How to Install, Configure, and Use Avast Antivirus

An essential piece of software for every computer is an Anti-Virus. An Anti-Virus protects your computer from many common viruses and trojans which can be deadly for you system. Avast Anti-Virus Free Edition is very good and effective FREE Anti-Virus.

Downloading/Installation

Please visit this link: http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html and download the version that matches your language.

Once you have downloaded it locate the file that you just downloaded. The icon should appear like the image below:

Now double-click on the file to launch the installation of Avast!

Next you'll see this screen:

Click next.

You will get another window with the ReadMe File, just click Next, again.

Now you get the beloved Legal Agreement, just click I agree, and then click Next to continue. You will now see an image similar to the one below:

I would recomend using the "Typical" installation. Make sure Typical is selected then click Next.

Now if you selected "Minimal" you won't see "skins" here. After reviewing this for a second and confirming that what you have on your screen is similar to mine, click the Next button. (Note: the "Free Space" will vary from computer to computer. Since I have about 170 Gigabytes free that is why my Free Space is so large.)

After pressing Next, you will get the above message. Basically if you select Yes it will do a quick scan of your hard drive upon boot-up. This scan will start before you log-in into Windows. I recomend you select No, because even though this scan will only happen once, this scan can take quiet a while. It took almost an hour for my hard drive.

If you have Microsoft Anti-Spyware, or other similar program installed you may be prompted with a similar message. Click the Allow button to allow this change to take affect.

Now you have to restart your machine. I highly advise you to select Restart and then click Finish.

After you restart you will get a message about Avast! it will give you the general "Hello and Thank you for choicing our Product." Also after you restart you will notice 2 new icons in the bottom right corner of the screen.

The icon with the I is for the "Virus Recovery Database" (VRDB). What this does is virutally makes copies of the program you have installed and if one of them gets infected with a virus this will replace the files infected so the program function like before. The A is the On-Access Protection.

Very Important - after restarting, right click on the A in the taskbar and select Updating, the highlight Program.

You will get this popup after its done updating. If Avast! had to download anything for your computer you may get a message asking you to restart.

Configuring

Now right click on the A in taskbar and click Start Avast! AntiVirus.

Click Program Registration and you will be taken to their website. Fill out the form and then check you e-mail. Once you get an e-mail from them (usualy about 1 minute after submitting the form) copy and paste the serial they provided into the highlighted box. Then click ok.

Now you will see this screen. Click the little hard drive like icon in the top right corner, below the X.

Click each icon on the right once until the options in the center read:

• Scan local drives: ON
• Scan removeable media: ON
• Scan selected folders: ON
  C:\

Also adjust the slider at the top from Standard Scan to Thorough Scan, and make sure to check "Scan Archive Files."

Now click on the A on the middle left side and adjust the Resident Protection from Standard to High.

Ok now to set-up and configure the On-Access Protection.

• Right click on the A on the taskbar
• Click On-Access Protection Control
  

I recomend changing the default slide from Normal to High, depending on how fast your system is.

What makes Avast! unique is that it scans many parts of the system. It scans Instant Messenging, Internet Mail, Network Shield, Outlook/Exchange, P2P Shield, Standard Shield and Web Shield. So regardless of what you do on the computer you will be protected no matter what.

Scheduling a Scan

To schedule a scan: (from: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=3796)

• Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks
  
  
• Click (or double-click) on Add Scheduled Task
  
  
• In the wizard that appears click Next - a list of programs will appear
  
  
• Click Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4 (or whatever folder in which you installed avast!)
  
  
• Click (or double-click) on the file ashQuick.exe
  
  
• On the next screen give the task a name of your choice and choose how often you want it to run and click on Next
  
  
• On the next screen choose the appropriate scheduling options and click on Next
  
  
• On the next screen enter the user name and password for the Windows user you want the task to run as, then click on Next
  
  
• On the next screen check the box for the option "Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish" , and then click Finish
  
  
• On the next screen, in the "Run" field you will see the path for the ashQuick.exe program. After the closing quote enter a space and type in the path(s) that
  you want scanned. Multiple paths must be separated by a space and any paths that include a space in the path name must be in quotes. Here are a couple of examples:
  
  "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashQuick.exe" C: E: - this will scan the entire contents of the C: and E: drives
  
  " C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\ashQuick.exe" "C:Program Files" E:Downloads - this will scan the contents of the Program Files folder on the C: drive and the Downloads folder on the E: drive, including all subfolders (Note the first path is in quotes due to the space in the folder name "Program Files")
  
  
• Click OK
  
  
• In the Scheduled Tasks window, from the menu, click on Advanced and choose "Start Using Task Scheduler"
  
  
• To test your newly created task, from the Scheduled Tasks window, right-click on the task's icon and choose "Run" from the popup menu. If the scan doesn't begin correctly you'll get an error message. The problem is most likely in the scan path (missing quotes or something like that.)
  
  
• Close the Scheduled Tasks window
  

Keep in mind that this is just a "quick scan" and I'm not sure with what sort of depth that ashQuick.exe scans, but it beats nothing at all.

I don't know if there is any way to pass other parameters to the ashQuick.exe program for various options like scanning depth, what to do if a virus is encountered, etc. If anyone has any info on how to pass other parameters please feel free to add the information to this thread.

Lastly, I wouldn't suggest using the screen saver scanner in conjunction with this scheduled scan, as they may end up running at the same time and cause conflicts.

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NTFS or Fat32: Which should Be Chosen?

A common questions when installing Windows XP on your computer is whether or not you should format your hard drives or Fat32. This is indeed a critical question to ponder over.

The specifications for both systems are as follows:






Fat32

• Use it if your hard drives is 32GB or less.
• Is slightly faster than NTFS, but not by much.
• Can be used by other Operating System If you plan on having multiple operating systems on your machine, you want FAT32.
  

NTFS

• Should be used if your hard drive is greater than 32GB
• Has better compression allowing you to store more data.
• Has file security.

In generaly, with drive sizes being by default greater than 32GB, you should use NTFS. NTFS also gives you greater security on your hard drive to eliminate possible unauthorized access of your data.

On the other hand, if you are using Windows 95,98, or ME, NTFS is not an option so you must use FAT32. You will also want to use FAT32 when you have multiple operating systems on one computer.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion.

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Backup Tool For Windows 7

Backing up your computer’s main hard drive is the most important task every user needs to do on a regular basis. Still, I hear end-users say they have nothing of value on their computers, so they really don’t need to do backups. This is not true. I hope this article will help you understand why backups are important to do.

To setup a backup in windows 7 follow the steps given below:

1. Right click on system drive (Normally C:\)
2. Go to tools tab and choose the option backup
3. In backup and restore window choose setup backup
4. Now Windows 7 will give you list of drives which can be used to store the backup file , you can choose network location also.
5. In the next step you can let windows to make automatic backup or custome choose the files which you want to backup by choosing option "Let me choose" , but if you'll let windows to choose then it won't backup Program Files,and anything formatted with FAT file system and files stored in recycle bin and any temp files that are 1GB or more.
6. After selecting the files you can select option to create an image of your local drive.
7. Save the backup settings and run the backup. Here you done wth backup.
8. Now if you want to restore it back simply double click on the backup file.

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Youtube URL Tricks

Instead of just searching and playing on youtbe, here are some top Youtube URL tricks that you should know about :

View high quality videos

Youtube gives you the option to switch to high quality videos for some of the videos, however you can check if a video is available in high quality format by appending ‘&fmt=18′(stereo, 480 x 270 resolution) or ‘&fmt=22′(stereo, 1280 x 720 resolution) for even higher quality.

Embed Higher Quality Videos

While the above trick works for playback, if however you want to embed hig quality videos you need to append “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ and “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22″ to the embed url.

Cut the chase and link to the interesting part

Linking to a video where the real action starts at 3 minutes 22 seconds, wondered if you could make it start at 03:22? You are in luck. All you have to do is add #t=03m22s (#t=XXmYYs for XX mins and YY seconds) to the end of the URL.

Hide the search box

The search box appears when you hover over an embedded video. To hide the search box add ‘&showsearch=0′ to the embed url.

Embed only a part of Video

Just append ‘&start=30′ to skip first 30s of the video. In general you can modify the value after start= to the number of seconds you want to skip the video for.

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Burn a Disc Image from a ISO or IMF file in Windows 7

This will show you how to use the built-in Windows Disc Image Burning Tool to burn a CD or DVD disc image from a ISO or IMG file in Windows 7.

1. Place a blank unformatted CD or DVD into your CD/DVD drive.
2. Click on the ISO or IMG file you want to burn a disc image with, then click on Burn disc image.
3. Next to Disc burner, click on the drop down arrow and select the CD/DVD drive with the blank CD/DVD in it.
4. Check the Verify disc after burning box if you want Windows 7 to verify the disc image afterwards, otherwise leave it unchecked.
5. Verifying the disc will take a little bit longer for the disc image to be finished.
6. you checked the Verify disc after burning box in step 4, then you will see this next.
7. NOTE: You will not see this if you did not check the box. Instead you will see step 7.
8. it is finished burning the disc image, click on the Close button.
9. Remove your new CD/DVD image from the CD/DVD drive.

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Get Rid Of Facebook Lite

Facebook is one of the most widely used Social networking site where people share their thoughts, business, activities and meet new and like minded people. Once I was sharing my thoughts and activities on face books in Facebook then I could not stop myself from clicking the application Facebook Lite. I don't know why, I didn't like it. All options seemed to be disappeared and was feeling very uncomfortable.

However, after some time I found a way to return back to previous Facebook interface which I was used to.

I would like to share this solution for the people who don't like Facebook lite.

Steps

1. Scroll down to the below of the home page of your Facebook home page untill you can see the link "Feedback"
2. Click that link, then you will be redirected to another page where you will find a feedback box and above that text box you will see the link "just click here"
3. Then in no time you will be having your old but great FACEBOOK interface..

If you found this post helpful then please comment and let me know if it worked for you

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Download Microsoft Office 2010 Beta for Windows

I am sure that I have again something which you all will like. Go through the post to explore the same


The first public beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 is now made available by Microsoft. Other than Office 2010, Visio 2010 beta, SharePoint Server 2010 and Project 2010 beta can also downloaded for your Windows computer.




The main component of Office 2010 are enlisted as below:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft OneNote
• Microsoft InfoPath
• Microsoft SharePoint Workspace
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft Communicator

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available now. The Office installer is around 700 MB in size but around 3 GB of free space is needed on your hard drive for the installation. The expiry date of Office 2010 is October 2010. Microsoft is offering essentially is the Professional Plus edition, but customers will be able to get not just the actual bits from Microsoft, but also the product keys necessary to activate the productivity suite.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 Beta for windows

Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

Download Microsoft Visio 2010 Beta

Download Microsoft Office Web Apps Beta

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