This does not mean that you can’t prevent an infection, you can if you change your internet behavior. Your browser is key to making this possible. Your browser is the gatekeeper to your computer. You control the gatekeeper. I recommend Internet Explorer but Firefox can be OK except for some speed issues.

Do not add anything to your browser that it did not come with. This would include toolbars, search bars or any other kind of add-ons or bars. The list is almost endless to include rebate bars, coupon bars, weather and map bars, Babylon toolbar, Ask.com search bar, Alot search bar, DropBox and the infamous ‘My Web Search’ bar. Do you get the picture? Everything you add to your browser reduces its security. These add-ons will also allow your browser’s security settings to be changed for the worse. You will be infected, your browser will not function properly and or you won’t be able to connect to the internet if you forget this rule.

Your internet behavior is key to your computer’s protection. Do not click on unverified links, especially in your email and even if it seems to be from someone you know. Do no install program requests from the web. Your computer already has what it needs. These are tricks.

Your behavior is profiled. Do not print coupons unless you are at the site of the company who makes the product. Do not download drivers unless you are at your computer maker’s official web site. Do not download any product that is supposed to be the proverbial silver bullet. You will be sorry.

Windows, Java and Adobe Flash updates are fine. Security updates are fine, provided they are from your installed security programs. Know what your virus program looks like.

Some recommended safe site links:

www.bigfishgames.com   www.gamehouse.com  www.amazon.com  www.ebay.com  www.hulu.com  www.youtube.com

Remember, the domain name of the official site always starts right after the ‘www.’; there are also domains named after misspellings, stay clear of them and be careful when you type. Speed kills.

Always log out of Facebook and refrain from clicking on the right hand column.

I recommend using a computer that is not used for surfing to check your email. Make this your business machine, (not for entertainment purposes). You should also consider all embedded email links and attachments to be traps as are requests for information, verification and log-ins.

Changing your email address is the only real way to stop spam but if the computer you use is infected with malware, viruses, adware, rootkits or spyware, the spam will return. Remember that your email address is in your friends and relatives contact or address book. So if their computer is infected, your email address will be compromised.

The unsubscribe link only works for things you subscribed to. The bad guys offer these links to verify your address is good. They care not about the law.

And under no circumstance allow MyWebSearch, Ask.com or Alot to be installed into your browser. DropBox, the fire sharing program, is not secure so use at your own risk. Stay away from porn, ring-tone and screen saver sites.

Safest Internet Gaming Sites: Gaming sites, like most any other site, tend to change their MO and security from time to time but some sites tend to be more reliable than others. Up until recently, Big Fish Games and (GH) Game House seemed to be the safest. But recently I found infected Game House files on a computer. Does this portend the future? I do not know. Be safe; buy your games in CD or DVD format.

Coupon links pose threat:

Because coupon savings have become so popular they are now a targeted way for Malware and Viruses to get on your computer.

Do not click on any print coupon link in any email or from a 3rd party website. Go right to the source website and print the coupon from there. The following sites are presumed to be safe: www.coupons.com ; www.coolsavings.com; www.crestprohealth.com/coupons; www.shopathome.com; www.dealfind.com/seattle

The most important step in maintaining a relatively clean Internet surfing experience is (PIP) Personal Internet Practices. Your, not ready for prime time, usage behavior on the Internet is what causes 95% of your virus infections. I know for me, my behavior results in never getting infected from the Internet. I even pull and clean other people’s hard drives in my computer.

What can you do? You need at least three applications installed on you computer that can detect/remove/repair bad things from the Internet or your email. You need to update and run them as often as you can (at least once a week) depending on your surfing usage. This will include the main Virus program (always running in the background) located on the task bar and two other manually operated and updated applications. If you can put gas in your car, you can do this.

You will need to keep Windows, Java and Adobe Flash updated.

You need to pay attention to the green links in your browser search results. Where are you going?
You need to know that the order of listing of many of these search results is a paid for event.

You should know that the names of many websites are determined and depend on your misspelling and sloppiness.

You should know that most any website that draws your interest with the word “free” or free download is not free. It will cost you one way or another.

Stay away from porn, ring-tone, peer to peer, easy money (get rich quick) and sites that have lots of pop-ups.

You don’t need a ring-tone or a screen saver. Do not enter your email address or phone number at these sites. You will be sorry.

Do not click on anything in the right hand column of Facebook. Do not remain logged on after you leave. Revise all your security settings. If someone pretends to spam you from Facebook, change your password.

Do not panic after your computer in infected. Do not interact in any way with the Malware that is now flashing on your desktop and asking for money. Do not attempt a Windows restore or update, this will make matters worse. Do not download some fix-all application. This, in many cases, will be Malware. If you can, drag the annoying Malware to the side of the desktop, update and run whatever working protection you have and hope for the best. Most good removal applications can be run from “Safe Mode” with Networking (F8) at start up. You need networking so you can update your protection. But before you turn off your computer for Safe Mode, use the run command and type “msconfig” and from the resulting window, click the “Startup” tab and uncheck everything except your virus program, click OK.

I recommend one logon user per computer. If you insist on more than one user, you will have to individually scan each user. Keep personal information and business off your entertainment computer. If you’re an adult, get your children their own computer. If you don’t, you will again, be sorry. Children’s surfing habits have been profiled. They are easy prey for the unscrupulous.

Please note that Firewall protection works best when there are no users on the computer. As soon as you give permissions for things like your browser, media players, email etc., the Firewall is breached.

Always use a secure portal when entering the Internet. Companies with large security departments like Yahoo, Google, etc. will at least keep you from being infected from your Start Page.

Don’t believe everything you see on “Craigslist” and remember that past website behavior is no guarantee of future behavior. It’s quite common for websites to be sold or get new management. The new management usually has a new agenda and this could be to your benefit or not.

And if your computer has malware, spyware, rootkits or viruses, their simple procedures will be useless. Anyone can do a disk defrag or cleanup, these programs come with windows. Most anyone can turn off certain Windows start-up programs or run a registry cleanup program. This is not a tune-up. Some cleanup programs are Malware.

For instance, a thorough disk check (dskchk) can take well over an hour to identify and attempt to repair problems on your hard drive. A thorough memory test can take up to an hour. Since there are no silver bullets when it comes to virus removal, at least three different scans are required. This can take well over four hours to do.

And now for the hard part, repairing damage caused by viruses and malware imbedded deep in the Windows registry and system folders. This could take even longer. The very process of repairing this damage could also put Windows and your personnel files at risk

Free – I don’t think so.

The DVD+R format is more expensive and less compatible. The +R format is a marketing practice, not an indication of quality. DVD burns are done with a very low mill watt laser beam that heats the dye layer of the DVD to produce pits.

When it comes to buying blank DVD’s, cheaper is not better. Verbatim is generally considered the best but Pioneer, Sony, TDK and Maxell also make good DVD media.

If you can’t read a DVD please check to see that your DVD player reads the format the disk was recorded with. In general, if you are trying to copy a copy of a copyrighted DVD it won’t happen.

It is safe to use a permanent marker to write on DVD’s but write on the outer edge. DVD’s are written from the hub outward and the data to be able to read the DVD is stored closest to the disk hub, do not damage this area. Also, when the DVD becomes warped, the data stored at the outer edge is the hardest to read.

Store disks in a protected sleeve or case as the dye layer used to record the DVD is subject to fade from sun, UV or florescent light, also heat, solvent and adhesive from labels will cause deterioration.

The DVD is probably the safest way to archive data as its life span is between 30 – 100 years depending on how and where it is stored. Always handle a DVD by the outer edges and mark the DVD with the format (DVD-R, +R, -R/W +R/W etc) so that future generations can decipher it. It will be many moons (if ever) before Blu-Ray over takes DVD as the best way to archive data.

The next causality is the power supply. They fail because hard drives, CD drives, fans and the motherboard all use the 12V line of your power supply. If this line doesn’t have a high enough amp rating, the computer will have an unstable running environment, the hard drive and motherboard could be damaged. Always make sure the power supply 12 volt line has at least an 18 amp rating for light systems with just the back case fan, one hard drive and one or two optical drives.

Always turn off your computer when you expect not to use it any more that day. Only the monitor stays on in sleep mode. This conserves energy and doubles the life span of your PC. All-in-one computers and flat screen monitors should always be turned off.

Many of the low end power supplies sold today are built on the old design where the 5 volt line was the primary source of power, Pentium three and below. Once Pentium four was introduced, the 12 volt line became the primary source of power.

Remember, computers use DC power (direct current) not AC (alternating current). The computer power supply converts your house 115v AC to DC. If your AC is not 115v, not properly grounded or has the wrong polarity, your power supply will be damaged over time causing damage to itself your motherboard, ram or hard drive. Buy a $5.00 outlet tester or a $100.00 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to check and protect your computer from house power problems.

The third most replaced computer part is the motherboard and this is primarily caused by faulty power or failed or loose chipset fans. The chipset is a set of silicon micro devices that among other things controls communications between the processor (CPU) (another silicon device) and external devices.

Let me first say that computer companies don’t make computers. They assemble them from parts that other companies make; companies like Intel, AMD, Western Digital, Seagate, ATI, NVIDIA etc.

So it is a computer company’s choice, configuration and matching of these parts that determines whether their computer is stable, fast or long lasting. You get what you pay for but in some cases you’re paying extra for the label as with Apple or for everyone else it’s the trendy stylized enclosure. A computer will work without a case. You could build one into any piece of furniture.

The average customer relies on what TV computer ads tell them. The ads talk about the size of hard drives but not the drive’s ram cache or spin rate. They talk about CPU speed but not cache. And of course they never talk about the power supply or upgradeability issues.

Stay away from Intel Celeron or AMD Duron processors. They are gutless. They don’t have enough cache and they are cheap. A typical low-end PC has only two slots for ram. The video is onboard with no slot to upgrade and the hard drive has a one year warranty verses the three year standard. Don’t plan on adding any additional hardware to these computers, the power supply can’t take the hit for long. And don’t purposely replace your desktop PC with a laptop. Laptops were designed for what they were designed for… mobility, not speed, not power and certainly not 3D gaming.

Compared to the past, in today’s world most all computer hardware is plenty fast. So in the general sense it is not the speed – potentially, you have speed – its stability; matching the right hardware with the right operating system and applications that makes the difference. A brand new year 2000 computer ran fast but not with today’s software.

For instance, Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 require a very fast desktop PC to run fast. Installing this software onto an older PC is a bad idea. But I use Vista on my desktop with only 1 GB ram and it runs fast. The difference is that my PC was made by me with a proper video card, hard drive and CPU. A typical laptop would require twice as much ram and still not be fast enough because laptops don’t have adequate cooling. Laptops are not built for speed. Speed produces heat.

Think of a laptop as an old PC with slow hard drive, throttled down CPU and basic video. It will do what it was designed for but that might not be what you want it to do. My desktop video card alone is half the size of a Netbook.

Also remember that not all applications are created equal. You can significantly slow down your computer with the wrong programs or combination thereof.

If you have an infection and you tell someone to check out your latest uploads to MySpace or Facebook then you run the risk of infecting your friend’s computer. Your address book can also be stolen and your friends could start to get more spam. The longer you do nothing or what amounts to nothing to clean your computer the more the infection spreads. Your computer will become slow and non responsive until it doesn’t boot anymore. You can become the victim of Identity theft or key-loggers, the process of monitoring your key strokes and stealing your logon information etc.

Clean machines need to get monthly Windows updates, daily Virus, Spyware/Malware updates and need to be scanned on a regular basis. Changing surfing habits and avoiding dubious download habits will also go along way in keeping your computer safe and running fast.