10 Tips for keeping your PC safe

On Friday, March 26, 1999, W97M/Melissa became front-page news across the globe. Estimates have indicated that this Word macro script infected 15 to 20 percent of all business PCs. The virus spread so rapidly that Intel, Microsoft, and a number of other companies that used Outlook were forced to shut down their entire e-mail systems in order to contain the damage. The estimated damage caused by the Melissa virus approximately US$1 Billion. Read on for some simple tips on how you can protect your PC…

Akismet: Eliminating spam is good SEO

One of the most common forms of comment and pingback spam right now is the relatively subtle, ambiguous kind — short phrases or questions that are not obviously spam, at least on face value.  Since we last posted about this, the more sophisticated spammers have progressed from old standbys like “nice post” and “great blog”, to more cunning things like questions (”where can I download your theme?”) and appeals to your helpful nature (”I’m having trouble subscribing to your RSS feed”).

Akismet almost always catches these kinds of bogus comments.

The tip-off of course is that they often include a link to a site that’s advertising dubious or sleazy merchandise (or worse, a web site that harms the viewer’s computer).  But it’s easy to forget to look at the link before approving a comment, or give the comment author the benefit of the doubt without checking closely.  And spammers have recently learned to post several comments over time, the first of which contains no link or obvious clue.  (We call these precursor spams)...

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I hear you asking… but what does Spam and Malware have in common? The short answer… a lot and not really much at all!!

(Cause sometimes it not that easy to churn out a post!)

And so that you don’t leave here today feeling totally ripped of – I’m going to leave you with a list 10 simple tips (“10 things”) for keeping your PC (or laptop) virus and spyware free:

1. Install a reputable anti-virus program.
2. Ensure anti-virus program is always on the latest updates.
3. Install a reputable anti-spyware program.
4. Ensure anti-spyware program is always on the latest updates.
5. Ditch Internet Explorer (IE) in favour of Firefox (ensure you install NoScript add-on for Firefox).
6. If you insist on running IE then ditch Microsoft’s JVM in favour of Sun’s JVM.
7. Make sure you are running a firewall. Block everything at first and slowly allow traffic as required.
8. Ditch Outlook in favour of an alternative mail/calendaring product (eg: Thunderbird).
9. Ensure your Operating System (XP) is always patched up to the latest.
10. Seriously consider running Open Source (Linux) and then malware will instantly become a thing of the past.