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The real fun part of working with computers is going online. I could not imagine not having a computer at our house. We use it to communicate with friends and businesses, we pay our bills with it, we make reservations with it, we use it to do research with, we use it to send pictures of the grand kids across the country, and we occasionally write a letter. We use it to make audio narrated slide shows, we use it to design projects, we use it to send a fax. It has simply become one of those tools we use every day.
I hope you see something from the above list that will make you want to learn more about computers and going online. When someone asks me if they are too old or dumb to learn how to do these things, my reply is, not if you want to.
Unfortunately there are precautions you must take before going online. It is frightening when you here about all of the scams and viruses on the internet. Yes they are there and we will spend some time discussing these.
There are unsavory characters out here who spend there time trying to write software to cause us trouble, and there are others who write software to keep them from causing us trouble. they are called antivirus programs, and are a must to have on your computer. You should ask your friends which one they use before buying an antivirus program. And there are also crooks who try to put software on your computer so they can take over your computer and record your passwords etc. to combat this we use a deterrent called a fire wall. This keeps them from getting into your computer. The other precaution we must take is to keep our browser updates current. What does that mean? The bad guys who write this problem causing software think it is a challenge to find holes or bugs in the browser software, so they spend their waking moments coming up with small programs called viruses, Trojan horses and other junk to make our life miserable. Fortunately the browser designers come up with fixes for these bugs and call them updates. You can set your browser to automatically install these on your computer. There is another precaution you should be aware of called spyware. Much has been written on this subject and you can read about it here if you want to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
Search engines will list anti spyware software, some of it free and others will cost some $. You should have up to date spyware protection on your computer.
Great he tells me how neat the internet is, then he scares the daylights out of me telling me about the bad guys.
My hope is that you will be aware of these issues and take these proper precautions:
- Always make sure your antivirus is up to date
- Install a fire wall
- Always keep your browser updates current
- Install spyware protection software
Things You Should Not Do
- Don’t store critical files like financial information on your computer. Put them on a CD, in a safe place.
- Use downloaded files without running an antivirus scan
- Click on suspicious e-mail attachments
- Trust strangers in chat rooms.
- Look at porn sites. They spred viruses.
- Send e-mails containing private information.
Order anything online with a nonsecure site.
(Secure sites have a URL https, “s”=secure)
Secure sites also have a little padlock in the lower right hand corner. [See Fig below]
If you take these precautions you will not have to worry about all of the security problems on the internet. I have removed a lot of virus files from peoples computers and everyone of them had neglected one of these four precautions.
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No antivirus or not up to date
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No firewall
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Windows updates not installed
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No spyware protection software
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What is a browser?
A program that allows a user to find, hear, and interact
with material on the World Wide Web is called a browser. Internet Explorer and Netscape are common names for browsers, however there are others. Since Microsoft's Interned Explorer is a very common browser we will examine some of its fundamental features
The information placed on the internet is written in a language referred to as Hyper Text Mark Up. That is what the first word of the address http stands for. You will hear of other versions, but lets keep to the basics. When you sign on to the internet you have enter an address called a URL, which stand for universal resource locator. The first part of the address begins with http://www.name.com or something like that. The address may end with something other than .com, like .net, .org or .gov as an example. These are designators for the type of internet address. for example .com stands for commercial, .gov stands for government and .edu is for educational etc.
Up at the top of your browser are the Menu Bar, under that is the Took Bar and under that is the Address Bar. There is a lot to learn about your browser. I would suggest a basic book would be a good place to start. Your local library probably has a few you could check out. You will notice there is a Help link you can push and it will explain a lot of your questions.
I am going to give you some tips that I have learned about the internet. Please click on the link below to continue.
Continue for more working online
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