We use computers for our personal needs, sometimes for entertainment and others may use it for business reasons. But there comes a point and time where you will have to have security and privacy. If you are connected to the internet, and you do not have a firewall enabled, you can become infected with the Blaster worm within 60 seconds. That's how dangerously worms are floating around the internet. And for this reason you need to have security software. I recommend the following: A firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, and a safe web browser. For a firewall I highly recommend "Zone Alarm" this free firewall is by far the absolute best you will find, others may argue comodo, kerio, or agnitum are better. In my opinion Zone Alarm is better in many ways, it's automatically configured to stealthly hide your ports from the internet, and is better configured. If you're not so serious then the built in firewall "Windows Firewall" is a good alternative.

As far as Anti-Virus is concerned, I recommend "AVG" from Grisoft. It is a free non intrusive anti-virus that is just as good as norton or anything else you will purchase but will not "bogg" down your system. With anti-spyware there are a number of great choices. ..1 I would recommend "Windows Defender" above all, but the others are "Ad-Aware" and "SpyBot". If you're willing to spend money then "Spy Sweeper" from Webroot is extremely well built and is the absolute best of the best as far as it catching a very high percentage of spyware. Besides using a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware, you will need to have a safe web browser.

I highly suggest you to use Mozilla FireFox. It's popularity is skyrocketting and is the safest web browser(and easiest) to use. Web browsers I do not recommend are Internet Explorer, AOL's browser, or anything else that allows ActiveX scripting. If you use a web browser that allows ActiveX then somebody can put a malicious script on a website, have you visit that site(perhaps accidentally by even a popup or social engineering), and it will download the scripting onto your computer "without" your knowledge. From there, they can track what websites you go on, display popup ads, or even capture your passwords. This is what is called "Spyware". And it is how most users get infected besides downloading malicious content.

ALL of your security software should be configured to automatically search and download for updates, and many already are. Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D will search for updates atuoamatically. Ad-Aware will search within a longer period, I would recommend setting it to 7 days to wait until searching for updates. Ad-Aware does not run in the background, which means you will need to launch it in order for it to apply the needed definitions.



ALL of your security software(besides your firewall) needs to be set to scan automatically. The reason for this is mainly for convenience, if you run your computer all day and go off and on at your pleasure, then setting the software to automatically scan at a given time of the day is essential. It will scan, and quarantine anything malicious it picks up and be finished by the time you return to your PC. Make sure to schedule it for a time when you might think the computer may not be in use(eg. early in the morning or during the afternoon).What does it mean to "quarantine" something?

Ad-Aware, SpyBot S&D, SpySweeper, AVG and all security software(besides firewalls obviously) have what is called a "quarantine archive". When a file or object is placed into the "quarantine archive" it can no longer be used and it cannot function AT ALL. In this case, a malicious file of some sort. Say a scanner tracks the origin of spyware to a file, it will take it and quarantine it, and it then will no longer be able to operate anymore. If it gets removed from quarantine, then there is a chance of it still spying on your activity.



Norton Anti-Virus: BAD! Avoid at all possible costs. Sure, Norton Anti-Virus is very good at catching viruses, and spyware, and stopping popup ads, and blocking ad-ware, but come to think of how that is bogging down your system. Norton anti-virus will run your system down and eat up your processes. Many who advertise an anti-virus, anti-spyware/adware, popup blocker, and built in firewall should all be avoided.



Why? ..1 There is no need to block popup ads because our safe browser that we have been discussing, Mozilla Firefox, does not allow popup ads. AT ALL. Most popup ads are from a website to website basis. Many users get popups unexpectedly, that is what is called adware. Companies are trying to advertise to you their products, after tracking what you surf for. Then they can even spam your email according to what you may have searched for, shopped for, or bought online. AVG is just as good as norton but no as intrusive, constantly bothering you like norton does and running your system down to less than that of a snail. Ad-Aware, Spybot, as well as Windows Defender will be adequate enough to stop about 99% of all spyware you will come across. SpySweeper still sits high above the rest when it comes to catching most of what you will be infected with. Ofcourse, the best defense to stopping spyware and viruses is to not get infected to begin with.

Next article we will cover actual "Privacy" software and discuss what type of habits we should change inorder to stop getting infected with malware. We are also going to bring up the two topics which include: Protecting your privacy and being able to safely and permanently deleting files...military grade style.

You know as humans I think we can get greedy. We want things, I mean as we live here we are called to be servants of Jesus Christ but we also want. And becuase we have so much faith in our Lord and savior we pray to Him and ask Him of these things. And sometimes what we have to come to understand is that we pray for what we thought would come true didn't come true in our hearts of what we thought what we wanted, God knew best. And when we didn't see what we wanted to see, we should walk by faith. And even when we understand things or don't understand things we should still walk by faith because faith is not when you see you're like "Oh okay well I'll walk by faith now because I see". That's not faith. Faith is when you can't see, and something that you've been praying for, and that you've been wanting and you have been praying for that and it didn't come true in your own heart. And when you don't see what you wanted to see, you need to walk by faith. That's faith! When you walk and you don't see.

Those are the words of Jeremy Camp before singing the song he wrote on his honeymoon called "I Will Walk By Faith". He was praying for His wife to be healed. And she ultimately was, she's with Jesus. But she passed away evidently. So what he may have wanted in His own heart didn't come true, but that's because God knows best. God knows exactly what we need and when we need it and why we need it. He is truly our map in this world. And when you are praying for something like that, and you cannot see, you continue to walk by faith, not by sight. Because if we were to walk by sight we'd be doing things that cause us to become spiritually dead. But if we walk by faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His plan for your life, we will only grow that much stronger. But like I said, everybody wants something. Weither it be that new job, or perhaps that guy or girl. And you were just praying for something that you really wanted, and it didn't come true in your own heart. But you still continue to walk by faith and you don't let anything interrupt your walk and your focus on the Lord.

Because only God knows what is best for you, and if something doesn't work out, it was for a reason. But realize this, what God wants for you is only the absolute best. So if something doesn't go according to how your heart had planned, then don't fret about it. Because what will be put in place of that will be so gloriously better than what you wanted, that you won't even remember it anymore. Nobody can script your life any better than our Lord Jesus Christ. I've experienced this the past couple of months. I won't say exactly what it is my heart wanted and what I was praying for and what I thought I wanted(though those who know me probably know what it is anyway), but in the end The Lord made it exactly clear to me why. And I couldn't believe it, how he just spoke to me and it just hit me so hard that this is something I've wanted for so long, and now that it didn't work out, look at what happened? Look at what this really is and why it wouldn't have worked out. It was incredible to say the least. And now I understand why it is so important to walk by faith and through walking by faith it makes it so much easier to put things and experiences past you. Because you know what the Lord has planned out for you is going to be so incredibly great that nothing else would come close. Who better to decide your life than the one who granted it to you? And after that experience of what I had my heart set on for the past few month didn't work in the way I had expected, I just had to ask the Lord to help take it off my mind now that it is over so I may regain my focus towards Him. And that He did.

I wanted to make this a two part blog, but I don't think there is anymore that needs to be said honestly. Just something I've learned and heard about and a very important experience I wanted to share. I fully understand now why it is so very important to walk by your faith and not by what you see. And by doing that not only does your relationship come closer to the Lord,but it teaches you to not become so disouraged when something doesn't go according to the way you planned. So, the most important lesson here to will learn and have to understand is that you have to walk by faith, even when you cannot see. Because if you can suddenly see and say "Well okay now I'll walk by faith because I can see", then thats not truly faith. You're just now believeing and walking by faith just because someting happened the way you wanted it to and because now you believe you can see. And sometimes to fully understand the importance of walking by faith one may have to actually experience something like myself. how I wanted something so badly and prayed about it and even said to the Lord "I want what you want, but this is what I desire. Show me what you desire." and when I wanted His will, he showed me what he wanted. And even why he wanted something not to turn out the way I wanted it to. I hope and pray that my experiences can be your prosper. :)

2 Corinthians 5:7

"For we walk by faith, not by sight." - King James Version, New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version, American Standard Version
"We live by faith, not by sight." - New International Version
"For we live by believing and not by seeing." - New Living Translation
"But we live by faith, not by what we see." - Contemporary English Version
"Our life is lived by faith. We do not live by what we see in front of us." - New Life Version
"For through faith we walk, not through sight." - Young's Literal Translation

It's the age old debate, closed ports verses stealthed ports. First, what is a port? A port is the door to your computer, there's different ports for different things. The three-way handshake takes place, and the information is then delivered to your computer to a certain port, and the information is then received. But we can save that for another topic. Now, the age old question is would you like your ports to show up as being closed, or as being stealthed? My own opinion is that I prefer stealthed over closed. If someone probes your computer would you rather them see ALL of your ports as being "CLOSED"? Or would you rather them probe and see nothing? I prefer stealthed just because if someone probes me I'd rather them see nothing, it makes it as if I don't exist, it's like someone knocking on the door and me not answering or even acknowledging. But then again if they see "CLOSED" they know you exist but they know your ports are closed and there really isn't much they can do. The fact they now know you exist though means they can not only probe you, but they can do more malicious damage by knowing your internet protocol exists like knocking you offline with a denial of service or anything else. Although really the only difference between stealthed or closed is that when 'so and so' application taps your firewall and hits a closed port it will stop. If it sees it's 'stealthed' it'll continue to try and try and try to connect to a port that isn't there, which is wasting bandwidth(although small) and taking up connections overhead.In summary, users should be much less worried about how they "look" to the evil outside, because it is irrelevant. The real differences occur in problems to their own internet activities directly caused by a misguided belief in "stealth at all costs". This is just a summary and the article could be very much larger but this is just a small summary of closed and stealthed ports.

Who can say that you can predict the future and get it exactly the way you want? Who are you to say that because this happened that will definitely happen so if that does happen this will also happen? It isn't practicle to say to yourself and/or others that oh this will definitely happen because I just know it. Well how do you know it? Some may say "well I just do." Well how can you just happen to know something that has not happened yet? The answer is simple, you can't. Only Christ can tell what will happen tomorrow or tell of your death and even elaborate on how or why. Not you. Don't you think it might be an insult to predict something without knowledge? How do you think Christ feels when his creation are saying things are going to happen without knowing? We cannot stand by ourselves, and we cannot plan the future.

We all use computers for many activities. Some use it for entertainment purposes or keeping in touch with friends or family, while others may use it as their primary business tool to store their critical information. Whatever the reason may be, your data is very important to you and losing it, especially in a business environment, can really be frustrating.

PCs can become infected with Viruses or Spyware that can possibly wipe out many files on your hard drive, or perhaps you may have accidentally deleted files you thought you would never have any intended use for again. When in the future you find out you really did need those files, this is when using computers for storing data can put a hamper on you and your work. Which is why backing up your data could never be less important.

But there are ways to back up your data safely, and there are ways to back up your data which are not safe. The easiest ways of safely backing up your data easily is to buy a CD with a large quantity of free disk space available or possibly think of investing in an external hard drive that is compatible with your USB which will be large enough to hold your data. Even using web sites with uploading services are a great free alternative. Depending on a user's storing habits, every two to four weeks would be a great time to backup data on your PC. Every user that is using their PC on a regular basis and has a lot of important or confidential data, needs to be backed up routinely.

Bad habits users pickup is when their data actually is gone. They then make an attempt to recover it.

This is obviously a no-brainer since you would like to recover as much of the lost data as possible, but to avoid this you can back it up before hand. Running off and trying different methods and paying hundreds if not thousands to try and get as much data recovered as possible is not a smart user.

If you were to back up your data in the first place you would not be worried about this problem. So basically there really is no "bad" way of backing up data. Anyway an individual makes an attempt to back up any sort of information is a good thing. Unless obviously they just store it on another computer as that can obviously crash or lose data just as easily. And yes, even Macs.

So remember, we have CD's/DVD's, HDD's (hard drives), thumb/usb drives, large email accounts, free online file manager accounts, and perhaps the built in windows option to backup data.

However, those are all great ways to backup data, I would rather recommend hardware rather than online accounts. Because anything can happen to an account somewhere online, a glitch, a flaw of some sort. Atleast if your information is stored on hard copy there isn't much that can happen to it other than perhaps an unfortunate event or natural disaster that would destroy it. I hope some of you have learned something new from the article, I plan to write more about security related topics in the future.