Archive for August, 2007

by A Singh
Constant access to websites on the Internet means that a computer will eventually display errors regarding registry along with spyware and adware. This is where a cleaning agent does the trick and what better than the Windows Vista Registry Cleaners.

Browsing the Internet for Windows Vista Registry Cleaners will yield more than a dozen results of diverse brands. Most will advertise themselves as unparalleled. But how do you go about choosing an appropriate Windows Vista Registry Cleaner?

• Check whether the brand of Windows Vista Registry Cleaners you select can effectively backup your existent registry and restore it prior to alterations.
• Verify if it scans your computer free of charge before its purchase.
• Note if it entails a free Windows startup manager.

The ability to back up existent registry is the most crucial aspect of any Windows Vista Registry Cleaner. In the event of problems, cropping up during cleaning, loss of data will be minimal which is why selecting a Windows Vista Registry Cleaner requires utmost care.

If you opt for windows vista registry cleaner entailing a free scan of your machine, you can actually acquire the entire version of the original windows vista registry cleaner. This will clean your existent windows registry and fix all problems. A demo version will enable you to study the functions of the different buttons and keys on the windows vista registry cleaner interface to enable a better purchase decision.

Last but not the least, windows vista registry cleaners often influence the way the Windows program starts up. Some amount of control to check the functioning of different programs when Windows starts up may also be exercised though the windows vista registry cleaner. Startup problems caused by the malfunctioning or slow progress of any application may also be eliminated with this cleaner.

Author is admin and technical expert associated with development of computer security and performance enhancing software like Registry Cleaner, Anti Spyware, Window Cleaner, Anti Spam Filter. Visit: Home Page. Read More at Vista Registry Cleaner and Registry Cleaner.

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There’s little doubt that blogs are the shining stars in the search engine optimization firmament. And some of the best SEO blogging software comes in the form of WordPress plugins and themes designed to let you maximize your SEO rankings. I have a few favorites.

If you want a comprehensive package of SEO blogging software, you can’t do better than the All in One SEO WordPress Plugin.

This particular piece of SEO blogging software is a true joy, because I can use it to insert titles, keywords, and descriptions to every single WordPress post or page of my website. With that capability, I can really improve my chances of getting noticed by the big search engines.

You will like the All in One SEO Package’s Rewrite Titles feature, because it will show the SEO optimized titles of you posts ahead of the title of you blog in your title tags, so if your post titles are keyword heavy, those keywords will be noticed by Google and friends.

As SEO blogging software goes, I find the All in One pack to be very user friendly. The plugin will create a new options page on your site, where you enter your meta keywords, your site’s title and description.

You can then customize keywords and descriptions for your individual posts, and choose those articles which you choose to have listed ahead of your site’s name in the page title, as mentioned above.

Speaking of Google, another of the SEO blogging software must-haves from WordPress is Google Sitemaps. Use this to instantly enhance your WordPress blog with a sitemap and the plugin will take it from there. It will keep Google informed of any updates to your blog and you can even adapt it to work with Yahoo’s search engine as well.

Another of my recommendations for SEO blogging software is the WordPress SEO themes. The WordPress SEO themes are available in customizable basic formats with either two or three columns.

They include preconstructed headers and sidebars, and the WordPress team has put together a free web tutorial to assist you in using them to maximize your SEO rankings. You won’t have any trouble making these SEO themes look as if they were designed to your site specifications.

SEO blogging software is also available for other blogging platforms, but if you are using WordPress, as I do, you would be better off sticking with the plugins and themes engineered to work with the WordPress coding. There are plenty of them to keep you occupied, so why risk installing something that might do more harm than good?

Author: Matt Garrett© 2007 www.BlogTactics.com | Blog Tutorials & VideosGrab Your Free Step By Step Guide to Setting Up Your First Blog Now!!How to Start Blogging

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by Wolfgang Schmuck
Buying software online has never been easier with such as wide variety of retailers all competing for your business. However, choosing a reliable and trustworthy retailer becomes much more difficult when you have to separate the signal from the noise. In an effort to ensure that consumers are better equipped for buying certain types of software we have provided a step-by-step guide for buying audio software tools, video software tools and backup software tools.

When it comes to choosing which specific retailer to buy from, try to do some research on the company to uncover if everything appears to be above-board. The company should have a telephone number in the instance where you have problems with your orders, and they should also have an acceptable policy for handling faulty products. You should try to find out what other people are saying about them on the web. If you can find nothing but good reviews, then the chances are that everything should be fine.

Audio Tools: When you are going to be buying audio software tools, then the first thing to consider is compatibility. You need to ensure that any audio tools that you purchase are able to work on your operating system, and also be able to handle the kind of files that you will be using to output your audio files and also input your audio files. When it comes to audio another consideration, like with anything, is cost. It is important to ensure that you get the best deal so always remember to look around before splashing out. You may also find that many of the tools that you are willing to pay for are already available for free if you are prepared to look around and browse the web until you find them.

Video Tools:When it comes to buying video tools, compatibility is a very important aspect that everyone should be prepared to consider. You should always remember that when it comes to software tools for video you have to be prepared to consider more than just compatibility with your operating system. This means that you have to ensure that the software is able to handle the form in which you will be inputting your files, and also the form in which you wish to output your files. In order to ensure you have no problems where this is concerned, the best thing to do is send off an email to the retailer if you are not sure.

Backup Tools: Backup tools are something which few people take the time to invest in. The reasons for this change a lot from person to person. Some people say they cannot afford it, while other people do not believe that they losing data is something that is going to happen to them. However, little do they know that over 30% of computers suffer data loss at one time or another. This means that the chances are that it is going to happen to you at one point in your life. Look to buy backup tools that are stored in a different location from where your data is currently.

Wolfgang Schmuck, a proficient writer, writes articles for appcraft.org. The author writes articles about data backup, dvd ripper and antispyware are accessible on the internet.

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by Anthony P Mullen
Spyware is relatively new to the classification of malicious code since it has traditionally been considered harmless. Spyware was thought to be a legal method of packaging software and vendors have been concerned with the legal aspects of preventing spyware from running. Since the dangers of spyware to exploit your computer system have been recognized, many vendors have moved forward with the production of anti spyware solutions. These solutions are available with various degrees of accuracy in detecting and eliminating spyware. Variations exist in the time necessary to complete a computer system scan and the number and types of malicious code that may be detected. In the same manner that new spyware is evolving, vendors are also developing new methods and spyware definitions to combat spyware. Some anti spyware software, particularly free software and downloads, are only capable of detecting spyware. They are not able to delete spyware programs or to correct the effects of spyware, such as modifications to your operating system or web browser.

To protect your computer system from spyware you need to install the newest anti spyware software. Older anti virus software does not provide protection against spyware. Spyware does not necessarily propagate as typical viruses do. However, spyware will degrade the performance of your system and provide methods for others to infect your system with viruses. The newest antivirus programs offer some type of protection against spyware and most web browsers, firewalls and ISPs provide free anti spyware software. Though anti spyware software is advertised as part of many security suites, it is your responsibility to ensure that any chosen anti virus software actually includes an anti spyware solution.

The installation of most anti spyware software is similar to the installation of antivirus software. Anti spyware software is not as efficient at detecting spyware as some antivirus software are at detecting viruses, but neither type of software is completely foolproof. Like anti virus software, anti spyware software may be configured to run regularly and to automatically update to provide real time detection and protection. You may also be able to configure the software to meet your individual needs. If you are not familiar with your chosen anti spyware software you are encouraged to use its default settings and modify those settings as you become more familiar with the software. Full anti spyware scans should be scheduled on at least a weekly basis as well as on system boots.

Anti spyware software may alert you to spyware that you may want to keep resident on your computer. There are some applications, such as games and other file sharing applications, that perform spyware activities and will fail to function if the spyware is removed. When installing such applications, they may generate spyware detection alerts. If such an alert occurs during a software installation, you must determine the risk potential of having spyware resident on your system versus the need to install the application before continuing with the installation. If you install an application and then remove the embedded spyware, an anti spyware solution is likely to let you restore the application if it no longer functions. You must research the application and determine if the risk potential outweighs the benefit of keeping the application resident. Spyware-Guide.com, Pestpatrol.com and other vendor websites provide information on the extent of compromise posed by known spyware.

Some spyware has been shown to be robust and sometimes multiple scans are necessitated to detect and remove malicious code. Installing multiple anti spyware software will assist in providing the best spyware protection. Free anti spyware software may be downloaded from some websites. Some trusted websites provide anti spyware software that is as effective as commercial solutions though the free software may not provide as many options and configurations or the speed of scans. Unlike with antivirus software, the installation of multiple anti spyware software has not been shown to degrade performance of computer systems or cause internal conflicts.

If spyware is already resident on your computer system and anti spyware software don’t seem effective in ridding your system of the nuances associated with the particular spyware, you may need to manually remove malicious code from your computer. Some spyware is known to be particularly difficult to get rid off and requires specialized tools for removal. A search of websites may produce a listing of sites that provide instruction for ridding your computer system of these particular types of spyware.

Anthony P Mullen is a regular contributor to www.antivirustop10.com Online Antivirus & Spyware Resource.

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by James Wallis
The height of cleanliness would be an air-conditioned room with a freshly scrubbed floor, a clean table and chair, and from our side, very properly washed hands. Unfortunately, this is not enough to ensure safety for our hard disks. A hard disk is assembled in a clean room and, in case of data loss, will have to be taken out in a similar room.

The clean room was born in the 1960s when precision technology needed to be manufactured and assembled for the aerospace industry — including both commercial aviation and special aircrafts– space shuttles, rockets etc. These machine parts needed to be made in an atmosphere that was as free of dust as possible. Soon, the use of such rooms spilled over to other industries. When it came to the computer industry, the clean room is an essential requirement for manufacturing, assembling, data recovery and data forensics. Therefore, it was quite natural that a standard would be needed to grade the ‘cleanliness’ of clean rooms. There are two standards by which this is measured. The first one, the Federal Standard 209, was set in the US in 1963. According to this, there are six standards of a clean room. If a room contains 1 foreign particle of 0.5 micron in a cubic foot of air, then it is a Class One standard clean room. In this way, there are clean rooms of Class 1, 10, 100, 100, 1000, 10, 000, and 100, 000. The last room mentioned is not even clean by industry standards, since a really clean office would contain five to ten times dust as it would, which makes it not exactly useful, and the cheapest. Usually, a good company would have a clean room of standard 100. The second parameter to judge the cleanliness of a clean room is the usual ISO rating. In 1999, the ISO 14644-I was developed, that graded clean rooms on a scale between one to nine. On a comparative scale, an ISO 5 clean room would be equivalent to a Class 100 clean room. The ISO standards are much more exacting and, therefore, less popular, as such rooms are terribly expensive to make. A clean room has the following properties:

• It has a certain amount of foreign particles only in the air, as stated above.
• It controls humidity, temperature and pressure factors.
• All machinery inside it must be completely pollution-free, including the ones being brought in.
• Sweating, sneezing, and handling the machinery with our hands can all kill the hard drive and its components. People working inside these rooms wear space suits or special suits designed for this purpose, heavy duty gloves, and masks.

Why are They Important?

A clean room is the place where your hard disk is going to be taken apart. Whether it is a case of hardware or software failure, the problem will be diagnosed here. Thereafter, an exact copy of the hard drive will be created (if required) and the recovery work will be carried out on it. The original damaged drive will be kept untouched in this way. Finally, the new drive and the data in it in the form of CD or DVD will be handed over to the client. In the case of data forensics, this is the room where the ‘post mortem’ will happen, and the exact details of the crime would be revealed. In some cases, there may be no need to create a copy of the disk. This happens when there is an electric failure or something wrong with the read or write heads, or the cards plugged into the disk. The component must be replaced with an exact matching one, but sometimes it still may not work, as there are software issues and new problems of adaptability that arise with each new generation of technology. In general, software-related failures are easier, faster and cheaper to deal with than hardware-related problems. Needless to say, merely having an excellent clean room is not enough, the experience of the staff, their level of expertise and constant upgrading on part of the company all contribute to the effectiveness of the data recovery process.

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

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by Li Ming Wong
The Melissa virus was the big story of 1999. Named after a lap dancer, Melissa was the first major emailing virus. Upon infection, it used Microsoft Outlook to send copies of itself to the first fifty names in the address book. March, 1999, saw it spread across the Internet, clogging up email servers everywhere it went.

1999 was a busy year, with the ExploreZip virus appearing in Jerusalem in June. This one had a fake Zip file attached called “Zipped_Files.EXE.” If the user double-clicked the file, it would put up a fake window saying “sorry, this zip file is corrupt.” It would then go on to email everyone in the address book, and follow that by destroying documents and files on the hard drive.

The LoveLetter, or “I Love You,” virus hit in May of 2000. It was another emailing virus, this time using VBScript. The user would receive an email with an attachment usually called “love-letter-for-you.txt.vbs”. Notice the dual extension at the end. Many Windows systems will not display the extension, so the “.vbs” would disappear. The user, thinking he’s looking at a .TXT file, feels free to open it, and thereby infects his system. The LoveLetter virus is widely known as the most expensive virus attack in history, with expert estimates upwards of ten billion dollars worth of damage.

2001 was the banner year for viruses. Sadmind in May, Sircam and Code Red in July, Code Red II in August, Nimda in September, and Klez in October. Sircam randomly selected files from an infected machine and sent them out in emails. Nimda attacked through five different methods, including security holes opened by Sadmind and Code Red II.

Through all of these virus attacks, many computer experts pointed to Microsoft as the problem–because most of these viruses were attacking security flaws in Microsoft programs, especially Internet Explorer and Outlook.

Don’t let your PC slow you down, download Free Anti Spyware.

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by Sam Miller
With the wealth of existing file compare tools on the Internet both free and for pay, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a file compare tool. But many users needs exceed the abilities of many file compare tools, despite their functionality in other areas. The abundance of file compare tools on the Internet actually works against the user, making it harder to choose the most effective tool for the purposes that are required. Choosing the best software tool for the task at hand requires an extended search into the properties and qualities of different file compare tools available on the web. Many different qualities go into choosing a proper file compare tool that should be considered, such as the file compare tools ability to highlight and separate text that is different or has been subtly changed, as well as the date and other information about text that has changed or been changed by alternating users or an otherwise third-party source outside the administrators immediate authority. Depending on the needs

of the user, the file compare tool can be tailored to the custom needs of the user.

As many file compare tools as there are on the Internet, some of them are simply not effective. While using a free file compare tool can leave you feeling like you have struck a bargain, the use of these file compare tools can be ineffective and leave you feeling that you are wasting your time. Use of the file compare tool software is critical for some industries that require file compare tools for critical tasks that are necessary to ensure the best efficiency and conservation of resources available in the corporate environment. In this manner the file compare tool serves as an effective method of reducing duplicated storage content as well as providing information on new and existing changes to the original document or file in question. By providing a usable data trail that the administrator can follow the file compare tool gives the user the ability to track changes in ongoing individual and global log events.

While many file compare tools offer effective solutions to the needs of the software user, it is important to choose the file compare tool that is effective and tailored to meet the needs of the individual user and their efforts to effectively implement a file compare tool solution into their network, enterprise or corporate network or data integration strategy. By utilizing the file compare tool, organizations and corporations alike can ensure that they are not wasting any time or space on duplicate backup material or duplicate content in their digital media and other storage devices. In the world of corporate storage, the amount of duplicate content is staggering when the file compare tool is not properly applied and utilized to reduce the tremendous amounts of space wastage. The file compare tool can save corporations a tremendous amount of money on wasted space, wasted productivity and wasted data cycles for backup machines that copy duplicate material endlessly on a regular schedule without the file compare tool.

If you are interested in file compare tool, check this web-site to learn more about file comparison.

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by Li Ming Wong
The Michelangelo virus was the first real appearance of computer virus hype in the media. Various “experts” made claims about how widespread the virus was and how much damage it was going to do when it triggered.

Michelangelo first hit the news in late January, 1992. A customer noticed that computers from Leading Edge were arriving with the virus pre-installed. The next day, John McAfee is quoted as saying Michelangelo was the third most common virus in the world.

Two weeks later, McAfee was quoted again, and this time he estimated that as many as five million computers worldwide could be hurt by the virus. This was a big, impressive number, and journalists ran with it. All through February, readers were treated to an assortment of information that was either overblown or just wrong. For example, several experts reported that the virus came from bulletin board systems, which is not true–the virus was spread on infected floppy disks.

One expert advised not shutting computers down on March 5th, the day before the trigger day. The virus would only be triggered by actually booting the computer on the 6th, he said. If the computer was never turned off, the virus wouldn’t have a chance to trigger.

In early March, Intel discovered it was sending the virus with one of their programs. Several journalists took the words of McAfee and others, especially the estimate of five million infected computers, and spun wilder and wilder predictions of damage.

When March 6th arrived, the world held it’s breath, waiting for the reports of mass destruction of computers…that never came. Instead of millions of computers, the virus barely hit a few thousand. AT&T, with 250,000 computers, said the virus affected two systems.

Critics pointed out that the people making the huge claims stood to profit–because they were also selling anti-virus programs.

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by Li Ming Wong
On April 26, 1999, systems around the world began dying. Something was both damaging information on hard drives and damaging their BIOS chips. Investigation turned up the CIH Virus, later known as Chernobyl because it was released on the anniversary of the Chernobyl reactor explosion.

The CIH virus somehow found it’s way onto a set of IBM Aptiva PC’s sold to Activision in March of 1999. Every copy of their latest game, SIN, came bundled with a bonus copy of the CIH virus.

When it infects a system, the virus actually squeezes into empty spaces in operating system files. CIH was sometimes known as the Spacefiller virus for this ability.

When the virus triggered, the first thing it did was to overwrite the first megabyte of the hard drive with zeroes. That area of the hard drive is critical, because that’s where the partition information is usually stored.

Once the hard drive was hit, the virus would then turn to the BIOS chip.

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. The BIOS chip is the ROM, or Read Only Memory, of the computer. Without the BIOS, the computer would forget how to “talk” to the other hardware in the computer, like the keyboard and hard drives.

Normally, the BIOS is read-only. But by 1999, BIOS manufacturers had switched to chips that could be “flashed,” or reprogrammed. The CIH virus tried to use this ability to erase the BIOS.

In effect, the virus would try to kill the computer, first by making the hard drive unreadable, and then by making sure the system wouldn’t boot without a new BIOS chip. Fortunately, due to a bug, the program only knew how to erase one brand of chips.

CIH was still damaging computers in Asia a year after it first triggered, and several viruses have been released that try to infect systems with newer versions of CIH.

Don’t let your PC slow you down, download Free Anti Spyware.

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by Li Ming Wong
Internet Explorer has a way for a website to add itself to the list of favorites. It’s a feature Microsoft added so that websites can have a button that says “Bookmark This Site! Just Click Here!”

Now, if that’s all that particular feature did, then there wouldn’t be any malware concerns over it. Unscrupulous programmers have taken advantage of it to create Home Page Hijackers.

In a nutshell, a Home Page Hijacker is a program that reaches into your browser and changes your homepage…without your permission. You might think, “That’s easy enough to fix, just change my homepage back and everything is fine.”

Unfortunately, the Hijacker won’t let you get away with that, thanks to a BHO, or Browser Helper Object.

The BHO is a chunk of code that gets added to the browser. It’s meant as a quick and easy expansion to the browser, but when malware programmers get their hands on it, it becomes something a lot more sinister.

A Homepage Hijacker will both change the homepage and bookmarks, and install a BHO. The “helpful” BHO has been programmed to make sure the homepage hijacker sticks around.

What this means is, every time the computer is rebooted, and/or every time the browser is started, the BHO kicks in for just a second.. It “restores” the bookmark file and homepage setting.

Homepage Hijackers, with their associated BHO modules, have been known to change the homepage, remove entries from bookmarks, add anywhere from one to hundreds of bookmarks, and even change the default search settings. This way, when a user misspells a web site address, instead of seeing the usual IE “I can’t find that” page, he sees an ad-covered search page.

At their worst, homepage hijackers force the user to go through their web sites and search engines to get to any site on the ‘net.

Don’t let your PC slow you down, download Free Anti Spyware.

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