Archives for Toolkit

Toolkit – AntiVirus

Special Note:

Remember – If your computer appears to be infected the first step I perform is a Windows System Restore.  A system restore will return your computers system files to a state recorded on a specific date and time that select.

The longer the virus, malware, or scare-ware is running the more deeply it can embed itself into your computer, even disabling the ability to install antivirus / antimalware scanners.  When you perform a system restore the malicious files may still be on your computer but the modifications made by the virus that allows it to run when the computer starts up or the changes to critical system files will have be removed and restored.  You need to still need to scan your computer after the system restore with an updated Anti-virus and / or Malware scanner.

To perform a system restore:
Start / (all) Programs / Accessories / System Tools / System Restore. Restore your computer to an earlier date and time (when your computer was not infected).

Most Internet Service Providers (Comcast, ATT, brighthouse) provide a free Anti-Virus security suit.  If your ISP does not provide antivirus protection, select one of the free suits below.

Microsoft


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Internet Search tips and tricks

Ed Rudel Special Search Tips (Click on link to hear the segment of our 4/09/11 program where we discuss the tips and the new addition to the Toolkit)

Can you imagine the internet without web search capabilities?   We would have to know specific web site addresses for every web site we visit.  A simple comparison would be memorizing all of the phone numbers we use on a daily basis and if we needed to find a new business or person we would have to look the information using the yellow or white pages.

Internet search portals provide the ability to type in a simple name, phase, or question and display a list of web site links that contain the words you provided.  These search results can be overwhelmingly huge and may or may not pertain to the information you were looking for.

The more specific the information you provide (the search criteria) the better the results.  Internet sites like “Google, Bing, Yahoo, or About.com are continuously refining and improving but there are a number of tips you can use to improve your Search results on your favorite Internet search site.

If you have an Internet Search tip or trick, send …


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The Best Free Software of 2010

Get what you DON’T pay for!  PC Mag reports on 196 programs that cost nothing but will make your computing life richer while keeping your wallet fat!


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What is the best Anti-virus suite out there?

PC Mag recently put 12 anti-virus suites to the test to see who really give the best all around protection.  Remember, these are suites: they are like Swiss Army Knives with lots of functions, all of which take up Ram but just might offer some pretty comprehensive protection.  Full Story


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Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows

Computer crashes happen to all of us and usually at the worst possible time.

You guessed it, my computer crashed and now I have to deal with picking up the pieces.  My job is to provide technical assistance and instill confidence into others whose computer have failed.  This isn’t suppose to happen to me.

Ironically, when this terrible event happened, I was attempting to recover someone else’s data from a failed laptop hard drive.  I plugged their 2 and a half inch hard drive into my Laptop computers trusty drive tray (like I have done dozens of times before).  I waited for Windows XP to automatically discover the new disk drive so that I could backup the data.  But their drive did not spin up and my computer hanged and became unresponsive.  Knowing that something went south with my computer, I reboot it.  Windows appeared to come up normally but I was unable to log into it with my user ID and password.

The portion of the Windows registry that stores user IDs and passwords was corrupted and I knew I was in deep doo-doo.

How am I going to fix my computer?  A corrupted registry is “Bad”.  I knew …


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Tool Kit

The Internet Advisor Toolkit
 Windows Updates Your computer should already be configured to automatically download Windows updates. In case it is not, or if you would like to double check, click on the Windows Update link.  If you want to download a Windows operating system Service pack without using the Windows update site you can go to the Microsoft Service pack site.

Anti-Malware Scanner software (free)

AntiVirus software

RootKits scanner

Bootable Cds / Live Cd

Microsoft Office Alternative Suites

Other Free Utilities list

Microsoft “Fit it” solution Center – Automatically diagnose and repair common software problems in Windows, Internet Explorer or other Microsoft products with Microsoft Fix it solutions

Application Installer – NiNite, a website that allows you to install dozens of commonly installed application, utilities, and pluggins in one pass.  A must use if rebuilding a computer and you find yourself visiting site after site downloading and installing software.

Internet search Tips and Tricks 4/9/2011 – How to improve your Internet search experiance. To fully protect your Windows PC, you will require four additional software components. At The Internet Advisor, we have provided links to a number of FREE (and respectable) resources.

How to Disable Windows 10 Notification


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Ctrl-Alt-Del What is all this junk

Ctrl-Alt-Del – Items in Task Manager

Have you ever pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del on your PC, looked in the Task Manager Processes tab and wondered what all those programs currently running were?

  • You may have pressed those three keys because your computer was hung and you wanted to reboot your computer.
  • Maybe you have wanted to end some of those programs because the Microsoft Scan Disk or Defrag utilities are not completing or because your PC is running very slowly and you want to find out “who” is responsible.
  • Or maybe, your like me and wonder – How did all this junk get loaded, what is it, and is it safe to end it or stop it from running?

Well, I have found a couple of sites that attempt to identify all those application running in the background.  These should help you identify applications or services and give you clues as to if it is part of the operating system, a device connected to your computer, or installed software.  After you identify it, then you can make a decision on if you need to uninstall and reinstall some software, update or reinstall a devices software driver, or prevent the software from loading …


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