The reason I bring all this up is because of a paper I wrote back in college. I was tasked with writing a paper about a future technology that had not been invented yet. I chose to write how someday hard drives will be a thing of the past and that everyone will have their own storage medium that can run their computer from any operable computer. I predicted that eventually people will be able to carry a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) device and from those would be able to use their computer. This is still not invented, but I believe it may be on its way. I recently visited http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ and found that you can install a non-persistent bootable version of Ubuntu on a USB drive. That means you can take your PC with you wherever you go and no matter which computer you have access. Just boot to the USB drive and you have access to all your files and emails.

Typically, scareware will pop up on your screen in the form of a realistic looking “scan.” After a few moments you will be notified that you have hundreds of infections. This is intended to scare the user into interacting with the program to “remove” the infections. If you click the remove button you will generally be shown a window that states that most of the “infections” have been removed but for the remaining few you will need to upgrade to the professional version of the program. The average user will get their credit card out and this is when the real problem starts. You give your credit card information to pay for the $29, $39 or $49 professional version.

Your computer has been infected with viruses. You have given out your credit card number and have payed a sum of money. Now that the attacker has your card info, they can go shopping. In return, the professional version of the software is actually more viruses. Nice huh?

Make yourself familiar with your anti virus software. Learn how it looks. If you see anything pop up that says it is scanning your computer and the message did not originate from your anti virus software, immediately click the X and close the program. Do not click anywhere else, interact with the program in any way, or download any add-ons or plug ins without first searching for it on Google to see if it is legitimate.

-Brian Hamilton

B-Tech Computer Repair

http://www.btechpcrepair.com

My suggestion after all this is that you should ALWAYS have a backup web browser. A few of note are: Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome.

It seems that the first thing to go is the hard drive. Either you start seeing Windows S.M.A.R.T errors or your Windows installation becomes unstable or corrupt due to bad sectors. It is still possible to retrieve the data when this happens, but I will say it again: have a backup of a backup of a backup.

It is usually random other things that start going wrong (i.e. video card BSODs, virtual memory messages, random reboots from hardware driver issues, etc.)

With Windows 7 out now I would suggest to most of my customers that it is nearly time for an upgrade. Hardware is pretty cheap right now and with the economy the way it is a lot of places are trying to nearly give away decent computers and laptops. Frequently look through hole-in-the-wall computer fix-it joints to see if they have any refurbished computers or laptops with decent specs. Make sure to do your research on what to look for (http://www.laptopadvisor.com/)

If you have an aging computer and you live in the Hiram, Georgia area then please either email me or call me with your questions.

I recently came across a website offering 2GB of free space to back my files up. This was fantastic because I love free technology stuff, but also because this ensures that even if the remote hard drive I am backing my files up to dies their technology will still be able to recover all my files. The downside to backing up your files to an external drive, or flash drive, is that if your main HD and your external HD could both go bad, and lose your flash drive, then you would be without any files. Another great thing about this website is that you can access your files from any computer that has an internet connection.

The website is http://www.idrive.com/. When you sign up you automatically get 2GB for free. However, you could get up to 10GB if you put in your email info and SPAM the people in your friends list. If you don’t feel comfortable with that go create a new email address that has no contacts and use that. Easy peasy!

While it may not make since to use it at home for the common user there are many practical uses for it. Say you upgrade your home PC or laptop before your work laptop and you need to use software on your home machine that is not compatible with Windows 7. Just use the “XP Mode” (a virtual machine) to run the software. It is also good vice versa.

There are several companies offering virutalization. You can use the VMWare player and the Sun Virtualbox for free. You will need a product key on operating systems that require it.