SECURITY!

Alright I know I promised to write about my adobe ebook today but like most of my plans I have to make a detour. The thing is last night before I was heading to bed my Zinio copy of PC Mag came in and splattered across the top was the title "Stomp out spyware and viruses once and for all." Now I know most of you've heard about it and I know anyone that has a computer has had to deal with all the adware, spyware, and viruses that try to work themselves into our beloved machines every day. But the concept of staying secure and keeping your laptop protected from a student's perspective is far more important than that of the daily desktop user.

My tablet is my digital notebook, it has all my class notes, handouts, and even some of my digital ebooks on it. If anything was to ever infiltrate my defenses I know I would have to waste an afternoon trying to fix it and hope nothing was lost or got deleted in the process. With so much valuable information stored on a students laptop I am still amazed by the number of individuals that fail to keep their anti-virus software up to date or shell out the extra cash for an anti-spyware program. I know personally I probably have spend around $100 to get myself a security suite and anti-spyware program but I feel much safer now when ever I log onto the internet.

Schools are terrific places for viruses and the such to run free as its the perfect breeding ground with so many computers all connected to the same network. And although it may be a lot of money for buying the protection you need its much better than spending a Saturday afternoon at your local computer shop trying to get your computer up and running again. When working with students computers and fixing them the number 1 problem I see is some sort of adware or spyware on their machine. In the article it mentioned that the "Geek Squad" which is a subdivision of Best Buy found over 2000 pieces of that junk on someone's computer. My personal record is about 200 but I am sure the amount of stuff that finds its way onto our computers is far greater than many of us even suspect.

I guess I can't stress this enough but a student's life involves computers. I don't know of any student that does not work with a computer every day. Learning about spyware and how to stop this stuff it is so important! I try to help those that come to me but honestly there is a lot you can do before you show up to my door step with a computer that takes 15 minutes to boot up.

Number 1 get a Internet Security Suite. Many of them exist out there and PC mag does a terrific job detailing their favorites. I don't like to be a spokes person for PC Mag but if you know nothing about spyware head to the bookstore and pick up a copy of their February 21st edition. I was glad to see that my personal choice of Zone Alarms security suite earned the editors pick. I switched to Zone Alarm from Norton when Norton was really taking up a lot of resources. I know that Comcast my internet provider provides a free copy of McAfee for all its users and that is what is on every other computer in the household and I have had no real problems with that software either. Of course ANYTHING is better than nothing! So get SOMETHING!

I also use Adaware for my antispam and it was not reviewed in the issue but it has also served me well over the past couple years. I even downloaded SpyDocotr which won an editors choice in the issue and it was not able to fine any bugs on my computer! So I must be doing something right since the articles tossed around crazy statistics about how many people have spyware, viruses, or adware on their computer.

So I could go on and on about this issue and bore the heck out of you since I am sure you've heard it all before but once again a student's laptop contains a lot of important stuff so spend the extra dough to keep your computer clean and you won't regret it I promise!

posted by Jason Dorko at 2:18 PM 0 comments links to this post