KEEPING A HEALTHY WINDOWS COMPUTER (continued)

STEP 2 - ADDING THE GOOD STUFF

Development of an operating system is an ongoing project and Microsoft is constantly working on Windows XP to improve it. As part of this effort Microsoft provides a Windows Update site

Run Windows Update: [ Link ]
Run Office Update: [ Link ]
Microsoft explains the ins-and-outs of updating your computer here.
You can setup your computer to automatically receive updates for the Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office applications by going here.

STEP 3 - OPTIMIZING ALL THE STUFF

Microsoft has good information regarding these processes here.
However, I would think twice before using Disk Cleanup. That's a potentially dangerous process that could remove a lot of stuff you didn't want to remove.

First Run Scan Disk: Open My Computer, right-click on Drive C and select Properties. Click on the Tools tab and you will find the three tools there for Error Checking, Defragmentation, and Backup.

Then Run Defrag

STEP 4 - BACKUP THE IMPORTANT STUFF

Backup: If you keep your important stuff in your My Documents folder and backup that folder on a regular basis you will minimize the problem of a serious system crash or hard drive failure. The best destination for your backup copy is a secondary hard drive. To install a secondary hard drive you can take your computer to the local service center or you can do the installation yourself. MacSale.com provides a good video tutorial on how to install a second hard drive in a Mac G4 which is pretty much the same for any computer. I prefer Western Digital drives or Seagate drives.

Beyond the size and brand of drive you buy, you will also need to know if you need an EIDE or SATA drive. The difference is explained in this document from Western Digital.

Backup Software: I don't prefer the way Microsoft's backup application leaves the backup copy in a somewhat useless archived state that requires the same backup application to restore any part of it. I prefer a backup application that merely copies the files to the desired location and leaves them as is and useable in that location. My choice for this is Handy Backup by Novosoft. You can download a 30 day demo by Clicking Here.
For more information on backing-up see the following pages at Microsoft.com: Backup basics and Back up your computer files.
On my Mac I use FoldersSynchronizer by Softobe instead of the Apple Backup utility for the same reasons.

SPAM

The last issue is Spam, a major productivity killer. This is relative to the length of time you have had your email account and how often you have exposed the address to spam robots. By this I mean, when you enter your email address to gain information from a site or participate in a message board and so on. Spammer's robots are constantly scanning such sites for email addresses to add to their list of targets. My chris@centerset.com email address is over 10 years old and receives about 200 spam messages per day. If your email address is relatively new and/or you have been careful not to expose it, you may not have this problem yet.

I tried filtering the spam but that's a useless endeavor because of the way spammers serialize their addresses - you can add addresses to your blocking filter (black list) until the cows come home. There's only one solution that really works which is generically referred to as Challenge-Response. Challenge-Response works in the opposite direction of filtering. Rather then blocking the bad guys it only lets in the good guys. In a nutshell, you have a list of people that you will accept email from (a white list) just like a buddy list on your instant messenger. A message from anyone on your buddy list is automatically accepted and ends up in your inbox. Any message from someone else is held in a pending folder at the server for a period of time. In the meantime the unknown sender is sent a challenge message by the server to see if they are a real person or an automated spammer. If they respond to the challenge message their message goes through and they are automatically added to your buddy list. If there is no response in the allotted period of time the message is automatically deleted by the server without you ever seeing it.

Some people claim that there are serious limitations to this system. For instance, if both parties are using a Challenge-Response system the recipient's challenge message will be challenged by the sender's system creating an endless loop of challenges. But in real life a good Challenge-Response system prevents this from happening. When I send a message to someone new my Challenge-Response provider (SpamArrest) automatically adds their email address to my white list.

There are other complaints about the Challenge-Response system I have heard, but only from people that haven't tried it. I've listed a few here:

• 1) If you sign up for a mailing list the messages from the list will be challenged and the administrator of the list won't bother to respond so you'll never receive any messages from that list.
  This brings up a good point. There are times when you will want to interact with automated email systems. Many times you won't know the email address of the automated system so you won't be able to add it to your white list. For situations like this it is best to have a second email address with Hotmail, Yahoo, or other such service. This would be a disposable email account so if you started to receive a lot of spam there you could cancel it and open a new one.
• 2) The challenge message confirms to the spammer that they have reached a legitimate email address which they will sell to everyone.
  No matter how many spammers send you messages, none of them will get through to your inbox.
• 3) The existing amount of spam traffic is already putting a heavy burden on the internet. Challenging all these spam messages doubles the traffic and the burden.
  Hmm, whatever.

I chose SpamArrest as my challenge-response provider. This service is the best value I could find which has all the features you might need.

Spam Filtering
Another service (which I haven't tried) that is NOT a challenge/response system is OnlyMyMail. This service applies advanced spam filtering processes to your mail at the server level before you ever see it. OnlyMyMail will aid in blocking the vast majority of your spam and a good option if you don't want to use a challenge/response system.

Because OnlyMyMail will not remove all of your spam it's best to use local filtering software to clean up the rest. Recommendations here are:
InBoxer for Windows
SpamSieve for Macs

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