For the past two years or so, Comcast has offered free PC Internet security software if you are a Comcast customer it really is a great deal and highly advisable to take advantage of the free software for all your computers. Protect your email and Web browsing from infecting your computer today.

Get Protected

The all-new McAfee® Security Suite gives you a whole series of tools to help keep you, your family and your home computers safe, protected and virus-free. It’s an all-in-one, comprehensive, easy-to-install solution-and a $120 value, included FREE with your Comcast High-Speed Internet subscription. No strings attached.

Install Internet Security Software For Your PC

The importance of installing Internet security software on your PC can not be overstated. In my case, our family has six computers that are used by various family members. The Comcast Internet Security Suite by McAfee is a great value. With the proliferation of viruses, worms, malware, and intrusive cookies, a computer will become corrupted in no time flat when surfing the Web even if you don’t download anything online. Just simply hooking up your computer to the Internet and navigating to a few hazardous websites that you might not be aware of, will attack and download software in the background which will corrupt your computer and the worst part about it is you won’t even know your computer has become infected until it’s too late.

Internet Security Issues

Intrusive software that are security hazards such as PC key loggers can automatically track your key strokes when you type in your user names and passwords into online banking websites or even when you log in to your online email is just an online mouse click away. Many times this software gets loaded on your computer when you click on a window that pops up, and the popup makes it look like you have a virus on your computer. By simply clicking on the scan button of this pop up window, you are actually installing another malware program in the background. Don’t fall for this scam. It occurs so easily, even when users are aware that this can happen; it is easy to click the close button by thinking that the “X” close box closes the window with nothing else to worry about. However, don’t assume the close X button on a pop up window is the actual close button for that window. I suggest right clicking on the tab at the bottom of the Windows screen, and select the button that says “Close” on the pop up that you actually wish to close. Also it is wise to have a pop up blocker for your browser. I particularly like Firefox and even the new Google Chrome browser for the excellent popup blocking features.

Spyware, Malware, Adware, and Computer Virus Definitions

• Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user’s interaction with the computer, without the user’s informed consent.
• Malware, is a blended word from the words malicious and software, which is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.
• Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used. Some types of adware are also spyware and can be classified as privacy-invasive software.
• A Computer Virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The term “virus” is also commonly used, albeit erroneously, to refer to many different types of malware and adware programs.

Source Wikipedia

Comcast Has Done It Right

I am really impressed with the marketing strategy from Comcast to their customers. With Comcast keeping their customers’ PC computers running free of viruses, with a free Internet security software tool, enables their customers to operate at a higher level of Internet protection than most of their competitors. Most ISPs simply provide you online Web access, with an attitude of “you’re on your own now,” which simply leaves way too much room for PC problems down the line. Computers are the tool to navigate the Web. If your computer is giving you grief, you are not going to have a very good user experience online. Likewise, if your computer runs trouble free, your life online will be like a breath of fresh air.

What if I am not a Comcast customer? Google Pack comes to the rescue.

Google provides a couple of free basic programs as part of their Google Pack for detecting and removing viruses and spyware.

Google Pack includes a special edition of Norton Security Scan to help you evaluate your computer’s vulnerability to security risks. Norton™ Security Scan is a free, easy-to-use tool that scans your PC for viruses, spyware, and other threats. » Download Google Pack.

Key Features of Norton Security Scan

* Scans for threats residing on your PC
* Detects and removes viruses, worms, and Trojan horses
* Warns you of spyware and unwanted adware
* Schedules regular scans
* Automatically receives updates**

Take the next step and prevent infections before they happen. Protect your system 24 X 7 with our award-winning Norton Internet Security™ 2009, designed to automatically block hackers, viruses, spyware and prevent online identity theft.

The other software tool from Google is Spyware Doctor Starter Edition which detects PC threats and removes spyware, adware, trojans and keyloggers. Spware Doctor Starter Edition includes Smart Updates and scheduling to protect your PC.

Both Norton Internet Security and Spyware Doctor can be downloaded directly from the Google Pack software installer page.

There are other free antivirus software programs available online. I have not tried very many of the free software programs that are available, so I can’t give you my recommendations. I would however suggest reading closely the reviews of what others have to say about the various free programs available for download. Be careful from where you download too. I believe a good place to get started is at CNET download.com for Antivirus Software. Note that the sponsored matches are displayed first. Two software programs that I have used in the past for detecting adware, spyware, and malware are Spybot – Search & Destroy^©® and Ad-Aware by Lavasoft.

A general rule that should always be followed when installing antivirus software, is always use some form of threat protection software, but don’t use more than one type in automatic detection mode. The reason is the software programs will be fighting each other in the Windows Operating Systems and will be identifying the other software as a virus, spyware, adware, or malware program.

The best antivirus software programs will constantly update their database of spyware signatures and virus definitions and provide automatic PC updates for your local signature database. This is an extremely important point to be aware of because the virus threats are constantly morphing from computer terrorists all over the world, that are looking for ways of creating online havoc for everyone. You need both real time PC protection and automated deep scan protection. If you have an old copy of a PC anti-virus software, that has not had your local computer database updated to current virus signature threats, you are driving a computer on borrowed time, with no brakes, headed down a steep grade, just waiting for the head-on computer crash. Given the severity of the online PC virus threats (through both emails and web surfing), along with spyware, adware, and malware programs lurking on websites, your computer could very well end up with the blue screen of death. At the very least, your computer will become corrupted, slowed down to a crawl, performance will continue to suffer when trying to do anything, system resources will be tied up with running background programs that you are not aware of, memory usage will skyrocket, your hard drive will constantly be ca-chunking away, and you will think you need a brand new computer. I would venture to say that the majority of people that think they need a new computer are probably facing years worth of unsafe computer practices. Even if you buy a new computer and do not set up “best computer practices”, you are very likely to start the downward spiral all over again, because you invariably will want to copy your corrupted files, pictures, and programs over to the new computer. And, you will once again get on the PC merry-go-round, where you will certainly end up visiting the same websites, surfing new Internet sites where the online threats reside, and downloading and installing new virus infected software programs which will ultimately affect your PC’s health.

From a consumer standpoint trust me when I say, take the small amount of time now to get your online computer house in order. If you don’t take computer protection preventative measures now, you will surely be taking extensive time measures and creating PC headaches for yourself in the future just by surfing the web unprotected.

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Sorry Godaddy, the last straw for virtual dedicated server with a Plesk Control panel.

About six months ago I started receiving the following email message.

*****************
YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DAILY SMTP RELAY LIMIT
*****************

Dear James,

You have reached your current SMTP relay limit of 1000 per day on the following hosting account:

Hosting Services

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your hosting server will be unable to send email until the daily SMTP relay limit is reset. The daily SMTP relay limit is reset on all accounts at midnight MST.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you need to send more than 1000 emails per day from your hosting server, you can request an increase through Customer Support. However, increase requests must be justified and must not violate our anti-spam policy.

If you have any questions, please contact Customer Support:

+ Online Support: https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/
support.asp?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc;=gdbb727
+ Email: support@godaddy.com
+ Phone: (480) 505-8877

Thanks again for being a GoDaddy.com Hosting customer.

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com

I followed all the procedures per Godaddy recommendations for preventing unauthorized use of my email servers from sending spam from others. Made sure my email relays were closed. Made sure I did not have any catchall email accounts. This however did not stop the problem and the incoming messages from Godaddy. I sent an email to Godaddy, but was surprised to find out that this was going to be a $75.00 charge for trouble shooting the problem, with no guarantee that it would be fixed. Not good enough for me. After doing a search online, I saw that others were experiencing the same exact problem related to Godaddy virtual dedicated hosting. So, sorry Godaddy, love your domain name registration, but virtual dedicated hosting with Plesk control panel leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, I had other complaints with the Plesk control panel. Future reference, go with a Cpanel over Plesk. Cpanel control panel offers a lot more options to make your web life a lot easier from a webmaster point of view.

So, I moved on to a new hosting company. That will be a future article.

By-the-way, my suspicion of the problem with the Godaddy Virtual Dedicated server account is to do with something called email dictionary attacks. What spammers are doing is inundating in a matter of seconds, a dictionary attack to try to find other emails on a particular domain name. I believe they are using a form gateway to get into the server, however briefly, and launch the dictionary attack. This causes the SMTP gateway to get flagged for the Godaddy account. At that point, you have no recourse than to wait it out till midnight for Godaddy to automatically reset the SMTP email relay gateway, so you can then send and receive emails.

Do you work from home? Do you have a business email account? Do you have a personal email account? Would you like to keep your business and personal emails separate, but easily read and respond to both at the same time, and with the same software email client program? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the following will give you a quick overview of what you need to do on your home office computer.

Many options are available for just about any email address today. Most free online service providers of email have the option to be able to write and respond to emails online and on a home office computer using POP. POP is a type of protocol for sending and receiving email. Don’t worry what POP exactly means, but any email client can be used to set up POP email. Email clients are software email programs such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Mozilla, Netscape, Eudora, Apple Mail, and others. If you have a free Google Gmail account, which I highly recommend, you can use POP mail to send and receive on your local computer, in addition to also being able to send and receive email online.

For some excellent examples of how to configure POP for Gmail, take a look at the following:

Mail Clients

• Outlook Express (Windows)
• Outlook 2002 (Windows)
• Outlook 2003
  (also available: Gmail POP Service animated demo)
• Entourage 2004
• Entourage X
• Eudora 5.1 ^{(and higher)} (Sponsored & Paid Mode)
• Eudora 5.1 ^{(and higher)} (Light Mode)
• Eudora for Macs
• Netscape Mail 7.x
• Netscape Mail 6.2
• Netscape Mail 4.5, 4.6, or 4.7
• Apple Mail
• Mozilla 1.7
• Thunderbird 0.x
• Thunderbird 1.5
• Other

If I am using one of these email clients, how do I respond using my business account when it’s a business email, and how do I respond using my personal account when it’s a personal email?

Once again, there are many options on each specific email client. Depending on the email client, you can have separate identities, and have separate accounts under each identity. Typically separate identities as in Outlook Express are completely different viewable login areas within the the email client program. This means that you would have to switch identities to be able to read and send emails from each specific identity. Each identity can have more than one account, with multiple email addresses being imported to the specific identity, but this requires quite a bit of filtering and sending a message will not necessarily be the email address that you really want to use to send a specific email from a specific address. For example, if you use one identity only to receive all your emails from both a personal and a business account, into one inbox, then it is most likely that the header of the email, (the part that shows the “Send From:” and “Sent To:” information) will not be exactly the correct addresses that you want to show for a business account response or vice versa.

Thunderbird e-mail client, which is free and highly customizable, with multiple identities and multiple accounts, does things slightly differently when talking about identities and accounts.

Idenitities

An identity in Thunderbird is a collection of settings for sending mail. An identity is defined by:

• A name.
• An e-mail address.
• The account that the identity belongs to.

Note: Technically, an identity in Thunderbird is a collection of preference settings in your profile.

Thunderbird allows you to create identities that look exactly the same, but if you do that you might find them confusing to use.

Use more than one identity when you want to send mail using more than one From name or e-mail address, or more than one SMTP server, or more than one signature, or more than one choice for any of the settings that Thunderbird provides in identities.

Thunderbird e-mail client requires you to create a separate default identity for each account, but you can make these identities look exactly the same if you want to. For example, you receive some of your mail from Gmail and some of your mail from the company you work for, but you always want to send mail using your company From address. In your Thunderbird Gmail account, change the default identity to specify exactly the same details as in your work account.

If you receive mail that was originally sent to more than one e-mail address, then you might find it convenient to create identities for all those e-mail addresses. Then you can reply to a message from the same address that it was originally sent to.

Do not use more than one identity when one of your accounts already has an identity that you can use. This is because when you write a message you can change the From address to any identity from any account. There is usually no point in having duplicate identities in different accounts (unless they are default identities).

An identity specifies:

• Settings used when you start composing a message
• Settings used when you send a message

Read more about Mail Concepts.

If you want to create an automatic forward, using a business email address, and having emails forwarded to your personal email address, you can do that, but be aware that if you respond from your personal email address on a forwarded message from the business address, the Send From will be the personal e-mail address and that is what the person will see on the other end when the e-mail is received.

A solution to this situation, is to have two accounts, one for business, and one for personal information messages, and make sure you are using the correct one for business, and for personal use.

If you have multiple email accounts online, and don’t want to have to login to each specific account, you can set up forwards to one account, and just note where the email came from. Then respond using the appropriate e-mail identity or account.

Gmail Notifier is a notification program that runs locally on your computer that lets you know when you have a message at one specific account. Use this to monitor the main e-mail account, where all your emails arrive. Another option for automatic notification is to use ePrompter which runs automatically in the background, and can be configured to allow up to 16 e-mail accounts to be monitored at the same time, and will let you know with a small color coded circle (and/or sound) showing when an email arrives, and display the number of e-mails that arrived inside the circle. Both ePrompter and Gmail Notifier are very easy to set up and use. ePrompter’s wizard allows you to very easily create additional color coded account dots that will monitor all your different e-mail accounts.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask your questions.

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