How do I protect my computer from viruses? for free?

People are always asking me:
How do I protect my computer from viruses?
Is there anything free to protect my computer?
what do you do with a trojan on your computer? help with removal?

Here is the suite of protection programs I use and recommend to everyone to use as well.

Most of the software I use is for free because they are usually made by good people and work the best – and its free. Practically the only things I pay for on the computer are my flickr account and webhosting.

There are a suite of 3 programs I use to prevent spyware, viruses, worms, etc from reaching my computer. Here they are:

1. Spybot – Search and Destroy
This is one of 2 programs i use to prevent spyware from coming to my PC.
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

2. Adaware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
This and spybot always compete with eachother for best free anti-spyware. I like to have both at hand just in case.

3. Avast Anti-Virus
This wonderful program is powerful and free. It doesnt take up much of your resources on your computer at all.
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

These three programs are great because they are free and they won’t slow down your computer too much. Plus, you can trust these 3 companies (as of nov 2007).
I would never pay for programs like McCaffee – they put huge programs on your computer and use up your resources, causing your computer to slow down.

Also, You must use Firefox instead of internet explorer.
www.getfirefox.com
The newer, more protected, versions of IE will eat up your resources causing it to slow down. IE is the number one enemy of many hackers and they love to cause trouble with that. Firefox used to be the darling of computer geeks, so no one really messed with people running it, but that is starting to change little by little.

Thanksgiving Questions to ask your family

Here are a list of questions designed to ask your family during thanksgiving
Thanksgiving themed questions:

At the table:

For gparents/parents: how did you meet?

What do you like about grandma (their partner)?

If you could take one thing off of this thanksgiving table, what would it be?

Add one thing?

If I told you someone was gay at this table, who do you think it would be?

If you could have one giant balloon like in the macys day parade, what would it be of?

For older people:

Have you ever been fired?

What is something you regret?

Do you have any advice for me?

What do you think of the political instability of Pakistan?

Do you have a special thanksgiving dish you make? What is the secret to making it so good??

Is turkey a country?

We are having tofurkey this year. Does that suck?

If God came down from the heavens and asked you to take a bite of his turkey sandwich, would you?

Questions to ask people on their birthday

How do you usually celebrate your birthday?

Do you ever lie about your age?

Have you ever completely forgotten a birthday of one of your close friends or family members?

What was the most memorable birthday party you’ve attended?

Are you upset if someone forgets your birthday?

Would you rather have a pinata or a cake?

Has anyone ever done something extra special for you for your birthday?

When is the best time of year to have a birthday?

Who was the first person to say happy birthday to you this year?

Where is tinaecmusic? Tina Chen? brianlittrellfan15? What happened to her?

So after Perez Hilton exposed Tina to the world, she took down nearly all her music and vlog postings off of youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/brianlittrellfan15
http://www.youtube.com/user/tinaecmusic

I am a huge fan of hers, and I want her to come back so bad!

Apparently, she made a nasty video back to Perez explaining her outrage to him.
She truly speaks her mind without censor.

This may be the last place to see her videos… don’t miss out on her – Shes the best!
http://flix55.com/watch/rFjd3sPsKYP

What do you use to make a cd?

Jeff, what program do you use to burn cds?

good question. I have been faithfully using COWON’s Jet audio to play and burn cds for the past couple of years
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/jetaudio/basic_plus.html

This is free to use for anyone. They have some advanced features for a price, but they are for audio editing and I don’t have much use for that at this time…

I use it because it looks cool, has a smart layout with everything right in front of you, and allows you to easily burn cds from mp3.
all you have to do is press burn on the top bar and press add files. then when you have the music you want to burn, you press start. Should only take a few minutes.

You can also convert audio and video files plus record audio – all of these I havent used yet though….

Thats my recommendation. Very intuitive program, simple, free. Enjoy.