The first subject today will be phishing. We've all seen them. You get an email that appears to be from Mintel, your bank, credit card company, or other company/organization. The 2 things they all have in common... they are requesting personal information and they really aren't from who they say they are. The most common are emails threatening to turn your email account off if you fail to respond, you are the only long lost relative of a deceased millionaire and they want to give you the inheritance, or your credit card will be canceled unless you verify your card information. They call it phishing (pronounced fishing) because they are fishing for information. They send out millions of emails and see who they can trick into responding. Don't be fooled. ...but it says it's from mintel. Of course it does, it just makes it more believable.

I can not emphasize enough that NO LEGITIMATE COMPANY, MINTEL INCLUDED, WOULD EVER REQUEST INFORMATION IN THAT MANNER! Never, ever, ever, ever, ever would we or your bank send you an email requesting personal information. EVER.

Don't even think twice. Delete it.

I frequently get asked which Anti-Virus program is the best. That is a difficult question to answer. They are all flawed in one way or another. None is absolutely 100% effective, regardless of what they say. My reasoning is that if there was one that was 100% effective, no one would ever buy the others. Why would you? If there was such a anti-virus program, there would be no more viruses because they would always get caught and the virus authors would simply move on to something else. Some let things slip through, others catch things that really aren't viruses (false positives), some malfunction in unpredictably ways.

So what do you look for? Costs, features, the drain it puts on your PC, reliability and stability. Anti-virus programs are like cars. You can ask 10 people which is the best and you'll get 10 different answers. You buy a new PC, it comes with a trial Anti-Virus program. The trial ends and it starts nagging you to renew it. Now what do you do? If you are happy with it and don't want the hassle, you renew it. If you can't afford it or simply don't know what to do, you do nothing or un-install it (bad choice).

I can't count the number of calls I get from customers with the big two Anti-virus programs that say their Internet is down or their email quit working only to find out it's their AV program mis-behaving and not letting Internet traffic pass.

I would strongly recommend that everyone has some level of Anti-Virus protection. There are so many ways you can get a trojan or virus now days. With several good free ones out there, like Avast Free Personal Edition and AVG Free Edition you really have no excuse not to have one. If you are reading this and you don't have an anti-virus program now, the very next thing you should do is click on one of the links provided.

Coming up in Volume 2 - wireless routers. The good, the bad and the ones that stop working.