The Battle For Ownership Of Your Computer; Who’s Winning The War?

Joe Farace, June, 2005

“When sorrows come they come not single spies, but in battalions.”—Shakespeare

Like many Microsoft Windows users, I spend far too much time keeping my computer healthy. In the April 2005 issue, I introduced you to browser options other than Internet Explorer and while those programs are less prone to security problems, spyware continues to plague users, especially those with broadband connections. If you see new toolbars in Internet Explorer you didn’t install, if your browser crashes, or if your start page changed without you knowing, you probably are infected. Spyware also silently tracks your surfing behavior to create a profile that’s sold to marketing companies.

To fix spyware problems, I recommend Lavasoft’s (www.lavasoft.de) free Ad-Aware SE, but if you spend lots of time online, you’ll need more than one program. Spybot-Search & Destroy (www.safer-networking.org) is freeware that provides additional protection via an Immunize feature that blocks spyware from loading onto your hard drive. Spybot-Search & Destroy’s Default mode is for those users who want the basic features while the Advanced mode is for professional users. When selecting Advanced, you’ll see a message that offers more options but includes a warning that “some can do harm to your system if you are not sure what you are doing.” I run Spybot-Search & Destroy in Default mode.

Neighborly Photographer
When evaluating a site for this department, I look at the photographs, then the design. I never look into the photographer’s bio until I actually begin writing. That’s why I’m always surprised when a site belongs to somebody nearby. Liz Meyer (www.lizmeyerphotography.com) is located in Windsor, Colorado, a “hoot and a holler down the road” from where I live, but we’ve never met. Too bad, she looks like a nice person, sitting on a Harley in the “About the Artist” section.

The cleanly designed site contains eight galleries, including two for Meyer’s commercial Portrait and Wedding work, but what attracted me most to the site was the evocative images found in her Southwestern Missions and Memories of Time Past galleries. Each gallery contains large thumbnails that when clicked produce larger, untitled photographs that are big enough to appreciate. If there’s anything wrong with any of the collections it’s that there aren’t more photographs!

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