Antivirus

There are many free antivirus programs out there, but I’ll just recommend three:

• Avast Antivirus (this is the one I use)
• Microsoft Security Essentials (made by Microsoft, if that makes you feel safer)
• AVG Anti-Virus

Note: If you already have an antivirus program installed and running, make sure you uninstall that first.

Firewall

Since XP, Windows has shipped with a built-in firewall. You really don’t need to do anything more than turn it on and forget about it. Note: If you already have an firewall installed and running, make sure you uninstall that first.

Update

Keep Windows updated by turning on automatic updates. If you spot a little yellow icon with an exclamation mark in it near the clock, right click on it and install the update that is available.

To celebrate the first day of spring, why not give your computer a quick spring cleaning? CCleaner is a nifty little program for Windows which works by removing unused files from your system.

Visit the CCleaner website to download the program for free and for instructions on how to use it.

To find out more and download it visit http://www.getsharepod.com/.

Facebook Purity is a script that works with the Greasemonkey Firefox extension to automatically hide quiz and application messages. This is how to set it up:

1. Install the Greasemonkey Firefox extension
2. Install the Facebook Purity Greasemonkey script

Defraggler – file defragmentation tool
CCleaner – system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool

Internet

Firefox – web browser
FileZilla – FTP client
Skype – Internet telephony

Media

CDBurnerXP – CD & DVD burner
iTunes – music player
Picasa – digital photo manager
VLC Media player – video player
Paint.NET – image editor
Spotify – on demand Internet radio

Misc.

7-zip – file compression/decompression
MozyHome – online backup service
File Renamer – Basic – file renamer

Security

avast! Antivirus – virus protection
Spybot – Search & Destroy – spyware detection and removal
Ad-Aware – spyware detection and removal
SpywareBlaster – spyware protection
Sunbelt Personal Firewall – firewall

Text/office

NoteTab Light – text editor
Adobe Acrobat Reader – PDF reader
Bullzip PDF printer – PDF printer

I’m one of those Windows users who have decided that although IE comes installed with Windows, it isn’t the best browser available.

While some of the features in Firefox, such as tabbed browsing, are now available in all major browsers, there was a time when Firefox was the only browser that offered them. After getting my eyes, mouse habits and fingers used to using Firefox, even when other browser caught up with Firefox, I saw no reason to switch.

Reasons I use Firefox as my main browser

Customizability with add-ons/extensions
The number and range of extensions that are available for Firefox is substantial. Most of these are produced by an enthusiastic band of third-party developers. Some of my favourites are AdBlock Plus, Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, CustomizeGoogle, FoxClocks and Mouse Gestures Redox.

Tabbed browsing
Let’s me have multiple webpages open in one browser window. Now available in IE as well, but ‘too little, too late’ for me.

Adjustable page zoom
Page zoom; not just text zoom.

Smart keywords
Smart keywords are a fast way to search a website right from the Location Bar. For example, if I’m looking for ‘Tailor of Gloucester’ on Amazon, I type ‘a The Tailor of Gloucester’ and it sends me straight to the search results on Amazon’s webpage. Find out more: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/smart-keywords.html

Spell checker
Greatly decreases the likelihood of me leaving misspelt message on my friends’ walls on Facebook or sending embarrassing web mails. Also lets me know why the word I’m searching for on Google doesn’t give me any results.

Security
While no browser offers 100% protection, I find Firefox does a better job than the other browsers.

Reliability + standards compliance
Firefox works as it is supposed to and breaks relatively infrequently.

Incremental or ‘find as you type’ search
This means that while viewing a web page, I can find any word on it by just starting to type the word. No need to click Edit > Find or Ctrl+F to search.

Conclusion

While I enjoy using Firefox for the majority of my Internet browsing, I haven’t given IE, Safari, Opera and Chrome the boot yet. Sadly, some websites only work properly with one of these browsers.

If you want to give Firefox a try it’s a free download from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

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[1] http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=1
[2] http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8

One of the effects of the rise of PCs is that documents and multimedia that would have once been distributed between the office, living room, car, bedroom and desk are all stored on our computers.

Types of data on our computers
Academic work (essays, dissertation, lecture notes), documents (lists, recipes, health records, financial data, contact info) and media (music, photos, videos, audio recordings).

How data gets lost
Hardware failure (electrical surge, wear and tear), virus attack, theft, fire, flood or earthquake.

Backup options
A backup works by copying data and storing it somewhere so it can be used to restore the original in the event of data loss. Options:

• Online backup
• External hard disk
• DVD stored off-site

A comparison of the three options follows my recommendation.

My recommendation
Combine online backup with DVD stored off-site.

1. Sign up* for a free 2GB account with Mozy online backup using https://mozy.com/?code=NT9BTG. Use this to backup your really important but small file size data. Set it to automatically do a backup every day.
2. Burn the music and videos on your computer onto DVDs and store them at a friend’s place. Update this regularly.

Comparison

* Disclaimer: I do have a vested interest in getting people to sign up with Mozy. Mozy’s referral scheme means that each person that signs up using my referral link (https://mozy.com/?code=NT9BTG) gets me an additional 250MB of backup storage. Don’t let this put you off – I would still recommend it even if I didn’t get any benefit!