Thursday, December 27, 2012

ALLAN POK: US Parents defend right to keep guns in the home(A...

ALLAN POK: US Parents defend right to keep guns in the home(A...:   Emanuella Grinberg , CNN Robin says her father taught her and her daughter, pictured shooting, how to use guns safely. ...

Monday, December 24, 2012

MY FAVORITE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS YOU MUST KNOW


Getting used to using your keyboard exclusively 
and leaving your mouse behind will make you much
 more efficient at performing any task on any 
Windows system. I use the following keyboard
 shortcuts every day:

Windows key + R = Run menu

This is usually followed by:
cmd = Command Prompt
iexplore + "web address" = Internet Explorer
compmgmt.msc = Computer Management
dhcpmgmt.msc = DHCP Management
dnsmgmt.msc = DNS Management
services.msc = Services
eventvwr = Event Viewer
dsa.msc = Active Directory Users and Computers
dssite.msc = Active Directory Sites and Services
Windows key + E = Explorer

ALT + Tab = Switch between windows

ALT, Space, X = Maximize window

CTRL + Shift + Esc = Task Manager

Windows key + Break = System properties

Windows key + F = Search

Windows key + D = Hide/Display all windows

CTRL + C = copy

CTRL + X = cut

CTRL + V = paste

Also don't forget about the "Right-click" key next to the right Windows key on your keyboard. Using the arrows and that key can get just about anything done once you've opened up any program.


Keyboard Shortcuts

[Alt] and [Esc] Switch between running applications

[Alt] and letter Select menu item by underlined letter

[Ctrl] and [Esc] Open Program Menu

[Ctrl] and [F4] Close active document or group 
windows (does not work with some applications)

[Alt] and [F4] Quit active application or close 
current window

[Alt] and [-] Open Control menu for active document

Ctrl] Lft., Rt. arrow Move cursor forward or back 
one word

Ctrl] Up, Down arrow Move cursor forward or back
 one paragraph

[F1] Open Help for active application

Windows+M Minimize all open windows

Shift+Windows+M Undo minimize all open windows

Windows+F1 Open Windows Help

Windows+Tab Cycle through the Taskbar buttons

Windows+Break Open the System Properties dialog box



acessability shortcuts

Right SHIFT for eight seconds........ Switch FilterKeys
 on and off.

Left ALT +left SHIFT +PRINT SCREEN....... Switch High
 Contrast on and off.

Left ALT +left SHIFT +NUM LOCK....... Switch MouseKeys 
on and off.


SHIFT....... five times Switch StickyKeys on and off.

NUM LOCK...... for five seconds Switch ToggleKeys
 on and off.


explorer shortcuts

END....... Display the bottom of the active window.

HOME....... Display the top of the active window.

NUM LOCK+ASTERISK....... on numeric keypad (*)
 Display all subfolders under the selected folder.

NUM LOCK+PLUS SIGN....... on numeric keypad (+)
 Display the contents of the selected folder.

NUM LOCK+MINUS SIGN....... on numeric keypad (-) 
Collapse the selected folder.

LEFT ARROW...... Collapse current selection if it's
 expanded, or select parent folder.

RIGHT ARROW....... Display current selection if it's 
collapsed, or select first subfolder.




Type the following commands in your
 Run Box (Windows Key + R) or Start Run

devmgmt.msc = Device Manager
msinfo32 = System Information
cleanmgr = Disk Cleanup
ntbackup = Backup or Restore Wizard 
Windows Backup Utility)
mmc = Microsoft Management Console
excel = Microsoft Excel (If Installed)
msaccess = Microsoft Access (If Installed)
powerpnt = Microsoft PowerPoint (If Installed)
winword = Microsoft Word (If Installed)
frontpg = Microsoft FrontPage (If Installed)
notepad = Notepad
wordpad = WordPad
calc = Calculator
msmsgs = Windows Messenger
mspaint = Microsoft Paint
wmplayer = Windows Media Player
rstrui = System Restore
netscp6 = Netscape 6.x
netscp = Netscape 7.x
netscape = Netscape 4.x
waol = America Online
control = Opens the Control Panel
control printers = Opens the Printers Dialog


internetbrowser

type in u're adress "google", then press [Right CTRL] and [Enter]
add www. and .com to word and go to  www.pcsupporttips.blogspot.com 

AMAZING GOOGLE SECRETS


20 Great Google Secrets


But most people don't use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google's index, it's still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.

But Google is an remarkably powerful tool that can ease and enhance your Internet exploration. Google's search options go beyond simple keywords, the Web, and even its own programmers. Let's look at some of Google's lesser-known options.

Syntax Search Tricks

Using a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at

www.google.com/help/operators.html

. Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.

Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:"Three Blind Mice") restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.

Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you're searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you're looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don't want to get results such as

www.mysite.com/index.html

, you can enter intext:html.

Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you're interested in. For example, try typing in

link:http://www.pcmag.com


Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:"Mark Twain"site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you'll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.

Swiss Army Google

Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the new calculator feature

(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)

lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For extra fun, try the query "Answer to life the universe and everything."

Let Google help you figure out whether you've got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try "thre blund mise") and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn't always succeed; it works best when the word you're searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you're searching for "three blind mice," underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for "three blind mice.") You'll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.

Suppose you want to contact someone and don't have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you'll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you'd rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings. If you'd rather use a search form for business phone listings, try Yellow Search

(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).




Extended Googling

Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups

(http://groups.google.com)

indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle
CODE
(http://froogle.google.com),

which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs
CODE
(http://catalogs.google.com),

which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google's tools and services at

www.google.com/options/index.html

You're probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?

Google Alert

(www.googlealert.com)

monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google's Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google's Web services API to perform its searches.) If you're more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts

(www.google.com/newsalerts).

This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)

Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs

(http://labs.google.com),

a place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what's there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search

(http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),

you dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don't expect 100 percent success.

In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google's search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you'll need an API key, which is available free from
CODE
www.google.com/apis

. See the figures for two more examples, and visit

www.pcmag.com/solutions

for more.

Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You'll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.


Online Extra: More Google Tips


Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.

Search Within a Timeframe

Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic's current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as

CODE
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html

excl.gif No Active Links, Read the Rules - Edit by Ninja excl.gif


), but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at

www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml

. If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can't be mixed (you can't use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.

More Google API Applications

Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query

(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).

When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL

(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).

Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it's not something you'd do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn't do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.www.pcsupporttips.blogspot.com

Sunday, December 23, 2012

BEST COMMAND PROMPT TRICKS&HACKS FOR WINDOWS





  • Save A List of Files to a Text File by Extension


dir *.ext /s /b > files.txt

This command line will create a file called files.txt. When you open this file,
 there will be a complete list of all the files in that directory and all subdirectories
 with the.ext extension. You can then open up this text file in any text editor and
 work this the information.By changing the ext part, you can select different files

. For example, if you wanted
to list all of the PDF documents, you would type:

dir *.pdf /s /b > files.txt

  • Get Your IP Address Information


ipconfig /all
This will retrieve a pile of information about your network connection and
 IP information. From this command, you can get:
  • Host Name
  • Primary DNS Suffix
  • Node Type
  • IP Routing Enabled
  • WINS Proxy Enabled
  • DNS Suffix Search List
  • Connection-specific DNS Suffix
  • Network Adapter Description
  • Physical (MAC) Address
  • DHCP Enabled
  • IP Address
  • Subnet Mask
  • Default Gateway
  • DNS Servers
Get Installed Driver Information

driverquery

It can be very useful when troubleshooting to know what drivers are installed on
 a system. This command will give you a complete listing of the drivers and when
 they were installed.

  • Copy Files Via Infrared Port


irftp filename.ext

This will fire up the Wireless Link dialog so that you can copy the specified file
via an infrared port.

  • Find Files Opened By Network Users


openfiles /query

If you are running a system and you want to know who has files open on your
 computer, this command will provide you a list of those users and the files that
 they have open.
Note: If you get an error saying The system global flag ‘maintain

objects list’ needs to be enabled to see local opened files, you



can fix this issue by typing openfiles /local on. You will have to

reboot the system but it will resolve the issue.

  • Monitor Port Activity


netstat -a 30

This will show you all of the TCP/IP ports that are being used on your system
 and what they are connecting to (or being connected from). It will continue to
monitor these ports and refresh the information every 30 seconds. You can
 change the refresh rate by changing the number at the end of the command.
Tip : Best Tips to Make Firefox 3+ Faster

  • Recover Information From A Corrupt File


recover filename.ext


If you have a disk with damaged sectors, you can attempt to recover as much

 information as possible from the damaged file. Data that is not damaged can
 be retrieved but data in damaged sectors will be lost.

  • Defragment Remote Computer


rexec remotePC defrag C: /F 

This command used the rexec command to force a defragment of the C:
 drive on the computer named remotePC. You can use whatever you want to
 for the command (I just used defrag C: /F as an example). This is very useful
 for remote maintenance.

  • Retrieve Detailed System Information


systeminfo

With this command, you can retrieve the following information:
  • Host Name
  • OS Name
  • OS Version
  • OS Manufacturer
  • OS Configuration
  • OS Build Type
  • Registered Owner
  • Registered Organization
  • Product ID
  • Original Install Date
  • System Up Time
  • System Manufacturer
  • System Model
  • System type
  • Processor(s)
  • BIOS Version
  • Windows Directory
  • System Directory
  • Boot Device
  • System Locale
  • Input Locale
  • Time Zone
  • Total Physical Memory
  • Available Physical Memory
  • Virtual Memory Max Size
  • Virtual Memory Available
  • Virtual Memory In Use
  • Page File Location(s)
  • Domain
  • Logon Server
  • Hotfix(s)
  • NetWork Card(s)

Automatically Defragment C: Daily


schtasks /create /tn "Defrag C" /tr "defrag c: /f"
 /sc daily /st 23:00:00 /ru "System" 
This will set your computer to automatically perform a complete defrag of the C:
drive each day at 11:00:00 PM (23:00:00). It does this by creating a scheduled task
 called Defrag C. It will run this command under the computer’s system account.

  • Map A Drive Letter to a Folder


subst W: C:windows
Sometimes, your directory structure can get pretty deep and complicated. You can
 simplify this a bit by mapping a drive letter to commonly used folders. In the example
that I have given, this will create a drive letter W: and map it to the C:windows directory.
 Then, whenever you go into My Computer, you will see a W: drive and when you browse
 to it, it will automatically take you to the contents of the C:windows folder.
You can do this with any unused drive letter and any folder that exists on your system.

  • List All Tasks Running On The Computer


tasklist 
It’s always good to know what is running on your system. This is the command line
version of the processes tab in Taks Manager.

  • Kill A Program


taskkill /im programname.exe /f 
If, when using the tasklist command, you discover that there is something running you
 just want killed. This is the way to do it! Just note the program name and use it in place of programname.exe.

  • Reboot a Remote Computer


shutdown -r -f -m remotePC -c "System will be rebooted in 20 seconds"
Sometimes, you just need to reboot a system. This will do it remotely and give the user a 20 second warning.
Tip : To open Command Prompt, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click 

SOME COOL MOBILE TRICKS&COMMANDS FOR NOKIA




1. You can Type *#06# to display your IMEI serial number, very valuable for 
the unlocking your phone to other sim cards


2.Type *#0000# to view which firmware version you are running


3. While you are viewing a picture in your phone's gallery, 
press one of these shortcut keys (definitely works on 6600,
 not sure about other symbians)
1 - turn image anticlockwise
3 - turn image clockwise
* - toggle on/off of full screen
5 - zoom in
0 - zoom out


On the main screen type *#06#

Information you get from the IMEI (International Mobile 
Equipment Identity)
XXXXXX XX XXXXXX X
TAC FAC SNR SP

TAC = Type approval code of your nokia Mobile
FAC = Final assembly code of your cellphone
SNR = Serial number of your nokia Phone
SP = Spare


4. To enter in the secret menu in Nokia Phone.
On the main screen type *#92702689# [*#war0anty#]
It will take you to a secret menu where you may find some of 
the information below:
1. Displays Serial Number.
2. Displays the Month and Year of Manufacture
3. Displays (if there) the date where the phone 
was purchased (MMYY)
4. Displays the date of the last repair - if found (0000)
5. Shows life timer of phone (time passes since last start)


To restore Factory Settings for Nokia mobile
*#7780# reset to factory settings.


*#67705646# This will clear the LCD display (operator logo).


*#2820# Bluetooth device address.



*#746025625# Sim clock allowed status.


*#62209526# Display the MAC address of the WLAN adapter. 
This is available only in the newer devices that support WLAN


#pw+1234567890+1# Shows if sim have restrictions.


*#3370# Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR) activation. 
Increase signal strength, better signal reception. It also 
help if u want to use GPRS and the service is not responding 
or too slow. Phone battery will drain faster though.

*#3370* (EFR) deactivation. Phone will automatically restart. 
Increase battery life by 30% because phone receives less 
signal from network.



If you forgot wallet code for Nokia S60 phone, use this code 
reset: *#7370925538#



Note, your data in the wallet will be erased. Phone will ask you the
 lock code.
 Default lock code is: 12345


Press *#3925538# to delete the contents and code of wallet.


*#7328748263373738# resets securitmobile tricks and commands for nokiay code. Default security
 code is 12345

Friday, December 14, 2012

FUNNY FACTS ABOUT COMPUTERS

Funny Facts about Computer(technology) These are just some funny and interesting facts about computing and its origin.

Funny Computer Facts:

1.Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was a college drop out.
2.On one of the world's most popular shopping website eBay, there are transactions of approx. $680 per second.
3.There are approx. 6,000 new computer viruses released every month.
4.Of all the pictures available over the internet, 80 percent of these pictures are of naked women.
5.'Crash Course' is another name for Microsoft Windows tutorials.
6.The E-mail is older than the World Wide Web.
7.There are about five porn pages for every 'normal' web-page.
8.Doug Engelbart, invented the first computer mouse in the year 1964 and was made up of wood!
9.One of the world's leading computer and computer peripheral manufacturer Hewlett Packard was first started in a garage at Palo Alto in the year 1939.
10.If you open up the case of the original Macintosh, you will find 47 signatures, which is of each member of Apple's Macintosh division of 1982.
11.Amongst the most interesting computer facts is, when the first Apple computer which was built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, it was made by using parts they got for free from their employers. They were made to scrounge spare parts from work.
12.If you want to get a computer aquarium, then you must get the Macquariums which are aquariums made from old Macintosh computers.
13.It is believed that the first computer virus released in the world was a boot sector virus, which was created in the year 1986 by Farooq Alvi brothers. It was designed by them to protect their research work.
14.The group of 12 engineers who designed IBM PC were called "The Dirty Dozen".
The quintessential command 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete' was written by David Bradley.

Computer Facts For Kids:

15.A normal human being blinks 20 times in a minute, whereas a computer user blinks only 7 times a minute! One of the best interesting computer facts.
16.The house of Bill Gates was designed using a Macintosh computer.
17.Sweden is a country with the highest percentage of Internet users (75%).
18.'Mosaic' was the first popular web browser released in the year 1993.
19.I am sure most of us must have played the game Tetris. Since the time it was created in early eighties, it has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, which made its creator richer by $8m.
20.Almost all computer users must know how destructive a virus can be. But then, it would be interesting to know that a virus cannot corrupt your PC on its own. It corrupts your system only when you activate it by either downloading infected files from the Internet or by sharing these infected files.
21.Computer circuitry can be destroyed by static electricity, it is so mild for humans that they don't even feel it.

22.The Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra chip has maximum numbers of transistors on it, approx. 222 million of them.
23.Konrad Zuse, has the credit of creating world's first computer known as the Z1 in 1936. Three years later in the year 1939, was when the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer, known as Z2 was developed.
24.'Stewardesses' is the longest word which can be typed with only the left hand

TOP TEN COMPUTER SECURITY FACTS YOU DONT KNOW

Top Ten computer security myths


1. If you install the most reputed antivirus solution or the most expensive one, you are 100% protected of computer viruses.
Wrong ! There is not such a thing like 100% computer protection it does not matter what antivirus you run. Every day thousands of new viruses or variants of them are created. Immediately after creation time, for a good time these new viruses have not signatures in the antivirus databases and a lot of them have abilities to pass by the heuristic detection. The heuristic detection of an antivirus works by looking at what functions are called and what actions are taken by a program in the system, but if these malicious actions are hidden among other many inoffensive actions, the antivirus heuristic detection can be deceived.
Thinking you are 100% protected by your “most reputed” antivirus, it does not matter the vendor is a myth.

2.  If you run a firewall your computer can not make harmful connections and the attacks are 
blocked.
Wrong ! The majority of trojan viruses uses reverse connections(see Wikipedia) to bypass the firewalls. More than this the computer trojans are injecting themselves in the browser memory space looking like all the malicious online requests made by the computer trojan is made in fact by your browser.
3. If you run multiple security programs in parallel(ex. an antivirus, an antimalware, an antispyware) then you have a bulletproof protection.
Wrong ! In the most cases if you run an integrated Internet Security solution from a reputed antivirus vendor(Kaspersky, Avira, NOD32, Bitdefender) is enough, they have comprehensive databases containing signatures for all kind of malware, spyware, viruses and so on. Running complementary antimalware programs is not justified in the most cases. Never run two antivirus programs in the same time in your computer, otherwise you computer will be significantly slowed down or even it will freeze: the antiviruses have the habit to fight for supremacy in the system and will end by fighting each with other eating a lot or all the computer resources.
4. Opening email attachments from known persons is always safe.
Wrong ! Even if you know the sender of an email nobody can guarantee that he has not the computer infected with a virus that attach itself to the files from infected computer. Also there are viruses that once they infect a computer, read the Contacts list and send poisoned emails apparently coming from the computer owner or the email address of the sender can be forged to trick the readers to open infected emails. This is just another method to spread malware among computers. Never open an email sent by an unknown person.
5. It is always safe to visit trusted websites.
Wrong ! Any website can be hacked, compromised and malicious scripts inserted in the web pages.
6. It is alright to visit presumably harmful sites(ex. porn sites) as long as you don’t click anything on them.
Wrong ! Harmful websites can contains exploits kits that silently scan your computer(via your browser) for security vulnerabilities and uses them to steal data, to silently upload in your computer malware or to execute some malicious commands(remote execution) in your computer opening the way for the backdoors.
7. If you use long and complicated passwords for your online accounts, them are safe.
Wrong ! A trojan virus does not guess your passwords, it will steal them as it is. Though it is better to use longer passwords(10 characters or more) containing special characters, letters and numbers for your online accounts, that’s not mean they are unbreakable accounts.
8. Using SSL encrypted connections for online transactions assure the safety of the transactions.
Wrong ! Infiltrated deep in the computer system, specialized banking trojans(ex. Zeus, SpyEye, Carpberp) can attack and steal or modify sensitive data from SSL connections aswell as with simple connections. They achieve this by interacting with the operating system components used by the browser or with the browser itself.
9. If you use other operating system than Microsoft Windows, you are safe.
Wrong ! For example Apple Mac market is growing exponentially these days. The same malicious attacks against the Mac users. The theory that using a Mac is safer than using a Windows machine because it is Unix based, these all are myths. The truth is the Mac’s were safer until recently because nobody(see virus creators) cares of them, they were only a little community of computer users. It’s obviously that growing, this community will attract the interest of the malware creators. The most recent example is the fake Mac antivirus software, Mac Defender.

10. My computer is working normally, I don’t see any computer infections symptoms, so I’m not infected.
Wrong ! Many computer trojans are specially designed to run as stealth as possible. I know cases when computer trojans were running deep hidden in the computer systems for years without to be noticed in any way, though the computers have had antivirus software installed. Scary, huh ?
That’s why I insist saying that installing an antivirus software is not the all you can do regarding your computer security. Trying to improve your knowledge about computers, to adopt a correct behaviour while you are online, it’s of an extreme importance.
Don’t forget, you are the beneficiary of a computer security as strong as it is the weakest link in the defense chain and that’s the human factor.
Keep safe !

Thursday, December 13, 2012

20 SECRETS THAT YOUR IT WONT LET YOU KNOW



In the first part of a six part series, David Moore takes a behind-the-scenes
 look at the ‘dark art’ of computer maintenance and reveals some obviou
s (and some not so apparent) tricks to keeping your system up and running.

Speaking on behalf of my techie brethren, it’s fair to say that sometimes,
 despite the claims, we simply don’t know all the answers.
The truth is that the computer troubleshooting field is so vast, complex
 and variable that no technician can know the answer to every problem.
Even if we could, tomorrow the game will have changed.
But, like any good professional, we do know where to start looking.
Over the next six weeks, I will share 20 observations that guide the
 sometimes ‘dark art’ of computer maintenance.
Some of these ‘secrets’ your computer technician won’t want you
 to know about. Others, well, they are simply too embarrassingly
 to share.
But every one of these 20 pointers will help shed some light on
 the most common complaints and concerns of the non-technical
computer user (i.e. probably you).

To whet your appetite, today I will be revealing the first four:
  1. There’s no such thing as a virus proof computer. Anyone
  2.  who says so is lying.
  3. The technology you buy today is already obsolete before
  4.  you get it home.
  5. Getting your “lost data” back is sometimes very easy.
  6.  Sometimes.
  7. Data backups don’t work most of the time.

There may be computers that, right now, don’t have viruses
 on them but that doesn’t mean they never will.
There may be computers protected by anti-virus software
 today that won’t be tomorrow.
The whole game for the people writing the malicious softwar
e (MALware) is to catch someone’s computer with its pants down.
The more you brag about being secure the bigger target you are
. If you are already a big target then guess what, you are being targeted.
Virus protection is an electronic game of leapfrog. Your protection can
 only protect you from what it knows about today. It can’t prevent from
 attacking you what the bad guys wrote overnight.
Sooner or later (in fact, both sooner and later), you will get a virus of
 some sort (yes even on Macs, linux…whatever).
The only real questions are, ‘How much damage it will do’ and ‘Do you
 have a backup from which to recover your lost data?’.

You may think you already know this. You’ve heard it before.
In fact, it is obsolete before it even comes to market. Even before
 it goes into production.
All you are buying now is what is available, not what can be done.
This is exacerbated and affects your hip pocket unacceptably when
 you buy technical equipment ‘on special’.
The bigger the special the louder the vendor is saying, ‘Buy this ou
t of date crap I don’t want’. That too may sound very obvious. It is
 very obvious.

The types of data loss that can affect you are many and varied so
 I won’t go into them here.
However, most of them are a bit like losing your keys. You know
 they are somewhere. You just have to find them.
Sure, data is ‘soft’ in that you can’t touch it but the mysteries of
 how and where it is stored elude most people.
You are probably aware of the recycle bin. It is a place where
 deleted stuff goes before it is permanently erased. Well, to your
 computer technician there are many similar mechanisms
 analogous to the recycle bin where we can go to get your data.
A lot of people view their computer as a single device where its
 failure spells total doom. This is not the case. Quite often the
 failure of a single component can leave your data completely
 intact. It is just a matter of plugging your data storage into
 another computer to see it.
It has to be said, though, the opposite of this premise is
 also horrifyingly true on occasions. Sometimes it is simple
 to screw up your data so badly, so quickly, that no-one
 can ever get it back. (Think viruses and malicious software
for one example.)

If there’s one common theme that has run through my 25 years plus
 of IT career it is how badly data backups are done and how often they
 fail. I’m talking about the data backups failing. Not the failure that forced
 you to discover that your backups were stuffed.
Ask your business insurer to see if your company’s data is covered
 in your business insurance? I mean it. Pick up the phone now and find
 out.
I’ll wait while you do it…
You’re back? What did they say? Hmmm, that’s a worry isn’t it?
You should consider that your important data is unique. There is
 no warehouse somewhere with data just like yours that can be
 bolted on to replace the damaged parts.
Chances are that when it is gone it is really gone. Totally and
 irreversibly gone. All you’ll be able to do is recreate it from
 scratch and only you know the true cost of that!
I’m sure you’ve heard all this doom and gloom before and I
 am equally sure you’ve ignored it to one degree or greater.
I’m not going to tell you how to do your backups because
 every case is different.
However, in my next piece, I will tell you something else that
 I suspect you’ve not heard from any IT person before.
It is probably the most important piece of information you’ll
 ever hear about data backups. It comes from the heart. It
 comes from cold hard facts and it comes from painful experience.


 

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