The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world (higher indicates faster connections)

• Get Cyber Safe is an initiative of the Government of Canada to help people of all ages, and businesses, be safe online. With information to protect yourself, your devices, your networks and your kids, there is help for everyone. A special section includes downloadable guides with Practical tips to accompany a new laptop, smart phone, and online gaming.
• Check it out at www.getcybersafe.gc.ca

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• Hard drives get filled up with various little files that are necessary at the time, then just hang around taking up space. These are the "temporary files" in the computer, and also the regular update files your antivirus, spyware detector, firewall and many other programs receive on a regular basis.
• In order to free up hard drive space safely, we recommend the use of Ccleaner by Piriform, a free, safe, and very handy program. It's available from www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner
• PLEASE NOTE: DO NOT use the registry section of the program, unless you are extremely experienced, and have backed up the registry with ERUNT. Please contact us to clean the registry and keep your computer running smoothly.

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• With more and more families going online to access more and more useful and fun information, it is important that we teach our kids to be safe online. There are simple measures that any family can take to ensure the safety of their children. The first is to not save Internet or email access passwords in the computer. This leads to the second, which is spending time with your children and supervising their online activities. Anyone can publish anything on the Internet. It is up to us to provide safe and appropriate ways for our children to access desirable information.
• We don't believe that filters are the answer; rather, that parents and other family members help children learn safe Internet practices, and are not left alone online. We can help you make Internet activity fun and safe for your children.
• Good resources include the Canadian www.media-awareness.ca, www.badguypatrol.ca and www.safekids.com in the US.
• A national anti-porn program is enlisting web surfers across Canada to help hunt child predators. Cybertip.ca was officially launched Jan. 24/05 to clamp down on the sexual exploitation of children. A pilot of the tipline that began in Manitoba in 2002 has led to 10 charges and 400 websites shut down.

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• Disk fragmentation causes crashes, slowdowns, freeze-ups and even total system failures.
• Defraggler from Piriform www.filehippo.com/download_defraggler is a much better defragmentation program than the standard Defrag that comes with Windows.
• Run weekly by double clicking on the desktop shortcut. (Just click the red x at the top right corner to close any advertising window that pops up.) Click "Analyze", and it will tell you how many fragmented files are in your system, then click "Defragment now". When finished, a report will pop up, and you can close the program.

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• When open programs cover the desktop icon shortcuts to your programs, there is a quick and easy way to access them in Windows.
• To create the Desktop toolbar, just right click your mouse on any "empty" area of the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, and click on "Toolbars", then on "Desktop". The word "Desktop"' will appear on the right side of your taskbar, left of the clock and any other program icons, with a double arrow >> to the right.
• Clicking on the double arrow will bring up a menu listing all the icon shortucts and folders on your desktop, and you can click on any of them to open the program as usual.

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• To download software from the web, first make sure you are getting software from a reputable site. Click on the "Download" link to start the download. Save it into your computer (be sure to note which directory you saved it to). When it's finished, click on Start, then on Run and then on Browse (find where you saved it), click on the file you saved, and then on Open and finally OK. This will start the installation of the software.
• We recommend the website www.filehippo.com to download software, but BE CAREFUL to not download "Release Candidate" or "Beta" versions unless you are very experienced, and have everything backed up. You can pick the version to download on the right side of the program page, and then when at the version you wish, click ONLY on either "Download latest version" or "Download this version" on the upper right. DO NOT click on any ads promoting other software.
• We provide some files to download from our site as a convenience for you.

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• Computers connected to the Internet are at risk of attack from unscrupulous hackers, especially those connected via high speed connections (cable or DSL). Hackers may attempt to take control of your computer for their own use. In the worst case, this could include the placing of child porn on your computer for distribution without your knowledge.
• We recommend the use of the free ZoneAlarm firewall program, available at www.filehippo.com
• During installation, it can pre-configure your computer for Internet access, but you will have to give permission for each program outside the standard connection. If it is a program you know (your email program or web browser or antivirus programs), click on "Remember this setting" so you won't be asked again for that program. You can change settings program by program at any time by clicking on Program Control, then Programs. Click under Access to set "Allow, Block or Ask" status for each program.
• A good alternative is Comodo security, also available at www.filehippo.com

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• It seems we all want to share jokes or information we receive in emails with others. So often these messages come to us forwarded from yet another source, full of email addresses and ">" symbols.
• There are two reasons you should "clean" the messages before passing them on. The first is just courtesy to your readers not to have to wade through all the forwarding symbols ">". The second is that you really shouldn't be passing on all those email addresses - you don't know who might read your email in the future, and passing on others' email addresses can leave them open to receiving more "spam".
• A good tool exists to easily clean up text. Called "eCleaner", it is a small program that is quick to download, and easy to install and use. To clean text, simply highlight the part of the message you want to pass on, copy it to eCleaner, click on "Clean" then on "Clean text". Then just copy the cleaned text into a new email message and send it on to your friends and/or family.
• You can download eCleaner from our website

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• Please NEVER pass on stories about seriously ill children and adults, missing persons, petitions, etc. without checking the source. Most are internet hoaxes and are listed as such. When you receive word of an ill person, consider if you know the originating source (not just the person who sent it to you). Be very leery of items sent asking that they be passed on, that happen to people you do not know. Only if it is from a friend who has personally experienced the event, or is personally acquainted with the situation, should it be believed. (And the news people get these wrong at times too! Several such stories have been reported in the media, then found to be false.)
• Some wonderful sites to check out hoaxes are:
  antivirus.about.com/library/blenhoax.htm
  www.snopes2.com
  www.TruthOrFiction.com
  urbanlegends.about.com/library/blxatoz.htm
  These list both "urban legends" (stories about people or events) and virus hoaxes (stories about viruses that don't exist). Passing these on "to everyone you know" (as some ask you to do) only overload the mail servers around the world, and can be more damaging than a genuine virus!

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• Various image viewers are on computers these days, but one great program for most people is Irfanview. The latest version is available at www.irfanview.com
• An extra tip: to capture screen images (web pages, photos, anything that shows on your computer screen) just get it onscreen, then hit the [Print Screen] key once, open Irfanview, and click on Edit and Paste. Then save the image with the filename of your choice. The default format I recommend is .jpg which is the best compression format for images. (Holding down the [Alt] key before hitting the [Print Screen] key will copy only the current window.)
• You can also use Irfanview to add text to images, crop, rotate, resize and other functions.

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• A "mailing list" is a special form of Internet communication. Generally, mailing lists link a group of people with a common interest.
• Unlike individual email messages, a message to "the list" will be sent to everyone subscribed to that list. This causes confusion at times for people who are new to mailing lists, as it can appear that they are receiving messages that seem to be meant for someone else (or many other people).
• Mailing lists can have options on how a member receives the messages, depending on how the list is set up, and the software that runs it. These options can include a "digest" of multiple messages all in one email, or a web-based "archive" or storage area where the messages can be read.
• Providers of mailing lists include Yahoo Groups
• If you have inadvertently gotten subscribed to a mailing list, or just want off one you're on, you'll generally find instructions on how to unsubscribe from the list at the bottom of each message.

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• It is our opinion that Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome are much better, faster, and safer web browsers, and are updated far more often
• Try it - you'll like them! www.mozilla.com and www.filehippo.com/download_google_chrome
• Internet Explorer is not safe to use in its standard format - experts advise either turn off some Internet Explorer features by setting all security zones to "high" or switch to another browser as the best immediate fix

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• For those who don't have, or don't want to pay for, Microsoft Office, there is a very good alternative available, and it can read all formats of Microsoft documents
• OpenOffice.org has as its mission statement "To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data...". Created by Sun Microsystems, and now owned by Apache, OpenOffice is free to use, and is being constantly updated by contributors worldwide.
• It provides all the features found in Microsoft Office, with the abililty to open and save documents in the MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats.
• In addition, it can write PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format) documents with only a click or two.
• Download your free copy at www.openoffice.org

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• Please be cautious about clicking on links that are in messages which appear to be from your Internet Service Provider or bank, saying there is a problem with your account or your email. Many messages sent "from" financial institutions are an attempt to get your login and password. DO NOT click on links in these emails. Instead, type the email address of your bank's website into your browser. These messages are often referred to as "phishing".
• A client, an intelligent and aware individual, received an email from PayPal recently, (a service to safely make payments online), saying there was a problem with a payment through her account. Unfortunately, she clicked on the link in the message before contacting us, but got suspicious and got in touch with us within minutes. On checking the link/webpage address in the browser, she discovered it was not a legitimate PayPal address. (That would _start_ with "paypal.com" ... this one was something completely different, with "paypal" appearing later in the address.) We advised her to close that window, go to the real PayPal website and change her password immediately, then contact PayPal through their legitimate website to advise them her account was at risk, as she'd used her real PayPal login and password to "login" at the fake website, thereby giving away her information.
• This type of message "from" ISPs, banks, or other "trusted" institution arrives in our email several times a week. Being cautious is the best way to protect yourself. If you think the message might be real, pick up the phone and verify it with your bank, etc. Very few of these messages are real, and it's better to delete and ignore, and be safe, rather than sorry.

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• PowerPoint presentations are a popular way to share information, and especially at the holiday season, people send them by email, without knowing whether the recipient's computer can open them.
• Download a free copy of OpenOffice at www.openoffice.org to open and/or create PowerPoint format presenations

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• Windows versions all have a flaw - they do not back up the registry, and can become corrupted and unable to boot properly. (They do a "system restore point" backup, which includes viruses and spyware in the computer!)
• We recommend the use of ERUNT (Emergency Repair Utility for NT) which is available from www.snapfiles.com/get/erunt.html
• Download, install, and run, then reboot your computer - each day you start it up from then on, a new backup of the registry is made during startup for your safety. If you need to restore the registry, you can boot into safe mode and run the tool. Details are available from the author at www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

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• "Search engines" are those websites that allow you to enter text into a box to search the internet for specific information.
• An excellent search engine is Google, at www.google.ca, which allows you to search the whole web, or just Canadian sites.
• To get more meaningful results, enter multiple words to describe your subject. For example, just entering "storm" will result in thousands upon thousands of results; entering a string of information such as "storm+warning+Canada" willl give you much more precise information, and fewer links to check to find the information you want. By putting the plus signs in the text instead of spaces, you ensure the results have all those words, not just one of them.
• If you click the right mouse button on a link, you can open that link in a new web browser window, and still have the search result page open behind it to check other resulting links.

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• When you receive unwelcome email, we recommend that you delete it. If you reply, you risk becoming the target of even more. You may be confused by where the unwanted message appears to originate, as some messages by spammers are forged to _appear_ as if they came from you or your Internet Service Provider, but careful inspection reveals another address as the originating site.
• Using your provider's web email option, which many have these days, allows you to delete unwanted email before downloading it into your computer.
• "Spamming is the scourge of electronic-mail and newsgroups on the Internet. It can seriously interfere with the operation of public services, to say nothing of the effect it may have on any individual's e-mail mail system. ... Spammers are, in effect, taking resources away from users and service suppliers without compensation and without authorization." -- Vint Cerf, Senior Vice President, MCI and acknowleged "Father of the Internet"
• Of course a child's account is just as vulnerable to this sort of attack as an adult's, so work with your children, and be sure you know what email they are receiving and replying to.

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• Many people don't realize all the extra "stuff" that ends up on their computers just by visiting websites. In addition to the Temporary Internet Files (which should be cleaned out regularly), many websites place "cookies" on the computer, _most_ of which are harmless, and they also can put "spyware" programs into your computer as well.
• You can remove the Temporary Internet Files in Internet Explorer by going to "Tools", then "Internet Options", then on "Delete Files" to clear what is stored already. Then click on the "Advanced" tab at the top, and scroll down to the "Security" section at the bottom of the popup window. Click to put a check mark beside "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed".
• Beware emails promoting programs that will "clean" your spyware - these are often programs that remove other companies' spyware, replacing it with their own!
• We recommend the use of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for better protection. It is free, and available from www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware

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