MyComputerPaladin.com

Greetings Citizens of the Realm!

It used to be that protecting your computer and data was a much simpler affair. Way back many years ago, most people (the Paladin included) figured that it was impossible to embed misbehaved software into anything other than a program.

For DOS/Windows users, this meant looking at only .COM and .EXE files. Files that contained executable code (also known as “executable programs”). My how the landscape has changed!

Today we have all sorts of add-ons to browsers, as well as utility software, that would at first glance appear to be immune to carrying viruses and such.

No one would have thought many years ago that a word processor or spreadsheet could contain a virus. These files contained data, and thus, how could they possibly cause harm to your computer?

But of course, as user’s needs increased, scripting languages were added to these programs, which were capable of being misused by the “bad guys” that we like to call the “Anti-Programmers.” In some cases, some brilliant (but demented) individuals discovered how to compromise your computer using files that did not even contain scripting languages!

The point to all of this is that in addition to keeping your operating system up to date with respect to patches and updates, it is also vitally important to keep your browser plugins and third party utility programs up to date as well.

Some programs you might not think to keep updated/patched are:

• Adobe Acrobat
• Adobe Flash (Formerly Macromedia Flash)
• Any Image/Photo Processing Software

This is not to say that you have to run right out and spend tons of cash to upgrade to the latest and greatest versions of these programs, but it would be wise to ensure that you have all of your software patched and updated (we are talking about the free updates here) on a routine basis. While this will take some discipline and effort on your part, constant vigilance will pay dividends in the long run.

So take a moments today to review the software on your computer and see which programs have updates and patches you can quickly and easily apply. The data you save may just be your own!

Greetings, Citizens of the Realm!

The Paladin has been very busy in his personal life and apologizes for having been away for a while. Sometimes life gets in the way, as you all now…

But…

There is an entirely new section of this website being developed that will be launched soon that will feature a free service that will hopefully be of value to many of you.

So check back in the next few days as we put the finishing touches on the new area.

Stay tuned!

Greetings Citizens of the Realm!

A few days ago the Paladin was tooling around online when his attention came across a rather interesting article that had a few quotes from a Microsoft “bigwig” who was candid enough to speak on the record about how Microsoft had “botched” the release of Windows Vista.

The article appeared on the MaximPC site and is definitely worth your time to read (click here to see the article on Vista).

The article goes into depth about some of the many problems that were encountered when Vista was launched, many of which the Paladin has pointed out as well. From the instability of the operating system (meaning, it crashes a lot), the poor performance (meaning, it is very slow), to the annoying security measures (meaning, having to click on a dialog box to “deny/allow/cancel” for even the most rudimentary of tasks), to the huge hardware footprint (meaning, it requires A LOT of computing power, memory, hard drive space, etc. to run it). And on and on and on…

But the real eye-opener of this article (at least to the Paladin) was the discussion with a high level Product Manager at Microsoft who was willing to speak candidly about Vista and its rather disappointing launch. The Paladin was very glad to read that even inside of Microsoft they understand the depths to which this latest incarnation of an operating system has sunken.

The article goes on to chronicle the strides that Microsoft has made since Vista’s launch to improve the system, including speeding up its performance and reducing the number of system crashes a user is likely to encounter. The Paladin has stayed so far away from Vista (indeed, he uses a TWENTY foot poll instead of the standard ten foot model) that he was not aware that such progress had been made with Vista by its creators.

Even so, the Paladin is still advising his friends and those who ask to avoid Vista if they can. The Paladin feels that Vista may ultimately go the way of Windows ME (for anyone who remembers that failed operating system). Plus, as the article points out, Microsoft’s next operating system (Windows 7) is slated to be released in the not too distant future (of course, given Microsoft’s track record on releasing software, it may be considerably longer than that).

Nowadays it can be rather difficult to get Windows XP preloaded on a new computer. Windows XP is, for the most part, not offered as an operating system choice for new computers at nearly all computer vendors (though there are a few exceptions). Even so, the Paladin feels that it is worth the time of his readers to consider doing the legwork to find such a machine when considering a new purchase.

More on this topic at a later time…

For now, we can all rest in the sure knowledge that the folks at Microsoft are aware Vista’s issues, even if their marketing team is not! (and in all fairness to the MS Marketing team that *is* their job…to put a positive spin on everything and accentuate the positive).

Until our next post!