PC Curb

Referring to Windows XP;

Files will still remain on your computer after you delete them and empty the recycle bin. These files can be recovered with particular software. Of course, there are pros and cons to this. People wanting to delete private data cannot easily do so and people who accidently remove wanted data (family photos etc.) can sometimes recover them.

-Programs to permanently delete files include:

File Shredder is a great freeware program used to prevent easy recovery of files. The program shreds files by rewriting them with random series of binary data multiple times. Although this is not a sure way to permanently remove a file, it is a lot safer than sending a file to the recycle bin and emptying it.

-Programs to recover files.

A freeware program called Office Recovery can be downloaded from here.

A trial version of Diskeeper can be downloaded here.

Recover My Files has a trial version but you cannot successfully recover anything without purchasing. More information can be found here.

As you can see this screensaver looks great and is appropriate for any PC location. Download it for free here.

How to install:

Extract the .scr file from the .zip file.

Place it into your system folder. For XP it is located here:

C:\WINDOWS\system32

Then right click somewhere on the desktop, click properties, display properties window and activate the screensaver called Cyclone. Enjoy

Anti- Virus software is a necessity for Windows computers surfing the web these days. The internet contains a large potential of viruses that can harm your computer, and you need a way to stay protected.

For free protection against viruses, try ONE of the following programs. These are the best free applications available.
– AVG Free Edition

– Avast

– PCTools Anti-Virus

For free anti-spyware software try any of the following. These are all very successful with removing spyware.

–AVG Anti Spyware

– Spybot Search and Destroy

– Windows Defender

No matter what program you use, remember it is important to update the software as much as possible. This is because new viruses are released all the time and your program needs to update with new defenses against them.

Running a scan on startup is not recommended because it can be very frustrating and slows down your boot time. Try to run a scan every few days to a week to keep your computer clean.

For video editing, Windows Movie Maker is very appropriate for most people, however it does have glitches and can be very laggy/slow when working with large files. There are not many other free video editing programs. So if you are looking to pay you could try; Pinnacle Studio, ULead Video Studio or Vegas. Nero has great video editing features, however you may only be able to save your work as a DVD format. Nero costs money but I recommend you try out their 30 day trial, and test out how useful their software is.

Nero can also burn DVDs, but it recommended you have a lot of RAM in your PC, otherwise Nero will take hours and hours to copy one disc. For backing up DVD discs, DVD Shrink is the way to go. It is a great tool, it’s small in file size and easy to use.

Download Nero trial version here.

Windows Media Player is one of the best and most widely used media players. It has a great interface and very attractive visualizations. It has a library feature for organizing music files etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx

iTunes is used best when organizing music as it allows you to arrange songs by artist, album, song name etc. Although it can, it is rarely used for playing other media files like videos. iTunes is the only software that can be used to sync songs to an iPod.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

VLC Player is a great little program that plays the widest range of file formats. If you ever download a song or video in a format that won’t open with Windows Media Player or any others, there’s a good chance VLC Player will be able to play it. It’s free so give it a go.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Winamp is a popular media player with a lot of good reviews. It has a variety of cool looking themes and skins for it and is free to download.

http://www.winamp.com/