Brittnay's Blog for "The Digital Past"

I am really glad that I read the page about Basic Computer Security, especially since it is a Mason site.  I did not know that we had a simple, straight-forward site that tells you what you need to know for computer safety.  I really like how the site’s information was broken down into steps, then each step had information of what you needed to know, and then told you why the information was important.

Some of the information they gave in the steps, such as verifying antivirus software and using anti-spyware software, I already knew about, just from having viruses on the computer (which have been cleaned up) and from running spyware programs to clean the comptuer.  I also knew about backing up  files every so often on a flashdrive or different hard drive, which I do all the time, but I didn’t think everyone did that.

I did not know about the password protected screensaver, and am really interested in setting that up on my computer.  It seems like it would be fun to learn how to do and I now want my computer to be as protected as possible.  I already knew that having a strong password is really good, but for me, tryng to remember passwords that include lowercase and uppercase letters, symbols and numbers, and that fact that it might not even be a word, and then having a different password for your different online accounts, seems to be too much.  I’m not sure if having a master password and a back up password is a good idea, but I have used it before, and I’ve been fine.

Lastly, I didn’t know anything about the Windows XP Professional, so I’d like to read more on that and set that up on my computer.  And I knew about Internet Explorer being a but unreliable just from talking with poeple who are really into IT or computers in general.  I used Firefox after getting rid of Internet Explorer, never tried Netscape, and now I use Chrome.

I’m not a huge tech-savvy person, unlike a lot of students, but I don’t think some friends and family know some of these basic security measures, so it’s cool that this was one of the “readings”.