Discount Computers

For as long as you can remember the basic Internet browser was
Internet Explorer. Of course, there was a moment in time when
Netscape was trying to get that market share, but Internet
Explorer won out and there are many people that don’t realize
Internet Explorer is only their browser and they can change if
they like. In fact, most folks believe Internet Explorer is the
only option for reaching the Internet. However, this is not the
case and there is a new kid on the block that is taking
advantage of the security issues Internet Explorer has
experienced and pulling a significant amount of market share in
a short period of time. This newcomer web browser is Firefox.

Firefox is a browser that focuses on opening web sites rapidly
while keeping those nasty pop-ups and spyware at bay. Firefox
was in its final stages last summer and fortunately for the up
and coming browser two federal agencies recommended Internet
surfers choose a different browser than Internet Explorer due to
security issues IE was facing. This timing was perfect for
Firefox and when it was placed on the web for download there
were so many people trying to download at once the server almost
could not handle all of the requests.

However, Firefox came through and many web surfers switched from
Internet Explorer. In fact, Internet Explorer held the market
share for web browsers at 95.5%, but has slipped to 92.9% in
just the few months Firefox has had its test version on the
market. This might seem like just a few percentage points, but
these percentage points represent millions of individuals who
have switched from IE to Firefox. In fact, approximately 23
million preview copies of Firefox have been downloaded.

So, what does this mean for IE and Firefox? Who will win this
browser war? If Firefox continues gaining market share as it has
then Firefox might come out on top. However, if IE works to fix
its security problems it can probably hold onto its 90% plus
market share. Only the future has the answer, we will just have
to wait and see.

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Spyware and adware is advertising supported software that allows
its publishers to snoop on a computer user’s internet activity.

It is designed to obtain information about computer users and
their surfing behavior usually without their knowledge or
consent. Spyware is potentially more harmful than Adware because
it can record your keystrokes, history, passwords, credit card
number and other confidential and private information. Besides
spyware and adware, computers can also be infected with my other
internet parasites such as Winfixer 2005, viruses, trojans,
dialers, etc.

Spyware and adware are installed quite easily on most computers.
Many spyware programs often enter computers hidden in programs
such as freeware, shareware or demos. Some programs like
Winfixer 2005 will often load on boot up, take up your computer
memory, cause a computer to display system errors, spawn
multiple pop-up windows and even shut down itself.

Why is it important to detect and remove spyware, adware and
other internet parasites?

- Loss of privacy

- Reduced and slow PC performance

- Annoying pop-ups that do not go away.

- A computer’s homepage can be changed.

- In severe cases, a person’s sensitive and confidential
information can be recorded and then subsequently
misused…exposing that person to identity theft, unauthorized
use of their bank account or credit card and many other
problems.

How to protect against spyware:

- Download and install a spyware remover. Every week you should
check for updates to install for the scanner. This will help
protect you against the latest threats.

- Use a firewall and an Anti-virus program. Many people have a
direct connection the Internet and do not setup and run a
firewall. This can potentially be very dangerous. Firewalls
should be running to protect against many potential problems
including hackers and spyware.

- Be careful about installing freeware software and downloading
music online. Some spyware programs display messages asking for
your permission to install the application. Read their
agreements carefully as well.

- Be careful as to what sites you visit…sometimes spyware and
adware can be installed on a computer simply by visiting a
website.

- Use The Mozilla Firefox browser as it is less vulnerable to
spyware and adware than Internet Explorer.

About the author:
Edward is the owner of http://www.theadwareremover.com where you
can download the highest rated spyware remover for 2004. This
superior anti-spyware and adware software has been downloaded
over 35 million times by people in over 100 countries. It really
works!

The Artificial Intelligence community sought to understand human
intelligence by building computer programs, which exhibited
intelligent behavior. Intelligence was perceived to be a problem
solving ability. Most human problems appeared to have reasoned,
rather than mathematical, solutions. The diagnosis of a disease
could hardly be calculated. If a patient had a group of
symptoms, then she had a particular disease. But, such reasoning
required prior knowledge. The programs needed to have the
“knowledge” that the disease exhibited a particular group of
symptoms. For the AI community, that vague knowledge residing in
the minds of “Experts” was superior to text book knowledge. So
they called the programs, which solved such problems, Expert
Systems.

Expert Systems managed goal oriented problem solving tasks
including diagnosis, planning, scheduling, configuration and
design. One method of knowledge representation was through “If,
then…” rules. When the “If” part of a rule was satisfied, then
the “Then” part of the rule was concluded. These became rule
based Expert Systems. But knowledge was sometimes factual and at
other times, vague. Factual knowledge had clear cause to effect
relationships, where clear conclusions could be drawn from
concrete rules. Pain was one symptom of a disease. If the
disease always exhibited pain, then pain pointed to the disease.
But vague and judgmental knowledge was called heuristic
knowledge. It was more of an art. The pain symptom could not
mechanically point to diseases, which occasionally exhibited
pain. Uncertainty did not yield concrete answers.

The AI community tried to solve this problem by suggesting a
statistical, or heuristic analysis of uncertainty. The
possibilities were represented by real numbers or by sets of
real-valued vectors. The vectors were evaluated by means of
different “fuzzy” concepts. The components of the measurements
were listed, giving the basis of the numerical values.
Variations were combined, using methods for computing
combination of variances. The combined uncertainty and its
components were expressed in the form of “standard deviations.”
Uncertainty was given a mathematical expression, which was
hardly useful in the diagnosis of a disease.

The human mind did not compute mathematical relationships to
assess uncertainty. The mind knew that a particular symptom
pointed to a possibility, because it used intuition, a process
of elimination, to instantly identify patterns. Vague
information was powerfully useful to an elimination process,
since they eliminated many other possibilities. If the patient
lacked pain, all diseases, which always exhibited pain, could be
eliminated. Diseases, which sometimes exhibited pain were
retained. Further symptoms helped identification from a greatly
reduced database. A selection was easier from a smaller group.
Uncertainty could be powerfully useful for an elimination
process.

Intuition was an algorithm, which evaluated the whole database,
eliminating every context that did not fit. This algorithm has
powered Expert Systems which acted speedily to recognize a
disease, identify a case law or diagnose the problems of a
complex machine. It was instant, holistic, and logical. If
several parallel answers could be presented, as in the multiple
parameters of a power plant, recognition was instant. For the
mind, where millions of parameters were simultaneously
presented, real time pattern recognition was practical. And
elimination was the key, which could conclusively handle
uncertainty, without resort to abstruse calculations.

About the author:
Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book,
which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition
algorithm. The ebook version is available at
www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India.
The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain
the ideas.