Most of us use Microsoft Office, but there is a free office suite you can freely download and use at no cost to you, called Open Office. It is developed for the most part by volunteers who goal is to create a strong and free competitor to Microsoft Office. It is completely compatible and it uses up less memory.

On a Windows machine, anti-virus software is a must. Norton or McAfee are options, but they’re bloated and not as effective as they used to be. AVG Free Edition, Avast Home Edition, or BitDefender are free, and won’t slow your system down. Don’t use more then one anti-virus at a time, though.

Most of us have heard of Ad-Aware and Spybot, but a great, and more thorough anti-spyware program is Spyware Terminator. Most anti-virus solutions contain equally effective spyware detection, but it never hurts to have a second opinion.

I use Adobe Photoshop often in college. It’s very popular, but very expensive. If your tasks only require simple image editing and don’t need anything elaborate, get Picasa, Gimp, or Inkscape to do many of the same things.

WinZip or WinRAR seem to be the most common programs to extract and create compressed files. Zipeg or 7-Zip handle all of the most common file formats, and will accomplish the same tasks.

There’s no need to buy programs that will “clean” your system. There are free applications that will do the exact same thing. One is IE Privacy Keeper. Another is Ccleaner (crap cleaner).

With all of the files on hard drives, it’s important to keep everything organized so your computer does slow down while it’s looking for particular files. Windows does come with a defragmentation program, but IObit Smart Defrag has more options and does a better job, for free.

Instead of sifting through the start menu looking for the program you want every time, use Launchy. Type alt+space, and type the first few letters of the program you want and press enter, and it opens. It’s very similar to a feature built into Mac OS X called ‘Spotlight’.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my columns this semester, and I look forward to writing more of them next semester. For links to all of the programs, please visit my website at www.thedigitaldistraction.com.

Originally posted 2008-12-04 19:16:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Trust your gut. If you get an email attachment or receive a file on your computer, or through email that looks suspicious or that you’re not expecting, don’t open it, no matter how tempting.

Keep Windows up-to-date. Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases patches and updates for Windows. You need to run Windows Update and install them as soon as possible to protect against internet threats.

Don’t visit websites that aren’t well-known or trusted. There are millions of websites that look perfectly legitimate, but contain code that takes advantage of exploits in Windows that may or may not be patched.

There are a lot of products that claim to protect your computer from the threats of the internet. The trouble is, there are a lot of options, and some products work much better then others.

Norton and McAfee are the most well known. The most notorious problem with both products is as much as they protect, they slow the system down, and impact performance.

Products like Norton SystemWorks try to be an all-in-one solution. The trouble is, since it’s trying to do too many things at once, it doesn’t do any one of them very well.

There are free choices that are very effective. Tens of millions use them because they cost nothing. Once people use a product, they’re more likely to pay for the paid versions down the road if they like it. AVG and BitDefender are some free choices that also have paid versions available.

The best security software on the market today is NOD32. It was designed to be highly effective while having a limited impact on system performance. and it’s easy to use. NOD32 isn’t free, $30 for the antivirus, and $60 for the Smart Security suite.

The other highly effective choice is Kaspersky. They also have a security suite that is highly regarded. While it does have a slightly larger system footprint in terms of performance then NOD32, it’s equally as effective. Kaspersky starts at $60.

Never run more then one anti-virus or firewall program on your computer. They don’t get along, and can sometimes detect each other as threats, and crash your computer.

You may have heard of “spyware”. As you surf the net, files are downloaded to your computer that monitor your computing habits and report them to a third party.

These days you don’t really need more then one anti-spyware program, in fact the one that comes with your security software is usually good enough.

Some spyware are almost as bad as a virus. They’re constantly communicating with the internet, and some contain scripts that change system settings. Ad-Aware was one of the first products to detect and eliminate such threats.

Modern anti-virus solutions now monitor and eliminate spyware and viruses, replacing the need for a separate solution. The most effective standalone product is Spyware Terminator, which is free.

Pay attention when the computer prompts you to accept or deny a program from doing something. If your security software isn’t sure, it will ask you, and if you ok something you shouldn’t, you might as well not be secured at all.

Originally posted 2008-10-31 04:16:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter