What is Spyware Virus and Antivirus

Spyware is compuyter software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user'sinformed consent

While the term spyware suggests software that secretly monitors the user's behavior, the functions of spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habits, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting Web browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party spuware can even change computer setting, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs. In an attempt to increase the understanding of spuware, a more formal classification of its incaluded software types is captured under the term privacy-invasive software.

In response to the emergence of spyware, a small industry has sprung up dealing in anti spyware software. Running anti-spyware software has become a widely recognized element of computer security best practices for Microsoft Windows desktop computers. A number of jurisdictions have passed anti-spyware laws, which usually target any software that is surreptitiously installed to control a user's computer. The US Federal Trade Commission has placed on the Internet page of advice to consumers about how to lower the risk of spyware infection, including a list of "dos" and "don'ts.

Boot sector virus repair

What is a boot sector? All disks and hard drives are divided into small sectors. The first sector is called the boot sector and contains the Master Boot Record (MBR). The MBR contains the information concerning the location of partitions on the drive and reading of the bootable operating system partition. During the bootup sequence on a DOS-based PC, the BIOS searches for certain system files, IO.SYS and MS-DOS.SYS. When those files have been located, the BIOS then searches for the first sector on that disk or drive and loads the needed Master Boot Record information into memory. The BIOS passes control to a program in the MBR which in turn loads IO.SYS. This latter file is responsible for loading the remainder of the operating system.

What is a boot sector virus? A boot sector virus is one that infects the first sector, i.e. the boot sector, of a floppy disk or hard drive. Boot sector viruses can also infect the MBR. The first PC virus in the wild was Brain, a boot sector virus that exhibited stealth techniques to avoid detection. Brain also changed the volume label of the disk drive.

How to avoid boot sector viruses. Commonly, infected floppies and subsequent boot sector infections result from "shared" diskettes and pirated software applications. It is relatively easy to avoid boot sector viruses. Most are spread when users inadvertently leave floppy disks in the drive - which happen to be infected with a boot sector virus. The next time they boot up their PC, the virus infects the local drive. Most systems allow users to change the boot sequence so that the system always attempts to boot first from the local hard drive (C:\) or CD-ROM drive.

Disinfecting boot sector viruses. Boot sector repair is best accomplished by the use of antivirus software. Because some boot sector viruses encrypt the MBR, improper removal can result in a drive that is inaccessible. However, if you are certain the virus has only affected the boot sector and is not an encrypting virus, the DOS SYS command can be used to restore the first sector. Additionally, the DOS LABEL command can be used to restore a damaged volume label and FDISK /MBR will replace the MBR. None of these methods is recommended, however. Antivirus software remains the best tool for cleanly and accuarately removing boot sector viruses with minimal threat to data and files.

Creating a system disk. When disinfecting a boot sector virus, the system should always be booted from a known clean system disk. On a DOS-based PC, a bootable system disk can be created on a clean system running the exact same version of DOS as the infected PC. From a DOS prompt, type:

SYS C:\ A:\

and press enter. This will copy the system files from the local hard drive (C:\) to the floppy drive (A:\).

If the disk has not been formatted, the use of FORMAT /S will format the disk and transfer the necessary system files. On Windows 3.1x systems, the disk should be created as described above for DOS-based PC's. On Windows 95/98/NT systems, click Start | Settings | Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs and choose the Startup Disk tab. Then click on "Create Disk". Windows 2000 users should insert the Windows 2000 CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, click Start | Run and type the name of the drive followed by bootdisk\makeboot a: and then click OK. For example:

d:\bootdisk\makeboot a:

Follow the screen prompts to finish creating the bootable system disk. In all cases, after the creation of the bootable system disk, the disk should be write protected to avoid infection.

Learn PhotoShop Online - Basic PhotoShop Tutorials for PhotoShop Interface

If you're trying to learn PhotoShop online from PhotoShop Tutorials , the best place to start is with the graphic user interface (GUI). PhotoShop’s GUI is broken into five sections that are presented in this PhotoShop Basic Tutorial.

The first section is probably the most familiar. It is called the menu bars, which like most programs, are found, at the top of the interface. The menu bar allows you to access different menus to perform all of PhotoShop’s various functions such as saving, resizing, layers, filters, and more. Although you can find everything you need in the menu bar, there are many shortcuts you can access or even create to save you time.

The second section, going downward, is the options bar. This bar changes as you select different tools, but basically it is where you can refine the tools with different options (hence the name) into what you most need. For instance, this is where you would make your brushes bigger or smaller.

Below the options bar is the Tools. As the name suggests, this is where you can find all of the tools that you need to create your digital masterpieces. The tool bar has many fun items to be explored like the magic lasso tool or all of your different brushes. There are keyboard shortcuts that can be used or created to access most of these tools.

To the far right is the Palette walled where there are different boxes to help give you information. This includes the info palette, the history palette, as well as other palettes that help you control you composition. One of the important palettes you can find here is the layer comps palette, which basically tells you what, is on each layer of the composition.

Finally, there is the document window or composition, which is usually in the middle or sometimes on another screen (if you're using multiple monitors). This is where you control and work on your creations, so it's basically like your digital canvas.

In order to learn PhotoShop online from PhotoShop Tutorials you need to be familiar with the interface. This will make it easy for you to follow the different videos or courses you use. If you're unsure of what course to use, I recommend PhotoShop by Example, which is a great way to quickly master the basics of PhotoShop