PCinfospace

Did you ever type in a web site address in the URL space (know as address bar) and you get a totally different site? If you did you may be hijacked. That is to say you may have downloaded a spyware program without knowing it.
Redirects
A redirect is a special program put in a web page and/or imbedded in a spy-ware program that makes the web browser go to a page different from the one you typed in. This normally happens when you are infected with a virus or spy-ware.
How does this happen?
If you open an infected e-mail or web site you can easily get a Virus or spy-ware program. Even clicking on a picture or link on a web site can infect your computer’s hard drive instantly. New programs called Rootkits can do extensive damage to your computer or gather information about you that can be used for illegal reasons. These programs can run undetected for as long as they are written for. By the time you know it you’re infected it could be to late.
How can I protect myself?
• Do not go on Illegal sites or sites that contain pornography. These sites are designed to cause harm to you or your computer.
• Keep a quality Anti-Virus/spyware program running and activated at all times.
• Do not let you Anti-Virus/spyware program expire. This is the leading cause of infection.
• Purchase a new program every year or two to be sure you have the best protection available.
• Periodically check for updates.
• Scan your system on a schedule. This can be set up right inside the program.
• DO NOT assume you can install the program and forget it.
• Do not install cheap or free Anti-Virus/spyware programs. These normally do very little to protect you from the latest and greatest threat.
Do not underestimate what a Virus or Spy-ware program will do. They can destroy or change your information, they can obtain information that will lead to identity theft and much more.

This is a great program in my opinion.  I have used it along with Norton internet security.  I still feel it protects you more to have a quality anti-spyware program installed along with your regular program.  Why? it is hard to convince me that any of these programs can work alone.  The threats are to extreme.  I feel you must do everything in your power to protect not only your valuable data but also your identity. If you have been urged to install a free program of any kind don’t bet it will protect you.  If you can not  afford to protect yourself you shouldn’t own a computer.   I have seen people that have spent thousands for a computer but didn’t want to spend the money for an anti-virus / spyware program.  In not to long a time their computer became infected and either was really really slow, they couldn’t get on the internet and a wide range of other problems. DO NOT take this chance.  The virus production people are always ahead of you. Get the best Anti-spyware program you can afford.

This can be difficult to answer.  You have to know:

What operating system you have.
What motherboard you have.
If the particular PCI or other card is compatible to the board.

If you have an older system things can get tough.  Mostly I have found very few people have their original restore disk.  In this case, if you do ever have to reload your system for any reason, you will need to have a WIN98, WIN-ME (or other system) disk and hope that you have the KEY CODE that came with it.  This is the license you need to be “legal”.  If you don’t I would suggest to take it to a professional to figure it out. DO NOT use a copy of any operating system for any reason.  This can only get you in trouble.  It could be defective and carry viruses or worse also.

MOTHER BOARDS

These have been changing at the speed of light.  I will not go into all the changes. I don’t have enough room on this web site for that.  I will say that most of the newer boards are much much faster and have far different connections for interface cards.  PCI express is only one example. The newer boards have  integrated LAN cards, Sound, and Graphics and others.  Years ago they were all separate cards.  Now if you need to find drivers you MUST know what motherboard you have.  Here’s how: Look at the board very close.  Normally the brand (such as Intel) is stamped on the board along with the model number.  You can try going to the board manufacturers web site.  See if you can find all the drivers and download them to any computer and put them on a disk.  Since you probably do not have any LAN card driver  running you may have to use a different computer.  I normally load them on a USB drive or in the case of WIN98 or ME I normally cut them to a disk.  Why? because the USB drive needs a WIN98 or ME driver to load and work.  Yup! Hay! this is some old stuff.  If you have Windows XP or later  you usually just let it load the driver by itself.  Normally the second you plug in the Thumb drive into a USB port on an Windows XP machine it will start loading the driver immediately.  Most of the drivers will normally load.   If one doesn’t you need to download it from the board manufacturers web site. If it is a major manufacturer such as Dell, Gateway etc. go to their site and download the drivers from there.

TIP

If you have a Dell or any other major manufacturer you go to their site.  All the drivers for that particular computer are there.  Do NOT go through the pain of finding a separate driver for sound, Video etc.  You will wear yourself out.  If you added a different Graphics card than originally came with the computer you need to get the driver off the install disk for that card, get it from the web site or try to figure it out by reading the very small  writing on the chip that is on the Graphics or other card. In other words: don’t lose your original driver disk.  I can’t believe how many people don’t have the disks they need when they need to reload their computer.

Why would I need to reload my computer in the first place?
Although there are more reasons than can be listed here, it is normally because they get really slow.  This is normally caused by Viruses, Spy-ware or other nasty things that get in your computer (on your hard drive) over time.

What if I can’t find a driver?

This happens a lot when you have to reload a Windows 98 or ME computer.

Here is were the work comes in.  You need to remove the separate PCI (or other) card from your computer.  Now get a magnifying glass (seriously) to see the very small numbers on the chip. (picture above)  WRITE THEM DOWN.  Do not trust your memory and you don’t want to do this over.  Now you need to go to a driver site.  Here are some of them:

driverguide
driversearch
driveragent
driverheadquarters
mrdriver
and more. Use a search engine if necessary.

Find the driver you need and load it to a disk and then load it on the computer that needs it.  If you just can’t make things work you need to find a technician that can help you.

I feel I need to write this article because to many people get memory mixed up with storage.  I am not going to reinvent the wheel here.  I have put some links to sights that I feel explain the subject pretty good.  If you buy something off their sites so be it.

Memory is your working space.  If you didn’t have memory you couldn’t even type a letter, run a program or anything else.  It is the life blood of why computers work in the first place.

The main kind of RAM in today’s computers is  Synchronous Dynamic RAM (SDRAM).  However, numerous types of RAM exist.  This is due to the fact that computers keep changing.  Technology changes so fast that it is all but imposable to keep up with.  You need to be sure what type of RAM you have in your computer before you upgrade.  Types of memory

What if you run out of memory (RAM)?
This would not be good! The first thing you will notice is that it gets difficult to get anything done.  It slows down everything you are trying to do. When this happens the program you are running will attempt to find memory any place it can get it.  The only place to go is  the hard drive.  This is called paging.  The problem is that it will attempt to access areas of the hard drive that are already being used.   Certain programs can take up a lot of memory and once in a while it is a problem when your trying to work with a lot of programs at a time.

How can I solve this?
There are two things you need to look at.

• How big is your hard drive? If your hard drive is almost used up this could be a big problem and may in fact cause a crash if there isn’t enough room to start with.

• Can you add RAM?  Hopefully your motherboard will allow you to add more RAM.  Put in as much as you can afford.  This is the single best thing you can do to upgrade and improve the performance of any computer.
• You should close any programs your not using. I feel this is important.  It may make your day a lot easier because it will speed up the program you are actually working on.

What if my computer is still slow?
You may have a Virus.  This is the main cause of this symptom.  There are numerous other possibilities but this is the big one.  Spy-ware is also a possibility.  If you feel you have run out of energy trying to figure it out I feel you need to take it to an expert in your area.

For more detail there is a lot of info on the web.  I like this one: How stuff works

You will see this written at least two different ways but it still spells trouble.

This is some bad stuff!!! I mean, this is some bad stuff!  Yes! I did repeat myself.  I can’t stress it enough.  If you neglect this you will be destroyed.  Well! almost.

It is an attempt to get your personal information.  It is an attempt to be you if possible.  Credit card numbers can be accessed if you buy things on line.  Some people have had a lot of “bad” or fraudulent charge on their card before they caught it.  Some got their money back, others didn’t.

How is it distributed?

Almost any way imaginable.  E-mail is a popular way to distribute it but you can get it by just opening a web site. I have had some computers that were so bad (large amount of spy-ware) that I had to totally start over. That is to say I had to reformat the drive and put all the programs back on again. One person tried to tell me to use Norton Ghost. Yup! it will create an image (exact copy) of your hard drive. It is a great product for backing up your system. BUT! if you have a virus or spy-ware of any kind it will also copy that. In other words: DON’T DO IT!! After going through the hard work of reloading your system, drivers, programs etc. you don’t want to load on the same files that corrupted it to start with. You MUST load all programs from scratch. There is no short cut as far I’m concerned. Young people just out of college try to tell me how to do this all the time. FORGET IT!!! Do not use unlicensed software.  I encountered some of this in the past.  Other than the fact it usually is garbage, it is also illegal.

How do I know I have it?

This may not be easy.  “Normally” (There is no such thing as normal) your computer keeps getting slower and slower.  You may not be able to do some tasks as easy as before. Your computer may not boot.  Many times you get pop ups or it keeps going to the same web page no matter what (known as redirects), a further definition will be at the bottom of this article.  Things start happening that you can’t control.  I can go on and on. Mostly you will know something is wrong.  Normally you can not send e-mails either.

How can I keep this from happening?

An even bigger question!  The best way is to prevent it to start with.  Do not go to porn sites or “high risk” sites.  You WILL get spy-ware if you go to these sites.  Do not open e-mails if you don’t know were they came from.  If your using outlook or similar programs turn off Automatic review.  Ya! I know you like it.  But so do the spy-ware people.  Have the best Anti-Virus / spy-ware program you can afford.  It is very important to keep them up to date and activated.  If you let an Anti-Virus program expire you are no longer protected.  I will not suggest any one program but I do give reviews on this site.

Definition ofThis is where someone accessing a domain name is routed to a different domain name/URL. There are different methods of doing this, the most common are:

REDIRECT

Header redirect – this is where the browser is instructed to leave the current url and move along to the new site, the url displayed in the address bar is that of the new location.

Javascript/META refresh redirect – this is where code on the page instructs the browser to leave the current url and move along to the new site, the url displayed in the address bar is that of the new location. META refresh redirects also include the option of a timed delay before the redirect takes place.

Frame/Stealth redirect – this is where frame set code is used which loads the new location into a frame on the existing page. This page is normally configured to be 100% so in effect it means the entire screen. This has the advantage that the url displayed in the address bar remains that of the typed url.

As you can see I did put a link for Norton Anti-Virus with Spy-ware protection.  I have tested this product and I feel they have done it right.  In the past it didn’t really protect you from Spy-ware.  I no longer put a separate spy-ware protection program with it.  You can still do that if you are unsure or scared.