Perhaps we could make an effort to educate the people who want put viruses into the public about ways to display dissatisfaction with a service or product that don't involve harming innocent parties. In doing so, we just might reduce the number of virus news stories and protect our own investments at the same time.

While it doesn't offer as many editing tools, it does provide the essentials and it can open/save graphics in .bmp, .gif, and.jpg format (the latter two being the most commonly format used for Internet eye candy). Media Player. Real Player and QuickTime are the first programs we think of when we think about multimedia.

Although they can't always be avoided, it's important to remember that computer errors can be corrected. The key is to understand what computer errors are, understand what they mean when they show up, and understand how to minimize their occurrence in the first place. Basically, computer errors are the result of a number of things that may or may not have anything to do with the way the computer is used.

Should your computer get infected with a virus, worm, or piece of spyware, you can thwart the individuals responsible by not storing your personal information on your PC so that when and if your computer does send back data - it won't be anything valuable. Hackers look for things like full names, social security numbers, phone numbers, home addresses, work-related information, and credit card numbers.

Enabled by a username and password, individual desktop settings (icons, background picture, and other settings) are available after logging onto Windows. Display Properties. Through Display Properties, a user can change the background of the Windows Desktop, add a screensaver, change the overall color scheme and fonts of Windows, and adjust a computer's color depth and/or resolution (screen area).

If we're not careful, we could end up replacing almost every hard and soft part of a computer that we own - all in an effort to upgrade! Upgrading in this fashion is not only silly to do so, it's also costly - more costly than simply buying a new computer. But once the decision to buy a computer is set in stone, what can be done with the old one?