5 Things Everyone Should Know About Their Computer

Here are 5 things that you really need to know about your computer if you have a business (or not)

1. Passwords – “turniphead” is not a good password, someone could figure that out after a 1-day effort. Some people thing hackers have better things to do – but, really they don’t. What could be better than secretly getting access to your email address which would then lead to your paypal account, and other accounts? Can you say, “Payday”?

Many companies have begun allowing all kinds of characters in the password. You might be able to use: !?&[}:;’> in addition to alphabetical and numerical characters. Use them! They make guessing your password that much more difficult. If you include a word – don’t capitalize the first character – capitalize one of the others like marTin, it makes it much harder to guess.

Use numbers, punctuation, lower and upper case letters for every password and you’ll be much safer. Change your password to something you could never remember and nobody could ever guess… like: “uvU6tT*41hEzi_GZ{}p″. Use the maximum characters allowed. Some password fields allow you to use a space – use it!

You’ll never remember a password like that – so what wil you do? Create a Word document with password protection. Put every password in that Word doc that you have. Choose a complicated password to protect the document that you can REMEMBER and never forget. Hide that Doc file in a directory on your computer than nobody will look at and call it something that has nothing to do with “passwords”.

Next, and this is important too – when you sign into your accounts open your Word doc with the passwords and highlight and copy the password. Paste it into the form field for password. Typing your password leaves you open to keyloggers that store every character you type. Next crucial part… Signing into your accounts, whatever they are. Open that Word doc and copy the password and paste it into the password form field. Never type out your password because keyloggers can grab it.

You might think your passwords are pretty safe. They never really are. These tips will give you a new level of password security – but they’re not infallible. Change your passwords often from a computer with full virus, spyware, malware protection.

2. Never Lose Another Word in Your Computer – Keyloggers can record every keystroke you make and store it for you so you can go back and look at the log later to recover what you lost. So, keyloggers YOU use are great – if someone else is using it to gain access to your personal information – they’re not so great. Read this article I wrote a few months back to learn more:

Keylogger Article >

Here’s a keylogger you might try:

http://www.tucows.com/preview/301938

3. Email Link Dangers – Don’t ever click on a url (hyperlink) you received in email asking you to sign into some online account you have.

Instead, open a new browser or tab and enter the https:// version of the site you want to sign into. Gmail, Paypal, Ebay and other companies support the “s” on the end of Http and it will ensure you’re using the site you think you are.

4. Backing Up Your Data – Backup crucial information at least daily, and in multiple ways. Burn a DVD, CD, use USB hard drives, email files to yourself, and copy to multiple computer hard drives. There’s no reason anyone should ever lose all of their crucial data because they should have it backed up multiple ways. Don’t trust any one system! Duplicate backups – if you make DVD’s make a dvd of your dvd backup – I do! I think I’ve not lost anything of importance in a very long time because I tend to be a bit overly cautious about backing up my crucial data.

5. Anti-Virus Program – Use Norton, McAfee, AVG or other well-known antivirus program. You definitely need it. Preferably you set it so it gets updates daily and scans daily when you’re not using it. I strongly suggest buying Symantec’s Norton 360 v2.0 computer protection package to protect your computer, and your life really. It’s a great investment – insurance for your online and offline life. If someone steals your identity you’ll wish you had spent the money to get it today.

Microsoft offers a Malicious software scanning tool that’s free to use. AVG has a free option that’s pretty good too.

Using a computer and losing data or being taken advantage of can be a horrifying experience. Get up to speed with these 5 things quickly so your business doesn’t suffer in the future.