My Computer Tips

As a computer information systems student, I have to know a lot about computers. I wish to tell the non-tech people reading this some tips of advice and some free pointers to help them with some common error problems. 

The most important thing (in my opinion) for computers is safety. Most of you probably purchase your anti-virus through Norton or some other company. Many people do not know of two free anti-virus programs offered on the internet (that are not viruses or malware). They are Microsoft Security Essentials and Avira (This does not go to Avira's site, but this is the site you are directed too when you go to download the free version). Just to inform you, do not install both of these programs onto a single computer. They will interfere with one another and make each other useless. The one offered by Microsoft is user friendly and completely free. Avira is a little more complex, but also is a little better than Microsoft Security Essentials. If you are going to install either of these programs, download the file, disconnect your computer form the internet, uninstall the current anti-virus, install the new anti-virus, and then turn your internet back on.

I also use Spybot-Search & Destroy (also free on the link I have provided here) on my computer as a file scanner. Having this program in addition to an anti-virus ensures even more security on your computer. This program is maintained by people working off of donations provided to the website. This program does a scan of every file on your computer for anything that is harmful. There are other programs like this one out there, but I trust this one and I am very familiar with it. This program will not interfere with your anti-virus, allowing you to simply install it. This program will occasionally run itself upon startup, and temporarily lock you out until it is finished.

Now I am going to talk about how you may receive a file that would harm your computer (and the reason why you need an anti-virus and other programs). Simply going onto the internet and browsing at random websites will likely get you a virus. Whenever you go onto a website, a small file called a cookie is stored onto your computer. A website may encrypt (hide) a virus inside of the cookie. It could be thought of as biting into a chocolate chip cookie and finding a raisin inside of it. Most people today communicate through e-mail and text messages. A person can also send you a file encrypted with a virus or the actual message itself can have a virus on it. A computer virus can be sent to a cellular device because of e-mail and SMS messages. It is important that you only open e-mails from people you know and from sites that would be sending you an e-mail. And if you notice that someone else is going onto your e-mail and sending people messages, you should inform your friends and get a new e-mail and get a new e-mail address.

Next, I want to talk to you about passwords. If your password is "password", "12345" or a family member's birthday, name or middle name, someone else has probably read or is reading this article pretending to be you. So you better go and change your password before continuing to read this (this will still be here once you get back). The Libyan government recently lost countless confidential files because they used the password "12345". People also will download this “nifty” software called a password generator. These allow for a person to input around 6000 password combinations per minute (roughly). This is why internet sites use the captcha boxes (that we all love) after you have incorrectly input 2 passwords. The captcha boxes are unable to be read by a password generator, allowing for the site to have some security. There are certain websites out there that use an algorithm that will hack and retrieve your password (sites will usually charge about $10-50 to do this for you). To avoid something like this from happening (when you create a password), use 1 letter from a foreign language to insure safety (I personally use a combination of characters from 3 languages on most of my passwords). This will interrupt most of these algorithms. This allows for the algorithm to read your password incorrectly and insure it to be secure. The character from the other language can still be an English character, but the data is read differently by the algorithm, causing an error in the reading. I am yet to find a program that can accurately retrieve my password. My old password (it is no longer in use) was “butterfly” The second t was a character from the Spanish language, but the input was the exact way it normally would be in English.

The last security thing I am going to rant about is something you may not notice when you are on the internet. When you go to a website and look at the HTML address (the place where you might type in “www.yahoo.com”), you will notice that it turns into “http://www.yahoo.com/” instead of “www.yahoo.com”. This is the full web address of the site. Now most of you probably don’t know this, but if you go onto “www.google.com”, it turns into “https://www.google.com/”. The little “s” at the “http” stands for secure. This ensures that the site will not have a virus encrypted into its cookie and not give you a virus for going to the site (but many of the sites you get form Google probably will). Blackboard also has this little “s” in its HTML address. Facebook also has the little “s” on it, but some of the games may give you a virus. This is because the actual game will store a cookie on your computer on top of the one given to you from the website. This is the case with many games on the internet. They will store a cookie on your computer so you may continue from a previous save or even play it on another site without losing your progress. This is much more common with MySpace, so you should not use ANY of their applications they may offer.

Now I am going to talk about maintenance. A computer should be routinely dusted every year. This will help the computer maintain a cooler temperature and prolong it’s lifetime of usefulness. You do NOT open your computer and spray it with pledge. You can go to most stores (like Meijer’s, Wal-mart, auto stores, or computer stores) and buy a can of air. You use this to spray the dust out of your computer parts. If you are unsure how to do this, you should take your computer to a computer specialist or someone you know that knows how to do it (like me) and have them do it for you. Laptops also may need to have cooling gel applied every now and then. This gel allows for heat to be absorbed and safely removed from a certain part of the computer. This process is more complex than dusting, and should always be done by a professional. My brother tried to do this task by himself, and it resulted in his laptop constantly overheating and causing it to malfunction. I (as a tech student) will take my laptop in for this to be done in about 6 months. This job should be done about every 2-3 years. Doing both of these simple things can greatly increase the life of your computer and are very inexpensive (even if you have someone else do it for you). I hope that you all will walk away from reading this and have learned at least 1 thing you can do to avoid simple computer problems.