This document is meant for my family and friends when they buy a new machine, but everyone might be able to use it. I understand that it is on the web and therefore free for anyone to read.

To make both of our lives easier, I’d like you to spend $100 now and $5 a month for as long as you own a computer. I’d like you to print this, put it on the fridge and check it off as you get things done or recognize you understand. Ask yourself  if that is an acceptable cost? $100 and reading my 3rd grade english?

Did  you answer yes? Now you have to follow through. Here are the steps to get your new computer running the right way. Do you NEED to do this? No, just call your uncle Ted instead instead of me when your computer breaks. A computer is a big dollar purchase. Take care of it like a $2000 pet dog, it needs maintenance, feeding and care. I guess better than a dog because you can turn it off when it barks or poops. Remember while reading this: Have you ever or will you ever buy a new computer because the old one died? And also remember a good nerd makes things happen with as little work as possible. This is my magic recipie. Even with magic it takes some effort.

1st thing you need to do right now-

A. Find your windows installation disc… found it? go to C.

B. Wait you probably didn’t get one. Today most manufacturers don’t give you an installation disc for many selfish stupid reasons. If you don’t have a windows install/recovery disc your first mission is to create your recovery disc set and put it in a safe place.  Find the utility on your computer that builds the recovery disk. Find some blank cds and build it right now.

C.  I want you to go to walmart and buy the cheap little $30 fire safe. It is heavy, obnoxious, doesn’t look like any other box in your house. You are going to put your recovery disks in there. When you need them you will know where they are.  Don’t put it off. I NEED this when trying to fix your stuff.

D. Also please take a picture or photocopy the bottom/back of your computer and put it in the safe. if the windows serial number isn’t on the bottom/side get that too. The windows serial is 5 series of 5 letters and numbers. This is your computer backup safe. It is only $30. Leave it to its purpose in life. One of you will have your house burn down. So humor me and everyone spend $30 for the fire safe.

Task 2 – set up backups

Please do this now. Nobody comes back and does the backup step, that is why I have a job.  You need 2 backup strategies. This is going to take the rest of your $100. You aren’t allowed to touch your shiny new computer until this is done. The two backup strategies are your A. external hard drive backup and B. mozy offsite backup. You must have Task 1 and 2 completed in order to have an easy time once your computer dies and you have to buy the next one.

A. You need to order a little cheap external hard drive. At least the same size as your internal hard drive. Click that link for a $60 toshiba 320 that i use. This drive is going to be for your windows backup. Format the drive when you get it, don’t worry about the backup software on it. Plug in your drive, hit start> type in “backup” and run the Backup and Restore center. Then do a whole drive backup to your new little disk and put it in your fire safe. Pull it out every 6 months and do a new backup. If you have space keep more than one copy and delete the oldest when you need to. Get one that is USB.  Also order a cheap cable while you are at newegg. You can get one for $5 instead of $35 at best buy. Advanced– If you have an esata connector and know what that is, get the esata connector. Backups will be way faster.

B. You need a Mozy account. It costs $5/month for unlimited drive space. Your data will be backed up in a bunker on earthquake rollers with gigglewatts of backup power and generators. It is encrypted before it leaves your computer and stored that way safe from any peeping Mozy employees so just forget about it. When your laptop is stolen, drowned, erased by aliens etc.. your data will be safe in Utah. Once this program is running, it just goes. It autoupdates and backs up multiple times a day. If you use my link above to buy your mozy account, I get a free bump of 250MB to back up my spare computer. So be nice and pay me for this article by buying your mozy account with my link. If you think I’m scamming you here is the info on how the mozy referral system works. It just says on my free 2gb account, if someone uses that link and backs their computer up with a trial account, I get 250MB of space added to my free one. So far I have 5. That is worth less than $5/month.

Look at all the digital photos you have ever taken. Do you have them backed up right now? Every one of them? I do. Use that answer to determine if you really will go back them up to cd and put them in the safe. Or if you need something that automagically backs up every day for you. $5 a month is really cheap insurance for all your photos, docs, tax returns, music, and poems about wood chippers.

When your computer dies -

1.Pull the restore disk out of your safe, reinstall windows.

2. Restore your programs and settings by using your external hard disk. This gets you back to 1-6months ago.

3. restore your documents/photos/music from Mozy. Getting everything back to normal could take a little while.  The mozy restore will take a long time to download depending on how much stuff you have. But you will get it back. Otherwise you can troll your friends flicker and shutterfly accounts and repurchase everything off itunes. And imagine me cackling with evil glee while I think about how fun it would be to say “I told you so” before I feel bad for you and nicely say, aw stupid computer.

When your computer is stolen – You can try the restore disk on a new computer, it might not work because of the different hardware buy as a replacement. But you have your offsite mozy backup with all your current files. All your data is still safe after your laptop is lost by airport security! Make sure when you buy software you are adding the serial number to your little safe. Don’t worry about putting driver cds in there, you need to download the newest drivers instead of using the cd anything comes with.

Task 3 – Antivirus

Most people don’t realize their ISP gives a free AV/firewall solution away with your subscription. For example if you are a comcast user go to http://www.comcast.net/security and get your free copy of McAfee. Or if you have Qwest I think you get the MS Live security suite. Call them right now if you forgot your password.

Give me a comment if you find out what other providers give you and what the link to it is. DON”T run a computer without antivirus. If your ISP doesn’t give you one, get the free version of Avira, or in a few months the free Microsoft one will be out. Currently code named Morro, I don’t know what it will be named. Don’t ever let your antivirus subscription run out. You will get a virus. These days that means some Russian mafia guy is days from stealing all your credit card info and selling it to Chinese card printers.

Task4 – Windows updates

Your computer has been sitting in a box, not connected to the internet to update. Before you start surfing anywhere, you need your patches to be done. Don’t stray and get excited yet. You have to get these finished before surfing anywhere. If you have a mac, do the same thing please… Anyone can take over an unpatched windows/mac/linux box.

Put some X’s next to tasks 1-4 on your printed out copy that is on your fridge. It is on your fridge and you are following along right? Now take a break.

Task5 – Driver and firmware updates

You need to learn how to install new drivers and firmware from your manufacturer. For example if you have a dell, you go to http://support.dell.com . Put in your service tag and grab the newest firmware and drivers. Put them in a folder and start running all of them. Keep that folder around so in a year you can compare what versions you have and get ready to update again. Firmware is important because sometimes they will include something like.. corrects a voltage regulation problem that could cause a fire.. Or speeds something up a lot. Or fixes spelling errors. Just keep up on them once in a while. See why you have a fire safe now? Computer/iphone batteries tend to light on fire just before they get recalled.

Task6 – Unload crapware

This may be a semi advanced step. Skip if you want until cousin nerd is over to help you with step 9. Your machine will come with a ton of crapware installed. You know, the stuff you didn’t ask for. It is tough to know what you don’t need sometimes.

First set a system restore point in cause you mess up. Next, go into the control panel>programs and features. Anything that says ‘toolbar’ is safe to get rid of. Dell puts in a program that redirects your mistyped web addresses to their site. Kill that sort of thing. I’ll try to come up with a good list next time I buy a new home machine for someone.  Don’t use decrapifier.. mcafee says it has a virus right now.

Hit start> and type in Msconfig then hit enter. Go to the ‘startup items’ Take a screenshot or write down what is in there. Once you have everything else installed you can go back and start unchecking all the new crap that is added. You don’t need to have instant messengers, adobe etc load when you boot. You might as well start it when you need it so you don’t have to wait an hour for booting.

Task7 – extra protection

Install the hosts file from MVPS.org. This is a file that takes all the known bad web/ad pages out there and black holes them.  It takes a little reading but it is worth it to get installed. It will get rid of 90% of the ads you will come across

Install McAfee site advisor – enable ‘highlight search results’ disable the toolbar in the settings. This will highlight all your search results in green if the page is known to be safe, yellow if sketchy and red if they are known to be bad. Once you have it installed and highlighting your results search for “cute puppy screensaver” and see how many evil sites are out there trying to screw you for wanting a cute puppy screensaver.

Task 8 – standard apps

Zipping – I use 7zip from sourceforge. Zipping/unzipping should be free, it is really really old easy stuff. No need for winzip.

PDF files – I like Foxit reader instead of the adobe reader. Foxit is super light weight and loads fast. Update this once in a while. pdf’s can be bad.

Java – go to Sun’s page and download java straight from them… ALWAYS UPDATE JAVA when it asks

Adobe Flash – You need flash for half the internet sites out there. ALWAYS UPDATE FLASH when it asks

CD/DVD burning – Infrarecorder is a great free dvd/cd burner

Media Player – VLC is the best. VLC will play anything. You don’t have to go get quicktime, a dvd player, real player and all that junk. Just get open source VLC. If you see a pale star trek guy that lives in mom’s basement, don’t laugh, maybe buy him a soda because he may help write vlc for you. If you don’t appreciate him or point at him, he may steal your bank account.

Instant Messaging – Get Pidgin. Another open source one. It will open all of your instant message accounts. MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, Gmail etc… No need for 5 instant messenger programs when you can have one free one that doesn’t flash ads in your face and suck all your RAM. Pidgin just started supporting google video and voice chat.

Office – Office online works, I recommend just buying Office 2007 home edition. It can be found for $100 on sale. You can install it on 3 computers. So split the cost with 2 friends. Put the serial number in your fire safe.

Internet browser – I like firefox because of the plugins. Get Adblock plus, ghostery, and if you have a super anal personality get noscript. Noscript takes training, lots of it, but it will block all scripts until you say a page is safe. If you train it a while, your browsing will be safer than most people. If you are a gmail person, use google chrome.

Task 9 – Set up your lifeline

Everyone has the little brother, niece, whoever fixes your computer. Please make their awkward nerdy life easier. Get them to set up a Logmein free edition app on your computer and both of you sit down and test it once. When you need help they can get your logmein password and remote control your screen. You will be able to see what they are doing. They can either laser pointer over things to show you what to click or do it for you. If you are freaking out about your computer being broken, chill a bit before calling. You have remote control software to help them see instead of just explaining the problem louder in non tech words.  Just let them log in and check it out. Ask them to show you so you learn.

Logmein will sit down next to your clock in the tray. Your job is to put a password on it. Right click the grey icon with 4 blue dots and hit ‘change password” When you call them for help, tell them the password.

When they are done remote controlling your machine change the password and write it down. If you forget, it doesn’t matter, just right click and reset it again when you need help. You have to change your password after every time someone remotes in to your machine because I said so. Keeps everyone honest without fault. No suspicion about your little brother getting on to your machine without your permission, and he wont be able to. ever. Tell them you will always watch any time anyone is on your computer, no exceptions. Or say the windowsnerd.com guy said so. This is easy, don’t skip it because it has a rule.

You will have longer term free tech support if you are willing to use a tool like logmein. If your nerd hasn’t used it, they become worth more money by knowing how, so buy them a star trek costume for comicon to encourage them. Your free support person will have an easy time helping you if you have this installed. If you make it hard on your free techie, they will not be your free techie for long. Do your backup, buy mozy.Put MVPS and siteadvisor on. Do this while your machine is operational. Don’t let your antivirus expire. Everything else is up to you and your level of cluefulness.

Task 10 – training yourself

If you were to look at the firewall logs of your cable modem, you would see automated processes attacking you every minute of the day. There are a lot of bad people on the web and it is very easy for them to cast a very large net. Here are some tips to train your brain:

1. New programs – Before you install any program, always google “Program name spyware” and then see if there are a lot of search results saying it has spyware in it. Right now go to google and look up “Digsby spyware” Sigh, click the link if you are lazy and I will google it for you with my magic power.

Glance through the results. Now remember that. Don’t install digsby, limewire, kazaa, all that stuff.  If you are going to pirate stuff, learn to do it right. If you are going to use an application your pals use, don’t trust their word, look it up. Ever wondered why their machine is slower than dirt? You can laugh because their machine is spamming viagra emails and serving french porn to africa.

Any time you have a question. Google it. just type it in… If you don’t believe a word I say, google it. There are many ways.

2. Facebook – Don’t accept gifts, install apps etc. Facebook is the easiest way to steal info these days.. I feel guilty not accepting the virtual beer my friends send. But I value my real dollars more than their virtual beer. Real dollars buy real beer. If I (evil hypothetical I) want your bank account, I find you on facebook and socially engineer my way to it to buy more beer. long winded example -

There are many ways for me to get around finding your friends on facebook, myspace, linkedin, your company web page. Then I find your friend Patsy’s email address. I easily forge an email from Patsy’s address and attach a picture that says “old photo I forgot to send you.” something creative.. You gave me experiences on facebook to comment on to make it sound real. Attached to that file is an alternate NTFS data stream that hides my trojan jumping on your computer. That trojan alerts me when you are on a bank website. Then I take over the cookie on your website, keep your session open, write down your password and account info, open a loan, credit card in your name and drain your bank account. Easy peasy. Any idiot can learn to do this from a 7 minute youtube video. Just remember all these places you put your information are easy to get to and manipulate. People do it every minute of the day. Please take the time to set up your facebook privacy settings. And don’t install weird facebook apps written by a guy in his moms basement. He is doing it to make money to get out of moms basement. The short version of this confusing paragraph- anyone creative can trick you into a trap using facebook bait provided by you. Minimize the damage by not sharing to the world.

3. Nothing on the internet is free – There is a cost with everything. Open source software has the best cost- it pays a developer who volunteers his time for his own warm fuzzys. Dropping nice comments to the writers of 7zip or Pidgin results in free labor for all of us. Think of it like you are giving work to an unemployed nuke scientist. You should be nice to them while they are on the good side of the fence.

Mcafee’s free siteadvisor gives them data to sell corporations about threats. You don’t have the money an antivirus company is after, you have digital threat data valuable to me at work.

Toolbars earn money for its creator when you use it to search. They also sell your surfing habits. They take up screen real estate, advertise and suck ram. Mostly they suck. If you are a google fanboy, i think theirs is ok.

Freeware sometimes tracks what you do or installs spyware. Clicking on a website uses power and kills trees. Spam and forwarded email produce polution because they take electricity. Is that enough lame examples of everything on the web has a cost? I have many more.

4. DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENTS YOU AREN”T EXPECTING!!! Use your common sense and figure out if someone should be sending you that file before you open it to see what it is. When you get emails from your crazy aunt who spams all the time,  google the subject and snopes.com. Chances are that you can read the same email online at snopes and at the same time find out if it is a hoax or not. An example google, “snopes.com needle gas pump handle”

5. Don’t ever go to a bank site directly from an email. Banks shouldn’t be allowed to email you. If they do, don’t click the link in the email. Take a deep breath, close your email, open a browser window yourself and go where you need to by yourself. It may take several seconds longer, but it is worth the trouble.

6. Do banking in a browser window with no other tabs – this sounds crazy I know… But an ad on one tab can inject code to break in to your bank tab within the same browser instance. Hopefully with your new MVPS hosts file and antivirus it will pick these off. But just be safe when you do financial stuff. Close your browsers, open a new one and make that your happy banking mode. When you are done, log out of the bank site and close the browser.

7. Don’t reply to that stupid email about “things you don’t know about me” that ask you to list your dogs name, the street you grew up on, first boy you kissed and then forward it along with the info from the sap who sent it. That is easier than taking candy from a baby. It is like the baby emailed you the candy without asking if you even wanted it. Your friend you send it on to probably hasn’t signed a nondisclosure agreement with you. They have? you are weird.

8. Build your decoy information. If your last name is jones, name it Jonez or JonesJr. Get a spare email account, a fake phone number and address. Use these for all free offers, rewards cards etc. Use the same one every time. Soon the Army will recruit your alterego. I’m not sure if you can legally make up a fake address. Nevermind. um don’t do that. Anyhow if you want a real phone number, magicjack is $20 a year. I’d pay $20 to avoid telemarketers. A spare email account is free. Figure out the address thing on your own.

9.Remove the name tagging on your photos your friends posted at Facebook. Trust me on this one if you are in college. You will thank me when looking for a job later. Lock your facebook account down to friends only. Go to every settings page on facebook and read it. I have many friends who specialize in data mining, and you are making it way to easy. There are so many things to do with the info you put on the net for free. If only I had more time, and a missing morality bone, I would be rich.

10. Last ranting but helpful comment- Any information you give to someone else no longer belongs to you. Look it up on Lexis Nexis for examples. If you write a racy love letter to your boyfriend on paper, it belongs to him. You transferred ownership when you mailed it and sent it as a gift. That is how a court will see it when he publishes the note. Keep that in mind when putting any data anywhere. You most likely don’t own it anymore. Facebook owns the content you put up there, you do not. A forum owns the post you just ranted on. Unless you read the EULA and run it by your lawyer, your assumptions may be wrong and most likely have already been tried by some other person who was positive their ‘theory’ would hold up.

I sort of maybe own this post and could sue for plague your ism. Or some such malady. I have a legal contract with a webhost. (which i read.) I pay for the hosting service. It isn’t free to me, it costs money every year to run and has only paid me back $15 in advertising and 3GB of space on Mozy.  But I am a nerd in a basement just trying to help people in return for warm fuzzys so I’d say it is free and you all can have it. It also has the benefit to me by helping you do work so I don’t have to. Just giving you practice thinking it through and following a money trail.

Believe what you want about if people in the world are good at heart or you don’t have anything worth stealing. Just ignore that on the web. Google how much your SSN is worth on the black market, or what happens to you if a home loan is taken out in your name. Can you get a credit card? Then someone else can for you. If you err on the side of caution you won’t be putting blocks on your credit report or get turned down on a job over photos from that spring break trip. Basically you need a bullshit filter for everything you do. Train it up and practice.

Best of all for me, if you use a little caution and build good habits, you might have enough credit to buy me a soda and pie.

Anything else? Leave comments to help me edit this doc.

If you really feel like this helped you out, or if you just like warm fuzzys too, please donate some cash to the good people at:

Planet Cancer.

disclaimer – I reserve the right to decide to fix your computer or not. I enjoy sleeping several hours a week. Utility from this article has a cost. Your time, and your proactive labor to offset the free labor I offer endlessly. If it saves your ass, I hope there is an additional cost as a click to the link above.

If you read to here you get a star.