Tech Tip #52: Roll Your Computer Back to a Problem-Free Date

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  Something happened and now my computer isn’t working right. I downloaded a program/music/video or installed a new program and it hasn’t worked right since. What do I do?

A: These days, that’s not as hard as it used to be. All you have to do is type ‘restore’ in the search box (on the start menu) and follow instructions. What it’ll do is turn your computer back to an earlier date, before you did the download or the install. It won’t affect documents, only the bad stuff. It’s saved me several times.

Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I’m afraid of getting slammed with viruses, malware, all that bad stuff that comes with visiting the internet. What can I do?

A:  If you take reasonable precautions, the chances of being hit are minimized. Here’s what I do:

• Don’t download from music or video sites. They have the greatest amount of malware statistically because the Bad Guys know we-all like getting free music and videos.
• Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools
• Do the following every week:

13 Easy Spring Cleaning Steps for Your Computer

If you followed my suggestion over the New Year’s holiday, you cleaned your computer out then so this will go much faster for you than others. But, it’s again time for Spring Cleaning. Set aside a couple of hours. Grab a litre of soda (unless you live in New York), get a comfortable chair. Put on your problem-solving hat, and get started:

1. Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools. Sometimes, they seem to turn off by themselves (I have no idea why). Check it to be sure it remains active.
2. Defrag your computer. To quote Windows, Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Removable storage devices such as USB flash drives can also become fragmented. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your disks and drives can work more efficiently. Run Disc Defrag by going to Control Panel-Administrative Tools–Advanced Tools.
3. Run Spybot or a similar antispyware program. Spybot is free, which is why I like it. I’ve had good luck with it. Download.com says this about Spybot: The program checks your system against a comprehensive database of adware and other system invaders. The Immunize feature blocks a plethora of uninvited Web-borne flotsam before it reaches your computer.
4. Keep your antivirus software active. If you’re paranoid like me, run an antivirus scan weekly to be sure nothing is missed.
5. Run Ad-aware once a week to keep malware and spyware off your computer. It has a stellar reputation and is still free to all (although there’s an upgrade that you can pay for).
6. Sort through your My Documents files and get rid of those you don’t need anymore. It’s intimidating, like a file cabinet that hasn’t been opened in months–or years. Do it, though. You may not need the hard drive space, but you don’t need the computer fingering through unnecessary files every time it searches.
7. Back up all of your files to an external drive or your cloud storage. If you have an automated system for that, skip this. If you don’t have one, consider getting Carbonite or similar. If you use Windows, try their ‘backup’ program. It’s easy to find: Click the Start Button and search ‘backup’.
8. Empty the trash folder. Don’t even look in it. If you haven’t missed a file by now, it won’t be in there.
9. Learn to use that program you’ve been promising you would. Evernote is a great example. Use it (and you won’t be sorry) or delete the email from your best friend exhorting you to. Move on.
10. Go through your programs and delete the ones you no longer use. Here’s what you do:
    • go to Control Panel>Programs and Feature

Tech Tip #41: Repair Your Computer With System Restore

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I don’t know what I did, but my computer doesn’t run right anymore. What can I do?

A:  With access to the internet, computer malfunctions have become more prevalent than ever. Sometimes you download a program–or your child mistakenly pushes a button that allows malware on your computer. Suddenly, through no fault of your own, things just aren’t working right anymore.

This is so common that Microsoft has a program called System Restore on every computer with Windows operating system. System Restore is a utility that allows users to restore their Windows configurations to a previous state. While System Restore is often associated with providing recovery when driver or software installations go awry, it can really shine when spyware or other malevolent software compromises user machines. In many situations, this handy utility can roll back afflicted machines to a completely uninfected state. Of course, System Restore can work only when it is turned on and cataloging system states, so make sure it’s enabled on all user machines.

How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 3rd Grade

How can I teach my students about digital citizenship

Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they complete their research on projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with wealth comes responsibility. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. There are several great programs available to guide students through this process (Common Sense’s Digital Passport, Carnegie CyberAcademy, Netsmart Kids). I’ve collected them as resources and developed a path to follow that includes the best of everything.

Here’s Third Grade:

Overview/Big Ideas

Why is it important to be a good digital citizen? How can students do this?

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• What are my rights and responsibilities as Digital Citizens?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

How to Teach Internet Safety in K-6

The Internet is a wonderful resource for kids for researching school reports, communicating with teachers, staying in touch with friends, and entertaining themselves. They can literally hit a few keystrokes and

Click poster to purchase

find out about culture in China, the history of Europe, or take a tour of the American White House.

But with that access comes risks, even if you’re careful. For example, in our class project on life cycles, we never allow the students to search “chicks”, rather they must type “baby chickens” to avoid the problems the former carries.

The digital natives we are educating don’t want to hide from these sorts of problems, though. They want to learn to manage them. What we as teachers must do is show them how to avoid the internet’s bad neighborhoods so they can benefit from the good. Here’s my year-by-year teaching run-down:

Kindergarten

I mix internet safety lessons in with other teaching during my 45-minutes-per-week lesson. I spread it out throughout the year, repeating if necessary, which doesn’t bother kindergartners.

• First time students access the internet, I provide an overview. What is it? Where does it go? What will they see once they’ve clicked a link? How should they safely use a link? How do they NOT click on the ads (and what are ‘ads’)?
• We visit age-appropriate videos that teach online safety
  • Surf Swell Island
  • Clicky’s Quest–internet safety
  • Clicky’s Web World–What to do
  • Princess who knew how to UYN–video
  • Webonauts
  • Garfield–internet safety
  • Webville Outlaws–internet safety
  • My Online Neighborhood–video
  • Internet safety video–a day in a digital citizen’s life
  • Safe surfing ebook—read or read to you
  • Internet Safety Site –Disney

• Have sufficient adult assistance that student activities can be corrected immediately so learning is seamless and students aren’t confused

First Grade

Dear Otto: Where Can I Find Kid-safe Images?

Do you have a tech question?

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from a reader:

I am a computer lab teacher and teach grades 1-5.  I can really use some advice from others. Do you have a good place for students to go and get images that are appropriate – I teach grades 1-5  and Google even with strict settings as well as MS Office clipart have some inappropriate images  that come up from searches

I wrote a post about this almost a year ago. I appreciate that you’ve reminded me it’s time to revisit. This is harder than it should be. I use Google as a default because it is the safest of all the majors, not to say it’s 100% kid-safe. I spent quite a few hours one weekend checking out all of the kid-friendly child search engines (Sweet Search, KidSafe, QuinturaKids, Kigose, KidsClick, Ask Kids, KidRex, and more), but none did a good job filtering images. Content–yes, but images dried up to worthless for the needs of visual children.

29 Steps to Internet Safety for Kids

Photo credit: Public domain pictures

This is a great list from Deb Ng, founder and former owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs. I thought hard about what she’d written to see if I could add anything, enhance or disagree.

Nothing. It’s a great list, as good as any I’ve seen since social media exploded on the education landscape. Read and take note:

Most of my online crowd are savvy when it comes to the Internet. We know how to navigate, can spot shady characters at a glance, and can quickly spy inaccurate and poorly written content. However, there’s a whole generation of young people out there who don’t know any of this. And it’s not a slam on their intelligence, either. Not everyone knows enough about predators, privacy and SEO content to educate their kids, and it’s not something so quickly offered in school. We’re getting better at teaching our kids the ropes online, but there are still some areas in which we’re falling short.

Why are we so good about teaching our kids how to avoid shady situations in the real world, but remiss when it comes to the unsavory online stuff?

I recently experienced a circumstance where my son viewed something extremely adult online, despite parental control settings. And though I haven’t been too lax about keeping an eye on his online habits, it got me thinking about all the things all parents should be teaching their kids about using the Internet.

Here’s my list – I hope when you’re done reading, you’ll add your own items to the list because I know there’s much more.

1. Not everything you read online is true: It used to be anything we read in print was true. We could trust newspapers, magazines and books as reliable sources of information. It’s not the same with the web. Since anyone can become published, some of the stuff you’re reading online isn’t true. Even worse, some people are just rewriting stuff they read from other people online, so you might be reading the same false information over and over again. Even Wikipedia isn’t necessarily a reliable source. If you’re researching something online, consider the source. Some poorly written, ramdom web page, isn’t necessarily a good source. However, if you find a .gov or .org site, the information has a better chance of being true. Always look at who owns the website and whether or not they have an agenda before considering whether or not certain information is true.

Book Review: Digital Forensics With Open Source Tools

Digital Forensics with Open Source Tools

by Cory Altheide

Note: This review written as part of my Amazon Vine Voice series

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I write techno-thrillers, so I’m always looking for new ways to crack the tangled online lives of popular fictional characters, a blueprint for the next Digital Fortress. In the case of Altheide and Carvey’s Digital Forensics with Open Source Tools (Elsevier, 2011), I’ll have to keep looking, but I wasn’t disappointed. It delves into the equally obfuscated world of computer malfunctions. In plain English (as opposed to the acronyms more rampant in the geek world than the government), it details how to investigate a variety of problems on a variety of systems to find out what went wrong and how to fix it–using open source tools. The ‘fix it’ part is the digital forensics which the authors define as “the use of scientifically derived and proven methods toward the preservation, collection, validation, identification, analysis, interpretation, documentation and presentation of digital evidence derived from digital sources for the purpose of …reconstruction of events found to be criminal…”

Tech Tip #68: Check History in Your Browser

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:How do I check to see where my kids/students have been online without making them think I don’t trust them?

3 Steps to Keep the Internet Child-Safe

The biggest concern I get from parents at my school is how to keep their children safe on the untamed internet.

It’s true, every website links to other places. Children click there by accident–and suddenly they’re where they shouldn’t be. Some parents I know forbid internet use without constant supervision, but that’s onerous to parents and hurts kids. Parents don’t have time to watch over their child’s shoulder (while they are trying to cook dinner, prepare for guests, watch the dog–or do their day job) and kids end up the losers (see this list of great websites for kids to see what they’d be missing).

Here’s what I do to balance both sets of needs:

Tech Tip #52: Roll Your Computer Back to a Problem-Free Date

Weekly tech tips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Tech Tip #41: Repair Your Computer With System Restore

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:  I don’t know what I did, but my computer doesn’t run right anymore. What can I do?

A:  With access to the internet, computer malfunctions have become even more prevalent than ever. Sometimes you download a program–or your child mistakenly pushes a button that allows malware on your computer. Suddenly, through no fault of your own, things just aren’t working right anymore.

This is so common that Microsoft has a program called System Restore on every computer with Windows operating system. System Restore is a utility that allows users to restore their Windows configurations to a previous state. While System Restore is often associated with providing recovery when driver or software installations go awry, it can really shine when spyware or other malevolent software compromises user machines. In many situations, this handy utility can roll back afflicted machines to a completely uninfected state. Of course, System Restore can work only when it is turned on and cataloging system states, so make sure it’s enabled on all user machines.

FREE Lesson Plans for K-8 Technology

I go back to my classroom tomorrow so I’ve spent most of the last week trying to organize myself. OK, it’s an oxymoron, but I can’t concede defeat the First Day!

I put together a list of my lesson  plans I used last year to integrate tech into the core classrooms. I’m hoping I can share it with the teachers, let them see what worked last year, what they need more of–that sort of thing.

I’m going to share it with you. Here’s hoping it makes your next year go better.

Technology Lesson Plans to Integrate Technology into classroom Units of Inquiry

Weekend Website #3: Spybot

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Hackers Love April Fool’s Day

…so beware. Most people think of April Fool’s Day as harmless jokes, but some don’t. Their definition of funny is suspect. Here’s a warning posted on What’s On My PC.

First Week of April Brings Increase of Spyware and Malware

I received an email from the Director of Business Development, for SuperAntiSpyware, that was a reminder that the first week of April (coinciding with “April Fool’s Day”) brings an increase in spyware and malware infections.  Also included in this email was 6-(six) tips, that I want to share with you, to remind computer users to be extra vigilant during this period of increased spyware activity. (Read on for the 6 tips)

Hackers Don’t Waste Their Time on Macs

I have a lot of parents in my school who love Macs. Some of the reasons are ease of use–especially for younger users, graphics superiority, intuitiveness, widgets. Another is Macs don’t suffer from the malware and hacking that PCs do.

There’s a reason for the latter. Read on:

Macs’ low popularity keeps them safer from hacking and malware

Warning: Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just reporting on findings. Last time I factually explained why I like PCs better than Macs (using my first amendment rights to freedom of speech), readers gave my post the lowest ranking ever of any article I’ve written. Wow. Don’t get on the wrong side of that Mac cult(ure).

Three Tips to Keep Your PC Safe

These are good reminders that you can’t just plug a new PC in and expect it to work as advertised. Before you go online to download updates, music, online programs (like Printkey, Jing, or other programs I can’t live without), install the alarm systems:

Keeping That New PC Clean and Pure

By RIVA RICHMOND

Published: September 2, 2009

School starts soon, and many people are getting spanking-new computers. Ah, the joy of a new and more powerful toy — and a clean slate.

Illustration by Randall Enos

A new PC, whether you know it or not, may well have freed you from many malicious programs that steal credit card numbers and other valuable information or otherwise obstruct your safe and private use of the Internet. Now is the time — while you’re getting everything set up just the way you like it — to take some steps to keep your new machine clean and free of malware. Here is what you need to do before you do anything else.

CHECK YOUR FIREWALL SETTINGS

Do this before you even connect your computer to the Internet. Firewalls prevent certain unwanted traffic from reaching your computer, including worms that spread through network connections. New laptops and desktops with Windows Vista (and, come Oct. 22, the next version of the operating system, Windows 7) and netbooks using Windows XP SP2 or higher have a firewall that is built in and turned on by default. You can make sure all is well by going to the Windows Security Center, clicking Start, then Control Panel, then Security Center and Windows Firewall.

Mac users can check and adjust their firewall settings by clicking on the Apple icon and going to System Preferences and clicking on Security and then Firewall. At a minimum, choose “allow only essential services.” A better option is to select “set access for specific services and applications” and play gatekeeper, allowing programs to connect as you need them, said Rich Mogull, founder of the security consultant firm Securosis.

UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE

Even though you have a new machine, chances are that security fixes have been issued since the manufacturer loaded the software, so you will want to download those as soon as you get online.

Your new PC may prompt you to check for updates from Microsoft, but, if not, open Windows Update by clicking the Start button, then All Programs and then Windows Update. On the left pane, click “check for updates.” (For more information about Windows Security, see microsoft.com/protect.)

To help you keep Microsoft products up to date, Windows will prompt owners of new machines to sign up for automatic updates. You will see a screen asking if you want to “Help protect Windows automatically.” Choose the first option, “Use recommended settings,” so you get everything and don’t have to worry about it again.

Barring an urgent problem, updates come out on the second Tuesday of the month. To schedule exactly what time your updates are installed — say at 3 a.m., when you are asleep — open Windows Update and select Change Settings and make your choices. This is also a good time to turn on the Internet Explorer Phishing Filter, which can help keep you from turning over personal information to the wrong people.

For Mac users, your computer will automatically check for updates once a week. If you are a paranoid person, have it check more frequently by clicking Software Update in the System Preferences panel and then choose Daily.

ADD SECURITY SOFTWARE

Firewalls won’t help fend off viruses or Trojan horses that can come through e-mail messages, Web sites and pop-up ads. Given the frightening number of malicious programs that aim for Windows PCs, owners of these machines really need to use some security software. There are several free antivirus programs, like AVG 8.5 Free, Avast Antivirus and the forthcoming Microsoft Security Essentials, so even penniless students have no excuse to go without. Note that Vista comes with Windows Defender, which blocks spyware and pop-up ads, and that program can be downloaded free by Windows XP SP2 machines.

Since a lot of malicious programs now come through Web sites, you will also want to use one of the many free tools available to help you avoid malicious sites. Microsoft’s newest browser, Internet Explorer 8, will warn you if you try to visit sites it deems unsafe, deceptive or carriers of a common Web attack type called “cross-site scripting” attacks. Other browsers, including Chrome, Firefox and Safari, also warn users about potentially unsafe sites, using a blacklist kept by Google. There is also McAfee’s SiteAdvisor, a free add-on for the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers (the latter works on both Windows and Mac), that shows site reputation information within search results pages, including warnings about potentially dangerous sites.

There are few malicious programs that aim for Macs, so an antivirus program isn’t essential at this point. That said, some Mac experts think that the days of peace and security for Macs may be waning. There have a been a few Trojan horses recently, and some Web attacks don’t care which operating system you use. If you frequent file-sharing sites, or your employer requires it, buy a Mac antivirus program.

SORT OUT THE APPLICATIONS

New Windows PCs typically come loaded with all kinds of third-party programs, many of which you will never use.

“In a lot of cases, that’s extra software that might have vulnerabilities” that hackers could exploit, says Chad Dougherty, a vulnerability analyst at the CERT Program at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute.

To avoid problems, eliminate the programs you don’t need by clicking the Start button and choosing Control Panel and then Programs to see a list of what is on your machine. Select unwanted programs and then hit the Uninstall button at the top of the program list.

Then sign up for automatic updates from the makers of any software you intend to keep — or that you later install yourself, for that matter. To help you make sure you have checked out everything, download Secunia PSI, a free tool that will help you make sure that all the programs on your PC get security patches.

Speaking of that, always be careful about which software you install from the Internet, whether you have a PC or a Mac. These programs can contain vulnerabilities, and pirated programs and random add-ons may be outright malicious.

How to Protect Your Computer–for Free

Great list from my fellow-blogger, WhatsonmyPC.

FREE Online Virus and Malware Scanners

Listed are FREE online virus and malware scanners that can be used to compliment the scanner(s) already installed on your PC.  Some only scan individual files that you upload to the scanner; while others are full blown scanners that will scan your entire computer.  Keep in mind these are not substitutes for the virus or malware scanner on your PC that have the ability to perform real-time detection.  My favorite on the list is Trend Micro’s Housecall.

Why Do People Hack?

While financial gain is certainly a big driver for web hacking, ideological reasons cannot be ignored. Internet organizations, especially hosting providers, suffer more often from the former and government from the latter.  Financial organizations might be both, and these attacks are either more frequent or disclosed more often.

Crackers (bad hackers) continue to use the same basic attack schemes–exploiting  application vulnerabilities–and they’re becoming more proficient with automation, which makes their attacks more widespread.

Here are some statistics from the Web Hacking 2008 Incidents Database.

Why do people hack? Not the reasons you might think:

How do they get access to your computer:

Who is most opften attacked:

Obama and Cookies: What’s the Story

Have you been following the hoopla about White House sending out unsolicited emails? I don’t know how concerned I am about that. It’s a complicated issue (the type that in a past more innocent time, I might have entrusted to my elected officials), and right now, I’m thinking about the new school year rather than conspiracy theories, so I haven’t spent a lot of time on that.

Then, this comes up. You know about cookies. In computer language, they are small text files placed on your computer by a website. They contain a unique ID tag that links you back to the site you visited. When you revisit, you are recognized by that cookie.

There are different kinds of cookies that allow different access to your computer, and that’s where my concern rises that the Obama People are  going too far. Read on…

Obama’s cookies may not go down so easy | Adventures in IT – InfoWorld

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