I love computer gaming. In a real sense computer gaming was the driver behind my interest, in the early 1980′s, in becoming computer literate, and then taking that literacy to new levels. Computer gaming has changed enormously of course from the early 1980′s to the present. The technical changes in both the games themselves, and [...]

I’ll bet that headline got your attention! We all know that the purpose of computer passwords is to protect personal information that you’ve stored on your computer, and in your online accounts. With access to your passwords, cyber-criminals (they come in all shapes, sizes and flavors – so don’t be fooled), can and will, steal [...]

As an amateur photographer I know how hard it is to get that perfect picture. Countless times, over the years, I’ve ended up with the perfect shot only to have it spoiled by one small detail that if removed, would enhance the photo a great deal. I’ve not had to remove Uncle Bob (who’s now [...]

Windows Task Manager is a bit of a tease. Sure it provides you with some usable information, but it falls far short of providing you with the information that you really need. It is most commonly used to display information on all processes running on your computer, as well as advising you of the CPU [...]

Mark O’Neill, editor of MakeUseOf and a contributing writer to Geeks Are Sexy, said in an email to me recently following the publication of one of his GAS articles that he had received an email death threat based on his views and observations espoused in that article. So should Mark be concerned? Should he be [...]

I’m a pretty careful guy so I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting my home machine from the ever increasing malware infestations we seem to be subjected to while surfing, downloading and uploading on the internet. Some might even consider it overkill. Currently my home system is running [...]

Firewall and security applications (i.e. Antivirus) provide the ultimate in protection while you’re surfing the web, right? Well in a sense they do. Current anti-malware solutions are much more effective than they have ever been in detecting worms, viruses and other forms of malware. So what are hardworking cyber crooks to do then, since it [...]

It is becoming increasingly clear that at the current rate of growth in malware in circulation and under development, computer operating systems and applications will continue to be compromised at an ever increasing rate. According to Panda Labs, Panda Security’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, every single day in 2007, it received and analyzed [...]

So how many coasters do you have that started life as critical backup CD/DVD’s? Or the CD/DVD’s that you entrusted to store a lifetime of photo memories? Well if you’re like most of us, you may have more than one. As a long term file storage medium, CD/DVD’s are, in effect, all-purpose, durable and generally [...]

Windows XP has a command line utility which will help you determine if you have spyware or botware running on your system. Netstat displays protocol statistics and current TCP/IP connections. I use this utility as a test, to ensure that the anti-malware tools and firewall running on my systems are functioning correctly, and that there [...]