Discount Computers

Hackers

Spyware/adware is a new major concern for PC users everywhere.
Infecting your computer silently (usually installed with
programs that seem harmless), spyware and adware can collect
personal information about you, as well as cause pop up ads to
come up all of the time, changing your browsers home page,
sometimes even completely disabling your computer\’s usability.

This article will show you how to protect yourself against
harmful spyware / adware, as well as how to remove current
infections, and how to protect yourself from viruses, hackers
and other general “malware”.

The first thing you can do, if you\’re an Internet Explorer user,
is consider making a switch to the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
Firefox can do everything that Internet Explorer can do, and
much, much more. Plus it is almost completely spyware “proof”,
and is much more stable and secure than Internet Explorer. You
can go to getfirefox.com for more information.

Next, you\’ll want to keep your computer up-to-date. To do so,
you\’ll want to download all available updates from
windowsupdate.microsoft.com (if you use Firefox, you will need
to fire up IE to do this since Microsoft doesn\’t like people to
use other browsers, so they have “banned” Firefox from accessing
Windows updates).

Now that you\’ve got a secure browser and have Windows up to
date, it\’s time to talk about the anti-spyware software. The
following is a list of the top three players in the free
anti-spyware software game:

Spybot Search & Destroy Download from: safer-networking.org If
you\’re only going to download one program, get this. Spybot is
known as the king of spyware removal – and is completely free,
ran buy a guy who volunteers his free time to keeping Spybot up
to date.

Lavasoft\’s Ad-Aware Download from: lavasoftusa.com Ad-Aware is
technically a for-profit program, but they have a freeware
version of their paid software, which is just as good, in my
opinion. It picks up a few things that Spybot misses, so it\’s
good to run both.

Microsoft\’s Newly Released Anti-Spyware Downlaod from:
microsoft.com Not a must-have if you have the above two
programs, but it actually is a pretty good program, especially
considering it\’s a Microsoft product. Might as well have it
around to pick up anything the other two might have missed.

Take all of the programs that you have chosen to use, download,
and install them. Then, one at a time, update each program, run
them, and remove anything that they found. This should
effectively remove any active spyware or adware on your system.

Now that you have spyware removed, you\’ll need hacker and virus
protection. To keep hackers out, you will need to install a
solid firewall. You can either use the old built in with Windows
XP, or download a third-party one.

To activate Windows XP\’s built in firewall, follow these easy
steps: Click the Start button, and open up the Control Panel.
Open “Network Connections” (or “Network and Internet
Connections”, then “Network Connections” if you\’re using the
category view). If you\’re using broadband, or another form of
connection through a LAN, right click on Local Area Connection
(or the appropriate network connection), and select Properties.
Click on the advanced tab, and click on Settings. Select “On”,
and don\’t select “Don\’t allow exceptions”. Click OK on all
windows to close.

If you would like to download a third-party firewall, Kerio
Technologies has a great personal firewall that you can use. It
can be found at kerio.com/kpf_home.html.

Grisoft offers a great freeware antivirus program called AVG
Free. It is a great alternative to the common commercial
antivirus software designed to milk you for more cash with their
“update subscription” fees. Updates to AVG are 100% free,
forever. AVG can be downloaded from grisoft.com.

To keep your system completely secure, be sure to scan for
viruses, spyware and check for Windows updates every week or so.
By taking these simple steps, your computer is now many times
more secure and less likely to leak out personal information or
get a malware infection.

About the author:
Ryan Bauer is a computer geek who writes tutorials for his computer optimization
website and runs a computer
optimization and support forum.

Getting started with video editing is very simple you only need
a few items and you can be producing quality movies at home that
you will be able to enjoy for many years to come. Maybe even
produce a hit Hollywood movie.

The basic items you need are a video capture card, the software
to edit, your computer, storage space on your computer and a
camcorder, VCR, or you can display your movie on your computer
screen.

The process is effortless, all you do is capture the video to
you computer using a capture card, then edit your video with
video editing software and then download the video that you
edited to either tape or burn it to a VCD, CD, or DVD.

Let’s look at your computer first. You will need a minimum of a
Pentium II 300 or faster, a minimum of 256 Megs of RAM, but you
will get better performance with 512 Megs. You will also desire
to have a 30GB drive that is split into 2 separate partitions.
This means that you will have a C: and a D:. The C: should be
given 10GB and will have all of your software stored there and
the D: will be where your audio, video and editing projects are
stored. Your graphics card should be a 32 Meg AGP. You can have
an 8 or 16 Meg but the quality will not be as good.

Storage is probably the most confusing thing about video
editing. Video makers have many choices for storing their
digital video files and this is why it can be so confusing.

If you desire creating your own DVD’s then you are going to need
lot of storage. The most you can get out of a single sided 4.7
GB DVD is around 2 hours of video. If you are using DV footage
you are going to need 13GB per hour of video, this means you
will need 26GB of storage and remember you always have extra
footage that you need to factor that in as well so you are now
up to 39GB of storage space needed. If you are adding other
options such as graphics, MPEG2 footage for the DVD and the
folder to hold it all then you are now up to 50GB. So, for your
2 hour movie you will need 50GB of space at least.

So, when you begin be sure that you have enough storage on your
computer for the type of video that you wish to store.

On to the video capture card and the video editing software.
When you first visit the electronics store you will find many
manufacturers that create video capture cards. The most popular
include some of the reputable video capture card manufacturers
are: Pinnacle, Matrox, Dazzle, ADS, Canopus, and Digital Origin.

What video capture cards do to put it in simple terms is that
these cards use hardware or software compression to digitize
your video onto the hard drive on your computer. This way you
can edit your video and play it back onto tape or display your
movie on your computer screen.

Some times, you can purchase the video capture cards along with
the video editing software that you choose. Some of the most
popular video capture cards that are packaged with video
software include the Pinnacle Pro One which comes with the Adobe
Premiere 6 full version, TitleDeko RT, DV Tools 2.0, Hollywood
FX, and Impressions DVD. The Dazzle DV NOW AV can be purchased
along with the Premiere 6 full version and the DVDit LE.

Having music along with your video can also be accomplished with
a MP3 Converter that will allow you to convert your MP3 music
into a wav file or the format in which you need for your video.
You may also wish to purchase a MP3 Encoder
which will allow you to Wav or other formats into a MP3. A CD
ripper is another item that you may wish to purchase that
will help with converting your CD’s to MP3, WAV, WMA type files.

One other software program that will make you life easier when
you begin video editing is a MPEG Encoder which is a very easy
to use program that will make converting several formats easy
than you can imagine. Many of these MPEG converters will aid in
converting DVD, VCD, AVI, MPEG, GIF, Flash, WMV, WMA, WAV, MP3,
MP4, M4A, OGG, AAC, 3GP and even more/

So, now all you need to do is to find the best video editing
software that you feel comfortable with and off you go. You can
find several different video editing software companies that
offer their software on a trial basis, this will let you try out
the software so you can see if it is the perfect software for
you. But, remember with the trial version you will be receiving
the video capture card. You will have to purchase it separately.

Copyright @2005, 4th Media Corporation

You have permission to publish this article electronically free
of charge, as long as the bylines and links in the body of the
article and the bylines are included.

About the author:
Natalie Aranda is a freelance writer. She\’s been experimenting
Web design
with audio & video editing on a ecommerce website.

Hard Disk Wiping and the Secure Removal of Data It is important
for businesses to recycle their computers, but have you thought
about what happens to the data on your computer when it is
collected?

How sensitive is the data stored on your hard disk? If you are
donating equipment to a recycler, you need to ensure that their
data removal procedures operate to a high standard.

A recycler needs to honour the requirements of the Data
Protection Act 1998, in summary:

To treat all data obtained from a donation as confidential To
use appropriate methods to securely destroy all data Notify the
donor as soon as possible if any unauthorised use or disclosure
of the data is made

How Do You Securely Remove Data? If a hard disk is formatted,
this is not a secure way to wipe data! This method has inherent
limitations, as only the file allocation tables and the pointers
to the data (that render the data inaccessible) are destroyed.
The data on the remainder of the drive is not destroyed, and the
inaccessible data is easily retrievable. There are many free
programs available on the internet to recover data from a
formatted drive.

Best Practice: A Recycler should use a piece of software which
will:

run from a bootable floppy report the actual hard disk capacity
(the same reading as the BIOS and label on the HD) overwrite a
single character pattern to the entire HD produce a report that
all areas have been overwritten report any bad or unusable
sectors that cannot be overwritten verify successful erasure The
key point here is that the hard disk is actually overwritten
with new data – ie. 10101010 This ensures that your old data
cannot be retrieved.

The Security Levels: In order for a disk to be wiped to High
Security Standards, such as Military Of Defense standard, the
hard disk is overwritten several times, for instance:

Perform 3 overwrite cycles to all areas (where each cycle will
be a single pattern, followed by its complement), and a final
overwrite with a random character pattern (ie. A total of 7
overwrites) – verification of successful erasure should then be
carried out for all Hard Disks.

How Do You Erase Data From A Hard Disk That No Longer Works? The
simplest way to ensure this is to destroy the Hard Disk.
Recyclers have many different methods for this, but an example
is to drill a hole through the disk, just off centre.

Summary Before you allow your computer equipment to be
collected, ensure you check the recyclers’ procedures for the
secure removal of data from your hard disks. Most recyclers will
also provide some form of report after the collection to
guarantee the data from your hard disks was securely removed.

About the author:
Lee Sykes operates the online WEEE Recycling Directory (Waste
Electrical & Electronic Equipment)

A free service where you can search for Computer Recycling in
your area, post a tender and request a Collection of Computer
Equipment, as well as provide businesses information regarding
how to comply with the WEEE Directive.

http://www.weeedirectory.com