How to use a shared PC

      As for some of those times when all you have brought with you is just your smart phone and you need access to a PC. In every techies mind using a public computer can feel as disgusting as a port-a-potty not like dirt everywhere but cluttered with malware, someone not logging out of their email or the most popular someone downloading useless programs and toolbars. In this post I want to show you what to do you avoid those problems and potential risks of your account being taken.
 
      1. Use safe mode as it does not run excess programs like tool bars so if you know that the PC is free but is bloated give safe mode a try. However the downside to safe mode is that fine tuned malware can still run or block other programs.  To get into safe mode on a Windows PC after the bios has loaded press F8 repeatedly then press enter on safe mode with networking.
 
       2. Use a virtual environment this is one of the most secure methods of using another PC however if you are using another user account which does not allow executable files this method is useless. One program to use to prevent potential malware is Sandboxie as it runs programs and files in a virtual environment. You should use this method if you are doing potential risky things to prevent the spread onto other computers and prebvent man in the middle attacks
      3. Boot from something other than the boot drive like a DVD or USB drive. Certain Linux distros allow you to boot and try the operating system directly from the drive without even touching another drive. You will want to keep in mind as public computers can have a policy to prevent users from doing this as thus has been said consider your self warned.

Norton irritates user

     

               This is a follow up on a small article I felt it was interesting because the popular software company Symantec sued as a scareware seller. The article can be found in Maximum PC magazine the March 2011 issue.

               

                A man claims that Norton Utilities said made his PC full of privacy issue and continued to display them while he was using his PC. Also as a PC user I feel that Norton constantly aggravated me for multiple things how when it would constantly bug me about potential malware on my PC that didn't exist and the fact that unistalling the software completely requires me to download their own program to completely “remove” their program and before removing the program it literally want to to enter a code to verify which bugs me and makes me wonder about the numerous IT professionals having to maintenance hundereds of computers and having to enter a code for every single would become very time consuming. 

          

              

               The man states that Symantec uses these warnings to trick their users to purchase licences for their products. With Symantec's popular Norton AntiVirus when a trial is activated the program constantly harasses it's users to upgrade their license and if you wait you are hit with a annoyance every hour it minimizes full screen applications and makes the user want to quit using their computer completely until the program is fully unistalled which requires another Symantec program which users don't know if it putting more registry keys onto the computer.