10 June 2005
Everyone who works in technical support knows the feeling of dread when someone asks what they do for a living, only for an immediate response of "Oh
Everyone who works in technical support knows the feeling of dread when someone asks what they do for a living, only for an immediate response of "Oh my PC has been running slowly recently, any ideas?". This book is meant for those people who don't know their worms from their trojans, and who've been having a strange problem where they click on a link to one page, but end up at another.
It starts with the simplest but most important step on cleaning up your PC, sorting out your email client. With dozens or hundreds of viruses and spam emails arriving every day, you need a good email program, and Degunking takes you through the various choices from Web-based email from Yahoo or Hotmail, Outlook Express, Outlook, to Mozilla Thunderbird. It gives an excellent chart listing the capabilities of the main email clients, letting you easily choose which matches your requirements, from ease of use, spam protection, HTML support, and so on.
Degunking also provides lots of useful tips on using email, such as deleting everything not required to keep your email client running quicker, using notifiers to prioritise emails, and sorting emails into folders. It also explains the differences between POP3 and IMAP email, and gives some suggestions for how to access email on the move.
Next the book moves onto avoiding spam, giving lots of information and advice on dealing with spam, how to avoid it, and how to get rid of it if you already receive it. It starts by recommending the installation of the free open source program PopTray, which acts as a mail proxy on your local PC, filtering out spam before it arrives in your inbox. It then moves onto helping you to build filtering rules to allow through the mails you want, and to discard the ones you don’t. Helpfully, it provides screenshots from various email clients on how to do this, not just for Outlook Express.
It then moves onto training a spam filter using the new Bayesian learning technique, where rather than running self-written rules, you simply tell your email client as mails arrive that an item is spam or not. The client should quickly learn and start to automatically filtering correctly.
Dunking also discussing the less successful methods of spam filtering, and where the future might be, such as peer-to-peer spam filtering.
We then move onto the final section of the book, dealing with viruses, trojans, worms and spyware. The book provides a simple explanation of the various types of malicious software you can get on your PC if you're not careful, and then deals with cleaning up and avoiding each one in turn.
It gives an excellent explanation of dealing with each one, such as disabling Microsoft Office macros if you never use them, and installing a hardware firewall to stop worms. It then goes onto recommend some good anti-virus programs. The book then moves onto the spyware side of computer problems, and goes through various sensible Internet Explorer settings, and installing Mozilla Firefox as a replacement browser. Next, it explains the functions of firewalls and the various kinds available.
Chapter 15 is slightly out of place in that it deals with phishing, the practice of setting up fake websites and trying to entice users to enter their username and password, or by sending hoax emails. The chapter itself is excellent, but perhaps it should be nearer the front, especially with the current surge in phishing.
The final chapter is dealing with the aftermath of a malware attack, talking users through the steps of cleaning up an infected PC, and preventing it happening again.
Overall, this is an excellent book for non-technical people, providing them with both a set of tasks to go through to clean up their PC, and also a reference for if they ever have a problem with their PC that they think might be caused by an email they received or webpage they visited. It will never completely replace the phone calls to parents, friends, or neighbours who you know work in computers, but it will definitely help cut down on them.
It starts with the simplest but most important step on cleaning up your PC, sorting out your email client. With dozens or hundreds of viruses and spam emails arriving every day, you need a good email program, and Degunking takes you through the various choices from Web-based email from Yahoo or Hotmail, Outlook Express, Outlook, to Mozilla Thunderbird. It gives an excellent chart listing the capabilities of the main email clients, letting you easily choose which matches your requirements, from ease of use, spam protection, HTML support, and so on.
Degunking also provides lots of useful tips on using email, such as deleting everything not required to keep your email client running quicker, using notifiers to prioritise emails, and sorting emails into folders. It also explains the differences between POP3 and IMAP email, and gives some suggestions for how to access email on the move.
Next the book moves onto avoiding spam, giving lots of information and advice on dealing with spam, how to avoid it, and how to get rid of it if you already receive it. It starts by recommending the installation of the free open source program PopTray, which acts as a mail proxy on your local PC, filtering out spam before it arrives in your inbox. It then moves onto helping you to build filtering rules to allow through the mails you want, and to discard the ones you don’t. Helpfully, it provides screenshots from various email clients on how to do this, not just for Outlook Express.
It then moves onto training a spam filter using the new Bayesian learning technique, where rather than running self-written rules, you simply tell your email client as mails arrive that an item is spam or not. The client should quickly learn and start to automatically filtering correctly.
Dunking also discussing the less successful methods of spam filtering, and where the future might be, such as peer-to-peer spam filtering.
We then move onto the final section of the book, dealing with viruses, trojans, worms and spyware. The book provides a simple explanation of the various types of malicious software you can get on your PC if you're not careful, and then deals with cleaning up and avoiding each one in turn.
It gives an excellent explanation of dealing with each one, such as disabling Microsoft Office macros if you never use them, and installing a hardware firewall to stop worms. It then goes onto recommend some good anti-virus programs. The book then moves onto the spyware side of computer problems, and goes through various sensible Internet Explorer settings, and installing Mozilla Firefox as a replacement browser. Next, it explains the functions of firewalls and the various kinds available.
Chapter 15 is slightly out of place in that it deals with phishing, the practice of setting up fake websites and trying to entice users to enter their username and password, or by sending hoax emails. The chapter itself is excellent, but perhaps it should be nearer the front, especially with the current surge in phishing.
The final chapter is dealing with the aftermath of a malware attack, talking users through the steps of cleaning up an infected PC, and preventing it happening again.
Overall, this is an excellent book for non-technical people, providing them with both a set of tasks to go through to clean up their PC, and also a reference for if they ever have a problem with their PC that they think might be caused by an email they received or webpage they visited. It will never completely replace the phone calls to parents, friends, or neighbours who you know work in computers, but it will definitely help cut down on them.
# posted by vdodon @ 00:57 
