s machine clean and free of malware. One task you can do to help speed the process is some basic cleanup before you start your scans. This way, there are less files on your computer for the programs to search through looking for any malware on your machine. 19 August 2008 I like to imagine I’m on the cutting edge (…oh be quiet and let me dream will you?) So I was quite pleased when I got buzzed the other day at work and our V.P says "Hey - would you like to see a cool virus?" And of course my answer took less than a split second "Sure!" 14 August 2008 Agent 007, you have been assigned Mission Possible. Should you choose to accept it, your goal is to search out and destroy the truly nasty of the nastiest malware on your computer. This mission is easier than you think with Spybot Search & Destroy in your bag of tricks. 03 August 2008 You may or may not have a need, or any desire to try this one out - but it is kinda neat! I came across a video and a couple articles on how to create invisible folders on your computer. This is NOT a high security measure, but to the average person nosing around on your machine - they probably wouldn’t notice them. The problem I found was that the "suggested" method didn’t work for laptop users. Read on to find out why, and my solution to it. 30 July 2008 HiJackThis (HJT) is a free downloadable program used to detect browser hijackers. It can be a useful tool in finding bad things that have somehow sneaked onto your computer. It produces a rather ominous looking report (which you’ve likely seen posted in forums where people are asking for assistance with a problem) that has become almost a staple when troubleshooting an issue is required and/or systems are behaving a bit oddly when they used to function fine. I highly recommend learning how to manually analyze these logs. In addition to providing you some tools for doing this, I’ll also offer up a couple of shortcuts to make it a wee bit less painful. |
Help support patndoris.com
Use the shopping links provided when considering a purchase.  |
04:34 pm, by patndoris 
XML Feeds