Microsoft's help desk is good example. 3. Fan sites. Fan sites probably isn't a good name for this resource, but you can find websites that are dedicated toward supporting the users of a particular software program or piece of hardware. We've called them "fan sites" because the maintainers of these sites have no affiliation with the manufacturers that they support!

On the other hand, it can also grant the same access to those who aren't supposed to get it. Although it's a rare occurrence, hacking has become the biggest criminal nuisance in computer history. Make no bones about it. There's nothing innocent or cute about the hacker. Today's hackers aren't the pimply-faced teen rebels that you might be thinking of.

Now it would be impossible to teach you how to program any language in a single article. But we can still introduce you to some of programming's most basic concepts - starting with the commands we talked about earlier. Commands are the instructions that a computer follows to perform an action. 2 To make them work inside of a program, programmers assign commands to objects like buttons for example.

What we're saying is that since we can try shareware before paying for it, we can determine if the software is completely compatible with our systems first. In other words, we can discover whether the software performs the way we want them to and should anyone try to do the same with commercial software, they'll be in for a big disappointment.

" Button - buttons perform a command after a user clicks them with a mouse. Problems occur when the text of a button is grayed out or if it doesn't appear to sink into the screen when clicked. Check box - a check box is a small box that allows a user to indicate several choices among many. When clicked, a small "x" displays inside a box.

If you use an online service like AOL (America Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block access to various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant messaging and email from anyone who isn't a fellow AOL user. Other tools available online operate similar to the way that AOL's Parental Control settings work, however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement of mom and dad.