The Michelangelo Virus – Hype And Fizzle
The Michelangelo virus was the first real appearance of computer virus hype in the media. Various “experts” made claims about how widespread the virus was and how much damage it was going to do when it triggered.
Michelangelo first hit the news in late January, 1992. A customer noticed that computers from Leading Edge were arriving with the virus pre-installed. The next day, John McAfee is quoted as saying Michelangelo was the third most common virus in the world.
Two weeks later, McAfee was quoted again, and this time he estimated that as many as five million computers worldwide could be hurt by the virus. This was a big, impressive number, and journalists ran with it. All through February, readers were treated to an assortment of information that was either overblown or just wrong. For example, several experts reported that the virus came from bulletin board systems, which is not true–the virus was spread on infected floppy disks.
One expert advised not shutting computers down on March 5th, the day before the trigger day. The virus would only be triggered by actually booting the computer on the 6th, he said. If the computer was never turned off, the virus wouldn’t have a chance to trigger.
In early March, Intel discovered it was sending the virus with one of their programs. Several journalists took the words of McAfee and others, especially the estimate of five million infected computers, and spun wilder and wilder predictions of damage.
When March 6th arrived, the world held it’s breath, waiting for the reports of mass destruction of never came. Instead of millions of computers, the virus barely hit a few thousand. AT&T, with 250,000 computers, said the virus affected two systems.
Critics pointed out that the people making the huge claims stood to profit–because they were also selling anti-virus programs.
Bringing In Reinforcements To Deal With Additional Guard
We tend to think computers are invulnerable. After all, they essentially run our lives these days, right? Those who have had a single computer problem, though, know better. All too often, hardware and software problems alike can create very real problems that leave us little choice but machine replacement, which is not only expensive, but time consuming as well. If Additional Guard is your problem, though, you don?t have to worry about machine replacement. There are several simple removal techniques you can try.
What Is Additional Guard?
Designed to look much like any of the programs on the market that will protect your computer from viruses and malware, Additional Guard is considered rogue security software. The goal of this application is to get you to purchase the full version of the program, but doing so won?t leave you any better off in terms of protection.
What is a Virus? The confusion with so many rogue security programs comes in the name designation. A virus is software that can reproduce itself and generally cause extensive damage to your machine.
What is Malware? The term malware is a bit more general than virus. Malware stands for malicious software, and it?s any type of program that is designed to harm your computer or steal your personal information.
Additional Guard doesn?t fall into either of these categories, but you should still remove it as soon as you have the chance. Because it can open some security holes on your computer, Additional Guard removal is your best shot at keeping your machine as save as possible.
Why Is It Such a Problem?
There are a number of reasons Additional Guard is an issue. Besides the fact that it has the potential to create security holes down the road, one major issue is that many people don?t recognize the software as a problem. They tend to believe that it is a real security solution, as it is designed to look quite authentic, and they do what the computer program asks them to do. This may mean downloading content from another site that the computer program has asked you to download, or clicking on a button which the program asks you to click on. This can cause a great deal of problems with your computer, as clicking on these links or going to any website that Additional Guard asks you to go to may prove as an invitation to exploit the security holes it could potentially create.
The second problem is that many people simply ignore the situation. The most annoying thing that Additional Guard does, at least initially, is to pop up warnings that you have a virus or some bad software in your system. If you click on the ?x? button in the corner, the warning disappears, at least for awhile. Because of this many people click on the button and constantly close the popup, believing that it is nothing more than an annoyance. Unfortunately this is a bit more serious than that, and while it can be an annoyance, if left unchecked, it could mean much deeper issues.
How Do I Know if Additional Guard Is Installed On My Machine?
How do you know if you have the Additional Guard program? One of the most common ways to spot it is the pop ups on your computer. The alert may say something like:
?Additional Guard has detected potentially harmful software in your system. It is strongly recommended that you register Additional Guard to remove all found threats immediately.?
Or you may see a system alert that says:
?Suspicious software which may be malicious has been detected on your PC. Click here to remove this threat immediately using Additional Guard.?
In addition to alerts like these, you may also notice slow performance, system-wide. This is commonly caused by the RAM Additional Guard must use to run on an ongoing basis. At first, you may simply notice a slow down when you start programs. As time goes on, though, you?re likely to notice it when you try to start a program and even when you try to switch between open program windows.
You?ll probably also see some scan windows popping up on your machine on occasion. These look rather authentic, which is what frightens so many people. It often says ?Windows Advanced Security Center? in the top right corner of the program, and you?ll also see a button to activate advance protection. Clicking on it, though, will just lead you to the home page for the program?s website.
Removing Additional Guard as quickly as possible should be a high priority for you. Even though it seems as though it is simply annoying, it is something that could become a liability in the future. In order to remove Additional Guard, however, you may have to do a bit of research, as it is not an easy program to eliminate.
Secure Your Computer From Viruses And Spyware For Free
One of the hazards of using a computer online today is the danger of infestation with a variety of malware, viruses, trojan horses, spyware, zombieware, worms, loggers, dialers – no matter what you’re infected with, it carries the dangers of:
– Reduced performance
– Unwanted emailing
– Damage to your data, or even to your bios (which means your computer is toast)
– Theft of your data, up to and including all your personal information
When malware is released in a large network, the results can be even worse, with mass infections causing shutdowns of entire systems, theft of corporate data, and revenue loss that can rise into the millions.
Fortunately, a few free programs and sensible use of your computer can prevent these nasty things from happening to your computer.
Virus Protection
Install a decent virus protection software. You can download AVG Anti-Virus Free edition which is free for personal use, and ensure it’s constantly updated.
AVG is easy to use, takes very few system resources, provides rapid virus database updates, and other great features like Automatic updates, E-mail Scanner etc.
And has excellent technical help available which other free antivirus software’s lack.
Firewall Protection
If your OS is Windows XP, a default firewall comes with it, but you may be better off downloading another free firewall and using it since the Windows firewall has been shown to have some of the same security holes as IE and Windows. That doesn’t mean the Windows firewall is bad, it just means that using software developed by different teams of developers will protect you better.
ZoneAlarm is a great free software for home users. It has got all the features a home user needs. Has simple interface, is easy to use and customize, works with little or no configuration.
Spyware Protection
You should also keep good anti-spyware software on your computer. Spybot – Search and Destroy is one of many good examples of these, and it’s free. Be wary of anti-spyware programs that advertise via pop-ups; these “anti-spyware” programs sometimes contain some of the same problems they supposedly protect you from!
Spybot S&D is one of the best free Anti-Spyware software, I have been using it for last couple of years. Spybot is great at keeping spyware out of the systems. The program has an easy to use interface, very user friendly system. The program takes out cookies, spyware, ads, and many other things you do not want it.
Apart from Spyware removal Spybot has other Advanced tools like:
– Secure Shredder ? Securely remove files you no longer want from your hard disk.
– BHOs ? Show and manage the Browser Helper Objects from your Internet Explorer
– IE tweaks ? Modify some hidden Internet Explorer settings.
– Hosts File ? Take a look at your hosts list.
– System Internals ? Search for registry inconsistencies
– System Startup ? Show and manage the applications that your machine will run on System Startup.
– Uninstall info ? Show all registered software uninstall entries
Sensible Personal Precautions
Most viruses come from your email. This cannot be overemphasized. Never open an email attachment that you weren’t expecting; always check with the person who emailed it to you, through a phone call or just via email or chat, to make certain it is a real attachment that’s safe to open.
Other viruses come from illegal and legal downloads. If you’re downloading illegal software or data, you can expect to find viruses in a pretty high percentage of it. What’s tragic is that a lot of illegal viruses creep into legal download sites. This is why you need to maintain your virus protection program in an up-to-date manner, even when you’re careful about downloads.
A few viruses are attached to web pages. Though their servers generally shut them down as soon as they’re found, or your server blocks the sites to protect you, you’ll find a few viruses that download to your computer simply by visiting a site. You can protect yourself by maintaining the Internet Explorer security settings at a medium level or higher, or by using alternate browsers like Firefox with good security.
Spyware often comes from “free” programs. You’ve seen those cool screen-savers for free? Spyware. Try to download free programs from places that vet their software carefully.
With these three software’s (available for download at ) installed and some personal precautions your computer should be spyware and virus free.
Steps To Having An Efficient Testing Automation Process
Software testing can help you determine whether the program that you have developed is doing well or if it still needs improvement on certain aspects. This is to ensure that the software works as expected so that the users who will be utilizing the application will be able to enjoy the experience. However, even software testing needs to be tested. This is because not all processes can be deemed as successful. There are several factors which may affect the success of the procedure and it is only right that you assure this one first so that when you go for software test automation, you are guaranteed that everything is going well. So how do you ensure that the testing automation process is properly executed? Here are the answers.
The key for having a winning strategy in testing automation is to simply follow the laws of software development process. The first step is to seek for an improvement in the testing process. To do this, you will have to guarantee that the entire procedure is weld defined. In addition to this, you need to search for ways that will allow you to do everything easily and without much cost. Since most of the test teams today start the process by means of the regression tests, there is a need to check how well the regression tests have been documented. Documentation is the primary aspect that you should verify before you start automating.
Step two is to define the requirements, which will be your bases as to why you will need to automate. There are any reasons why people do this and some of them want to speed up the testing process, aid them for the frequent tests, reduce manual labor, ensure consistency and to develop programming skills amongst the staff. Different goals are set when you wan to go for automation and thus, it would be easier for you to know what you and your team should do in the process.
Next, you will need to establish the concept and among the tests that need these are regression, configuration, test bed, and non GUI testing. Then you will need to design a code for sustainability. This means that you should not focus on what is just now but for the long term process. It is not about how short you have worked on the program analysis but how you are able to build a program that is full of integrity. To do this, you will need to concentrate on the performance and the simplicity of the analysis. In order for you to have a sustainable test suite, you need renewability, independence and repeatability as you design the code.
The last one is to make a plan for the deployment process. Many would think that they can just make use of the automation testing tools to do the job for them. While they can be run without the assistance of the humans, there is still a need for you to make a plan. This way, you can reuse the automation procedure again and again since you have set the test to become widely available.
Good Technical Support For Curbing Inefficiency
Today computer is something by which we cannot do with. You use computer for a host of your offline as well as online interactive activities.
Earlier, perhaps you had to take your PC or computer peripherals such as your computer printer to a computer repair shop for even slightest of glitch. Or, you may have to call their shops and wait for their technical support engineers to arrive at your site. Besides taking away a lot of your time and frustrating, perhaps it was also expensive. And your frustration only increased when you were told finally that simply a plug was not properly connected with your PC.
Now you need not unnecessarily wait or frustrate yourself. This will add an extra burden on your pocket. Thanks to advances in online computer technology and online remote repairing, things have changed once and for all for you as a personal computer user. Now, you can get solution for your computer problem without waiting for your technicians to arrive at your site or taking your PC to any computer repair shop. You can do this now by availing services of a good online technical support provider.
They make most of all available networking tools to offer you tech support with speed, accuracy, and diligence through their online network. You get 24x7x365 online support through email, chat, and a host of interactive facilities such as video conferencing. If finally you do need repair for your computer problem, remote outsourcing repair facility provided online will help you solve your computer problem. As a result, your computer problem will be solved without requiring information technology experts to arrive at your site. It may be nighttime or a national holiday. Such services are available round the clock for you as a customer of such outsourced online technical support service provider.
They will take care of all your Windows technical help as well as your other PC-related needs. They provide you with assistance in installing and configuring your printer, Wi-Fi, DVD camera, and other computer peripherals. These online technical support providers will also assist you with a host of additional services including virus attack, PC repair, data loss, etc.
Also while delivering their services; today a good online computer service provider takes measures that keep your data safe. They understand your safety concerns while online. You can come to know about various services on offer by good online technical support providers by visiting free online computer forums.
Such online technical services are geared to deliver you the most efficient networking services your computers need in an ever-evolving platform where distinction between online and offline is fast getting blurred. You can count on such online technical support services for any of your personal computer related problem.
As a result, from an individual PC user to SMEs and corporate houses, such tech support services have been appreciated by all kinds of visitors in popular computer forums. You too perhaps need to avail such services and make yourself more efficient in handling your computer problem.
Good, timely, and cheap technical help can be your weapon to address your computer problem. Now, with good online technical support you have that ammunition to curb inefficiency that you have subjected to.
Midsize Business Erp: Sap Business One Or Dynamics Gp Great Plains
If you are looking for new ERP or MRP application and your company is reasonably small (including mid-size office buildings inhabitants), we recommend you to start your next accounting system research with Microsoft Dynamics GP or SAP Business One small business ERP. Both applications should be capable to pick you up and upgrade from small business accounting packages, such as PeachTree, QuickBooks, MYOB. We would like to give you orientation session on GP and SB1 initial selection steps and nuances:
1. SAP BO, If you are small business which needs very inexpensive application with attributes of larger operations with Manufacturing, Shipping and Packing, Contract Administration, Sales Order Processing, CRM (Customer Relation Management System), eCommerce (build from scratch) ? then SAP Business One might be perfect way to go
2. Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics GP. Here we recommend you the way to transform existing legacy SOP, eCommerce application into central hub integration. Dynamics GP Integration Manager or eConnect SDK should allow you to extend life to your legacy pieces, such as mySQL, Oracle custom databases, PHP ecommerce website, UNIX and Linux related EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) scenarios
3. Advanced ERP and MRP customization scenarios. If your mid-size business ERP is based on unique custom business processes automation, then you should be aware about SB1 and Dynamics GP customization and programming tools. For SAP B1 it is SAP Business One SDK, and for Dynamics GP they are Great Plains Dexterity and Dynamics GP eConnect
4. Future horizons. Such topics as Barcoding, Warehouse management, consignment, Bill of Lading, Electronic Document Delivery, Multicurrency and Financial Reporting Consolidation are definitely on the top of the FAQ list. Please, feel free to call us and get additional directions
Best Keyword Software Tools
If you’re up to it, I want to disclose some eye-opening and quite disturbing information to you about keywords. Listen…I’m not trying to scare you here but you need to know what’s been going on seemingly behind your back, for quite some time now – Are you okay with that? Okay –
Now you may not be aware of it yet but …there’s a silent war going on right now in front of your very eyes and you probably don’t even notice it! What’s even worse is that you’re actually involved and you don’t even know it!
It’s not your usual type of war but it does involve major losses! Countless fortunes are being made and countless others are being lost online every day because of it.
You see, the internet is really a war-zone the likes of which the world has yet to comprehend!
Right this very second – “There are people out there gunning for you to lose your profits with Adwords, Adsense, Search Engine Ranking, and various other Pay-Per-Click engines!”
Don’t let people fool you into thinking that you’re safe and sound behind your little website and no one can touch you if you use this marketing strategy or the next.
This Is Going To Disturb You…
You might have been told that a nice peaceful and profitable Joint Venture is taking the ‘High-Road’ and you’re doing the right thing by cooperating with your competition.
Yeah RIGHT! These are the same people that will Joint Venture with you one minute – then run over to their computer like they had ants-in-their-pants and then research your keywords and before you know it they’ll out maneuver you and “Blow You Right Out of The Water!”
OUCH!
I’ll be the first to tell you that Joint Ventures ARE profitable but – ‘You HAVE to watch your own back!’
Free Anti Spyware Programs Available For Direct Download
My search for free spyware programs I can download began when I decided to protect my computer and my privacy from malicious Spyware programs. I already knew that there were things called Spyware and Adware out there on the Internet, and that I really ought to protect myself from them by installing one of these for free spyware programs I can download. But somehow I kept putting it of and never really got around to start searching for free spyware programs I can download until two weeks ago when a particularly annoying piece of software lured itself into my precious computer and began to harass me constantly by changing my Start Page to the page of some bogus search engine. It was also impossible for me to do a normal web search. Each time I tried to access one of the larger search engines, I was promptly redirected to this fake search engine. This is when I realised that I could no longer keep putting the search for free spyware programs I can download off.
Spyware programs can cause a lot of harm, and even when they stick to relatively harmless mischief such as displaying those irritating pop-up commercials I still view it as a large intrusion of privacy that someone might be gathering and storing information about me, without my knowledge or consent. I therefore set out on my online journey, trying to find free spyware programs I can download. It thought it would be a piece of cake. I mean, we have all seen those blinking banners about free anti-spyware programs, haven’t we? Well, it turned out to be much harder to find free spyware programs I can download than I first expected.
When I did a little research I quickly found out that a lot of the so called Anti-Spyware programs heavily marketed in banner advertisements online are actually fake Anti-Spyware programs. They are promoted as free spyware programs I can download, but are in reality created by the same persons that gain from the Spyware programs. All these fake free spyware programs I can download will not protect my computer at all. Instead, a majority of them will even install new Spyware on the computer! When a computer user scans his or her computer, the fake program will claim that all Spyware have been removed. In reality, the Spyware is still there and can continue to send out personal data each time the computer is connected to the Internet. So, I had to be very careful in my quest for free spyware programs I can download.
I also clicked on advertisements for several pages that claimed to provide free spyware programs I can download; only to find out that those programs was not free at all. When I read the fine print, some kind of fee always turned up. Another problem that I encountered when searching for free spyware programs I can download was that some programs are only free for a limited period, sometimes as little as a week. I know from experience with other types of software that one week is not enough to find out whether I feel comfortable with a program or not. Besides, I was looking for really free spyware programs I can download, not semi-free ones. I want to be able to switch to a new program if a program doesn’t suit me, or if I new program is released that is much better than my current one. If I use Anti-Spyware programs that come with a large fee, I’m not able to do this without seriously over-heating my credit card. How ever, after almost giving up hope I found several free spyware programs I can download. I am currently using one of them, and will try out another one next month. So, my advice to all of you out there is to take your time when searching for free spyware programs to download. I finally found several free spyware programs I can download, and so will you. But be careful, always read the fine print and only download Anti-Spyware programs from reputable sites.
What You Need To Know About The Best Recruitment Software
Initially, a method that comes to our minds when we talk about increasing recruitment leads is to have dedicated personnel who will work toward increasing those leads. Depending on the company size and the number of leads needed to produce weekly, you can actually get in between one to three employees whose job is to create cold inquiries, establish internet research, and make databases with recruitment leads for your sales staff. In line with this, you also need a recruitment software to develop new staff skills.
Here are two aspects you can combine with the best recruitment software to boost your profits while conserving your resources:
1. Automated Lead Generation
Another choice to consider is the famous automated recruitment leads through internet. You can easily create blogs, websites, or social media accounts that permit you for direct contact with industries searching for recruitment organizations. This will assist in conserving your time and money and permits you to jumpstart you company’s utility of Internet as business software. Nonetheless, always remember that maintenance and development of such resources needs full attention as well.
2. Outsourcing Production of Recruitment Leads
Probably, the most famous procedure of acquiring recruitment leads is simple outsourcing of the methods to another establishment. There are many choices out there and most of them provide a vast array of outsourcing services that permits you to conserve time and money and to assure that you will get the best recruitment leads. These business organizations will let you wait through long lists of probable prospects, get you the ones you do not currently hire and others that do not require assistance from a business like yours. This will assure your sales staff calls from people who will really stand the chance of signing up. In addition, this saves your money and time in creating new departments and projects.
When you are going to search for a company in outsourcing your recruitment leads, be sure to discuss the certain needs with them such as volume, duration, and geographical region.
Now you can actually see that there are many chances out there besides spending high deal of personal time or that of sales staff on phones calling different companies. The best way is to measure the advantages and disadvantages of specific procedures that are not similar to each other for your staff not to encounter any more issues or difficulties while using the best recruitment software.
Simple Method To Increase Your Computers Performance
There are many of us that have made computers our life, there is nearly no work that we ca finish without the help of computers. There are official matters, even personal work too that might be at a halt if your system is not working well. If you are troubled with the system?s speed then it is better to find out a solution to increase your PC?s performance, simply getting a new PC wont be the best way to solve this problem.
There are a few steps that can be followed and verified if they work or not, well in approximately all the cases these steps are the best solution to handle any problem.
Firstly, check out the PC and see what kind of files you have stored in your PC, are there any such files that you do not want and have installed without any proper use. There are chances that at times such files that are if no use, then even they can also reduce the speed of your computer. If there are such files that you do not use then there is no point keeping these files in your computer the best way is to remove them. This might be a good step in increasing your system?s speed.
Secondly, check out the defragmentation that you have done. If you haven?t defragmented your drives properly then there are chances that there might be an adverse effect o the speed and the performance of your PC. There are chances that your hard drive may turn over crowded and this can slow down your PC searches and performance thus defragmentation is needed to overcome such situation.
Get a proper and more RAM, this is required as RAM is the main aspect that allows the smooth functioning of a computer and thus affects the working d speed. The affect of RAM on performance and speed is well known so it?s better to get more and quite effective RAM.
Graphics, there are at times chances that this factor might be the culprit behind the reduced speed affects. There are times when any game or any functioning turns slow just because of the graphic that are not appropriate in your computer according to the necessary requirement so getting the best graphic card of\r even checking the graphic property can do the needful.
Make sure your PC works smoothly and properly, there are cases where there is an affect on the speed and thus it affects our life so protect your life from getting affected and check out the reasons for the reduced speed and correct them on time.