Many sites we visit ask us to create an account with them. In many cases, our email address becomes our username. There’s some good reasons for this:

1. Ensures our username is unique among all the other millions of users.
2. Username is easily remembered.
3. In case password is forgotten, it can be easily retrieved by sending password to email address.

My recommendation is to NEVER use your email account’s password as your password for websites you register on. It may seem obvious not to do this, but many people like to use one password to keep things simple. If you like to keep only one password, you should consider having two instead - one for email and one for all other websites.

The risks of using the same password for websites as your email account is that someone can easily gain access to your email. A couple of methods by which this takes place are:

1. The website you create an account on has both your email address and its password. How trustworthy is the operator of the website?
2. You can be tricked by clever ads or webpages or emails that look like they’re legitimate which ask you to log in to your account. But instead, they collect your username and password.

With your email address and password, the damage which can be caused is great. Hackers know what websites you do business with and can change your password and email address on your accounts to lock you out and to have free reign with your account. They can use website’s “forgotten password” function to reset your password. You can be locked out of your own email account which today can be an archive of years of important information. Your online identity can be taken from you and assumed by someone else.

It’s best to come up with a way to balance password management with security. A two password approach is manageable and protects your most valuable resource on the Internet - your email account.

If you’re using Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, XP or Vista and are seeing decreasing performance but don’t know what direction to take to improve the situation, take a look at Windows Task Manager. To get there, right-click on your task bar and select Task Manager or click Start > Run and type taskmgr.exe and press enter. The graphic shown here is the Performance tab of Windows Task Manager.

There are two basic areas displayed in this view: CPU and Page File. The CPU graph will show how much of your CPU (e.g. Intel Pentium 4, AMD Duron, etc.) is being used to support your Operating System (OS) and currently running programs and processes. Continue reading →

When is a virus not a virus? The answer is very simple and so can be the solution. A virus is not a virus when one overlooks the more simple steps (which are usually the least time consuming) involved in troubleshooting Internet connectivity anomalies before diving into the much more interesting and complex intricacies of operating system files, program mutations, obscure strains of viruses, spyware and malware. Continue reading →

If you have a digital camera and take a bunch of photos, you’ll need a good photo management program that will allow you to download, organize and edit these photos on your computer. Once you have your photo management system in place and you’ve stored years’ worth of photos, you want to protect your important photos against hardware or user problems. Here are some tips for both… Continue reading →

Avoiding spyware and viruses is a must for good computer health and a decent computing experience. With spyware and viruses, you’ll experience many problems ranging from simple annoyances (e.g. constant pop-up windows covering your desktop as you work) to destruction of or stealing important data. Continue reading →

If you have multiple computers at home (e.g. Office desktop, kids computer, laptop, visitors) that need to access the Internet and you don’t want to swap cables and lay them all over the floor from room to room, there’s an easy and inexpensive way to solve this problem without tearing up walls or running cables. Continue reading →

We’d like to be your IT support team for your home, home office or business needs. From troubleshooting a wide variety of problems to setting up your computer network, our broad range of services will fit your needs.

Some popular services include:

• Set up your new computer(s).
• Migrate data from old computer to new computer.
• Create a website for you.
• Set up wireless networking.
• Virus, spyware and adware elimination.
• Teaching: Internet, iTunes, Photos, etc.

Contact us by:
Phone: (210) 625-2626
Email: email@computerservices.org
Web: http://computerservices.org/