Computer Security, Maintenance and Backup

Transcription

1 Computer Security, Maintenance and Backup 1. Use of virus protection There are at least 3 popular free anti-virus programs you can download. They are AVG, Avast and Microsoft Security Essentials. They all work well. Be sure to download the free versions. Easy to get the wrong one. AVG can pose some traps for the unwary with free trials that then expire, as an attempt to get you to pay for the product. Avast and MSE pose no such problems. Remember that you can only use one of these programs at a time. Having 2 or more will cause problems. When downloading and installing any of these programs, or any programs for that matter, be careful what you are agreeing to. Some of the pages include suggestions that you will use particular toolbars and even other programs can be unwittingly installed. You may have had this sort of experience before. Just check each page carefully before moving to the next. Once installed, remember that you should set the parameters for the scans and updates to work as you desire. If your computer is left running during the day (or night), you can program all updates and scans to occur automatically. If you have a laptop and only turn it on for maybe an hour a day or so, it is better to plan to do your updates and scans manually when it is on. We can show you how to set these parameters at the club if you are unsure. s with attachments should always be treated with suspicion, particularly if they have come from an unknown or untrusted source. The attachments can include viruses which can install themselves on your computer. Using your virus scanner will usually find and delete viruses but NOT ALWAYS. Some are not recognised by the antivirus program and can need some specialist treatment to eradicate them. 2. Malwarebytes This is another recommended program to help keep your computer free of Trojans and spyware. There is a free version of this program as well as a paid one. The free program requires manual running of the program to scan your computer for spyware that your virus scanner may have missed. Quite a good program. You can install and use this program alongside any anti-virus that you choose to use. They complement each other. 3. Surfing the Internet The internet can be a dangerous place for viruses etc. Certain types of sites (porn etc.) are nearly always infected and should be avoided. Your virus scanner will often warn you, when you are about to visit a site, that the site is not be recommended you open that site at your own risk. Never disclose any financial details bank accounts or credit card details on an unsecured website. To recognise an unsecured site, look at the address bar of the site. If it starts with https it is a secure site. If the s is missing, it is NOT secure. You should be wary of this when internet shopping. It is my recommendation that you open an account with Paypal to use for all your internet purchases. That way only one company has your details and they are very secure and guaranteed safe. They also provide a good level of buyer protection in the case of a fraudulent seller. If you ever receive ANY s from any apparently legitimate source suggesting you need to update or change your data, do NOT do it. No bank or credit card company

2 will ask for such detail over . It will be a hoax and could cost you plenty. Enough of Security. 4. Computer maintenance Computers, as we use them, collect cookies from websites, become a bit messed up with deleted data and uninstalled programs. These and many other issues can and will affect the way it works. The computer will slow down over time as these things build up. It is well worth while doing some regular maintenance to help keep this at bay. There are many retail programs available which claim to do this job for you. Some are good, some not so good. A computer man can of course do the maintenance manually but that involves time and money. If you wish to do it yourself, there are a couple of things you can do. One option is to download a free program called CCleaner. Once again be careful during the download what you agree to as there will be addons. This free program has to be run manually and should be done perhaps monthly. The club can help here with the setup if you have problems. Secondly, in Windows operating systems, there is a program you can access called Disc Cleanup which can be run every few months. To access this program, in Windows 7, go to Programs/ Accessories/System Tools/Disc Cleanup. The other Operating Systems have a similar path to follow. Defragging was a popular maintenance function years ago but computers today have such large hard discs and better internals and generally don t need to have this function activated. The rare exception would be for computers that have a huge amount of data on them and have used up a large proportion of their disc space (over 60% say). If you follow the above, your computer will general stay in reasonable condition. Of course there will always be exceptions with viruses etc. that escape the attention of the scanner and will need fixing. Updating Windows With those of us with desktop computers, it is easy for us to program our computers to automatically update our systems as we usually let our computers run all day. For those with Laptops, a lot of you would not do that and would only turn on the laptop to retrieve s and do the occasional search etc and then proceed to turn it off. This type of usage prevents Microsoft from properly updating your computers as you are not giving it sufficient time to do so. In these circumstances, you should manually update your computers at least monthly through the program in your Control Panel. Once again we can show you the procedure at the club. Let s move on to backup. Most of us put a reasonable amount of data on our computers, particularly photos etc. This data is usually valuable to the owner and I m sure nobody wants to lose it. There is a computer rule it isn t a case of if your computer will have a disc failure, it is a matter of when, if you keep it long enough. If you have a disc failure, there is a good chance you will lose all your data. Some computer people can often rescue data from damaged discs but this is expensive and doesn t always work. It is

3 far more sensible to have a backup system in place to cover the eventuality. With that, all your data is safe and can easily be restored on to a new computer. The most common way to backup your Windows computer is to purchase an external hard drive of a suitable size 500GIG is quite common. This is then able to be attached to the computer using a USB cable. Most Windows systems have built-in backup programs that can be setup to operate automatically or manually as you choose. In Windows 7, this program is called backup and Restore. In Windows 8, it is called File History, just to be different. These programs can be set to incrementally update your backup which means it only takes a scant few minutes once a day/week/month as you choose. You can choose to backup just your data or you can choose to backup your entire hard drive. The latter is obviously more comprehensive, but is time consuming. Some operating systems do not have built in programs and other solutions have to be considered. You can download a suitable program from the internet or you can choose to simply copy and paste your data onto the ext H/D disc (time consuming). Some external Hard Drives include a backup software program that can be considered. Whatever you choose, make sure you do something. Our club is happy to offer lessons in the art of backing up. There is another backup solution. It involves backing up to the cloud. I have asked another tutor, Alan Stickley, to talk on that as I am not experienced in that form of backup. Alan can also tell you how to backup data on a tablet or ipad. Any questions can be asked after Alan completes this presentation. Thanks.. Over to you Alan. TABLETS AND CLOUD COMPUTING WHAT IS THE CLOUD Cloud computing is one of the new buzz words for the IT industry. The cloud is a shared pool of different resources ie. Servers, networks, storage, applications and services positioned around the world that can be accessed quickly with minimum effort. WHAT DOES THE CLOUD DO Cloud computing provides data access and storage services. DO YOU NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOUR DATA IS STORED No. Nor do you need to know in what form your data is stored. A parallel can be drawn to an electricity grid. All you need to know there is that power will be delivered when you turn the switch on (mostly). It's the same with cloud computing. You store your data in your preferred system and can access it on pressing an icon on your tablet.

4 WHERE IS IT LIKELY TO BE STORED It can be anywhere. Old silos from the Cold War days where missiles were stored and disused mine shafts are examples. CAN YOUR DATA BE LOST OR CORRUPTED WHILST IN CLOUD STORAGE The short answer is that anything is possible but the reality is that it is far more likely that your data will be lost or corrupted if you try to look after it yourself. Cloud storage companies data protection systems are multi-faceted in that there are a number of backup systems and data is stored in more than one location. In other words the eggs are not in one basket. There are international laws as well that require these companies to protect others data and they are generally responsible if your data gets lost. How you would make a claim is another matter. WHO CAN STORE MY DATA There are a number of companies that operate cloud storage services. For instance Dropbox, Google Drive, SugarSync, icloud, Evernote, Cloud On, SkyDrive and many more. HOW DO I GO ABOUT IT The easiest way is to go to the Store app. on your tablet and type 'cloud storage' in the search panel. A number of options will appear and you can choose one by downloading the app. IS THIS STORAGE FREE Most companies will offer a certain amount free, generally between 2gb and 5gb and storage fees apply beyond that. WHY DO I NEED CLOUD STORAGE You may not, depending on the way and frequency you use your tablet and the space already available on it. In this regard, some Android have a distinct advantage over an ipad as some already have reasonable space on the tablet which can be increased by adding an SD card for additional storage. Personally I have an ipad with the smallest capacity (16gb) and I back mine up in icloud, where 5gb is available free. I have used 3.5gb of that in my backup so I checked to find out what additional storage cost was. Currently it is $21pa for an additional 10gb of storage.

5 CAN I 'DAISY CHAIN' THE STORAGE SERVICES In other words can I use a number of different companies to store my data until I reach the free limit then move to a different company and do the same thing. Yes you can but you have to be careful in the permissions you give each company otherwise all your data can be stored in all the companies you have chosen. FILE SHARING Most companies will allow you to share your files with other people to whom you have given permission to share. Dropbox is used extensively in this club to provide Tutors with their student details, dates and times of lessons. The details are updated as necessary and accessed by Tutors from their computer or tablet at home. DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER WHETHER I OWN EITHER AN IPAD OR ANDROID TABLET No. It's the same story for any tablet. You can access these companies no matter what tablet you have. THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF TALK ABOUT GBs. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN It's the way storage is measured. Some examples of storage capacity and what they mean are - 1gb of storage is equal to - 895,000 A4 pages 4500 books of 200 pages 340 digital pictures (av. 3mb each) 1 650mb CD also mb (megabytes) = 1gb 1000gb = 1tb (terabyte) Alan Stickley April 2014