Careful where you surf…

As you know, I like to explore and look around, well today I spent two hours re-scanning my Pc due to a Trojan that just jumped in as I entered a site.  Unfortunately, I can’t report the url for you to avoid as it’s gone.  I’m a cautious surfer.  I’ve had to remedy too many systems at the office not to be.  But today I got stung.

Just to remind everyone.  Take the time and get a back up system going.  Supervise and double check the first one to make sure you didn’t forget anything.  You can usually set it up to run overnight, so it doesn’t interfere with your activities.  Back up to DVD.  There’s a lot of storage on one of those puppies.  4.7 gigs.

Back up your data.  It’s not usually necessary to backup your programs as you have them on the originals or on cd’s etc.

Back up your email - There are nice little programs, they’ll do your emails and your favourites.

Practice a restore, so you know what you’re doing if disaster ever strikes.

Copy a directory of data to a specific location.  Back it up.  Erase the directory and try to restore it to make sure everything goes as planned.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to that extent today, as my Anti-Virus took care of things.  But shit happens.  It doesn’t have to be from a Virus, it could be a Hard Drive crash.  That’s usually an 8 hour job.  Restoring OS, Programs, Restore Data, configure internet and stuff.  But if you are well prepared, at least there is minimal lost.

If you have an Anti-Virus, which I hope you do, make sure it has the most recent, up to date signatures.

If you operate, on line systems, like blogs, message boards etc, you should download your back ups and make them part of your regular routine.  Database at least.