It seems not all anti-virus, spyware, adware programs are equal. And a good anti-virus program isn’t necessarily the best anti-spyware program. So the truth is you should use at least a couple different varieties. Many programs now do it all; anti-virus, spyware, adware, firewall. I would try two different anti-virus programs, one that scans real time and one that doesn’t, use a freebie and a premium paid one. I recommend BitDefender because I use it and it has removed malware from my system on a few occasions.

If you are a hi-risk user you need to use something! It really doesn’t matter what. By hi-risk I mean a user that downloads tons of free software, visits disreputable websites that infect you with malware, or uses media disks made by other hi-risk users. I generally recommend you pay for your antivirus software, however there are some freebies to be found. Try these: Avast, Windows Defender, BitDefender, PC Tools, AVG. Read my post How to surf the internet more safely.

In my computer travels I have on occation come across situtions where I didn’t have a mouse or the mouse was broken but still I needed to access and navigate windows. Rest assured this can still be done without a mouse. Keep in mind that all Windows folder and system menus can be navigted with the TAB, ALT, SHIFT, SPACEBAR, ESC and ARROW buttons.

This is my TOP TWENTY list of most useful keyboard shortcuts. Many more can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/301583.

1 CTRL+A (COPY ALL)
2 CTRL+C (COPY SELECTED)
3 CTRL+X (CUT)
4 CTRL+V (PASTE)
5 CTRL+Z (UNDO)
6 CTRL+ALT+DEL (OPEN TASKMANAGER)
7 ALT+F4 (CLOSE WINDOW)
8 ALT+TAB (CYCLE THROUGH OPEN POGRAM WINDOWS)
9 WIN LOGO KEY (SELECT START BUTTON)
10 WIN LOGO KEY+L (LOCKS KEYBOARD, REQUIRING RE-LOGIN TO VIEW WINDOWS)
11 WIN LOGO KEY+E (OPEN MY COMPUTER)
12 WIN LOGO KEY+R (OPEN RUN BOX)
13 WIN LOGO KEY+F1 (OPEN WINDOWS HELP)
14 WIN LOGO KEY+D (MINIMIZE ALL WINDOWS TO VIEW DESKTOP)
15 WIN LOGO KEY+PAUSE/BREAK (OPEN SYSTEM PROPERTIES WINDOW)
16 F5 (REFRESH CURRENT WINDOW OR WEBPAGE)
17 BACKSPACE (IN INTERNET EXPLORER - GO BACKWARD ONE PAGE)
18 SHIFT+BACKSPACE (IN INTERNET EXPLORER-GO FORWARD ONE PAGE)
19 SHIFT+F10 (”RIGHT CLICK” OR OPEN ALTERNATE MENU)
20 SHIFT+DEL (TO PERMANENTLY DELETE OBJECT - DOESN’T GO TO RECYCLE BIN)

So you think you have what it takes to make your pc malware proof? Honestly, I don’t think you have what it takes. Remember the good ole days of html 1.0 where the webpages all looked bland, and altogether not inspiring? There was no Javascript, ActiveX, Cookies XHTML, PHP, yadda…; all the things that make a webpage sparkle with interactivity! If you’re truly ready to surf care free you must ask yourself these simple questions:

1 Can you survive without that awesome music that starts up when you go to your favorite site?

2 Do you love typing in your name and password every time you log in to your fav site?

3 Do you hate it when you start an application and it tells you that updates are available and can be downloaded automatically.

4 Basically do you like doing everything yourself?

5 Do you love websites with no bells and whistles ?

6 Do you enjoy getting advertisements that aren’t marketed for you specifically?

7 Do you hate those fast connections to websites?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions GREAT you are ready to creep back into the stoneage of the internet, when phishing meant you couldn’t spell the word fishing.

So in a nutshell you can go ahead and turn off active X, Java, Javascript, .NET, PHP etc. deny all cookies, don’t cache any webpages, don’t view any unencrypted webpage, don’t install any browser add-ons, make sure you connect to all websites through a proxy, don’t bookmark any webpage, don’t download anything! Run at least 3 antivirus/spyware programs!For god sake don’t do anything logged on as an administrator! And if at all possible use a MAC (or even better someone elses computer)! Follow these simple rules and you should never get malware. Your online experience will totally suck, but hey… You could live to be 125 if you cut out the drinking, eating, sex, FUN!

I remember when someone told me that defragmenting was a good thing and that it would speed up my internet surfing and file searching and playing first person shooters! Then I learned what defragmenting actually does; windows re-writes information on the harddrive in a more orderly fashion to facilitate faster reading of continuous files. Although harddrives generally do a good job of not messing this re-writing up, mistakes can and will happen. And if they happen while re-writing a system file for instance BAM! You’ve just created your next headache! Although defraging is essential for quick operation of the harddrive I would only do it when windows recommends to do so, or when you notice a lot of harddisk activity and slowed performance. Each time you write data onto the drive there is a chance that the data can be corrupted - this is windows after all, don’t do it more than necessary!

How to defrag your drives:

click Start

click Programs

click Accessories

click System Tools

click Disk Defragmenter

choose a drive to analyze

click Analyze

Windows will tell you if you should defragment or not. The defragmenting action may take awhile so go get a snack.