Computer & Information Security at the Workplace

Computer & Information Security at the Workplace
Helpful Hints
Passwords
• Select passwords with no personal association.
• Combine numbers, letters and symbols.
• Never write or post near computer.
• Keep secret; don’t share.
• Eight characters or more.
Awareness
• Train new employees
• Secure sensitive files
• Keep dial-up and Internet information secret.
• Monitor your surrounding environment. Challenge strangers walking around.
• Safeguard hardcopy: Clear your desk of sensitive papers before stepping out.
• Discuss security at staff meetings.
• Restrict access to users with a right and need to know.
• No magnets, food or drinks near disks, hard drives, credit cards, ATM card, Speedpass, or work ID.
• Follow your companies PC Policy.
• Do not make illegal copies of software.
• Use only software that your company buys. Personal copies of software on a corporate (company) asset (PC) is considered illegal.
Backups
• Make backups regularly.
• Lock up CDs, disks, external hard drives, and digital cameras.
• If you are on a network, save your data on the file server
• See the whole section on backups.
Locks
• Lock up notebook PCs at night.
• Lock up software.
• Lock up personal hardcopies of documents.
• Lock your desk.
Viruses
• Don’t install software from unknown sources.
• Use care when exchanging software and data disks between computers, especially home and work computers.
• See the whole section on viruses.
Sign Up For A Free Weekly Email Newsletter To Learn More Computer Tips For The Beginner: http://www.yourpcguide.com or send an email to computers@sendfree.com.

You Love Your PC, right?

You love your PC, right?


Valentine's Day
is the day of the year we show appreciation to our loved ones,
but when was the last time you pampered your computer? Taking it
out for dinner or giving it flowers won’t make it happier, but
new hardware drivers will. So go on,

give your PC the love it deserves!

http://www.liutilities.com/affcb/?id=DSgen&aff=3013&xat=gen

Drivers are
software used by computers to run hardware devices. All hardware
elements, inside and plugged into your PC, need drivers to
function. The problem however is that drivers can become
outdated and slow down your computer.

With single
click simplicity DriverScanner will scan your system to identify
outdated drivers, and then help download and install updates.
Start restoring your PC’s performance with a free scan, and
see how DriverScanner will improve your PC’s performance with:

• In depth driver analysis to identify outdated drivers.
• Driver update management, allowing you to load and install all drivers in one go and
  from one screen.
• System optimization, with driver updates, to dramatically improve your computing
  experience.

Which drivers do you need to update? Click here for a FREE diagnostic scan http://www.liutilities.com/affcb/?id=DSgen&aff=3013&xat=gen Happy Valentine's Day John Gontowicz www.yourpcguide.com Your Computer Connection Newsletter

Spyware Doctor Ranked #1 by PC Magazine for removing Spyware

The latest issue of PC Magazine reviewed the latest releases of spyware removal programs. They ranked Spyware doctor 6.0 as the winner in this category.

Spyware Doctor has been ranked as number one before in PC Magazines review. In the past couple of years Spysweeper and Spyware Doctor swapped first and second place. Spyware Doctor has been steadily number one for the past couple of years now.

Anti-virus software like Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, will only allow one version of anti-virus software at a time on your computer. Spyware programs allow multiple versions of the software. For example on my laptop right now I have Spybot Search & Destroy (free), Lavasoft Adaware (free - for getting rid of pop-up ads), Uniblue Spy Eraser and Spyware Doctor.

If I did not run any of these programs for a couple of weeks and then ran all of them, they would all find some “spyware” program on your computer. They all look for different variations and types of spyware. Some of these are no threat at all for the computer, others can be very harmful.

While doing testing I installed Spysweeper and Spyware Doctor on the same laptop. They both ran real slow to the point that it was taking a couple of hours just to do a scan. I uninstalled Spysweeper and Spyware Doctor finished the scan in under 35 minutes.

On some websites there are banners that appear saying “free computer scan”. I would be very wary of these banners. Many of them install spyware on your computer. Others run the scan in seconds and say for $29.95 we will get rid of them for you and you will be spyware free for a year.

I just fixed a computer that was given the latter sales pitch. When I ran Spyware doctor over 650 spyware files were on the customers computer. The initial call to me was that the computer was running slow. Removing the spyware resulted in at least a 50% increase in speed. Eliminating Internet temporary files, running disk cleanup and defragging the hard drive got the computer to almost like new.

I highly recommend Spyware Doctor. I usually run Spyware Doctor last, but it still picks up files that the other three do not pick up. The second choice would be Spyware Eraser, followed by Spysweeper. I just found Spysweeper very slow and when I visit a small business they want their computers fixed right away. A Spysweeper scan is almost always over an hour, longer if the computer has never has a spyware removal program run on it before.

Please visit my blog site below and leave comments or suggestions there. Please let others know about this article. My goal is to inform the computer user so that we can all prevent these viruses from spreading.

For more computer tips, free newsletters and information, go to www.yourpcguide.com and sign up for a bi-weekly free computer tips newsletter called Your Computer Connection.

To get a copy of Spyware Doctor please visit http://www.yourpcguide.com/spywaredoctor.html

John Gontowicz is the author of three computer ebooks including How to Learn Excel, How to Make Your Computer Run Stronger, Longer and Faster, and Computers 101. Please visit the site above for more information.

Comments and suggestions can be made on my blog site http://yourpcguide.blogspot.com

How to Unclog Your Computer

I have been working on a lot of computers lately and one of the things that I notice the most is that there are programs still on the computer that are no longer needed.

Some of the new computers have a lot of demo software on there for the customer to try. If they like it, they have an option to buy it. If they do not like it, or even tried it, the computer still has to store the program and all of the related files.

In addition, many times parents will buy education software for their kids. The kids are now 9-10 years old, but the software that was bought for the 3-4 year old still remains on the computer.

Another example is AOL. Some people have started off using AOL, then they decided to go to cable modem, DSL, FIOS and the no longer use AOL. Even though they do not use it the software and all of the files remain on the computer.

Everything mentioned above slows down the computer, especially leaving AOL on it. AOL is a massive program and it puts software pieces everywhere including a program called the registry.

The registry is a program that keeps track of everything on the computer. If you no longer use an application and you do not uninstall it the Registry has to go through all of the data to get to where it needs to go.

So, the first step in getting rid of the applications that you no longer need is to go to the Start menu and look at all of the programs and files under the All Programs menu option. Just look at the different folders and applications to see what you no longer use, or even heard of.

The next step is to click on the Start menu and click on the Control Panel icon. When the Control panel opens click on the Add/Remove programs option. In XP and Vista, Add/Remove programs is either in the first row (icon vies), or on the left column (word view).

When the Add/Remove window opens you will see all of the applications that are installed. If you have a lot of applications on your computer it can take 30 seconds or more to populate all of them on the screen.

Click on the application that you want to remove and select Remove (XP), or Uninstall (Vista). Follow the prompts and the program will uninstall. Some applications ask you to restart your computer after it is uninstalled. You can do this each time, or just wait until you uninstall all of the applications. Once you are done, go to the Start menu and select Restart and the computer will restart.

The next and final step is to delete the folders associated with the programs. Add/remove mainly work with the applications, not the extra files it installs. Click on the My computer icon and then select the drive C icon. Next look for Program Files folder and double click on that to open it. The next thing to do is to look at the folder names and delete the folders of the applications that you uninstalled. The folder names are usually the same as the application that you removed.

After you are done I would click on the Start menu , then click on Accessories folder, and then the System Tools folder and select Disk Defragmenter and let it run by clicking on the defragment program. What this application does is gets rid of the extra spaces on your hard drive. The extra spaces were left there from the applications that you removed. After it is complete, which usually takes an hour, the hard drive will work less and find what it is looking for faster. The end result is a faster computer.

Please visit my blog site below and leave comments or suggestions there. Please let others know about this article. My goal is to inform the computer user so that we can all prevent these viruses from spreading.

For more computer tips, free newsletters and information, go to www.yourpcguide.com and sign up for a bi-weekly free computer tips newsletter called Your Computer Connection.

To get a copy of Spyware Doctor to eliminate spyware from your computer, please visit http://www.yourpcguide.com/spywaredoctor.html

John Gontowicz is the author of three computer ebooks including How to Learn Excel, How to Make Your Computer Run Stronger, Longer and Faster, and Computers 101. Please visit the site above for more information.

Comments and suggestions can be made on my blog site http://yourpcguide.blogspot.com

My first impression of Windows 7 beta

I have had a lot of people ask me recently about Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. They have heard online and in some articles about this new operating system from Microsoft.

It was just released in January 2009 as a beta operating system. A beta means that it is in the testing phase. Microsoft has opened it up so that people can try it. The audience is usually hardware and software developers so that they can make sure that their existing products work on it, and any future products that they develop will work.

I have been a beta tester for Microsoft for years and I downloaded this operating system yesterday and I installed it on an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T43 laptop. The installation was easy and it completed in under 30 minutes.

After starting Windows for the first time it provided a list of hardware items that it did not find drivers for. A driver is what allows a hardware component such as a printer, sound card, etc., to talk to the computer to make them work together.

Here is what the computer could not find on my computer: wireless adapter, sound card, fingerprint reader, modem, and power management tools.

I went to the laptop manufacture’s site and I download Vista drivers for all of these hardware components. The Vista driver fixed the sound card and modem. I had to use XP drivers for the wireless adapter, fingerprint reader and power management.

So, right now all of the internal hardware components work. I have not tried installing a printer at the time that I am writing this.

What I have learned so far is that it takes a long time for the operating system to start and get to the logon screen. I would say a little over three minutes. At this point the first problem appeared. Usually on other operating systems the fingerprint screen is the first screen to appear. This is where you can have the computer scan your fingerprint so that you do not have to enter in a password.

The problem that I encountered is that the first screen that comes up is the login / password screen. I manually put in the password and press the Enter key. When the computer completes starting and you see the desktop then the fingerprint screen appears and you have to scan your fingerprint. Granted the Vista driver did not work and I had to use an XP driver, so I will wait and see if a Windows 7 driver appears.

The next thing that I did was go to Windows update and had the computer go out and look for updated patches and drivers. It found a more up-to-date network driver, sound and video. I installed these items and everything still worked.

When I initially installed the operating system a window opened and asked if I was doing an upgrade or a complete install. I clicked on complete install. A warning message opened and it said that it was going to copy all existing files and folders into a folder called windows.old. I clicked OK and it proceeded to install.

I would have thought that Windows 7 would have reformatted the hard drive, which is what I wanted, but I was never given the option.

After the installation I looked at the folders and only a couple of them were transferred over: Windows, documents and settings and program files. All of the other folders I had remained on the Windows 7 side. To me, it should have moved everything, or given me the option to delete all data, which is what was implied on the original installation screen. So, I manually deleted all of the other folders including windows.old since I did not need it.

Once Windows 7 was loaded and the desktop was there I was able to move around quickly. I started Internet Explorer and it was Internet Explorer 8.0. Again, I was able to go to sites quickly.

One thing that I noticed immediately is that when I had multiple windows open, and I put my mouse over them a small miniature version of the window was displayed. I was able to click on the window and I went directly to the screen. For example, I had four Internet Explorer windows open, but only one icon on the taskbar on the bottom of the screen. When I place my mouse over the one icon, all four windows were displayed as miniature windows on the bottom of the screen.

That is all I had time for yesterday. Because of the driver issues it took me 1.5 hours to install Windows 7. I will play around with it more this week and install some software on it. I will let you know what I find out.

Top Ten Excel Tips for Beginners

There are many tips for Excel. This article is for the beginners and covers the tips that I go over in the classes that I teach at local schools.

1. 80% of the most commonly used features, for beginners, in Excel can be done with two toolbars. A toolbar is the icons that are under the menus that are in text format (File, Edit, etc.). You should have the Standard toolbar and the Format toolbar on your screen. To make sure they are, go to the View menu and select Toolbars. There should be a checkmark next to Standard and Format. If one of these does not have a checkmark, highlight the menu option with the left mouse button. The toolbar will be displayed.

2. You can use Control (Ctrl) keys to do a lot of functions. For example, hold down the Ctrl key and press the S key and the file will be saved. Ctrl + P will print the document. Ctrl + B will Bold letter the text or number. There are many more. For a complete listing click on the link at the end of this article and you can download a free copy.

3. You do not have to use the mouse to navigate to a specific cell. You can use the arrow keys (left, up, down, right), or the PgUp and PgDn keys. Enter will go down one cell, and the Tab key will go to the next cell to the right. Holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the Home key will go to the first cell. Ctrl and the End key will go to the last cell.

4. Excel can look at what you typed in and follow the sequence. For example, if you typed in the word Monday, you can use a technique to have the next cell display Tuesday, etc. Say for example you type in Monday. Move back to the cell that contains Monday and you will notice on the bottom right of the cell that there is a little square. This is called a handle. Using your mouse carefully put the mouse cursor over the little square. The cursor will turn into a + sign. Click the left mouse button down and while continuing to hold down the button move your mouse down (or to the right). Go down or to the right seven cells while holding down the left mouse button. (A cell is the intersection of a row and column.) Let go of the mouse button and the seven days of the week will be displayed. This works for time, numbers, months, calendar, quarters, and a couple of others.

5. All formulas and functions begin with the equal sign. For example to add 1 and 2 together, the formula would be =1+2.

6. If you wanted to add up a column, or row. Type in the items that you wanted to add together and highlight the items you want to add, plus one empty cell. For example, say that you had numbers in cells A1 through A5. Highlight A1 through A6. On the Format toolbar is a Greek Symbol ∑ . Click on that symbol and the sum of the numbers will be displayed in the empty cell that you highlighted.

7. If you had a number that you wanted to display as a percentage, highlight the cell and on the Format tool bar is a percent (%) sign. Click on that symbol and the number in the cell will be displayed as a percent.

8. Say that you had a large spreadsheet and you wanted to go directly to cell J5. You can press the F5 key on the top of the keyboard. Type in J5 and press the Enter key. Your cursor will automatically go to cell J5.

9. When you are unsure what feature to use in Excel, highlight the cell(s) and click on the right mouse button. A window will open and the most commonly used features will be displayed in the menu.

10. To insert a row or column, click on the letter for inserting a column, or number for inserting a row. After clicking on the number or letter, click the right mouse button and select Insert from the menu option.

There will be other articles on Excel Tips. This article was to get you started. If you have any questions send me an email at yourpcguide@comcast.net.

Please visit my site to get the Control (Ctrl) key shortcuts by going to www.yourpcguide.com/shortcuts.htm

For a complete guide on learning Excel for beginners visit www.yourpcguide.com/howtolearnexcel.htm

Written by John Gontowicz, Computer Trainer and Support.

New computer virus alert - Downadup

There is a virus out that is a new strain of an older virus. The virus is called Downadup and as soon as it goes onto your computer it contacts another computer, called a server, for more instructions. This can potentially make this virus very dangerous at any time.

As of Thursday, January 22, 2008, 1.2 million computers have been infected with this new strain and the virus keeps spreading, especially on corporate networks. It is worth taking a moment and checking your computer systems, and your friend’s computers.

This virus disables your virus protection on your computer. If your computer is on a home or business network there is a potential if one of the computers has this virus it will spread to all of the other computers on the network, including servers in seconds.

If you have a virus protection program that is kept up-to-date, chances are small of the computer becoming infected. This virus has been called Downadup, Kido, or Conficker and if you run a scan and see any of these names I would check that your virus program and Microsoft security is working..

One of Microsoft’s updates in October 2008 prevents your computer from being infected with this virus. Microsoft also has a free Malicious Software Removal Tool at the Microsoft site. When you go to the site type in the initials MSRT in the search box and the tool will be the top one in the search results. You should download this tool, run it and make sure that you do not have this or any other malicious software on your computer.

This virus is a labeled as a worm virus and besides disabling the anti-virus software stops all of the Microsoft updates from working, and it also blocks you from accessing any of your accounts that are on secure sites (credit card, banking, reservations, etc.).

One of the ways that the virus spreads is from inserting a USB device. A USB device can be a flash/thumb drive, ipod, external drive, camera, CD-ROM burner, etc. If your computer is infected with this virus and you connect the USB device to another computer, that computer will immediately become infected.

If you do not have an antivirus software, there is a free one on line from a company called Grisoft. You can go to their site and in the search box type in AVG free edition, and the free version will be in the search results.

If you have Comcast Internet then you can download for free McAfee Security suite which includes anti-virus. If you have Verizon they offer a security package for a couple dollars a month. I would look at your Internet Service Provider (ISP), and look at your account, or benefits/features page to see what they offer. I was on one computer in North Jersey and they offered Trend Micro for free.

Some colleges also offer free anti-virus software for all of the students and staff members who attend the school.

Please visit my blog site below and leave comments or suggestions there. Please let others know about this article. My goal is to inform the computer user so that we can all prevent these viruses from spreading.

For more computer tips, free newsletters and information, go to www.yourpcguide.com and sign up for a bi-weekly free computer tips newsletter called Your Computer Connection.

John Gontowicz is the author of three computer ebooks including How to Learn Excel, How to Make Your Computer Run Stronger, Longer and Faster, and Computers 101. Please visit the site above for more information.

Comments and suggestions can be made on my blog site http://yourpcguide.blogspot.com