The very FIRST 2 things you need before you venture onto the internet highway is a very good ANTIVIRAL program and a FIREWALL. The world is filled with malicious people doing malicious things, and if you are new, they will get to you unless you are wearing a computer-condom. There are worms,virii,and spyware, hackers, crackers, and trojans, and worst of all there are legitimate sites offering a sevice but invading your privacy and selling all kinds of personal information about you gathered right off your own traitorous machine. If you are not protected then remember the first rule of the internet,
If it is in the box ,it is public knowledge!!
!!! NEVER FORGET THIS !!!
The world wide web is like a BIG glass house, anything you place on a computer can be seen by somebody, somewhere, at some time, and there can be no "reasonable expectation of privacy" as the Supreme Court would say. While firewalls and encryption can guard information somewhat, a good cracker can get it out with some effort. Your connection determines whether you are vulnerable as well. A person using a dial-up connection usually gets a new IP (internet protocol) address (the string of numbers that looks like this:255.99.26.23) every time, while a person on a DSL or cable modem has a "static" IP. Since cracking a remote computer takes time, dial-up users are somewhat safer than people who's address stays constant.
ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
The first thing we will examine is the ANTIVIRAL software. This is the doctor of your machine's health. There are several brands available and they only cost a modest fee for a predetermined amout of time. There is also a free one, AVG which many like but the one complaint is that updates are slow. I tried it but had trouble accessing my boot sectors (CD-ROM, DVD, & floppy drive) but I seem to be the only one I know who had that problem. A good AV program should recognise new or unknown virii by the snippetts of code that seem to be common to most virii, have regular updates (in a timely fashion, say weekly), not use a lot of memory while it's running, and have good customer support. The more prominant names are McAfee (which I use and have never had a failure with although it is slow loading up), Panda, which has a top reputation, F-Prot, which has a good rep also, and Symantec's Norton (which some people call Snorton and that ought to tell ya something). Windows XP comes with Norton included, my personal opinion???, get a REAL OS, but in any event give serious consideration to uninstalling Norton and getting something more favorable.
FIREWALLS AND SECURITY
The next subject I want to broach is that of FIREWALLS. This is the policeman of your computer in the same way AVs are the doctors.It controls traffic into and out of the box. By controlling which programs access the internet and which external computers send you information and what kind of information is allowed to traffic, It can protect you from unwanted intrusion while while you acquire the kinds of information you want. A good firewall should have an ad pop-up stopper, adjustable settngs for alert levels and privacy controls, automatic as well as manual configuation controls for individual executables and applications, and as always, a Good customer support department. The FIREWALLS link will take you to Gibson research where you can learn everything you need to know about security and firewalls.
The following list is for beginners as well as for more advanced users. I spend a great deal of my time on line downloading, testing, and then discarding all kinds of software. I keep the best in each catagory loaded and usually file the others in my secondary harddrive. It is my ferverent hope that all users who visit me here will leave with at least one piece of useful information or some good software. While I prefer freeware, sometimes the shareware is just plain better. As such, I try to list freeware for the most part, however occasionally, I will recommend shareware if it is waaaaaaaaaaay better.
ART & GRAPHICS
I find that good art & graphics programs are invariably shareware or otherwise require cold hard cash. While I can't divulge how I get around this, I can certainly point you at some really nifty places to acquire some cool .gif, .jpg, and .bmp stuff. MSN has a nice club called WebDesign which you can join and get help from some smart people on bulletin boards as well as from individual members. It seems to be comprised of a good mix of professionals and beginners and has a nice weekly news e-letter. Another couple sources of cool graphics I found are: Webdeveloper.com and CoolGraphics.com
BROWSERS
I've found that IE (Internet Explorer) is cumbersome and slow for Windows 2000 Pro use even though it is a staple of all Windows operating systems. The latest incarnation of evil being 6.0. Many people do NOT like 6.0 because it is spyware, other versions are available. Netscape's latest browser 7.0 seems to run a little faster, has a better mail client built in, is downloadable and saveable for re-installation, and works everywhere except Micro$$$$$'s site with equal aplumb. The same folks have something called Mozilla also. Opera's latest concoction, 6.0? (it changes every week it seems), does seem to run a little better overseas on Swedish, German, Dutch, and other Euro-sites. It strikes me as being a little bland, but that is only a personal affectation. There are several other browsers available, but none seem to have widespread appeal. Good BROWSERS have downloading capabilities, bookmarking, search engines, mail client, HTML editor, username/password manager, and auto-form completion built in.
CAMS & IMAGERS
I have found a nice screen capture program, it is shareware, but it has editing, is simple to understand, and works in a variety of file extentions. Hypersnap-DX gives nice clear screen captures, color editing is easy, and is as fast as you want it to be. They have a companion video editor available as well. CameraWare is an IRC type client that links to a chitload of open webcams although many of them are "Adult" oriented. There are many people who prefer the less structured IRC chat over MSN or Yahoo!, CameraWare seems to be the live-video client in prevailing use. Irfanview is a multifunctional general image manipulator, while not as versatile as the high-powered big name image editors like Photodraw, Photoshop, or Paintshop Pro, it has the indisputable advantage of being a couple hundred dollars cheaper, (It's FREEWARE! lol ). For digital camera or videocamera buffs there is some nice freeware available. Continue on for more freeware suggestions just hit the "CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE" link below. If you're bored go find something else to do, lol.
