I just remembered… my computer thoughts

     A colleague of mine once asked me to give him a straight forward tip on how he can maximize his computer use. In reply, I told him his request was too broad, I asked him to give me a more specific subject. He paused for a while, then spoke, ” you see maskisa, I’m just an ordinary pc user. I bought my pc for one primary reason, and that is for internet usage. I use it daily for checking my e-mails, chatting, social-networking, visiting different news sites, blogging and surfing the web about anything. And yes when I do blog, I tend to download photos from my camera or mobile phone or even my usb flash drive.” He then rephrased his inquiry, “Maskisa I want to know how to make my pc secure, both online and offline. I also want to have a certain privacy if possible during my internet use. Lastly, I want to speed up my internet surfing. In short I want to know what to do, download, install, etc.. to make these things possible.”

     Whew! That was something of a request back then. But once in a while, some friends and colleagues still ask me similar questions from above. So, I thought of giving and sharing my suggestions to those who have the same, if I may call it problem. But first let me give you  a quick disclaimer. I’m just your average computer/internet literate person. What I say or suggest comes from my personal experiences and personal research. I’ve done a few trial and error methods with regards to computing. Now I hold the responsibility to you if you want to try what this little sort of turorial says. It doesn’t matter whether you have genuine or original softwares installed. I believe in a saying that internet is meant to be free. (softwares included) hehe

     I can say that the above problem is common for many pc users. As early as now, I tell you, there is no perfect and secure system. There maybe as they safe, the toughest of them all. But, just wait and see, it would’nt be long now to wait for those who will bore a hole right in the center of the toughest wall. Putting it into simple words, if somebody or group is claiming that what they made/have is safest of them all, then we all have to just wait for that someone to bring them down.

     Tutorial proper; Suppose you have done a clean install (no errors or issues during and after operating system, driver installation) of a pc, a Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or the like. What I normally do is to install an efficient antivirus software. I suggest installing ESET Nod32 or Kaspersky. For me, these 2 are the few antivirus softwares up to the challenge of malwares. And also these antivirus softwares consume just minimal amount of system resources. If you have the budget then you can opt for the latter. Well, if not you can always google the web for download sites and keys. After installing, you must update, update, yeah update. What good is an antivirus if the virus definitions are outdated. You can then leave the Windows built-in firewall on or install third party free softwares like ZoneAlarm and Comodo Firewall.

     Next installing an internet browser, as I said there’s no perfect system, and internet web browsers are included. I suggest installing Mozilla Firefox or Safari. I will focus more on Firefox. For the online security and privacy part here’s what I suggest:

     Security: Install Firefox add-on NoScript. This add-on gives you control over executable contents.
     Privacy: Use anonymous proxies. (I’ll make a post regarding proxy usage)

     Now for faster internet usage, I suggest you make use of DNS services by openDNS. It will not only speed up your internet browsing but also gives added security on the internet. Just in case you don’t know, opening too many tabs in your web browser will cause a decline in performance. (this is true for most popular internet browsers). Firefox has made improvements to cope up with this problem, but just as is, too much is bad for your pc’s resources. So on this, I suggest yur open tabs to be atleast 5 max, especially when browsing heavy graphics or animations sites (social networking site ). I also suggest to install StatusbarEx Firefox add-on. This little add-on give you useful information such as the memory usage, network speed, and more. This will help you to decide on whethet to close other tabs to prevent hang moments.

     I will repeat again. Never forget to update all your software/add-ons.

     That’s it…my computer thoughts…I think…hehe If you want to try or add more then please feel free to inform me by posting comments or sending me an email at maskisa[at]gmail[dot]com

PS: If you really don’t have budget for softwares, drop me a message and I’ll give you sites where you can download software and keys.