By David J. Stewart
Updated
November 2023
(mostly for windows users)
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Make Sure Your Computer Has Anti-Virus, Malware And Firewall Protection
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- MP3, WAV and MIDI's
- Why Is My Mouse Stopping And Then Works Okay For Awhile?
- FileZilla Authentication Error And Practical Tips On Getting Started With VPS Web Hosting
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- NTLDR Is Missing
- Why Does Audio In Acoustica's MixCraft Software Play Garbled?
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- Webpage FileZilla Updates On Other Computers, But Not On My Own Computer
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- I'm Using Windows 7 and My USB 'Bluetooth' Connects just fine, but there's no Sound At All. Why?
- Why Does My USB Hardrive Click, But Cannot Be Read By My Computer?
- How to Avoid Clicking “No” Hundreds of Times When Copy/Paste in Windows XP
- Why Is Blogger "Total Pageviews" Not Showing?
- Why Doesn't My Connected Bluetooth Play?
- Why Is My HP Pavilion x360 Internet So Slow?
- Random Audio Plays In Firefox, But Not Chrome (audio won't play in browser)
- My Computer's Internet, Printer and Sound All Stopped Working At Once
You need all 3 and they are each different. Your firewall is not going to help you if you let a hacker program in; such as, a Trojan Virus, Spyware, Sniffer or whatever. If you get infected by one of these programs and it tries to get out, the windows firewall is not going to help. That is where a good two-way firewall comes in handy. There are a few online for free, but most try to sell you things with pop-ups (which you can disable in the settings for most programs). Search the web to find out how. From researching the web I've learned that paid is not always better than non-paid. You have to read the online comparisons and contrasts between the different software programs. The main thing is to have all three security features. Most Windows systems already have a firewall. I'm no expert on this stuff. This one article on Wikipedia shows how complex firewall technology gets, and all the different aspects and types. I'm not letting my guests know that you need all 3 security features.
I can't honestly say which programs work better than others, but there is MUCH helpful information online, even video's on YouTube showing which programs allegedly fail or succeed more than others to stop viruses and malware. Evidently none are perfect. I like Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a free anti-virus program that you can download; and I also like Comodo anti-virus, which is free and includes a two-way firewall if you select it during installation.
GeekBuddy comes with it as an add-on from Comodo, but is worthless IMHO and I uninstalled it. The techs were trying to brush me off, wasted 30-minutes of my time, and only then was I told that I had to pay or else they wouldn't help me. I wrote a complaint letter to New Jersey to their corporate headquarters with a copy of the 3 wasted sessions. I'm one of those few people out of 100 that will actually take the time to write a company with an issue about how their employees treat others. I thought it was important.
I haven't tried Zone Alarm firewall, but I hear they're good. A paid only version that is not as popular in America, but is in Russia is Kasperky. They sell three different versions, the highest for $79 includes a firewall, malware protection and an anti-virus all-in-one. I've heard that it's very good. For about $99 a year they offer licensing for 3 computers. Albeit, with the economy falling out every little bit of expenses becomes overwhelming and impossible.
Windows firewall is fine if your maintain updated anti-virus and malware programs on your system, and are careful not to download or run shady programs. The word “free” and viruses are synonymous. Free music files and peer-to-peer file sharing are almost guaranteed to have viruses. Searching for free software that's usually not free is guaranteed to have viruses. Stay away from garbage websites and you shouldn't have any problems. Even the best protection software in the world cannot totally protect any system from threats, so always back-up important personal data off system in multiple places, by multiple means and daily if you value your data (DVD's, Blue-Ray, Flash-drives, USB hardrives, et cetera).
When loading free software, there's always going to be minor hassles. Microsoft Security Essentials included a browser add-on called BingBar, which I quickly uninstalled from Control Panel/Programs. If you like BingBar, then keep it. It links to FaceBook and other social networking websites that I never join nor visit, so I don't need it (and it takes up space in my browser). I'm using Comodo anti-virus on my laptop, Windows firewall (included with Windows, just make sure it's enabled... again, search the web to find out how), and Malware Bytes. I also have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, which doesn't conflict on my system. I'm using Microsoft's firewall simply because it's their operating system, so who better knows the software.
If a worm, virus or spyware gets past Windows, you're doomed because it's only a one-way firewall blocking incoming threats. Having a two-way firewall is your last line of defense. Because if your Anti-virus software does not catch it, then your firewall must stop it. If you want protection from Keyloggers, Trojans, and other malware that may try and send information out or a worm. Then the windows firewall is not enough protection. If you have enough protection and don't think your computer will get infected then Windows is good enough.
Hackers are sneaky and may rename a file to trick you. For example: they may name a file as “sunset.jpg” (which appears as a photo file). Since file extensions are normally hidden on every computer, it could really be an .exe file, but you were deceived thinking it was a jpg photo. The hacker included “.jpg” in the file name, which appears to look like the extension, but it's not. If you were to specify in Windows file view to show file extensions, then what you would actually see is “sunset.jpg.exe.” The characters “.jpg” are part of the file name and not the file's extension. It is indeed an application file that appears as a photo. You can easily tell if you've been tricked, because when you go to open the file it will give you a “run” option (which photos don't do).
The Importance Of Backing-Up Data In Multiple Places, Externally, Disconnected
First, I'm going to give you the best technical advice you'll ever hear. Read? Here goes: "Have multiple copies of your personal data on separate hardware, in separate locations, using different means and maintain two copies of your personal data at all times." I'm telling you what, it's no fun losing terabytes of data. I've had drive-after-drive fail, freeze, get corrupted, crash, sectors go bad, worm virus attacks, and sometimes for no apparent reason, et cetera.
Here's what most user don't understand. Hackers aren't out there breaking into your computer through your firewall. It is possible but very hard. So Windows Firewall is all you need for inbound protection. The most common way your computer is infected is that you go online and let a virus program run by permission (i.e., an application file, designated by the .exe file extension, which stands for executable file). Anyone with even some basic computer science (programming) skills can write a program. I've written a couple C++ programs myself in the past, but never pursued the interest further. One program gave you a location in the parts room if you entered a part number. I made it for at work. A virus is simply a program written to do malicious things on someone's computer.
Learn from my computer mistakes:
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DATA
NOT SAFE IN LOGICAL PARTITIONS - I have made the common mistake of
thinking that my data was safe because I partitioned my hardrive into two
logical drives (like C and E) on one physical hardrive (D is usually the CD
player, so that drive letter is already designated). I figured if the C drive
where the operating system gets corrupted, then my data will be safe on the E
partition and I can reformat C without affecting E. Well, I learned the hard way
when my hardrive physically froze-up and stopped functioning. Even the most
expensive active partition recovery software can't retrieve data from a damaged
drive physically that won't turn anymore. I lost all my data.
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DATA NOT SAFE ON MULTIPLE INTERNAL PHYSICAL DRIVES - So then I asked questions and was recommended to have separate physical hardrives. I bought 3 other SATA internal drives and regularly backed-up my data to multiple drives within the system. I figured nothing will ever cause me to lose all my data again like I did before. Guess what? A worm virus infected my primary system somehow (I still don't know where it came from) and worked its way through all my drives, destroying most of the data, unallocating all of the drives. I lost over a terabyte in data, especially music videos. I was disheartened, how could 4 hardrives be wiped out all at once? THANKFULLY, I had also backed-up critical data to a 2 GB external USB drive and a 64 GB flash-card thumb-drive. So I saved much of my data.
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DATA NOT SAFE ON USB EXTERNAL DRIVES - The nightmare is not over. You can probably guess next that my external USB drive also went bad as well. Thankfully it wasn't the 2 TB drive with the data aforementioned. Albeit, I did have a 1 TB external plug-in USB drive fail. One day I plugged it in and it said it couldn't be read. I tried everything, but the data was lost. I brought the drive into a computer repair store and they said it was damaged somehow beyond repair. The drive was full of data and one of the techs said it's not a good idea to fill-up any drive to the max; but rather, leave about 10% space free for the drive to breathe. I've never heard anything like that, but all I know is my drive got corrupted somehow. So even if you unplug the USB external drive after backing-up your important data, the drive itself may go bad, and I've had at least 2 such drives fail on me, losing everything (one was only a month old)!!!
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DATA NOT SAFE WITH THE BEST SECURITY PROTECTION SOFTWARE - So then I thought that I'll load all the anti-virus, malware detection and firewall security and computer protection software I can obtain. Well, I read a lot of information on the internet about which is the best anti-virus, and whether paid is any better than free. In the end I discovered that even the best software CANNOT fully protect your data. A good hacker can get through if they really want. When you load security to the max, your computer asks you every time you click or go to open anything if it's ok with you, and do you trust this, that and thus. It's frustrating, time consuming and utterly ridiculous; simply because you won't always know who or what to trust, and you can't work in a hostile environment of paranoia.
My experiences with all the protection software has been unpleasant to say the least. Whether you pay or go free, you're still going to get bombarded with advertisements, unsolicited programs installed (like browser Bing Bar and GeekBuddy garbage that's useless), pop-ups (especially with free), and the different software companies (vendors) fight amongst each other at your expense on your computer. They all want your money! The different software companies search your system and attack each other, identifying other companies as a threat to your system, or malware. As a consumer, we're stuck in the middle. So don't be fooled into thinking that your data is safe just because you've loaded 3 or 4 reputable anti-virus, firewall, malware or other programs onto your system, because your data is NOT safe. In fact, I've had anti-virus programs corrupt my system registry and crash my system, losing everything. When you load anti-virus and malware programs, you're giving them complete control over your computer, which can be bad if the software is incompatible with your computer's hardware profile or operating system.
It's frustrating not knowing half the time how these aforementioned things happened, because then you can't prevent data loss from happening again if you don't know what caused it in the first place. And that's the big point I'm making here about backing-up important data that you don't want to lose. So I'm going to say it again, because it's the only safe way to protect your data...
"Have multiple copies of your personal data on separate hardware, in separate locations, using different means and maintain two copies of your personal data at all times."
There's no other way. If you're lazy about backing-up data, you will likely regret it at some point. So to protect your data you're going to have to manually back-up your data as often as you make changes that you don't want to lose. You can set-up a daily back-ups with Cobian, WD SmartWare, Windows Backup (if it works, mine doesn't work when scheduled), or a host of other available programs; but don't rely upon that. If your data is too important to lose (and mine certainly is), then you need to back it up to several places. I uses external USB hardrives. I also use external USB flash thumb-drives. I use DVD's when I can, but my largest website is too big and won't fit. NEVER trust any backup source, NEVER. Nothing is perfectly safe. NEVER trust a drive simply because it's new. New can fail just as fast as old. It's not just the cheap crap from China or Taiwan that's risky... all technology is risky. So make multiple back-ups to different places, using various methods and have separate locations. A tornado could hit your home, or a fire, and you'd lose ALL. Perhaps keep a thumb-drive in your car (if you wouldn't mind it being stolen), or in a safety-deposit-box at the bank. Also upload the files online if possible to a website for safe-keeping, but never trust a reverse download to retrieve your data, because the hosting company's servers can fail very easily. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!!!
If you're like most people, you've been accumulating digital photos of the family, the zoo, trips, et cetera, for the past decade. You could lose it in a second. One worm virus is all it would require. Honestly, I'd rather have 25 back-ups too many, then be missing one too little. Think about that. Also, never trust your data to drives plugged into your computer, because a worm virus attacks and infects everything plugged-in. make sure to unplug some drives after backing-up your data. Place one USB external drive in a plastic bag (to protect it from moisture) and hide it in back of the house. Desiccant bags commonly come with musical instruments, or you can buy them. Toss a bag into the plastic bag with your back-up drive. All this information may seem extreme, but if you're ever lost terabytes of data like I have, then you'll understand my extreme measures to preserve the data. I have over a dozen drives, external and internal, dedicated to preserving my terabytes of data. I also have a hardrive enclosure that allows me to plug-in any IDE or SATA hardrive into a USB port. I never intended on having so many drives, but after a half-dozen computer crashes over the years I've accumulated them. A simple 128 GB thumb-drive (no bigger than your thumb), could be a life-saver. Your data is your life's work!
You can copy MIDI files (or any files) out of your "temporary internet" folder if you'd like to have them for yourself. The temporary internet folder can be accessed from your browser by going to "tools/internet options/settings/view files." Simply copy and paste the song(s) to a folder on your desktop or wherever you'd like to save them.
Many people don't know what "MIDI" is. "MIDI" is simply an acronym for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface." You see, computers can't make music, they can only process data (information). MIDI files contain NO music, only stored data. Your sound card converts that data into electric signals which your speaking then turn into sound (music). MIDI files always end in ".mid"
WAV files on the other hand actually store recorded music, much like a vinyl record stores music. WAV files always end in ".wav" and are extremely large. In comparison, a ".wav" file will average up to 50 MB of disk space PER SONG; whereas, a ".mid" file averages under 20 Kb in size per file. In other words, it would take 2,500 MIDI files to equal just ONE WAV file. Wow! You can see why ".wav" files are no good for the internet. You won't find too many on my site... there just too big. When you buy a music CD, those are WAV files. That's why you can only get 20 or so songs on one CD. A CDR only holds about 700 MB.
With the new boomboxes that play MP3 files, you can fit about 1,000 songs on a standard 4.7 GB DVD. Albeit, I like using the older CDR which fits about 25 to 28 songs on a disk. I've had problems with the boom-boxes I've bought being able to read compressed MP3 files (and that's what an MP3 is... a compressed sound file). I've learned that by not exceeding 128 kbps quality on my MP3's, that they read easier. If you try to play 320 kbps MP3's in a boombox, you're going to likely have problems. The song either won't load or will start skipping like the CD is defective. It's not the CD, it's the large 320 kbps MP3 file.
The latest and greatest file format is the MP3 files (".mp3"). An MP3 is a compressed file (something like a ZIP file). You can convert a large 50 MB WAV files into a MUCH smaller 2 to 4 MB MP3 file. You can fit about 200 MP3 songs on one standard size CD... not bad at all. I have a few MP3 songs on this site. MP3 files are great! An MP3 can be converted to a WAV file or visa versa; however, MIDI files cannot. As with the WAV files, MP3's are actual recorded music. Therefore, MP3 songs will generally be very high quality. MIDI songs can sound very nice, but not with most music. MIDI sounds more realistic with piano or classical music because the strings and woodwind instruments are easily imitated by a good sound card. Thus MIDI's sound great for the old hymns of the faith.
Sound files are a lot of fun!!! You can go into your "setting/control panel/sounds" section of your computer and change all the different sounds on your computer to whatever you want. If there's a sound that annoys you, CHANGE IT!
I just thought a word on this subject would be of interest to some folks who may have been curious.
By the way, when you're done, I recommend “Blogger” for your YouTube design. I think you'll like it too. It's “Creator” by default. If you changed it to “Network” to edit your featured Videos, you'll need to change it back or leave it, depending on what you like.
YouTube Stuff... How to Remove An Added “Featured Channel”
Is the new YouTube design hard to use or what? What a pain in the exterior! I added some videos to the “Featured Channels” on my YouTube channel. Afterwards I decided to remove them but couldn't. I searched Google and StartPage search engines for “How to change featured channels in YouTube?” All I got was a bunch of junk and off topic comments, or a YouTube video telling me how to change my main featured video. But that wasn't the question. I know how to change the main featured video on my YouTube channel. I didn't know how to remove someone else's channel that I had first chosen to link to and promote, but afterwards changed my mind. I tried and tried, but couldn't find any way to remove them. I searched through the help section on YouTube and nothing came up for “featured channels.”
So after much headaches, here's how I finally was able to remove them. You need to click on “Edit Channel” at the upper right-hand corner. Then click on “Featured Tab.” Then click on the design for “Network” and click “Done Editing.”
Now click on “My Channel” at the upper right-hand dropdown menu. On your home page, make sure to click on “Featured” (not “Feed” or “Videos”). Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see your “Featured Channels.” Click on the “Edit” button and you'll see some circled “X” bottoms to the right, which if you click on will remove that particular video. That's how you do it.
For some reason in the default “Creator” design under “Edit Channel/Featured Tab,” there's no way of removing a “Featured Channel” once you promote it. I really like the old YouTube design MUCH better. I thought it was much better for many reason, including because it allowed the user to be much more creative (using background photos, colors, wallpaper, et cetera. And it was certainly much easier to use. Oh, well, I'm not complaining. I like YouTube, I just wish it was more user-friendly. I'd like to thank YouTube for allowing people to share their lives with others through videos. Just like everything else, it can be used for good or evil and is a double-edge sword. I choose to use YouTube for good and God.
How To Enable Or Disable The Language Bar & Use Microsoft Speech Recognition
I get frustrated when I go to Microsoft's website to try and find out how to use programs and features. The system never actually tells you how to do something. I think Microsoft needs to add a section for absolutely beginners... A HOW TO on everything. For example: Microsoft tells you everything about their Language Bar except how to get and use it. I spun my circles for an hour trying to find how to get the language bar. Finally, after my frustration, I found the answer and now I'm going to make your life easier.
By the way, BEWARE of all the websites that tell you to go mess with stuff in your computer's registry. That's the fastest way to mess up your computer. There's some very mean people online who will ruin your computer just to get their kicks. The stuff that I'll telling you isn't anything like that... just simple menu choices.
To Get “Language Tool” Bar
Onto Your Desktop
(I'm using Windows Professional XP (2002) with Service
Pack 3, but the process should be similar for later operating system. You need
at least SP3, freely downloadable from Microsoft if you have valid install KEY.)
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Go to “START,” then “Settings,” and “Control Panel.” Now select “Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.” Look for and click on “Regional and Language Options.” Click on “Languages” and then “Details,” then “Advanced.”
Put a check mark into the last advanced box. This should bring up your Language Bar from now on. You may have to reboot your computer, I did.
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The Language Bar appears all the time on your desktop. You can click the upper left-hand corner and drag it anywhere you want. When you click on “Microphone,” you'll see two options appear fro either “Dictation” and “Verbal Command.” If you want to speak into your microphone have it type out as text, then speak or select Dictation. If you want to open a new page, et cetera, then speak or click on Verbal Command.
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To Remove and disable the Language Bar, follow the same procedure in reverse and uncheck the advanced box. There's plenty of information under “Help” (search for 'speech recognition') and on the internet about using the Language Bar and speech recognition as well. Once you get it going and train the software to recognize your voice more, it works really great. Then you go back and edit the paragraphs. It saves much time typing.
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Note that you can say “dot” or “period” to add one. Say “new line” to move down to the next paragraph. Saying “comma, colon or semi-colon” will add one to your text.
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Turn off the microphone when not in use to preserve the integrity of your speech recognition training. And don't let anyone else use your microphone/speech recognition software or they throw it off. It's been trained for your voice. You can create and save separate voice files for multiple users if you'd like. Now that you know HOW TO get the Language Bar (or get rid of it), you're all set. God bless!
The word “free” is synonymous with
Trojan Viruses that invite hundreds of other viruses to your computer. Be VERY
careful about typing in the word “free” in a search engine, or God forbid,
“crack codes.” A much better way to get the music you like is to search for it
on YouTube and then record it locally on your computer. YouTube has all the top
songs and genres of the past 50 years and then some. If you can hear it, you can
record it!
