A technology that assists in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, "spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties."

Spyware can cause any number of computer problems. They range from decreased computer performance, slowed Internet connectivity, email problems, to web browser problems. Microsoft told a US Federal Trade Commission workshop last month that this type of malware causes more than half of Windows operating systems failures reported to the company, but that users rarely realize that spyware is the problem.

How can you protect yourself?

Don't use Internet Explorer as your web browser. Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser and the people who create these programs utilize all the features of IE to sneak their software onto your computer. Our recommendation is to use Firefox from Mozilla.

How do I find it?

A free download is available at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Norton Internet Security Home Edition - This is a good multi-purpose software that is in the lower price range. For your purchase price you will receive a year of antivirus patterns and protect against most spyware. We do stress most, because nothing is perfect! We do recommend that you disable the personal firewall. It seems to cause more confusion then that feature is worth. Once you install this…it will pop up a window to let you know when something is trying to connect to your computer. You will soon find out how often your computer is under "attack".

How do I find it?

At our office, or wherever you can find Norton software. Our price is $50.00.

AdAware 6.0 - Our Swedish friends across the pond invented this great program that eradicates the majority of spyware out there. Free for download from their site. However the free version lacks spiffy options like auto protect so you do have to remember to run the program when you machine is acting goofy!

How do I find it?

http://www.lavasoft.de

Some other programs we often use in times of crisis when all else fails.

Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

HijackThis
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

Lack of Backup!

Another problem that we have seen out in the field is lack of data backups. Just because it's a computer doesn't mean it's perfect. Computers are subject to various different things that can make it crash. It's physical environment, viruses, spyware, etc. You need to determine is how important the data that is stored on it. Ask yourself if your machine crashed today….What would you loose? Chances are if your computer is in your home and you don't run a home bases business the impact would be minimal. However in this modern day with such devices as digital cameras we are starting to save more data.

Some steps towards keeping good backups.

Store your data in one centralized location if possible. Make use of the My Documents folder. If you need a filing system make sub folders. Having this one location makes it quicker to backup.

Decide what to backup to. If you have a small amount of data we would suggest a jump drive. This is a small device that looks like a keychain. It plugs into a USB slot and functions as a removable hard drive. You drag and drop your data onto it. However some people need more storage space burning to cd will probably make the most sense. Make sure you have a cd burner and buy a spool of cds to keep on hand. Tape backups or secondary hard drives are always an option, however the average home user shouldn't have a need for them.

Decide on how often to backup. If your data changes everyday and it would be the "end of the world" if you lost your data…..Then you should backup on a daily basis.