The following is advice I posted on a neighborhood listserve regarding viruses, firewalls and backups. As time passes, this advice may become out-of-date. I am not a computer professional. Please take this advice as friendly suggestions, but not as any kind of professional services.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Freedman
To: north_takoma@topica.com
Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2003 11:01 AM
Subject: Computer Advice
Hi neighbors,
I am often asked about virus protection, firewalls and backing-up computers.
Here's some basic advice on what I do, which should be fairly easy for most
basic users to do too. Also, this week (through Sat. Aug. 23) there are sales
at CompUSA on most of these products so this is a good time to do it. See
the flyer in today's Post. While these sales are often available, this is
a good week to catch them. For $110 plus tax you can have a safe and backed
up system and be set for the next couple of years at least. It should take
about 2-3 hours to install everything, set your protections and do your initial
backup. Thereafter it takes about 5 minutes to update the virus/firewall software
and about 10 minutes to update you backup (if you do incremental backups like
I do). I'll try to explain it all without too much technobabble. In short,
if you're not sure, hired Peter Weiss's son Robin to do it for you 301-589-9280.
There are millions of ways to do these things, and I'm passing along what
works for me.
This is all Windows advice. While I love Macs, I don't have one.
1) Virus Protection. This an absolute must have and one needs to make sure
it is updated (via the web) at least every week. Both McAfee and Norton make
very good virus protection products. I prefer Norton, especially because it
is much easier to update (as of about 6 months ago). I switched from McAfee
(which came with my machine) to Norton.
CompUSA is selling Norton Internet Security on sale for $30 this week (free
if you are updating from another antivirus product). It includes anti-virus,
firewall, and a one year subscription to updates via the web. The price is
$70 less $20 in-store savings, $20 rebate and $30 rebate for upgrading. If
you are switching from McAfee, you may qualify for the upgrade rebate.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=296418&pfp=ADPRODUCTS
If you get this, I also recommend getting Norton Utilities as part of Norton
SystemWorks (which includes Utilities). The Utilities is a nice product for
keeping your Windows system fairly clean. It check for errors and fixes lots
of little things that can cause small problems.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=295707&pfp=ADPRODUCTS
(The way they price these things it's cheaper to get SystemWorks then to buy
Utilities stand alone).
2) Firewall. If you have a dial up connection, then this isn't very important
for you but wouldn't hurt. If you have a high speed connection then it's a
must. I have DSL and get an "intruder alert" at least once a day
(and I'm only connected a few hours each day). The Firewall in Norton Internet
Security above is excellent. In short, it keeps other people on the internet
from hacking into your computer while you are on-line. Hackers range from
the curious (let's see what's on this computer) to malicious (lets wipe out
this computer or use it to attack other computers).
**One word of note on virus and firewall software. They run in the background
while your computer operates. This may mean that they will use a lot of your
RAM. RAM is your computer's active "thinking" memory (as opposed
to the storage memory on your hard drive). Most new computers come with 1/4
to 1/3 of their maximum RAM capacity. Adding more RAM is the best way to improve
your computer's performance. I strongly recommend having at least 256 megs
of RAM.
You can find out how much RAM you have by right clicking the "My Computer"
Icon on your desktop and clicking the "Properties" option. The Performance
tab will tell you how much memory you have. You can then see how much RAM
you could have by checking on http://www.crucial.com/ You need to know the
name and number for your system--for example I have an HP Pavilion 6746c.
Crucial then will tell you what RAM cards you would need to upgrade your computer.
My computer has two RAM slots and came with one 64M card. I got rid of the
64M card and bought two 256M cards and have 512M now. I bought my computer
in January 2001. Almost any computer purchased after 2000 should be able to
run at least 256M of RAM.
If you don't know your system name and number, you can download "Belarc"
from Crucial. This is a small program that might help figure out what RAM
you can get. Micro Plus Computer on Georgia close to the Beltway can also
help, although I think they might have closed.
3) Backup. I highly recommend the following: buy an external USB hard drive.
This week CompUSA has two on sale for excellent prices: Acomdata 60 gigs for
$80 (after rebates) or Western Digital 80 gigs for $100 (after rebates). For
most of us either of these have more storage then we'll need for years. One
note MAIL IN THE REBATES IMMEDIATELY. They have short time limits. 1 gig is
1000 megs.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=301786&pfp=ADPRODUCTS
or
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304506&pfp=ADPRODUCTS
USB external drives are great. You plug it into the USB port on your computer
(almost all Windows computer after 1998 have at least one USB port). And then
you can just copy or move files onto it. You then unplug it and store it someplace
safe (if you're really paranoid you buy a fireproof safe and put it in there
with your pearls and those photos of you, President Bush and the Llama so
when your house burns down you still have all your computer files and valuables).
With 60 gig or 80 gig you can save huge quantities of data. If you have a
small hard drive (under 10 gig) then this is also a good way to move lots
of old files off of your computer for long term storage.
Note that while these drives are USB 2.0, they should work with older USB
1.0 ports. I have a 1.0 port and the Acomdata 60 gig drive and it works fine.
Ask before you buy.
With an external drive it's easy to just back up your data files (photos,
documents, etc.) or even backup the entire computer (so that if it fails you
can completely restore it, software and all). It's quick and easy to install
and use. And you don't have to open the computer up. USB drives are also handy
for getting files off of an old computer before selling or giving it away.
What I do is keep all my data files in My Documents (in lots of subfolders).
I then use a free backup utility to back them up onto my external drive. I
use EZBackitup. It's a simple free program that lets me "synchronize"
my computer and my backup drive. It looks for files that have changed, been
added or deleted and then updates the backup drive. That makes the process
fairly quick after the first complete backup. It is available for free at:
http://www.rdcomp.net/
Note: backing up your e-mail may be a little more complicated. Outlook Express
is easy to back-up, but it's not at all obvious to the ordinary user how to
do so. You might check with your internet provider on advice for backup up
your e-mail files. Similarly it's easy to backup your Explorer Favorites or
Netscape Bookmarks, but it's not immediately obvious. There is advise on the
web on this and I'll try to find time to write it up later.
Another alternative for backing up, if you have a small amount of data, is
with CDs. You need a CD writer for this. The only caveat is that each CD only
holds 750 megs. That means that it gets cumbersome to do backups if you have
over 750 megs of files to maintain. If you don't have a CD writer, then it's
easy to buy either an external one or an internal one. Robin can help you
install an internal one.
One other handy product, which you could use for backup, is a flash drive
(also know as thumb drives or jump drives). I don't recommend them for backup
because they are small and could be easily lost or broken.
These are pen sized memory drives that plug into a USB port. They can hold
from 16meg up to 1 gig. Think of them as super-disks. You just plug them in,
copy/move onto them whatever you want, then take them with you and plug them
into any other Windows computer and copy/move the files off of them. They
are great for moving data between computers without having to burn a CD. They
are especially handy for people with ultrathin laptops that have USB ports
but no disk drive and no CD writer.
They are often on sale, and you can see a list of them and prices at:
http://www.compusa.com/products/products.asp?category_id=695&srch_type=catg2
As far as I know, there is no difference in the hardware itself between brands.
The differences are price, memory and style. Some are fancy looking, some
are smaller, you can even get them with you name or logo (Dell is giving one
out free with the Dell logo with certain new Dell computers).
Good luck,
Mark