For a long time, the writers of viruses and other malware programs have been working on ever new ways to trick people into installing their virus, or allowing it to access their computer.

One of the newer ways is proving incredibly effective, and is something that everyone should be aware of.

You may know the situation. You are sitting at your computer, looking working online. Suddenly, a pop up window opens that tells you that you have a large number of viruses, and that you need to clean your computer. What do you do?

The first thing that you should do is look at the name of the pop up. If it is the antivirus software that you are sure that you have on your machine, then there is no risk in going ahead and using it to remove the virus.

But the trouble is that many of the rogues are named similarly, with just minor differences in their name compared to the real deal.

These rogue anti-virus programs are cleverly designed so that they look exactly like some of the most popular of the genuine anti-virus programs as well.

They use the same icons, presumably taken from the genuine program, to make them look exactly like the real thing. They even use names that are similar, such as ‘Antivirus Live’, ‘Antivirus XP’, ‘Total Win Vista Security’ or any other of a long list of names that are designed to make them appear genuine.

The rogue programs get you two ways. First, they say that you need to pay a fairly large sum of money to install the program that will clean your machine of viruses that you don’t actually have-the readings are all fake.

So, having been scammed out of your money, you install the program-only you aren’t getting what you hoped for.

Instead you normally get a trojan. The program will appear to be doing something useful in the front end, but behind the scenes it is downloading other, perhaps more dangerous malware onto your computer.

This may be viruses, or spyware, or any number of pieces of software that pose a danger both to your computer and to your identity.

Eventually your computer will start to perform badly and you will realize that you have a virus. Unfortunately by then it will have corrupted the antivirus software on your own machine to the point that it won’t run, and will block the installation of any genuine antivirus software.

It makes the removal of these rogue programs incredibly problematic. MalwareBytes is one of the best programs for removing the majority of rogue programs, but unfortunately even this may not get everything.

If you are struggling to remove it from your own machine, Google search for the name that shows on your machine, as well as the word ‘removal’ and follow the instructions that you find.

What you should never, ever do is click to install the program-and never click ‘no’, or ‘cancel’ or in fact don’t click anything on the pop up window! Even clicking the ‘X’ in the corner in an attempt to close it will lead to the installation of the program. All you can do it shut down your browser by right clicking on it in the toolbar, and selecting ‘close window’.

Unfortunately many people are being tricked in this way, and the real tragedy is that until they clicked to install the rogue program, they probably never had a virus at all.

When a Virus Isn’t What it Seems is a post from: Computer Spot

As a user, you normally interact with the operating system through a set of commands. For example, the DOS operating system contains commands such as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the names of files, respectively.

The commands are accepted and executed by a part of the operating system called the command processor or command line interpreter.

Graphical user interfaces allow you to enter commands by pointing and clicking at objects that appear on the screen.

But that really doesn’t address the various ways that operating systems make your computer work easier and more efficiently.

Their specific capacities are what make them help your computer operate as a user-friendly device.  Let’s look specifically at what an operating system does.

Process Management

Every program running on a computer whether it is a background service or an application is called a process.

As long as von Neumann architecture is used to build a computer, only one process per CPU can be run at one time.

Older computer operating systems such as MS-DOS did not try to bypass this limit with the exception of interrupt processing and only one process could be run under them.

Mainframe operating systems have had multi-tasking capabilities since the early 1960’s.  Modern operating systems enable concurrent execution of many processes at once via multi-tasking even with one CPU.

Process management is an operating system’s way of dealing with running multiple processes at once.

Since most computers contain one processor with one core, multi-tasking is done by simply switching processes quickly.

Depending on the operating system, as more processes run, either each time slice will become smaller or there will be a longer delay before each process given a chance to run.

Process management involves computing and distributing CPU time as well as other resources.  Most operating systems allow a process to be assigned a priority which affects its allocation of CPU time.

Interactive operating systems also employ some level of feedback in which the task with which the user is working receives higher priority.

Interrupt driven processes will normally run at a very high priority.  In many systems, there is a background process such as the System Idle Process in Windows which will run when no other process is waiting for the CPU.

What Does an Operating System Do ? is a post from: Computer Spot

Incoming search terms:

• what does an operating system do (605)
• what does operating system do (190)
• what does an operating system do? (180)
• What do Operating Systems do (144)
• what does the operating system do (108)
• what does a operating system do (70)
• what is an operating system and what does it do (53)
• what does an OS do (49)
• what an operating system does (48)
• what does operating system do? (43)

PStart is a useful small utility which works like a secondary start menu for user-defined applications.

Why do we need a secondary start menu?

Firstly, this tray tool is created to run portable applications such as portable Firefox and Thunderbird but essentially you can use it to start anything runnable from any local hard disk, removable disk and even USB key devices.

Besides opening programs, you can also use PStart to open important folders or specific frequently used documents.

The special thing about PStart is that it uses relative paths when installed as a portable application, and this difference sets it apart from Windows shortcuts.

Removable discs do not always get the same driver letter when they are inserted into another computer but with PStart, the portable softwares can still be started properly.

PStart can also be used to start applications that are burned to a CD or DVD optical disc (which will also be assigned unknown drive letter when used on different computers).

That basically explains why PStart is developed, this free utility will definitely reduce the time spent opening portable applications, files and documents on other people’s computers. It is also recommended for people who use a lot of removable devices.

Another use which I think is possible with this secondary tray start menu is to ease programs, files and documents launching without clogging up your start menu.

If you have too many paths defined, the search navigation tab is available to quickly access the paths you need.

Besides, PStart also integrates a feature called Notes, which you can use to keep small notes or reminders set to appear whenever you like in the USB drive.

If you have a U3 complicant devices, chances are that you are frustrated that you cannot start non U3 compatible software from the U3 launcher.

PStart can help you solve this problem, it can be used to launch all programs on those devices, including U3 compatible softwares, so that you don’t have to use the limited U3 launcher ever again.

Pstart – Small Utility like Start Menu is a post from: Computer Spot