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| "NEWBIE" - a somewhat derogatory term - Newbie, Newbie, Newbie - that's you - till you fully understand the following - then you graduate to "New User," which is a, marginally, respectable term for entry level piddlers who've, at least, learned to stop propagating viruses, trojans, worms, etc., on the internet. You don't have to know what these are, just how to stop passing them around. Unfortunately, if you've had your computer for over a week, you probably already have some - but that's life, rough and unfair and most of our dreams are crushed by the interminable dreariness of everyday drudgery and the indifference of uncaring strangers and, ....uh, ....sorry...., anyway, back to the subject | ||||||||||||||||
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| There are several ways to get nasty pests on your computer (which, eventually, gets passed on to me and that ticks me off - it will tick you off too once you've graduated). The most common way is from emails. If you open an infected email then you get cooties, which you pass on to your friends through your emails to them - and your friends will think you did it on purpose so you can forget about getting lucky this weekend | ||||||||||||||||
| You get email from 3 sources | ||||||||||||||||
| Your friends (and some boring people that keep bothering you) - You should recognize your friend's email address so, assuming your friend's computer doesn't have any bugs, these are reasonably safe to open | ||||||||||||||||
| People who want to sell you something (or send you pictures of naked fat people) - If you do not recognize the address, it's probably one of these. Delete it without opening it | ||||||||||||||||
| Mean people - There are lots of worthless, scum of the earth, slimeball, pimply faced people who are unloved, bitter, never get lucky and get off on sending creepy crawlies to mess up us beautiful people's computers. Again, if you don't recognize the address, delete it without opening it. | ||||||||||||||||
| BOTTOM LINE: Don't open emails unless you know where they came from. Don't get curious, bad people count on that to get you to open their icky stuff. | ||||||||||||||||
| Incidentally, "open" means, if you can see what it says, you're screwed. There are some email programs with preview panes which are, reasonably, safe. Outlook Express is one, there are others. How do you use them? Hey, this ain't no tutorial | ||||||||||||||||
| Attachments - are things attached to emails (...duh). You can attach about anything to an email..... well, not a puppy or stuff like that, but just about any file - like a picture or a music thing. Don't open attachments unless you know what they are. Even so, look at their extension before you open them. An extension is the letters after the dot at the end of the name of the file. Example: "full_frontal_of_me_naked.jpg" is a kind of picture called a jpg (J-Peg) (never mind what jpg means but it's safe - and that particular jpg is very impressive). | ||||||||||||||||
| Other safe extensions are | ||||||||||||||||
| .jpeg (same as jpg) .rtf (WordPad) .doc (MSWord) .midi (type of music file) .gif (another type of picture) .wav (another kind of music file) .bmp (another picture file) .html (you know, like simple HyperText Markup Language |
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| If the attachment has any other extension, don't open it till you ask whoever sent it what it is. If a computer is infected, various types of digital feces can attach itself to emails without the sender knowing it. That's one way they spread | ||||||||||||||||
| Even with these extensions - see how malicious spammers get around them | ||||||||||||||||
| Forwards - (Fw) - If you find a cute picture, poem, article, or something, and you send it to a friend, and that person forwards it to their friends, and those people forward it to their friends, eventually, that email is going through hundreds of computers - 20 or 30 of which are probably infected with something crappy. Kinda like a guy having a little party with Sally on Monday, Gertrude on Tuesday, Hilda on Wednesday, Lucinda on Thursday, Ophelia on Friday, Penelope on Saturday and Frank (Hey, we had a few drinks, the moon was out... don't judge) on Sunday. Anyway, considering those seven people and all their past diddling, there's a good chance you'll run afoul of a one of cupids tainted arrows. Same thing with forwards. When computers mess around with other computers, they get the clap (binarily speaking). So, don't open things that start with "Fw".... that's a forward | ||||||||||||||||
| If you don't already have an anti-virus program, don't buy one - get a good one free at http://www.grisoft.com | ||||||||||||||||
| Now you've graduated. Congratulations, you're a "New User" Now, isn't that better than being a dorky Newbie? One last important note: Never open an email from Microsoft. Why? Because Microsoft doesn't send you emails. If you get one, it's fake... no matter how real it looks. If there is an update, security patch, whatever, go directly to www.microsoft.com and find it there. Don't respond to emails from ebay or Paypal. If you get one, go to the website by typing in the url (example: www.ebay.com or www.paypal.com) - then, do what ya gotta do from there. Never go anywhere you have to login or sign-in by clicking a link in an email - always type in the basic url and login or sign-in from there. Also: (very, very common scams) You didn't win anything You ain't gonna win anything Nobody died and left you any money You ain't been selected for nothin And furthermore: Any email you get from anybody you don't know that offers to enrich your life, in any way, is a scam..... period |
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| back to funny stuff | ||||||||||||||||