2. Top Ten Crimes against Your Computer, 1-4
Don’t go looking for trouble; trouble will find you. But you can do some things to make yourself less of a target. Here are the top ten crimes a user can commit against his or her computer. (Let’s be careful out there, people.)
1. Failing to back up your files. You can do dozens of things to try to keep your PC’s hardware and software in good working order, and you should do as many of them as you possibly can. However, the most foolproof preventative measure is having a good set of backup files of all of your essential data in case of disaster. Analyze your work habits and consider the amount of data that you create each day. Depending on the size of your files, you should back up copies to some form of removable storage: A portable USB hard-drive, flash memory stick, or DVD-R among them.
2. Not inoculating against infection. Computer viruses are out there; it’s a crime to operate a computer that is any way connected to the outside world without having a proper antivirus program in place. This includes nearly every PC: if your machine is connected to the Internet, or to a home or office network, it is at risk. And, if you load software or data files from an external storage device, you risk infection in that way. At the very least, install a capable antivirus program. Even better, add a software or hardware firewall.
And once you have an antivirus program installed, you’ve got to make the effort to keep its definitions up to date; most programs, such as those sold under the Norton or McAfee brand, are meant to check online regularly for updates to combat the latest threats. You need to renew subscriptions for this service annually, or install new software with a fresh subscription.
You should also install and use protection against spyware and other programs that attempt to steal information from your computer or track your travels on the Internet. Microsoft introduced Windows Defender in 2006; other programs from third parties include Ad-Aware (www.lavasoft.de) and Spybot (www.safer-networking.org). You can obtain free personal-use licenses for such programs, or pay a fee for more capable versions aimed at business use. Search the Internet for download sites.
Microsoft Windows XP and Vista come with their own software firewall. You can also purchase third-party versions from companies including Symantec, and there are also hardware firewalls. Each of these works by establishing a set of rules about which sites and users, and which types of files or programs are allowed to enter your system. They can also be set up to prevent your computer from sending malicious software to other computers as the result of an infection that has somehow made its way onto your machine. 3. Playing with unfinished software. Many software companies — including Microsoft — offer individuals and companies the “opportunity” to work with pre-release, or beta, software. In a way, users who agree to do so become unpaid testers for the software companies. Unless you have a very good reason to do so, I advise against trying these products. They are considered beta versions because they may cause problems with your system.
Having stated that, I regularly try out beta versions of operating systems and applications for my books. However, I do so on a machine separate from my mission-critical systems, and I fully expect the need to reformat and reinstall operating systems on that machine regularly. I never mix beta software with my irreplaceable data files. A related issue: Acting cautiously, keep your finished software current by installing appropriate updates when they are made available by the manufacturer. Software makers regularly ship minor revisions of their software to address bugs and incompatibilities discovered after the product was shipped, and sometimes offer new features to registered users between release of completely new versions. Check with your software maker to see if there is a means for automatic notification or download of updates.
4. Rushing into updates. When I say “act cautiously” regarding updates, here’s what I mean: Unless your program is broken or a specific issue that needs addressing, try not to be the first person on the block to apply an upgrade. Sometimes the best policy is to wait a few weeks or months before upgrading to allow other users to be the guinea pigs for the software maker. Not that it happens all that often, but occasionally a cure proves worse than the disease . . . at least at the start.
Not bad, but I'll take a few exceptions:
1 - cleaning up and defragmenting your hard disk is Windows specific.
The Microsoft block allocator is brain dead, was made that way, and will remain so for as long as Diskeeper and Norton Systemworks create revenue: a Mac OS X, xBSD or Linux-based system doesn't need defragmentation(*), as it is done by the OS on every disk access. You can get efficient defragmentation by:
- disabling System Restore: it doesn't work very well anyway, is a virus nest, and eats up to 6 Gb on your hard disk.
- setting your swap file to a fixed size.
- disabling file system indexing.
- deleting DrWatson's log.
- running Ccleaner once in a while with most settings enabled: once you have applied hotfixes, you don't need the uninstall files anyway. You'll need to clean up IE7's and WMP's patches yourself though.
- make Pagedefrag run at every boot after 0 second wait: the first time it may take a while to run, but it'll keep the Registry and swap file in one piece.
(*)to be fair, such a system may still fragment if you fill up a partition with huge files when it is already more than 80% full - Windows will fragment any file if you get past 10% partition capacity. Some say it's a way to prevent data corruption, as usually adjacent sectors are more likely to get corrupted, but then if that's the case Windows doesn't fragment ENOUGH.
2 - a resident antivirus is a resource drain.
Using a limited user account, a well configured firewall (in software or hardware, preferably both), and scanning downloaded files before you run them (and not making use of MS Outlook Express, which runs files for you) will keep you safe enough.
Not using IE may help, too: Opera or Firefox can operate as pure user level processes. Firefox 3 will be able to notify antivirus when a file is downloaded (if it interacts well with ClamAV, you can dump Norton and forget about the yearly AV tax).
3 - power surge protection.
A sound advice. However, a beefy PSU that you change every 1-2 years and a good power surge preventer are, in my experience, less costly and more efficient than a pack of batteries you'll need to renew every year. A good PSU in great shape can handle brown-outs, especially if your system doesn't draw too much current, and a surge protector will cover the PSU's most damaging attack. Changing the PSU regularly ensures that its capacitors remain at peak efficiency, and that its voltage regulators work as required. It is also unsound to clean up a PSU (it's dangerous!), so getting a new one is the most efficient way to get a clean one. With Vista, no UPS lasts long enough to allow you to save your files and shut down a system cleanly.
Clutz. I eat and drink around mine everyday and I've never once spilled so much as a drop of milk.
Milk eh?
I'd suggest keeping your files on a NAS drive or USB external drive and formatting your MS OS every year.
Besides running a limited account try Virtual Machines for avoiding those pesky viruses