The Refresh Orlando Heirs

History and Background

The virus was one of the first ever threats to computer security. It brought a whole new fear upon computer users. Bugs and glitches could cause damage unintentionally, but a virus created havoc intentionally, and therefore often caused much more damage then just glitches in software. Technically a virus must be in a host file and spread manually by people, versus a worm which spreads by an automated process and doesn’t require a host file, but we will include worms as part of the term virus. Therefore, the threat of viruses quickly multiplied expotentially. One computer infected by a virus is manageable, but a virus spreading uncontrollably and automatically can cause damage to sometimes entire populations. And with the introduction of the Internet, billions of computers worldwide could be accessed with a click of a button. These abilities are what made the virus probably the greatest security to personal computers in the 21st Century.

What kind of damage will it inflict?

Since up to 100 new viruses are discovered every minute by anti-virus industries worldwide, the damage they inflict varies considerably. Some will display an annoying popup. Some will swap your mouse buttons. Some will uninstall Internet Explorer. Some will delete all your personal files. And some, though rare, will slow down your computer fan to the point that your computer processor starts smoking. All have 1 thing in common - they reduce your productivity in some way and they inhibit you from comfortably using your PC. Therefore you must take several precautions to insure you do not to become infected with viruses. With just a few simple security measures, the chances of getting infected with a virus can be cut down by over 90%.

Security Measures

The most important step - Be careful of everything you do on the Internet! It is extremely rare for a computer to get infected by a virus if you only download and browse trustworthy sites and emails. If an email has an attachment and looks suspicious it is very likey to be a virus. If a site is providing illegal or inappropiate content, it should be considered a risk. These are basic rules of safe browsing of the Internet and unfortunately, most people only learn these rules after a disaster. Don’t learn from experience! Don’t let it happen in the first place.
Keep your system up-to-date. Nearly every major virus threat to operating systems are patched soon after discovery. Visit your operating system update website often, which is www.windowsupdate.com for Windows users.
Get a reliable antivirus solution. The most common is Norton Antivirus, but I personally do not like its unreliability and incompatibility with many PCs. On the otherhand, it is probably the most user friendly antivirus solution on the market, and is probably best for PC beginners.
If you’re looking for a free yet extremely reliable and easy-to-use antivirus solution, Avast may be your answer. I am currently running Avast and am very happy with it. I previously tried Norton Antivirus, Norton Client Security, NOD32 Antivirus and McAfee Antivirus, but each had their own individual problems and so I had to constantly change antivirus software until I finally reached Avast.

Some people go overboard and install many other security measures but I don’t recommend this. These measures only hog resources, confuse users and cause conflicts with other software. Some of this software includes firewalls, memory explorers and file protection.
References

www.wikipedia.org

us.mafee.com

www.netmom.com

www.pcworld.com

Links

Avast Antivirus - www.avast.com

Soroush King is a certified programmer, adept in VB, C++, Delphi, as well as web developer and scripter, having considerable knowledge of both PHP and Perl. He also owns and manages several professional websites.

This article was originally published at http://www.articlesandtools.com/adware.php For more information on computer security visit http://www.articlesandtools.com.

If you would like to use this article anywhere else, please just notify me by sending an email to kingofkings@gmail.com (you don’t have to wait for a response, as this is just a notification, not permission). Please refer on the page that the author of the article was I, Soroush King, and also please note that the article was originally published at http://www.articlesandtools.com/adware.php by providing a link.

It is often fun to play match maker with your friends. You may know an abundance of single people and love to sit back and pair them together to watch a new love grow or drama unfold. While it can be fun to be the one they thank at their wedding, you may also find that you are the first person to blame when something goes wrong. If you do seem to have a knack for fixing people up however, you might want to at least attempt it once in a while.

There is nothing worse than seeing your friends unhappy because they have no one to go out with. Sometimes they may be shy or other times they may just not be able to meet people easily. When you play matchmaker, you can easily help your friends find happiness. When you are fixed up, you are more likely to really try to make it work. It is less intimidating because when they do go out, they will be able to have a connecting point: YOU!

So, if you think of one of your single friends every time you see another one of your single friends, why not try to hook them up?

Back to basics. Forget funky design, good copywriting is the key to a clear and intuitive website.

Are you losing business because of your website? More and more customers are logging on to the Web to decide where to spend their money because it is quick and convenient, and they can jump from site to site instead of walking from store to store.
Web savvy customers don’t need to be patient, studies have shown that you need to engage a potential customer very quickly by giving them easy, fast access to the information they need. Otherwise they will simply move on to the next site.

Appealing design and speedy functionality are important but they don’t ensure that your site is well structured (intuitive) or well written (clear).

Write First
The real message on most websites is in the writing, and so it makes sense that the writing should determine the structure. Unfortunately, this is not the usual case. Most businesses choose the structure and design of their site first and then try and fit the writing around that structure. This flies in the face of commonsense. When you speak to someone, you structure your speech around your message, you don’t decide on a structure then change the message to suit. So you need to plan what you want to say before you create the site. Maybe even write the whole thing first and then use the message to determine the structure.

When deciding what to write, think about what your customer wants to know rather than what you want to say. It’s a subtle difference, but it is the key to engaging a potential customer.

Most customers will want to know the basics:

What do you do?
What benefit can you offer them?
Why should they choose your service or product?
What does it cost?
How can they contact you?
Where are you located?
Brevity & Clarity
Your website has to communicate a lot of information and to make matters worse, you are going to have limited space. Ideally, your customer won’t have to scroll on any page (all your information will fit in a single window) and that single view will need to contain more than just words. The design and navigation elements take up about a third of a window, and you should leave a bit of room for white space (you don’t want to overwhelm the customer). As a rule of thumb you should expect to have about half the window free for text.

How you are going to fit all your information in such a confined space? This is where writing skills come in - choose your words very carefully.

Websites can be an extremely powerful piece of marketing collateral. You can reach millions of potential customers for as little as a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, your competitors are all doing the same thing - it’s a level playing field but there are a lot of players.

It is important that your message is structured and well thought out, otherwise your site will be a mess and no-one will bother to read about your business. If your message is clear, your site will be simple and easy to use. It’s all in the words.

* Glenn Murray heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney (02) 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further details.

* Glenn Murray heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further details.