Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free Anti-virus and Anti-Spyware/Malware software program that is surprisingly receiving great reviews. Surprising because it comes from Microsoft, but if you think about it, who knows more about viruses and spyware infections more than Microsoft itself? The program not only monitors your computer but can also perform scans to remove viruses or spyware.

I've been trying it out for the past couple of months and its been pretty quiet. What I mean is that, I dont notice it even though its always running in the background. Many other virus programs may bother you or bog down your system's performance. Sometimes, I dont even know if its even working, but I guess thats a good thing. Not to brag or anything ;), but I take so many preventive measures on my computer that I rarely ever get any viruses or spyware. So for me, a virus/spyware monitoring program is my last line of defense whereas for most people, it is the first line of defense.

Bottom Line

There are 2 things I look at in an antivirus/antispyware program. Number 1 - It doesnt bother me. Number 2 - It has to work. Microsoft Security Essentials seems to cover both quite nicely.

Put Your Computer to Sleep

Do you leave your desktop computer ON all day and night? Or do you shutdown your computer everytime you are finished using it?

You should consider using Windows "standby" (sleep) mode instead. Here are some advantages:

1. Save Electricity - Why waste all that energy when you arent using your computer? When you use standby mode, it barely uses any electricity whatsoever.
   
   
2. Safer - When you leave your computer ON all day, that means your computer is online all the time. Therefore, your computer can be susceptible to malware or virus attacks. Whereas when your computer is on standby, your computer is essentially sleeping and not accessible or seen from the outside.
   
   
3. Faster bootup - If you shutdown your computer, you'll have to wait at least a minute or two for your computer to boot up. Whereas it only takes seconds when booting up from standby.
   


4. Easy - You can have your computer go on standby mode automatically after a certain period of time of it being idle, so you dont have to do anything. When you are done using the computer, just leave. To wake up your computer from standby mode, you just need to move the mouse or press a key on the keyboard. No need to bend down and reach for the power button all the time. To enable this option go to Control Panel --> Power Options.

If your computer doesnt seem to go to standby mode automatically, there is probably something running on your computer that is preventing it to do so. Its difficult to know what it is, but you can try closing all of your browsers and any other open applications. If that still doesnt work, then you might have some programs running in the background in which you'll need to disable or uninstall. You can also try a nifty program called "Close All Windows". With one click it will close all of your open programs. It will be the same as if you clicked the close button (x) on the top right corner of all open programs. But dont worry, if you have an open program that has unsaved work (ie. MS Word), it will still prompt you to save your work. In otherwords, it will not perform a "force quit" of your programs.

Bottom Line
Make sure that if you do use Standby (or Hibernate), remember to always save your work! Never leave unsaved documents or projects open no matter what. Other than that, using Standby should be a no-brainer.

How to maintain your computer

Like a car, your computer needs routine maintenance. I highly recommend performing the following 3 steps on a quarterly basis. Not only will this increase the longevity of your computer but will also make your computer healthier and faster.

1. Ccleaner - Clean up temporary and unecessary files.

2. Quick startup - Clean out unwanted applications that automatically start when you startup your computer.

3. Auslogics Disk Defrag - Reorganize and optimize your hard drive. If you are too lazy to install this program, you can use the Windows default Disk Defragmenter. Start-->Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools

You can also find these programs in the Free Downloads section on my site located on the right hand side.

Free emoticons for your iPhone

Follow the instructions below to start using cool emoticons when you text message on your iPhone. These emoticons will only appear when you text from iPhone to iPhone. [Source]

OpenDNS

Do you want a boost in your Internet speed? Do you want a safer way to surf the Internet? Read on...

Each ISP (ie. AT&T DSL, Comcast High Speed Internet) has its own set of DNS servers. The DNS server will contain a huge list domain names and their corresponding IP addresses. The IP address specifies the exact location of the website's server. A DNS server is like the yellow pages phone book which contains the names and addresses of local businesses. When you type in a URL (ie. google.com), that request is first handled by the DNS server. The DNS server will perform a look up for that domain name and send your browser the ip address. All of this happens in a fraction of a second.

Unfortunately, each ISP maintains their own DNS server for their users. Therefore, if it goes down or gets corrupted or is slow, the user will be directly affected. So thats where OpenDNS comes into play. OpenDNS is a central DNS server system that is reliable, fast, and safe. What exactly does that mean for the end user?

• Reliable - its highly available and more stable than the ISP DNS servers.
  
  
• Fast - You are more likely to receive a faster response from OpenDNS, therefore, you will get to the website you want to go faster.
  
  
• Safe - They have a large database of bad or malicious sites. Therefore, they will help to filter those sites in order to protect you. For example, if you accidently made a typo in the URL (ie. gooogle.com) it will catch it and warn you before allowing you to enter that website. This is a good thing as there are many bad people out there who register mispelled domain names on purpose in order to attract many visitors or potential victims by bombarding them with ads or spyware.

For those of you who are using routers, the instructions are simple. Just login to your router and look for DNS settings. Instead of "Get Automatically from ISP", specify the Primary DNS and Secondary DNS with the following IP addresses:

Primary - 208.67.222.222
Secondary - 208.67.220.220

That's it, you're done. I told you it was easy. For more specific instructions, visit the OpenDNS website.

Bottom Line

OpenDNS is easy to use and will make your surfing faster and safer.

Spyware: Hijacked Search Results

I had to battle it out again with yet another spyware infected laptop (my friend's laptop, not mine). This nasty spyware targeted a user's search results. Not just Google but any search engine results. It seemed to only affect IE browsers.

This spyware was a real sneaky one. Basically if you performed a web search (ie google, yahoo) you would be presented with a valid list of search results. But if you click on any of the search results, you would be redirected to a bad site. Naughty, I know. At first, I thought that someone had hacked into the router and changed the DNS settings that wasnt the case.

I was able to fix the issue using HijackThis. So now that makes it...Roger 8 Spyware 0.

Comcast High Speed Internet is FAST

Today, I upgraded my internet to Comcast High Speed Internet which gets up to 12mbps as opposed to my previous AT&T DSL which gets up to 3mbs. I definitely feel the speed difference and its going to be difficult going back to DSL. Entire web site pages load between 1-2 seconds.

Every year for the past 7 years, I've called AT&T DSL to give me a promotion and I was able to successfully to get an average price of $15-20 per month. But for the first time, I wasnt able to get a decent promotion this time around. So I ran across a comcast deal for new customers only and took advantage of it. Im getting it for $19.99/month for 12 months. By "new customers", I guess they are referring to new high speed internet customers because Im an existing cable customer and there were no questions asked. Just called the 1 800 comcast number and since I was an existing cable customer, it took 5 minutes.

One of the major differences between Comcast and AT&T is that they use different types of modems:

AT&T --> DSL modem --> Phone line

Comcast --> cable modem --> cable (coaxial) line

So the setup is much easier for DSL because phone lines are much more abundant around the house as opposed to cable lines. Also, AT&T gives you the DSL modem for free, while Comcast charges you a rental fee of $3 per month. That is why I bought my cable modem on ebay for $30.

I chose to get the Comcast self installation kit since they would charge me $25 for a person to come install it for me. The kit contained an install cd, ethernet cable, and coaxial cable. I mainly got the kit because of the 20ft coaxial cable that I needed because my current cable line was across the room. It usually comes with a cable modem as well, but I purchased that elsewhere. The installation went pretty smooth, but since I was using a router, I ran into a small issue in which I to call Comcast tech support. Surprisingly, they were very knowledgeable and not from India (no offense). In any case, all I had to do was power cycle (unplug router for 10 seconds) my router to recognize the new internet connection.

When I tried cancelling my AT&T DSL, the person warned me that if I cancelled, I would lose my DSL email account. And I said, "Oh know! Please dont take away my coveted sbcglobal.net email account". Just kidding. Its funny because I remember this same tactic that AOL used to try to keep their customers from leaving. But this tactic actually worked back in the day because as an AOL subscriber you get an AOL email account. And that was one of the only ways of getting an email account. Remember, that the Internet was just a baby and free web mail providers like gmail and yahoo did not exist yet. You could get an email account only from your ISP.

The bottom line

1. Comcast High Speed Internet is blazing fast but much more pricey.

2. Purchase a cable modem from ebay or craigslist instead of renting it from comcast.

3. Save $25 by installing it yourself. If you need help, just call comcast support.

Wireless printing

Interested in getting one of those wireless printers so that you can print wirelessly? Why bother when you can do exactly that right now? Assuming of course you have a desktop computer, a laptop and a wireless router. For those of you who have set up wireless file sharing with the instructions from my previous post, then you should have no problems at all, although it is not a requirement.

1. On your desktop PC, go to Start--> Settings--> Printers.



2. Right click on your printer and select Sharing.



3. Click the "Share this Printer" radio button.



4. Enter a share name. ie. epsoncx8400



5. On your laptop with wifi, go to Start-->Settings-->Printer and double click on Add a printer.



6. You can either search for the printer on the network or you can just "Connect to this printer" by specifying the printer share name ie. \\yourdesktopname\epsoncx8400
   Replace "yourdesktopname" with your desktop's computer name. If you dont know what that is, right click on "My Computer" icon and select properties. Click here for some helpful screenshots.

Thats it. When you print from your laptop make sure you choose to print from this shared printer or set it as the default printer. Lastly, the only caveat with this solution is that you must have your desktop machine powered on when you print from your laptop.

iPhone Tivo Remote

I just downloaded the "DVR Remote" iPhone app. Basically it allows me to use my iPhone as a remote to control my Tivo via wifi. Im not exactly sure when Im going to use it, but it tickled me when it actually worked. The lite version of the app is free, but the Pause, Replay and Skip buttons are removed, otherwise the full version is $3. I can see it being very useful when you do searches, because its much easier to type on a keyboard rather than having to select each letter at a time.

Carbonite Remote Access

Finally, the one feature that I've been waiting for that was lacking in my online back up provider. Carbonite now has the feature to access ALL of my backed up files online! Now I can grab any of my computer files anytime remotely when I need it.