Tags: +Internet+; +Review+; +How To+

In my last segment on this subject, I disscussed the use of the venerable Firewall. If a Firewall is the gate and gate keeper to your kingdom, then Anti-Virus Software is the guards who patrol your town and catch any riff-raff that get by the gate.

Now, some out there will be saying “I don’t need Anti-Virus software! I don’t download dangerous files!!!”. Hogwash. Just going online can open you up to the Blaster Worm. I still to this day am not sure how I got it, but I do know it took me a litte while to figure out why my computer kept restarting. A good virus scanner will take care of that for you, likely before it becomes a problem.

Now, to know about virus scanners, you have to know a thing or two about viruses. A virus is in many cases a misnomer. You see, when most users (and software companies) speak of a virus, they are in fact refering to a large family of computer software, generaly written with malicious intent. This greater family is called Malware. So go on, read a bit about the history of viruses and malware in general, then come on back for my recomendation on what to do about it.

Back with me? Good. The best way to avoid the perils accociated with viruses is to have a protection plan in place. Personaly, I like AVG Anti-Virus. They’re simple, effecient (mostly), and most inportant, they’re FREE!!! Yep. They offer a paid version, but you can get them free for personal use. So, for your Anti-Virus needs, I give them a big thumbs up. Another choice I’ve heard good things about is NOD32. I can’t vouch for them like I can for AVG, though.

At any rate, tune in next time when I go over the next essential to safe surfin’: GET RID OF INTERNET EXPLORER!!!

‘Till then, adu, fair readers.

Tags: +Internet+; +Review+; +How To+

Many of you are relitivly new to the internet, I’m sure. So I just decided to post up a serilized primer on a few things you can do to increse your safety while surfin’.

The first thing that comes to mind is: Protect your gates! To do that, you need something called a Firewall to keep the baddies out. What this does, on a simplistic level, is only allow in what you tell it to. It’s the guards at the doors to your kingdom (your computer). A REALLY good, easy to use, and *FREE* Firewall is Zone Alarm (www.zonelabs.com). I’ve used this firewall for a long time, and it’s always served me well. And like I said, it’s REAL easy to use. When it detects something trying to get in or out, it asks you if you wanna let it. For a lot of common applications, it even has help for you, if you’re not sure what to choose.

Ok, stay tuned ’till next time where we will discuss the pure sugery goodness of Anti-Virus Software!

(For the record, I would like to note that I get no kickbacks from any of the companies I’m going to promote in this series, or have already promoted. I promote them because THEY WORK, and that’s why I use them, too.)

Tags: +Technology+; +Hacking+

Have you ever had iPod envy? Well, I haven’t, but after seeing all the cool stuff they could do that my Archos Recorder V1 couldn’t, I was starting. Somehow, even though I’ve hacked into my xbox (http://www.xbox-scene.com), it had never occured to me that there might be a community of hackers out there makeing firmware upgrades to popular items. Sure, I’d heard about it on some select DVD players, but I never figured that my MP3 player might have such an option. Enter the Rock Box (http://www.rockbox.org).

It’s a complete rewrite of the firmware for a host of Archos MP3 players. It takes something that once only played MP3s (and that poorly) and upgrades it to be a crappy PDA with calender functions, calculator, games (Wormlets ROCKS!), hell, even a greyscale image viewer and movie viewer. VERY nice. And yes, it still plays MP3s. Infact, it plays them better. I don’t know why, I assume the makers didn’t take much time to make sure it worked right, but now when I fast forward to the next song, it WORKS (before, it would sometimes crash the player)! It even has a car adapter mode (which the original firm ware was sadly lacking).

Very impressive. I’m hooked. I went out and blew $30 bucks yesterday on adapters for it. My MP3 player went from almost useless (I still used it as a big moble HDD, 15 gigs is hard to pass up), to being my third most carried gizmo (right behind my crappy cell phone (kyocera KX414) and my Nintendo DS).