Ding, Ding, Ding... PC maintenance round 3

Welcome back for your weekly dose of... well... me.

That wasn't that exciting but what do you want for nothing...? Rrrrrrrrrubber Biscuit? Bow bow oooh ooh oooh oooooooo-waaaah.

On with the show.

Everyone knows (if not, this might be shocking for you) that if you are connected to the internet, you need to have anti-virus software so I'm going to forgo that little bit and jump onto something not as many people know.

If you browse the internet on your computer you will more than likely end up with Malware. Malware is short for Malicious Software. This can be anything from software that fishes your browsing history for personal info and broadcasts it, bots that take control of your computer, Trojans which function like the classic Trojan horse (hence the name) and discretely install software on your computer (and you know how that worked for Troy), and much, much more. Essentially you need to protect yourself from this stuff. My recommendation is Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. This comes in two versions like a lot of the programs I've mentioned on this blog, an incredibly well functioning free version and an even more functional paid version. The free version does everything I need it to, it finds the malware and let's me get rid of it. I try to do this every other week to make sure my system is clean, you can find a frequency that works well for yourself. This is a necessity when if you browse the internet because Malware doesn't function like a virus, so your anti-virus won't catch it, and it can cause your computer to become infected with viruses.

Another thing you'll want to do is manage your installed programs. I find the add/remove programs feature leaves too many pieces of the program behind. I found a fantastic program called Revo Uninstaller. It not only makes it easier to uninstall programs, but it also hunts down all the little places on your system where the program is mentioned and gives you an option to delete it. This is where the standard windows feature is sorely lacking. Prior to finding and using Revo my system would end up with a whole bunch of little "crumbs" leftover from un-installed programs. With Revo it helps maintain a clean and healthy system.

And it's now the time in our program where we have fun with art...

This week is a little piece I did back at a LADD meeting. It all started with a story from Jon Gordon about his son Galbraithe. Galbraithe evidently loves Ryan Claytor's auto-biographical And Then One Day. Well one day I guess he was playing super heroes and said I'm Ryan Claytor... once Jon said this at the LADD meeting laughter ensued and this piece of art was born.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks post, I'll be back next week with an exciting announcement for 2011.

-Jacot