How To Destroy Your Computer

According to Microsoft, if you turn off your PC without first shutting down Windows, your hard drive could become more fragmented, files could become corrupted, and you could lose data.

Is that true?

A lot of "conventional wisdom" is based on old, outdated information and/or old programmers' tales and/or partial truths. This myth combines all three.

PC World tested this. Here's what they found:

"We ran 30 iterations of an informal test, turning off a pair of systems running Windows XP without first shutting down Windows. Each time we left documents open in Word, Outlook, and Quicken. And we left our Internet connection up and running."

"After we turned each PC back on, we ran Symantec's Norton Disk Doctor and the Windows disk checker to see if the hard drive had suffered any ill effects. We reopened the applications that we had left running and reconnected to the Internet."

Problems?
- Disk Doctor found no disk errors
- Outlook recovered without a glitch
- Quicken recovered without a glitch
- Their files were intact - up to the last time they were saved. Edits made after the last save, but before the "crash" were sometimes lost (depending on the program used)

What about increased fragmentation?
Defragging today's faster, bigger drives has little to no effect on performance. Even if the abrupt shutdown did cause more file fragmentation, it wouldn't matter.

Myth busted!

Still not convinced? Here's a tip to help you sleep easier:
Change your computer's Power Options settings:
- Open Control Panel
- Open Power Options
- Click the Advanced tab
- Under 'Power buttons' select Hibernate.

If, in the future, you push the power button - Windows will "hibernate", i.e., save itself in its current state. When you turn the computer on later, Windows will pop up, just as you left it.

Hibernation and Wake up require less time than the system would take to boot.

Online Shoppers Naive RE: Prices

"Most American consumers don't realize Internet merchants and even traditional retailers sometimes charge different prices to different customers for the same products, according to a new survey.

If you shop online, this is a must-read article.

Why Do The Guys In Black Hats Use Spyware?

Why do the guys in black hats use spyware?

Market research. A lot of spyware is used just to track browsing and other online behavior for market-research companies. This was one of the two initial uses.

Monitoring computer use by employees, children, and spouses. This is the second initial use for this stuff. Key loggers and other systems that are usually installed directly onto machines by the person or institution doing the spying. The FBI has been known to capture passwords using such software.

Spambots. The more recent use of spyware has been to create legions of spambots for spammers to rack up big numbers without taxing their own servers. There are probably millions of drone machines, sometimes called zombie PCs. At night they are brought to life to serve spam all over the world. Yet another reason why the 24/7 always-on Internet is a complete disaster.

Identity and credit-card theft. This is the latest twist and the fastest-growing trend. Last week, a new combination scam somehow got through my spam-filtering mechanism and tried to install a Trojan horse loader onto my system through the preview window of Microsoft Outlook Express.

Test Your Firewall

So.... you've taken my advice and acquired/installed a firewall on your computer. Let's see if it works. Go to the GRC website or alternate, and scroll down until you reach the "Test My Shields" page. Follow the instructions to have GRC's website test your computer's security.

If you have a good firewall installed, your computer will pass all of the tests. That means that hackers will have a hard time attacking your computer.

Broken Record

I rant so much about security software... you probably think I'm a broken record. There's a rumor circulating on the Internet; I thought that it would be thoroughly discredited by now. Apparently not.

Rumor: Putting "AAAAAAA" as an entry in the address book will protect against viruses.

Fact: No, this will not protect you.

Here's the idea behind the rumor:

An address book entry name with a series of A's or with certain non-letter characters will be sorted to go to the top of the list in your address book. As an invalid e-mail address, it might cause the address book software to stop any legitimate or illegitimate use of the address book data.

If that happened, it would be good for the people listed in your address book. It would do nothing for your computer.

Assuming that your computer is infected with a worm that uses address book data in the order into which it is sorted, it might prevent the worm from finishing its task. A well-written worm, however, would be written so that it can ignore invalid data.

If that happened, it would be bad for the people listed in your address book. It would do nothing for your computer.

The way to protect the folks in your address book and your computer is simple.

Acquire, install, and maintain security software for your computer.
• Acquire: buy or download the software
• Install: most such programs have a very simple installation program.
• Maintain: all security software has methods to download updates that keep your protection current (usually it can be set to be automatic)
You need 3 types of security software

There are free programs of each type of security software, and their are commercial versions. Many companies produce both free and for-profit software. They want you to try the free software, fall in love with it, and buy the commercial version. For most home users, free software is good enough.

The following are my recommendations. I use all of these myself. (Not all on the same computer)
• Anti-Virus
  • Norton AntiVirus - $20-$40 to purchase; update subscription $30 per year
  • AVG - free to own, free to update
• Anti-spyware
  • CounterSpy - $20 to purchase; update for free
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2 - free to own, free to update
• Firewall
  • Zone Alarm Pro - $50-$60 to purchase; update for free
  • Zone Alarm Freeware - free to own, free to update