Finding a trustworthy place to get your computer repaired can be a difficult thing to do. Some shops want to keep your computer for weeks at a time, cutting down on your productivity. Others have you wait in a long line just to drop off the computer. It can be a frustrating experience just to talk with someone about your ailing computer.

There is a better solution. Allyte Technology Solutions repairs computers in Knoxville and Maryville, Tennessee. We provide friendly, personal, cost-effective computer service at your location. On-site service allows us to ensure the computer works properly and eliminates the hassle of dealing with messy cables and wires.

Call Allyte Technology Solutions for in-home or in-office computer service. You won’t be disappointed.

In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.

In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 2“, we considered browsing and clicking habits that can be harmful for your computer and your privacy.

Let’s look at two different types of software that can help protect your computer.

Internet Security Suite

There are some tools available that can help secure your Windows PC as well. A question that is often asked of me is, “Which antivirus software is the best?“. My answer is always, “I can recommend a certain product, but you need to know that no security software is bulletproof. They will all let some things get through.”

It’s important to understand that antivirus software offers only a certain type of protection. So if you go to download one of the free anti-virus software packages (AVG, Avast!, and Avira are all popular), they will offer anti-virus only protection. In order to get a quality level of comprehensive protection from a single piece of software, you’ll need to pay for it.

PC Magazine has a good run-down of the best software for 2010 here. They rate Norton and McAfee above the rest of the suites in this particular review. On more than one occasion, however, I have had major software issues with both McAfee and Norton, so I typically recommend another software package.

In my experience, Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 offers the best value, features and pricing. I use this software with many of my clients and have had good results without inhibiting the computer’s performance. It’s around $80, which covers three computers for a full year. Contact me to get this software installed on your computer.

Consistent Environment Software

Wouldn’t it be great if your computer was exactly the same every time you turned it on? One software package makes that happen.

Windows Steady State, developed by Microsoft allows a computer’s administrator to configure other users for a consistent environment on every login. It’s free and compatible with Windows XP and Vista (sorry, Windows 7 users!).

Basically, here’s how it works: a user can login, browse the internet, download files and even adjust settings just like usual. Then when they log out, all the settings revert back to the way they were before the person logged in. This software is very useful on a computer that a family with children may use, or in my case, a computer lab with multiple users.

Other helpful features of this software are timed logouts, software restrictions, and user permissions. If these sounds fancy, I assure you that Windows Steady State makes it very easy to understand and adjust these settings.

With a little common sense and the right software, your Windows PC should operate smoothly without much effort on the part of the user. It may not be bulletproof, but the overall experience will be better than if no protection or safeguards were put in place.

There is one option still to consider when using a PC. We’ll take a look at that in Part 4.

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In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.

To protect your Windows computer, the first and best rule of protection is to use your head and be pro-active in your browsing and clicking habits. This typically means two things:

1. Only visit websites that you know can be trusted
2. Use caution when clicking on links in e-mail that are unsolicited

Let’s look a little closer at #1:
How do you know which websites can be trusted? There is a difficult tension here – if you visit only the sites you already know, there are many useful and informational websites out there that you will miss in an effort to be cautiuos. But, if you go out willy-nilly and click on every site that comes up in the search results, your computer will get infected with malicious software sooner or later.

So the answer lies somewhere in between. More experienced users can take a little more liberty in clicking on unknown sites, but naive or less experienced users will need to be more careful when visiting unknown websites.

The truth is that malicious websites will do their best to look like a legitimate, reputable website. But these same sites will do damage to your computer that can be difficult to recover from.

Let’s look a little closer at #2:
E-mail is also a popular way to direct people to websites that are harmful not only to your computer, but to your privacy. If you get an e-mail from a financial institution, never click on the link in the e-mail. Instead, go to your browser to access the institution’s site directly.

It is very possible that the legitimate-looking e-mail you just received will direct you to  a “phishing” site that will extract your login information and allow someone else to access your accounts and information.

In Part 3, we’ll consider two types of software that can help protect your computer from viruses and spyware.

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I have seen far too many computers infected with spyware, viruses, trojans, malware, etc. There are numerous ways to end up with the problems caused by malicious software. Unsafe browsing practices, such as visiting untrusted websites and downloading software from untrusted sources are just two of the ways to acquire malicious and damaging software.

On many of the computers I have seen with malicious software, one common piece of software I find is LimeWire. LimeWire is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software that allows users to share files. It is a haven for malicious software, pirated music and illegal videos.

Mark Stone has written an excellent piece about LimeWire here.

If you have this software on your computer, do yourself a favor and uninstall it now. It’s not worth the trouble.

I’ve had more than a couple of people e-mail to ask how they can open these .docx files. The .docx format was introduced by Microsoft beginning with Office version 2007 (that’s the version with the ribbon, rather than the toolbar; more info here).

So, the .docx files don’t open easily in versions of Microsoft Office prior to 2007. Here’s one fix: Microsoft has released an update that converts the .docx (and .pptx and .xlsx) files for use on earlier software.

There is another fix, however. I am a proponent of free open source software (FOSS).  The OpenOffice.org suite is a free office suite that includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings. OpenOffice.org will open, edit and save the .docx (along with .pptx and .xlsx) files without even blinking. Read more about OpenOffice here.