So you’ve got some spyware, ad-ware, or viruses on your system. For whatever reason, you are unable to get ahold of a virus detection & removal program, or a good ad-ware scanner. Maybe this certain infection has disconnected you from the Internet. Such viruses do exist.

There are some temporary solutions to infections & infestations that you can exploit. For starters, try hitting start, then run, and type in MSCONFIG. This will bring up a screen that displays what processes are executed upon starting up your PC.

Hit the startup tab. These are all the processes that will start when you start your PC. Try hitting disable all, this will turn off all processes that startup with your PC (it will also make your PC load a lot faster). Although many viruses and infections are liable to re-enable themselves, this tactic usually works as a temporary solution until you are able to get something on your PC to clean the infection (for more information on cleaning up infections and infestations, please refer to my article on “What to do once you are infected with spyware, ad-ware or viruses.)

Also, you could try running your PC in safe mode. In safe mode, many startup features are disabled. If you are having troubles connecting to the Internet in normal startup mode, safe mode may work for you. This will give you the required time to download a virus scanner and clean up your infection.

I am a young, aspiring computer engineer into Internet Marketing, hardware, software, web design, SEO and just about anything related to computers. Please come check out my growing PC forum at http://www.markspcforum.com

Computers often break down at the worst of all times. These problems can be averted, or at least minimized with preventive maintenance. Several methods of keeping computer hardware in good working order deal with the external components of the computer, such as the keyboard and monitor. For example, it is important to keep the processor away from excess heat and moisture. There are also computer hardware preventive maintenance software programs that can help with the upkeep of other internal aspects of a computer.

While it is rare to find a CMMS that works on all of a computer’s hardware, many different programs can be utilized simultaneously. Some computers have periodic automatic updates available that can be downloaded and used to improve the computer’s performance. Other software programs, known as disk defragmenters, manage hard drive space so that software programs take less time to access. Programs known as hardware diagnostic utilities can check the computer’s hardware components and alert the user about any potential failures. Since some new hardware will not always work on all computers and could cause existing hardware to malfunction, it is important to have a CMMS program to ensure that the new hardware is compatible with existing hardware.

Antivirus programs are another important component of computer hardware preventive maintenance software. Computer viruses have become increasingly common in recent years and can render a good computer useless. While computer viruses mainly attack software programs, they can ruin hardware as well. Several manufacturers make reliable antivirus software. A couple of well-known companies are Norton and McAfee. As with much preventive maintenance software, these programs are usually available for a free trial period before the user must pay a subscription fee.

Computer hardware preventive maintenance software is necessary to keep computers in good working order. This software manages aspects of computer hardware that would be difficult and time-consuming for even the most computer savvy users.

Preventive Maintenance Software Info features detailed information on preventive maintenance software for health care and correctional institutions, computer hardware, and personal assets, as well as reviews of preventive maintenance software companies. Preventive Maintenance Software Info is the sister site of Fleet Maintenance Software Web.

A recent scientific study identified a link between microwave radiation of the kind emitted by cellular phones and two different kinds of damage to the eye. At least one type of damage apparently never heals.

When the eyeis exposed for a prolonged time to microwave radiation, thereis large-scale damage to the optical quality of the lens. But there seemed to be a maximum level to this kind of damage, and when the exposure stops, the damage begins to heal.

However, at the same time, a different kind of damage occurs at the microscopic level. Tiny “bubbles” appear on the surface of the lens. This kind of damage reaches no maximum level, but instead accumulates progressively, and it did not heal even after the experiment stopped. It was theorized that the bubbles were caused by friction between cellsthat were exposed to the radiation.

Bioelectromagnetics July 2005; 26(5):398-405IsraCast July 27, 2005

Dr. Mercola’s Comment:

Electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation from cell phones is a topic that provokes a good deal of controversy. Many experts believe that the radiation is too low-level to cause harm. However, they often base this on an examination of thermal or heat-related effects. The danger from cell phones is far more likely to originate in the low-intensity pulsed microwave radiation that the phones emit.

There is a growing body of evidence that long-term exposure to this kind of cell phone radiation can indeed be a danger. As well as these studies showing they can affect the sensitive cells of your eyes, there has been research indicating that it can cause:

• Brain cancer
• Tumor growth on the auditory nerve
• Possibly Alzheimer’s disease
• Many other potential problems

Fortunately, the danger decreases exponentially the farther the cell phone is from your body. If you have a cell phone, I strongly recommend you use a headset, and keep the phone itself well away from your body.

Although that reduces the radiation risk considerably, some emissions can still travel up the headset wire and into the head. Probably the best solution is to get a cell phone with a good speaker phone and always use it. Keeping the phone as far away from your body is the ideal solution.

For many of you this is simply not very practical, so I recommend attaching the newair cell phone headsets that we have just introduced. If you use a cell phone without the speaker phone feature, then this is simply a must. There is no excuse to not use this technology, which virtually eliminates all the dangers of using a cell phone.

There are also, of course, more commonplace dangers to using cell phones. If you use one while driving your car, you increase your chance of having an accident by up to 400 percent. Worldwide, auto accidents account for 23 percentof all deaths from injury, which comes to over1 million deaths each year. At the same time, cancer, another deadly cell phone risk, has surpassed heart disease in America as the leading cause of death for those under 85. Itkills over 1,500 people every day in the United Statesalone.

Every year, more and more people are switching to cell phones. Many are now using cell phones as their only phone, especially among younger people, who could be exposing themselves to EMF radiation and other risks over a period of decades.

Please avoid having yourself become a statistic. If you use a cell phone at all, wear a headset with a ferrite bead, don’t use the cell phone in the car, and in general try to minimize your cell phone use. Related Articles: Electromagnetic Fields and Cell PhonesAre Cell Phones Safe For Your Children?”If Mobile Phones Were a Type of Food, They Simply Would Not be Licensed”

Dr. Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com, one of the world’s most visited and trusted health websites, and publisher of the free Mercola.com e-newsletter — the #1 dietary health and wellness newsletter on the Web with over 500,000 subscribers. Dr. Mercola, a physician for over two decades, is also a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book, “Dr. Mercola’s Total Health Program,” presents his entire renowned dietary health program and has sold over 150,000 copies. He is routinely interviewed by the media for his expert insights, including CNN and ABC World News Tonight. His passion is to change the fatally flawed conventional medical system to one focused on real prevention and cure.

Your customer data is a precious resource that can literally be worth its weight in gold! If used properly, it can be mined over and over for additional sales and referrals. Do you use this gold mine to increase the profitability of your business?

You should! It can mean the difference between business survival and failure.

Why then do so few business owners take the time to ensure that it is adequately protected? Are we too busy? Perhaps you just didn’t know how to protect it, or couldn’t afford the software and hardware required to back up your data correctly.

Ask yourself these questions:

Is there anything more important to my business than my customer data? What would happen to my business if I were to loose all of my data?

Consider this common scenario. A client calls frantic that she’d loose her business if she couldn’t recover her customer data. She had over five years of information on her computer when the hard drive decided to make her life interesting.

So what are her choices? Renter the data manually, if she has any hard copies available. Call everyone and ask for their contact information again, won’t that make them feel secure about her company. Or call a data recovery technician. Their services can start at a thousand dollars and go up rapidly from there!

Windows XP provides a fully functional backup utility, for free! In fact, many of the commercial backup products use this backup to save the data. All you are paying for is the user interface, the window you enter information into.

Before you run the setup wizard, you need to answer a few questions.

What data do I need to backup?

Only backup data that is necessary. Use the KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) method. Your customer database and correspondence should be backed up as a minimum.

How often do I want to back up my data?

How often does your customer data change? Does a significant amount of data change on a daily basis? Weekly?

Where do I want to store my data backup?

Most data backups still use a tape drive to store the data. The problem is that they cost a fortune! The tapes alone are expensive. Alternatives are to store your data backup on another computer on your network or copy it to a CD or DVD writable disk.

Ok, so you want to backup your data. What now? Before we do that review the table below:

Full Backup

Copies and stores a complete duplicate of your data every time it runs. Takes the most time to run and the most storage space.

Quickest data recovery feature.

Easiest!

Incremental Backup

Copies and stores only data changed since the last backup. Must be combined with a full backup, and any other incremental backups.

Most complicated.

Deferential Backup

Copies and stores data changed since the last full backup. Must be combined with a full backup and the last deferential backup.

Middle of the road. If you have a relatively small amount of data, I would suggest a daily full backup. If you have a larger amount of data you might combine the full backup with a deferential backup. Simple huh?

The next question is how to store the data backup. Even though it takes a little extra work, I have my clients back their data up to a DVD writable disk. First, set the wizard to back the data up to a folder. Usually this folder is on another computer. Then burn this data to a DVD burner and place the disk it in a secure location for retrieval as necessary.

If you don’t feel comfortable setting this up yourself, any competent PC technician can do it for you. If you want to do it yourself, click on the following link and it’ll take you to a tutorial located on my website.

WINDOWS BACKUP WIZARD TUTORIAL

Whether you do the setup yourself or have it setup by a professional technician you are taking the first step in ensuring the long term survival of your business. Please take the time to do this.

Ultimately your customers don’t care how or why you lost their information, they just care that you did. I’ll leave you with this statistic:

Estimates suggest that 80% of small businesses that suffer a serious computer failure cease trading within two years. Will yours be one of them?

Rick Parrott, MCP - SA Secure, http://www.SASecure.net, a San Antonio TX company specializing in desktop support and help desk services for small to medium businesses. Our goal is to provide an alternative to maintaining an expensive in-house IT staff or relying on many different individual computer repair technicians.

Working for fortune 500 corporations has taught us the value of continuity when it comes to your IT needs. Calling in random repair technicians does not allow for this continuity, the technician has to learn your business every time you change to another company. This causes inefficiencies in the process, which lead to higher support costs and lower reliability. We offer on-site desktop, remote telephone, network and wireless support. Need a project manager? What about end user computer training? In short everything the big corporate players enjoy we can provide for your business, at a fraction of the costs!

email: rickparrott@sasecure.net

A favicon is a custom icon that sits next to your web site title in a persons favourite’s menu when they have bookmarked your site, it is an easy way to create an ‘eye drawing image’ to ensure that people always see you link in their favourite’s and should hopefully encourgae them to check out that ‘great site that they haven’t visited yet today!’

This is a quick guide that will provide instructions on how to create one for your site, it really is very easy and will help to create a extra tool to maintain your site in the customers mind.

All it takes is four easy steps…

1) Choose an image that you would like to use to represent your web site. Most people use a small version of their logo but you can use any image that you want. I would advise however that you choose an image that is reflective of your web sites theme and an image that will still remain recognisable when the size is dropped to 16 x 16 pixels.

2) Take your chosen image, which should be as high a quality as you can get, in .JPG or .GIF format and convert your image to the 256 color Web Safe Palette or the Windows 16 color format. This can very easily be done in most graphics packages and as a guideline I would say that the less colours you use the better so as to maintain image clarity and professionalism.

3) Using your graphics package, reduce the image down to 16 x 16 pixels, at this point you need to ensure that you preserve the image resolution. This is a key factor as a larger image that has been reduced can loose all clarity and just become a tacky blob, is this how you want your web site remembered? The key here is to keep perservering until you are happy with the finished icon and it is a great advertisement for the professionalism, and the theme, of your web site.

4) Once you are happy with your completed icon you need to save it as “Favicon.ico”. This is the default name that web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, look for. This file then needs to be copied to the root directory of your web site and then whenever a customer bookmarks your site your image is cached and will display when they use their favourites menu.

This can very easily be tested by clearing your cache and re-bookmarking your site and ‘hey presto’ your new shiny, professional and eye drawing favicon will appear next to your site title and will also appear in the address bar of your browser.

This is just another simple trick that aims to get you ‘thinking outside the box’ when it comes to developing your website presence and reminding your customers to come and re-visit your web site.

Mike - Forum Webmaster at

Online Auction Trader - a community forum dedicated to developing you a sustainable, profitable and long term online income.

Spyware is the software that collects information about your online activities and preferences. The information is then sent to another computer with the intention of selling it to online advertisers.

Spyware and adware can enter your computer through e-mail, downloads or instant messaging. This is a frightening prospect for anyone, who uses the net frequently or constantly downloads products and services online. It is upsetting to think, that someone may be watching your every move, when you are online.

What is Adware?

Adware is software that displays advertisements like banners and pop-ups on your computer. It may also track the preferences of the user without his knowledge. If ad ware keeps building up, on your computer, you may face a deluge of pop-ups, banners and search tool bars, making it difficult for you to work.

Adware infection may change your homepage repeatedly. Mysterious toolbars may appear on your browser. Your computer may run at a noticeably slower speed or there may be other mysterious changes on your computer.

What Are The Signs Of Spyware?

If your computer shows any of the following symptoms, spyware or some other malicious software may have infected it:

* Spyware and other malicious software may add additional toolbars to your browser, which you don’t want. Even, if you delete them, they will appear again, each time you restart your computer.

* Pop-up advertisements may appear whenever the computer is turned on, even when you are not online. Some of them may be for adult or other objectionable sites.

* The computer’s settings may change mysteriously. Even if the user changes the settings back to the earlier settings, they may revert repeatedly to the new settings. Malicious software may change your homepage or search page settings.

* Spyware and other malicious software are not designed to be efficient. The process of watching a user’s activities and displaying advertisements may noticeably slow down, the functioning of a computer or even makes it crash.

If spy ware or ad ware infects your computer, don’t despair. You can use any of the free or paid spy ware or ad ware elimination software products, available to detect and eliminate them.

Click to find a daily updated blog of articles and news about spyware! Get advice and information about how to protect your computer from attack, and disinfect it.. Click http://www.spyware-101.com/

There are three refurbished laptop battery types, each named for its component materials:

Nickel Cadmium (NiCad) batteries are hardly ever seen anymore. They have dismally low capacities (2000-3000 mAH) and contain heavy metals that harm the environment. Worst of all is the dreaded "memory effect". When you recharge a NiCad battery before it is completely drained, the longevity of the battery is compromised. That is the memory effect.

Nickel Metal Hybrid (NiMH) batteries have twice the capacity of NiCad batteries (4000-6000 mAH) and are half as susceptible to the memory effect. But these too are becoming rare.

Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) batteries are today’s laptop battery standard. They have all the capacity of a NiMH battery, but zero memory effect and zero toxins. Bonus: Li-Ion batteries weigh half as much as NiMH batteries.

In purchasing a battery, the consumer has three options: used, refurbished, or new.

Used laptop batteries that are not refurbished will probably only last you 30 minutes to an hour before needing recharging.

Refurbished laptop batteries are available from most manufacturers and retailers of refurbished laptops. These batteries are renewed, recharged, and tested. They are much better than plain old used batteries, but not quite as good as new.

New laptop batteries last a good couple of years ? 600-800 recharges ? as long as they are properly cared for.

Extending Battery Power

Whenever you are using your laptop near a power source, use the A/C adaptor. However, sometimes you will be forced to use your laptop with no access to a wall outlet, and the battery will run low. Here are three things you can do to extend the remaining power in the battery:

First, if your laptop processor features a power-save mode, switch over to power-save mode. This will slow the laptop by up to 50%, doubling battery life for that time period.

Second, turn off extraneous energy-sucking elements. The major power vampires in your laptop are the hard drive, the CD and DVD drives, any networking devices, and any excessively bright screen settings.

Third, you can double overall battery capacity by installing a second battery. Your laptop must have a universal bay in order to do this. All you have to do is remove the CD-ROM or floppy drive and put a battery in its place.

Refurbished Laptops Info provides detailed information on quality, cheap refurbished laptops by manufacturers like Dell, IBM, Toshiba, and HP, as well as refurbished laptop batteries and related products. Refurbished Laptops Info is the sister site of Rack Mount Computers Web.

Wanadoo 17.99 pounds 1 mbps service getting good reviews.

Want a smoking deal on broadband service? The real deal in smoking deals may have finally arrived. Wanadoo Broadband, one of the top three broadband providers in the U.K., has recently released a 17.99 pounds 1mbps service for those who are trying out broadband service for the first time.

The price is right for most people, even though the service may be a touch slower than the typical 2 mbps entry point. But for those who have been suffering with dial-up for the past couple of years, they could be in for the treat of their lives, and eventually, if perhaps prices get even more competitive between the three top U.K. broadband providers, they could upgrade to a faster speed for a negligible amount of money. This program is also really good for anyone who simply wants to amp up their dial-up experience as well as for those who may run a small business from home. Even at only 1 mbps, this speed is still more than 20 times faster than typical dial-up service.

Currently, there are tons of cheap Internet offers out there, and dial-up service has easily become the dirt cheapest of all. Some providers even offer dial-up completely free, if you are willing to surf the net with annoying pop-ups and advertisements that will never leave your computer.

But Wanadoo is nothing like this, and, even if at 17.99 pounds, it may be twice as much as most dial-up services, it is considered quite reasonable as far as price for the service provided.

For anyone looking at broadband service for the first time, this price point and speed entry point can be very attractive. It could also be tried by a business owner. Even though later he may need more bandwidth, Wanadoo provides that as well, it is still worth it, and as said before, is a huge upgrade from dial up service.

In the deal from Wanadoo, customers are also offered a free modem, hookup and anti-virus protection. Other competitors, like Homecall and BT Broadband, also offer fabulous introductory offers for 2mbps speeds.

But like anything, if you are looking at broadband for the first time, it helps to do your research. There are a number of providers out there who offer good products at good prices. Even talking to people who use Wanadoo or other reputable broadband providers is still a good plan to help you find the right one for you.

But no matter who you look at for broadband service, it is still difficult to comprehend prices being much lower than Wanadoo’s 17.99 pounds per month 1mbps service. Even if prices do continue to drop and make broadband more affordable for everyone, it is still conceivable that this deal could be the deal to beat for awhile.

About The Author:

Neil Shevlin is the owner of UK Cheap Broadband which is a great place to find broadband links, resources and articles.

For more information go to: UK Cheap Broadband

http://www.ukcheapbroadband

© Copyright 2005

Please feel free to copy and paste this article and it’s resource information.

Just about every leading mobile phone provider now offers some sort of prepaid calling plan in order to fit their customers’ budgets. But is is right for you?

The first question you’ll need to ask yourself is how often you’ll use your wireless phone?

Since the biggest benefit of a prepaid wireless phone is there is no monthly contract, you’ll pay a little more for the prepaid minutes you purchase. But if you plan on using your phone strictly on an as-needed basis for emergencies, etc., a prepaid wireless program could be just what you’re looking for.

The biggest mistake most people make when choosing to go prepaid is not reading the “fine print” of the providers’ terms and conditions.

In most cases, the prepaid minutes you purchase will expire after a certain period of time, usually two or three months down the road. What this means is, if you buy 300 minutes today and fail to purchase more minutes anytime during the next few months, the unused portion of those 300 minutes will be unuseable!

This is sort of a convenient way to force you to keep on purchasing minutes even if you don’t actually need them.

Another thing to watch out for is a daily minimum. Many providers will charge you $1.00 for each day you use your wireless phone. So if you get a prepaid wireless phone with the intention of making one two-minute call every day of the month, in addition to using 60 minutes of airtime, some providers will also charge you an additional $30 for the month, since you used the phone all 30 days.

Not a very good deal.

Out of all the prepaid wireless deals out there, TracFone seems to have the most competitive prices and terms of service. Although TracFone minutes expire after three months unless you purchase additional minutes (just like all the other companies), they also have a one-year activation service which is perfect for people just needing a wireless phone for emergency purposes. The deal changes from month to month, but usually provides for one year of activation, without requiring you to purchase additional minutes for a whole year. Thus, your monthly cost should average about $8.00 and you’ll have a wireless phone with a few hundred minutes that will be good for the whole year.

The choices seem endless, but it pays to educate yourself about prepaid wireless phone plans.

For more information on prepaid wireless phones and service, visit PrepaidWirlelessHelp.com.

HP refurbished laptops can be found on their website hpshopping.com. Just enter "refurbished laptop" into their search field and browse through the current selections. (Note that Hewlett-Packard also owns and distributes Compaq computers.) There you can purchase a quality refurbished laptop for up to 30% off the new retail price.

The HP lines are named Pavilion and Omnibook; the Compaq brand offers the Presario laptop at refurbished rates.

The Pavilion line is by far the most popular. They are most suited to replace your home desktop computer, or assist any student in creating the perfect reports and multimedia presentations. They are slim, sleek, and very mobile ? usually under 5 pounds. In order of performance, the most common Pavilion notebooks are the ze4000, ze5000, and ze1200. They come as cheap as $1000 from the manufacturer.

The Omnibook line is more suited to the serious home user and businessperson. They feature powerful, long-lasting batteries, interchangeable media bays, and ultra slim design ? usually less than 4 pounds. These can cost as little as $1200 refurbished. The 20-30% savings is immense. They come with Intel Pentium 3, 4, or M processors. The most common lines are the 6100, 6200, and 4100 models. Ask the manufacturer or private refurbished laptops dealer for details on which Omnibook would fit you.

The Compaq Presario line is perfect for the money-conscience laptop user. One Presario model utilizes an Intel Celeron M processor to power the amazing graphics capabilities. It features 512MB of RAM and a jaw-dropping 40GB of hard drive space. It includes a DVD/CD-RW, which allows you to both play and record any DVD or CD that you wish. You can get all of these features for only $800, making it not the least expensive of refurbished laptops, but certainly a great deal.

As with most other manufacturers who offer refurbished laptops, HP offers a 90-day warranty.

Refurbished Laptops Info provides detailed information on quality, cheap refurbished laptops by manufacturers like Dell, IBM, Toshiba, and HP, as well as refurbished laptop batteries and related products. Refurbished Laptops Info is the sister site of Rack Mount Computers Web.