Like us humans need good diet and excercise, computers need housekeeping and administration to keep them in shape.

This article describes ten things that you can do to keep your computer in the best shape possible.

Be careful opening ALL attachments delivered through email

 This regularly catches out clients of mine. If you receive an email with an attachment you must be careful to investigate it before you open the attachment. The most common of today’s viruses are transmitted through email. These viruses look through the address books of their infected hosts, select a random subject heading and send as many infected emails as possible to those addresses. Therefore you can see that a virus may be received from a friend, showing that it is prudent to investigate all emails that you receive before opening them.

NOTE: Microsoft (and most other multi-national organisations) do not send emails to its users with files for updates attached. Do not be fooled by this. Only update your system from the Microsoft website.

Update your virus software regularly

You must have virus software. If you don’t then you should purchase it. It will save you time and money in the long run. The software that we use the most frequently is Norton Antivirus. We have found this software to be perfect for both home and corporate users although the corporate edition is best for a larger number of computers.

Once you have antivirus software installed you must update it on a regular basis. Virus writers are prolific and new viruses appear all of the time. Antivirus software works because it can recognise the specific virus and can remove it. Without regular updates to your virus software, it is basically useless. Most virus software allows you to set updates to occur automatically. This is more useful if you have a broadband connection which is ‘always on’. Those with a standard telephone connection should update once a week.

Update your operating system

Keeping you operating system updated and in good shape is important. Hackers find new exploits in operating systems all of the time most of the time their findings are reported to operating system makers who release a patch to fix it. These patches must be downloaded by you to update you system. The process can be quite lengthy if you only have a normal telephone connection to the internet but it is worth it.

For Microsoft Windows systems, the best place to update your system is by pointing your web browser at:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Remove programs that you do not use

Most of us install and try out programs all of the time. We download from the web, install from friends and from CDs on magazines. This has the effect that we have lots of installed software on our machines that we never use. Regular removal of unwanted programs will improve your system performance and save disk space.

Stop spam

Spam (unsolicited email) is a common problem for a lot of users. Spam comes from people and companies who are advertising their products and services.

Many products exist to block unwanted email; however there are a number of things that you can do to stop people getting hold of your email address:

• Pick an uncommon email address – Some email lists simply guess a name i.e. joe.bloggs@someplace.com. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it If you have a common name, the simple thing to do is to change your email address so that it cannot be guessed easily.
• Get a bogus address from hotmail – Sign up for an email address with http://www.hotmail.com. Use this address whenever you are asked to register with a website that you are unsure of. Some of these websites sell their email listings to spammers, so if you register you will get plenty of spam. We have used this method effectively for nearly seven years with only a small amount of spam getting through.
• Use spam blocking software – Spam blockers allow you block incoming mail from people who are not in your address book or from known spammers. These can be good however you must be aware that sometimes email from people you do know will get blocked.

Save files in standard places such as ‘My Documents’

If you save all of your documents in the same place then you will know how to find them again. Doing this also allows you to move your files easily and to back them up quickly.

Make your passwords bigger

A long password makes it many times more difficult to crack. The longer the password the more difficult it is. Choose a small sentence as a password, change some of the letters to numbers and replace some of the spaces with punctuation characters, this will make your password almost impossible to crack or guess.

Use software to delete spy ware and don’t install it again.

Malwarebytes: Can be downloaded to remove most of the known spyware and adware programs from your machine.

Spyware is a type of software that monitors which sites you are browsing on the internet and sends this information to a central store. This is then used for marketing purposes. Adware is software that contains invasive advertising which makes adverts pop up as you are browsing the internet. The software is usually clever enough to pop up an advert that matches the subject of the web page that you are reading. Both spyware and adware are invasive software that impinges on your personal privacy. The removal software allows you to get rid of this invasion.

Be aware that Norton, McAffee and other well known anti-virus brands seldom remove this type of infection.

Save your files often and make backups

Lost files are a common problem. Most people blame the computer, however if you save your files often then there is usually no data lost if the computer crashes. Hard disks crash very rarely but making regular backups of data that you can’t afford to loose is important. You don’t have to backup everything, just those most important files.

Shutdown Gracefully

All recent operating systems provide a way of shutting down your computer. When shutting down gracefully the computer will save any changed settings, reset anything that needs resetting and sometimes repair broken programs. Turning off power to your system while it is still running can be a disaster. Give your system the time it needs before you pull the plug. Better still, leave your computer running. If you have a broadband internet connection you can set your computer to download updates to the operating system and virus definitions overnight so that your computing fun is not disturbed by these operations.

Backups in their simplest form are copies of the data files that are important to the business that owns them. These files might be letters, emails, customer designs, or anything that might have some value to the business or might cost money to replace. When asked,most business owners understand that there is a need to backup important data.However there are many companies that don’t understand the consequences that a damaged hard disk or a malicious staff member can bring.

Furthermore, under the Data Protection Acts of 1988 and 2003 there is an obligation on all data controllers, among other things to take “appropriate security measures must be taken against unauthorised access to, or alteration, disclosure or destruction of, the data and against their accidental loss or destruction.” In addition a minimum standard of security must include a backup procedure put in operation for computer held data, including off-site backup. While the legal requirement is compelling, the practical result of even a limited amount of data lost is worrying too.

The key factor in studies which calculate the cost of data loss to companies is whether the data loss is permanent or temporary. If the loss is temporary, the calculation (from the US) is that the cost to the company will be on average $557 [€350]. If the loss is permanent then the average cost is $20,557 [€12,934].

What is clear from our experience of developing and implementing hundreds of backup solutions, large and small; for our customers, is that any backup system, has to be simple, workable and effective without being cumbersome, time consuming and unreliable. There are, a large range of backup options available to businesses.

However experience tells us that any solution should meet a defined set of requirements before they should be considered as a permanent solution. With the ubiquity of modern day computing, backups are probably the single most important topic in Information Technology today. Richard Greenane, Technical Director of SupportsIT, looks at some of the solutions available.

These criteria are:

• Reliability – Backup systems have to work every day of every week of every year and then be reliable enough to be able to restore data at the worst possible time i.e. when a major failure or disaster has occurred. Speed – Although continuous backup is becoming commonplace,most businesses still run nightly backups. The backup system therefore is required to complete its tasks overnight. Cost – While the protection of data within the business should be paramount, cost is always a factor, especially in a small business environment. Costs can be broken down into two parts, capital, upfront costs and running costs.

• Scalability – As a greater amount of data files are created within a business, further space within the backup system is required. The backup system should be able to cope with this continuous addition of files.

• Workable – Having to put the backup tape in the bank every night so as tomake sure that it is safe and protected, is probably not a workable solution for most companies. Therefore, it is important that the system is usable as well as living up to the other criteria.

Which backup system to choose depends on a number of factors but, to a small business, is largely independent on cost and whether the system is workable. What is vitally important is that at least some backup is completed on a regular basis and that those backups are never kept with the computer that is holding the data.

• Flash disks and external hard disks are an excellent way of transporting data, but an extremely poor method of backing up data of any importance or volume. The failure rate of both flash discs and hard disks varies with model, age and use but is significant enough to make use as a backup solution stopgap at best. Given these concerns, however, a very small business (i.e. one or two members) that did not currently have a backup system in place would benefit from the copying of their data onto one of these storage devices and for that data to be kept completely separately from the computer being backed up (i.e. off site).

• Tape systems have been around for over 20 years and has until recently been the undisputed solution. As the name suggests the process is similar to using a very expensive tape deck – where data is recorded regularly (usually once a day) onto a single tape. This tape is then stored in a separate location. Tapes are usually rotated in groups of 10, with one tape replaced every month and stored to keep a historical record. Contrary to some reports from online backup providers, a well setup and managed tape system is very reliable and the tapes themselves are quite resilient. There are however, a few shortcomings.

• • Tape Machines are quite expensive – costing between€500 and €10000
  • Tape Machines would typically need to be replaced every five years
  • Tapes need to be stored off-site – many businesses use fire safes, however the rating of fire safes relates to paper, while plastic tapes burn, melt and become unusable much sooner than the listed rating
  • Tapes need to be archived and managed
  • Extra large volumes of data may require multiple tape machines and complex procedures to complete successfully.

• Online backup is the new kid on the block and is assuming a growing importance in the IT market. The process requires a broadband internet connection to automatically upload your files to multiple servers located in different secure data centres. The data is encrypted before it is sent to the server, meaning that only those with access to your encryption key can access your data. Another advantage of this system is that the whole process is automated, so that backup is completed nightly and the customer receives a confirmation email once the backup is complete. There is also no concern about storing data off-site or delegating a staff member to store and rotate tapes. Care should be taken when choosing an online provider as there are important ramifications for storing your data outside of the EU, especially if you store detailed customer information.

Finally, backing up important files is a vital way to protect your business from the potential damage that a major data-loss incident could cause. Both tape systems and online backups are simple solutions which allow data to be restored quickly and efficiently. The information protected by a backup solution is an important asset and is as important to businesses as staff, equipment and insurance – Back it up!