June 2011
Beginner
504 pages
15h 9m
English
Chapter 11
Hone Your Computer Survival Skills
In an age of always-on PCs connected to the open Internet at high speed, rogue software tries to install itself on your computer at every turn. Viruses sent via email with inviting subject lines such as “Christina Hendricks pics ;)” and “I love you” threaten home computers and entire office networks. Pushy programs put themselves in your computer’s startup process and slow down overall performance. Toolbars install themselves in your web browser and redirect you to advertising websites. Your nine-year-old downloads and installs malicious software that looks a lot like Tetris on your PC. Your toddler gets hold of the mouse and deletes a critical folder in one click.
Computer disasters happen, but when they do, you don’t have to pay the local computer repair shop hundreds of dollars to recover from them. Plenty of free, easy, do-it-yourself fix-it options are available to help you get back to a speedy, secure, and stable system.
This chapter’s hacks include: simple methods to protect your computer from malicious software; getting the most out of the disks that house your important data; reverting your broken PC to a past, working state; freeing much-needed disk space; and restoring accidentally deleted files. Some of the hacks cover ways to proactively insure your computer against possible system failures or infections, such as creating a mirror image of your computer in a known, working state (Hacks 113 and 114) or firewalling it against ...
