6 ways to secure your PC for free

Photo courtesy J.D.H.

Security is a boring topic to talk about. But you don’t need a luckless under grad like me to tell you that it is as important as chicken in a chicken burger. I tell you how to secure your PC for free and be miles away from the bad guys.

Anti-spyware

Spyware is bad, m’kay. Because spyware spies on you and can steal your information, m’kay (yes, Southpark fan in here!). I recommend Spybot and Ad-aware. Both are equally effective.

Firewall

A firewall acts as a filter for all connections leaving and entering your computer. Yes, Windows XP (As far as my circle is concerned, only 1 in 50 people run Vista) does have a firewall, but it inspects only incoming traffic, not outgoing. So get something like Zone Alarm or Comodo (suggested by reader Sean) and be sure that nothing inside the PC is trying to contact extra-terrestrial life forms.

Update PC regularly

This keeps you ahead of the trouble makers. Most software prompt you when it is time for updating, but in case yours don’t, use the Filehippo.com utility which checks for the same. Plus, schedule Windows Update to check once a week.

Good Anti-virus

If you’re asking me, anti-virii like McAfee and Norton not only burn a hole in the pocket, but also one in the ozone layer. They take up so much of processing power that they end up consuming more electricity in the long run. Use something light and free like AVG or Avast. Save the earth.

Be careful online

If you want to infect your PC for fun, just head to all the nasty websites on the planet. Also install every greeting, screen saver and everything that comes your way, to have a blissfully infested PC. More often than not, they are packaged with some or the other Trojan. So try not to be a curious twat when it comes to the web.

Clean your registry from time to time

The registry is a place where all the settings of your hardware and software are stored. And you don’t want this to be messed up. Use CCleaner to keep your PC as well as your registry clean.

After all this, check your PC’s defenses at http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

25 of the finest Google holiday logos!

In celebration of Google’s 10th anniversary, here’s a list of the finest special Google logos. (The year mentioned in the brackets indicates when the logo was displayed on Google. And the list follows no particular order)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday -May 22, 2006

Leonardo Da Vinci’s birth anniversary

Louis Braille’s Birthday - January 4, 2006

Dilbert! May 20, 2002

(This was a whole series of logos from Monday to Friday. Click on the image to see the complete series by Dilbert creator Scott Adams)

50th Anniversary of Understanding DNA - April 25, 2003

Edvard Munch’s Birthday - December 12, 2006

Doodle for Google competition winner

Earth Day - April 22, 2007 & 2008

Albert Einstein’s birthday - March 14, 2003

Michelangelo’s birth anniversary - March 6, 2003

100th Anniversary of Flight - December 17, 2003

MC Escher’s birthday - June 16, 2003

Father’s Day - June 18, 2006

Halloween - October 31, 2002

25th anniversary of TCP/IP - January 1, 2008

Alexander Graham Bell’s Birthday - March 3, 2008

Invention of the First LASER - May 16, 2008

Martin Luther King Jr. Day - January 16, 2006

Spirit on Mars - January 15, 2004

50th anniversary of the LEGO brick - January 28, 2008

250th Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - January 27, 2006

2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - August 8, 2008

If you liked the post, please add it to StumbleUpon or Digg

7 online Applications for your offline woes!

Our world is moving online and so are our applications. They are improving by the day. Don’t expect something like online AutoCAD but these applications are certainly a step in the right direction.

Image Courtesy blonde sage

Online office applications

Google Docs

With Google Docs you have an online version of Word, Excel and Powerpoint presentations. Its comes with storage and is seamlessly linked with your GMail account. Only problem I see is that it doesn’t support .docx files

Zoho Office

A jaw dropping range of office applications with an interface very similar to the earlier MS Office.

Image tweaking

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop is the de facto standard for image manipulation and who better than them to create an online app? Its excellent for tweaking your pictures and there are multitudes of options available to do so. It is also seamlessly hooked up with Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa. You also get a .photoshop.com subdomain to show your pictures off. Their tagline is “Made you look”. Well, I sure did

Picnik

A very user friendly and bright looking interface coupled with a multitude of options to do the nip and tucking to your image.

Online PDF tools

PDF Escape

Google Docs does have an inbuilt PDF reader, but we have PDF Escape to take care of everything else. It allows you to edit your PDF’s. Now, there.

Online Antivirus

Kaspersky

Want a free virus scan? Here you go. There are loads of online virus scanners but I found Kaspersky to be the best. Die, Die, Die my Virus.

Online Backup

Windows Live Skydrive

Yes, Microsoft still has the ability to come up with some nifty stuff at times and I am mighty pleased with their Skydrive service. 5GB of space to store your critical data, a clean interface and the ability to share files and folders. Kapow!

Please do chip in with your comments!