Computer Software:
Security/Repair
Most people don’t rely on their computers for much more than
e-mail and occasional Word or Excel programs, plus computer games, of course.
But for those of us who find their computers absolutely essential, the very last
thing we want to see is a shutdown for any kind of problem. Old Blackdog here lives on his computer. I use
it for editing and writing, e-mail articles back and forth, keeping my business
records on there and, in the evenings, playing bridge online. No way can I
afford to lose data or pick up some bug. So the following is what I have on my
computer, and what I strongly recommend to be very safe.
Anti-Virus: You
absolutely must have an A-V program. I’ve used three different programs at one
time or another, and am now using McAfee.
[http://www.mcafee.com] In my humble
opinion, it is the best thing out there in the anti-virus venue. If you happen
to be a Comcast user, they even offer both McAfee A-V and McAfee Firewall (as
well as parental control if you’re into that) for free! So take advantage of
it. I find McAfee to be incredibly more user friendly than Norton, the other
popular A-V software. NOTE: You cannot run more than one A-V program at a time. AND, if
you decide to switch programs, clean out your registry before installing the new
A-V program. For instance, if you now have Norton and plan to switch to McAfee,
just uninstalling Norton will NOT get rid of the bits and pieces left over in
the registry, and that will totally frost your computer. More info down below on
how to clean out the registry.
Firewall: You
certainly need a software firewall. Windows XP offers one, but I’ve turned
that off and chose McAfee’s Personal
Firewall instead. It’s much more useful, and can be set to various levels
of security. But don’t stop there. For $49 you can buy a router, most
important if you have “always on” cable or DSL connection. I have cable, and
the router is very simple. It’s a small box the size of your cable modem. Set
the router on your computer desk, NOT on top of your tower! One cord plugs into
your power outlet (hopefully a Tripp-Lite UPS). One cord plugs into the back of
your computer. You then have what looks like a two-ended phone cord remaining.
Take the cable coming in from the wall and plug it into the router instead of
the cable modem. Then use the two-ended “phone” cord and plug one end into
the router and one into the cable modem. Voila! Now everything that goes in and
out goes through that router, and you have a double firewall. Remember, you can
have a software and hardware firewall, but you cannot have two software
firewalls. A good router is D-Link. [http://www.dlink.com]
Registry: Every
time you uninstall a program, or even when you seemingly do nothing, there is
just a ton of crap left over in your registry. If you want to get rid of the
junk, which is absolutely essential if you’re switching A-V software, you want
to purchase Registry Mechanic. [http://www.pctools.com]
This may be one of the best pieces of software I have. Open it up, ask it to
scan your registry, and two minutes later it’s done, you delete all the
problems and off you go. It does, by far, the best job of registry cleaning in
the industry.
Registry Edit:
There is something else you should consider—editing your registry manually. I
admit to overdoing the housekeeping, but I do like a tidy little computer.
Unless you are incredibly proficient in editing the registry, then just do the
very simplest task. Go to your Start menu/Run, and type in regedit. Up pops the
Registry. When the Registry comes up, go to the second choice: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
and click on the + sign to open it up. Down the line you will see
“Software.” Click on that, and all your software comes up. If there is
anything you have uninstalled, there probably is still a folder in there for it
(and it’s probably empty). For example, when I switched to McAfee earlier this
year, I carefully uninstalled Norton and cleaned out the registry first. But
just recently I was looking for another problem in the registry and found that
all my uninstalled software still had empty folders in the Registry. You don’t
need them, since you don’t have the software. Delete them.
Security Software: There
are a host of programs I use for various reasons. THE most important and most
valuable piece of software is Webroot Spy
Sweeper. [http://www.webroot.com] This
award-winning piece of work proves over and over again why it’s considered the
best thing on the block. It runs in the background, will ask you if you add a
favorite URL whether or not you want that…and does a host of other things,
including sweeping your computer by the schedule you set. It does NOT slow your
computer down in any way at all. To me, it’s a must have!
Everyone should have the two free programs that work in
tandem. The first is Spybot Search and
Destroy. [http://www.safer-networking.org]
It’s free, but you should update it regularly and run it at least
weekly. It searches for spyware on your computer and eliminates it for
you. The second program is Ad-Aware SE
Personal. [http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware]
This is similar to Spybot, in that it has to be updated manually and should be
run right after you run Spybot. Ad-Aware searches for those nasty little pieces
of adware some sites leave on your computer to track your preferences. The price
for both is right.
Another little piece of software that is especially helpful
is Win Patrol. [http://www.winpatrol.com]
This little gem is free, but also runs in the background and will alert you to
anything unusual. Want yet another good piece of free security software? Try Spyware
Blaster. [http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html]
It too runs in the background, and like all the others has to be updated
periodically. But it’s a nice little package that will help further secure
your computer.
Repair Software: Okay,
you’re getting the “blue screen of death” just a bit more often than you
would like (once, of course, is too often). To help fix any problems you don’t
know about, purchase PC Rescue. [http://www.healthycomputerclub.com]
It’s a one-time payment, and you are notified of updates. You’ll be
surprised at what it will find. If you just want to check it out, go to the Web
site and run a trial version to see what it finds. You’ll be surprised, and
probably buy it right then and there.
One of my favorites, mostly because of the graphics, is PC
Bug Doctor. [http://www.pcbugdoctor.com]
It’s very similar to PC Rescue, is fast and does an amazingly good job of PC
cleaning.
Finally, in the (sort of) repair category, standing all by
itself, is the gem of all time: CCleaner.
[http://www.ccleaner.com] It’s free,
but if you donate $20 when you purchase it, they will e-mail you notices of
updates. Otherwise you have to update it manually. What a find this was. It does
a lot of things for you: (1) Running the CCleaner itself (which I do daily)
eliminates all your history, temp files and all that garbage. If you follow that
with Disk Cleanup, you get rid of an awful lot of junk very quickly and easily.
(2) Scan for Issues is the second part of CCleaner and it literally cleans out
your registry, but only to some extent. You cannot rely on it to catch
everything that Registry Mechanic does; it’s not meant to. But it does a nice
limited job. (3) Tools. This lists all your programs and is a simple way to
uninstall them without having to go through the Control Panel. (4) Options. You
need only be concerned about two: Settings and Cookies. In Settings, just check
“automatically search for updates.” In Cookies, well this is computer
heaven. You can list every cookie that you want to keep (like financial accounts
where your password is stored, or other such URLs), and they stay. Meanwhile,
any cookie not on your “keep” list is on the other side of the column, and
when you Clean with CCleaner, all those other cookies disappear. I have some 30
password-protected sites that I truly do not feel like re-entering all that
info. With CCleaner, I clean out my “cookie jar” but save the cookies I want
automatically. It’s wonderful.
Backup: Finally,
there’s one thing you should do: Create an online backup process. And this is
far easier than you think, because you can go to Mozy [http://www.mozy.com] and
sign up for a free storage account (up to a certain limit), and if you need more
space it comes at a very nominal price. It too is very configurable, and I have
it scheduled to back up my entire data files weekly. It’s encrypted in
storage, but if your computer ever goes down completely, you always know your
data is safe and easily can be recovered once the old computer is working again.
You also can backup manually rather than wait for the weekly schedule, which is
a great idea if you have added new data you don’t wish to lose.
Where does all this info come from? Well, a lot of it I
learned by talking with people and just nosing around. But much of what I’ve
learned comes from the premier computer magazine—Smart Computing. [http://www.smartcomputing.com]
I highly recommend subscribing to it. Unlike mags with a ton of ads and very
little real info, SC offers a ton of info and very few ads.
Happy and Safe Computing!
Blackdog
Take me back to
the home page...