Something that we have been seeing a lot more lately is Hard drive crashes. This has always been a pretty common problem. But I feel in the last couple of months it has ramped up. I remember during Windows 98 era most common users were aware of features like disk defragement and Disk Check. Now I feel it is almost a lost art with Windows computers users. Both Disk Check and Disk Defragment run through Windows and can help prevent failures.
Disk Defragment Works by checking hard disk for bad clusters or sectors on the physical hard disk. Bad sectors occur when data is written to the disk over time and the data is spanned out over larger sections of the hard drive decreasing speed and life expectancy.
The average lifespan of a hard drive is 3years...
Always Back up your data Data recovery for a failed hard drive can cost over 1000$
Citation:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-disk-defragmentation
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Understanding Malware, Spyware & Viruses
Spyware & Viruses are programs that are designed to disrupt a computer system. Both have similar goals but for different reasons. Both are considered Malware because they are malicious in nature. Both can be specifically targeted or just picked up at random.
Spyware is more associated with scams and ID theft. The goal of spyware is to scam you to trick you to pay for software that has been installed on your computer with out your knowledge. This is done by usually tricking you to click on a link or pop up that states you have an infection and it must be cleaned. Once you click on the malicious pop up, you unknowingly give the program permission to install malicious software on your machine. Spyware can block out internet access and render your machine useless if it becomes heavily infected.
Viruses on the other hand in the past have been more malicious in nature. If you remember during the late 90's and early 2000's the CIH virus which ran wild for almost 2 years. Also if you can remember the rumors of computers melting or blowing up because of a virus. This is largely untrue for the average computer user. Mostly virus these days are trojans that try to recover stored passwords for e-mail and bank accounts. However just recently a computer virus was placed in a computer running a Nuclear reactor in Iran and caused wide spread damage by running the machine at an extreme rate while showing old video tape surveillance of the reactor running normally. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
Spyware is more associated with scams and ID theft. The goal of spyware is to scam you to trick you to pay for software that has been installed on your computer with out your knowledge. This is done by usually tricking you to click on a link or pop up that states you have an infection and it must be cleaned. Once you click on the malicious pop up, you unknowingly give the program permission to install malicious software on your machine. Spyware can block out internet access and render your machine useless if it becomes heavily infected.
Viruses on the other hand in the past have been more malicious in nature. If you remember during the late 90's and early 2000's the CIH virus which ran wild for almost 2 years. Also if you can remember the rumors of computers melting or blowing up because of a virus. This is largely untrue for the average computer user. Mostly virus these days are trojans that try to recover stored passwords for e-mail and bank accounts. However just recently a computer virus was placed in a computer running a Nuclear reactor in Iran and caused wide spread damage by running the machine at an extreme rate while showing old video tape surveillance of the reactor running normally. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
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