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Making Online Security Work For You
The creators of malware and viruses get more clever every day. Outsmart them by being informed about the different methods of attack.
Once you're in the know, make sure your computer is armed to identify nefarious programs:
- If you don't have it already, antivirus and antispyware software should be your first priority.
- For existing software, check to make sure the latest updates are installed. Means of infiltration are constantly changing; the software won't protect you properly if it isn't updated.
There are a number of free and paid options to choose from if you're considering new software. Here are some things to look for when deciding which is right for you:
- If you're a frequent user of instant messaging, email or other P2P applications, confirm those are covered.
- Note whether users or reviewers comment about the rate of false positives. Thinking you have a problem when you really don't can be an annoying time waster.
- Check to see if the software has a high rate of early detection -- this will help keep you ahead of the game.
- Be aware of size and resource use. Some applications can take up a lot of space and slow your computer while scanning, which wouldn't be a great incentive for keeping it updated and running.
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Social Media Security
A common delivery method for malware is shortened url's. Twitter recently announced a built-in URL shortener to make links uniform and recognizable. Starting this summer, shortened links will conform to a "t.co" format. That and other accompanying changes are already garnering praise. (Preview: shortened URLs will no longer count towards the 140 character limit.)
Facebook has received unwelcome attention lately for some of its privacy policies and security issues. Unless you've made manual changes, updates to the site have made more of your information public. Backlash resulted in further changes fixing that, but you should still take a look at your privacy controls to be sure you're not sharing more than you think.
There is even a cottage industry popping up to help users keep their information secure. All this has some people giving up their citizenship in Facebook nation. But, with 400 million users, chances are that walking away may mean leaving behind a major network. A less drastic option is "quitting without actually quitting."
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Building a Better Website A common discussion among our web hosting clients is how to make their websites attractive and informative for customers, but also user-friendly on the back-end for updates. Here are a couple of ideas for achieving both objectives.
Website design is an important part of branding, but to be successful, sites need to be optimized for search. Flash is one of the options for building a unique, animated site, but consider these seven factors before making that commitment. For instance, Flash prevents access to web spiders, meaning the site won't be easily crawled and indexed by search engines.
Choosing a content management system (CMS) for your site can also be a challenge. Finding the right fit depends on several factors like the number of pages, frequency of updates and the type of interaction you want to have with the user. The good news is, there are a number of free and low cost CMS options available for every skill level - whether you plan to build and maintain the site yourself or outsource to a developer and only make occasional tweaks in-house.
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