No reason to be vulnerable!

[$cirisme]

With all the great free programs out there, there is no reason to be vulnerable to hackers, viruses, and bad programs that steal your personal information!

Steps to trustworthy computing...

Anti-virus Software Hundreds of viruses are released everyday to prey upon unsuspecting computer users. Don't be a statistic! Get free anti-virus (http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_downl.htm) protection! This is a completely free product, no trials to run out. There is, however, a paid version that comes with more advanced features and tech support.

Get a firewall! This is essential to keeping people off your computer and stealing your identity. You can grab a free one from ZoneLabs (http://zonelabs.com). It's free for personal use, and you can get a version with more features for a small price.

Protect yourself from the Gator! Some programs out there will willingly steal your personal information(such as what websites you visit) and sell it to advertisers. Get Ad-Aware (http://lavasoft.de/software/adaware/) for free to protect yourself from such programs

None of these things are a replacement for regular back ups, and a good, strong password, but they are useful tools that should be anyone's arsenal.

Now get out there and compute! :thumb:

[Patroclus]

Woo hoo! I got all that stuff. It gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me want to run ad aware right now!

[yxboom]

I would add that alpha-numeric passwords are essential when creating them and something not found in a dictionary.

[$cirisme]

Some people like to use the words of a favorite saying. Some people like to use Bible verses, for example...

FGSLTW, throw in a few numbers... FG5LTW134. Of course, it stands for "For God So Love The World..."

Note: that is NOT my password, so don't even try! :smile:

[yxboom]

isn't it like 433451

[LilPunkishOfTerror]

I would like to add that if you install ZoneAlarm, don't uninstall later and still expect to get online...I did that once, and couldnt get on the Web at all. Reinstalling fixed it. So, if you must use a firewall, get a different one!

from Guy

[dizzle]

And I thought this was going to be a thread about macho men.

[djnoz]

my passwords are either in l33tsp33k or are the first letter of something nearby.

Eg. lying on my desk at the moment is a Pulp Fiction dvd. On the front cover it says 'A Film By Quentin Tarantino Pulp Fiction so my pass is AFBQTPF - they never guess that kind of stuff...

all my internet stuff is routed through a linux proxy with a firewall. None shall pass. :fight:

[$cirisme]

I would like to add that if you install ZoneAlarm, don't uninstall later and still expect to get online...I did that once, and couldnt get on the Web at all.

What OS were you running? It almost sounds like you had a bad install or something. Of course, if you had an older verson of WnSock, that might cause it, too.

So, if you must use a firewall, get a different one!

What do you recommend? AFAIK, ZA is the only free one. :shrug:

[prgmrdave]

Today @ 10:22 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=77665#post77665)
cirisme:

What do you recommend? AFAIK, ZA is the only free one. :shrug:

I used to use Tiny Personal Firewall, back when it was free for personal use. It now costs money. On the other hand, Kerio Personal Firewall looks almost exactly like Tiny Personal Firewall used to, and Kerio is free for personal use. Assuming KPF works like TPF used to, I'd say it's less user-friendly than ZA, but offers way more control.

www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html

[$cirisme]

Hey, cool!

Thanks for the info. :cool:

<---Scurries off to go play with them. :smile:

[NSMinistries]

I use norton security and you can catch it on www.pricewatch.com every once in a while for $9.99 with the one year free updates. Of course you can spend all day downloading these updates on dial up.

[CobraA1]

I have the last version of Tiny Personal Firewall before it stopped being free. My passwords are randomly generated (I have an encrypted file I store them in), and I've got permissions set pretty tightly on my NTFS filesystem. I've got Spybot Search and Destroy to kill unwanted trojans (I consider Gator and its relatives to be trojans).

Hey! Kerio looks just like Tiny! Down to the green "Any" and arrows! I'd bet money they're based off what used to be Tiny.

In fact, they still have "TPF" (Tiny Personal Firewall) in their FAQ :teeth:!

[Belteshazzar]

djnoz:

all my internet stuff is routed through a linux proxy with a firewall. None shall pass. :fight:

Thats a great idea using a Linux firewall, it shuts down a lot of stuff. Some of the other stuff, like Gator spyware, is a little trickier since they attach themselves to otherwise friendly looking product downloads. Also, the spybot software is pretty good at looking through the cookies and nuking the doubleclick and advertising site trackers. And if you use outlook there's a whole range of things that can happen where a firewall is no protection.

I wish someone had the whole bundle in one, but I haven't found it yet.

Jerry

[$cirisme]

I wish someone had the whole bundle in one

That would be nice and a sure way to become a multi-millionaire. :bunny:

[Hitch]

Is it possible to make an avatar from a picture?

[John Reece]

Today @ 12:01 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=147670#post147670)
Hitch:

Is it possible to make an avatar from a picture?

Yes. That's how my avatar came to be. I did a google search to find a photograph of an ox. I found one on the web site of a nature photographer, who in response to an email from me, visited TWeb, and estimated the sizing of the picture to send me as an email attachment to fit the avatar space at TWeb. Then I just followed the instructions in our profile section to get it uploaded to TWeb.

[NoeticPenguin]

I just use Linux. No viri, no gator, no nothin.

[Sheepdog]

This is a good way to make a back up of any sensitive files you have. Due to the nature of computing, it is inevitable that either something messes up on your Computer (e.g. virus, idiot humans), or your hard drive disk goes defunct (it happens more often than most realize). I vaguely recall the expected life span on a HD is 5 years-- but don't quote me on that. Thus, it is wise to regularly save all the files that you want to keep so that, in the event of a cataclysmic failure, you don't lose a lot of hard work.

To do this, all you need is a recordable CD or DVD drive, software (usually comes bundled with the drive or with your OS), and recordable CDs/DVDs. Most of you may already have these...

1. Locate all the stuff you want to save. E.g. document files, game saves, etc. Don't bother with applications, mp3's (that you have legally, hint hint), or anything else that would be easy to reinstall, copy, or download after a critical crash. We are mainly concerned with stuff that would have to be rewritten or otherwise would be hard to replace.

2. Make a new folder (it can be named anything, but i named it "archive"). I recommend it be elsewhere from "My Documents"... in fact i wouldn't put anything private in My Documents, as it is a popular target for hackers and malicious viruses.

3. In the archive folder, put a copy of all the stuff you want to save. This can actually be helpful in case you mess something up, you'll have an older copy of the file handy.

4. If it excedes the amount of space you can save to a CD (about 700MB, but it can vary), use a data compressor like WinZIP or 7-Zip (see "Open Source Alternatives"), and make a copy of the whole archive folder in a .zip file. it matters little where you save the .zip, so long as you know where it is (i don't recommend puting it in the archive folder, unless you plan to delete it before next time you do a backup).

5. Fire up your burning program, put in a blank CD (R or RW, i don't think it matters), and copy the archive file or the .zip file to the CD. The software should have instructions on how to do this.

6. Bam! you have yourself a decent back up of sensitive files for a cheap price. just make sure you test the CD when your done to make sure it is readable. It is recommended you keep this CD in a secure, safe location. Make sure you'll be able to find it again :sd:

[HerodionRomulus]

I have both AVG and Ad-Aware. They work great.

I have a query about the Firewall. I allegedly have a firewall thru my ISP which is Comcast (cable)

Do I need another? Would the two conflict?

:huh:

Thanks

[$cirisme]

No, they wouldn't.

It's always good to have as much protection as you can. :smile:

[NSMinistries]

Try using some of the tools here to test your security as well. It help me fix some holes...

http://www.all-nettools.com/

[HerodionRomulus]

Muchas Gracias!!!!!

:cheers:

[lee_merrill]

That's good advice! One problem I have with backups is locating my Windows address book (I think this was when I had XP). I did a seach for "*.wab" and found nothing. But I had an address book! And I would rather not export it every time I do a backup. Similarly with bookmarks, it would be nice to know which bookmark.html or whatever is my bookmark file, instead of exporting bookmarks for backups, too.

For financial programs, it's a good idea to save your main data file, or at least your backup file (but not both!) in your Sheepdog-suggested archive folder.

There's a problem with software development, though, because my compiler puts these huge precompiled header files and all the object files in the same directory as the source. What I wound up doing was using a command-line zip utility, and saying "zip -r *.c *.h" etc. etc. but maybe there's a better way to do this.

I would rather use zip for backups than (say) Microsoft backup, because lots of computers (Linux, Mac probably) understand zip files, but only Microsoft understands their backup file format.

But I don't know of a good way to back up the Windows registry, other than by using Microsoft backup. Actually I do! I cheat, and use Linux, and copy the whole Windows boot partition to another spare partition, which gets the boot sector, the partition table, the registry, and anything else Microsoft might think of. But not everybody has Linux...

Also, in Linux, I schedule a task to run every hour to back up all my changed files, and every night, to copy whole directories to a directory corresponding to the day number (i.e. 31 nightly backup directories). But most people wouldn't need this for Windows, I think. But people who use their computer a lot might want something similar, but I don't know how Windows could easily do this...

Blessings,
Lee

[Sheepdog]

howdy Lee...

That's good advice! One problem I have with backups is locating my Windows address book (I think this was when I had XP). I did a seach for "*.wab" and found nothing. But I had an address book! And I would rather not export it every time I do a backup. Similarly with bookmarks, it would be nice to know which bookmark.html or whatever is my bookmark file, instead of exporting bookmarks for backups, too.

i'm not familiar with Windws Address Book, so i can't help you there. maybe try out different adress book software? as far as bookmark.html is concerned, it should be in your profile folder for Firefox (Mozilla? or are you refering to IE). I really do wish Gecko would allow you to export bookmark.html to a location of your choosing. But regardless, you can simply open bookmark.html and see the contents, it will display in your browser window like a formatted web page.

There's a problem with software development, though, because my compiler puts these huge precompiled header files and all the object files in the same directory as the source. What I wound up doing was using a command-line zip utility, and saying "zip -r *.c *.h" etc. etc. but maybe there's a better way to do this.

i haven't worked with development apps, so i don't know. i'd use a GUI zip program like filzip. i believe you can even ctrl select all you files, and (this might depend on your Windows version) left click and select to archive them in whatever zip software you have.

I would rather use zip for backups than (say) Microsoft backup, because lots of computers (Linux, Mac probably) understand zip files, but only Microsoft understands their backup file format.

yeah.

But I don't know of a good way to back up the Windows registry, other than by using Microsoft backup. Actually I do! I cheat, and use Linux, and copy the whole Windows boot partition to another spare partition, which gets the boot sector, the partition table, the registry, and anything else Microsoft might think of. But not everybody has Linux...

that's not a bad idea. in fact, i bought an additional harddrive because i was going to do a dual-boot of linux on this computer, but i ended up getting my exroommate's old computer. so, i now have that HDD in an external enclosure and use that to do backups. and to keep it from getting hacked or infected, i disconnect it unless i intend to read or write to it.

personally, i don't even care to backup any system files or applications. with Windows, it is a good idea to R&R (reformat and reinstall) every year or 2 anyways. so, if something is critically wrong with Windows, a lot of times i'll just R&R if i can't find a better fix. saving user data across R&Rs is what is really important, as Windows and apps can be reinstalled.

Also, in Linux, I schedule a task to run every hour to back up all my changed files, and every night, to copy whole directories to a directory corresponding to the day number (i.e. 31 nightly backup directories). But most people wouldn't need this for Windows, I think. But people who use their computer a lot might want something similar, but I don't know how Windows could easily do this...

it's not too hard, really. make a batch file, and use task scheduler to have it run whenever you want it scheduled. i used to automate a Chkdsk schedule and reboot. that is, until it got annoying.

you'd have to search online on how to make .bat files. basically use notepad, DOS/style commands separated with hard breaks.

[lee_merrill]

howdy Lee... Howdy howdy...

personally, i don't even care to backup any system files or applications. with Windows, it is a good idea to R&R (reformat and reinstall) every year or 2 anyways. so, if something is critically wrong with Windows, a lot of times i'll just R&R if i can't find a better fix. saving user data across R&Rs is what is really important, as Windows and apps can be reinstalled. That's true, though now with disk space so abundant, what I have decided to try is to make a bunch of partitions, and when I get a good setup, snapshot the whole shootin' match, to a spare partition. So then if (I mean when) my computer gets all angled tup, I shall just copy a snapshot back. That's the theory...

it's not too hard, really. make a batch file, and use task scheduler to have it run whenever you want it scheduled. i used to automate a Chkdsk schedule and reboot... Sounds good, I had forgotten about task scheduler, thanks a million or two! A googol? A Google!

Blessings,
Lee