Some simple advice for newcomers to the Internet
There are lots of things people worry about when they first get connected. There is too much rubbish is talked about the dangers of the Internet by self styled experts. OK I'm not an expert but I can tell the difference between hype and reality. I want here to show you what NOT to worry about.
(All the locations apply to Windows 95 and 98.)
Viruses
A lot of people will warn you about catching a virus online. Let me calm your fears by telling you that I have never in the six years I have been online ever caught a virus and I did not until recently use antiviral software. (But I still only scan once a week.) Now I'm not saying don't use antiviral software but with a bit of common sense it is not absolutely necessary to have it running all the time. I recommend just to run it weekly. There are many myths about viruses but luckily there are many good web sites that will debunk these myths. The best is Vmyths.com. There is also the The Symmantec site and The IBM one. Then one of the more ethical but less known Antiviral companies Stiller Research.
So how does one avoid the real viruses?
Just follow this four point plan.
- You can (so far) only catch a virus from an 'executable' file. You can NOT get a virus from a picture, sound, video, or plain text file. However word processor files can contain something called a 'Macro Worm' (often called 'Macro Virus'). 'Word' is the worst effected I suggest that if you receive such a file (ending in .doc) don't click on it, either delete it or use Notepad to open it. That way any macro cannot work. (If you have Word make sure 'Macro Warning' is on.)
- Don't open un-requested 'Attachments' to e-mails. I suggest you delete any unrequested attachments. And then tell your friends this is your standard procedure and if they want to send you something either send the URL (thats the site name as in www.mysite.com)or send it as plain text. You will NOT catch a virus just by opening the e-mail with them. Just having the attachments can not cause any harm. Only activating them will. (Although in the past it was demonstrated that with Outlook Express one could. See here.)
- You can down load lots of wonderful stuff from the net. So don't down load anything from somewhere that is not 100% trust worthy. A patch from Microsoft would be OK but a free game from someone you don't know is asking for trouble. In fact it is recommend that you keep your MS software up to date by uploading the latest patches.
- BACK UP your Hard Disk. I have known five people to have hard disk failure and only two of them had a back up.
The most likely way you will catch a virus is to borrow a disk from someone. SO DON'T. This is how two friends of mine got infected. Both caught it by their children borrowing a game from a friend. The very culture of disk swapping will spread viruses, so avoid it and tell your kids too. By the way, both did not have back ups. Did I say BACK UP. Perhaps we better talk about that next.
But first. After you have been online for a while you will most likely start to receive virus warnings from "friends" asking you to pass it on to all your friends. Well DON'T. Check with the sites above before you do anything.
- Firstly, if there had been a virus, what a great way to pass it around.
- Secondly. 99% of these warnings are hoaxes.
- Thirdly. Chain Letters are not permitted by nearly all Internet Services. So it is possible you may be kicked off just for forwarding one.
- Neither is "Spaming" allowed, which is what e-mailing all and sundry is called. More on that later and how to avoid being 'Spamed'.
Free Anti-Viral and Macro-Worm Toolkit
One can get a free quality Anti-viral and Macro-worm toolkit for non-commercial use here at the F-Prot site. It may require a little more effort to install and keep up to date but it is highly regarded by those in the know.
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Backing up your data
When you first start out using computers loosing ones data will not be the end
of the world. As you progresses there will be more and more important stuff on
it that will make life difficult if it is lost. When I first bought a computer
I did not think about backing up data and luckily never had a problem until my
second machine. This lost its hard drive but by this time I had started to keep
copies of the really important stuff. At that time all my data could be kept on
five floppies but today I have over 100mb on my back up drive.
You do not have to keep a complete copy of everything on your hard drive, just
the stuff you have made. Only companies who rely on the completeness of their
data have to backup everything. After all you have the original installation
disks for Windows
(or whatever).
You do have the original disks don't you?
You don't!
Back up your operating system immediately!
The sort of stuff you need to keep a copy of is.
- All your letters. Where are they stored on your hard drive?
- Your Address book. Do you know where it is?
- Do you use an accounts program? Most tell you to back up to a separate disk. Do you?
Most programs save their work to an internal directory or for example Microsoft ones save them to "C:\My Documents". A better strategy is to make a directory in your main drive that is yours and one for each other person who uses your machine. Then put in subdirectories for example 'letters', 'information', etc. Then tell each program to save documents to the relevant subdirectory. Then all you have to do is save "your" directory.
In this directory you should also keep your address book file. In Outlook 98 for example it is called 'Outlook.pst' and is in C:\windows but you can move it to "your" directory and it will still work fine. In Lotus Organizer it is called 'Organize.org' or '#.org' where # is what ever you called it. By the way you can use *.org (or *.pst) to find it with the find function in the Start menu. (* means 'any' so it will find anything ending '.org')
How do you back up data.
Well that's simple (in windows) go to "Start - Programs - Accessories - System tools - Backup" and follow the instructions and select to save just 'your' directory (and the rest of your families if you have made directories for them). For the first year or so you will be able to save your limited data to floppies on your 'a:\' drive but as you get beyond a couple of disks worth it would be better to get a separate removable media. Now I am not going to advise you what to get. I personally use a Quick Drive which has an old small capacity hard drive in a separate box. A better solution for most people is a 'Zip Drive' with 100mb disks and there is now the 'SuperDisk' which has 200mb disks and also can take the old 1.4mb floppies. One can now buy a removable Hard disk kit. Which has the advantage of being large capacity but they are a bit fragile. There are several other options but do USE IT and keep the back up somewhere safe not in the machine.You will, in time, be glad you did it.
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SPAM
E-mail is a wonderful invention. But alas it is very easy to abuse. With but the touch of a button you can send one e-mail to a million people. And the trouble is many unscrupulous people do. This abuse is called SPAM and it can get VERY annoying.So how do you avoid being spammed?
Well firstly don't give your e-mail address out to all unsundry. You would not give out your telephone number out to Telemarketers would you? If you ever have to publish your address use a simple disguise. The simplest is to put "NOSPAM" in it for example mine would be phil@NOSPAMslatts.freeserve.co.uk Every one knows to remove the "NOSPAM". The reason is that there are search engines that trawl the Internet looking for addresses and just putting in a spoiler invalidates their databases. There are also counter trawlers that when hit generate millions of random invalid addresses which further ruin these databases.
The next thing to remember is never reply to SPAM. Your address may have been trawled and they need to check if it is valid. Replying will do this. Ignore the "reply to here to be removed from this list". That only applies to e-mail lists you know you joined yourself. Such as a company you bought something from and gave your address to.
Another danger is HTML e-mail. That is e-mail that looks like a web page and not plain text. You see when a spammer sends an e-mail to you and you do not reply they do not know if the address is valid But if there is a picture in the mail they will know if you loaded it and hence that the address is valid. So what do you do? Only recive e-mails in plain text so the pictures can't load.
To do that go to Tools - Options - Read and tick "read all messages as plain text". I would also advise sending all messages as plain text.
And most important don't be a Spammer yourself. If you feel you have something to say to the world start your own web page.
Please do your bit to stop SPAM.
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Porn
A lot of rubbish is talked about the amount of Pornography available online. Yes, it is easily available but so is it in the local newsagents. It is very easy to stop your kids seeing stuff you don't want them to see by using one of the many available site filters. Names such as "Net Nanny" and Cyber Sitter" will sell you programs that will prevent kids seeing what you wish to filter out. If you are really paranoid use a service provider that provides a kids service. Virgin, AOL are two that do. Though this article at ".net" Magazine may be of interest. These will work up until the kids are old enough to figure out how to circumvent them. And by that age a well adjusted youngster will not be harmed by anything they find.One of the best things to do with young children is to keep the family computer in a public place. That way you can keep an eye on what is being seen. You can also check in the "History" of most Browsers as to what people have been accessing. And when they learn how to fix that you can check the Cache in C:\windows\temporary internet files\. If they play around with that file you will soon know about it .
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