Many people don’t want to format and reinstall because they are afraid of losing all of their personal data (pictures, documents, music etc..). The issue is that all of your personal data is on the same drive as your programs, your operating system, and all of the system files. Well, there is a very simple solution that can usually cost under $100 – under $150 if you go all out. Get a second hard drive for your PC. Here are a few suggested drives from Amazon.com:

After the drive is installed and formatted double click on the My Computer icon and then go to that drive (usually a D: or E: drive). It should be empty. First put some folders in there, right click anywhere and select NEW-FOLDER (or go to File-New-Folder) and call the new folder documents (simple). Right click that folder and drag it to your desktop. When you release select “Create Shortcut Here”.Double click on that folder and then open up your My Documents folder (usually on your desktop). Hit CTRL-A to select ALL and then right click (don’t let go!) and drag them all over to the new folder (release the right click when the cursor is over the new (empty / documents) folder. When you release, select COPY (I prefer COPY over MOVE with large file transfers like this in case any errors happen). It can take a long time – depending on how much “stuff” you have in there. When you are done, do the same with anything else you may have (if you have a separate folder for music, pictures, office documents, etc).

Now that your data is over to the new drive, feel free to verify that it is all there (and properly stored) and then go ahead and delete the files on your main drive (C: ) and the My Documents folder (NOT THE NEW ONE!).

Now, if you need to format and reinstall you only need to worry about the system drivers (which you should have – another suggestion is to create a folder on the new drive and store the drivers on that!) reinstalling your software (which you should have the discs for), and Windows updates.
Another suggestion is to get a DVD+/-RW drive. This way, you can also store your important files on DVDs (usually about 4.7GB each). If you shop around you can find 100 packs once a month or so at your local electronics or office supply store for about $25. Drives usually come with some burning software which will allow you to copy files over and write them to a DVD – just take care with those discs- the information is stored on the top of the disc (the label) – put them in a hard plastic case or a regular hard-covered CD-wallet.

There you have it – a simple, yet effective solution to your fears of losing all of your data the next time you need to reinstall Windows!

The simplest reason is to cause fear, chaos, and panic. Yes, some people enjoy inciting these emotions in us. It gives them power to make hundreds of thousands to millions of people panic. They sit back and watch the news reports come in of how this virus is going to destroy everyone’s computer unless they get downloads, update their virus protection and so on.

Another reason is for a protest. Many people don’t like Microsoft (and Windows) so they’ll write these to go after this company. Some people will think that other operating systems such as Mac and Linux don’t have any viruses that they would either purchase a Mac or go Linux (and Linux is getting easier and easier every day to run, if you want, go give Ubuntu a try).

A more sinister reason is to sell more of their product, a.k.a. scareware. These people construct a virus that traditionally is an executable from a website (ever see those pop-ups that say “your computer is out of date” or something like that? When you click on the window it installs a script that flags as a positive with most virus scanners and will also usually redirect your browser to – what else? – their own “anti-virus” software which they claim will be the only solution to get rid of the virus (most notably Malware Defender 2009 etc..). Some of these can be easily removed while others will take a lot of time to remove.

People also do this to test security systems of companies, personal computers, networks, and so on. They write the virus and watch the extent of the damage and then learn ways to hack into “secured” networks to gain information (customer database etc..).

Another question that pops up is “Why does only Windows have viruses?” While this can make people believe that MacOS and Linux are impenetrable – this is not the case. It’s simply numbers. If you are going to take the risk of writing a virus and want to get the maximum effect, then you want to be able to affect the most number of people – simply Windows is the largest OS used worldwide.

From the Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Median (the pie chart to the side) reports that 68.27% of desktop computers are running Windows XP and 22.29% of desktop computers are running Windows Vista. Throw in the 1.24% using Windows 2000 that means that over 91% of the desktop computers, worldwide are using a Windows operating system. So, if you had this mindset, would you want to use your resources to affect the 4.81% using Mac OS, 1.05% running Linux or over 91% running Windows. Anyone should easily see why Windows is the largest target for viruses and malware.

From the rest of the charts on that page you can easily see that Microsoft operating systems dominate just about every aspect of computers and computing.

So, what can people do to protect themselves? It’s very simple and most programs for this can be free. Instead of writing all this over again, I’ve had a category just for security here:

http://www.edblood.com/category/security/

And a post on keeping your computer fast and clean:

http://www.edblood.com/2008/12/some-tips-on-keeping-your-computer-running-fast-and-clean/

Good luck everyone and keep those computers clean!

(Click picture for a full sized image in a new window)

Pseudo-viruses generally won’t harm your PC (that could get them into trouble) but will be quite the annoyance - IE will always go to their page telling you that you need to pay for their software and have them remove it.

If you get the above warning - DO NOT click OK. Click the little X in the top right corner to close the window (I do not know if clicking cancel will or will not install the virus - closing the window is the best way). I had this one pop up when I was looking at laptop bags at Nextag.com - I’ve already emailed the site administrators but generally sites don’t care about this since they are getting paid by the pseudo virus company (it popped up several times while I was at that site and didn’t pop up anywhere else).

I’ll do some research to see if I can find a cure for it but if you see it - DO NOT CLICK OK!

Update:
I found removal instructions:
http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-malware-defender-2009.html

They offer to keep your site indexed by “search engine” (what, they don’t even know Google?) and if you do not pay them $75 for 1 year, it will not be searchable by search engines.

This is completely FALSE.  Unless your site is black flagged by Google (or any search engine), you do not need to resubmit your site to them.  It will remain indexed for as long as your site is indexable.  You can re-submit your sites to Google, and that is FREE.

These emails are a scam - do not respond to them, do not fax the paper to them.  Just flag the email as spam.

Here are the links to where you can do this for free, one time:
Google
Yahoo
MSN

For example, I checked the local wireless networks my other computer could see.  There were a total of 9 (including my own).  Out of those 9, 2 were secured networks (including my own).  Out of the 7 that were left six (yes six) had the default network name / SSID.  I’m willing to bet that with at least 4 of those six the default router password is set.

Big deal, right?  Wrong.

OK, first, anyone can tap into this network.  Anyone can use their internet access to surf the internet.  This sounds like no big deal.  Nope, it is a big deal.

OK, the best case scenario – someone uses your network for web surfing.  They check email; check stocks, sports scores, even watch some videos from YouTube.

Some ISPs now are limiting your bandwidth (yeah, with your “unlimited” access).  This means when you hit a certain threshold you get flagged for abuse, a certain number of flags in a set amount of time and you can either have your service suspended or even turned off.  Imagine this could easily happen if someone was using your network to download music and movies, imagine if they were doing it illegally.  It’s your IP address coming up, not theirs.

The next step is them doing illegal activities.  Downloading child porn, trading in hacked databases, even attempting to hack into sites from your IP address. Trading credit card numbers, bank account information, and conducting scams, all though your IP address.  Don’t worry, the FBI won’t go after them, they’ll go after you since it’s your IP address.

The next is the worst – they use your unsecured wireless connection to tap into your computer(s).  They install software key loggers and get your bank account login and passwords, emails, 401K account information, credit card information, social security numbers,  etc..  Now you’re really done for.  They got your information from the best place possible, your own network.

Add into the above that if you don’t change your password, they can very easily lock you out of your own network.  You can’t access the internet but they can.  You’re paying for it, they’re getting it.

Now, does it seem like a big deal?  What can you do to prevent this?  It’s simple and usually fully explained in your router’s instruction manual.

First, if you don’t use or need the wireless network, turn it off!  This is the best and safest way.  When wireless is turned off, generally the only way to turn it back on is though a wired connection, they would have to be physically sitting close to your router with a network cable between their computer and your router.

Second, secure your network.  This will make it a lot harder for people to tap into your network.  It can be simple and you will just need to enter the encryption code in the wireless computers.

Next – change the administrator password!  It doesn’t need to be complicated.  Your dog’s name, your significant other’s pet name for you, the street you grew up on, something simple since most people who would try to tap into this wouldn’t know you or anything about you.

Change the SSID / network name is nice, but I don’t think you need to, and whatever you do, don’t name it something like “The Smith Family’s Network”.  That will just shine a beacon on whose it is and give hackers a hint at what some of the password might be.  “Home Net” and “Our Network” are good examples.

It amazes me that people don’t even take these steps to protect themselves.  These steps will take an hour at the very most to complete (including reading the manuals etc.) yet can help protect you, your family, and your future.

First, people need to know why their computer slows down. It’s form all the “stuff” that’s done to our computer (files) while we do normal every day things. You go to a website and files are stored on your computer to help keep surfing the web optimal. Microsoft sends out updates that are stored as temporary files, programs such as MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, Flash player all store cache. All these files, if left unchecked, can take up a lot of space on your hard drive and can quickly add tens of thousands of files on your hard drive thus making it run slower (that much more stuff for the computer to sort though).

Just cleaning your cache though Internet explorer is not enough but there are some programs out there that help clean out your system well enough to make a difference. One of these programs is “Clean Cache 3″ by Butt Ugly Software. Unfortunately their site is not active anymore but it was freeware / donateware and I’ve set up a download on this site for the application (file size is roughly 1.25MB - pretty small for a handy application). Feel free to download and use it, I do not know if the links to donate are still valid.

Download the file and run the executable - most people are OK with the default options. When it is done, the window will appear and you will need to configure the program or else it won’t clean anything. The first tab you’ll want is the Internet explorer tab. You’ll need to check off most items (I choose to run it at Windows startup, but you can do it at shutdown if you want to).

I won’t get into the other browsers, but if you use them, don’t forget to check off all relevant items in each tab.

Next, is the Windows tab

As you can see, I have everything checked off in here, too. This will clean out a lot of the temp and cache files set up by Windows and MS Office. This will be your second best helper (next to the clean out). Again, I set mine to clean at Windows startup.

Next, are the additives:

This can also be a big help and if some relevant applications are not working, then this might help them run better, too (a bad download). It will clean out the cache from added programs, such as Java, Adobe Flash player, etc..

Lastly, the options window:

I just have it set up to run and clean at startup but you can select other options if you’d like. Now, the most important part - click on the “run complete cleanup” button - the first time you run it might take several minutes to run, don’t worry, it’s not frozen, it’s just deleting a lot of stuff. After this, unless you rarely reboot your computer, it should only take a few seconds to run. If you run your computer 24-7, then either set up a scheduled task to run it overnight or manually run it, maybe once a week.

Other programs that are a big help, and I always recommend:

• Safer Networking’s Spybot Search & Destroy (free download). This is a great utility to help clean out malware on your computer (mainly spyware). Just remember to keep it current!
• Another great utility is Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware (another free download). Yes, you need to include your email address but I’ve never gotten spam from them and they only use it to send you your “free” license and also to send you information on important updates (rarely). I use this in conjunction with SpyBot (never run both at the same time). Sometimes one will miss something that the other will pick up, thus catching close to 100% of all threats (no single program will get 100% but these two together work extremely well).
• For virus protection, I recommend AVG (click on the download under the “free download” (unless you want to purchase one of the higher end copies)). I’ve noticed that AVG is a great tool. Not only is it free, but I’ve noticed that it picks up a lot of issues that many of the paid for services do not, which today can be devastating to your security.

One other useful took is built into Windows - disc defragmenter (normally it’s Start - Programs - Accessories - System tools). It’s simple to run, too, just select the drive (mainly the C: drive) and click defragment. Just a note: this might take a very long time to run (sometimes days if your hard drive is really bad!).

Its scary at how a bunch of free tools can really help out your computer experience while improving on your own personal security.

I’m always on the lookout for good (and free) utilities, if you know of any for us to try out, feel free to post a comment with the program!

People may wonder what is the advantage of this? Well, as the site grows, the Google page rank will grow and if your site is linked from another site with a high rank, then it will also rank higher in Google searches. You’ve seen the success of sites like Del.Icio.Us and Digg.com - this site has that potential!

For example, say you want the word “news” - all you need to do is pay $4 and then when people click on the word “news” in the site - it will take them to your site. Plus, as this site grows and gets a higher page rank, so will your site!

PetSupplyRecalls.com

This site will display news in reference to pet supply recalls (food, toys, training equipment, etc…) for all kinds of pets (cats, dogs, fish, live stock etc..). Go check it out and visit often to see what the latest danger is to our pets!

If you attended the last auction, you would have noticed that there were some good names sold at great prices. This auction is expected to be bigger - they’ve expanded the number of domains in the auction from 30 to 40.

Past auctions have been very well organized and managed by Johnn (fforum moderator), Billbo, and TheInvestor and was supported by the forum management, Media Hound, ImpactedAdmin, and DotComGod.

There will also be giveaways for DNF$ (which can be used to pay people for plugs, blog comments, forum posts, Diggs, etc, sometimes someone will even sell a domain or two for DNF$). The last few times we had trivia contests and we had several winners of prizes ranging from 500DNF$ to 1,000DNF$.

Come join us all and have a great time, who knows, maybe you’ll get a great bargain on a great domain!