routine for going on-line:HOME Family Pages Computer Help Story List Making Pictures All Pages
Please read also the page about Nasty Things. Notes about hoaxes, letters that invite you to “Click Here”, and things that “Install on Demand”.
Attachments Why you should update immediately. Each time you go on line, do this. Don’t connect straight into a program. The best way to connect. How to disconnect.
A computer virus is a tiny program intended to do something you won’t like, up to and including making your computer utterly unusable. They’re called viruses because they spread—they infect any unprotected computer with which they come into contact.
You can pick up a virus from a floppy disk or CD, from a downloaded program, sometimes from a website and especially through email.
Most email viruses include an instruction to locate an address book and send copies of themselves to everyone in it. Therefore, if you’re running the risk of infection by having no anti-virus software, you’re also putting at risk every person whose email address is in your computer.
There are some free anti-virus programs available, but I’d recommend that you buy and register a commercial program. For one thing, if you ever do find a virus, you’ll then be able to get almost immediate advice and support. Having real people to answer your mail or the telephone costs money. Your registration fees keep the service going.
Two of the best known and most trusted anti-virus programs are Norton and Vet. These programs can be bought on CD from computer retailers.
If you do decide that you'd rather have a free one, though, I see that AVG comes highly recommended. Perhaps after using it for a while you'll decide to update to the paid version.
As soon as you’ve installed an anti-virus program, find out how to install regular updates. This is vital. Yesterday’s program won’t stop today’s new virus.
Whenever a computer virus makes the news, it’s one that’s appeared in the last day or two and has spread through millions of unprepared computers.
OK. Theoretically you could get the virus before your AV company knows about it, but it’s not likely. There are lots more fish than you out there to be caught!
A CD that you buy can’t possibly be up to date. It stays in the shop until it’s sold. It would be pretty unreasonable to expect anything else. What you buy is the actual program; you can’t expect the man who sells you a fridge to supply you with fresh milk.
Similarly, updates that are sent on CD through ordinary post just have to be at least one day out of date. If you use the Internet at all, then use it to collect really up to the minute definitions
(Your AV provider collects and distributes a precise description of each virus and its variations so that the program can recognise and take action against it instantly.) .
If you have your first computer, it may be that the retailer told you, truthfully, that it has anti-virus software installed. You’ve found the installation CD amongst the odds and ends that came with your computer. That’s a good start, but for that program to be effective, you must have the latest definitions.
Occasionally, when a new virus has hit the Internet, new definitions may be available twice in one day.
This is my admittedly Nervous Nelly routine for going on-line:
Dial up—without IE or OE or any other Internet program loaded. How?
When connection is established, right click your anti-virus icon in the sys tray
(The right hand end of the task bar, where the clock and the speaker live.) and click Auto Download.
It may say, “Your anti-virus files are up to date”.
It may start a download. If it does, play Free Cell or dust your desk until the download finishes. Then click OK to indicate that you do want to install now.
Open Mailwasher. Glance down the list to see if it missed anything or has ticked something from a friend.
When you’re satisfied with the selections, click “Process Mail”.
Outlook Express then loads and you can open your letters with reasonable confidence, open a browser or whatever.
When you first registered with your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you were probably given a CD that helped you to make your first connection.
You most likely have now, on your desktop or your Quick Launch bar, an icon representing your ISP.
You begin your connection by clicking that icon. After a few more steps, such as clicking “Connect” and, possibly, typing in your password, you find yourself in the browser (Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape or whatever.) of your ISP’s choice, looking at the home page that your ISP selected.
Or, perhaps, you initiate a connection by clicking up either a browser or an email client—most likely Outlook Express.
OK. That’s not too bad. It works quite well, except that your connection is more or less dependent on the browser’s remaining open. Closing the browser will probably bring up a box asking if you want to disconnect.
Well, the computer does belong to you, not to the ISP or the people who made the browser. You can use any browser you want to. You can have several browsers, and use any one as it takes your fancy. You can certainly choose your own home page.
You do not have to be on line to read the mail in your email client, nor to write new letters and send them to the Outbox.
If you use web mail, though, such as Hotmail or Yahoo, the email isn’t downloaded onto your computer and you do have to be connected to read it.
Furthermore, you may want to use your browser when you aren’t on line. Some Help files and tutorials are written in html. If they’re on your own computer, it makes little sense to go on line just to read them.
Your browser (or browsers) and your email client should be set to “Never Dial a Connection” or “Do Not Connect”.
So that you can open Outlook Express without initiating a connection, click Tools on the menu bar, click Options and go to the General tab. The option “Do Not Connect” can be found in the drop-down list. For a more detailed explanation of these options, please visit my Outlook Express page.
To set Internet Explorer to not dial, go to Tools on the menu bar and choose Options. Put a mark beside the option “Never dial a connection”.
Open My Computer
Find and open Dial-up Networking
You’ll see an icon with the name of your ISP.
Put your cursor on that icon and, with your right mouse button, drag a shortcut all the way down to your Quick Launch bar.
When you want to connect, click this new icon. The usual Connection box will come up. You may be asked for your password (This may be before or after clicking CONNECT.) . If so, type it in and click the checkbox that says, “Remember my password” or “Save password”. Then click Connect, and before you know it you’ll be on line with no extra programs loaded.
Before you open anything else, right click the icon of your anti-virus program and make sure the virus definitions are up to date.
Now you can open your email programs (Mailwasher first if you’re cautious about spam (Nuisance email. There’s an article about spam on this site. Check the menu.) ) and any browser or browsers you choose. You can have more than one browser open at the same time, or more than one instance of the same browser. You’re only limited by your system resources.
When your internet connection is made, 
this icon appears in the sys tray. It’s useful and informative.
When there’s no activity going on between your computer and the Internet, the two little screens are a dark, dull colour. When activity is going on, such as when you’re down-loading your email or loading a web page, they brighten up.
If you right click on this icon, there’s a small box with two options. To disconnect, you simply click on the word.
If you click on Status, you’ll get a new box with information about how long you’ve been on line and how much information has left or come in to your computer. The details button in this box will even tell you what sort of modem you have!
If someone sends you a document attached to an email, please don’t open it in your email client (Outlook Express, for instance). Have a folder to which you save all attachments. It can be a folder within My Documents or a folder on your desktop. Save your attachment to that folder, then right click on it and have it checked by your anti-virus program. It takes a few seconds. It costs nothing. It can save you from having your data corrupted or destroyed and having expensive work done on your machine. Do it, every time.
When you click on an attachment, you should get a menu or a dialogue box asking if you want to open the file or save it to disk. If you choose Open, you should get a warning message. Even if you don’t get the warning message, don’t open attachments directly. Save, VIRUS CHECK, then open. It doesn’t matter how much you trust the sender. It isn’t insulting to check the documents they send; it’s just common sense. All sorts of crippling viruses are alive and thriving!
I also disconnect my pc from the mains and the telephone line before going to bed. The computers fried by lightning strikes on power or telephone lines are very few indeed—and mine isn’t one of them. I don’t want to buy a new computer.
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