How To Tuneup Your PC by Gary Bracken
Initial tune-up After getting all the programs setup on your PC the way you want, there are a few tasks that will help you get the most out of your system. The following maintenance tasks should be performed initially and will form the basis of a solid tune-up program for your PC: 1. ... Microsoft offers a Data Backup to automate the process, A virus or software bug could wipe out data without any chance of recovery. ... Defragment your hard drive Defragmenting your hard drive is an easy task that will improve your system's speed and performance (especially noticeable with larger...

How to Backup Your Computer Files by Christian Carvajal
As I write this, it’s early December, and try as I might, I can’t remember what my new year’s resolution was last time around. One thing I can say with near hundred percent certainty is that whatever it was, I failed to keep it. Maybe you’re the same. ... According to a report from the ONTRACK data recovery service, data loss can be caused by natural disasters (3% of cases), computer viruses (7%), software problems (14%), and plain old user error (a whopping 32%). ... They’re cheap, but 1.44 MB is less than two percent of the ten gigs of data on my hard drive.

Antivirus Information & Software Reviews by Dennis Doyle
The best way to prevent viruses is to purchase anti-virus software. Most anti-virus software today scans to look for spyware, and adware. So there is no need to purchase three separate tools. But having an anti-virus application is not enough, you need to ensure that it is kept up to date with... They can erase entire hard drives making it virtually impossible to ever recover the data -- even if the drive were sent to data recovery experts! ... Some companies that provide free software may disable certain features, while others will give you a fully functioning version of the software but...

Fix it Utilities 6.0 by Christian W
Fix it utilities is a suite handy tools for your PC. The most recent version is Fix it Utilities 6. Fix it utilities is great for novices because it is an All in One security package. You get anti virus, anti spyware, registry repair, and a bunch of other neat system tools all in one package. ... Smartcheck detects when your hard drive is having problems so that you can take steps to protect your valuable data before vanishes. ... 4 One stop solutions: Speedup and optimize your hard drive improve performance, Cleanup unnecessary files to regain space, Fixup that diagnoses and fixes system...

The Art of Failure Planning by Glen Kendell
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. -Francis Bacon A Tale of Two Plans There is a lot of talk these days about disaster recovery planning. Organizations of all sizes are investing big money developing "The Plan" that will help... By having a set of redundant hard drives, you prevent the predictable failure of a single hard drive from causing an entire system to fail. ... For instance, we use backup software from Ultrabac that makes a daily image of our servers.

Got Data? by Grace Judson
Each of the stories that follow is absolutely factual. When their clothes dryer blew up, the young couple escaped with her cell phone, their toddler son, and one shoe. The house was incinerated in fifteen minutes. She was supporting the family with her home-based business while her husband... – are stored on the hard drive whose reliability we take for granted. ... Fortunately, the problem was not the hard drive; even more fortunately, the proposal had been sent to the university’s finance department for review, and was submitted on time.

IT Security and You! Part 3 - Data and Hardware-Media Disposal by David Baldwin
IT Security and You! Did You Lock the Doors and Windows When You Left For Work This Morning? Part 3: Data and Hardware/Media Disposal Giving Away PCs and Hardware This article does not discuss the Data Protection Act etc. It is about the proper disposal of information held on hardware and... I put the hard disk into a machine I had already loaded with software recovery tools, I used a software package that cost less than £40. ... That being said, keep tabs on backups, backup data can contain even more data than your live systems, data now deleted for instance, but that data could...

Differences Between Adware - Spyware And Viruses by Mohammed Bhimji
Adware, spyware and computer viruses share some similarities, one of which is that all three are major nuisances for computer users. Let's differentiate the three. Spyware is software that does not intentionally harm your computer. Spyware has been designed to track and record the types of... Although viruses do not have the ability to physically damage computer components, they can erase entire hard drives making it virtually impossible to ever recover the data -- even if the drive were sent to data recovery experts.

The Need for a Backup Strategy by Aleksey Rubin
So you’ve decided to backup your data but what is the next step? You must have a backup strategy irrespective of whether you are a home user or a business user. The depth of the strategy is the only variant between these two types of users. As time goes by people and businesses are facing... Losing your data because the software you have bought is not effective means that you have thrown away an extra $40! ... Check the Integrity of your Backup Medium : You can have the best software in the world and back your data every hour, however, if you do not have a good medium to store your...

Windows, the Disposable Operating System by Peter Blue
I guess most of us have know this for many years but now even the creators of Windows have admitted it - Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible "When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. ... Its for that reason I don't use Windows for anything serious these days but when I did I would always create separate partitions on my hard drive; one (C:) for Windows and programs and the other (D:) for all my stuff.