Are you afraid of Computer Virus(es)?

[Big Kahuna]

I love it since my company will rely more on IT personnel like me to take care of it :lovegrin: So the more the merrier :thumbsup:

 

[OlyFlyer]

Must have anti-Virus and anti-spyware program install to protect your PC.
Do backup of the important data to other media and clone the OS image to DVD for recovery in case harddisk crash.

Well, basicly I agree. However, most spyware are harmless. I occasionally run anti-spyware and remove whats coming through my firewall and NIS. No point having anti-spyware runing all the time, just eats a lot of resources and time. Actually, I think the risk for getting infected by any harmful virus is quite low if you don't click on everything you see and visit a lot of Russian download and pornographic sites.

However, the risk for HD crash is always there, so making regular backups all the time is important. Hardware can crash any time, and the problem is it does not need to be a virus that causes it, most probably has nothing to do with virus at all. You never know when, but you know it WILL get to you. I have been "blessed" by it that twice. Each time I am getting better, doing my backups. I guess, I never learn, because it always hurts more than it supposed to, if I was more careful and disciplined doing my backups.

I don't see any point with external HDs, as long as I have enough space in my computer, so I have internal ones, but externals are very good 'plug and play' devices, so for most ppl it is easyer that way.

 

[OlyFlyer]

...as the saying goes, an APPLE a day, keeps the doctor away...

...just because so few people like these sour APPLEs! :bsmilie: Most people like more the candy-sweet PCs. Wozniak and Jobs were two damn good engineers but not very bright marketing people, so in the long run the PC won.

Same goes for using Linux or Unix. You are safe if you run those on any hardware. Never heard of any viruses for those.

 

[OlyFlyer]

To save important data -- Buy the external casing that contain harddisk (3.5 type or 2.5 type Hdd) USB interface for easy to connect to PC.

To do recovery of OS – Use ghost.exe (Ghost Program) to clone the OS partition (C:\drive) to image that save to destination drive.

Destination drive can be local drive (D:\ or E:\ drive), external drive or even CD/DVD writer.

Make the cd/dvd media bootable using writer program (Nero) then cut the image file and ghost.exe to cd/dvd media.

To do recovery, place the cd/dvd media to cd/dvdrom and restart the PC. It will boot to cd/dvdrom drive. From there you can use ghost program to clone from image to os partition drive when hardisk crash or os corrupted.

Recommand to use dvd cd. It can save 4.7GB data or image file.

You can also clone to dvdrom writer using ghost program.

Notes: must remember to make the dvd cd bootable first before cut image file to dvd

Beware! That will not save your data! You must remember to backup that also. In fact, it is more important than OS partition. Once data is gone, it is gone. OS and drivers can alway be reinstalled, even if it takes more time. Actually, it is better to do a clean install once in a while since ghost will also save/restore all your mistakes and a lot of useless stuff.

 

[OlyFlyer]

mine is first is PC-XT by Creative... damn expensive.. dunno why my uncle choose that....
CGA 4 color, 640kb memory MSdos 2.x

I skip PC-XT because it was just too expensive, big and simple. The first ones had only 360kB 5.25" diskettes.

 

[laugh]

i think as a modern day computer user, the very least we can do is to ensure

1) a firewall is being used
2) anti virus is installed (with definitions updated regularly)
3) OS patches updated regularly

same goes for mac too.

 

[ortega]

there are viruses for mac just in case people still think they are perfectly safe

of course there are...

just that I don't get them

 

[JL1500k]

Beware! That will not save your data! You must remember to backup that also. In fact, it is more important than OS partition. Once data is gone, it is gone. OS and drivers can alway be reinstalled, even if it takes more time. Actually, it is better to do a clean install once in a while since ghost will also save/restore all your mistakes and a lot of useless stuff.

I hate reinstall OS, drivers and the entire program again when OS is corrupted or after replaced the faulty harddisk. Some programs require configuration some more. It will take 4 or more hours to complete the task or the whole process.

Normally I will create a ghost image for my OS partition only which also consist of all the programs as well. Data in other drive will backup separately using other backup device in case whole harddisk crash.

When come to disaster recovery I find it very useful when using ghost program to restore back to original state without any problem. Once OS is up data can be restore back too.

 

[JL1500k]

Beware! That will not save your data! You must remember to backup that also. In fact, it is more important than OS partition. Once data is gone, it is gone. OS and drivers can alway be reinstalled, even if it takes more time. Actually, it is better to do a clean install once in a while since ghost will also save/restore all your mistakes and a lot of useless stuff.

If you have done house keeping for your PC it should not have alot of useless stuff or program and taking up alot of disk space. :bsmilie:

 

[OlyFlyer]

If you have done house keeping for your PC it should not have alot of useless stuff or program and taking up alot of disk space. :bsmilie:

You say that to reassure yourself only. Definitly, my experience shows that housekeeping is a good idea, but onece you brought something into the 'house', a small part is always left somewhere hidden from your 'vacuum cleaner'. And when you install/uninstall things a lot of times, well, few becomes many...

Only way to really 'clean the house' is by doing a clean install. For me that takes at least 8-10 hours, so if you are done after 4, that is definitly worth doing once every second year or so. BTW, I also hate doing it, :angry: and don't do it as often as I should.

 

[Pro Image]

there are viruses for mac just in case people still think they are perfectly safe

Have been using a Mac for 15 years......WHAT VIRUS? Never got infected with it at all..........:bsmilie:

 

[swampthing]

Yes, because you might take all that prevention and the virus can still get in due to sucky programming of the OS.

 

[JL1500k]

You say that to reassure yourself only. Definitly, my experience shows that housekeeping is a good idea, but onece you brought something into the 'house', a small part is always left somewhere hidden from your 'vacuum cleaner'. And when you install/uninstall things a lot of times, well, few becomes many...

Only way to really 'clean the house' is by doing a clean install. For me that takes at least 8-10 hours, so if you are done after 4, that is definitly worth doing once every second year or so. BTW, I also hate doing it, :angry: and don't do it as often as I should.

Wow! you have to take 8 or more hours to do the clean installation then you should have alot of programs and configuration to be done. :sweat: Or maybe your CPU is slow.


My ghost image CD take less than one hour to complete the cloning of the OS partition.

 

[henkee]

perhaps there r more ppl using pc windows based rather than apple, linux etc. so the "hackers" tend to mess around with windows to gain popularity?? and also for spyware/spy-ad? ofcourse more people means higher chance the product they sell to be known by ppl.
i heard that mac also got viruses, but not as much win, i think with the popularity of mac nowadays it will attract someone to break into the os more??
anyway i have both pc and mac, and never got virus prob until now "knock wood " lol

 

[OlyFlyer]

Wow! you have to take 8 or more hours to do the clean installation then you should have alot of programs and configuration to be done. :sweat: Or maybe your CPU is slow.

Yes, a whole bunch to install and configure. The ususal stuff, XP Pro, Ofiice, image handlers (video and photo), sound editor, CD/DVD tools and also a whole lot of special stuff like electronic instruments, development tools, GPS navigation tools and so on to support my other hobbies and day to day life. Just OS and Office + image handling is not a great deal of work to re-install.

CPU speed is not the bottleneck, it is the HD and the CD/DVD reader, even if those are fast, still too slow to cope with the task of reading/writing.

My ghost image CD take less than one hour to complete the cloning of the OS partition.

Yes, but that is just OS isn't it?