::: The Best Offers :::

America Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:55:00 +0000

America Processing is a company a merchant account provider that offers its customers delivery of service with credit cards.

If you have a business and does not know how to accept the credit cards of their customers, America Processing will help you begin to accept this type of payment in a manner fully profitable and efficient.

America Processing operates in 50 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan , Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, the Dakota South, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Make your subscription now in America Processing and enjoy all the benefits you can receive your payments on credit cards.

Find Old Versions of Favorite Programs at OldVersion.com

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Find Old Versions of Favorite Programs at OldVersion.com

Nov 6, 2008 11:59 am - PCWorld.com

The tagline at OldVersion.com reads as follows: Newer is not always better. That's true of Coke, Star Wars movies, and software. If you recently installed a new version of a beloved program, only to recoil in horror at its "improved" interface, "better" features, and "faster" operation, OldVersion.com is the site for you. It's home to a couple thousand versions of nearly 200 popular programs, from AOL Instant Messenger to Zone Alarm.

Keep in mind that with some programs, older is not necessarily better, either. Even if you're not wild about the latest version of, say, ZoneAlarm, you don't want an outdated and/or unsupported firewall protecting your system--you want the latest and greatest.

That said, sometimes you just want to go back to the old, the familiar, the works-the-way-you-want-it-to. For example, I recently upgraded to version 3 of Copernic Desktop Search, only to discover it was missing a couple key features from version 2 (most notably dynamic searching in the taskbar). Alas, OldVersion doesn't stock Copernic, but there's a forum where you can post requests. Very often other users will come to the rescue with links to older versions.

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/153409/find_old_versions_of_favorite_programs_at_oldversioncom.html

15 Great, Free Privacy Downloads - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:49:00 +0000

6 - CCleaner

Here's another great tool--and a longtime favorite of ours--for cleaning up all traces of your Internet activities. CCleaner cleans Internet Explorer and Firefox, of course, but also Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Flash Player, Google Toolbar, and Windows Media Player. It even picks up after major applications such as Microsoft Office, and it includes a Registry cleaner and an uninstaller.

+++ Download CCleaner Price: Free

7 - SendShield

A lesser-known privacy problem may be among the most dangerous: hidden information in Microsoft Office documents that becomes exposed after the documents are made public.

This problem has struck some of the best-know enterprises in the world. In 2006, for example, Google publicly posted a PowerPoint presentation that contained notes disclosing highly sensitive financial projections to the world. Even worse, in 2003, Alistair Campbell, top communications aide to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK, released a Word document whose hidden information revealed that the British government had used plagiarized documents to justify its involvement in the Iraq war.
Google and Blair found out the hard way that Office documents contain lots of private information that the sender might prefer that the world not see, such as hidden text, names of author documents, revision history, markup, hidden cells, and hidden spreadsheets. When such information hitchhikes along with the visible text of a document, people can find it without much effort.

What to do? Get SendShield, an excellent, well-designed freebie. Whenever you send a Microsoft Office document via Outlook, SendShield looks inside the document for private information--and shows you what it finds. You can then delete all of the information if you wish. The deletion affects only the copy of the document you send; the original file remains intact on your PC.

+++ Download SendShied Price: Free

Rootkit and Malware Killers

Even the best antivirus and antispyware tools can't keep you completely safe. Rootkits often escape detection, and once they lodge on your PC, they give an outsider the power to take control of your system and help themselves to whatever private information they want. These two rootkit and malware killers, though, tip the odds in your favor.

8 - F-Secure Blacklight Rootkit Eliminator

One dangerous type of malware that might infect your system is a rootkit. It hides deep in your system, using tricky techniques to shield itself from many antispyware, antimalware, and antivirus programs. With a rootkit in place, a malicious person can take complete control of your PC without your knowledge. Rootkits spread online in various ways, such as by riding along on another download.

Some antivirus tools, such as Avast, claim to detect and kill rootkits. Many do not. But even if you use an antivirus tool that claims to detect them, you'd do well to download, install, and use F-Secure's Blacklight Rootkit Eliminator, too. This freebie is designed exclusively to detect and kill rootkits.

The program inspects your PC's folders, files, and hidden processes for signs that you've been infected with a rootkit. It then tells you whether your system is rootkit-free or may be infected, listing every sign of infection that it found. Double-click on each listed entry, and you'll see more information, such as a description of the item, the company that made it, and its file location. You can then use Blacklight Rootkit Eliminator to quash the threat, which the program accomplishes by renaming the file and giving it a .ren extension so that it can't do any further damage. Before taking that step, though, it's a good idea to search for the file name on Google and make sure that the file is a rootkit and not some legitimate file. If your PC continues to function well after you've renamed the file, you can eventually delete the renamed files.

If you aren't an experienced PC user, you might want to stay away from this program. Renaming and deleting files can wreak havoc on a PC; so if you don't feel comfortable renaming, restoring, and deleting files--and troubleshooting PCs--you may be courting danger with this utility.

+++ Download F-Secure Blacklight Rootkit Eliminator Price: Free

9 - HijackThis

If spyware or a Trojan horse slips past your defenses despite your best efforts, your best bet is to download HijackThis. It can help detect problems that other malware detectors can't find, and then will advise you about what to do.

Unlike most other antimalware software, HijackThis doesn't automatically detect dangerous software. Instead, it looks deeply into your system's Registry and into other nooks and crannies that are likely to be infected, and then saves its results to a log file. You then post the log file to the HijackThis Web site for experts to examine; they take a look, let you know if your system is infected, and then tell you how to fix the problem. There are plenty of similar discussion areas where experts congregate on the Internet; to find them, run a Google search.

+++ Download HijackThis Price: Free

Browsing Privacy and Security

Looking for multipurpose tools for protecting your privacy and security? The following three can help you surf anonymously, avoid trouble at wireless hot spots, and receive alerts about certain sites that may host malware designed to invade your privacy.

10 - Tor

A surprising amount of information about you can be gathered as you surf the Web--including the operating system you use, the sites you've visited recently, your geographic location, and possibly your company (based on your IP address).

To keep these pieces of information private, try Tor, a free program that protects your anonymity as you surf. Tor takes all of your Internet communications, including instant messaging and other Internet applications, and sends them around a large network of "onion" routers that are Tor servers, making it impossible for sites or people to invade your privacy.

The Tor download includes other software that you need for maintaining your privacy--notably Privoxy, a proxy program. The programs work well together; and because the software self-configures, they are simple to use. Tor runs in your system tray. To become anonymous, right-click the icon and choose Start. From that point on, you'll be anonymous. To stop surfing anonymously, right-click again and choose Stop. You can even change your Tor identity for maximum cloaking.

+++ Download Tor Price: Free

(CONTINUE...)

15 Great, Free Privacy Downloads - Part 01

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:20:00 +0000

These free products can save you from malicious software and eavesdroppers. Don't leave your PC exposed and vulnerable.
Preston Gralla

One of the worst privacy invaders the world has ever seen is the Internet. When you surf, Web sites can find out where you've been and can gather other information about you. Trojan horses and spyware can snoop on you. Key loggers can capture your keystrokes as you type. Eavesdroppers can steal your passwords.

It doesn't have to be that way. The 15 downloads presented here can protect you. You'll find firewalls, password protectors, rootkit killers, trace cleaners, anonymity securers, and more. So check them out, and help yourself to a safer online experience. (Note that the 15 downloads we look at here don't include any antivirus and antispyware programs. We figured that we've covered those packages well enough elsewhere. So instead, we focus on tools you might not have heard about.)

Firewalls

A firewall is one of the most basic pieces of software you can get for protecting your privacy. Any decent firewall shields you from inbound snoopers, and the better ones also prevent sneaky software from sitting invisibly on your PC and making outbound connections to tell others about your activities.
1 - Comodo Firewall Pro

If you have Windows XP or Windows Vista, you have a firewall on your PC courtesy of Microsoft, so you may figure that you're perfectly safe. Wrong--the firewalls built into both of those operating systems have problems. The Windows XP firewall, for example, lacks outbound protection. And the Windows Vista firewall is exceedingly difficult to customize.

A great bet for a truly flameproof firewall is the free Comodo Firewall. It offers great protection against both inbound and outbound threats, along with some very nice extras. Its Defense + feature, for example, locks down particularly vulnerable files and folders so that nothing can alter them.

If you use this firewall, you will have to spend a bit of time training it. Whenever an application tries to access the Internet from your PC, you'll get a pop-up that asks you whether you want to allow the application to proceed. If you'd like to cut down on the training time and the number of interruptions, use the program's Clean PC mode. In this mode, Comodo scans your PC for applications and registers them as safe. Afterward, you won't see as many alerts.

Among Comodo's other nice extras is an install mode that shuts off the firewall for 15 minutes, so you can install a new application without getting inundated with alerts.

+++ Download Comodo Firewall Pro Price: Free

2 - Vista Firewall Control

Windows Vista's firewall is better than the one built into Windows XP because it includes outbound protection as well as inbound protection. Outbound protection is vital, because Trojan horses and spyware often use silent outbound connections to do their damage. In addition, some surreptitious software uses invisible outbound connection from your PC to send out spam or malware without your knowling it.

The Windows Vista firewall has one big problem, though: The outbound firewall is almost impossible to configure. The free Vista Firewall Control utility gives you the control that Vista should have. With it, whenever a program attempts to make an outbound connection, an alert appears, identifying the application's path and file name, the publisher's name, and the application's name. Based on what you see, you can then choose to enable or disable the connection permanently or one time only.

+++ Download Vista Firewall Control Price: Free

Password Protection

Password theft is one of the greatest privacy dangers that an Internet user faces online. With the following downloads, you'll be able to keep your passwords private and yet still keep track of them.

3 - KeePass Password Safe

Most people have dozens of passwords that they use for Web sites, Web-based mail, ATMs, and more. They have become a fact of automated life. But it doesn't matter how much antivirus software and antimalware you use; if your password is stolen, you're in trouble.

KeePass Password Safe offers a simple way to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe. It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple-to-use database, and it encrypts the database so that only you have access to it. You can lock it with a master password or with a file key.

The program stores all of your passwords in groups, so you can quickly find the one you want. And the program lets you easily drag and drop your passwords, copy them to the clipboard, and paste them into a Web page or an application using a hot-key. You can also search for passwords, and print and export them in various formats, including CSV, HTML, TXT, and XML files. You can import them, too.

The application can generate hard-to-crack passwords for you, as well--a nice extra for people who want to make their passwords extra secure.

+++ Download KeePass Password Safe Price: Free

4 - KeyScrambler Personal

One of the biggest dangers you face online is theft of your user name and passwords for logging into commercial Web sites (such as banking and financial sites) and Web-based e-mail accounts. A criminal who steals that information could empty your bank account and use your e-mail address to pose as you.

This add-in to Internet Explorer and Firefox promises a simple way to keep you safe. As you type your password, KeyScrambler Personal scrambles it so that the information sent out over the Internet doesn't match what you type. That way, a lurking crook won't be able to steal your private information.

A small icon sits at the bottom of your screen, telling you that KeyScramber Personal is going about its work. As you type, you'll also see the scrambled text that the program is sending.

+++ Download KeyScrambler Personal Price: Free

Cleaning Your Traces

As you surf, your web browser leaves traces of your travels on your PC. Web sites can look into some of those traces. And if other people use your PC, they can easily look at those traces as well. Luckily, there are tools that can get rid of the tracks you leave behind.

Another privacy problem relates to Microsoft Office documents containing private information (unbeknownst to the sender) that get sent out via e-mail. A download helps here, too, removing information that you don't want made public from the Office documents where it appears.

5 - Free Internet Window Washer

Worried that Web sites may snoop on your Internet activities, or that someone else who uses your PC can see where you've been and what you've done? If so, you need an Internet washer--a tool that will delete your Internet Explorer browsing history, recently typed URLs, browsing history, and so on.

That's what Free Internet Window Washer does--for free. Click Wash Settings, then click Browsers, and then select what you want the program to clean. Back on the main screen, click Wash Now and the program will remove everything you've asked it to. If you prefer, click Test Now to see a preview of what the program will do.

Besides cleaning Internet Explorer, Free Internet Window Washer also cleans traces from instant messengers, including AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger. It also cleans traces from a wide array of other programs, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat.

+++ Free Internet Window Washer Price: Free

(CONTINUE...)

Save Your Data With One of These Top Backup Programs - Part 03

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:01:00 +0000

Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 Personal

Paragon's disk-imaging application, Drive Backup 9.0 Personal (price $40, as of 7/15/2008), may still be a feature or two shy of competitor Acronis True Image Home 11, but you probably don't need whatever is be missing. DB9's newfound ability to back up and restore individual files and folders, in addition to imaging whole drives and partitions, makes the two programs nearly equal. If the restore implementation were a little simpler, you could throw out the "nearly"; still, Drive Backup 9's friendlier, configurable GUI and its $10 price advantage make it a difficult choice between the two.

While Paragon makes selecting individual files and folders for backup easy, selecting them for restore is harder. When you browse, instead of seeing a separate window with the files listed, you have to navigate a tree in the same browser you used to select the archive. If you're restoring from a long-path network location, this approach becomes unwieldy. The other, more serious problem is that you can restore a file only to its original location. This is a pain when you want to recover an older version of a file without overwriting the newer one.

The other major new feature in this version is the rescue media builder's ability to write its recovery image to a thumb drive as well as to CD. Flash USB drives boot much faster (on newer PCs whose BIOS supports booting from a USB device), and they're easier to carry around. Also, as always, if you own the company's Partition Manager the abilities of that program are added automatically to the recovery media. That makes for a very nice all-around emergency toolkit/boot disc.

The other changes to Drive Backup 9.0 Personal are minor: bug fixes, more drivers, and better support for various operating systems, including Apple's dual-boot Boot Camp for both Mac and PC support. In the end, for straight disk imaging, DB9 is as good as it gets. But the company needs to make restoring individual files and folders easier; and in light of NovaBackup 10, which has imaging as well as a host of other backup features, Paragon should also lower the price.

Download Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 Personal (Price: $40; 30-day free trial)

Titan Backup

Having reviewed literally dozens of backup programs, I'm not easy to impress. But I was impressed with Titan Backup (price $40 as of 7/15/2008). Though it lacks the ability to back up open files and has no imaging capability, it has just about everything else you could wish for in a backup program. The interface is also one of the best I've seen--an intuitive combination of tabbed dialog and step-by-step wizard that I have only minor quibbles with.

Titan Backup's performance and abilities were pretty much on a par with other second-tier backup programs. You can opt for plain file backup, backup to a zip file, or backup to an executable zip (with a 4GB size limit--a zip limitation). Options include 256-bit AES encryption, the ability to run other programs before and after the backup, and user-name or password entry for backing up to protected network locations. The password didn't work with my Synology DS508 NAS box when the destination was a password-protected folder, but I'm inclined to blame this on the NAS box, which has a somewhat odd security implementation. There were no problems backing up to public folders, hard drives, a flash drive, CD/DVD, or via FTP.

Other features include e-mail notifications (with account settings), syncing of folders, a comprehensive scheduler, command-line execution, and some very nicely written help files. There's no support for tape, but on the consumer level, this is a not an issue these days.

As to those GUI quibbles, they were as petty as wishing the company had put the "Edit Task" button on the upper toolbar with "Delete" and "Import Task" configuration buttons instead of with the primary operational "Start" and "Restore" buttons on the side panel.

Download Titan Backup (Price: $40; 15-day free trial)

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/148765-3/save_your_data_with_one_of_these_top_backup_programs.html

Save Your Data With One of These Top Backup Programs - Part 02

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:20:00 +0000

EMC Retrospect 7.6 Professional with Continuous Data Protection Professional Add-in

Though I'd love to say that for version 7.6, EMC has revamped Retrospect's rather obtuse interface, such an overhaul hasn't actually occurred. I can report only that the most feature-packed file-based backup program on the planet is now even more powerful, albeit just slightly.

EMC Retrospect 7.6 Professional with Continuous Data Protection Professional Add-in ($129 plus $29 for continuous data module; price as of 7/15/2008) can't be matched for breadth of file-based features: super-flexible scheduling; disaster recovery; plain file copy; support for remote clients, tape drives, the Mac, and PCs...you name it. If it fits the traditional, file-based backup role, it's in here.

Version 7.6 has two additions: support for Mozy online backup and the company's $29 Continuous Data Protection (CDP) add-in. Alas, while they sound notable, neither is truly integrated; they can only roughly be categorized as new Retrospect features. You can launch CDP from within Retrospect, but it's otherwise a separate entity complete with its own system tray app sitting alongside Retrospect's monitor/scheduler.

Lack of integration aside, Retrospect CDP works well. It differs, however, from many of its competitors (including Memeo Autobackup and NTI Backup 5 Advanced, which is reviewed on the next page) by not allowing you to select a directory such as My Documents for backup. Instead, CDP selects files via what are referred to as protection policies, more commonly known as filters. For instance, select a filter (policy) to back up all Word documents (*.doc, *.docx) and another to back up all JPEG images. It's an easy-to-understand approach for less technical users, but I found it restrictive in practice.

What's decidedly not restrictive is CDP's ability to back up to several different locations. For instance, you can keep constantly updated copies of your data on a thumb drive, in a network folder, and on an external hard drive. You also have the option to back up only when a file is saved or periodically even when open files have not yet been saved.

Online backup integration isn't nearly as seamless. I was hoping that I could simply specify my Mozy online backup account as the destination for a backup job, but for now, Retrospect can only launch the Mozy client or, for first-time users, whisk you to a Web page where you can sign up. (The first 2GB at Mozy are free; you get unlimited personal storage for $5.) I use and recommend the service, but it's not truly a feature of Retrospect itself.

Other Retrospect 7.6 improvements include a Mac client that now runs in native mode (not emulated) on both Power PC and Intel-based Macs; better support for 64-bit operating systems; and the ability to back up a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 operating in a two-node Windows Server 2008 Cluster environment.

Retrospect 7.6 Professional is $129, which includes two client licenses for backing up other PCs or Macs over a network. Additional client licenses are $39. The upgrade to version 7.6 is free for registered 7.5 users.

Download Retrospect for Windows 7.6 and CDP (Price: $129 for Retrospect, $29 for CDP; 30-day trial)

The Traditionalists

NTI Backup 5 Advanced

NTI Backup 5 Advanced (price $70 as of 7/23/2008) is by far the most complete backup solution NTI has ever released. It brings continuous data protection (CDP), file-based backup, and what the company calls drive-based backup (otherwise known as disk imaging), all under one extremely friendly roof. It also solves a long-standing problem for NTI--the inability to back up open files.

Backup 5 Advanced uses the same impressively intuitive interface that has been its trademark for several years, with the more polished look that was introduced last year. The step-by-step buttons on the left and the relevant options and selectors on the right are the perfect blend of easy-to-learn and easy-to-use. Many wizardlike interfaces get in the way once you know them, but this one doesn't.

The imaging module includes adjustments for compression level, encryption, and verification. You can get more granular with your tweaks for Backup 5 Advanced's file-based and CDP backup. For CDP, you can back up by filter or location (choose a directory), as well as back up your "profile" (e-mail, desktop settings, address book, Outlook .pst file, and the like). All three types of backup can be scheduled at any time, and you may instruct the PC to go into standby, hibernation, or power-down modes after a job completes. You can also have the program notify you by e-mail upon the completion (or failure) of a job, though it lacks a provision for running programs before and after a job.

Broadly speaking, NTI Backup 5 Advanced worked extremely well for me. Its backups were flawless; however, I had a couple of minor operational gripes. To back up to a network location, I had to first map the destination as a drive within Windows Explorer--a rather odd approach considering the program allows you to select an FTP site as your backup destination. Also, while you can schedule daily backups, you can't set them to run on alternate weeks to different media as you can with Retrospect. I discovered a very minor bug where the drive-based backup wouldn't show the drives on my system while an internal 100MB IDE Zip drive was attached. This was most like a conflict with the ASPI layer used by NTI for low-level drive access.

Backup 5 Advanced is the first NTI backup product I can wholeheartedly recommend: It's a solid, reliable performer, its file-based backup is more than adequate for typical use, and it offers CDP and imaging as well. Alas, at $100 it's twice the price of NovaBackup 10, a product that's nearly as friendly--and more powerful.

Download NTI Backup 5 Advanced (Price: $70; 30-day free trial)

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/148765-2/save_your_data_with_one_of_these_top_backup_programs.html

Save Your Data With One of These Top Backup Programs - Part 01

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:56:00 +0000

We test five new apps that make saving--and restoring--your vital data a lot easier than tools you've tried in the past.

Jon L. Jacobi

Saving files on your hard drive is the easy part; choosing how to back up those files can be more difficult.

And why do you need backup software? If you ever have a hard drive fail, or get hit with an impossible-to-remove virus, you'll find that a complete backup--including your files, drives, and operating system--is the simplest way to get things back to normal. Not having backups is like flying in a combat zone without a parachute.

Traditional backup programs help you organize, schedule, and maintain your backups, and their newest versions make doing so easier than ever. However, tradition is quickly accommodating new realities. Two of the products we tested--NovaStor NovaBackup and EMC Retrospect Professional--recognize the increasing role of online backup in users' backup strategies.

Online backup is easy, secure, and safer than local backup (by virtue of being off-site, and being stored on drives that are themselves backed up regularly by your online service provider). Nevertheless, it isn't appropriate for everyone; most users have relatively slow upload speeds over their online connection, so online backup can be considerably slower than backing up to a local or ethernet hard disk. With a large collection of digital photos or multimedia, you're talking several days, literally.

Ideally, all backup programs would offer seamless access to all online backup services, but most don't. In the case of NovaStor and EMC, both companies also offer separate online backup services (NovaNet-Web and Mozy, respectively), which made tighter integration between the software and the online service a natural progression (NovaStor does a much better job at this than EMC, which offers basically a band-aid solution).

And while online backup is clearly the wave of the future, don't wait for the future to add a backup utility to your list of must-have applications now. A delay could be one of the costliest mistakes you'll ever make in your computing life.

The backup programs discussed on these pages are all available as downloads--see the link at the end of each review.

Online and On Your Hard Drive

NovaStor NovaBackup 10 Professional,

If you're wondering what happened to NovaBackup 9, so am I: The company, oddly, went straight from version 8 to version 10. However, if my hands-on testing is any indication, the program simply may have been that much improved.

While the $50 NovaBackup 10 (price as of 7/15/2008) has many major changes under the hood, the obvious improvement to this package is its infinitely friendlier user interface. This interface mimics one of the best, Microsoft Office 2007, and its big-button file menu. Perhaps even more important, NovaBackup's layout and workflow are immaculate--a rarity among the comprehensive backup applications that NovaBackup competes against.

Another huge improvement is the addition of disk imaging--backing up drives and partitions in their entirety. Since version 10 marks NovaStor's initial attempt at a disk imaging capability, I expected a primitive first-time solution; but NovaBackup's implementation, courtesy of Farstone, is more than adequate for most users, and will likely satisfy many professional users.

You can back up and restore entire drives or single partitions, restore individual files and folders, and even search within individual images--a feature lacking in the top dedicated disk-imaging solution, Acronis True Image Home 11.

I enjoyed my hands-on trials with NovaBackup 10 tremendously--especially the seamless integration of online backup storage. If you have an Amazon S3 or NovaStor's Digistor, you can simply add the service as a device, enter your user info, and then select it as the destination for any of your backups. Not that the backup clients for other online services are bad, but using NovaBackup's advanced options and GUI simply make it that much easier. It also allows you to apply the same settings to your local backups so that you're always sure you have everything backed up to each location.

NovaBackup includes a free, one-year, 2GB DigiStor account, though you need to provide credit card information to use it; the account will be cancelled, not automatically renewed, if you don't want to keep it.

NovaStor claims that it's reworked many of NovaBackup's internal routines so that backups transpire faster. In my hands-on testing, backups of every kind were as quick as, or quicker than, the competition's, but the program itself was a bit slow to boot, and the disaster recovery (imaging) module was especially slothful enumerating drives--it took up to 30 seconds to recognize them all. Because no progress bar appears during the enumeration, the first time it occurred I was nearly convinced that the program was locked up. Blinking drive lights told me it wasn't, but the experience is just that slow.

As improved as NovaBackup's interface may be, the software still has few rough spots. I was darned if I could figure out a way to save a script that I created using the backup wizard, which actually says "Create a script to backup your data" (using "backup"--one word--as a verb is their mistake, not mine). Secondly, interface glitches came up when I used the disaster recovery module on my system with XP SP2 set to Large Size (120 DPI) display mode. Until I switched to Normal Size (96 DPI), the module was unusable.

These glitches are easily fixed, and NovaStor has promised to make them quickly. Overall, the program is easy to use and highly capable, with file-based backup, support for tape drives, open-file backup, plain backup and restore of files, seamless online backup, integrated antivirus scanning, and disk imaging--all for just $50, undercutting much of the competition by more than half.

Download NovaStor NovaBackup 10 Professional (Price: $50, 15-day free trial)

(CONTINUE...)

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/148765/save_your_data_with_one_of_these_top_backup_programs.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/148765-2/save_your_data_with_one_of_these_top_backup_programs.html

3d Studio Models

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:09:00 +0000

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Dangerous malware infects via P2P music

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:46:00 +0000

New worm aimed at music sharers

Jeremy Kirk

Music fans running Windows are being targeted by new worm-like malware that attacks those who download tracks from peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

Playing an infected music file will launch Internet Explorer, and load a malicious web page which asks the user to download a codec, a well-known trick to get someone to download malware.

The actual download is not a codec but a Trojan horse, which installs a proxy program on the PC, according to David Emm, senior technology consultant at Kaspersky. The proxy program allows hackers to route other traffic through the compromised PC, helping the hacker essentially cover their tracks for other malicious activity, Emm said.

"The possibility of this has been known for a little while but this is the first time we've seen it done," said Emm.

The malware has worm-like qualities. Once on a PC, it looks for MP3 or MP2 audio files, transcodes them to Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format, wraps them in an ASF container and adds links to further copies of the malware, in the guise of a codec, according to another security analyst, Secure Computing.

The '.mp3' extension of the files is not modified, however, so victims may not immediately notice the change, according to Kaspersky.

Most savvy PC users are aware of the codec ruse, but the style of attack is still effective since many media players do need to receive updated codecs occasionally in order to play files.

"Users downloading from P2P networks need to exercise caution anyway, but should also be sensitive to pop-ups appearing upon playing a downloaded video or audio stream," Secure Computing said.

Users on a digital audio enthusiast site differed over the danger level of the malware.

"I never allow programs to choose which codecs I use to play back media," wrote JXL on the Hydrogen Audio forum "I research it and get the codec bundles off of sites I know to be trustworthy and even then I still scan them and check to make sure they are what they are. I honestly don't feel that this malware has a very good chance of spreading fast."

*** From: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=13781&

Spam coming from free email providers increasing

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:54:00 +0000

by Dancho Danchev - ZDNet

After analyzing three weeks of spam data between June 13 to July 3, 2008, Roaring Penguin Software Inc. foundSpam coming from free email providers increasing evidence that spam originating from the top three free email providers (Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail) is increasing, with spammers in favor of abusing Gmail’s privacy preserving feature of not including the sender’s original IP in outgoing emails:

“Spammers are increasingly using free e-mail providers to avoid IP address-based reputation systems. These systems track mail sent by various IP addresses and assign each IP address a rating. Some anti-spam software operates largely or exclusively on the basis of the IP address rating.

Roaring Penguin’s data shows that over the three weeks from June 13 to July 3, 2008, the percentage of US-originated spam originating from the top 3 free e-mail providers (Yahoo, Google and Hotmail) rose from about 2% to almost 4%. Roaring Penguin believes that spammers are using Google’s service in particular to send spam, relying on the fact that blacklisting Google’s servers is impractical for most organizations. According to their data, the probability that an e-mail originating from a Google server is spam rose from 6.8% on June 13 to a whopping 27% on July 3.”

Spammers and phishers are not just interested in the clean IP reputation of free email providers, they are also interested in taking advantage of the trust they have established among themselves through the use of DomainKeys and Sender ID Frameworks, and by abusing this through the bogus accounts that they’ve automatically registered by breaking the CAPTCHA based authentication, reach the widest possible audience and ensure the successful receipt of their spam/scam.

How are they managing to efficiently abuse these services, and is CAPTCHA breaking for the purpose of automatically registered bogus accounts to blame? The broken CAPTCHAs are only part of the problem. It all starts from the basics, in this case, the companies themselves admitting there’s a problem and how committed they are in not just fighting incoming spam, but also, outgoing spam.

The whole quality and assurance process applied by spammers is nothing new, in fact phishers and malware authors have been putting more efforts into coming up with easier ways to measure the return on investment (ROI) for themselves, and to present clear performance data to those taking advantage of their services. Just because someone has successfully sent several million spam emails, doesn’t mean that the messages didn’t got filtered, and when they did, what number exactly. Coming up with in-depth spam campaign metrics, and processes for verification of delivery, are becoming a top priority for everyone involved in this underground ecosystem.

The problem of spam and phishing coming from free email providers, has had its peaks in the past two years, prompting popular spam blacklists such as SORBS and Spamcop to blacklist entire Gmail servers due to their inability to obtain the real sender’s IP. It’s a signal from the anti spam community, and since Gmail will continue not revealing the real sender’s IP, something they’ve received a lot of criticism from anti spam vendor, but a lot of applause from privacy fighters, the best they can do is balance their incoming VS outgoing spam fighting strategy. Here’s a comment from an anti-spam vendor commenting on the problem back in 2006 :

“Gmail has taken an extreme position on privacy that inhibits the antispam community from doing their job, and it’s ticking people off,” says Tom Gilles, co-founder of IronPort. Some 10% to 15% of the spam IronPort sees comes from free Web-mail accounts, too big a slice to turn a blind eye to. “From time to time, Gmail mail is getting blocked because spam is leaking out of their service,” Gilles says. “Sometimes the babies get thrown out with the bath water, and that is the rub.

It’s difficult to gauge how widespread the problem of missing Gmail is, since no blocking records are available, though experts worry it’s growing along with the Gmail service. Gmail had 6.7 million visitors in February, up 4.1 million from a year ago, according to measurement firm comScore Networks, a jump that suggests lost email has yet to hurt the service’s growth. Yahoo Mail is still nearly 10 times bigger, hosting 64.6 million visitors last month, and AOL and Hotmail are also orders of magnitude larger. The situation reveals again how the studiously iconoclastic search engine is wrangling with where to draw the line on Internet privacy. As in other recent cases, Google is taking a harder line than its peers.”

Moreover, the abuse of the authentication at these free email providers, by either breaking the CAPTCHA images automatically, or outsourcing the process to human CAPTCHA breakers who earn cents to authenticate the registration process for the spammers to abuse, is clearly making an impact. For instance, underground services offering hundreds of thousands of pre-registered bogus accounts are popping up like mushrooms these days, and their maturity into a customer-tailored proposition offering everyone the possibility to pre-register bogus accounts at services and web sites that they are not currently targeting, speaks for the confidence they’ve built into their ability to deliver the goods. The most recent one which I covered in a previous post is continuing to automatically pre-register accounts with its inventory emptying and filling itself automatically in between the customer’s feedback indicating the quality of the service. Here’s a sample of their inventory as of the last five minutes :

* Yahoo.com - 270,565 pre-registered accounts
* Hotmail.com - 167,013 pre-registered accounts
* Gmail.com - 159,892 pre-registered accounts

These is just the tip of the iceberg, with many other such services offering different inventories and using different tactics in the registration process. And while the companies themselves are keeping track of the latest developments in this ongoing abuse of their services, it’s all a matter of drawing the line at a particular moment of time. For instance, a known to be malware infected IP that has repeatedly attempted to send hundreds of thousands of phishing and spam emails on behalf ot the botnet its participates in, shouldn’t be trusted in any authentication or registration attempts if you’re to take the radical approach, or have the end user warned about what’s going on and why is she not allowed to use the site’s services unless action is taken. The point is that, preventing automatic authentication abuse as a process is very similar to preventing click fraud, and fighting spam in general with the only different in the shift of perimeters from applying the techniques on incoming emails, to the authentication process in general.

Most of the human CAPTCHA breakers, and the automated programs will either abuse malware infected hosts as open proxies, or use open proxy lists in order to change their IP on every several registrations. Considering that the majority of malicious activity comes from well known bad parties are often blocked by default at the email gateway without even bothering to inspect the content in email messages coming from their networks/IPs, the same approach, activity from malware infected hosts should be challenged more aggressively than it is for the time being.

The increasing spam and phishing emails originating from legitimate email service providers is prone to increase, and fighting incoming spam should be balanced with fighting outgoing spam. Moreover, email spam is so Web 1.0, that the possibilities for abusing the joys offered by Web 2.0 services are slowly starting to materialize, with spammers being a step ahead of the filtering solutions.

*** From: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/wp-trackback.php?p=1514

The Best Web Sites for Movie Fans - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:16:00 +0000

11. Flixster

http://www.flixster.com

Just over two years old, the social networking site Flixster has grown into a vast online database of over a billion user-generated movie ratings. To rate a movie, simply click on the Rate Now button next to that particular film. Amuse yourself with the quiz questions, polls, actor bios, photos, movie trailers, and more. Create lists of movies to share with friends, or vote on the top news stories of the day.

- Best Feature: Flixster Wiki, which lets you add or edit content on the history of movies.

- Worst Feature: Some users may be wary over the site using their e-mail account's entire address book in order to send a Flixster invitation to all of their contacts.

MOVIE BLOGS:

12. /Film

http://www.slashfilm.com

Launched in August 2005, this popular film blog offers news, news, and more news for cinema-obsessed fans.

13. Cinematical

http://www.cinematical.com

Operated by the Weblogs Network, Cinematical is jam-packed with interviews, reviews, news, photo galleries, movie clips, and more.

14. FEARnet

http://www.fearnet.com

Raised from the dead on Halloween 2006, FEARnet is the ultimate destination for horror flick fans. Peruse the site's news and reviews, movie library, online games, and free Web movies, such as Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror and Evil Dead 2.

15. io9

http://ww.io9.com

Can't get enough of sci-fi? Neither can the staff at io9.com. Part of the Gawker Media Network, io9 is a new blog dedicated to reporting on the latest sci-fi films, gossip, and more.

*** From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2320864,00.asp

The Best Web Sites for Movie Fans - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:10:00 +0000

MOVIE FACTS:

6. MovieMistakes.com

http://www.moviemistakes.com

At first glance, MovieMistakes.com isn't much to look at, but look deeper, and you'll see that the site is chock full of the worst movie goofs in recent history. Did you know that there are already 66 found mistakes in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? For example, "In the chase scene around the campus, Mutts' motorcycle has a belt drive. Harley Davidson did not make belt drive bikes until two decades later." Currently, Apocalypse Now holds the record for the most goofs, with 396. There's also a list of the "best" movie mistakes, the most mistakes of 2008, movie trivia, best movie quotes, and even TV mistakes.

- Best Feature: Who knew laughing at someone else's mistakes would be so entertaining?

- Worst Feature: The underwhelming site design.

7. IMDb

http://www.imdb.com

No site can match the extensive information that the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) provides its 57 million monthly users. Moviegoers can look up film release dates, watch trailers, and read movie news. But most fans use IMDb to search for films and learn about the cast and crew, nominations and awards, trivia, recommendations, and more.

- Best Feature: The breadth of information available.

- Worst Feature: The addition of celebrity news. I don't want gossip mixed with facts!

MOVIE TRAILERS/SPOILERS:

8. Apple Movie Trailers

http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Want to watch movie trailers without news and reviews taking up screen real estate? Apple's Movie Trailers site offers a slew of current and upcoming movie trailers, including the comedy Get Smart, the Disney/Pixar film WALL-E, and the drama August. Sort by Just Added, Exclusive, Just HD, Most Popular, Genres, or Movie Studio. Users can view the trailers on their computer screens or download them to their iPods.

- Best Feature: All the movie trailers you can handle.

- Worst Feature: All the movie trailers you can handle.

9. The Movie Spoiler

http://www.themoviespoiler.com

Warning: Unless you don't have the time to watch this summer's blockbusters, or you're crazy enough to read about a film's ending before seeing it, The Movie Spoiler will definitely spoil the ending for you. Relying on user-submitted content, the site is broken down by weekly box office film earnings and a plot-by-plot guide of that particular movie. Visit the archives for even more spoilers from 8 Mile to Zoom.

- Best Feature: A simple, albeit ugly, site to navigate.

- Worst Feature: Ads galore.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

10. Criticker

http://www.criticker.com

With Criticker, rate movies on a 1 to 100 scale, and you'll be matched with other users who share the same cinematic interests. In order to give each film you've seen a rating, page through the randomly generated lists of movies or search the site for specific films. Once you've ranked at least 10 films, you will generate what the site refers to as The Taste Compatibility Index (TCI): a measure of the similarity between two users' tastes in films.

- Best Feature: The Facebook, MySpace, and iGoogle widgets to show others what films you dig and don't dig.

- Worst Feature: The site's TCI ranking system is a bit confusing.

(CONTINUE...)

*** From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2320864,00.asp

The Best Web Sites for Movie Fans - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:03:00 +0000

Get ready for summer blockbuster season with these 15 movie sites and blogs, offering a daily fix of news, reviews, spoilers, and more.

by Jennifer L. DeLeo - PC Magazine

When to comes to watching movies, there's nothing like the movie-theater experience: the overflowing tub of popcorn and fake butter, the awesome surround sound, and the humongous screen. Escaping into an air-conditioned movie theater to enjoy the latest blockbuster is one of the joys of summer.

Even before hitting up the local cineplex, though, moviegoers tend to already know which movie they're going to see. According to the Motion Picture Association of America's Theatrical Market Statistics 2007 report, 73 percent of moviegoers use the Internet to research films before going to the theater. Consequently, they are more likely to see a movie on opening weekend and go to the theater more often, too.

So what kinds of Web sites and blogs are moviegoers frequenting to learn about current and up-and-coming films? PC Magazine explored the various resources available on the Web and combined them into a handy moviegoer's guide. Our search is divided into six dedicated categories: reviews, news, facts, trailers/spoilers, social networking, and blogs.

Check out our favorite movie sites and blogs before heading out to the first blockbuster of the summer. And don't forget the extra butter!

MOVIE REVIEWS:

1. Rotten Tomatoes

http://www.rottentomatoes.com

Rotten Tomatoes has gone through several changes over the years, but it remains one of the best resources for movie reviews. Seven million monthly readers flock to Rotten Tomatoes to read more than 850,000 movie reviews, which are aggregated from various media outlets such as Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, and Variety. Film buffs can also get their daily fix of movie news, movie trailers, photo galleries, and more. Currently in beta, Rotten Tomatoes will expand its site to include more video, a faster-loading homepage, and a better assortment of photos.

- Best Feature: Each film is scored by the "Tomatometer," which Rotten Tomatoes describes as a system that "summarizes the opinions of respected film critics into an easy-to-use percentage," from fresh to rotten ratings.

- Worst Feature: Some elements of the site load slowly.

2. RogerEbert.com

http://www.rogerebert.com

There's no more thorough and honest film critic than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Roger Ebert. On his own comprehensive Web site, Roger Ebert shares his more than 5,500 reviews written for the Chicago Sun-Times, the most recent being for The Incredible Hunk (2.5 out of 4 stars) and The Happening (3 stars). Every other Sunday, Ebert looks back at films that he deems Great Movies, and re-reviews them.

- Best Feature: Roger Ebert's movie criticisms, what else?

- Worst Feature: The site isn't as intuitive as it could be.

3. The Four Word Film Review

http://www.fwfr.com

What's unique about this movie reviews site is that no more than four words can be used. Some example reviews of Kung Fu Panda are: "Slacker Black repels attack," "Bear is grasshopper," and "Saving Valley? Panda fu!" The site has over 272,000 reviews and features over 25,000 films. An amusing element of the site is the clue balloon in the upper right hand corner. From the four words provided, guess which movie it is describing. Click on Clue if you need some help.

- Best Feature: The addictive nature of brainstorming four-word reviews!

- Worst Feature: The forums could use a little more life.

MOVIE NEWS:

4. Film.com

http://www.film.com

Owned by media service provider RealNetworks, Film.com is a tabloid-like site for movie fans. From the latest entertainment news and gossip, to fun articles like Adam Sandler's best movies, to Film.com's audio movie reviews, it's easy to spend a whole afternoon on the site. Peruse the DVD section for what's new on DVD, what's coming soon, and which DVDs the staff is talking about. If you're a TV buff, get all of your TV news here, too.

- Best Feature: The "What We're Talking About" section under Movies offers a candid look at the best and worst movies.

- Worst Feature: It's difficult to find movie news.

5. First Showing

http://www.firstshowing.net

A 2007 PC Magazine Top 100 Undiscovered Web site, First Showing is offers a complete list of movie release dates, movie news from various sources, and an archive of reviews written by the FirstShowing.net staff. Interviews with the likes of director Peter Segal and actor Ben Stiller also make the site an interesting read.

- Best Feature: Stay on top of movie releases by adding them to your Google Calendar.

- Worst Feature: The list of theater events is restricted to the Colorado Springs area only.

(CONTINUE...)

*** From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2320861,00.asp

Microsoft sets Windows XP SP3 automatic download for Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:17:00 +0000

The latest service pack for Windows XP will be pushed to Automatic Update at 7a.m. EDT on July 10

By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

The vague timetable that Microsoft gave Monday for pushing out Windows XP SP3 to most users got specific Tuesday as the company quietly said it would release the upgrade on Thursday at 10 a.m. PDT.

Microsoft will add Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to Windows Update at that time, and trigger its automatic download and installation for users who have left the operating system's update service at its default "Automatic (recommended)" setting.

"Updated applicability rules and updated metadata to target the update to Automatic Update channel," read a Microsoft support document revised Tuesday after the company unveiled its monthly security patches . "The Automatic Update change will be published at 10:00 A.M. on July 10."

Monday, a Microsoft manager said only that XP SP3 would be automatically downloaded and installed "shortly," but did not specify a date.

Microsoft delayed the distribution of Windows XP SP3 twice this spring, but the July 10 date seems firm; it was included in the cumulative list of all updates available via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), the server-side update tool many businesses use, as well as via the client-side Windows Update (WU) and Microsoft Update Web-based services.

A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, was not able to immediately confirm that July 10 will, in fact, be XP SP3's automatic update debut.

In late April, Microsoft postponed the release of XP SP3 because it found a compatibility bug between the operating system and the company's Retail Management System (RMS) point-of-sale software. It also stopped the automatic installation of Windows Vista SP1, which had already been pushed to some users.

A few weeks later, Microsoft added a filter to WU to block AMD-powered PCs susceptible to an "endless reboot" problem from seeing Windows XP SP3 as an available update. In late June, Microsoft crafted a fix and added it to the WU list. Users who had WU set to automatically grab and install updates presumably have this patch already in place.

However, it's not clear how the automatic distribution of XP SP3 will affect users running AMD-equipped machines that haven't been updated with the June fix.

The announcement that Microsoft would release XP SP3 to Automatic Updates came just a week after the company started the operating system on its road to retirement by halting sales of the operating system to retail outlets and barring major computer makers from installing it on most new PCs.

People who want to block the automatic deployment of Windows XP SP3 can either modify the Windows Update settings, or download and use the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit , which provides several tools for stopping the service pack from reaching client PCs until at least April 2009.

*** From: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07 /08/Microsoft_sets_Windows_XP_SP3_automatic_download_for_Thursday_1.html

Fresh BlackBerrys for Everyone - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:43:00 +0000

T-Mobile

BlackBerry Pearl 8120
One excellent reason to go with T-Mobile is the company's Hotspot@Home service, which lets you make Wi-Fi calls in any hotspot for free. This leaves your monthly minute total untouched, even if you exit the hotspot halfway through the call; the phone will roll back to T-Mobile's cellular network. The 8120 also lets you browse the Web over Wi-Fi. (Note: bargain hunters can snap up the non-Wi-Fi-capable, original Pearl 8100 for just $99—it's available in White, Sapphire, Ruby, Gold, and Black at that price.)

BlackBerry Curve 8320
Of all of T-Mobile's Hotspot@Home-capable phones, this one performed the best in our Wi-Fi calling tests. It's also a great performer otherwise, with a 2-megapixel camera and full-featured MP3 and video options. Frustratingly, it lacks a GPS radio and (like all T-Mobile handsets to date) 3G capability. The 8320 is available in Titanium and Pale Gold.

BlackBerry 8820
The 8820 was T-Mobile's first Wi-Fi equipped BlackBerry; it lets you browse the Web at higher speeds whenever you're in a Wi-Fi hotspot and now supports Hotspot@Home as well. It also features the roomier, recessed keys of the 8800 series, instead of the slightly smaller, raised keys that the Curve offers. It lacks a camera and standard size headphone jack, but throws in a GPS radio. This one is only available in Black—perfect for enterprise mavens.

Verizon

BlackBerry Pearl 8130
Now that Verizon has finally enabled RIM GPS radios, you can use the 8130 with the carrier's VZ Navigator software for turn-by-turn directions. It's also EV-DO capable, and can function as a miniature media center with its video capability and quality 2-megapixel camera. Get yours in either Silver or Pink.

BlackBerry Curve 8330
Verizon's version of the Curve is silver with black keys. If you're already used to having a QWERTY keyboard on your current phone, and you see yourself doing a lot of messaging (ok, we'll come right out and say it – if you're over 30), you'll want this model. It essentially duplicates the 8130's capabilities and adds a full-blown keyboard and larger screen. It lacks the Sprint version's superior IM client and mobile TV options, however.

BlackBerry 8830 World Edition
The 8830 is a great choice if you're planning on traveling overseas, since its built-in GSM compatibility will let you keep using the phone in Europe; you can even keep your phone number while you're there. The slot is locked, however, so you're stuck paying roaming charges and can't pop in a low-cost, locally-obtained SIM card. As usual, the 8830 has no camera—which may be a good thing for some business settings. The 8830 is available in silver and a gleaming red (both with body color keys).

*** From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2317315,00.asp

Fresh BlackBerrys for Everyone - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:45:00 +0000

Summer may bring the new BlackBerry Bold to AT&T, but here are our reviews of the best BlackBerrys you can get right now for each major carrier.

by Jamie Lendino

RIM fans may be excited about the new BlackBerry Bold 9000, which will feature a slightly new look, a higher resolution screen, a faster CPU, and a newer operating system than any of the current models. But it's only going to be available on AT&T at first, when it launches later this year.

Thankfully, if you're looking to buy a BlackBerry now, you have plenty of excellent choices on all four major carriers, none of which will feel outdated any time soon. Plus, many of the devices below are available for much less than what the Bold 9000 will likely cost.

All current RIM BlackBerrys offer robust messaging options, with support for push e-mail for up to 10 accounts (including POP, IMAP, and Web-based), and the ability to hook into BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise servers (at an additional cost).

For each carrier, we included three handsets—a Pearl, a Curve, and an 8800 series. While all four Pearls, Curves, and 8800s look similar first glance, each one has a distinct feature set that sets it apart. Check out our full reviews to find the best BlackBerry.

For much more on BlackBerrys, be sure to check out SmartDeviceCentral.com, the PCMag.com Network's dedicated site for smartphones and mobile technology.

AT&T

BlackBerry Pearl 8120
AT&T's Pearl 8120 has built-in Wi-Fi capability, which lets you browse the Web at higher speeds than on AT&T's EDGE data network (although regular BlackBerrys do just fine here, taking advantage of RIM's excellent compression algorithms). The 8120 is an excellent media device too, with a built-in 2 megapixel camera and video recording, the latter of which is a relatively new addition to the BlackBerry feature lineup. Unlike the comparable T-Mobile model, however, you can't make Wi-Fi calls with AT&T's 8120. Available in black and grey.

BlackBerry Curve 8310
The 8310 was the first BlackBerry Curve to feature a built-in GPS radio, which AT&T leverages by bundling in the excellent TeleNav GPS Navigator application. This model has no Wi-Fi radio, however. It's available in either charcoal or a truly luscious deep red.

BlackBerry 8820
The 8820 is a business-class phone that drops the camera—perfect for corporate America—but adds Wi-Fi capability and offers a full QWERTY keyboard that's slightly roomier than the one built into the Curve. Like the 8120, this model can't make Wi-Fi calls. But it does have built-in GPS navigation, stereo Bluetooth, and a robust media player. Available in black, only.

SPRINT

BlackBerry Pearl 8130
Whether Sprint or Verizon is the superior carrier is a hotly debated topic, but one huge nod in Sprint's favor is the extra multimedia capabilities their handsets offer. The 8130 is no exception, with its built-in mobile TV option and full-featured IM client. Unlike with the Verizon model, you can also use its GPS radio for other applications such as Google Maps for Mobile and the built-in BlackBerry Maps. This one is available in Red and Amethyst.

BlackBerry Curve 8330
QWERTY fans would do well to check out the newest Curve. In addition to its full keyboard, the 8330 sports a wider, horizontally-oriented screen when compared with the Pearl—perfect for watching videos (or Sprint's optional, live TV service) on the go. The 8330 comes in a classy charcoal color with raised black keys.

BlackBerry 8830
Sprint's version of the BlackBerry 8830 not only has GSM capability for traveling overseas, but it also features an unlocked SIM card slot. That means that you can pop in any number of inexpensive cards in different countries, instead of paying hefty international roaming charges. Comes in Black and Grey. (You temporarily lose access to your phone number this way, however.) As with all 8800 class BlackBerrys, the 8830 lacks a camera. Available in black.

CONTINUE...

*** From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2317315,00.asp

Best Vista Antispyware - Part 02

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:15:00 +0000

PC Tools' Spyware Doctor 5.0 program for spyware detection and removal finished far ahead of its competitors in formal tests independently conducted by research company AV-Test.org.

4 - Microsoft Windows Defender 1.1

• Price when rated: Free
• Renewal price: Free
• Performance: Good
• Features: Poor
• Design: Very Good

- Downloadable Version

This free application did okay with adware, but it can't detect some types of spyware at all.

5 - Safer Networking Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4

• Price when rated: Free
• Renewal price: Free
• Performance: Poor
• Features: Good
• Design: Good

- Downloadable Version

Despite strong real-time protection, this free old favorite can't recognize and clean up many of today's threats.

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136206/article.html

Best Vista Antispyware - Part 01

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:09:00 +0000

PC Tools' Spyware Doctor 5.0 program for spyware detection and removal finished far ahead of its competitors in formal tests independently conducted by research company AV-Test.org.

1 - PC Tools Spyware Doctor 5.0

• Price when rated: $30
• Renewal price: $30
• Performance: Superior
• Features: Superior
• Design: Very Good

- Downloadable Version

Spyware Doctor offers the best spyware and adware protection and is the only program that protects against phishing Web sites.

2 - Grisoft AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5

• Price when rated: $30
• Renewal price: $20
• Performance: Superior
• Features: Poor
• Design: Very Good

- Vendor's Web Site

The program's superior adware and spyware detection is marred by weak behavior-based detection and a high false-positive rate.

3 - Webroot SpySweeper 5.5

• Price when rated: $30
• Renewal price: $30
• Performance: Good
• Features: Good
• Design: Very Good

- Downloadable Version

Our former Best Buy is well designed and provides good behavior-based detection, but disinfection was not as solid.

(CONTINUE...)

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136206/article.html

14 Vital Internet Tools - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:16:00 +0000

10 - ePrompter

If you've got multiple Web-based mail accounts, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Windows Live Mail, you can easily spend far too much time checking each account for new mail. This simple freebie neatly solves the problem. It automatically logs you in to all your Web-based e-mail accounts, checks for new mail, then tells you how many new messages you have for each.

In addition, you can read the messages from right within ePrompter, so you don't have to go to your Web-based mail account. You can also delete and compose mail. When composing or reading, you won't get a full range of options as you would when you're on the Web-based mail site. But for quick-and-dirty e-mail, it's all you'll need.

Don't expect a fancy interface; this program is as bare-bones as you'll find. Also, it may not be obvious at first how to set up a new mail account; select Menu, New Account, and follow the directions.

Note that this program works fine on Windows XP, but I was unable to get it working on Windows Vista. Also, if you have a Hotmail e-mail address, select the LiveMail option in ePrompter when you're setting up the account to check; I was unable to get it working properly as Hotmail, but it worked fine as LiveMail.

| Price: Free

11 - Digsby

The Internet was created as a way to bring people closer, but in some ways, it drives people apart. If you're an AOL Instant Messenger user, for example, you can't communicate with someone who uses Yahoo Messenger. And there's no simple way from an instant messaging program to check your presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, or to check e-mail from a Web-based mail site not associated with your instant messenger.

Until Digsby came along, that is. This program is a universal instant messenger, like long-time favorites Trillian and Pidgin. But it does them one better because with it, you can also check your social networking sites and e-mail accounts.

It's extremely simple to set up any instant messaging, social networking, or mail accounts from within the program. And it lets you use just about all the features of any of those programs, such as sending files via instant messaging. Considering that it's free as well, there's no reason not to give this tool a try.

When you install this program, by the way, it changes your home page to a Digsby home page, so if you want to retain your current home page, make sure to go into your browser and change it.

| Price: Free

12 - SMTP Diagnostics

Most of the time, sending e-mail messages goes off without a hitch. Set up your e-mail program to work with an SMTP server, send your messages, and you're done. But sometimes SMTP--the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol--won't work, and it's almost impossible to figure out what's wrong. Your e-mail program won't give you any clue about what the error might be. All in all, it can be one of the most maddening of Internet-related problems.

SMTP Diagnostics helps. It performs a complete set of diagnostics on your SMTP connection and provides an in-depth report about any errors. You can then either use the report yourself to fix the problem, or send the report to your ISP or network administrator, who can track down the cause of the woes.

The program is particularly useful if you're setting up an e-mail account for the first time and can't make a connection, or if you're on the road and can't send mail through a hotel's broadband connection or a wireless hotspot.

This free client is about as good as it gets when it comes to FTP. It has a simple interface that you can master in about 3 minutes, yet still has plenty of powerful features, such as being able to compare local and remote directories. It also lets you have multiple simultaneous connections, for faster transfers.

| Price: $12 (30-day free trial)

Security

You need to protect yourself when you go online. Download the following programs, and you'll go a long way toward making sure that the bad guys, and bad software, won't get you.

13 - Comodo Firewall Pro

If you're using the firewall that ships with Windows XP or Vista, you're not safe enough. They don't offer customizable outbound protection--important in a world in which spyware is everywhere. This free firewall not only stops inbound and outbound threats, but also does such things as protecting selected files and folders so that malware can't get at them or alter them.

Be prepared, when you first start this program, to spend a little time training it. Whenever a program wants Internet access, Comodo pops up and asks whether you wish to let the program use the Internet. To cut down on those pop-ups, run the program in Clean PC mode, which will scan your PC, find your existing applications, and register them as safe. You then won't see any pop-ups associated with those programs. And to make sure that Comodo doesn't interfere with installing software, you can use its Installation mode, which will disable certain pop-ups for 15 minutes, so you can install new software without being annoyed.

| Price: Free

13 - Ad-Aware

To use the Internet is to put your PC at risk from spyware, adware, Trojan horses, and other malware. Your antivirus program by itself isn't enough to protect you, because it misses many of these malicious programs. This long-time favorite offers a great, no-cost layer of protection.

It does a great job of scanning your PC for threats--including Trojan horses, rootkits, and other spyware--warning you about them, then deleting them. It can also put them into quarantine, disabling them but not deleting them, so you can decide what to do about them later.

Even if you already have antispyware on your PC, it's a good idea to use Ad-Aware as well, because not all spyware scanners find all threats, so using more than one is a good idea.

| Price: Free

14 - Free Internet Window Washer

Your Internet activity leaves a trail--and one far more traceable than you might imagine. This trail includes cache files, browser history, auto-complete information, cookies, typed URLs, and more. This means that anyone with access to your PC can easily see what you've been doing online. In some instances, even Web sites can gather information about where you've been and what you've done.

Free Internet Window Washer ensures your privacy by cleaning all those traces, and more, off of your PC. Not only will it remove traces of Internet activity, but it will also clean traces of application activity as well, such as which files you've recently opened in Microsoft Office applications. And it works with multiple browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera.

| Price: Free

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-page,2-c,utilities/article.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-page,3-c,utilities/article.html

14 Vital Internet Tools - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:10:00 +0000

6 - FileZilla

One of the Internet's oldest file-transfer protocols--FTP--still lives. Contrary to popular wisdom, not all files are downloaded from Web sites. Many are still downloaded from FTP servers. And many individuals and businesses continue to use FTP as a way to share files. Also, many ISPs block large files, so using FTP is a great way around that problem.

FileZilla is an excellent FTP client that combines simplicity with a robust feature set (it has just about every FTP feature you could need), and its interface is easy to use.

| Price: Free

7 - Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite

Here's a simple, easy way to check on your current bandwidth use--both uploading and downloading--and also to track your usage over time. This freebie displays that usage in a constantly changing chart, so you can see the fluctuations in real time. It also shows you the current bandwidth use in a text display.

Bandwidth Monitor Lite is quite customizable--you can, for example, skin it, change the time span in which it measures bandwidth, and so on. Also very helpful is that it will keep logs of your bandwidth usage, so you can make comparisons over time.

| Price: Free

8 - E-Mail and IM

The Internet is all about communications--but as we all know, it is not always as easy to communicate as we would like. These downloads will help you with e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking.
eMail Tracker Pro

9 - eMail Tracker Pro

Tired of being whacked by spam? Not sure if an e-mail message that you received is legitimate, or is instead a forgery or from a scammer? Then give this program a try. It gives you a set of tools for examining any e-mail message that pops into your inbox.

The program traces an e-mail back to its true point of origin, shows you the IP address and location of the sender, and tells you whether the e-mail header was tampered with in order to fool you. In addition, it provides contact information for the domain from which the message was sent so that you can report any abuse.

In order to use eMail Tracker Pro, you'll have to copy an e-mail message's headers into the program. These headers, however, don't refer to the Subject line, From line, or such. Instead, they're something usually hidden. How you find them varies according to your e-mail software. For example, in Outlook 2007, right-click a message and select Message Options; you'll then see an Internet headers field.

One stumble I encountered: The program says that it integrates directly into Outlook, but I was unable to integrate it with Outlook 2007.

| Price: $29.95 (15-day free trial)

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-page,2-c,utilities/article.html

14 Vital Internet Tools - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:51:00 +0000

These downloads, mostly free, will help you optimize your communications with others, improve security, and generally improve your online life.

Preston Gralla, PC World

Like most people visiting PCWorld.com, you most likely live on the Internet. And that means you need help--help with your home or business network for accessing the Internet, help with troubleshooting, help with downloading, and with e-mail, instant messaging, and security.

We've got that help for you--in 14 great downloads. Whether you need a universal messenger, a way to troubleshoot e-mail problems, or programs to keep yourself safe, downloadable software can come to the rescue.
General Networking and Internet Tools

Need to troubleshoot your network, manage your downloads, get a free alternative to the bloated Adobe Reader? Here's where to go. (And that's just the beginning of these nifty downloads.)

1 - PingInfoView

The simplest of all Internet tools is the humble ping command, which lets you use the command prompt to contact a Web site and see if it is alive and responds to your ping request. It also resolves host names to IP addresses--in other words, if you issue the command ping www.pcworld.com, it will tell you the site's associated IP address. And it also tells you the speed of the connection and response.

The free PingInfoView makes the simple ping command a lot more useful. It lets you ping multiple Web sites simultaneously, will ping the sites on any schedule you set, and displays the results in a graphical interface, rather than in a command prompt.

Is this an earth-shaking tool? Certainly not. But if you use ping at all, you'll find it a useful, worthy alternative.

| Price: Free

2 - VisualRoute 2008 Lite

Here's another update of a venerable command line Internet tool, tracert. The command line tool displays the route you take to contact a Web server or other Internet device--every hop on every server or router along the way, plus the server's or router's IP address, and how long it takes to get to each one.

This program displays all that in a visually appealing way, not just through the command line. It shows a map of every hop, and graphs it against a background that shows response times. Highlight any hop, and you'll see important details, such as packet loss and speed.

In addition, the program displays a narrative of the route, detailing whether the route has fast, average, or slow throughput, and highlighting any problems.

This version of VisualRoute is free, but a variety of for-pay versions is also available, with many extra features that display the network names of devices, test DNS services, and more.

| Price: Free

3 - Foxit Reader

What's the most annoying Internet-related application of all time? For many people, that question has a simple answer: Adobe Reader. Countless documents online are in the Acrobat format, so there's no way around it: You need Adobe Reader. But it's bloated and prone to crashes, nobody's idea of a good time.

Foxit Reader is a far better solution. It's small and loads much faster, so it doesn't take up much memory when you use it. It also doesn't seem to suffer from the same instability issues as does Adobe Reader. The program has some nice extras as well, such as the ability to embed comments. (However, when you embed comments, the page you mark up will show that you're using an evaluation version of the software. You can pay for the Pro pack to get rid of those marks, and get some other extras as well.)

Note that when I installed the program, it integrated directly into Internet Explorer as the default PDF reader, but it didn't similarly integrate into Firefox. To make it the default in Firefox, you'll have to select Tools, Options, and then click the Manage button in the File Types area. Double-click each of the files that Adobe Reader opens, and tell Firefox to use Foxit Reader instead.

| Price: Free

4 - Advanced LAN Scanner

If you're a techie and have more than one PC at work or home on a network sharing a single Internet connection, you'll welcome this freebie, which offers surprisingly powerful scanning capabilities. Use it for everything from troubleshooting Internet connections, to network configuration, to making sure your PCs are as safe as possible when they're on the Internet.

When you first run the program, you may encounter an error message, saying that a default configuration is being used. You can safely ignore that message. Simply click the scan button, and it goes to work. It looks across your network, finds all PCs on it, and then gives you quite a bit of detail about each. Besides the local IP address of each PC, you'll also find which ports on each PC are open. Armed with that information, you can use a firewall to close them down.

In addition to open and closed ports, you'll see lots more information, such as what services are running on each PC, the NetBIOS names (if any) associated with each, and even a list of users and groups on each system. If any machines have shared folders, you'll see those as well. All this data is immensely useful to those who want to keep their PCs secure, or need to troubleshoot networks or Internet connections.

Making the software all the more remarkable is that it's free.

| Price: Free

5 - FlashGet

If you live to download, this freebie is for you. It's a great download manager that will speed up the process, keep you safe, and help you organize everything that you've downloaded. Flashget makes downloads faster by using multithreading, and it lets you find downloads via many different protocols, including HTTP, FTP, eMule, and others. It's also terrific at file management, showing you all the files you've downloaded, including information about each. You'll even be able to delete downloaded files from directly in the program.

Making it even more useful is that it integrates with your browser, so whenever you download, it jumps into action. It will also pause and resume downloads, and works with your antivirus software to scan for viruses as it downloads.

| Price: Free

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,147155-c,utilities/article.html

Top Antivirus Software

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:02:00 +0000

BitDefender, McAfee, and Kaspersky Lab top our chart, showing excellent ability to detect both known and unknown malware.

Antivirus software

1 - BitDefender 9 Standard

• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $30

Inexpensive product received excellent scores in our performance tests, although its scan speed was sluggish.

2 - McAfee VirusScan 2006

• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $40

Relatively good heuristics help VirusScan provide solid protection. Phone support costs $3 per minute.

3 - Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal 5.0

• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $40

Program had the fastest response to new malware outbreaks. Interface is clean but not exceptional.

4 - F-Secure Anti-Virus 2006

• Performance: Superior
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $40

Solid performer responded quickly in tests and provides best breaking news on malware outbreaks.

5 - Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2006

• Performance: Good
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $40

Veteren utility offers solid threat detection and a nice interface. Phone support costs $30 per incident.

6 - Panda Software Panda Titanium 2006 Antivirus + Antispyware

• Performance: Very Good
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Very Good
• Price when ranked: $50

This former Best Buy performed well, but not exceptionally, in our newest nonspyware tests.

7 - AntiVir Personal Edition Classic 6.32

• Performance: Good
• Ease of Use: Good
• Features: Fair
• Price when ranked: Free

AntiVir performed the best of the free programs, although it failed to clean several old macro viruses.

8 - Alwil Software Avast Home Edition 4.6

• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Very Good
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: Free

Free product has a slick media-player-style interface that hides some features. Scan speed
was slow in tests.

9 - Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security Security 2006

• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Superior
• Features: Good
• Price when ranked: $50

Former Best Buy performed poorly in heuristics and zoo tests but has the best interface of the bunch.

10 - Grisoft AVG Free Edition 7.1

• Performance: Fair
• Ease of Use: Fair
• Features: Fair
• Price when ranked: Free

Free program has subpar heuristics and one of the clunkier interfaces among the products we tested.

*** From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/124475-1/article.html

Spyware-Malware 101: Understanding the Secret Digital War of the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:26:00 +0000

From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.

How Rogue Software Hurts Us All

1) What is “Spyware”?

Forget viruses, spam and hacker attacks..."spyware" is now the single largest problem facing internet users today. These nasty little rogue programs have become so widespread and so infectious, their volume far outstrips spam and regular viruses. The spyware problem has grown to such an immense breadth and depth, we cannot even agree on what to call it.

2) Spyware = 'Malware' Most people historically call these rogue programs "spyware".

That name comes from the 1990's where nasty little programs secretly observed and logged your web surfing habits. The spyware problem, however, has now grown into dozens of other malicious formats, including sneakware, adware, keyloggers, browser hijackers, porn servers, trojans and worms Because the spyware problem has mutated so much, we now describe spyware as part of a much larger category of rogue software called "malware" (malicious software programs). At its most basic definition, malware is when insidious little software programs covertly install themselves on your computer, and then perform secret operations without your permission. Once in place, malware programs may do hundreds of nasty things to your computer. Malware will log your keystrokes, steal your passwords, observe your browsing choices, spawn pop-up windows, send you targeted email, redirect your web browser to phishing pages, report your personal information to distant servers, and serve up pornography. This malware will operate invisibly, often without displaying itself in your Task Manager. To top it off, malware usually refuses to be uninstalled through your control panel, and requires special tools to delete them from your drive. Yes, this is a direct cousin to viruses, but with a broader portfolio of wicked intentions.

3) What does Spyware/Malware specifically do to my computer?

Malware will perform a variety of nasty activities, ranging from simple email advertising all the way to complex identity-theft and password-stealing. New nasty functions are created every week by malware programmers, but the most common malware functions are:

1. Malware steals your personal information and address book (identity theft and keystroke-logging). 2. Malware floods your browser with pop-up advertising.
3. Malware spams your inbox with advertising email.
4. Malware slows down your connection.
5. Malware hijacks your browser and redirects you to an advertising or a phishing-con web page.
6. Malware uses your computer as a secret server to broadcast pornography files.
7. Malware slows down or crashes your computer.

4) Where does Spyware/Malware come from?

Spyware/malware programs are authored by clever programmers, and then delivered to your computer through covert Internet installs. Usually, malware will piggyback on innocent-looking web page components and otherwise-benign software such as game demos, MP3 players, search toolbars, software, free subscriptions, and other things you download from the web. Subscribing to online services is especially bad for getting malware. In particular, whenever you sign up for a so-called "free" service or install new software, you must accept an "end user license agreement" (EULA). The fine print of the EULA will often include the phrase "the vendor is allowed to install third-party software on your computer". Since most users don't bother to read this EULA fine print, they naively click "accept", and install malware out of sheer ignorance.

5) What kind of personal information does Spyware/Malware steal?

This varies from the non-confidential to the extremely-personal. The malware may simply steal a listing of your MP3s or recent website visits. Malware may also harvest your email address book. At its very worst, malware will steal your banking PIN, your eBay login, and your Paypal information (aka "keystroke logging" identity theft). Yes, spyware/malware is a very serious Internet problem that threatens everyone's personal privacy, and network administrators everywhere are deeply concerned.

*** From: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/antivirusantispyware/a/malware101.htm

The 2008 Malware War: How to Clean Out the Enemy

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:29:00 +0000

From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.

How Do I Protect Myself from this 2008 Epidemic of Spyware/Malware?

Answer: Avoiding and destroying spyware is not instant, and it is not a one-time event like an inoculation. Instead, stopping spyware/malware is a long-term game that is exactly like cleaning dirt out of your home. You need constant vigilance, and a regular habit of cleaning malware out of your computer every week.

Note: Additionally, as an educated user, you must also adopt a "buyer beware" attitude whenever you install new software from the Net or even from CD...you need to read every end user license agreement on your screen before you click "accept".

Here is the checklist for detecting and destroying malware

1. Install two or three different anti-spyware programs ("spyware cleaners") on your computer, and update their definition lists regularly. Because every anti-spyware cleaner is imperfect, it is necessary to use combinations of these programs to catch the greatest breadth of malware.

Also, the anti-spyware manufacturers regularly add new entries to their "definition" lists, just like anti-virus software. Make sure to keep your spyware cleaners updated with these lists!

2. Build a weekly habit of "scan and detect". Like cleaning house, this should be done every few days. At the very least, this should be done whenever you install new software. Many anti-spyware programs can be set to automatically perform scan-and-detect nightly.

3. Carefully read every EULA (end user license agreement) before clicking "accept". If you see the phrase "3rd-party software may be installed", make sure to follow the software install with a spyware cleaning.

4. Educate yourself on the latest strains of malware. In particular, start visiting these recommended anti-spyware sites, and update yourself on the latest malicious programs.

* Antivirus/Antispyware at About
* Network Security at About
* PestPatrol.com database
* Spywareguide.com
* SpywareWarrior.com
* SurferBeware.com
* Cexx.org

5. Save your data, and backup often! As much as it sounds like broken-record preaching, backing-up is how an intelligent user prepares for the worst. Backing up means: keep your original software CDs in a safe accessible place, constantly save copies of your important work files on CD or separate drives, and presume you will actually need them one day. This way, if you ever experience the extreme spyware circumstance of having to reformat your hard drive, you can at least recover your important work.

There you go, fellow Internet users. Your lives now have an extra complexity as you add one more cleaning habit to your weekly routine. The good news is: once you build a regular scan-and-detect habit, then spyware and malware will be reduced to a mere annoyance, and you can get back to business of enjoying the internet! Personally, I think of it as having one more room in my house to dust and vacuum. Keep the faith, fellow webbies... the internet is too important to let these malware programmers win!

*** From: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/antivirusantispyware/a/malware101_2.htm

The Top 5 Anti-Spyware Programs, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Webmaster) — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:18:00 +0000

From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.

Stopping spyware (“malware”) is more than a one-time inoculation, folks.

This is about a weekly habit of cleaning "nasty dust bunnies" from your personal computer. In much the same way you clean your home with your favorite broom and your favorite cleaning solvents, you will also need good tools to clean spyware out of your PC.

Here is our suggestion list. After collating the opinions of several About readers and the About writing staff, we believe that these five anti-spyware tools (aka "spyware killers") will give you maximum value for your money.

Editor’s Comment: as good as these following tools are, they are also imperfect. In particular, these tools vary in their detection algorithms and their signature/definition vocabularies. Accordingly, we suggest you use two or three of these anti-spyware programs as a combination defense.

* Number 5: Spybot Search & Destroy
Cost: Free
About.com Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Editor’s comment: While Spybot is known for catching less than 95% of common infections, there are two big reasons why you want to use this product. Firstly: the SDHelper and TeaTimer functions do help significantly in keeping downloaded spyware from actually rooting itself onto your drive. Secondly: the price is perfect. If you install Spybot as part of a multi-program defense, then definitely try this product.

* Number 4: Microsoft Windows Defender
Cost: Free
About.com Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Editor’s comment: Somewhat more thorough than Spybot, this new free offering from Microsoft is worth trying. Included in Windows Vista or downloadable from the link above, Microsoft Defender will work well as part of a combination defense, perhaps with Spybot.

* Number 3: Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware SE, Personal Edition
Cost: Free
About.com Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Editor’s comment: Lavasoft has been the benchmark spyware-defense tool for years. Their Ad-Aware product has won the trust of millions of users. Although it doesn’t have the nifty shredding and email opt-out lists of Spybot, Ad-Aware does perform realtime protection, and it auto updates its definition lists to remain current. Up until 2006, combining Spybot and Ad-Aware was the smartest (and the cheapest) way to defend your compute against spyware. Things are different now, because Number 1 below has set the high bar even higher for 2007.

* Number 2: Navarre Webroot Spy Sweeper
Cost: Free to try, approximately $39 to buy
About.com Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Editor’s comment: Achieving 100% detection of spyware toolbars in recent About tests, Spy Sweeper was also effective in shutting down nearly 85% of active malware processes. This would go well as a three-way combination with Spybot and Lavasoft.

* Number 1: Mcafee Virus Scan and Anti Spyware
Cost: Approximately $39.99 for antivirus and anti-spyware combined
About.com Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Editor’s comment: In recent About.com tests, Macafee managed to detect 100% of all spyware infection, and it also shut down nearly 99% of spyware processes running in memory. While you cannot purchase Macafee anti-spyware without also purchasing their antivirus, the bundle is absolutely worth it at $39.99. If you are willing to spend money on your spyware and virus defense, then Macafee and Web Root are the two choices we recommend to everyone. If you are looking to save yourself a few dollars, then Lavasoft/Defender/Spybot can make for a good no-cost combination defense.

*** From: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/antivirusantispyware/a/anti_malware07.htm