In the first installment of this two part series on how to avoid email viruses, we discussed overt file based attacks and how to avoid them. In part 2, we are going to cover the more subtle ways that people will try to take advantage of you and your computer system via your email. When you receive an email, ask yourself:

1.) Is it requesting personal information under the guise of an official source?
◦ Financial institution? (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc)
◦ Internet service? (Facebook, MySpace, etc)

Many people are prepared for a file-based attack, but some hackers have taken the attack to a much more subtle level. You will receive an innocent and official-looking email from a credible source, requesting that you visit their website for some maintenance task. It will usually be “resetting your password” or “confirming your information.” When you click the included link, however, you are actually taken to a cleverly-crafted forgery, and when you enter your password, it's being saved and sent to the original creators of the hoax. This gives hackers carte-blanche into your personal information and your social networking sites, allowing them to spread viruses and other malicious content at will.

Just like in the real world, there will never be one be-all, end-all list of safety precautions that can guarantee your safety. Predators will constantly be revising their tactics with ever-increasing degrees of subtlety, and it's up to everyone to be on their guard. The key to real security is to remember that, in almost every circumstance, a hacker needs your cooperation to carry out their plans. Whether it's clicking a file, visiting a website, or unknowingly supplying your personal information, your input is always required. Therefore, the first and most important virus scanner is the one we carry with us all the time: our brain. By cultivating the right attitude toward strange files, you can better keep you and your family safe.

So whenever you receive a new email or any digital correspondence, run the following checklist in your head:

1.) Do I know/trust this source?
2.) Can I be sure this email actually came from that source?
3.) Can I independently validate the source?
4.) Is it asking me to do anything? (read a file, visit a site, etc)

If the email doesn't pass muster, delete it! Send an email to the original source, if you know them, and double-check the validity of the file (telephone is even better than email here). It's a minor inconvenience, but if the original sender understands the need for security, they'll appreciate your thoroughness, because it means they can likewise trust your emails in the future.

A computer crash is a headache that no one wants to deal with. Whether you use your computer for work or for play (or both!), backing up your data regularly is an important part of being a computer user. If your hard drive dies, you could lose all of your data completely. You don't want to lose a project you have been working on for months, or lose precious family photos, or that mp3 of that favorite song that it took forever to find, right? Well, if you aren't making regular back ups of your data and putting them away in a safe place, then you are taking a big risk.

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The Windows Registry on your computer system holds all of the most important information about your system. It holds information about what kind of software is installed on the system, what kind of hardware you are using, and your Windows settings and how you have it set up. Problems and corruptions in your registry can cause your computer to act crazy and crash, so it is a good idea to make a back up copy of your Windows Registry while your computer is running really well – that way, you have a good copy to use if you should happen to run into problems later.

Your registry is held in two files, system.dat and user.dat. To be more thorough, though, you should also back up your win.ini and system.ini files, as these files control how Windows starts up and also hold additional important and useful information for you. Your system.dat and user.dat files are, by default, hidden files – that means you can't actually see them unless your computer is set to show hidden files. To show hidden files:

1.)    Open up a Windows Explorer window
2.)    Go to View
3.)    Go to Folder Options, then View again
4.)    Select the Show All Files option

Now you can see these files when you look in your C:/ drive. Once all of your files are visible, you are ready to start backing them up. There are two ways you can go about doing this. The easiest and simplest way is to just copy the files and saving them somewhere else, whether you put them on an external hard drive, a CD or DVD disk, or even just another folder on your hard drive. Just right click on each file, select “copy” and then go to the new location and paste the file there. If you do this, make sure you are only COPYING the file and not actually MOVING the file, or you are going to mess things up in a serious way!

You can also create a back up by booting your computer into Command Prompt Only mode. As your computer boots up, press F8 until the screen comes up, and choose “Command Prompt Only” as your boot option. Then you can type the following commands, the words in BOLD, into Command Prompt when it opens to back up your registry. Do it exactly as follows!

cd c:\
mkdir backup
cd c:\windows
attrib user.dat -h -r
attrib system.dat -h -r
copy user.dat c:\backup
copy system.dat c:\backup
copy win.ini c:\backup
copy system.ini c:\backup
attrib user.dat +h +r
attrib system.dat +h +r

This will make the files unhidden and unrestricted, back them up to a backup file, and then hide them again for you, and your registry will be safe and sound and ready for you if you should ever need to restore it.

The screen resolution is a very important part of your computer experience. Screen resolution refers to the clarity and sharpness of the text and images that you see displayed on your screen. The higher your screen resolution, the sharper the objects in question will appear, but they will also appear smaller, and more items will be able to fit onto your screen at one time. When your screen resolution is set to a lower setting, then the text and icons and similar will appear larger and be easier to see, but they will be more blocky and less sharp and clear. At the very lowest screen resolutions, images may end up with jagged edges. 640 x 480 is technically the default Windows screen resolution, but it is not really attractive! 1600 x 1200 would be considered a high screen resolution.

CRT monitors generally display a resolution of 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768, depending on their size. A newer monitor like an LCD monitor, however, can handle higher resolutions with no problem. How high you can increase your screen resolution will depend both on the type of monitor you have and what it can support as well as the type of video card you have and what it can support. If you try to set your computer to a screen resolution that your monitor just cannot support, the screen will go black for a few seconds, while the monitor changes back to its original resolution. And remember, if you change the screen resolution, it will apply to all user accounts on the computer. If you have an elderly person using the machine or someone with poor eyesight, keep this in mind when changing your settings.

If you are using Windows Vista, here is how you can change the screen resolutions, step by step. This process applies to all versions of Windows Vista.

1.) Go to the Start button
2.) Open Control Panel
3.) Choose Appearance and Personalization
4.) Click Personalization
5.) Click on Display Settings
6.) Under Resolution, use the slider to move to the resolution you want
7.) Click on Apply to change the screen resolution

If you do not like the new settings, you can follow the same process to change it back quickly and easily.

Every time you visit a website, some information from that website is stored on your hard drive for later use. It does not matter what type of site it is that you are visiting – whether you are shopping online, reading the news, posting on your favorite forum, or just randomly surfing around. Every site you visit is going to store some stuff on your hard drive for later. Why? Well, these little files that get stored on your hard drive do make browsing quicker and easier for you if you go back to that site later. It will load faster. Many websites also drop cookies onto your computer, which are files that store information about you that the website can see later when you come back – passwords, for example, or location information.

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Every now and again, you will find yourself trying to delete a file only to be given an error message that says you are not allowed. “Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected and that the file is not currently in use,” says the error message. Or maybe it says, “This file is currently in use by another program.” It may tell you, “There has been a sharing violation,” or “The source or destination file may be in use,” or something similar. Whatever the exact message says will depend on your operating system and the specific problem that's being caused, but the result is the same – you are trying to get rid of a file of some sort, and your system just refuses to let you do it.

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System Restore is a Windows tool that can really come in handy when your computer system experiences an error or starts having some problems. The System Restore tool creates “restore points” which are basically snapshots of the current state of your computer. It makes these restore points on a regular schedule, which gives you several different times to roll back to if you experience a problem and need to correct it. Doing this will basically rewind your computer to an earlier time when it was running better!

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Viruses and other types of malware are a common threat that PC users face. When your computer system gets infected, it can wreak all kinds of annoying havoc on your computer. In worst case scenarios, a bad infection can render your computer system completely useless! So when you find that your computer has an infection, it is important to clean it off as quickly and as thoroughly as you can. Most people know that they need a good strong anti virus program to do this with, but what they don't know is that just running that scan is often not enough to clean a system completely.

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Computers are huge parts of our daily lives now, and while they do help make our lives easier in many, many ways, they can also be a source of endless frustration when they are not performing correctly. Computer crashes are among the top annoyances that PC users face, and if you find that your computer is freezing, stalling, showing you the dreaded Blue Screen of Death or crashing, then you want to take care of it as soon as you can so you can get back to work (or play!). You do not always have to take your computer out to an expensive repair shop to correct the problem, though. It is possible to learn how to fix computer crashes easily and effectively yourself, no outside help required!

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Printers can be frustrating little pieces of equipment. When they run great, they're great, but when they have a problem, it can turn into a huge headache. Whether you have to print out an extremely important document for work or you just need to get your son's birthday party invitations before the mailman gets there, you want your printer to work well at all times. Fortunately, when things go wrong with your printer, you can learn how to fix this computer problem yourself without pulling out all your hair or having to drag it off to the computer shop.

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