BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO:
RULES & RESPONSIBILITIES OF
OPERATING A PERSONNAL COMPUTER
By Yves Lacombe © 2004
Email: yves@a3maq.qc.ca
A computer is like a car - if you let your car run for months without an oil change or regular maintenance, it will die on you eventually. With this in mind, this document explains how you should maintain your computer, and what you need to avoid in terms of day to day usage.
The 5 rules of proper computer operations:
1- Operate your computer in a safe and secure fashion
2- Keep your Windows operating system up-to-date
3- Keep all your important files in a central place for easy backup
4- Do regular backups of these important files
5- Run the Windows system maintenance utilities regularly
If you follow these 5 rules, chances are your system will remain stable for a very long period of time.
RULE 1 - Operate your computer in a safe and secure fashion
1.1 - Email Attachments
The main entry point of viruses these days is through Email - so the biggest rule you need to follow is to NEVER open an attachment that you receive in an Email if it's not legitimate. If you're not sure of it's legitimacy, contact verbally, over the phone, the person who sent it and ask them if they actually sent you the file.
For instance, if you go into Outlook or Outlook Express and find an Email with an attachment from an unknown person or even a known person that looks strange or fishy .
Don't! Delete it and empty your deleted items folder in Outlook or Outlook Express .
Even if it comes from an "official-sounding" company or even a person in your address book, don't. Call them, or send them an Email asking them if it is legit. Being suspicious of attachments will save you from having your computer scrapped by an errant virus.
Even if you have an anti-virus program - don't trust it entirely. Some viruses can propagate before anti-virus companies have had the time to update their anti-virus definition files. During that period of time where the virus is first released "in the wild" and the update comes in on your computer, your machine is vulnerable.
1.2 - PPS Files (Power Point Presentation files)
One special class of Emails we get all the time are PPS "stories" or "jokes" from friends, family and other people who know us. It's important to note that PPS files can be used to run arbitrary code (ie: worms & viruses). Even if they are often used to make very nice presentations or stories -- if you get a story in PPS form from a friend or family, ask them if it is legitimate.
1.3 - Chain Letters
Chain letters are those stories where, you will receive [wealth, love, happiness] if you send a copy of the letter to at least X number of people. Furthermore, if you don't, something bad will happen to you. One piece of advice: don't send them on to your friends and family. They are annoying and a waste of time - and trust me, the only thing bad that will happen to you is the worry you're going to have for NOT sending it. It's all superstitious hogwash. Save the net a few precious bytes of bandwidth and just trash those messages.
1.4 - Pirated Software
Pirated software can often be infected. If a piece of software is worth having, pay for it. Get the original. Don't forget that real people have spent a lot of time and money writing the software that you use. They deserve to be compensated for their work and effort. If you can't afford a piece of software - try getting an alternative that isn't as expensive.
1.5 - Control WHO installs a piece of software on your machine
If a child comes home with a CD from school for a piece of software they want to install, POP the CD in the machine during boot up so that it doesn't execute the "autorun". When the computer is up and running , you will have time to run a virus scan on it first. If it's okay (assuming your virus scanner is not expired), then it's pretty safe to install the program.
1.6 - P to P Sharing software (Kazaa, Bearshare, Morpheus, Gnutella, Bittorrent)
These pieces of software let you share files over the net with perfect strangers. You can find (yes, pirated) music, movies and other assorted files from all over the planet. These pieces of software in some cases, when installed, will let others access parts of your hard-drive for file sharing purposes. Make sure you disable the upload side of the software if you do not want to expose your computer to strangers.
1.7 - Web Surfing in a POP-up infested web
Many website will POP open extra windows when you browse and ask you if you want to install something on your computer. One word: DON'T! Most of these "freebies" are spyware used to collect information about you, your network usage and can even insert buggy code that could eventually lead to the failure of your software or operating system. Not only do they violate your privacy, but it also slows down your machine. Finally, the Email addresses they collect usually wind up on list that get sold to spammers.
Install a POP-up blocker if you want to avoid these things. Google for instance provides a built-in POP-up blocker with their toolbar.
Get yourself a spyware remover like Lavasoft AdAware. Make sure you keep it up-to-date and use it regularly to scan your computer.
Google Toolbar : http://toolbar.google.com/
AdAware : http://www.lavasoftusa.com
Spybot Remover : http://www.safer-networking.org/
1.8 - Get a good anti-virus and make sure it's always up-to-date.
As said in part 1.1, many viruses propagate via Email - aside from using your own judgement, the best protection against viruses is a good anti-virus software. There are several packages available on the market, the most popular ones are made by Symantec and McAfee. Both provide protection against Email-born viruses and will also protect against worms & viruses that propagate through other vulnerabilities in Windows.
Usually - both anti-viruses will warn you when your yearly subscription is about to expire. PAY ATTENTION. If it tells you it's about to expire, do something about it! The 10$ or 15$ it will cost you to renew for a year will save you the equivalent of hundreds of dollars worth of heartache later on if you ever need to restore a machine that's become useless because of a virus infection.
Antivirus Symantec : http://www.symantec.com
Antivirus McAfee : http://www.mcafee.com
1.9 - Get a good software firewall or a router to protect yourself from hackers.
Many machines are connected to the internet using a dedicated link either through high-speed cable or through xDSL modems. Most windows machines are vulnerable to several forms of attacks. The best way to block these attacks is to get a good software or hardware firewall. Symantec, McAfee and Zone Labs make excellent software firewalls.
The best defense though is a Cable/DSL router that you stick between your Cable or DSL modem and your computer(s). Since these routers do "NAT" (Network Address Translation), they will generally block any unauthorized inbound accesses to any ports, thus protecting your computers from potential threats. LinkSys & Netgear make very nice products that act both as Routers & Firewalls and cost less than 100$, with the added bonus of sharing your high-speed internet connection between multiple computers as well.
Symantec Firewall: http://www.symantec.com
McAfee Firewall : http://www.mcafee.com
Zonelabs ZoneAlarm : http://www.zonelabs.com
Linksys Routers : http://www.linksys.com/
Netgear Routers : http://www.netgear.com/
1.10 - Protect yourself from spammers
Spam is those Bulk Email advertisings you get in your mailbox that you don't want and have never asked for. If you've asked yourself how they've learned about your Email addresse's existance, here's how they do it:
1) They get them from websites you may have left your Email address on.
2) They get them from businesses who sell your Email address for profit.
3) They get them through "dictionary attacks" against Email servers trying to guess at Email accounts.
4) They get them if you answer their Emails or visit the websites they push for.
5) They get them if you post publically to "usenet" and other public lists (web-boards for instance).
The rules to keep your Email relatively spam-free are the following:
1) Never reply to a spam - it just confirms you exist
2) Never click the Unsubscribe link - it just confirms you exist
3) Never leave your Email address on a website
4) If you must leave an Email address, use a throw-away Email address like a Hotmail or Yahoo Email account. Your private Email address that you have with your ISP should only be used between friends, family and coworkers.
5) If you can, subscribe to an Email provider or Internet Service Provider that offers an antispam filtering service or get your own antispam software.
RULE 2 - Keep your Windows operating system up-to-date
Windows is (for better or for worse) the most widely-used operating system in the world. Because of that, it's also the most targetted operating system in the world. Hackers & Virus writers seek to exploit vulnerabilities in Windows for all sorts of reasons, mainly bad.
Microsoft regulary puts out updates to fix certain security holes in Windows that people exploit to do harm to your or other people's computers.
To update Windows, just click on "START" and then, click on "Windows Update". This will automatically bring you to the Microsoft website. Simply follow the instructions on the page. The most important updates are the "critical updates". They are the ones that fix vulnerabilities in Windows.
Get into the habit of doing this on a monthly basis.
RULE 3 - Keep all your important files in a central location for easy backup
The easiest way to lose something is to save your files all over the place on your hard-drive. The best thing to do to avoid this is to use a central location to save your files to. In the case of Windows, by default it comes with a folder called "My Documents".
Try to keep all your files under "My Documents". That way, it's easy for you to back them up. It's important though to keep organised. So if you want, don't be afraid to create sub-folders under "My Documents".
As you can see in the above example - We don't keep any actual files under "My Documents", but we do keep separate sub-folders where we put said files. One for a hypothetical "Gregory", "Isabelle" , "Downloads", "Music" . so on and so forth. If you need to backup everything, all you need to do is backup "My Documents".
RULE 4 - Do regular backups of those important files
Hard-Drives (that's the place where you store files) are mechanical components. And like any other mechanical components, Hard-Drives fail at some point, so it's important to do backups of your documents.
The easiest way to do it is to use a second hard-drive. If you have TWO hard-drives on your computer, you can keep your files safe by backing up your important folders (like the "My Documents" folder) to the second Drive.
Lets assume for a moment that your C: drive is your primary drive. Your D: drive is your secondary drive.
Go to your C: Drive (that's where the "My Documents" is usually stored)
Double-click on My Computer
Double-click on the C: Drive
Select "My Documents"
Right Click on it and Select "Copy".
Close the window.
Double-click on My Computer
Double-click on the D: Drive (usually, that's the second hard-drive if you have one)
Right click in the window and click "Paste"
This will make a copy of "My Documents" on the D Drive.
That way, should your C: drive die on you, you will have a copy of your important documents on your second drive.
Another option is to get a CD Burner. CD Burners are like CD ROM drives, but they let you write information to a CD. CD Burners can contain roughly 700 Megabytes of Data. Unless you have many pictures, videos and other space-consuming files, that is a great option. If you have the money, you could go for a DVD Burner. DVDs can contain between 4 to 6 Gigabytes of information. However DVD Burners are much more expensive than CD Burners.
You should do a backup at least once a month.
5 - Run regular maintenance utilities that come with windows and keep your system clean.
Windows comes with utilities that will keep your system clean and fix any problems that could cause issues down the road. You can make it so that Windows does this automatically at regular intervals without your direct intervention, other than leaving the computer open.
To enable the automatic maintenance of the system, click on START => PROGRAMS => Accessories => System Tools => Maintenance Wizard. Simply follow the steps given to you by the maintenance wizard program.
You can check to see if you did the configuration properly by checking your scheduled tasks.
If you look at the task bar at the bottom of the desktop:
Right click on the little icon (red arrow) and select " Open ".
A window will pop up that looks like this:
As you can see - many scheduled tasks are defined in the above example.
A defragmentation of the hard drive will occur at 9PM , every Monday.
A disk cleanup will occur at 8h30PM, on the first day of each month.
A scan disk will occur at 9PM , every Sunday.
Defragmentation: When you manipulate files on a hard drive, adding and deleting files, this often leaves many holes "space" wise between files. That means that there's less and less contiguous space available which means that, when you write a new file to the drive, the file has to be divided in chunks to fit into those holes, which means more disk access (the read/write heads have to move around more). This slows down disk access and adds wear and tear to the hard-drive. A "Defrag" is the act of eliminating these "holes" moving files around so that they are all in continuous blocks, leaving large contiguous "holes" available to write to.
Disk Cleanup: Applications will tend to leave many files over time on the hard drive that you don't necessarily want. These files are usually temporary and are of no use. The Disk Cleanup process simply deletes these temporary files.
Scan Disk: Scan Disk is a program in Windows that will simply scan the surface of the disk for any defects. It will also verify that the File Allocation table isn't corrupt (that's the master directory of files if you prefer) and that there's always a file for each item the directory is pointing to. It can repair some invalid pointers and file chunks if it finds them. When it does the surface scan, it can mark off permanently damaged sectors as "bad" so that the read/write heads won't write information there anymore.
You should also backup your registry from time to time. All you need to do is the following:
Click on Start
Click on RUN
Type "Regedit" and hit OK.
Click on Registry in the menu bar.
Select "Export Registry File".
Type in a file name (say: regbackup.reg)
Save that file preciously somewhere.
The registry is used by Windows and all other applications you may install as a central repository of configuration information - if your registry at some point is corrupt, your software can go seriously "wrong". So it's important to backup the registry regularly. That way, if you need to restore it - you always have a backup copy.
CONCLUSION
If you follow these rules of conduct with your computer, chances are you will never need to consult a technician unless you really have a hardware failure of some sort. Computers are not "magic" . they are very similar to cars. If you take care of them and do proper maintenance, they will be a reliable appliance that will last a long time. The precautions above will prevent most disasters, and should disaster occur, you will always have backups to rebuild your machine in a worst-case scenario.
I originally wrote this for family and friends, I hope this is usefull for you as well.
If you liked this document or have questions,
you can Email me at: yves@a3maq.qc.ca . |
