Ex-government employee sentenced for hacking
A former computer security specialist at the Department of Education has been sentenced to five months in prison for hacking into his supervisor's PC. Kenneth Kwak, 34, of Chantilly, Va., admitted to installing remote control software on the computer and using that access to read his supervisor's e-mail and monitor other Internet activity. Kwak shared this information with others in his office. Kwak pleaded guilty last month to one count of intentionally gaining unauthorized access to a government computer and thereby obtaining information. The five-month sentence is to be followed by five months of home confinement. As part of the sentence, Kwak was also ordered to pay the U.S. government $40,000 in restitution. He will be on parole for three years.Spyware Guide
The most common attacks on PCs aren’t from viruses any more, but from spyware. It’s not that computer viruses aren’t bad, but with most people running up to date anti-virus software, the threat isn’t as great as it used to be. Anyway, there is a web site that gives you more information about the most common spyware programs in circulation. Spywareguide.com has compiled a database of spyware and even has a ranking of the frequency of “infection”. You can find out just what a particular spyware program does and manual instructions for removal. The web site seems to push their spyware removal software, but I’ve found that free software like SpyBot Search & Destroy, Lavasoft’s Ad-aware, and Microsoft’s Defender can eliminate most spyware. I run all three on my system. Go to: ( http://www.spywareguide.com )
You can perform a variety of on-line security checks by going to the One on One Computer Consultants Home page at: (http://www.1on1cc.com) and clicking on the link to Symantec Security Check. You can perform a Virus Check, Security Check, and/or Trace a Potential Attack on your computer system.
ASAP Utilities (MS Excel)
This add-on contains over 300 utilities to expand the capabilities of Microsoft Excel. If you use Excel on a regular basis, the added ASAP menu will be extremely helpful in automating spreadsheet tasks. If you can’t find a command in the regular Excel menus, then try ASAP Utilities. Be sure to download the user’s manual written for Adobe Acrobat. Go to: ( http://www.asap-utilities.com/index.php?page=p_ho.php )
Blue Chillies
Bluechillies.com has
a lot of free and shareware programs in categories such as Games,
Utilities, Internet, Drivers, and etc. With so many categories, I’m sure
you’ll be able to find some useful programs.
Go to: (
http://www.bluechillies.com/ )
FireFox Extensions
Some people have switched over to the FireFox browser from Internet Explorer and Netscape. Many don’t know that there are extensions or add-ons that can be installed to expand the features of the popular web browser. FireFox is an “open source” program which means that the source code is available to everyone. This allows people to write smaller programs that can be easily integrated into the browser. Some of the extensions include pop-up managers, themes, clippings (keeps a list of frequently typed items for easy pasting), calculators, and much more (about 1579 add-ons). Go to: ( https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/ )
Backup Data
Of course we all know that is important to backup our computer documents and financial data, but there is other important, if not, helpful information that also should be added to our backup list. Two are Internet Explorer Favorites and Email Address Book. For Internet Explorer Favorites, just do a search for the Favorites folder in My Computer. The location will vary with each version of Microsoft Windows. If you use Outlook, then your email addresses and messages are usually in a file called “outlook.pst” or end with a “PST” extension. If you use Outlook Express, then your address book will end with a “WAB” extension. You might have to change your file view settings to show hidden files and folders to find some of these files or folders.
For more computer
Tips & Tricks go to the One on One Computer Consultants Tips Page at:
(
http://www.1on1cc.com/tips.htm )