EduCyber's Newsletter

In this Issue we look at the growing problem with computer viruses, check on Google, and look at the features of Twitter.

Computer Virus Check Up

Is your computer protected? It seems like we go for long stretches of months with very few virus problems. Then we get a bunch of folks coming to us asking for help getting rid of viruses. And the question we are frequently asked is: But how did I get infected?

In our experience there are three main methods a computer gets infected:

1. Anti-Virus Program expires. If your virus subscription has expired, your computer is not protected. Yes, it is that simple. If you tell your doctor you don’t need a flu shot because you got one last year, he’ll tell you that was for last year’s flu, not this years’. The same applies to antivirus programs. If it has expired, you are protected for last week’s or last month’s viruses but not today’s.
2. Willfully downloading a virus. This may happen unwittingly but it still happens all the time. Kids are the main victims of this method. They want to download a “cool” program from a web site but the cool program includes a virus that lets hackers take over your computer. This can circumvent the best antivirus program in much the same way all the vitamins in the world can’t protect you from colds if you’ve got kids.
3. Too much protection. We are seeing more of this kind of problem. You start off with, for example, Norton Antivirus. Then when you go to renew online they’ve got a super-duper new program that  has a firewall and  anti-phishing, and all the bells and whistles you can imagine for just a few more dollars than the anti-virus program. Then as soon as you have it installed it starts asking you questions you don’t know the answer to. You restart your computer and suddenly it is going so slow you can hardly do anything. In frustration you turn off the antivirus program and suddenly everything speeds up so you leave it off and get infected.

We recommend just running an antivirus program without any extra bells or whistles. Most folks with high speed internet (commercial or residential) have some kind of firewall with their modem or router nowadays so you can separate the functions and let your computer just have the antivirus component.

Keep your antivirus UP TO DATE. If it is more than one month out of date, you could be in trouble.

And finally, run complete scans on your computer on a regular basis.

Google Continues to Dominate Search

According to Hitwise, last month Google accounted for nearly 68% of all search in the US. Wow. And if you compare the April numbers to March or to April of last year, you see that they are expanding their dominance.  That is the phenomenal part. Typically if a company creates a new niche and dominates it, other companies come in later to cash in on the good times and in the process they steal some of the market share. Google just keeps growing their share of the market.

Can you image what it would be like to “own” your industry or niche like that? Yahoo has less than 21% of the market (which is still pretty hefty) and MSN has fallen to less than 6.5% of the search market. Ask, while holding a smaller share, continues to grow their share. With Google and Ask expanding, MSN and the rest of the search engines are “taking it on the chin”.

Why do you think Google just keeps grabbing more of the market?

Twitter, Tweet, Twilight

Today, as the twilight settled round me on a cloudy and cool eve, I turned to my new favorite hobby, I tweeted my friends on twitter. When you connect with friends and send a message, you’ve just tweeted. Sure glad they didn’t call it tooting.

Twitter is fun. Take the ability to send text messages to your friends and colleagues and mix it together with newsletter blasts and you begin to grasp the thrill of Twitter. Add to it the skill of writing haiku and you get even closer. Twitter is a hybrid web appication texting application found at www.twitter.com.

I use it to connect with friends and colleagues in ministry. I also use it for business to stay on top of what gurus in the field are all about. For example, I can track Rev. Joe Burnham at www.twiter.com/joeburnham. I can follow Search Engine Optimization guru Aaron Wall at www.twitter.com/aaronwall. Follow all the tips for riding a wave of publicity at www.twitter.com/publicityhound.

Want to learn more? Sign up and follow me at www.twitter.com/edubrian.

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© 2008 EduCyber, Inc. This newsletter is brought to you by EduCyber, Inc. EduNotes can be viewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online at http://www.educyber.com/edunotes/ . Visit us on the web at http://www.educyber.com or call us at (303) 268-2245. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute all or part of this newsletter as long as this entire copyright message is included.