Hey there, greater Portland area. Looking good today! Have you lost weight?

I'm Justin, the head geek and owner of 12:01 Computer Solutions, and I've had this blog idea kicking around in my head for awhile. You see, I run into a lot of problems with computers and such that could have been avoided relatively easily with a little fore-knowledge, and I figured, why not do what my Mom always taught me and share?

So, each week I'm going to try and impart a little of what I know to help you in your day to day computing life. Keep in mind that the advice on this blog is free and worth every bit what you paid for it.

Without further ado, let's get on to the useful bits. This weeks topic is:

UPDATES
(and why to avoid them)

Now, I would imagine that most techies out there would lynch me for advising you to avoid updates, and they're right in some respects, but I'm going to anyway. Here's why: You see, spyware and virus writing is now a multi-million dollar industry. There are actually entire businesses with employees and HR guys and dental plans existing overseas and out of the watchful eye of the US justice system that write spyware for a living.They've got focus groups and trend analysis, and one thing they've learned is that people seem to trust things that look like updates. "You're anti-virus is out of date!" they say. "Windows needs to be updated!" they say, and then they convince you to click "yes" to a bunch of things that a brain damaged four-year-old would never agree to and WHAM. You're chock full of virus. 

There are only two things on your computer that require constant updates. Your virus scanner and Windows. Both of these things SHOULD be set to update automatically. Your virus scanner definitely is, Windows probably is. To make sure Windows XP is, just:

1. Click on Start
2. Click on Control Panel
3. If you see an option for "Security Center", click on that, otherwise:
4. Click on "Automatic Updates" or "Manage Automatic Updates"
5. Make sure "install updates automatically" is set and that it's set for a time your computer will be ON.

If you do shut down your computer every night, make sure that you click on "install updates and shut down". This will ensure that Windows is kept up to date.

Now here's the tricky part: IGNORE EVERY UPDATE MESSAGE YOU ARE PRESENTED WITH. Remember what they taught you in health class and Just Say "NO" to everything, close every update prompt window, click on every "X", kill every stupid Java script and HP balloon prompt telling you anything regarding updates. A few bug fixes are just not worth the possible infection, especially if everything on your system is running fine to begin with.

See you next week!