This month, our guest writer, Paul, explains a topic that makes many of us cringe in fear. In fact, after reading about all of the possible dangers, I’m almost afraid to use my computer anymore. But I wouldn’t stop driving because I might have an accident or have my car stolen. Instead, I take precautions to stay safe. Maybe next month Paul could help us with ways to do that online.

What the Heck’s A Virus, Anyway?

Have you been somewhat confused about the various computer security terms being used nowadays on blogs and on the media? Well, join the club! Unless you’re in the computer business or a computer security person, you probably have a lot of company…few people understand the terms. So, in this article I’d like to give you some definitions of basic computer security terms…hopefully in plain, non-techie language. Here goes:

Malware – short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. The term “computer virus” is sometimes used as a catch-all phrase to include all types of malware, including true viruses.

Virus – is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer, usually with some undesirable event. A virus can spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to another computer; for instance because an infected computer sent it as an email over the Internet, or the owner carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive.

Spyware – is a type of malware that is installed on computers and collects little bits of information at a time about users, without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user’s personal computer. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habits and sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software and sending you to malicious websites. Spyware is known to change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and/or loss of Internet or functionality of other programs.

Phishing - is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.

A Trojan horse, or Trojan – is malware that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install but instead facilitates unauthorized access of the user’s computer system. “It is a harmful piece of software that looks legitimate. Users are typically tricked into loading and running it on their systems”, as Cisco describes. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology. Trojan horses may allow a hacker remote access to a target computer system. Once a Trojan horse has been installed on a target (your) computer system, a hacker may have access to the computer remotely and perform various operations.

I hope these terms help you in understanding the security issues that are part of using the Internet at this time. Try them out on your family and friends…they’ll be impressed with your knowledge. If you’d like more of this type of information in my future articles; let Carol know through your comments.  – © Paul Lubic, Jr.

Paul E. Lubic, Jr. is our monthly guest writer and is a seasoned IT professional who has held positions such as Computer Programmer, IT Security Manager and Chief Information Officer.   Paul’s HomeComputing Blog discusses the various aspects of home computing.

Technorati Tags: virus definitions, kinds of computer viruses, safe computing

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Today’s tip comes from Granny Blogger (Eleanor McCallum) who blogs at grannyblogger.com. I hate to admit it, but I have never used a scanner and don’t have the foggiest idea of what to do. I know a number of you find the scanner a useful tool, so I am re-printing her entire article here. Give me some good reasons to start scanning and I may give it a try myself.

“If you have Windows Vista on your computer and want to scan a picture, with Vista it is not as easy as with other operating systems.  I guess that’s why Microsoft went to Windows 7.

Anyway, to scan a picture you bring up your “Windows Photo Gallery” program.  Then click on “File” and in the dropdown the second thing you see will be “import from camera or scanner”.  Click on that and then on your scanner name.

A screen will come up where you can preview the picture you want to scan.  Scan it Import it and Save it just the way you want it.

That’s it.  Not so complicated after all.

To your scanning success;

Eleanor McCallum”

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Today I have a treat for you. My regular readers know by now what a non-techie I am. But there are some things we need to be able to do, whether they seem technical or not. Mr. Paul E. Lubic, Jr. has consented to be our guest writer for this month and hopefully on a regular monthly basis. Paul is a seasoned IT professional who has held positions such as Computer Programmer, IT Security Manager and Chief Information Officer. His blog, www.PaulsHomeComputingBlog.wordpress.com discusses the various aspects of home computing.

In this article, Paul explains how and why to back up our computer files. Last week my daughter lost a number of important documents she had neglected to save somewhere other than her computer. So right after I read this, I spent my evening following Paul’s advice.

Computers are wonderful tools that help us get our work done more efficiently, entertain us, and give us access to the Internet. However, computers are machines…electronic machines…that can, and eventually do, fail. When a failure happens, especially if one of your disk storage drives is involved; its probable that you will lose the many files of information, software, family photographs, music files, your Internet favorites, and emails.

Okay…enough doom and gloom…I think you get the picture that it can be a bad situation. So, what can be done to avoid losing all our precious files while our computer is being fixed? Plenty, and it’s not hard, technically challenging or complicated. But it does take some organization and dedication on your part. Its a very simple concept; copy your files to a removable storage device on a regular basis.

First, identify the files you’d really hate to lose and/or files it’d take a long time and effort to recreate and make a list of them and the folders in which they reside. Now that you have your “must have” files list, we need a rough estimate of their collective size. This can be acquired by right-clicking the file on Windows Explorer and selecting properties. The size of the file is one of the attributes listed in the properties displayed. Keep a total of these file sizes. When you’ve gotten them all added up and have a total, that will guide you in the purchase of the removable storage we need for backing up your files.

There are several options for removable media such as portable hard disk drives that we connect using the USB port; writable CD or DVD drives that, when the CD or DVD is written to, can be removed, and USB flash drives. For convenience, I recommend a flash drive because of their relative low cost and ease of use. A flash drive is a small plastic stick of memory that comes in various sizes of storage and can be plugged into a computer’s USB receptacle. When plugged in, it becomes an additional disk drive on your computer. Depending on the total amount of storage needed for your list of files, choose a flash drive with at least that much storage capacity but the more the better because your storage requirements will increase over time. I back up my files on a 4 Gigabyte flash drive.

Next, you will need to copy those files on your list to the flash drive. Use the Windows Explorer copy function or drag-and-drop the files from your hard drive location to the flash drive location. When all your files have been copied to the flash drive, store it in a safe place, preferably in another location (in case, heaven forbid, you have a fire).

Okay, we’re almost done. But here comes the really hard part…forming a habit of regularly copying the files to the thumb drive. This is important, so I’m going to say it again…you must copy your files to the thumb drive on a regular basis so that your backed-up files on the thumb drive will be relatively current if and when you need them.

Once you’ve accomplished a solid backup routine, your data will be much safer and you’ll be much happier should the worse case become a reality and your computer fails you. You’ll be able to copy the files back to the repaired or new computer and move on with your computing anew.

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If you’re a Windows 7 user, I have a free resource for you. It’s an ebook called “The Complete Windows 7 Shortcuts’.  Now I don’t have Windows 7, so I didn’t take advantage of this, but please let me know if you find it useful. And many thanks to Lynette Chandler at Blog Energizer for the information.

To get your guide, go to the Windows 7 Shortcuts page and scroll down to where it says ‘download’. Then right click on the title and select ‘Save Link As’. You’ll be downloading a zipped file, so you will need a program to unzip it before it can be read. Let me know if you need instructions on doing that. And please let me know if Windows 7 is worth buying – now that I’m finally getting used to Vista.

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Okay, have you guessed what I bought? Yes, it was a new little netbook. And not just any netbook, but an Asus. I was told they are a good brand and so far I am very pleased. The keyboard is big enough to type on and the screen is nice and clear. It has a GB of memory and 160GB of hard drive space. That’s as powerful as my desktop computer! All in a little case that I could carry in my purse.

At the end of this paragraph is a link to the netbook so you can see for yourself and I have to tell you it’s an affiliate link, so if you buy one too I get a small commission. You pay the same price either way and I’m not following you around ready to pounce like some of the computer stores I’ve been to.  If you get one, be sure to tell me how you like it and what color you got. I went with black, but there are a lot of different colors to choose from. ASUS Eee PC 1000HA Netbook

Asus Netbook

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