Saturday, July 8, 2017

computer virus

By Unknown July 08, 2017 // No comments

A computer virus, much like a flu virus, is designed to spread from host to host and has the ability to replicate itself. Similarly, in the same way that viruses cannot reproduce without a host cell, computer viruses cannot reproduce and spread without programming such as a file or document.

In more technical terms, a computer virus is a type of malicious code or program written to alter the way a computer operates and that is designed to spread from one computer to another. A virus operates by inserting or attaching itself to a legitimate program or document that supports macros in order to execute its code. In the process a virus has the potential to cause unexpected or damaging effects, such as harming the system software by corrupting or destroying data.

How does a computer virus attack?

Once a virus has successfully attached to a program, file, or document, the virus will lie dormant until circumstances cause the computer or device to execute its code. In order for a virus to infect your computer, you have to run the infected program, which in turn causes the virus code to be executed. This means that a virus can remain dormant on your computer, without showing major sings or symptoms. However, once the virus infects your computer, the virus can infect other computers on the same network. Stealing passwords or data, logging keystrokes, corrupting files, spamming your email contacts, and even taking over your machine are just some of the devastating and irritating things a virus can do.
While some viruses can be playful in intent and effect, others can have profound and damaging effects, such as erasing data or causing permanent damage to your hard disk, and worst yet, some are even design with financial gains in mind.

How do computer viruses spread?

In today’s constantly connected world you can contract a computer virus in many ways, some more obvious than others. Viruses can be spread through email and text message attachments, Internet file downloads, social media scam links, and even your mobile devices and smartphones can become infected with mobile viruses through shady App downloads. Viruses can hide disguised as attachments of socially shareable content such as funny images, greeting cards, or audio and video files.
To avoid contact with a virus it’s important to exercise caution when surfing the web, downloading files, and opening links or attachments. As a best practice, never download text or email attachments that you’re not expecting, or files from websites you don’t trust.

Hardware Problems

By Unknown July 08, 2017 // No comments

Hardware Problems

If the loss of programs or data on your computer is going to make you upset, it is recommended that you take some precautions. Your computer may be protected against viruses and such, but 100% protection is never guaranteed.

Factors That Can Damage your computer

In terms of its hardware and the data contained within the computer, threatening factors may include the following:

Hardware faults that may occur.
Computers produced for personal use have a certain lifespan. In particular the main piece where data is stored the "hard disk” has a rotating disc that contains a very sensitive device that does about a thousand cycles per min. Drives are like old records, spinning in a magnetic vacuum. They are very sensitive instruments, suffering sudden blows while moving will greatly damage them. And when the life span assigned to them is taken into account (which can be estimated by the warranty period) the possibility of losing data is a threat that cannot be ignored.

Electricity interruptions and failures.
If you do not have a special protection, for your computer against electricity surges or sudden power failures, disruptions may occur causing massive data loss. Similarly, sudden and large changes in voltage in the computer can cause damage to data.

Grounding problems and static electricity can cause defects on chips inside the computer and to the computers electronics. In particular, this sensitivity increases even further when hardware is connected or disconnected to the computer.

Overheating.
Perhaps most importantly one of the factors that shorten the life of computers is the warm-up problem. Cheap and unconsciously selected computer cases, cooling elements that are not installed according to the rules and overloading of computers is associated with warming that may lead to temporary or permanent damage.

Attack by hackers.
Any computer connected to an Internet network cannot be one hundred percent guaranteed to be protected. Hackers, real person or robot alike, can find an exposed computer and can prevent use or significantly damage it. Your computer hardware might not be harmed but loss of data is imminent.
Viruses and other malicious programs.
Viruses are a nuisance, whether they damage or slow Internet connections or as a simple example ‘Spam’ can in fact cause irreparable damage to computers deleting data that cannot again be restored.

User errors.
From time to time users can unconsciously cause damage to computer hardware and software. Wrong use of additional hardware or mistakes made when installing, the incorrect installation of software, mistakenly deleted / formatted files / disks, incorrectly installed device drivers, and many other errors are all examples of user behavior.

Errors in the software or the operating system installed.
Some software packages (especially those of dubious origins) can damage the computer because of errors within their own ranks; they can even cause operating systems to become unusable, during initial installation, during use, while doing a specific combination of jobs, or if incompatible with other types of software working at the same time. As long as software errors do not accumulate they are unlikely to announce themselves.
Useful measures that can be taken.

In the light of the information above, computer users should do the following and take necessary measures as follows:

Make an effort to periodically backup your data.

Be sure to use an Over Current Protector (Surge Protector) and to have an UPS( Uninterruptable Power Supply).
With the BIOS settings make sure the computer does not turn on automatically after a power cut. Look at BIOS settings "what to do when there is a power cut " and change it from ("Power on failure") which returns it to the state it was in before the power cut to (last state) to "stay off” (off). This will help protect your computer against sequential, consecutively and frequent electricity outages and fluctuations that may occur, largely preventing damage to the computer.

Unplug the computer when installing new hardware, ground yourself.

While the Computer is running do not plug in or unplug mouse, serial port, parallel port, keypad, etc.. (Except for the USB and Ethernet).

Protect against computer viruses and attacks and follow the recommendations previously proposed .

If you are unsure of how exactly to do what you want on the computer, do not go to hardware and software changes.

If possible, install up to date software that comes with the computers motherboard, displaying information boards showing computer warm up and from time to time check the internal temperature status of the device.

Make sure your building and the room you are using has grounding.

Try not to touch computers, which install your body with a static electric charge.

Do not unnecessarily leave your computer switched on.

When turning off your computer be sure to do it according to the rules.

Never move your computer jolt the table it is on or shake it while it is turned on.

10 ways to fix a slow computer

By Unknown July 08, 2017 // No comments

Waiting for a slow, creaking, computer to churn through a simple task is one of life's biggest annoyances. When a swift boot to its side fails, follow these top 10 tips to fixing a slow PC. A tired, old PC really can make your blood boil. But sometimes even new PCs can clog up and run slowly.codebabytz.blogspot came up with 10 great quick fixes anyone can perform.

1. Uninstall unused programs

AP

When you buy a new PC the chances are there are a load of programs pre-installed onto it. Old PCs can simply accumulate these over time. Most of these you'll never use and some of them can often run in the background without you knowing, slowing your computer down in the process.
To remove these click "Start" then go to "Control Panel" then click "Programs and Features" and scroll through the list, uninstalling the ones you never use.
If you're unsure what should stay or go, use PC Decrapifier - a free piece of software that recommends what is worthwhile or not.
2. Delete temporary files

Whenever you use internet Explorer all your browsing history remains in the depths of your PC. The same thing happens when you install something. It's like never throwing away the packaging when you buy a new TV and by doing so it'll free-up space on your system. To get rid of all this clutter open "My Computer", select your main drive, click the "Windows" folder then open the folder inside that called "Temp".
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Use your mouse to right-click on the folder, and in the "View" options, choose "Details". Once this is done, select all the files that are older than the current date and press the delete key. Then go to the Recycle Bin on your desktop and empty it.
3. Install a solid state drive

Samsung

If your PC takes an age to turn on and be ready for action your hard drive might be the fault. Typically they have loads of moving components and can take a long time to fire up. A solid state drive uses flash memory (like a massive USB stick) and can read data a lot quicker therefore speeding up your start-up.
4. Get more hard drive storage

WD

No matter if you keep your computer tidy, if your hard drive becomes too full, it will affect the speed of your PC. If you use your system for processor-heavy tasks, such as recording video and media the likelihood will be that your drive will get chokka before you know it. Nowadays you can get mega storage drives over 1TB which is good for thousands of HD movies.
5. Stop unnecessary start ups

Whenever you switch on your PC some programs will automatically start to run in the background. Things like Skype and Spotify are guilty of this. All the applications running will use your computer's memory so ditch the ones you don't need running.
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To do this click Start and type "Run". In the box that appears type "msconfig" and a box will appear, at the top click the "Startup" tab listing all the applications that run when your computer starts up. Either manually untick the ones that are unnecessary or click "disable all", but be sure to keep vital things like antivirus going.
6. Get more RAM

Ebay

Have you noticed when you try to work on several applications at once, such as email, internet, and word your computer has a minor stroke when flicking between them? This is because you don't have enough RAM. This is memory used by your PC to run the programs and can be easily upgraded (and quite cheaply) if you know where to look.
7. Run a disk defragment

Don't be scared by the description, it's essentially a way to optimize your hard drive's efficiency.

To do this go to "My Computer", right-click on the hard drive and select "Properties". Under the "Tools" tab there should be an option to "Defragment Now".
8. Run a disk clean-up

Spring clean your whole system using this built-in tool which looks for unnecessary large files.
To perform this click "Start" then go to All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
9. Vacuum out the dust

Target

If you open up your PC and you won't believe how much dust gets sucked into it through the cooling fan. Dust can clog airflow, which is vital to keeping your system temperature down and if it overheats, its performance will slow.

Use a vacuum on a low setting to clean out the insides, but ensure the PC has been off for at least 30-minutes and it's disconnected from the mains. Also, go easy when you're poking around in there as you could dislodge some important cables.
10. Buy a new PC

ASUS

Simple advice, but most effective if you've got a PC that should be cashing-in its pension. With the rise of tablet PCs and the low cost of components, prices of new laptops and desktop computers are so much more affordable than years ago. Save yourself a heap of trouble and think about it.

10 ways to solve computer problems

By Unknown July 08, 2017 // No comments

Anyone who owns a computer will encounter technical difficulties at one point or another, often causing no little amount of frustration. While some of these technical difficulties require professional help, there are quite a few that can be easily solved, even by novice users.

Before you start troubleshooting your technical problems, restart your computer – you’d be amazed at how many problems a reboot solves. After you’ve restarted the computer, make sure that your operating system is up to date. Sometimes the problem is a result of an old version of some file or another, which an update can correct in minutes. Making sure that your Windows Update feature is active help in fixing bugs and improving system performance.

If you have a peripheral that is misbehaving, try turning it off and on again. Problematic USB devices can be switched to another USB port.

Now that we’ve exhausted the basics, let’s deal with the 10 most common PC problems.

1. Slow Computer

First, you need to know that videos or websites that take a while to load are not necessarily slow because of your computer; they can also be affected by network interferences. If your computer is slow in opening programs, things stall or hang while in use, or the boot up process takes more than a couple of minutes, then you might have a slowness problem on your hands.

Now, once you’ve established that the computer is the culprit, check the main suspects - A Full Hard-Drive (HDD) and too many processes running in the background.

When the hard drive that holds your operating system (usually designated as C: ) is full, the operating system can’t write files quickly, as it needs to search and allocate space for it. The searching process takes time, which will result in a slowdown of your system’s performance. Delete any unneeded files such as movies, photos, music, or move them to another hard drive. Use a program like Visipics to remove any duplicate images. Uninstall any programs you don’t use anymore

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Alternatively, having too many processes running in the background will also slow down your computer, as they require both computing power, as well as the faster, short-term memory – RAM. To clear it, click on the start button, in the search field, type: msconfig and then go to the “Startup” tab. Now, you don’t want to unmark anything that is a Microsoft process. What you should look for are names like Google Update, AdobeAAMUpdater, Steam Client Bootstrapper, Pando Media Booster, andSpotify. These can be unchecked, and you should be able to feel the difference after a startup.

2. The Internet is Slow

Feeling like your downloads, browsing, and streaming music and videos takes too long? Check that your slowness is Indeed, network related. Go to Speedtest.net and run a test to see if you are getting your package’s worth of speed or not.

Minimum speeds should be at least 50% of the ISP’s advertised speeds, and your ping should be under 100. If your results do not correspond with these, then something is hogging your bandwidth, or there’s a network problem. First, check to see that there aren’t any torrent clients running in the background. They will often minimize to the tray and continue downloading and uploading files, which uses a lot of bandwidth. Next, check that your network card’s drivers are up to date (if you haven’t updated your operating system, this might be the time). Next, try turning your modem off and on again. If it has no On/Off button, just unplug and plug it back in.

If none of this helped, call your ISP and tell them there’s a problem on their end, and let them fix it.

3. The Computer Keeps Restarting

This could just be the result of a series of Windows Updates, which require several reboots sometimes. Take a look and see if the restart process mentions “Updating Windows”, if so – just have some patience, it’s worth it.

Now, another cause might be mechanical – Is your computer making odd noises? Is it unusually hot? If your computer is not brand new, you might need to clean the dust that accumulated inside the box. To do that – follow our computer cleanup guide. If the problem persists after cleaning the computer, run a virus scan and a malware scan.

Once you’ve exhausted all of these tests, consider taking your computer to a specialist.

4. I’m Getting Popups All the Time

If you’re not browsing the internet, yet are still getting popup ads, it’s most likely a form of malware called “Adware”. These are sneaky programs that can be tricky to get rid of. As in #3, run a virus scan and a malware scan, and search online for “(advertiser name) adware removal” – you should be able to find a solution.

5. My Search Page Looks Weird

There’s a type of malware called “Browser Hijackers”, which take over your browser and direct you to sites they want you to see, for which they usually get paid. These nasty pieces of software also steal your private information, such as searches, personal details, and even credit-card number. Follow the instructions in #4, but if all else fails, go to a specialist.

6. I Keep Disconnecting From the Wi-Fi

Wireless problems can occur because of several reasons (router, computer, ISP). If your Wi-Fi signal is weak, it can cause disconnections and slowness, so make sure you’re in range and are getting decent reception. Next check that your computer’s wireless adapter has up-to-date drivers. If none of this works, call your ISP and see if they can help.

7. Constant “Security” Warnings While Browsing

While this may be one of the most annoying problems, it’s also incredibly easy to fix. Check that your computer’s clock shows the correct time and date. If it doesn’t, right-click on the clock and select “Change date and time settings” to correct it manually.

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8. The Printer Won’t Print

If your printer has ink, paper, and updated drivers, try unplugging it, then plugging it back in. If the problem continues, double-click on the printer icon on your taskbar and check to see what the printing queue says. Click on the “Printer” menu item in the printer window and make sure that “Use Printer Offline” is not checked – this will stall the printing queue.

9. Email Attachments Won’t Open

If you can’t open the attachment, it’s probably because you don’t have the right software. You can always google the type of file it is (such as .PDF, or .RAR) to find out how to open it, or use this site to find out what the file is and how to open it.

10. Why Doesn’t This Program Work on My New PC?

If you recently upgraded your computer, it’s possible that the old program is not compatible with the new operating system on your computer. If you’re using an old installation file, try searching for a new version online. Additionally, if you’ve changed from a PC to a Mac or visa verse, then you should know that the two systems are incompatible, so programs from one won’t work on the other.

If it’s an online game that is driving you crazy, maybe you need to update your Flash or Java plug-ins.