I recently compared the new branded computer and my computer, but I found that my computer is very slow and not secure than new one, then I learned tips and tricks to make PC faster and secure and I found some very useful tricks and tips and I used them for my PC.
If you have these kinds of problems, then you can see the following tips and tricks. Read following point seriously and use it. It will secure your PC and run faster than before.
1. Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer
Firefox is the more secure than other browser. Firefox has number of security add-ons that you should consider installing as well to enhance the security on your machine ever more. So, try to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
2. Configure your Anti-virus software
Customize the antivirus software that’s running on your computer and keep update your antivirus. There are lots of different antivirus in the market so, it’s better for us how particular antivirus software should be configured.
3. Remove unneeded software
Many machines come with the installed software on it that makes your machine vulnerable to an attack. Load ofsoftware creates hangness to your system, so always keep only needed software and remove unneeded software. Unnecessarysoftware can slow down the operation speed of software that you are actually using.
4. Install Microsoft Security Patches
Run windows update to install Microsoft Security Patches that are missing from your system. Since your Operating System was installed on your computer there is high chances that new viruses and bugs in the software were discovered and created.
5. Defrag your Hard drive
Hard drive physically stores your files, folders, images, documents and all thing, which you had saved in your hard drive. As you continuously open and close programs, fragments of relevant data get placed apart from one-another. Because of the distance between this data has increased over time. You can make up or cover your over used space after the defragment process and it increase the working efficiency of the hard drive.
TO INCREASE YOUR MENTAL STABILITY,YOUR IQ LEVEL,YOUR LEARNING POWER AND MANY MORE TIPS FOR LEARNING
Is there a way to get an internet connection for free?
We want to know if there is way to connect to the internet without having to pay the high fees that our cable company charges for internet access ($55 a month). We are on a fixed income and in our sixties. We enjoy being connected to our friends thru the internet and playing games like Mah-Jong and Farmville on Facebook. But when it comes right down to it, when being forced to choose between our cable and internet connection (which together cost $115 a month), the internet would be the one that we'd have to cut, as without cable, we receive no television signals. We are homebodies and love each other a lot (married 42 years), but we need the entertainment factor that watching TV and being on the internet provide us. ;-) We read today's edition of your newsletter about a person asking if they could share the password for their router with their neighbor. We think that we got the gist of what you were saying and wonder... Can this “router thing” allow us to connect to the internet without having to go through a separate company? How much does a router cost? Is it hard to hook up? Is it something that we could do ourselves?
•
A router is not going to get you free internet, no.
Besides, you probably already have one.
I like to compare internet service to your landline phone service: if you want your own phone, you gotta pay for the connection. Without that, all that you can really do is borrow your neighbor's phone or maybe that of a generous business.
But if you want your own connection at home, that's a service that needs to be paid for, I'm afraid.
I'll look at a couple of alternatives for internet, both free and paid, and talk a little more about that router.
•
\
About that router
A router is simply a device that allows you to share an existing internet connection.
"The options for getting no-cost or low-cost internet into the home are few."
Because you have internet right now through your cable company, it's very possible that you already have a router, particularly if you have more than one computer. Whether or not you have one, however, a router is simply a device that is used to manage the internet connection that you already have.
In the article about the person sharing her connection with her neighbors, she already had a router connected to her internet service (that she was paying for) and was allowing her neighbors to connect to it.
The two basic types of home internet service
Internet service to the home is often one of either two types of service:
Cable - Cable internet makes use of the existing cable coming into your home provided by your cable TV provider. They use that same cable to bring in internet service. In this case, the cable company provides your internet service.
DSL - DSL makes use of the existing telephone connection into your home provided by your telephone company. They then use the same wires to provide internet service. In the U.S., at least while the telephone company continues to provide the connection to your home, they are requried to allow other companies to actually be your ISP. Thus, while your phone company might offer you internet connectivity, you might also be able to look around and find additional DSL options from different, often local, ISPs.
For completeness, I should also mention fiberoptical connections, such as FiOS, which are provided by your telephone company, or satellite internet, provided by satellite TV or internet companies. The former has limited availability and the latter suffers from technical issues that make it only a last resort option when nothing else is available, in my opinion.
In your case, I'd at least start checking for the availability of DSL and how its pricing compares in your area.
A third, paid option
Mobile broadband is essentially wireless internet connectivity provided by mobile phone carriers and might be a possible alternative.
As you might expect, there are several options here because there are typicaly several mobile carriers that offer their services in any given region. Most offer devices that can be connected via USB or even standalone wireless routers that allow you to connect to the internet using the mobile network.
I'm not all that hopeful that they'll be as cost effective as a replacement for what you have but they're worth investigating. Be aware that there may be limitations on how much you can do (data transfer limits) and it'll almost certainly be slower than the cable connection that you have today.
Free options
Options for connecting to the internet for free are very, very limited. Essentially, you end up relying on the generosity of someone else who's paying for a connection to share it with you.
Your neighbor - Even though I advise against it for most, getting internet through your neighbor could be an option, depending on your relationship with your neighbor. If they have aWiFi access point and its signal is strong enough for you to connect to it from your home, it could work. All that you'd need is a WiFi adapter for your PC if it doesn't already have one. They'll have to trust you not to abuse their connection and stay secure, and you'll have to trust that they won't snoop on the data that you send through their connection.
The local library - Usually, this means using their equipment, but some provide free WiFi that you can use by bringing your WiFi-enabled laptop.
The local coffee shop or other generous business - For me, this means Starbucks, but many coffee shops and other small businesses are offering free WiFi as a perk for their customers. This does mean that you'll need to bring in your laptop, though.
We want to know if there is way to connect to the internet without having to pay the high fees that our cable company charges for internet access ($55 a month). We are on a fixed income and in our sixties. We enjoy being connected to our friends thru the internet and playing games like Mah-Jong and Farmville on Facebook. But when it comes right down to it, when being forced to choose between our cable and internet connection (which together cost $115 a month), the internet would be the one that we'd have to cut, as without cable, we receive no television signals. We are homebodies and love each other a lot (married 42 years), but we need the entertainment factor that watching TV and being on the internet provide us. ;-) We read today's edition of your newsletter about a person asking if they could share the password for their router with their neighbor. We think that we got the gist of what you were saying and wonder... Can this “router thing” allow us to connect to the internet without having to go through a separate company? How much does a router cost? Is it hard to hook up? Is it something that we could do ourselves?
•
A router is not going to get you free internet, no.
Besides, you probably already have one.
I like to compare internet service to your landline phone service: if you want your own phone, you gotta pay for the connection. Without that, all that you can really do is borrow your neighbor's phone or maybe that of a generous business.
But if you want your own connection at home, that's a service that needs to be paid for, I'm afraid.
I'll look at a couple of alternatives for internet, both free and paid, and talk a little more about that router.
•
\
About that router
A router is simply a device that allows you to share an existing internet connection.
"The options for getting no-cost or low-cost internet into the home are few."
Because you have internet right now through your cable company, it's very possible that you already have a router, particularly if you have more than one computer. Whether or not you have one, however, a router is simply a device that is used to manage the internet connection that you already have.
In the article about the person sharing her connection with her neighbors, she already had a router connected to her internet service (that she was paying for) and was allowing her neighbors to connect to it.
The two basic types of home internet service
Internet service to the home is often one of either two types of service:
Cable - Cable internet makes use of the existing cable coming into your home provided by your cable TV provider. They use that same cable to bring in internet service. In this case, the cable company provides your internet service.
DSL - DSL makes use of the existing telephone connection into your home provided by your telephone company. They then use the same wires to provide internet service. In the U.S., at least while the telephone company continues to provide the connection to your home, they are requried to allow other companies to actually be your ISP. Thus, while your phone company might offer you internet connectivity, you might also be able to look around and find additional DSL options from different, often local, ISPs.
For completeness, I should also mention fiberoptical connections, such as FiOS, which are provided by your telephone company, or satellite internet, provided by satellite TV or internet companies. The former has limited availability and the latter suffers from technical issues that make it only a last resort option when nothing else is available, in my opinion.
In your case, I'd at least start checking for the availability of DSL and how its pricing compares in your area.
A third, paid option
Mobile broadband is essentially wireless internet connectivity provided by mobile phone carriers and might be a possible alternative.
As you might expect, there are several options here because there are typicaly several mobile carriers that offer their services in any given region. Most offer devices that can be connected via USB or even standalone wireless routers that allow you to connect to the internet using the mobile network.
I'm not all that hopeful that they'll be as cost effective as a replacement for what you have but they're worth investigating. Be aware that there may be limitations on how much you can do (data transfer limits) and it'll almost certainly be slower than the cable connection that you have today.
Free options
Options for connecting to the internet for free are very, very limited. Essentially, you end up relying on the generosity of someone else who's paying for a connection to share it with you.
Your neighbor - Even though I advise against it for most, getting internet through your neighbor could be an option, depending on your relationship with your neighbor. If they have aWiFi access point and its signal is strong enough for you to connect to it from your home, it could work. All that you'd need is a WiFi adapter for your PC if it doesn't already have one. They'll have to trust you not to abuse their connection and stay secure, and you'll have to trust that they won't snoop on the data that you send through their connection.
The local library - Usually, this means using their equipment, but some provide free WiFi that you can use by bringing your WiFi-enabled laptop.
The local coffee shop or other generous business - For me, this means Starbucks, but many coffee shops and other small businesses are offering free WiFi as a perk for their customers. This does mean that you'll need to bring in your laptop, though.
How should I protect my computer from natural disasters?
With the passing of Hurricane Irene where I live (my home was spared any damage), what do you suggest is a good plan to protect your data and your hardware from these storms?
•
That's actually a scenario that many people overlook until it's much too late. I'm not talking about hurricanes specifically, but any disaster that could take out all of your computer equipment at home.
There are a few things that we can do to protect the hardware, but in all honesty, that's not the most important thing.
It's not the most important by far.
Let's face it: hardware can be replaced.
•
Protecting hardware
I'm not sure that there's anything specifically that you can do that's reasonable to protect your hardware from an extreme natural disaster. Be it a hurricane (as you've described), an earthquake (as the area that I live in is at risk of), or something as simple yet disastrous as a house fire. Unless you keep your hardware in a waterproof bomb shelter, there is going to be something that could potentially destroy it all.
"The bottom line is that computers can be replaced, but your precious data cannot."
That being said, surge protectors are inexpensive and easy and should probably be used by just about everyone. Lightning arrestors and related equipment should definitely be used by those in lightning-prone areas. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) are definitely worth considering for those whose homes are prone to power issues or those who need to keep their machines running after the power goes out.
But as I said, it's difficult to protect all of your hardware from all possible disaster scenarios.
And to put it bluntly, that's okay. Hardware can be replaced.
What's not okay is losing your data. That can't.
Protecting your data
I talk a lot about backups here on Ask Leo!, mostly because I hear so often about people that have lost extremely important things due to common mistakes and failures.
Very common mistakes and failures.
So I would hope that at a minimum that you already have some kind of backup regimen in place. My preference, of course, is an automatic full and incremental backup of your entire computer.
The problem with those backups, however, is that they tend to be very large and typically require an external hard drive or even another computer for storage. As a result, they remain on site. That means if something happens to the site - meaning your home - both your computer and your backups are at risk.
That's where off-site backups play an important role.
Off-site backup
Typically, an off-site backup is a backup of only your data and not the system, installed programs, configurations, or personalizations. A backup that would contain all of that, essentially a backup of your entire computer, is typically much too large to transfer over a typical internet connection in any reasonable amount of time. As a result, off-site backups tend to focus only on your data.
The criteria for an off-site backup is very simple: you should backup all your data that could not otherwise be reconstructed should your computer and at home backups be destroyed. That means your important files, financial records, photographs, videos, and so on. As I said, anything that would be permanently lost if all of the computer equipment, backups, CDs, DVDs or whatever at home were suddenly lost.
Off-site backup alternatives
There are several alternatives:
I think that it's important for any backup to be automated and that includes off-site backup. With that in mind, that makes a very strong case for online backup services as a solution for this problem. True backup services, such as Carbonite, Mozy, Jungle Disk, and others, are specifically designed to backup the data, and only the data, from your computer to their servers at some remote location. As a convenience, many then also offer the ability to then access your data via a secure Web connection from any computer on the Internet.
Another alternative are services like Dropbox and several of its competitors. Dropbox is billed as a data-sharing service that allows you to share files across multiple computers and with other Dropbox users. As a side effect, those files are also stored on the Dropbox servers, effectively becoming off-site backup. Depending on how much data that you have, their free plan might even suffice.
Often overlooked is that if you have your own website through an ISP, hosting service, or other website provider, it's very possible that you have the ability to store a significant amount of data online. The trick here is to come up with a solution that is both secure and allows you to automate backing up your important data. Unfortunately, for this kind of scenario, you pretty much have to roll your own solution.
Other non-automated solutions include periodically copying important files to some sort of media that can then be taken somewhere else. In the past, when my wife had a retail business, data would be stored on a pair of external drives, one at that business and one at home. We would simply swap the drives periodically.
What most people think of is simply writing important data to CDs flash drives and the like and taking or sending it to a friend or family member periodically, or storing it in a safety deposit box at the bank. These are all viable solutions as long as they happen religiously on a regular schedule.
The bottom line is that computers can be replaced but your precious data cannot.
If something happens to wipe out all of your computer equipment at home including all of the backups that you have so carefully created, you truly have lost everything if your data is also not stored somewhere else. Depending on your needs, there are several solutions for implementing an off-site backup and I strongly recommend that you do so.
•
That's actually a scenario that many people overlook until it's much too late. I'm not talking about hurricanes specifically, but any disaster that could take out all of your computer equipment at home.
There are a few things that we can do to protect the hardware, but in all honesty, that's not the most important thing.
It's not the most important by far.
Let's face it: hardware can be replaced.
•
Protecting hardware
I'm not sure that there's anything specifically that you can do that's reasonable to protect your hardware from an extreme natural disaster. Be it a hurricane (as you've described), an earthquake (as the area that I live in is at risk of), or something as simple yet disastrous as a house fire. Unless you keep your hardware in a waterproof bomb shelter, there is going to be something that could potentially destroy it all.
"The bottom line is that computers can be replaced, but your precious data cannot."
That being said, surge protectors are inexpensive and easy and should probably be used by just about everyone. Lightning arrestors and related equipment should definitely be used by those in lightning-prone areas. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) are definitely worth considering for those whose homes are prone to power issues or those who need to keep their machines running after the power goes out.
But as I said, it's difficult to protect all of your hardware from all possible disaster scenarios.
And to put it bluntly, that's okay. Hardware can be replaced.
What's not okay is losing your data. That can't.
Protecting your data
I talk a lot about backups here on Ask Leo!, mostly because I hear so often about people that have lost extremely important things due to common mistakes and failures.
Very common mistakes and failures.
So I would hope that at a minimum that you already have some kind of backup regimen in place. My preference, of course, is an automatic full and incremental backup of your entire computer.
The problem with those backups, however, is that they tend to be very large and typically require an external hard drive or even another computer for storage. As a result, they remain on site. That means if something happens to the site - meaning your home - both your computer and your backups are at risk.
That's where off-site backups play an important role.
Off-site backup
Typically, an off-site backup is a backup of only your data and not the system, installed programs, configurations, or personalizations. A backup that would contain all of that, essentially a backup of your entire computer, is typically much too large to transfer over a typical internet connection in any reasonable amount of time. As a result, off-site backups tend to focus only on your data.
The criteria for an off-site backup is very simple: you should backup all your data that could not otherwise be reconstructed should your computer and at home backups be destroyed. That means your important files, financial records, photographs, videos, and so on. As I said, anything that would be permanently lost if all of the computer equipment, backups, CDs, DVDs or whatever at home were suddenly lost.
Off-site backup alternatives
There are several alternatives:
I think that it's important for any backup to be automated and that includes off-site backup. With that in mind, that makes a very strong case for online backup services as a solution for this problem. True backup services, such as Carbonite, Mozy, Jungle Disk, and others, are specifically designed to backup the data, and only the data, from your computer to their servers at some remote location. As a convenience, many then also offer the ability to then access your data via a secure Web connection from any computer on the Internet.
Another alternative are services like Dropbox and several of its competitors. Dropbox is billed as a data-sharing service that allows you to share files across multiple computers and with other Dropbox users. As a side effect, those files are also stored on the Dropbox servers, effectively becoming off-site backup. Depending on how much data that you have, their free plan might even suffice.
Often overlooked is that if you have your own website through an ISP, hosting service, or other website provider, it's very possible that you have the ability to store a significant amount of data online. The trick here is to come up with a solution that is both secure and allows you to automate backing up your important data. Unfortunately, for this kind of scenario, you pretty much have to roll your own solution.
Other non-automated solutions include periodically copying important files to some sort of media that can then be taken somewhere else. In the past, when my wife had a retail business, data would be stored on a pair of external drives, one at that business and one at home. We would simply swap the drives periodically.
What most people think of is simply writing important data to CDs flash drives and the like and taking or sending it to a friend or family member periodically, or storing it in a safety deposit box at the bank. These are all viable solutions as long as they happen religiously on a regular schedule.
The bottom line is that computers can be replaced but your precious data cannot.
If something happens to wipe out all of your computer equipment at home including all of the backups that you have so carefully created, you truly have lost everything if your data is also not stored somewhere else. Depending on your needs, there are several solutions for implementing an off-site backup and I strongly recommend that you do so.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)