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Over the past few years, we have been advocating the use of AVG Anti-Virus Free for personal use. While this solution is still viable, it’s always good to take a look at the ever-changing world of malware protection and reevaluate our approach.

Recently, we’ve revisited the analysis around the Web and found that a new free anti-virus product is leading the charts with performance. Avira AntiVir Personal has received many accolades over the course of 2009.

It’s easy to find several reviews that make this product superior.
Here are a few prominent examples:

• PC World (August 2009)
• CNET (April 2009)
• About.com
• AV-Comparatives (a great independent source)

Some reviews focus on the Premium version of the software, which is a paid subscription, but the anti-virus engine is the same in the free version. Those reviews should not be discounted, as the Premium version just has a few extra features.

We’ve been testing Avira AntiVir Personal here, in our office, and it runs quietly, quickly and has kept our computers protected.
We are running it on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 with no issues.

The only “con” we noticed, is a daily pop-up ad for the paid version of Avira that we disabled with these instructions.

Have questions? Please leave a comment.

I feel like I just finished getting used to Windows Vista, and now here’s another version of Windows to explore. But, what’s the point?

As many of you may know, Windows Vista has been labeled a “nightmare” by many individuals and businesses. As such, Windows XP remains on many computers and those that have Vista either love it or hate it.

So, why is Microsoft pushing Windows 7 so soon after Vista? They want to fix the mistakes they made. Of all the issues that Vista has, the main improvements in Windows 7 are noted as being:

• Speed: Booting up your computer is supposedly going to be faster and more streamlined. I can’t wait to see this. My portable computer is sluggish for many reasons, but the heavy load time for Vista doesn’t help.

• User Account Control (UAC): In Vista, this is probably the most annoying thing ever. It’s hard to turn off and even if you do, it bugs you to turn it on. UAC is supposed to protect your computer from programs accessing your system without your permission (such as viruses or spyware). In the process, it drives you nuts. It will still be an option in Windows 7, but changing the settings is MUCH easier.

• Simpler Networking Settings:  If you’re trying to set up a network, Vista can be a little cumbersome. Windows 7 has some new features that make settings more accessible. This is going to be very helpful for me and my eight computers that run various version of Windows.

Windows 7 is currently in beta. This means that the latest version is not available to the retail marketplace yet and is still being tested. You can download the beta if you want to try it out, but make sure you install it on a computer you don’t care about. The beta limited to a specific number of users, so if you’re interested in trying it, download it now.

As always, ResQTek is happy to answer questions about Windows 7. Drop us a line!

I think everyone has seen a message in their inbox like this:

Just because someone writes “McAfee” or “Norton AntiVirus” inside their message, it does not mean that anything in their message is factual. How can you tell? Take three minutes, and check on it before you forward it to your entire e-mail address book and clog up everyone else’s inbox.

Here are some places to check when you’re unsure if something is a hoax:

• Symantec Threat Explorer
• McAfee Virus Hoaxes
• Sophos Hoaxes

And, of course, you can always contact ResQTek, too.

Everyone wants their computer and/or computer network to be secure, but by forwarding these messages blindly, you’re just giving underserved attention to something that should simply be deleted. When in doubt, check it out. And you pretty much should always be in doubt.

I see it all the time:  A bug caused by a query that is searching on dates in an SQL database.
Date/time logic is tricky, and deserves a little spotlight to prevent problems.

Take these two SQL statements (SQL Server syntax), for example:

1. select * from sales
   where datediff(dd,scanDate,getdate()) between 1 and 7
    
2. select * from sales
   where scanDate between dateadd(day, -7, getdate()) AND dateadd(day, -1, getdate())
    

At first glance, they might appear functionally equivalent.  One might even argue that query #2 is faster because SQL server can cache the result of the two dateadd function calls. Then, it can use that result for the comparison to every row of the table, while query #1 has to call datediff for every row.

But, a closer look will reveal that query #2 is factoring in time of day, and query #1 is not!

When looking at a report generated by query#2 at 9:00am expecting to see all the items sold in the previous 7 days, only items sold in the last 7 days up until 9:00am of the prior day are displayed. This is very different from the first query, which will return all the sales for all 7 of the days, regardless of the timestamp. Be sure of which results set you’re expecting and code it accordingly.

So, there you have it. Just a little Date/time logic for SQL to help prevent unnecessary chaos.

Microsoft hosts a very comprehensive website that includes very helpful information about Windows Vista. If you have a Vista-based computer, or would like to get one, perusing this site is recommended.

The Windows help website includes step-by-step instructions on how to perform many tasks. Everything from security to desktop wallpaper is detailed. You can also browse Windows XP topics and sign up for the Windows newsletter.

Get more out of your computer and learn something new!

With holiday deals right around the corner, you might be considering another computer purchase. No, not to replace your existing computer, but a new computer that serves a different purpose.

Maybe the new machine will handle games and media — or maybe it’ll be for office work. Either way, you will definitely want to network your computers to enable data and peripheral sharing. For example, more than one machine can share a printer and/or data files.

With Windows XP, it’s easy to connect your computers and stay organized. More on how to network your computers can be found on Microsoft’s website, here.

What’s the best way to back up your computer files? You have a few choices here: burn a CD/DVD, use a flash drive or connect another hard drive. Keep in mind that all media can fail. Even CDs can corrupt with multiple rewrites, get scratched, and be run over by the ice-cream truck. If maintained properly, all types of media are similarly reliable.

However you decide to back up your files, the most important detail is frequency. Back up daily, weekly — as often as you like, but consistently. The Windows XP Backup utility allows for archive scheduling. Read more about this utility.

CD/DVD…
This is a good choice, as the CDs themselves are relatively inexpensive and can hold a lot of information. If your drive supports it, RW (rewritable) disks should be used. The thing to watch out for here are brand names that are incompatible with your hardware. As a general rule, media “Made in Japan” is usually a safe bet. Store the CDs in place away from heat and water, and you’re in business. If you don’t have a CD or DVD burner, read on.

USB Flash Drive…
Very portable. Very reasonably priced. Very versatile. Take it everywhere, plug it in anywhere, write, rewrite, format, whatever. These drives are up to about 4GB now and not terribly expensive at all. Any machine with a USB port can use one. This is a good choice if you are excellent at keeping small items from getting lost in the shuffle. That’s the only downside that I can think of, as these drives are usually only a couple of inches long.

Hard Disk Drive…
Tons of music files? Photos? Consider this: buy a second hard drive and install it inside your computer OR connect an external hard drive. Storage capacity here beats all of the above. Speed is also on your side with the hard drive. It costs the most and isn’t terribly portable, but it’s great for a serious archive. Failure rates exist, but the chance that BOTH of your hard drives will bite the big one at the same time is very slim to none. I trust my entire music and photo collection to two hard drives. I’ll run out of space eventually and get new ones. (I already don’t expect them to last forever).

There’s a lot of talk around Windows Vista, the next version of the Microsoft Windows operating system. As a technology professional, I’m obligated to research this application and discover its advantages and disadvantages.

I’ll be using the beta version of Windows Vista. This means that I will install a pre-release or test version of the application and can evaluate it on my own computer. Fortunately, I have a spare computer to install it on. The stability of the program remains to be seen and potentially compromising my work PC is not an option.

In the end, I expect to know if the new version is worth upgrading to. I’m sure I will on at least one of my computers, as a few features have already peaked my interest, without even seeing it yet:

• Windows Backup — improved interface for backing up and restoring data files
• Networking — simplifying home and business networks with the same utility
• New Explorers — helping to categorize my files so I can quickly navigate to documents, music, photos and other grouped file types without laboriously searching through folders.

More information about Windows Vista can be found on Microsoft’s website.

I’m seeing more and more people gathering up all of their digital media and putting it in one place: on a computer. Then, they hook the computer up to a gimungous LCD monitor and the games begin!

What’s the point? Well, if you’re like me, you have lots of music mp3s, lots of photos, and you like to record television shows. What’s nice is that a home theater pc (HTPC) can store all of this media in one place, allowing you to manage a large archive.

In essence, your HTPC becomes a jukebox, a movie theater, a tv recorder, and a slideshow projector. Plus, you can share all these things with other computers in your household, or portable devices, while maintaining a centralized and secure collection of your files.

Very efficient! And fun! Read more information about HTPCs here.

I’m recycling this information, because it’s been the most popular post to date. The following entry is taken from January 24, 2006:

There are actually quite a few names for the things that can infest your computer and render it inoperable, but we just like to call it all “spyware” and get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Since there are so many different types of malicious software, naturally there are many different tools for removing them. We like to start with what costs the least, and for home users we mean $0.00!

Your best chance for survival is to start with Windows XP SP2. From there, the items below (when used together) help to protect your machine. Many websites and downloads transfer harmful things to your computer, and even with the best tools you can still do a lot of damage by visiting questionable sites and running downloaded programs of unknown origin.

Here’s our hotlist of helpful tools:

• Windows Defender
• Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE
• AVG Anti-Virus

We’ve noted that older versions of Windows are particularly vulnerable and, if you can, an upgrade to XP is the best way to start fresh with the best chance for survival.