Is your internet connection unusually slow? Guess what? You don't need fancy software, or quick-fix gimmicks and chances are good that some basic maintenance will go a long way towards improving your web surfing experience.
1.) Regular Maintenance: a regularly scheduled defrag and virus scan can truly help speed up your connection. Often, the only sign that a computer is infected with viruses and spyware is the speed at which it connects to the net.
2.) Encryption: If you are running a wireless network, it is always a good idea to use encryption to block uninvited guests from hogging your bandwidth. There's nothing more annoying than somebody piggybacking off your signal because they are too cheap to pay for internet.
3.) Upgrade Your Equipment: Although your trusty modem has served you well for the past few years, it may very well be outdated and not well suited to keeping up with all of the latest online content. Also, it may be time to add more RAM to your computer, or upgrade the hard drive.
4.) Check With Your Service Provider: These days the emphasis is focused almost exclusively on speed, so much so that your service provider most likely offers several different packages all based on different speed levels.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware
This is the scenario: You are online and suddenly an "official looking" pop-up tells you that your computer is rife with malware, your identity is potentially compromised, and your system is about to fail, but if you spend $19.99 we can make it all go away... I hate malware, and I hate malware that bilks you out of your hard-earned money even more than I hate an early morning jog in January. (I hate running, in case you're a bit slow) Luckily, you needn't spend a penny to get rid of this issue, no need to make an appointment with the squad at Best Buy, you don't even have to call cousin Cletus who is "good with them thar computers". Our friends over at howtogeek.com have put together a spot-on article with excellent tips on how to eradicate this type of pest: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/43090/heres-a-super-simple-trick-to-defeating-fake-anti-virus-malware/
Here's the article for your reading pleasure:
Here's the article for your reading pleasure:
So what’s the problem? Can’t you just run a anti-virus scan? Well… it’s not quite that simple. What actually happens is that these pieces of malware block you from running almost anything on your PC, and often prevent you from running apps from a Flash drive, with an error like this:
Once you encounter this error, there’s a couple things you can do. The first one is almost stupidly simple, and works some of the time:
Move the Dialog, and Try Again!
Yeah, that’s right—reader Robert wrote in to tell us that you can often just move that error to the side of the screen, and then try to run your anti-malware or anti-spyware application again. Turns out that some of the errors will only run once… and then you can get your favorite application running.
If that doesn’t work, then here’s the next great tip…
Rename Your Anti-Malware App to Explorer.exe
Since most of the fake anti-virus malware needs you to be able to slightly use your PC, the one executable that it won’t ever block is “explorer.exe”, since they want you to be able to get online and go to their site and pay them—not so easy if you have no Start Menu.
So just rename your favorite anti-malware application to explorer.exe, and you should be able to use it.
Thanks to reader Jeffrey for writing in with this tip.
General Guide to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Infections
There’s a couple of steps that you can generally follow to get rid of the majority of rogue antivirus infections, and actually most malware or spyware infections of any type. Here’s the quick steps:
- Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
- If that doesn’t work, reboot your PC into safe mode with networking (use F8 right before Windows starts to load)
- Try to use the free, portable version of SUPERAntiSpyware to remove the viruses.
- Reboot your PC and go back into safe mode with networking.
- If that doesn’t work, and safe mode is blocked, try running ComboFix. Note that I’ve not yet had to resort to this, but some of our readers have.
- Install MalwareBytes and run it, doing a full system scan. (see our previous article on how to use it).
- Reboot your PC again, and run a full scan using your normal Antivirus application (werecommend Microsoft Security Essentials).
- At this point your PC is usually clean.
These steps generally work.
Can’t Even Boot Anymore? Here’s Your Solution
All you have to do is use a repair disk from one of the anti-virus manufacturers, who have each created downloadable ISO images that you can burn to a CD, or install onto a USB flash drive. Boot from it, run a scan, and then your PC will be clean.
- How to Use the BitDefender Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC
- How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC
- How to Use the Kaspersky Rescue Disk to Clean Your Infected PC
We prefer using the BitDefender CD, since it’s automated and simple, but it couldn’t hurt to use more than one if necessary… so why not combine a bunch of recovery tools together? Here’s how:
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A few useful (and free!) tools to keep you up and running.
CCleaner is a powerful, free computer maintenance tool that will keep your PC from the annoying buildup of crud that eventually slows the performance of all computers to unacceptable levels. With it's simple, user-friendly interface, it makes maintenance as painless as possible, and as a side note, I use this almost daily and swear by it! Download CCleaner here
Advanced Windows Care: Quite similar in execution to CCleaner, this utility delves even further into regular maintenance tasks like simple defragmentation, and scans for malware. I use this in conjunction with CCleaner and it is quite effective. Download it here:
Revo Uninstaller is an incredible tool I stumbled across that, in essence, does exactly what the title implies: it removes stuff. It also prevents the data bottleneck that occurs every time you start your computer and multiple programs are scrambling to start at the same time. Do you have enough time to brew a pot of coffee before you are actually able to get online? Now, you don't need to waste time booting up. Revo Uninstaller Free
While there are many different anti-virus solutions out there that don't require a fee, my favorite, especially since it is so unobtrusive, and doesn't over-burden older systems is AVG Anti-virus. What you get is basically the same level of protection that Norton or Macafee would provide, without the subscription service hassle. AVG Free Anti-virus
Advanced Windows Care: Quite similar in execution to CCleaner, this utility delves even further into regular maintenance tasks like simple defragmentation, and scans for malware. I use this in conjunction with CCleaner and it is quite effective. Download it here:
Revo Uninstaller is an incredible tool I stumbled across that, in essence, does exactly what the title implies: it removes stuff. It also prevents the data bottleneck that occurs every time you start your computer and multiple programs are scrambling to start at the same time. Do you have enough time to brew a pot of coffee before you are actually able to get online? Now, you don't need to waste time booting up. Revo Uninstaller Free
While there are many different anti-virus solutions out there that don't require a fee, my favorite, especially since it is so unobtrusive, and doesn't over-burden older systems is AVG Anti-virus. What you get is basically the same level of protection that Norton or Macafee would provide, without the subscription service hassle. AVG Free Anti-virus
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Dirty Computers
No, I'm not talking about your PC crammed with spyware or viruses from all of those "adult" sites you're "not" looking at. I'm talking about physically dusty, dirty, bug and rodent dropping infested PC's and Mac's that never get cleaned or dusted.
There's a good chance you never even considered that type of housekeeping for your computer, or maybe have been afraid to even open your tower up. The problem is, over time, dirt, dust, debris, and ??? can accumulate and cause performance issues, not the least of which is overheating which can be detrimental to your computer's performance, and in extreme cases, fatal to vital components.
All computers utilize an intake fan for cooling. This not only brings in air, but also unwanted debris that settles on your motherboard, memory modules, hard drive, etc. effectively creating an insulating blanket, that over time causes excessive heat buildup. Remember the intake fan? It's job is to make sure that doesn't happen. Since you've spent a significant amount of your hard earned income on your machine, why not maintain it. You wouldn't buy a car, then never wash or maintain it, so don't neglect your computer.
Check out some scary pictures of uber dirty computers here (caution, it's scary!): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/18/ventblockers_2/
Monday, October 18, 2010
Computer funny of the day...
| After experiencing difficulties with his computer, a poor, confused user called the system maker's technical support line for assistance... | |
| Technician: | Hello. How can I help you today? |
| Customer: | There's smoke coming from the power supply on my computer... |
| Technician: | Looks like you need a new power supply... |
| Customer: | No, I don't! I just need to change the startup files... |
| Technician: | Sir, what you described is a faulty power supply. You need to replace it... |
| Customer: | No way! Someone told me that I just had to change the system startup files to fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the right command... |
| For the next ten minutes, in spite of the technician's efforts to explain the problem and its solution, the customer adamantly insisted that he was right. So, in frustration, the technician responded... | |
| Technician: | I'm sorry. We don't normally tell our customers this, but there's an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem... |
| Customer: | I knew it! |
| Technician: | Just add the line "LOAD NOSMOKE.COM" at the end of the CONFIG.SYS file and everything should work fine. Let me know how it goes... |
| About ten minutes later, the technician received a call back from the customer... | |
| Customer: | It didn't work. The power supply is still smoking... |
| Technician: | Well, what version of DOS are you using? |
| Customer: | MS-DOS 6.22... |
| Technician: | Well, that's your problem. That version of DOS doesn't include NOSMOKE. You'll need to contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch. Let me know how it all works out... |
| When nearly an hour had passed, the phone rang again... | |
| Customer: | I need a new power supply... |
| Technician: | How did you come to that conclusion? |
| Customer: | Well, I called Microsoft and told the technician what you said, and he started asking me questions about the make of the power supply... |
| Technician: | What did he tell you? |
| Customer: | He said my power supply isn't compatible with NOSMOKE... |
Monday, September 27, 2010
Computer Maintenance 101
These computer maintenance tips are well worth the time you will spend on them. It's kind of like cleaning and organizing your house. When everything is put away in the right place, and all the junk and clutter is cleaned up, it makes it much nicer to be there, and much easier place in which to work and play.
If you have a business which uses multiple PCs, you may want to hire a professional IT firm to manage your computer maintenance.
Here are the maintenance tasks I think are the most important:
Quarterly computer maintenance tips:
6 month computer maintenance tips:
If you have a business which uses multiple PCs, you may want to hire a professional IT firm to manage your computer maintenance.
Here are the maintenance tasks I think are the most important:
General Computer Maintenance Tips:
- Keep all of your working files in one folder. The My Documents folder is offered by Windows expressly for this purpose. The benefits of keeping all your files in one place are multiple. One, you know where all your files are, two, it's easy to back them all up at once, and three, your machine will run faster.
- Don't put your personal files on the root of the C: drive. If you store a large number of files in the root folder, you could corrupt your disk file table which could lead to a "NTLDR is missing" error message when you boot the computer. Very bad. If you have personal files on the C: drive now, move them to the My Documents folder.
- Uninstall programs that you are not using. But don’t just delete the program. Remove it correctly so you won’t cause Windows errors. Go to Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs. Find the program you want to remove in the list, and click the Remove button.
- If you download a zip file and expand it, delete the original zip file when you are done.
- Store your hardware drivers and purchased software installer files off your hard drive. A flash drive works great for this purpose.
- If you aren’t already using one, get a good surge protector and plug your computer and peripherals into it. If you live in an area with bad lightening storms, unplug you computer and peripherals during the storm.
- Practice safe computing. Don't accept software or downloads for which you didn’t ask. Delete any suspicious email without opening it. And even if the email came from your best friend, don't open any email attachments with the following extensions: * .exe, .com, .vbs, .bat, .mdb, .reg, and .js
Scheduled Computer Maintenance Tips:
Daily computer maintenance tips- Update your anti-virus scan and anti-spyware definitions, if they aren’t being done automatically.
- Back up any critical files that you have changed today to your flash drive.
- Make sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs have been updated with the latest definitions, and run a full scan from both programs.
- Reboot your computer. (If you shutdown your computer each night, disregard this tip). If you leave your computer on all the time, definitely do this. It will reset the RAM, and your computer will run much better and faster.
- Clean up your temp files, your temporary internet files, and other junk files about once a month. To do this easily, you can either download my favorite program for cleaning, CCleaner or run the built-in Windows Disk Cleanup tool.
- Ensure you have the latest Windows updates installed. Go to Internet Explorer, Tools, Windows Update. Click on the Custom button. (I always use the Custom button so I can check what’s going to be installed before it gets installed). Windows update may ask you to download and install the latest version of itself. Go ahead and do that, then click Close when it’s finished, and then Continue. It will then check again for real updates and offer those. Choose which updates you want to install. Uncheck the ones you don’t want to install.
- Clean out your email, paying special attention to your Inbox and Sent box. The easiest way I’ve found is to sort your email box by size of the message, and delete the largest unneeded emails first.
Quarterly computer maintenance tips:
- Change your passwords. (Yes, I know this is a pain, I hear you groaning. But it’s really a good idea to do this).
- Check to see if you need to defragment your computer’s hard drive. To do this in Windows XP, go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Systems Tools, Disk Defragmenter. Run an analysis first by clicking the Analyze button. Go do something else while it runs. Windows will tell you if it needs to be defragmented. If it does, click on the Defragment button, and again go do something else while your computer runs this.For Windows Vista, this computer maintenance tip is a little different: Go to Start, All Programs, and click on Accessories. Find Systems Tools, Disk Defragmenter and click on it. Vista will ask you for permission to continue. Click Continue. Vista doesn't give you the ability to choose to defragment, it just assumes you want to and presents a schedule to do so. You can stick with the suggested schedule, or modify it. If you want to kick off the defrag process immediately, click the Defragment Now button. It will then ask you which drive you want to defrag. Uncheck the drives you don't want to defrag, and then click OK.
- Check all your computer cables and make sure they are plugged in tight, and not being pinched or pulled in a way that is damaging them.
- Check your C: drive (hard disk) for disk errors. NOTE: please make sure you have a current backup of your files before you run a check disk command. (Also, do this immediately if you see a message stating that your Windows “volume is dirty”). To run a check disk manually on your C: drive, do this:
- Click Start, select Run.
- In the box, type cmd and click Ok. In the black DOS window, type: chkdsk c: /f (The /f command automatically fixes any errors encountered.
- Go to Start, Shutdown, and restart the computer. When the computer restarts, it will run chkdsk automatically. The Check Disk process could take over an hour, so schedule this when you have something else non-computer related to do. On rebooting the PC, you will see a window that shows the progress of the disk check. When it's finished,, it will boot back to the normal version of Windows.
6 month computer maintenance tips:
- Go on dust patrol. FIRST, TURN OFF and UNPLUG your computer from the electrical socket. Blow out your keyboard with a compressed air can, and then turn it over and tap it with your hand a few times to shake out any other junk. Brush off the dust bunnies from your PC fan (and any other parts in the back of the PC). Also, open the computer case and GENTLY blow or vacuum out any dust in there, especially around the CPU chip (the big square chip on the mother board). MAKE SURE you touch something metal to ground yourself before you open the case and reach in there. Even the slightest static electricity zap can ruin a computer chip. This step is especially important if you live in a dusty place like Wyoming.
- Check to see if you have the latest hardware drivers loaded for your printer, monitor and other peripherals.
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