Tips and Tricks...
Protect yourself from the nasties out there...
Disclaimer: The information given here is correct to the best of our knowledge. No endorsement or recommendation is implied.
While every effort as been made to ensure accuracy, The Jesmond Residents Association cannot be held liable, in respect of the correctness of the contents of this website or for any reliance placed upon them. You are advised to check the details. This site is a family safe site but we cannot be responsible for the links and contents of other sites.
Return to the Intro Page...
Supermarket credit card scam revealed. Watch this video
Tips for avoiding scams & staying safe online:
1. Ensure your e-mail antivirus scanning feature is ON by default, this ensures that all emails received with attachments are scanned for malware (nasty programs) as soon as they hit your inbox.
2. Always keep your security software up to date.
3. Install only trusted software from known and reputable vendors.
4. Use different passwords, particularly when transacting online. Ensure your password includes a combination of letters, numbers and upper/lower case.
5. Use a separate credit card for online transactions that has a low credit limit.
EVEN IF YOU HAVE AN ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER, IT IS OF NO USE WHATSOEVER IF IT IS NOT UPDATED REGULARLY. SOME ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS REQUIRE AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, SOME ARE FREE.
AN ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM MUST HAVE REGULAR UPDATES IF IT IS TO RECOGNISE NEW THREATS, WHICH ARE CREATED BY THE MINUTE.
IF YOUR COMPUTER IS ATTACKED BY A VIRUS OR OTHER NASTY, IT IS VERY DIFFICULT, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE NOT REALLY "COMPUTER SAVVY", TO ELIMINATE PROBLEMS. PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE CAN BE EXPENSIVE - THE COMPARATIVE FEW POUNDS SPENT ON BUYING AND SUBSCRIBING TO AN ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE PROGRAM CAN SAVE YOU POUNDS IN THE LONG RUN...
Ensure your firewall is on...
"Phishing scams" are a way for cyber criminals to steal confidential information and potentially your identity. Scammers will send out thousands of emails pretending to be credit card companies, banks, online auction site and other organisations.
Phishing emails will normally contain a highly emotive or technical reason why you should visit their site, for example "update your password or your account will be suspended". A lot of people will just click the link without thinking about it, they will be taken to a site that looks very like the official one, however it is a fake designed to entice them into entering their personal information such as username/password or credit card number.
This is a typical phishing email. Note that it appears to originate from Nigeria, which is notorious for phishing: Remember, If it's too good to be true, then it probably is!!! A good giveaway, in any case is the inaccurate spelling....
CONFIRM OWNERSHIP (PARCEL)
Good Day!!!
We have a Parcel contained an International Cashier Bank Draft/Cheque worth the sum of Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars ($800.000.00 USD) which will be deliver to you at the moment as long as you provide all the requirement information to the FedEx package company before the parcel can be shipped to your own residential address in your country. Further more, you might be asking yourself how come this email, cheque or draft, Anyway, your cheque was brought to our office by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company via a Lottery Fiduciary Claim
Agent, signifying that you are a rightful winner to their Lottery Award Promo selected randomly. Your e-mail address was among the Ten lucky email addresses which make your email address as one of the lucky email address and they have decided to send it to you true Federal Express Delivery Service. What you have to do now, is to contact our Delivery Department for immediate dispatch to your residential address. For your information, the Delivery fee and Security Keeping fee & Shipping charges as well as the Vat fees have been paid
by the Lottery Fiduciary Company. You will have to pay a sum of $196.00 USD to the FedEx Delivery Department being payment for the Insurance Fee of the FedEx Company.And all you have to do now is to insured your winning parcel with the Nicon Insurance Company which is registered with FedEx Nigeria.
Also be informed that the Lottery Fiduciary company has paid the Delivery Fee of your winning & Security Keeping also Shipping charges as well as the Vat fees for you ,but you have to pay for the Insurance Fee, The reason why you are been ask to pay for the Insurance Fee is because of the fact that all items & packages that is not Insured by the Nicon insurance company of Nigeria are not allowed to be delivered to their delivery address. So you are to pay the Fedex Courier Service the
Insurance Fee to enable the Nicon insurance company of Nigeria Insured your winning's for delivery. As soon as you have paid our delivery team will take your Insurance fee, they will proceed to the Nicon insurance company of Nigeria to Insure your winning funds,as soon as it is been
Insured by the Nicon insurance company of Nigeria they shall commence with your delivery without any delay and also we shall provide you with the Insurance Certificate that was been given to us by the Nicon insurance company of Nigeria as a proof that you have Insured your winning which value the sum of Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars ($800.000.00 USD).
The main reason why you are been ask to Insured your Winning Funds is to certify that the Bank Draft is not a Drug Affiliated Fund (DAF) neither is the funds to sponsor Terrorism in your country this will help you to avoid any form of query from the Monetary Authority of your country. And also we can not take the risk to carry out the delivery of your funds incase of any possible demurrage so you have to contact our delivery team and ask them how you are going to make the payment of
the Insurance fee of your funds.We hope that you will respond to us as soon as possible because if you fail to respond until the expiry date of this package, we may refer the package to the Nigeria Commission for Welfare Or better still to Coca-Cola Bottling Company as the package do not have a return address. Kindly contact the delivery department (FedEx Delivery Post) with the details given below:
FedEx Delivery Post Contact Person: Philip Gardner
Tel: +2348066453053
Email: {fedexdelivery_dep@hotellos.nl}
Do provide us with this information, and it's mandatory to reconfirm your Postal address and telephone numbers to enable us commence with your delivery and mostly to enable us Insured your Winning Funds.
=========================================
DO PROVIDE US WITH BELOW INFORMATION
=========================================
FULL NAMES:
NATIONALITY
OCCUPATION:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
STATE:
AGE:
COUNTRY:
SEX (M/F):
NEXT OF KINS:
========================================
Kindly complete the above form and summit it to the delivery manager on:
(fedexdelivery_dep@hotellos.nl) As soon as your details are received, our delivery team will give you the necessary payment procedure so that you can effect the payment for the Insurance Fee. As soon as they confirm your payment of $196.00 USD, they will not hesitate to to work stright to the Nicon insurance company and insure your winning for delivery. It usually takes 24 hours being an over night delivery service to deliver your winning funds to you after it has been Insured by the Nicon insurance company. We were instructed to
email you due to the high priority of your package we had to inform you through the letter that was attach in your package, We indeed personally sealed your Bank Draft we found your email contact in the attached letter as the recipient
of the fore most package. Ensure to contact our delivery department with the email address given above and ensure to fill the form as well to enable a successful reconfirmation and a safe delivery of your winning.
Yours Faithfully,
Mrs Victoria Wallison
FedEx Online Team Management
The information requested is probably enough to get more details about you to obtain credit, credit cards, loans and other things which you won't know about until people start knocking on your door!
Most modern web browsers will have automatic filters that can help to detect fake websites, Mozilla FireFox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 are two examples and can be downloaded for free. They're not always 100% successful, so here are a few tips to help spot fake sites:
"Phishing scams" as reproduced above, are a way for cyber criminals to steal confidential information and potentially your identity. Scammers will send out thousands of emails pretending to be credit card companies, banks, online auction site and other organisations.
Phishing emails will normally contain a highly emotive or technical reason why you should visit their site, for example "update your password or your account will be suspended". A lot of people will just click the link without thinking about it, they will be taken to a site that looks very like the official one, however it is a fake designed to entice them into entering their personal information such as username/password or credit card number.
It is remarkably easy to make an e-mail from one person look like it has come from someone different. Here are some simple tips to help you to spot an phishing mail.
- They ask for personal information such as username, password or credit card number; your bank would never do this. The email address that is has been sent from is not exactly the same as the organisations website.
- The email has been sent from a free mail system, such as hotmail or gmail
- They address you as 'Dear customer' or some other non-specific greeting, rather than by your name
- They will try to make you think that there is a sense of urgency, i.e. 'respond now or your account will be suspended'
- The link in the email does not quite match up with the organisations, even one character out and you will be sent off to another website
- You were not expecting to get an email from that organisation
- The email contains only images, including the text of the mail, this image is one big hyperlink that will take you to the fake site
Most modern web browsers will automatic filters that can help to detect fake websites, Mozilla FireFox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 are two examples and can be downloaded for free. They're not always 100% successful, so here are a few tips to help spot fake sites:- Use your instincts, if it looks even slightly wrong then it probably is fake
- The Website address is slightly different to the organisations regular address
- There is no padlock shown in your browser to show that it is a secure connection
- They are requesting personal information such as username, password or other details in FULL when you are normally only asked for some details
- Right clicking on a hyperlink and selecting properties should reveal the links true destination
- Never click on a link embedded in an email, always type the web address directly into your browser
- Never open a picture or other attachment.
- Use a spam filter such as the email defence, this will block many of the fake mails.
- Find out more about the spam filter 123-reg.com provides
- Don't give out personal information unless you initiated the contact and you are sure you know who you're dealing with. If in doubt contact the bank or website owner direct by telephone or email before proceeding.
- For more information on this problem the UK Banking industry has set up a site to help you - Bank Safe Online
- Always, always, when you are giving personal information, make sure that the address starts with https: and that the little padlock at the bottom of your screen is closed. If in doubt, don't!
How can I maximise my mobile computer's battery life?
- It's your worst nightmare. While standing in front of potential clients delivering your presentation, your notebook, which is attached to the projector, displays a pop-up window reminding you that the battery is about to shut down. And, as you rummage through your computer bag to find the power cord, the screen goes blank. You lose your momentum and the meeting screeches to a halt.
- You plug your computer back in, reboot and pick up where you left off, but the energy in the room is gone.
- There are a number of factors that can affect your notebook computer's battery life, including:
- Applications that run while the computer is on such as Microsoft Office, Netscape, Lotus Note or Norton AntiVirus programs
- Display power (power consumed to create the image on the computer screen)
- The rest of the system (power consumed by the remaining non-specified electronics in the system such as the core-logic chip set and memory)
- While most computer companies report battery life estimates, actual battery life experienced by the end user can differ significantly - mainly depending on how the system is used.
To help you maximise your computer battery's life cycle:
Save face
The single largest consumer of power is the display lamp. The brighter the lamp, the more power is consumed by the system. "At higher brightness settings, you only get up to 65 percent of the battery life when compared to reducing the brightness," says Salinas. Because the brightness setting has such a powerful impact on battery life, most portable computers are configured to automatically dim the display as the AC power is removed and to increase the brightness when plugged back into an AC outlet. To save even more power, display brightness can sometimes be manually adjusted
Power up, power down
In addition to adjusting display brightness, users can enable device power management capabilities. Microsoft Windows® operating systems provide the ability to extend battery life by trading off power consumption and performance using Power Schemes. These are accessible via the Power Options icon in the Control Panel.
It is recommended for best battery life to select the Portable/Notebook or Max Battery power schemes, which save power by turning off devices such as the display and hard drive during periods of inactivity, and adjusting processor power. Portable/Notebook dynamically adjusts processor power and performance based on the demands of the application running on the system. When performance demands are low, the processor is kept in a low power and performance state. When demands are higher, the processor runs at higher power and performance levels up to its
maximum capacity.
Turn off unused devices. Good examples are Wi-Fi devices. If it is not necessary to be connected to the Internet, disable the connection. Certain Wi-Fi devices can consume significant power, usually, because they must maintain a minimum amount of traffic between the computer and nearby wireless access points. Good news, newer wireless devices include power management features making this less of a concern.
Many new notebooks provide a hard-wired Wi-Fi radio On/Off switch for this reason. James Martin, editor for PC World , who suggested in his November 2, 2006, article titled "Mobile Computing: Keep the Power Flowing," to "Always turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular modems when they're not needed. These wireless network technologies can be a significant drain on your notebook battery's charge. Many newer notebooks have buttons to turn wireless connections on and off. You can also go to Start, Connect To, "Show all connections," then select the connection you want to enable or disable."
It is good practice to disconnect external DVD drives, WebCams, or any peripherals you are not using.
Your hard drive is in constant motion while the computer is turned on; spinning to locate previously saved data. Defragmenting your hard drive (optimising the placement of data) will allow the drive to find information more quickly and reduce the speed it is rotating at. If you notice a high degree of hard drive activity, during normal usage, your system may be compensating for your lack of system memory relying on its hard disk for virtual memory. In this case, adding more memory to your notebook can result in additional battery life.
The same holds true if you are running multiple applications. Especially when low on system memory, limit the number of applications you have opened at the same time to save on battery life. Since many applications load into system memory upon boot up, it is good practice to limit the number of start up applications to the ones you use on a regular basis. This can be accomplished by running the "msconfig" command from the "Run" feature in XP and "System Configuration" from the "search" bar in Vista. To do this, click on the Start menu. The respective command will be featured.
For new notebooks, the industry standard suggests you give the battery a full charge. Then, drain the battery completely. Repeat the process at least two or three times. This helps establish a memory line and conditions the battery to hold the maximum charge possible.
To prolong the battery's overall life, it is also appropriate to disconnect the battery from your notebook if it will be plugged in for extended periods of time.
Reconditioning will help increase battery life, though it will never be as good as if the battery were new. Depending on the productivity gains you get from reconditioning and the age of your notebook computer, you may want to consider investing in a new battery or system all together.
In summary, to gain additional battery time it is important to lower the display brightness when running on battery power. Enable operating system and device power management capabilities to extend battery life. Finally, disable devices that are not used when running on battery power. Dell continues to work with suppliers, technology partners and industry groups to drive industry initiatives and technologies that can yield power efficiencies in portable products, including extending battery life through improvements in battery technology and power management, as well as minimising the power consumed by system components.
So the next time you are giving a presentation, keep these tips in mind to maximise your computer's battery life.
Last tip:
Eventually, charging your battery will have to occur more often. When the battery does not maintain at least an hour's worth of charge, it may be time to get a new battery.
SHOP AND BANK SECURELY - LOOK FOR THE LOCK
Shop only where the website displays a small lock or key icon at the bottom of your browser window. A web address that begins with https, rather than http, is also secure, or you may see a security warning box that pops up at the point of purchase.
Do your research and know who you are dealing with. Companies selling goods and services online should still offer contact details such as a postal address and telephone number. If you are not familiar with the retailer or have any doubts, telephone them.
Keep all logins and passwords safe, particularly for online banking and try not to use obvious words such as nicknames, or numbers such as dates of birth. Don't write down passwords and PIN numbers unless you have to. If you do, keep them safe
When you buy online, you may be asked for details of the security number on the back of your Debit/Credit card. This is additional security and will give authorisation to the seller that the transaction/buyer is genuine. You may also be asked to open an account with your card operator, e.g. Visa, which gives further protection. All these details should not be disclosed to anyone else.
Make sure that your Debit/Credit card is kept in a safe and secure place.
Talk to your children about internet security and the importance of not putting too much information on social networking sites.
Recent research by identity fraud expert CCP revealed that almost one million children had used their parents' credit card behind their backs to buy goods online - to the tune of £191,000,000 per year. One in five children also knows passwords and usernames for sites where their parents shop.
If you set up an account at paypal.co.uk, you can buy goods online without passing on your credit card details. Payments are debited from your nominated account.
Check your personal credit file
Regular checks, costing about £2 by post from Experian, Equifax or Callcredit, should show up any signs of fraud.
If you have been the victim of identity fraud, apply to fraud prevention service Cifas at cifas.org for its protective registration service. For £14.10 per year a symbol will be put next to your name to alert lenders when anyone applied for credit from your address.
More information from getsafeonline.org.
Sick of all those spam messages?
The answer to this is to install a spam filter.
Some of these are available free and some you have to pay for. However. some ISP email services do provide a built-in spam filter which is free. One which does work about 99.5% of the time is Googlemail.
Googlemail identifies spam and directs it to a spam folder. You can access the folder to see what spam is there, from whom and what the first line contains. There is a facility which will allow you to delete all the messages with a single click.
The advantages of this service are
- Spam messages are deleted automatically after 30 days
- The messages are held on Google's server, not on your computer
- Google also checks emails for viruses and other nasties but this is an addition to your own updated virus checker.
Check it out...
Googlemail also has other advantages:
- All mail is held on Google's server
- You need never delete another email message - your personal storage space is huge
- Googlemail has a search facility which will let you find that email from years back
- Googlemail "chains" email conversations so that you can view these en block.
- Yahoo! also provides a similar service.
Forward, Forward, Forward, ever Forward
There is also another reason why you get spam. Do you, or your friends, swop jokes by email? Do you send your friends things that have caught your interest so that they can enjoy them? Most of us have done that at some time or another. The easy way to do this is to "Forward" the message that you have received to another group. One click and that's it. But by "Forwarding" "Forwarded" messages, you end up with a load of email addresses at the top of the email. Forward, Forward, Forward, ever Forward -
just like a chain letter. You have no control over where your email address ends up. It may be send to someone who spams. Easy for them, they have a whole mailing list supplied free.
What to do?
Send emails blind. If you don't know how to do this, then listen up. Copy the message and initiate another separate email. Paste the message into the text box. Type your own email address into the "TO" box. Type all your friends email addresses into the Bcc box. (Bcc means Blind Carbon Copy, from the days of typewriters). When you send the email, you receive a copy in your Inbox but all the other addresses are concealed from all your other recipients, except that one particular person. Seeemples, eh?
What this procedure does is to reduce the number of times your email address goes around the world. Not foolproof but quite effective.
Publish a website? Is your email address on it?
There are lots of little applications out there trawling the web for email addresses. Then they "harvest" them. Hey Presto! Another list for spammers to use.
One of the ways that you can avoid this is to "scramble" your email address. There are a number of ways that you can do this - one is to convert your email address into ASCII characters. These are not easily read by all those spiderbots and webcrawlers.
Surf the internet - there are plenty of codes out there supplied free by public minded programmers. All it takes is a little perseverance. A lot of these codes can be incorporated into your web page by a little copying and pasting...
Sometimes you may get a message saying that you need to download an application in order to play a game or watch a video online. Be careful about clicking on this as it may not seem all that it appears to be. Instead of an application download, this may be a disguised virus or malware download designed to hijack your system.
If you need the application, it is best to go to the authorised site (e.g. Flashplayer, Real Player etc.) and download the software from there.
Careful what you do with your old computer
A recent report in the Guardian (7th May 2009) highlighted the dangers of the practice of discarding data on hard drives. This is wider than most people realise..
A survey carried this year shows just how widespread the dangers can be. – which could cover your progress from the moment you get up to the moment you get home, with information from personal PCs, a carpet fitting company and interior design giant making it in alongside data from other drives from car companies, councils, schools, health trusts, an embassy universities and a mobile phone company.
Among the 1,000 drives obtained from eBay and other online auction sites, car boot fairs and discarded machines, were drives containing recent information from Ford Motor Company, the clothes firm Laura Ashley, the German Embassy in Paris, Nokia, the Edinburgh lawyers Henderson Boyd Jackson (HBJ), Swindon Council, Lanarkshire NHS Trust and a number of schools and drives from individuals.
Three drives containing paedophile information, including graphic violence, were referred to the police and one drive from a machine belonging to an Asian man that showed him posing with a pistol in Pakistan was referred to Special Branch.
According to Glamorgan University, the drive from Ford appeared to contain information on the company's new Ka model, and the drive had been obtained before its launch earlier this year.
Also on the drive was information marked "confidential – Ford Motor Company – this is unpublished work which is a trade secret … FMC own all rights to this work to preserve its trade secret status."
"This could have been very bad for Ford," said Glamorgan's Professor Andrew Blyth. "Loss of intellectual property can have a severe impact on an organisation."
A Ford spokesman said: "Ford is investigating this issue with the university to identify the computer from which the hard disk originated so that we can determine its history. The hard disk is also being passed on to Ford so that the data it contains can be analysed." It was possible that the hard drive came from a company associated with Ford which had "different disposal policies", a spokesman said.
"While this investigation is under way the return of Ford PCs and laptops to suppliers has been suspended and a review is taking place of all the processes involved in removing data from computers and returning equipment."
The data on the Laura Ashley drives contained information on internal email, company financial data and customer names and addresses.
A spokeswoman from Laura Ashley said: "We are surprised to see the results due to our rigorous and clear equipment disposal policy. We are pleased that this issue has been highlighted to us." The company says it disposes of around 100 PCs every year using "reputable service providers".
The Nokia drive which also had files marked as company confidential held images of cell-phone circuitry, minutes of meetings, names and personnel evaluation forms.
The HBJ drive contained detailed information on the company's website and client correspondence.
A spokesman for Henderson Boyd Jackson said: "It's the first and only time we've had such a breach and we're taking the issue extremely seriously. We're already working with the University to establish precisely how this information got through our extensive security procedures and to ensure there can be no repeat."
Former studies have turned up information on multi-nationals ranging from, Man Trucks, Skandia, Scottish and Newcastle, Monsanto, Vodafone to individuals that have ranged from Sir Paul McCartney, to heads of charities and Tyneside publicans.
"This year there was more data than ever," said Professor Andrew Jones, Head of Security Research for BT. "This is the fourth year we have done this and I think the only thing that can be said is 'when are people going to wake up, it's not a new problem'. Organisations do lose discs. But some of these losses are inexcusable."
Your hard drive records all you do online - where you go, what you look at, what you read and write. And that data can live on even if you think you've wiped it away. Like a traitor, your hard drive could reveal far more about you than you ever wanted it to.
Most people think the delete key gets rid of those files, but it doesn't - it simply tells the computer that that space is available to be written over again. The file often is still all there, waiting to compromise its former owner.
If the drive is not encrypted, software can open up the computer easily. And don't think that you can erase your tracks by deleting the browser history: even if you wiped the cache: a "hexadecimal editor" can help the a hacker decode the traces left behind even after you've deleted it.
Contrary to popular belief, destroying the information on hard drives, or even the hard drive itself, is extremely difficult. Even if all files are deleted, the information can be recovered using widely available file recovery programs.
Files can be erased using "shredding" programs, also easily available which offer various levels of wiping. Use secure erase programs such as blancco or WipeDrive System Saver, which claims to wipe all of the drive except for the Operating System (the programs that make your computer work); for a list, see howtowipeyourdrive.com. If you do use this method, choose the most aggressive level. The data on your disk should be as unreadable as putting a piece of paper in a cross cut shredder. Or remove the hard drive and smash it with a hammer. Be warned, though, some hard drives can be very difficult to destroy. While the casing may be beyond repair, the disk may survive.
However, the safest method involves some physical destruction of the hard drive. Most can be opened easily and the disk inside removed. This should be cut into small pieces or abraded with sandpaper, but the coarser the grade the better!
Discarded or outdated computers can be recycled or refurbished. It is best to remove the hard drive before doing this, unless you are sure that you have managed to delete all the data.
Remember that your hard drive may contain passwords, financial or other information and photographs which may compromise your personal security.
How to secure your disk
Use encryption. Vista Ultimate has BitLocker; Mac OSX has FileVault. There is also TrueCrypt, which is free and cross-platform. Best seek professional advice on this, as encryption (which requires a password and key) can render your files absolutely unreadable if you forget this information.
Finally, on this subject, many people recycle their old mobile phones. However, deleting the information on the SIM card and the memory is also risky. It is best to remove the SIM card and cut it up, unless you are transferring it to your new phone. For more information on how to do this, click here.
Defragmenting your hard drive.
You may find that you computer is running more slowly than it used to. This may be because your files have become "fragmented".
If you are using Windows® you will have a program called "Disk Defragmenter". (The jargon term is "disk defrag)
- Hard disks store data in chunks called sectors. If you imagine the surface of the disk divided into rings (like the rings of a tree), and then imagine dividing each ring into pie-slices, a sector is one pie-slice on one ring. Each sector holds a fixed amount of data, like 512 bytes.
- The hard disk has a small arm that can move from ring to ring on the surface of the disk. To reach a particular sector, the hard disk moves the arm to the right ring and waits for the sector to spin into position.
- Hard disks are slow in computer terms. Compared to the speed of the processor and its memory, the time it takes for the arm to move and for a sector to spin into place is an eon.
Because of 3., you want to minimize arm movement as much as possible, and you want data stored in sequential segments on the disk.
So let's imagine that you install a new application onto an empty hard disk. Because the disk is empty, the computer can store the files of the application into sequential sectors on sequential rings. This is an efficient way to place data on a hard disk.
As you use a disk, however, this efficient technique becomes harder for a disk. What happens is that the disk fills up. Then you erase files to reclaim space. These files that you delete are scattered all over the surface of the disk. When you load a new application or a large file onto the disk, it ends up being stored in hundreds or thousands of these scattered pockets of space. Now when the computer tries to load the scattered pieces, the disk's arm has to move all over the surface and it takes forever.
The idea behind the disk defragmenter is to move all the files around so that every file is stored on sequential sectors on sequential rings of the disk. In addition, a good defragmenter may also try to optimize things even more, for example by placing all applications "close" to the operating system on the disk to minimize movement when an application loads. When done well on older disks, defragmenting can significantly increase the speed of file loading. On a new disk that has never filled up or had any significant number of file deletions, it will have almost no effect
because everything is stored sequentially already.
As you might imagine, the process of individually picking up and moving thousands of files on a relatively slow hard disk is not a quick process -- it normally takes hours.
In basic terms, he defragmenter places the data on the hard drive in the same sequence Windows® uses it. The defragmenter also knows what programs you run the most often, and places those on the disk so the computer can access it the fastest possible time.
For the defragmenter to properly run, ensure you have no applications running. Typically, SYSTRAY and EXPLORER are all you need to have running to run this application. You can see the active tasks you have running by doing a "three-finger-salute" (Ctrl+Alt+Del). Disable any screen saver in use, too. The defragmenter will fail to stay running if your system is constantly accessing some other application like Findfast.exe, a resource user that automatically gets installed with Microsoft office. To prevent Findfast.exe from running at every system boot, simply delete it from your
Windows® STARTUP folder, or look for the Findfast icon in control panel and change its setting.
The defragmenter can take a considerable time to run, so start the Defragmenter before going out for the evening or at the end of the day, or before going to sleep.
Using . . . Disk Defragmenter
Some computer users are under the impression that disks store their files in little homes of their own on their hard drives and diskettes.
At first, this is true. When you use a new diskette, or the first time you use your hard drive, Windows® writes each file's data in a set of side-by-side disk clusters.
This pattern continues until you begin deleting files and then creating new ones. That's when things get more complicated. Windows®, like other operating systems, must split the information in newly-created files into several pieces in order to store it. Files that are stored this way are called fragmented; they are stored in blocks of clusters that are not next to each other.
Just because files are fragmented does not mean you can't access them. You can. The problem is that the more fragmented pieces a file has, the longer it takes Win98 and other operating systems to access it and store data to it. This is because the disk drive heads must hunt all over the disk to find those file pieces. You may notice your system getting slower as time goes on; file fragmentation often is the culprit.
You can maximize the efficiency of disks and eliminate file fragmentation, however, by running Windows® Disk Defragmenter utility regularly. Disk Defragmenter finds those separated file clusters and reorganizes them so each file is stored as one group. You can use Disk Defragmenter with any uncompressed local hard drive or diskette or with any compressed local disk
Disk Defragmenter does have its limitations, however. It won't work with read-only disks, network or locked drives, or disks compressed with programs other than DriveSpace and similar.
If you are using Windows® XP, click here to find out how to use the Disk Defragmenter for this operating system.
If you are using Windows® Vista, click here to find out how to use the Disk Defragmenter for this operating system.
If you find that your computer is slowing down, this may be because programs, as they are updated, become larger and more cumbersome.
You can, of course, update to a new, larger and faster computer but one way to speed things up is to install additional memory (this is called RAM - short for Random Access Memory). This, to the initiated, is the short-term memory that runs when your computer is switched on, but disappears when you switch it off.
You will need to find out what memory chip you need. Either refer to your original manual (if you still have it, of course) or you can find this information in two ways.
If your computer is a PC, then click on My Computer (Windows® XP) / Computer (Windows® Vista) in the Start Menu and then System Properties. Mac users can find the information by clicking on the Apple logo in the top left hand corner and then on More Info. This information is useful when buying a new computer. If you are going to buy more memory to install it into your own computer then there are two very useful sites that should tell you what memory chip you need to buy. Both of these sites have System Scanner programs to download. The first of these is Mr. Memory www.mrmmemory.co.uk (only for PCs only) and the second is Crucial www.crucial.com/uk
When you have downloaded the program, Mr. memory or Crucial will tell you how much RAM you can add. Crucial also has online guides in the Support Page with pictures to show you how to open your computer's casing and install the memory modules.
This may sound terrifying to anyone who hasn't done this but isn't. It is very important that you stay "earthed". This is done by touching a bare piece of metal (such as a radiator pipe). This ensures that you do get rid of any static electricity in your body. There are earthling leads available which you attach to your wrist and to a metal object (as before) which ensures that you remain static-free during the memory installation process. Once you have located the memory slots, the memory modules are fairly easy to click into place. However, be warned. Do not try and force
them into place. You can damage them easily.
When you restart your computer - goes without saying that you will have switched it off before starting the installation - it should recognise the extra memory and work faster.
Memory modules used to be exorbitantly expensive but a 1Gb (one gigabyte) module can cost as little as about £35. This makes a noticeable difference in performance and a lot cheaper than buying a new computer.
As more and more of us are storing our digital photographs (these can take about 3Mb or more each, dispending upon your camera) as well as music, on our hard drives, the amount of space available becomes quite limited, surprisingly quickly. This can have some disadvantages, including being able to defragment your hard drive, as it needs sufficient space to move all your files around. Editing of digital images, depending on your RAM, also takes longer.
There are three solutions:
- Get a new internal hard drive fitted. This can be problematic as you will need to re-install your Operating System and other programs again. Unless you are familiar with how to do this, it can be done professionally, though at an additional charge.
- Buy an external hard drive. This plugs into a USB socket (unless you've got a really old computer). Once plugged in, and your computer is restarted, it should recognise the new drive. Then it is a simple matter to copy all your photographs, music and anything else onto the new drive. Tip: Copy all the files first, making sure that they have arrived at the other end! Then, when you are satisfied that they have, you can delete the original files on your internal hard drive. Belt and braces method: Burn all your files onto a DVD or CD-ROM disk, then copy onto the new drive and then delete. You now have the satisfaction of knowing that the files can be accessed by another computer if need be.
- If you don't fancy buying an external drive, burn all your files onto a DVD or CD-ROM (you may need more than one, depending on the amount of data you have stored. As above, these can be accessed at any time on any computer. Delete all the original files.
Any of these methods will free up valuable disk space.
External hard drives are not too expensive and can range up to 1.5 Tb (terabytes), though these can be a little more expensive - more than enough for you to rule the universe!!
Fake antivirus on the rise
More computer users are being fooled into buying fake anti-virus protection, according to the software producer Microsoft.
These claims are supported by computer security experts, who say that the problem is that users believe they are buying proper software.
However, what turns out to be fake is increasing more than ever, as users are being told to protect their machines.
The problem comes from infected security software pop-ups that have been hijacked by hackers.
When the user clicks on the pop-up they are taken to a website where they are asked for their credit card details etc.
The danger is twofold; firstly there is the problem of phishing and secondly the downloading of infected malware that can record all of the actions on the users’ computer.
There is also the added problem of the user not being protected either, which means although they think that they are safe to go online, their computer could be at risk from attack.
UK consumers using one password for everything
According to recent research, around a third of computer users are still using the same passwords for accessing different websites, causing concern among security experts.
Fortunately, there are almost twenty per cent of computer users who use a password for only one site, according to the security firm Sophos.
This research found that three years ago there were an estimated forty one per cent who used the same password for all of their access.
This would indicate that the message is getting through, but not nearly as fast as everyone in the internet security industry would like.
Passwords are a problem for computer users, as there are many applications that require a username and password to access them.
Therefore it is easier to pick something familiar, but passwords that are based on something personal can be easily guessed.
Google has added value to its free email service Gmail by allowing users to access their emails even when they are offline.
This is a great bonus for people on the move, who are not always able to connect to a broadband service.
All a user has to do is go to setting and into the labs section.
Virtually all Google tools will become available offline.
In fact Google has already made this feature available for its word processing and spreadsheet applications.
It may be debatable whether this application is going to be useful for computer users, even those that are doing a lot of travelling, as they still won’t be able to send and receive email offline.
Flash drives taken to the cleaners
It seems that every time government employees lose data on disc or laptops it hits the headlines, but it would appear that they are not the people are being less security conscious than they should be.
Just a visit to the local the dry cleaners could be a valuable source of information, as during 2008 some nine thousand USB flash drives were found, along with keys and credits cards to complete the set.
It is surprising how careless some people can be with data, whether it is personal or business.
A flash drive is capable of storing a lot of data, and employees often use these to take work home, or to work on other computers outside of the workplace.
Encryption services are available, like the one expected in Windows 7, which will make flash drives much more secure should they be lost.
Majority of home PCs are insecure
Despite the amount of security software being made available, it turns out that an estimated ninety eight per cent of all home computers are vulnerable at some level to hackers and other unwanted intrusions.
This comes from the Danish security firm, Secunia, who have been taking data from their Personal Software Inspector (PSI), which found that only two per cent had fully patched software.
The figures were worked out as follows:
Number of insecure programs per PC/user (Dec 2008):
0 Insecure Programs: 1.91% of PCs
1-5 Insecure Programs: 30.27% of PCs
6-10 Insecure Programs: 25.07% of PCs
11+ Insecure Programs: 45.76% of PCs
Number of insecure programs per PC/user (Jan 2008):
0 Insecure Applications: 4.54% of computers
0-5 Insecure Applications: 27.83% of computers
6-10 Insecure Applications: 25.69% of computers
11+ Insecure Applications: 41.94% of computers
In the majority of cases the computers were running out of date software, and nearly half had around eleven unpatched programmed which can be very risky when surfing the internet.
Cybercriminals are pushing "blackhat" search engine optimization tactics to target the most popular file sharing and P2P networks, pursuing those interested in upcoming movie releases and in particular taking advantage of the sizeable Harry Potter fan base wanting to download the movie in advance of its screening.
Fans are baited with text like: 'Watch "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" online free'. What appears to be a legitimate looking website then redirects you to a video offer which prompts you to download and install the additional "streamviewer". The streamviewer, however, is installing malware. Suddenly, missing out on a sneak peek is the least of your worries!
To stay protected, remember to update and run your virus checker regularly and download movies only from trusted online retailers.
This email was received via the NORA network and has also appeared in the national press...
Dear all,
Please find detailed a scam which appears to be doing the rounds, I am reliably informed that this is a genuine scam and not an urban myth.
Please forward or inform your watch members of this as soon as possible to prevent them from becoming a victim of this scam.
Kind regards,
Laura
Laura Harvey
Crime Prevention Officer
Divisional Headquarters
12-18 Hulse Road
Southampton
SO15 2JX
Tel: 0845 045 45 45 Ext: 722 279
Direct Dial: 023 8067 0984
---------------------------------------------
Subject: BT Scam
I received a call from a 'representative' of BT, informing me that he was dis-connecting me because of an unpaid bill. He demanded payment immediately of £31.00 , or it would be £ 118.00 to re-connect at a later date.
The guy wasn't even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media, allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental!
I asked the guy's name - the very 'English' John Peacock with a very 'African' accent - & phone number - 0800 0800 152.
Obviously the fella realized I wasn't believing his story, so offered to demonstrate that he was from BT. I asked how & he told me to hang up & try phoning someone - he would dis-connect my phone to prevent this.
AND HE DID !! My phone was dead - no engaged tone, nothing - until he phoned me again. I think they keep their phone off the hook
Very pleased with himself, he asked if that was enough proof that he was with BT. I asked how the payment was to be made & he said credit card, there & then.
I said that I didn't know how he'd done it, but I had absolutely no intention of paying him , I didn't believe his name or that he worked for BT.
He hung up.
Did 1471 & phoned his fictitious 0800 number - not recognised.
I phoned the police to let them know , I wasn't the first! It's only just started apparently but it is escalating....
Their advice was to let as many people know by word of mouth of this scam. The fact that the phone does go off would probably convince some people it's real, so please let as many friends & family aware of this.
Fans of the film "Twighlight - New Moon are warned of an online scam, promising viewers they can watch the “New Moon” movie for free. Here’s what really happens:
• Fans are baited with the text websites, chat rooms and blogs that read: “Watch New Moon Full Movie.” Concurrently, comment posts are filled with related keywords to attract more search engines.
• Search results for the movie then link users to stolen images from the movie itself, convincing the fan that the movie is only one click away.
• When they click on the “movie player” they are told to install a "streamviewer".
• The streamviewer, however, installs malware on the user’s computer.
This is of course part of a larger trend, where cybercriminals use the popularity of current affairs, world events and even movie premieres to attract people who seek free or pirated content.
Our advice is to see films in the cinema. Sure the popcorn is over-priced, but it’s still cheaper than having your bank details taken from your PC and your account drained of funds.
Return to the Intro Page...