Answering Computer Question What LAN Means

What LAN Means in Plain English

It's Saturday evening and I'm warming up a bite to eat before recording some new lessons. While I'm waiting, I wanted to send you a new video computer lesson I haven't shared before.

The new lesson answers a question sent in to me a while back where I was asked what a LAN is, and what Gigabit LAN is.

The lesson explains these computer terms mean, and also offers advice on a few related topics that could save you some money and make things easier.

And always, it's all in Plain English.

Just click the image below for the video lesson on What LAN Means:





In this video, as mentioned, I answer the question about the computer terms "LAN" and "Gigabit LAN". While we're at it, I give you not only a non-technical understanding of what these terms mean, I also give some advice on whether you need to spend extra money on a faster router (and whether it will really make things faster for you).

For more lessons like this, plus easy basics that make it easy to navigate your computer both safely and confidently, you'll want to join students from around the world in our easy computer lessons member site. You can do this using the form below this post.

Until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World

P.S. Use the form below to get even more easy computer lessons today:

Happy 40th Birthday to... The Internet?

Well, there may be no cake, but yesterday was a day to celebrate, because this year, October 29th marks forty years since the birth of the Internet!

Yes, it's true -- despite the fact that many people think it first started in the mid 1990s, the Internet actually got its first start all the way back in 1969.

The exact date is actually somewhat debatable -- some historians prefer to count September 2, 1969 as the Internet's "birthday", since that was the first time
two computers were connected to each other with a cable and sent a small amount of information between them.

This definitely marked the very first tiny step towards what we now know as the Internet, but others prefer to count this day at the end of October in that same year as the real birthday. October 29, 1969 was the first day that information was sent from one computer to another *in different locations*, which was a big step closer to the modern Internet where we now have computers sending information to each other around the world ceaselessly.

The main name behind this amazing first step into today's world is Leonard Kleinrock, who does consider the 29th to be day marking "the first breath of life the Internet ever took."

And what a way we've come, since.

It took until around 1994, a few years after the invention of the Web (which is not the same as the Internet, but merely part of it, as is email and many other services) before the average person started to hear about it and widespread use began.

Personally, I started using the Internet directly back in 1990, before you had web pages or much of anything a newer Internet user would even recognize. Back then it was all text and you typed commands or used the arrow keys on a keyboard to navigate from one place to another.

I still vividly remember the first time I used something called IRC (short for Internet Relay Chat) which was sort of the great grandparent of modern chat programs and sites like Twitter.

I ended up somehow getting in contact with someone in Japan, and we sat and typed messages back and forth to each other, chatting about nothing in particular, while I felt in awe of the fact that someone was communicating
with me from the other side of the world.

It was painfully slow, but still an incredible experience most people take for granted these days where so many of us are constantly connected to each other through computers and cell phones and more.

As it happens, I actually was regularly using email (although through a system called a "BBS" which was not directly connected to the Internet about five years before that, putting me a good ten years ahead of when most people had even heard of it.

But the real pioneers were people like Leonard Kleinrock, who we all owe a debt of gratitude for -- if it wasn't for him and others like him, you wouldn't be reading this, and we wouldn't live in an age when people have greater opportunities to connect with others, make friends, keep in touch with loved ones, reach customers or find that perfect gift for yourself or someone you care about which you could never find at the local store.

Happy birthday, Internet!

Until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World

P.S. If you sometimes feel left out of the opportunities computers and the Internet offer, you might want to try out my easy, Plain English audio and video computer lessons, which are available for both Apple's Macs and Windows PCs.

Just use the form below to sign up for my free newsletter and member site to discover more of my lessons...

What Domain Name Means & What Web Hosting You Should Use

Understanding Domain Names & Web Hosting

In this article I'm going to define what a domain name is, explain what a web host is and give a few suggestions on how to choose one when you need it.

Let's start with the term domain name. We're not just going to talk about domain names themselves, but also "top level domain names" (TLDs) and "subdomains".

Not everyone understands what a domain name is, exactly, and some people don't understand it at all. That's OK if this is true for you.

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When you're looking at a website address, it typically has a format something like this:

www.worthgodwin.com/mac/

You'll notice is has a few sections to the address, so let's break it down into parts, using the above address as an example.

www -- this is the "subdomain" and despite popular beliefs, it is optional, and also does not have to be "www". "www" is by far the most common subdomain, but pretty much anything
could be a subdomain, or you can even leave it off in most cases.

worthgodwin -- in the above example, this is the actual domain name. Typically the domain name is the name of the business or organization that runs the site, or it is descriptive of what
the site is about.

If you are thinking about getting a domain name, it's a good idea to get one which has some of the key words you hope to have people find the site with. For example, if I had known years ago what I know now, I might have tried to get computertraining.com or something similar instead of using my own name. If I had, it might have given me a leg up when I first tried to get my site visible on Google and the other search engines.

.COM -- this is the "TLD" or top level domain name. .com is by far the most common, but there are many others. The TLD is supposed to give the visitor an idea what broad category the site should fit into. .Com means commercial, (although many non-commercial sites use it) .org is some kind of organization like a non-profit organization, etc.

Each country has it's own TLD, too, like .US for the United States, .UK for the United Kingdom, .IN for India, etc. Many of the TLDs are pretty casual -- i.e. you can use whatever you want, even if it's not an exact match for your type of site. But some of them are very carefully restricted, such as .GOV for US government, .MIL for military, .EDU for actual schools or universities, etc.

/mac/ -- the last part of the address above refers to a folder, just like a folder on your computer. This is normally used to indicate a specific section of the site, such as /mac/ would have information specific to Apple's Mac computers, while /windows/ would have Windows-specific information.

You can even have a folder within a folder (again, just like your own computer can have folders containing folders) and this can be used to break the section of the site down into subsections. Like /mac/software/ vs. /mac/hardware/ or something like that.

If you are setting up your own site, keeping it organized like this can help Google figure out what your site is about, and help you get the visitors you want.

Now lastly, what is a web host?

If you think of buying a domain name as being kind of like registering a business name, well a web host is like a landlord who rents out space for you (known as a hosting package) so you have a place to put your store.

It's not too complicated an idea to grasp when you think of it that way.

Now here's the thing: there are a lot of cheap web hosts out there, but if you are thinking about setting up a website, you want to go with a hosting company who will provide reliable service and who you will be able to get in touch with if you need help with something.

A lot of the cheap hosts are very flakey and unreliable, and their tech support staff leave a lot to be desired. Here is a link to one I'm recommending, and who I am in the process of switching to.

They are not cheap, but are still very reasonably priced, and offer a lot of great features other companies don't provide.

Because of some of these extra features, I'm actually going to be able to cancel accounts with at least two other companies I am currently paying for, and so I'm actually going to spend a lot less each month and have the convenience of getting everything in one place.

Click here to order quality web hosting now

If you've been thinking about setting up a website, I'd recommend signing up with them using the link. I am so pleased with everything they're doing, I'm going to be making lessons soon specifically on how to use their service, although they also provide a ton of training themselves!

One thing I should mention is that the company is an MLM company, although this had really nothing to do with why I decided to start using them.

I've never that interested in MLM myself, but a lot of people love it. So you can ignore the MLM aspect of it, or you can refer a couple of people you know to them and make enough to pay for your hosting costs, or you could refer more and make some extra cash in the process.

And yes, if you use the link I'm providing, I will make a small commission if you choose to order from them.

Entirely up to you, but I've been happy with them so far (unlike the company I was using) and there is a very impressive list of people I know of who are using them too, which says a lot.

Anyway, I hope that all made sense, and keep your eyes on your inbox for a new video lesson I'll be adding to my site soon.

until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World


P.S. Here's that link again, in case you missed it above:
Click here to order quality web hosting now



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How to Recognize Dangerous Sites & What to Do to Avoid Problems

Scroll down for video computer lesson on dangerous websites:

Unless you've been living a very sheltered life, you probably know that there are a lot of threats out there that can cause you big problems on your computer. And these problems often are not just limited to the computer, but can affect other areas of your life as well.

Long gone are the days when viruses, worms and other "malware" were designed by intelligent teenagers with too much time on their hands.

These days the people who make these dangerous programs are often bankrolled by criminal organizations who want to use your computer to steal from you or your friends and family, to join thousands of other infected computers to launch a "botnet" attack on a webite, or for various other reasons.

The bottom line is there are criminals who want to take advantage of vulnerabilities in your computer, or gaps in your own knowledge, to commit crimes.

The last thing those people want is knowledgeable and empowered computer users, but too bad for them!

I'm going to share with you today another one of my easy video computer lessons (which could easily save you from the embarrassment and dangers of having your computer infected or worse) by arming you with valuable knowledge.



The lesson will safely show you video of a real and dangerous website I ended up on one day which tried to infect my computer.

Fortunately, I recognized immediately what was going on, and I practice safe browsing habits, so I escaped unharmed.

I hate websites like that and the people behind them, so to spite them and to help protect you, I recorded this video lesson.

When you watch it, you will:

1. learn how to recognize common tactics used on those dangerous websites
   
   
2. What you should do if you run into one
   
   
3. What you must NEVER do if you are ever on one of those sites, or risk BIG problems (and the sites are all designed to trick you into doing this very thing)

And if you have friends or family who have computers, think of them and share this email with them so they can protect themselves too (it'll also protect you, too, since if their computer doesn't get infected, it's less likely to try to get yours!).

Until next time, take care, and be safe!

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World

P.S. Make sure you use the form below to join my newsletter and gain access to my free easy computer lesson Bronze Computer Club membership site with more valuable tips and lessons on avoiding problems and skyrocketing your skills!

Answer to Computer Question "Should I Upgrade to Snow Leopard?"

I'm writing this as a meal cooks on the stove in the next room; in about an hour or so I have to run out the door to head to the airport to pick up my friend Wendy who is visiting from the mainland.

But before I have to go I wanted to write a quick new newsletter about some new news -- earlier today it was announced that Apple will be releasing the brand new
version of Mac OS X -- version 10.6, a.k.a. "Snow Leopard" this Friday.

You may know that the new version of Windows, Windows 7 is coming out pretty soon too -- currently it's set for the 22nd of October.

In both cases, we're talking about a brand new version of the computer's "operating system" which is the underlying software needed to run the computer.

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Don't understand what an operating system is? Watch the easy video lesson in the "dictionary and computer concepts" area of my new member website. Not a member yet? Sign up for free using the form below this article!
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At times like these, I tend to get people asking me if it's a good idea to upgrade to the new version or not, so I thought I'd send out this newsletter to give my answer. My general advice with brand new versions of an OS -- whether that be a new version of Windows, or a new version of Apple's Mac OS X (that's a Roman numeral 10) is to wait a little while.

Now personally, I'm probably going to be pre-ordering my own copy of Snow Leopard (i.e. Mac OS 10.6) today or tomorrow so I get a copy on the release date, but as you might expect, I need to try these things out sooner than most people.

But for most people, I would say "don't rush into it".

This is because an operating system is a very complex piece of software, and this usually means that a brand new *major* version (i.e. going from any version of 10.5 to 10.6 is a major version, while 10.5.7 to 10.5.8 is a minor update which is free) will tend to have a few issues to work out that could cause problems for people.

This is unavoidable, and Apple is pretty good about getting most of the major issues worked out quickly. So most likely, we'll be seeing OS 10.6.1 coming out pretty soon, and around then would be when I suggest people who are interested make the change.

In contrast is Microsoft with their new versions of Windows.

As you know if you've been reading my newsletter for a while, I'm no fan of Windows Vista, the last major version of Windows to be released.

It has had so many issues that I *still* tell people to avoid getting it if at all possible. Usually for Windows I tell people to wait about a year to let them work out all of the bugs and other issues, but it seems that Microsoft has given up and decided to release an entirely new version (Windows 7) instead of fixing Vista.

In fact, they consider it to be the fix to Vista. No matter that they're going to charge you for a brand new version to fix the bad one you may have been suffering with.

Speaking of pricing, how much will it cost?

Well, the new version of Windows 7 when it's released will cost you between $119.99 and $319.99 depending on which version you get.

Microsoft tends to release multiple different versions of Windows with varying capabilities (which can often be unclear and confusing).

Apple on the other hand tends make things more simple by releasing just one new version of Mac OS X, which traditionally is a bit less than a new version of Windows.

This time, however, they're making it *really* inexpensive at a mere $29!

The caveat on this is that $29 is an upgrade price from OS 10.5 (Leopard). If you have 10.4 still, you will need to pay for both 10.5 and 10.6 (Leopard & Snow Leopard) which will run you about $169.

And there's one other requirement: you need to have an Intel-based Mac to run Snow Leopard. You can find out if you have one by going to About This Mac from the Apple Menu and if it mentions Intel, you're OK.

So if you have an older PowerPC based Mac (like a G4 or G5) then you will not be able to upgrade.

This happens about once every 10 years or so when Apple moves ahead and leaves older computers behind. This can be frustrating to computer users, but generally I agree with the policy as it can avoid a lot of problems.

Anyway, I'd better inhale my food and run out the door or I'll be late picking up my friend from the airport!

I just wanted to keep you up to date with what was going on in the computer world since I'll be playing host for the next few days and may not have had another chance to write this before she leaves.

until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World

What CPU Is in Plain English

Watch this video where I define CPU in Plain English, or read the computer lesson transcription below

Here is a transcription of the above video:

In this lesson, I want to talk a little bit about the computer term “CPU,” which is short for “central processing unit.” It’s also sometimes just referred to as “the processor.”

A lot of people don’t really understand this term, so I’m going to use some very simple, plain-English ways of explaining it that should make a lot of sense, much more than what you’ve probably heard before.

I’m also going to talk a little bit about why it is that over time, your computer seems to be slower or what once used to be a really good computer now seems to be a low-end computer.

I’m going to help you understand a little bit more about the CPU. Once you understand this, you can better choose the right computer for you, depending on how you use it.

First off, I have a CPU right here. It’s this little chip. It’s not really that complicated-looking. It’s just a flat square, and it has a little thing in the center that has white stuff around it. That’s just a paste that’s needed. Right in the center, there is that little rectangular part. That itself is really the CPU. The whole thing is, but that’s the central part of the CPU.

Underneath, there are a bunch of pins. Each pin looks sort of like a short sewing needle or something. It’s about as big around as a sewing needle, but it’s a couple of millimeters long.
This thing plugs into what’s called the “motherboard” or “main logic board,” as they’re called on Macs. It’s like the central nervous system of a computer. This is like the brain.

On top of that, there’s this thing called a “heat sink.” There’s a fan which keeps the processor cool because the more it’s working, the more effort it’s putting into whatever you’re doing and the more it heats up.

It’s like when we exercise. We get warm. Our bodies sweat and the evaporation of our sweat cools us off. It’s sort of the same idea. The more we exercise, the more we tend to sweat because the hotter we’ve become.

You can think about the CPU as a brain because it is the closest equivalent to a brain in a computer. It’s the part that does the thinking, although not literally, but it seems like it’s thinking.

Another way of thinking about it is to think of it like muscles. A computer that has a low-end processor, not one of the fastest ones on the market, is like that stereotypical 98-pound weakling. A high-end CPU is sort of like a Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger, someone who is very strong, maybe takes steroids and is very big and muscular.

Think about those two people, the 98-pound weakling and the bodybuilder. If either one of those two people carries a book across a room, there’s no real advantage to being a bodybuilder. Either one of them can easily carry a book across a room.

However, if the person is instead trying to carry a big, 100-pound bag of cement, the 98-pound weakling might not be able to get across the room or might not even be able to pick it up. If they can make it across the room, they’re probably going to stagger slowly and barely make it across because they’re trying to do something that’s just too heavy and too big for them to do.

The bodybuilder, on the other hand, will probably notice that the weight is more than a book, but they’re going to be able to carry it across the room much more easily than the 98-pound weakling.

That’s how you want to think about it. A high-end computer is like the bodybuilder. Your average-level computer is not the 98-pound weakling, but is like a normal, average person who is not particularly muscular. They could easily carry a book across a room, but couldn’t very easily, if at all, carry that huge bag of cement.

What’s the cement? What’s the book? Let me give you some examples. Most people are doing a few things with their computer. They’re writing, using a word processor like Word, or reading their emails.

They’re looking at web pages, listening to some music, watching some little video like a DVD or looking at some photographs. Those are average things. Those are equivalent to carrying a book or something light across a room. Any modern computer can do those things.

Things like editing video, making a DVD movie with footage that you’ve shot with your camcorder, or making changes to a large, super-high-quality photograph from a high-end professional camera which takes bigger, higher-quality photographs than a pocket-size digital camera, are bigger-end, heavier tasks for the computer to work with.

Another example would be playing a high-end computer game. Those activities are more like carrying that big bag of cement, so they do need a high-end computer.

When you are buying a computer, you want to ask yourself what kinds of things you are doing. Are you doing the typical everyday things like checking email, web browsing and that sort of thing? If your answer to that is yes and that’s all you’re really doing, your average, everyday computer is just going to be fine.

On the other hand, if you’re going to be doing a lot of video editing, a lot of work with large photographs and things like that, not just occasional work but a lot of work, you definitely want to get a high-end computer.

You also need a high-end computer if you’re a die-hard gamer. I don’t mean a card game like Solitaire. I mean a high-end computer game where you’re going through a virtual world and there are lots of details around you. Everything is moving very quickly. It's so detailed that it’s almost like looking through the eyes of someone walking around in the real world.

That should give you a general rule of thumb as to whether or not you want to get a high-end computer. There is one other side thing. I would recommend not getting a super-cheap computer. It may seem like you’re saving money if you get a computer for $300 $400, $500, or $600.

Chances are though, if you’re buying it from a brand name, it may actually be defective. I’m not kidding about this. I’m not going to name specific names. Apple is one company that does not do this, but other companies do. If you’re thinking of a computer company name other than Apple, chances are that it’s probably one that does this.

One particular company that does this is one of the most popular computer companies out there. They’ll buy processors cheaply that they know don’t work. They slow them down and hope they won’t break down, which obviously is not a good thing to do for their customers.

If you get a decent, average computer, it’s going to be fine for any of your everyday activities. Your high-end computer is for your higher-end things like I talked about.

The last thing I want to talk about is why, over time, what used to be a powerful computer goes from being Charles Atlas to being a 98-pound weakling.

It’s because the new versions of programs, like Word or your operating system, tend to be more complicated. These are systems like Windows Vista compared to Windows XP or OS X Leopard compared to OS X Tiger. They are not necessarily more complicated to use, but under the hood they are.

You can think of them as becoming heavier over time. The average weight has gotten greater over the years so that what used to be light and easy for an older computer is now heavy and harder to do.

I hope that makes sense. If you have any more questions and you subscribe to my newsletter, just reply to any email and I’d be happy to answer your question.

What Cookies Are and How Cookies Work - Should You Delete Them All?

Below is a transcript of a segment from one of my monthly live computer question & answer audio classes where I answer a question about whether you should delete cookies from your computer. In the lesson I explain what cookies are and give a non-technical explanation of how cookies work. You can also listen to the original audio using the play button below.



There is a problem with deleting cookies. Let me take a side step here and explain what cookies are because a lot of people don’t really understand them. They hear that cookies are bad, but they’re not necessarily. Let me give you a couple of examples and help you understand what they are.

A cookie is a small file. When you go to a website, it will place a tiny file on your hard drive. Many websites, including my own, www.Amazon.com and many legitimate sites do this. It doesn’t have any detailed information in it, but it has something like a customer ID number or something along those lines.

Let’s use the example of Amazon. If I go back to Amazon, it will say, “Welcome back, Worth. Here are some things we think you’d be interested in.” It’s used to give the feeling of going into a local store where the guy behind the counter recognizes you.

He or she tells you about the things you were asking about last week that are in now. They give you more of a personal experience. That’s a perfectly legitimate and harmless use for cookies.

On my own site, if I ever send someone an electronic coupon, it uses a cookie. If you have cookies disabled or if you’ve deleted the cookie, then you lose the coupon and don’t get the discount.

If I have an ad on a website, I will keep track of the ads I’m running. I can tell if 100 people have come from that ad and 15 people signed up for my newsletter and so on. It helps me keep track of my advertising costs. It’s a harmless use for a cookie.

That wouldn’t have any negative side effect if you had cookies blocked for you. It just wouldn’t let me keep track of my advertising dollars. Those are on the harmless end of the spectrum for cookies.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have what are called “tracking” cookies. These cookies are not damaging to your computer, but they invade your privacy.

Imagine that I’m browsing from one website to another. I go to Website 1, Website 2, Website 3 and so on. When I go the first one, it has a banner ad, one of those ads that write across the top of the website. It takes up the width of the web page.

Let’s say it’s an ad that is coming from www.DoubleClick.com. That’s an advertising company and website. They put up an ad, any type of ad from refinancing your home to whatever. When I go to the website, the ad, not the website itself per se but the ad, puts a cookie on my hard drive. It says, “Worth has been to this website.”

I click on another site and another one, and I end up on Website 6 which also has a banner ad. It might not be the same ad, but it’s coming from the same company. It will look for a cookie on my hard drive. It will find the cookie, so they will know I was on Website 1 and now am on Website 6.

As I go on to more sites, as long as I leave that cookie there or allow that cookie to be placed in the first place, they can build a profile of the types of websites I am interested in. Then they start targeting the ads a little more. If I click on an ad, that even targets it even more.

It’s the equivalent of having someone trailing you as you drive around town. You go into the grocery store and then the bank, the bookstore or whatever, and they’re snooping. It’s an invasion of privacy.

That’s the bad end of the spectrum for cookies. If you use the option in your web browser to delete cookies, it is going to wipe out all of the cookies, good AND bad.

For example, you might go to a website that had remembered you, and now it doesn’t remember you anymore. This may not matter for a lot of websites, but it will for others.

That’s the gist of what I was going to talk about what cookies are and how cookies work.

Discover: Free How-To Computer Club Membership Site

Introducing my brand-new Easy Video Lessons Computer Club membership site -- now available at not only the paid Gold Computer Club Membership Level, but also the lifetime free Bronze Computer Club Membership Level.

Watch the video above for a quick tour of the free level of membership, then take a sneak peek at what you'll get when you upgrade to the Gold Computer Club Membership Level (free 40-day trial membership to the Gold Club comes with any order of my CDs).

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Password Help: Choosing a Good Password

The following is a transcript of an answer to a computer question taken from one of my monthly live computer Q&A events:I want to give you a couple of guidelines when you’re setting passwords. There are a lot of mistakes I see people make with passwords.

My “5 Common and Costly Computer Mistakes” CD is thrown in free with all my bundles. Anybody who has ordered CDs from me has this. One of the five mistakes I see people make is with their passwords. I’ll go into a brief description, but it’s not as detailed as on the CD.

You want to follow some guidelines. One, for example, would be to not use the same password for everything. I know it’s easier to remember, but it’s also an easy way to get into your stuff.

You have to think of passwords like keys. I would hope you would not use the same key for your house, car, post office box and safety deposit box. If someone gets one of the keys, they can unlock your life.

In addition to not using the same password over and over again, which I see people do all the time, you need to use a hard password. A “strong” password is the term. This is a more complicated one.

I want to go back to my analogy of a password being like a key. The type of passwords I see most people using tend to be simple, regular words that you find in the dictionary or a person’s name.
In a recent email, I told a story about how 10 or 12 years ago, I was working at a computer shop in upstate New York where I used to live. Someone brought in their laptop. When I flipped the thing open and turned it on, I was somewhat dismayed to find that it had a password lock on it, which was pretty uncommon at the time.

She hadn’t bothered to tell anybody that there was a password. I couldn’t get in without it, but it also happened to have “If lost, return to Lisa,” or whatever her first name was, and the address. When I saw that, the very first thing I typed in was her first name, and that was the password. Not only did she use her own name as the password, but she also had it printed right on the screen.

I guessed on literally the first try. If I had been a criminal, or if someone had stolen the laptop and made the same guess, they would have had full access to everything on the computer.
It’s really important to use a strong password. The general guideline suggested for this is to make it long, and the longer it is, the better. You want a mix of letters and numbers. Get it as far away from a regular word that you might find in the dictionary as you possibly can. Mix uppercase and lowercase letters in a random way and even put in symbols like an exclamation point.

This will create a much stronger password. You might be thinking, “Why do I need to worry about my password? Who is going to target my information? Who’s going to target my computer?”

You can’t think of it that way because criminals these days use the internet. They use the internet and programs on the computers to commit crimes just the way that they used a lock pick in the past.

If you think of a computer as like a house, these programs are like a burglar. They can basically clone themselves a thousand times over and go to every single house in a dozen neighborhoods all at the same time.

They try every single door to see if there is no lock on the door. In other words, there is no password. They look to see if it has a bad, weak lock or an old-fashioned type of lock, both of which, of course, are easy to pick.

To use my key analogy, if you have a weak password, it’s like having a really old-fashioned key in an old-fashioned lock, like something they had 150 years ago. The reason they make different keys now, smaller and more complicated, is to make them harder to pick.

It’s the same idea with your password. They use these things called “brute-force password cracks.” They are little programs that basically try all the words in the dictionary starting with common ones. They run through them a thousand times in a minute on each computer, on a thousand computers at once.

It doesn’t have to be targeted, but you can still have your privacy violated or identity theft done on your computer if you’re not protecting it properly. There’s a whole series of things you can do to protect it, including adding a firewall and doing a lot of other things, which I deliberately included on my CDs, and I talk about them in my newsletter and so forth.

That’s a few suggestions on choosing a good password.

Beware Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett Malware Scam

In this article I want to give you a warning about a threat that's going on right now, trying to take advantage of everyone's interest in the Michael Jackson death, as well as the death of Farrah Fawcett.

As you no doubt have heard, both "The King of Pop" Michael Jackson as well as former Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett have passed away.

What does this have to do with computers? Well, a lot in this case.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of very unscrupulous people out there who like to take advantage of major news events such as the death of a beloved star to try to infect your computer or
cause you other problems.

I want to give you a few tips to avoid being taken advantage of, to help protect you from the "Michael Jackson malware scam" and similar ones that will inevitably come in the future.

First thing to remember, is if you get a random email with attached files or links to strange websites that comes from an unknown email address, the safest thing to do is to delete it immediately, or if your email program has a "junk" or "spam" button, use that.

Keep in mind that some viruses and worms will harvest email addresses from an infected computer, and so will "spoof" the return address to look like one of those people in the address book in the hopes of tricking you into thinking it's from someone you know!

I suggest reading any email with a link in it before clicking the link and ask yourself "does this sound like them?"

If the wording in the email just doesn't read like the apparent sender's "voice", then it might not have been sent by someone you know, even if it says their name in the return address field.

If you use a Windows computer (i.e. most any computer made by Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. *other* than Apple) then remember it is *very* important to avoid using Microsoft Internet Explorer (the blue "E" that so many people still use to view web sites).

It has been proven over and over to be highly vulnerable to what is called a "drive by download" where a program is installed on your computer without your permission. Especially if you're using an older version like IE 6 (Internet Explorer 6, which many people still make the mistake of using).

Instead, I recommend using Mozilla's Firefox. It is a free download from Mozilla.com, and I cover step-by-step how to download, install it, and use it safely in my Ultimate Beginners Bundle for Windows (see red button on right for ordering).

If you have one of Apple's Macs, you are at much much less risk from these threats than Windows users, *BUT* you are not 100% safe.

While there are no viruses and worms out there at this time for Mac computers, there are some "trojans", which I talked about recently. These damaging programs are like the famous Trojan Horse from the Trojan War -- no matter how safe the walls were protecting the City of Troy, it didn't matter when people went outside those walls and brought the horse inside, allowing the hidden threat of the Greeks within the horse to make a sneak attack.

Trojans on a computer work the same way -- you let them in -- and even though there are only a handful of them that attack Macs, and there are thousands out there that attack Windows
computers, it only takes one!

Trojans trick you into installing them on your computer by luring you with some "hook" to get your interest. In some cases it's an adult video that says you need to install special software to view it, or in other cases it's major news stories like those of Jackson and Fawcett.

So remember, be cautious when opening links in emails, or anywhere since these things target not just email but everywhere they can including social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook.

Basically they go where the people are -- but understand I'm not suggesting for a moment that you stop using email, social networking sites or anything like that. That would be like me
telling you to never cross the street, when all you need to do is make sure you look both ways before crossing!

And remember these kinds of threats can start circulating for any major news story -- just because I was using the example of the Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett deaths doesn't mean this is the first time this has happened, and it certainly isn't the last.

So until next time, stay safe, take care, and enjoy,
Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity for This Complex Modern World

P.S. if you would like to learn more about avoiding problems, staying safe, and becoming more confident and skilled with your Windows PC or Apple Mac, you may click the following link to
learn more about my basic computer training CDs

or call my toll-free number 24 hours a day at
1 (888) 883-7698

The Ultimate Beginners Bundle gives you the most complete set of lessons covering the Web, email, safety and security and a LOT more on 21 easy Plain English CDs, or if you want a cheaper
alternative, the Starter Plus Pack will get you going with 3 easy CDs.

P.P.S. The toll-free number above is for orders only and they can't answer a lot of questions about my CDs, and definitely can't answer computer questions! If you have a question you
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