Guide to Norton Online Backups

In spite of suffering some misfortunes lately in area of online data storage – such as shuttered services as well as lost data – Symantec has decided to enter the arena of online data backup. Truthfully, they’ve been offering the service for the past two years, as Norton 360′s online backup feature.

Norton Online Backup

Norton Online Backup

Now, however, Symantec are offering it as a separate service under the moniker of Norton Online Backup. $49.99 per annum gets you 25GB of storage. Its chief distinguishing features are a (mostly) browser-based interface, and the ability to service five PCs on one account. It is, however, missing a few features that are offered by its main competitors.
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Banish Spam, Scams And Pop-Ups In Vista

As mentioned elsewhere, prevention is often the best way of tackling many problems, and this is particularly the case when it comes to issues on computer security.

Pop-up windows that appear without warning can be evidence of spyware, while junk email that advertises all manner of nonsense can be offensive. Spam, as it is called, can be dangerous, too, as many such emails attempt to trick you into visiting websites used for fraudulent purposes. For example, they may pretend to be from your online bank or eBay, asking you to ‘confirm’ personal data such as your account number and password – a crime known as ‘phishing’.

Don’t worry, though; using Windows Vista’s built-in defences it’s easy to set up your PC against spam, pop-ups and scammers. This article will show you how.

Tip 1 – Most of Vista’s defences against the threats I have mentioned are switched on by default, but there’s no harm in checking. We’ll start with the anti-spam tool in Windows Mail, which is the new name for the built-in Windows email program that was called Outlook Express in XP. Open the program in the Start menu bar at the top of the screen. Select Junk E-mail Options from the list that appears. The main Options tab displays the program’s basic filters. The first option gives you the means of disabling all spam filtering – I don’t recommend this. The option set by default is Low, which filters out obvious junk mail with subject lines such as ‘free Viagra’ and moves it into the Junk E-mail folder.


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Where Do I Go To Get Help With Vista?

Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying “In this world, there is nothing that is certain except death and taxes”, but had he lived in the 21st century, I’d bet my last bag of lollies he would have added “and problems with my computer”.

For every problem Microsoft seems to solve, there is another one or two that rear their ugly heads. If it wasn’t the case, I’d never have to endure another Service Pack update!

But what do you do when your Windows Vista computer doesn’t behave itself and stops doing what you want it to? You can call Microsoft for help, but if you do that, make sure you have your credit card ready, because the company charges to help these days. Some help!

You could just type your problem into Google, but a much quicker and safer way to search for a solution is to try your luck on one of the following Microsoft Web sites. You’ll find they are well worth a visit.

1.       Windows Vista Solutions Center

The first place you should look is Microsoft’s own Windows Vista Solutions Center. It lists all the popular questions users have asked. Thankfully, those questions have been divided into neat categories such as ‘Home networking’ and ‘Printing, scanning and faxing’. This site covers more generic questions, but it’s a good first port of call if you run into the problem. And yes, it’s free. Head to http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11732.

Now, if only Microsoft could solve its spelling problem and call it ‘Solutions Center’!

2.       Microsoft Answers Beta


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Use OpenDNS to Speed Up Internet Browsing

Have you ever wondered How Domain Name works, and what is domain name ? The name of Website such as Google.com or pchijack.com is called domain name. Now next question is when you put a domain name into your Web Browsers address bar how does it know where is this site located and it opens the correct site ?

So here is answer to your question -

When we type a site address or domain name (pchijack.com)  in our web browsers address bar, The Web browser or our computer find IP address of the computer which is having this site. This is called Domain Name resolving. Now once the Web browser know the exact IP address of computer or web server having pages requested it connect to that computer and download the web page, images etc and show you in your web browser.

All Operating systems uses a DNS (Domain Name Server) to find out IP address of the server having web pages you requested. By default your ISP or Network administrator configures your computer to use their DNS Server. These DNS server may be slow and also takes some time to update. If the site requested by you is not available with DNS server specified it looks for address in Other DNS server and then fetches the web page you requested. This process can take a lot of time and you will feel a slow browsing speed.

You can increase performance of your internet browsing by using more efficient and fast DNS server of your choice.  As Each site you want to visit must be resolved to it’s IP address, the Speed of browsing depends on performance of your DNS server.  Sometime it takes even few second before your computer resolve the Address of Site you requested to see.

OpenDNS  (opendns.com) provides free access to there DNS servers. Anyone on the internet can use their servers and they are very fast and reliable as well. In last 2 years of my experience with them I don’t remember a single instance when DNS server provided by OpenDNS went down. However it happened several times with my ISP’s DNS servers. Using OpenDNS Servers will increase your browsing speed by reducing time taken to resolve your site address or URL to IP address.


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