Computer's and the Internet

Some Common Sense stuff to be safe online that you can do with your computer if you're on the internet either with a broadband or just a dialup connection. Also some valuable info on the Internet. First and foremost, if you have a computer I suggest you download this security cd software Here It is about 849k in size. Just unzip it, burn it to a cd and it will run automatically when you insert it any modern pc. It will guide you in protecting your computer from the wilds of the internet.

• If you use Windows XP,98se, or any of the microsoft operating systems on your computer make sure they are updated with the latest updates from microsoft. IE has a link to windows update built in via the Tools menu.or just go Here
• If you have kids and Windows XP, create a user account for them so that your files are protected. Even if you don't have kids, creating a limited access user account is an excellent way to keep your computer from running into problems on the Internet. A limited access user account allows you to use everything, but change nothing especially your files. Go to Your Control Paneland User Accounts to create one.
  
• Get a Firewall. There are hardware firewall's usually build into router's if you use a broadband connection. This is the best way to go. Or use NAT which effectively hides the IP address of your computer(Every Computer connected to the Internet has an IP Address.Click here to learn what an ip address is and just uses the router's ip address. Software Firewalls are good for dialup connections. Sygate Personal Firewall is an excellent one and free. Zonealarm is also very good. Windows XP has a built in firewall, but I wouldn't recommend you depend on it for total security because as I understand it, the XP firewall only blocks incoming attacks. If you have a trojan on your system this will not help. A trojan is a program that sends out information via your internet connection and you acquire one by either downloading a software program with it included or from an email attachment.
  Sygate Personal Firewall
  Zonealarm
  Windows XP Firewall
  How hackers get into a computer is by scanning what are called ports on your computer with a program on theirs. A port is what various programs on your computer use to communicate with the internet. Hackers create programs called trojans that they either send you via email in attachments or encode in sofware that they get you to download. Trojans open your ports up to the hackers so they can get into your computer,read files and at worse delete some of your files without your even knowing it. Also, a good all around informational site about Firewalls is FirewallGuide.com


• Do NOT open Attachments. This is Very important because even if you have a firewall, if you open an attachment with a trojan inside of it, it will open your ports to hackers even thru the firewall if you allow it when it asks if a unknown program can access the network. If you do receive attachment's regularly, I would suggest you either find another way to receive the files or have whoever is sending you the attachment call you on the phone ahead of time to tell you it's coming.Why? Because some Worms replicate by accessing a person's address book and making it look like the attachment came from your friend when it really isn't


• Get a good Antivirus program. There are free ones available. AVG from Grisoft is an excellent one. There are others and you can find them via Google the best search engine there is
  Grisoft.Get AVG here


• Virus Hoaxes. People like to create email hoaxes about virii and send them to everyone. They get passed around the "rumormill" and soon everybody believes them. Be informed about these and learn to recognize them so you don't lose your mind over some mythical, all powerful virii. Hate to admit it but when i was first starting to use computers, I got one of these and believed it. Below are some website's that will teach you about such hoaxes-
  Vmyths.com
  Virus Hoaxes and Netlore
  The Urban Legends Reference Pages
  Truth or Fiction
  US Department of Energy CIAC
  Symantec Security Response Hoax page
  
• System Restore. Very useful if you have windows xp. If you install a piece of software and your computer won't reboot after installing it, you can use system restore to go back to before you installed the software. Below is how to do this-
  How to Start System Restore from the Command Line
  
  Sometimes when you install a program or driver(a driver is simply a program that lets your OS recognize a piece of hardware like your dvd drive and operate it), it might render XP unbootable. If your computer won't boot into the operating system normally, you might be able to boot into Safe Mode and use System Restore to go back to a previous restore point to fix the problem. But what if you can't even boot into safe mode? Then you need to start the System Restore tool from the command line. Here's how:
  
  
  1. When booting your computer, press F8 to bring up a boot menu
  2. Select Safe Mode with Command Prompt
  3. Select the operating system to start (if you have multiple operating systems installed)
  4. Log on with an account that is a member of the administrators group
  5. At the command prompt, type %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
  6. Press Enter
  7. This will start the "Welcome to System Restore" screen. Go through the steps of the Wizard and follow the instructions to restore your system to a previous restore point
  
  
• You probably use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express as your Web Browser and Email program. These are very insecure and hackers know tricks that will allow them to take over your computer just by sending you to a link in an email or in a chat room. Mozilla is a much better(IMHO) and secure browser and email program. And it is free as well.
Mozilla
Opera is a browser that is also excellent, however it includes ads or you can pay for a ad free version for about 40 bucks.

• Spyware. This is software that includes software that gathers information about where you go on the internet, what you buy, what you do, just about everything you do on your computer. Software that is "Free" likes to use this to receive revenues from advertisers for this information instead of depending on you, the user to purchase the software. To keep your computer free of spyware, I recommend getting a spyware cleaner like adaware or spybot search and destroy. I use both because sometimes one program doesn't catch what the other may.
Adaware
Spybot

• Downloading. Get a download manager if you are on a broadband connection. A download manager is software that will enable you to open more connections to one server(a server is the computer that you would download from) thus making your download faster. On a dialup connection though, this really doesn't make it much faster. It is useful though if you want to keep track of what you download. Most download manager's keep a list of what you download and what folder you download it to.FreshDownload is an excellent free download manager.
FreshDownload

• Music. The MP3 File format has revolutionized the way people get music over the internet these days. The file format enables anyone with a computer to copy music from a cd and shrink it down to about 5mb per song. This makes it very easy to share the file over the Internet. But it has also angered the RIAA because people share these music files over the internet for free over P2P(Peer 2 Peer) networks like Kazaa,Winmx and emule. Accordingly the RIAA has begun filing lawsuits against people that share music online.This is technically stealing and I understand where they are coming from. I used to do it, but don't anymore. There are pay services now where you can pay to download music. Napster is the best of these(IMHO).
Napster
Napster pretty much started it all. Then they got shutdown. But now they're back as a pay service.
ITunes Apple's Music Service. They use their own AAC format instead of mp3. So you need an Ipod to play the music files outside of your computer.
Walmart This service is the cheapest but it is "beta" right now. Beta is just another word for a testing phase-it is used with software as well.
Buy.com Good service but not all the tracks cost the same.

• Email. Everyone uses it. But most do not know exactly how it works and how insecure it is. You type in the address of your friend in an email program like outlook express or eudora. The email is sent to your friend through dozens if not hundreds of other servers(computers) before it reaches your friends computer. Some of these servers store a copy of your email on their hard drives. Anyone with access to these servers including a hacker can read it. So don't send any confidential information like your credit card number or social security number via an email! There is software that will enable you to make sure no one but the intended recipient reads it however. It's called PGP or pretty good privacy. And there is Hushmail, but that is a pay for service website.

PGP
HushMail

• Problems. Computer's are not always perfect. If you have a problem with your computer one of the best places(even before you call tech support and get put on hold :) to find an answer is via the Usenet newsgroups. Newsgroups are like email lists(like yahoo groups) or a big collection of message boards. They were the first real way of communicating over the Internet and archive's were kept of all the message's posted to them. These are accessible via Google. You can search them for answers to your computer problems, health problems or any kind of information you can think of.
Google Groups Search

• Usernames and Passwords. Alot of Websites require these to make sure you are who you are. Especially banking websites. Do NOT make your password a word from the dictionary. Hacker's use dictionary "attacks" to find your password. A good password will contain letters,numbers and even alt characters. Alt characters are a hidden "secret" of your keyboard. Just hold down the alt key and then use your keypad to punch in a series of 4 numbers like 0191. This will give you this character- � an upside down question mark. All the characters on your keyboard are represented with this number system-from 0001 to 0255.It's also a good idea to make sure your password is at least eight character's long. You will have alot of usernames on passwords on the net, so it might be a good idea to use a program that will store all of these for you. There is AI Roboform, which you have to pay for after 30 days-Click Here and Keepass, which is completely free-Click Here both are programs that store your usernames and password in an encrypted file.


• Secure Websites. Make sure when you are shopping online or doing banking online that you are doing so via a secure website. A secure website is usually one that starts with https:// and not http://. A secure website uses SSL or Secure Socket Layer technology to encrypt the transmission (like your credit card information)you send over the internet to the server of the company you are doing business with. The browser you use usually has an indicator as to whether the site you are on is secure or not. IE has a lock in the lower right hand corner for that.


• Encryption. What is it? Well it is a very sophisticated code system in simple terms. But if you want a more detailed explaination just Click here


• Cookies. These are little text files that a browser uses to store information about your visit to a website. Again a more detailed explaination is Here Internet Explorer has a feature for deleting these cookies, but you may not want to delete all of them. Why? Because some of them store your username and passwords for some websites that you visit, like amazon.com or ebay.com. So, I recommend Mozilla. It has a cookie manager that lets you delete certain cookies and give you better control over what cookies can be stored on your machine.
  There are also index.dat files on your hard drive that stores information about where you go online. To View what information is kept in them, Click here for a piece of software that will show you.


• Free Software. A lot of free software is available on the web including Operating Systems. No Windows XP is not the only Operating System in the world. Linux is an operating system that got its start in '91 and is now programmed by millions of programmers around the world. Some software sites are-
  Download.com tons of software here including shareware,freeware and commercial programs
  Tucows Lots of software of various genres
  Sofotex Freeware and more
  LinuxIso.org This site has Linux "distributions" available. Distributions are various forms of the Linux Operating System. All are free and have a high learning curve so you should be ready to tinker alot to learn how to use them.
  WebAttack Software and more software
  SourceForge this is mainly a site where software is "developed" by groups of developers(programmers). It also has alot of software available for downloading.


• HTML,XML,javascript,java,activex,flash,css,php,asp,mysql. All of these are various programming languages used by websites to bring you the pages that you see.html is the easiest to learn since it mostly uses common words and simple tags-<> to define something.xml is similar to html but it lets you define what the tags are to be.Javascript is sort of the programming language for a website, you see it lets you program in certain functions that you want like setting a cookie on the visitor's computer, having the website change color automatically or redirecting the visitor to another website or page automatically. Java is another programming language that lets you create "applets" or miniature programs that will run on any computer with a web browser regardless of the operating system it is being run on. Or for that matter just a java console will run it. Activex is Microsoft's answer to Java. Similar but so far only IE supports it. Flash is sort of like java but it is used more for animations and short movies. Css is short for Cascading Style Sheets and they enable you to create one .css file with certain guidelines as to how all of the webpages on your website will look(e.g. the color of text,links,background etc). Php,Asp and mysql are all languages that are database related. Whenever you see a list or a search engine on a website one of these languages are probably being used.


• Protocols. These are the various forms of communication that your computer uses to send and receive data over the internet in various forms. Http is the protocol that your web browser uses to get webpages and sometimes dowload software.Ftp is short for File Transfer protocol and this is used to download software,music,video, etc. Telnet is for directly communicating with computers over the internet. It allows you to run programs on the machine as if you were there via a command line interface(command line is available via the run menu in xp, just type cmd and you'll see it), but not in windows. Hacker's use telnet alot. Gopher is similar to http but it was used in the early days of the internet to present menu's of information like a webpage but without a webbrowser. Archie is also an older protocol for finding files on the internet on anonymous FTP servers. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is used for email primarily.

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