Spyware is software that gathers certain information about people or organizations. The information that spywares collect may vary but are very important. Whether it’s a big company or an individual, spyware’s effect can be futile especially since most information gathered can cause fraudulent activities.
Whether you are a residential customer with a small computer problem or a business with a full range of networked computers; Computer Doc can help! We can provide solutions, answers, and fixes for your most troubling issues.
Over recent years, computers have become synonymous with viruses and viruses don’t show any signs of disappearing any time soon. In the past, we would be comfortable in telling new computer users not to worry about computer viruses and that catching a computer virus is rare. Today, that would be some of the worst advice we could give anyone. As reported in countless news reports, computer viruses are rampant and they’re extremely worrisome. This article will describe what viruses are and then point you in the direction of some rather unique protection and prevention.
In short, a computer virus is a software program designed to destroy or steal data. It attacks computers via distribution – often unknowingly – through email attachments, software downloads, and even some types of advanced web scripting. Viruses that destroy data are known as Trojan horses, viruses that explode their attacks are called bombs, and viruses that duplicate themselves are called worms. Some computer viruses are a combination of each, however they can be further identified according to where they’re located on a computer.
A virus originating from the boot sector of a computer is a boot-sector virus and this nasty devil does its dirty work the moment a computer is turned on. A virus that attaches itself to (infects) other programs is a file virus and activates the moment that an infected program starts. File viruses may also be referred to as parasitic viruses, however should a virus work from both the boot-sector and from an infected program, the virus is then known as a multipartite virus.
Why viruses exist remains a mystery, however we had privy access to the mind behind a virus programmer who explained his motivation behind his destructive inclinations. Apparently, this person had a deep grudge against a popular online service which shall remain unnamed. In this hacker’s mind, the online service failed to do a quality job in protecting children from online smut and as retaliation, he created and distributed a virus to as many file libraries of this service as he could. His intentions were to disable the computers of the online service’s users so much that they wouldn’t be able to connect for days. In his mind, the loss of connection meant loss of revenue for the online service.
Although the malicious code that this person generated may have worked for a small percentage of users, sufficed to say, the online service continued on and still exists today. Despite his motivation or intention, his efforts were null.
We wouldn’t be surprised to learn if other motivations behind spreading computer viruses were similar to this person’s, but that doesn’t justify the damage that viruses do. Innocent people become pawns for the evil plans of others who’ve convinced themselves they’re doing the “right” thing.
To protect a computer from getting a virus, or clean a virus from a computer system once infected requires the use of an antivirus utility. But may be there is something else we can do. Perhaps we could make an effort to educate the people who want put viruses into the public about ways to display dissatisfaction with a service or product that don’t involve harming innocent parties. In doing so, we just might reduce the number of virus news stories and protect our own investments at the same time.
Information technologists generally design, operate or maintain technology products. Not limited to employment with technology companies, information technology (IT) specialists may work with any businesses, agencies or organizations that use technology or manage large amounts of information. Regardless of the sector they work in, IT specialists usually provide similar services related to software, hardware, databases, Web resources, networks and enterprise systems.
Questions to ask a computer repair technician before you hire them, may be a variety of issues and topics. It is important to know about the background of the worker, their experience and training in computer repairs. Knowing that they have good customer service and an excellent track record for fixing computers, is a nice feature for customers to know.
Computer data recovery can be a tricky business, usually requiring the help of hard drive data recovery experts. But in all hard drive recovery situations experts advise users remain calm and not act in a way that will make matters worse. Let our experts help.
Information technologists generally design, operate or maintain technology products. Not limited to employment with technology companies, information technology (IT) specialists may work with any businesses, agencies or organizations that use technology or manage large amounts of information. Regardless of the sector they work in, IT specialists usually provide similar services related to software, hardware, databases, Web resources, networks and enterprise systems.
Dust Kills – Between taking care of the household, the kids, the pets, and the district PTA, computer cleaning is probably one of the last things that you think of doing on a regular basis. Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog – one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace.
Let’s talk about maintaining hardware. So much emphasis is put on maintaining a computer’s operating system that we sometimes forget how important it is to maintain a computer’s hardware components. Since there can be quite a few components to take care of, let’s talk about the most important one. The most important component of a computer’s hardware system is its fan. The fan is located on the computer’s CPU unit and when that thing gets clogged with dirt and dust, it can run down a computer faster than you can say, “Something’s wrong with my computer and I don’t know what it is!” In short, the fan is responsible for keeping a computer’s motor cool and this motor is what keeps the computer’s hard drive and peripherals functioning the way you need them to, which translates to “fast.” A dirty fan doesn’t rotate fast enough to keep that motor cool and a completely clogged fan just stops rotating altogether. This causes the computer’s motor to work harder – and a harder working motor can raise the electric bill! Worst case scenario: the motor can overheat and stop working as well. No motor equals no computer. Keep your computer’s fan clean by preventing the fan from getting dirty or dusty in the first place. Use the computer in a dust-free environment and never smoke around it. Nicotine and tar mean certain death when it comes to computer fans, however should you find a need to clean the fan, do so with extreme care. It’s quite easy to cause more damage from computer cleaning so if you’re not comfortable with cleaning your PC yourself, take it to a shop for servicing. Otherwise, you can unplug and disassemble the computer to do it yourself.
You’ll need a can of compressed air and an anti-static rag to remove stubborn clumps of dust. Hold the can perfectly vertical and spray the fan being careful not to spray the dust off the fan onto other sensitive parts of the computer like circuit boards or inside the motor casing. Wipe up remaining dust with your anti-static rag and then reassemble the computer. One thing that you certainly don’t want to use to remove computer dust is a vacuum cleaner. Although using a vacuum cleaner seems to make more sense, the strong suction of a vacuum cleaner can actually spark damaging static electricity or dislodge loose cables.
You also don’t want to use oil-based cleaners. Although Pledge may dust your wooden tables and cabinets to a perfect shine, the oil inside a cleaner like this will erode sensitive computer parts. Stick to a liquid-free dusting method and your computer cleaning routine will be safe enough to repeat as often as you need. As previously mentioned, preventing dust from entering the computer is extremely important and will reduce the need to open and dust your system in the first place. The severity of outside elements (smoking, humidity, pets, etc.) will ultimately determine how often you’ll need to de-dust your machine. But as an average, you shouldn’t need to perform this procedure any more than once or twice a year. The entire exercise should take no more than twenty minutes tops and once complete, you’ll immediately see and hear the difference in your machine. The computer’s keyboard and mouse will run more smoothly, hardware won’t take as long to connect, and the entire machine won’t be as loud as one that’s corroded with ugly dust bunnies.
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Most people don’t have time to hassle with bringing a computer to a repair shop. Why should you go through the hassle of unplugging all the wires and packing the PC up in the car? We come to you.
Most computer users are eventually faced with a slow and less responsive computer after only a couple of months of use. The reason for this is simple daily computer activity like creating and deleting files, installing and uninstalling software, browsing the Internet, and so on. Some people, especially computer novices, start wondering whether their computer is already out of date and they need a new one. Others call a computer technician and ask him to upgrade whatever there is to upgrade. Fortunately, there is a faster and a cheaper way to recover lost speed and make your PC running as good as new. Here are four simple tips that will help speed up your computer:
1. Time for Spring Cleaning – Computers are a bit like your living space – if you don’t cleanup, they accumulate junk and become a real mess. In the case of computers it’s junk files – temporary Internet files, software uninstall leftovers, old backups, log files and many others. In addition to that you may have lots of space taken up by unnecessary copies, like songs you’ve downloaded twice and saved to different folders. Junk files and duplicates usually take up lots of disk space, which slows down file access, antivirus scans, and generally decreases computer performance.The answer is to use a disk cleaner (Windows has an inbuilt one) at least once a month and use a duplicate file finding software every other month.
2. Fix Registry Errors – Another source of computer debris is the registry. Programs on your computer access the Windows registry thousands of times per second. Registry entries are created whenever you install new software and drivers for your hardware, and when you uninstall programs invalid registry entries can be left behind. The more registry errors there are, the slower your computer is.
That’s why you need to maintain the registry’s health and run a reliable registry cleaner every once in awhile, especially when you uninstall programs. Windows doesn’t have an inbuilt one, but there are many good free registry cleaners available for download. Just make sure you choose the one that backs up the registry before making any changes.
3. Defrag your Hard Drives – Even computer novices have heard that de-fragmentation can significantly speed up your computer. That’s because hard drives are the slowest part of your computer. So, when there are a lot of fragmented files, your drive’s read and write heads have to move a lot more than if the drive is defragmented. The more the heads need to move, the more time it takes to open a file. Windows has a built-in disk defragmenter. However, there are great third-party alternatives, like the one that is part of Auslogics BoostSpeed 5, that can not only defrag files, but also consolidate free space and optimize file placement.
4. Optimize Windows Settings – There are loads of different hardware configurations out there, but only one Windows operating system to fit them all. Of course, there are different versions of Windows, but they all have the “one size fits all” approach. This means that no matter how good or how bad is your hardware, Windows settings are the same by default. That’s why some less powerful computers and especially netbooks can really struggle. Usually, you can speed up your computer by optimizing Windows settings and services either manually (which is risky and very difficult) or with the help of an optimization tool, that will analyze your system and offer the best tweaks to speed it up and improve computer performance.
So, if you want your computer to be fast and responsive, you have to follow three simple rules – keep it clean, defragmented, and optimized. All this can be done manually, but it’s too hard if you are a novice user and takes a lot of time. Besides, fiddling with the registry and some settings is dangerous and can make your computer unbootable. Remember, looking after your computer and performing regular maintenance is always easier than solving problems when they occur.
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A computer virus is something that none of us want to deal with. It gets inside our computers and does discrete things that we certainly don’t want it to. Sometimes our antivirus (if we have one) will stop the computer virus, often it does not. The anti-virus software may not have been updated to protect the computer from a newer computer virus. It’s important to learn how a computer virus works so that we can protect ourselves and our beloved data.
A computer virus is a malware program that gets inside of your computer through something you may have clicked on or downloaded and replicates itself in program and data files or somewhere into the hard drive. The computer is then said to be infected. The virus can steal private information, corrupt data, or instruct the computer to do self-harmful tasks.
Software bugs
If a software has a bug, a hacker might use a virus to exploit that bug in order to infect the computer and spread the virus. It’s always important that you install any updates to files (updates that have been previous checked by an anti-virus software).
.Exe files
Computer viruses will also be attached to .exe files. When the user attempts to launch the infected program, the virus is released and begins its reign of terror on the computer.
One of the ways to classify computer viruses is where they reside: in binary executables (such as .EXE or .COM files), data files (such as Microsoft Word documents or PDF files), or in the boot sector of the host’s hard drive (or some combination of all of these).
Resident Computer Viruses
These computer viruses install themselves as part of the operating system. When the operating system attempts to retrieve something, the virus attacks and replicates.
Macro Computer Viruses
A macro virus is a computer virus that is embedded as a macro in a document , often in a email. So when the person opens it, the virus code executes and infects the computer.
Boot sector Computer Viruses
As its name mention, this virus targets the boot sector of the hard drive or removable storage.
Software can intercept these programs before they are installed. They typically run a scan and notify you if there’s a problem with any portion of your hard drive or any of your files. You want to make sure you’re updating this software all the time to the latest edition.
Does your computer have a virus and you don’t know where it is, what it’s doing and how to get rid of it and you live in the Charlotte area? Contact the experts at Computer Doc to restore your computer to its pre-virus state.
