6 Essential Steps to Protect Your Computer On the Internet For Free

Written by Jerry Yu


Recently one of my friends asked me to check out if his computer was infected by virus. He suspected because occasionallyrepparttar computer was shut down automatically when connected to internet. My first thought wasrepparttar 107681 Sasser worm 60 seconds auto count-down. As he uses Windows 98 second edition with IE5,repparttar 107682 virus must be a Sasser variant.

I'm not network security expert but I know some basic things he must do to protect his home PC. It was a shock when he told me that his 4 years old PC had no protection except McAfee anti-virus.

- Bought in 2000 and no Windows service packs had been applied since then.

- McAfee anti-virus software came withrepparttar 107683 PC when bought and no updates since then.

- No firewall installed.

- No anti spyware installed.

This is what I did to beef up his PC torepparttar 107684 best of my knowledge.

Step #1: Patchrepparttar 107685 operating system.

The first thing I did was update his Windows 98 torepparttar 107686 latest available Windows updates for Windows 98.

- Open Microsoft Windows Update page at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

- Scanrepparttar 107687 PC to find out what critical updates and security fixes are missing.

- Select, download, and install a selection of updates, especially any Critical Updates.

- Restartrepparttar 107688 PC after finished.

When you openrepparttar 107689 Microsoft Windows Update page, clickrepparttar 107690 "Scan for updates" link. The page will suggest what updates are needed based on your Windows version. You should install all Critical Updates suggested by Microsoft.

It took me about one and half hour to completerepparttar 107691 above steps.

Step #2: Download, install, and run Spybot to get rid of all spyware.

http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download

Spybot-S&D is a free anti-spyware software to detect any spyware installed on your PC.

Spyware is any software that is installed on your PC and tracks your online behavior without your knowledge or consent. Spyware generally can

- Track what web pages you are visiting and send these information to advertising companies. This kind of spyware is commonly called adware.

- Track and record your computer activities such as what keys you hit. This is generally called Trojans.

- Change your web browser's home page.

- And more...

After installed Spybot, I immediately scanned my friend's computer and found 166 problems. The first run killed nearly all of them except some memory residents that had to be killed after a reboot.

Step #3: Download and install Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF).

http://www.kerio.com/us/kpf_download.html

Kerio Personal Firewall limited free edition is for home users. After installation, KPF works asrepparttar 107692 full edition for 30 days, after which it becomesrepparttar 107693 limited free edition.

You may also tryrepparttar 107694 free ZoneAlarm firewall. Be aware that ZoneAlarm free edition uses a lot of computer memory.

The following isrepparttar 107695 free ZoneAlarm firewall download link. You hardly can find this download link on ZoneAlarm site because they want you to buyrepparttar 107696 Pro version which is a much better choice.

Develop your own MSN java client.

Written by Ivan Shi


Now, use msnmlib 1.2(the website is in Korean), you can write programs as client to MSN servers.
You can write msn robots or your own MSN Messenger use Java.

Here I have a very short tutorial on how to use msnmlib 1.2, and my Java development IDE is Eclipse 3.0

Prepare:If you had already downloaded msnmlib 1.2 package fromrepparttar offical project website,  then unzip it to any folder on your HDD.Here I use d:java_devcommon ,you will get a jar file: msnm.jar.Otherwise, you have to downloadrepparttar 107680 latest version of msnmlib from the offical web site or the project page on sourceforge

First step, open your Eclipse IDE and use New Project wizard to create a new java project in your default workspace(ofcoz, you can use another workspace), and name your project(here I use jRCS,which means java Realtime Customer Servcie System)

Second, In Eclipse, Select menu Window--> Prefence, expandrepparttar 107681 Java node inrepparttar 107682 left treeview,
and then expand Build path node in Java node, and then select node User Libraries. We will add a new user library refer to the path where you place your msnmlib jar file. Click new... to add a new user library MSN_LIB and click Add Jars... to makerepparttar 107683 user library variable refer to msnmlib jar file:d:java_devcommonmsnm.jar

Now, edit properties of project jRCS by selectrepparttar 107684 context menu of jRCS node inrepparttar 107685 Project Explorer. Here we will editrepparttar 107686 Java Build Path and add a new library for this project. Of coz, we will addrepparttar 107687 pre-defined User Library MSN_LIB here.

Ok, finally, we have our development environment set up. It's time for coding!

Coding Step 1: Create your own MsnAdapter class for an adapter that can listen torepparttar 107688 events fired by MSN Messenger. You should make you adapter class extend from the parent class rath.msnm.event.MsnAdapter.repparttar 107689 MsnAdapter class has morerepparttar 107690 10 methods for event listening. but you have not to implement all the methods, and by user Eclipse New Class Wizard, it is not a hard job to implement a lot of methods. For short and easy, We only implement method MsnAdapter.instantMessageReceived(SwitchboardSession ss, MsnFriend friend,            MimeMessage mime).
Method instantMessageReceived is invoked byrepparttar 107691 MsnMessenger instance every time when you receive a new message (MimeMessage) from MsnFriend.
Here is my code to reply to the friend "How are you doing":




public class MSNAdapter extends MsnAdapter {
MSNMessenger msn;

public MSNAdapter(MSNMessenger msn) {
this.msn = msn;
}

public void instantMessageReceived(SwitchboardSession ss,
MsnFriend friend, MimeMessage mime) {
System.out.println(friend.getFriendlyName()
+" send me some msg:"+mime.getMessage());
try
{
// create a new message
MimeMessage mm = new MimeMessage();

// remember to appendrepparttar 107692

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