Virus Protection - Internet Security (Week 8)

Many computers are vulnerable to various types of harmful software such as viruses, Trojans, and worms. They are known collectively as malware.

Why is virus protection important?
Having virus protection on a system is important to help protect data.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN A CURE.

As with most things, the best virus protection is prevention; an anti-malware program that will stop malware before it can get on your system. Possibly the most well known type of virus protection is an anti-virus software. However, it is also important to have an anti-spyware and a firewall installed and active on the system.

What do you look for?
When looking for virus protection, consider first an anti-virus program. The important options for an anti-virus program are:
- real time or on-access scanning
- the ability to schedule a scan on a regular basis
- automatic e-mail scanning.

Your anti virus should also:
- be easy to use and install
- be effective in both detecting and cleaning viruses
- provide easy to understand notices of found viruses and what the program has done with it
- have good customer support.

To add on to that, it should also be easy to update your software so that there is no unnecessary hassle when you try to keep your software up-to-date.

Who is at the top?

You're probably wondering right now what some of the leading anti-virus softwares are.

Here are just a few of the brands which consumers trust.

1. VIPRE Antivirus

Voters in the 2011 Readers' Choice Awards overwhelmingly selected VIPRE Antivirus as their choice for "best antivirus for Windows". 44% of all votes went to VIPRE Antivirus. In addition to a bevy of loyal users, VIPRE offers a low-impact, high performance scan engine free of the legacy code that can hinder some of the older antivirus scanners. VIPRE's malware detection has been repeatedly certified by all the major certification agencies and the company offers a no-hassle 30-day money back guarantee.

2. Norton Internet Security

Symantec's antivirus products have historically always provided excellent detection and removal of malware. On the downside, that protection came at the price of often crippling system performance. That's now a thing of the past. Performance overhauls were the hallmark of Norton Internet Security 2009, and enhancements continued in the 2010 product line.

Windows Movie Maker (Week 7)

This was my attempt at trying to put together my own short video using Windows Movie Maker. This is dedicated to the girls who make school THIS much more bearable for me. (:



I had a lot of fun putting this video together. It was the first time I was using Windows Movie Maker. I took a couple of minutes to figure out how it worked at first, but once I figured it out it was actually pretty fun. I have got to thank Mr Choy for making us put the video together, because this is something that I can keep for a very long time. (:

Google Maps: What's new? (Week 7)

Google Maps has proved to be one of Google's most useful applications. Most of us already know just how useful Google Maps. For a person like me, who has such a poor sense of direction, I cannot even count the number of times Google Maps has prevented me from getting completely lost in a part of town which I am unfamiliar with. It has prevented me from being late from countless of meetings, and at times, even saved me some money. Before Google Maps, whenever I got lost, I always had to resort to taking a taxi, especially if I was on my own.

Everyone knows the basics of Google Maps, but here are a couple of new features that you may have yet to discover.


1) It is easier to move in between views in the program.

- Moving in between the satellite view to the map view to the earth view is much easier with the new layout

- You can view the different "layers" available with ease. "Layers" refer to to traffic patterns, geotagged photos, videos and even webcam locations. Even bicycling routes, location-linked Wikipedia entries, and real estate for sale is available on Google Maps.







2) You can restrict your Google Maps search to include just businesses or user-created maps.

- User-created maps allows you to save maps with directions to places that you frequent, and makes it easy for you to retrieve these maps whenever you need them.

- It even allows you to create shortcuts to these maps on your phones or mobile devices, making it even easier to retrieve these maps.



3)You can find out what the places near the current location you are at are by right clicking on the "What's here" button.

- Google Maps will churn out a list of locations (be it a specific address or place).



Google Maps just got a whole lot more useful.

Education and Technology (Week 6)

The message behind the cartoon: Children are becoming more and more tech-savvy at a younger age.This generation of youths have been born into a culture which is heavily reliant on technology. They need to learn how to handle technology and adapt to this culture at a very young age.

As technology grows in its importance and significance to our everyday lives, educators around the world feel the need to harness the great potential of the internet and computers and to incorporate it into their lessons, bringing learning to a whole new level.

Currently, computers are such an important part of education. The students of today rely heavily on computers. Even the teachers rely on it to distribute slides, communicate with students, and even hold discussions online. If so much progress has been made in the last 10years, it would come as no surprise if technology will play an even greater part in education in the future. We may eventually reach the stage where there is no need for textbooks and handouts and possibly even exam papers. There may come a time where everything is computerized, and all you need is a personal computer or a hand-held device to get through your school days. Guess only time will tell what the future holds for students of the future generation.

The benefits associated with e-commerce (week 5)

E-Commerce is one of the most important facets of the Internet to have emerged in the recent years. Electronic commerce involves carrying out business over the Internet with the assistance of computers, which are linked to each other forming a network. In other words, it refers to the buying and selling of goods and services and transfer of funds through digital communications.

It is a well known fact that there are a great deal of benefits associated with E-commerce.

Here is a list of just a few of the benefits that are associated with e-commerce:

1) Factors such as time and distance are no longer a huge worry

2) The direct cost for sale of items are lower than the way traditional sales are made

3) It is the cheapest means for doing business. (You don't have to worry about the cost of rental space and electricity bills or hiring staff to attend to the store.)

Here is an example of a company that benefited greatly from E-commerce:







The video basically shows how dustbag.co.uk benefited from e-commerce. They were able to close down their retail store and move their business online. Aside from cutting costs and seeing and increase in sales, they are doing so well that they plan to expand their business outside of UK into Europe.

Businesses obviously benefit from e-commerce, but they aren't the only ones benefiting. Consumers benefit from it too.

- Buyers enjoy a reduction in their shorting out time. The internet makes it easy for them to locate EXACTLY what they are looking for in the shortest period of time

- It also makes it easier for them to make better buying decisions, because it is easy for them to compare and contrast the prices and availability of the required item from different sources and sellers.

- It also makes it easier for them to customise the products they buy to suit their tastes and preferences.

The Social Network (Week 4)

Last October, I managed to catch the film "The Social Network" when it was being screened in the cinemas. The film “The Social Network” is a movie about the founders of the ever-popular social networking site, Facebook, and how it all began. It takes us through the whole process of how Facebook, from its humble beginnings, became what it is today. It started off with two friends, trying to execute a simple idea, and grew to be become something so massive, that it has become such a vital tool in our everyday lives.

Personally, I felt that the movie was filmed in a very clever way. It took a potentially boring plot and managed to turn it into something worth watching. The script was witty, and the way the plot managed to weave through the past and present without confusing the audience was impressive. The actors did a fabulous job of portraying their respective roles. Jesse Eisenberg did a particularly good job of portraying the arrogant and egotistical Mark Zuckerberg.

The film was a rather memorable one because of the ever-growing significance of social networking sites such as Facebook. In today’s day and age, Facebook plays a crucial part in creating culture, and in our everyday lives. Facebook users are not just limited to a narrow age group. It spans across a large range, from young teenagers to youths to working adults and even parents and possibly grandparents as well.

Facebook has numerous functions. People use it to maintain their own personal relationships and to keep in touch with their friends and loved ones. They use it to compile pictures, and organise events and gatherings, and to keep track of birthdays. Even companies are jumping on the bandwagon, trying to use Facebook to their advantage. Aside from using Facebook as a platform for advertising, companies also use it to organise events and seminars, and some companies even use Facebook as a tool in their recruitment drives.

It is obvious that majority of us rely a great deal on Facebook. Some might even call it an over-reliance. This over-reliance on a social networking site such as Facebook creates a culture where people start to communicate more and more through mediums online, and get increasingly lazy to initiate face to face conversations and discussions.

While Facebook seems to carry more benefits than disadvantages in today's world, we have to be careful to use such social networkings sites with discretion. Abusing a tool such as this by overusing it could lead negatively impact society in the future. Essentially, social networking sites should be used to complement face to face communication, and not replace it entirely.

The Effects of Facebook on the Individual and Their Relationships with People (Week 3- CNY Week)

We all know that Facebook has affected many aspects of our lives to a large degree. Its made communication easier and had made our world seemingly smaller.
However, it is interesting to look at the impact that social networking sites like Facebok have on the individual and their relationships with people.

I did a little research on the effect that Facebook has on the personal lives of its users, particularly students and adolescent. Research shows that:

1) Facebook is definitely an important part of maintaining relationships for adolescents.
If you’re not in, you get left behind. Facebook keeps kids connected to their loved ones. For many facebook provided a way to keep in touch with high school friends and acquaintances. This was demonstrated through the fact that the most commonly used information on users’ profiles was likely to be relevant for existing acquaintances trying to find them (eg high school)

2) Studies also seem to suggest that Facebook usage was correlated to self esteem in many of its users.
Those who seemed to spend more time on Facebook somehow seemed to be more sociable.


3) Facebook gives us another avenue to communicate with each other without doing it face to face
You would thing this would be a good thing, but it turns out that this has a negative side as well. Especially when it comes to personal relationships. A recent trend of breakups occurring on Facebook has been noted. In a recent survey of 1000 fb users, 25% of the respondents found out their relationship was over by seeing it on Facebook. Now that is harsh.

4) People feel the need to make themselves seem more interesting that they actually are.
Surveys show that 35% of respondents had updated their fb status to make it seem like they had plans, when they didn’t.

Statistics such as these sometimes make you wonder if the presence of social networking sites is more of a bad thing as opposed to a good thing.