How Ransomware Works and How To Protect Yourself

Imagine your computer is like a treasure chest where you keep all your important stuff—photos, documents, memories. Now, picture a sneaky digital villain that can break into this treasure chest, lock it up, and demand a ransom for the key.

That villain is called ransomware. It’s a type of malicious software that hijacks your files and makes them unreadable. Once your stuff is kidnapped, the bad guys ask for money (usually in a hard-to-trace form like cryptocurrency) in exchange for giving you the key to unlock your files.

The Windows Vista Desktop

Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows Vista, offers many new features and improvements, but should you switch?

Right away we’re going to let you know that if you have any doubts, just stick with Windows XP. Yes, Vista has lots of new features and a slick new interface, but there are new problems also. (more…)

Installing Windows XP is generally an easy process. Here are a few tips for completing a new, full install of WIndows XP. These tips apply to both the Home and Pro versions of Windows XP, OEM and retail versions.

First, boot directly from the CD, don’t try to install from a running version of Windows. When booting from the CD you’ll see a message that says ‘Press any key to boot from CD…’ and it only lasts about 3 seconds, so don’t miss it. (more…)