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.
» Continue reading Banish Spam, Scams And Pop-Ups In 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
» Continue reading Where Do I Go To Get Help With Vista?
Have you forgotten administrator password for your Windows Vista/XP powered computer, now you are worried that you have to format and reinstall windows in order to gain access to your windows admin account. Well It happens with many of us and even though we have helped other in this we don’t take care ow our own password. We tend to forget and this is a normal human tendency.
But you can recover your forgotten password using Lock Smith utility which is part of ERD Commander tool by win internals. How to do that is explained below.
E.R.D. Commander by Win internals —
ERD Commander is part of the Microsoft Diagnostics and recovery Toolkit and can be downloaded from Microsoft’s site or other sources you know. Among several method which can be used to Rest admin password in Windows XP ERD commander is one of them.
This tool is very useful if you don’t have more than one working admin account in your windows installation and you lost password for that. Also You don’t have password reset disk as well as Windows Installation disk, or lost any or both of these.
» Continue reading How To Recover Administrator Password Using ERD Commander
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.
» Continue reading Use OpenDNS to Speed Up Internet Browsing
Unlike Windows XP, Vista’ default power button does not shut down windows. It will put your computer in sleep mode and this is something quite useful from Microsoft point of view but users find it annoying. To shut down Windows Vista you have to go right of Power button and select Shut Down from a pop up menu.
If you are among those annoyed users don’t worry Microsoft designed a solution for you as well. Actually Microsoft guys have done a great piece of job by adding programmable Power buttons, you can decide what you want to do with default Power button (shut down, Hibernate or Sleep) using Power option in Control panel.
If a User wants to Shutdown or Hibernate his PC quickly this sometime comes frustrating as you hit sleep button and then you find that it went to sleep mode. then to shut down you have to wait till it wakes off ask for login password again and then you can shut down it using other menu. So we bring you a solution for this by programming that sleep button into a Power button.
Here we will explain you how to do that –
» Continue reading How To Change Vista Sleep Button Into Power Button
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