I’ve been in customer service since I was 8 years old. My father and stepmother purchased a small retail space at the base of the ski slopes at a resort in Northern Michigan. They served coffee, cappuccino, pastries, freshly squeezed OJ, magazines, and sundries to the guests who hailed from the Detroit and Chicago areas. At first, I think they brought me into the shop with them because they had nowhere else to put me! We opened at 6:30am and left after 5:00pm, so there was no way I could be home alone that long. I began pouring coffee and putting out the fresh pastries and graduated to hand-squeezing the oranges and making room deliveries. I was a shy girl, but I quickly warmed to the attention by watching my stepmother interact with everyone. The tips I made for deliveries didn’t hurt either!

Every time I visited them from Boston, I worked at Maxfield Cook in the mornings. And every time I returned I saw customers I knew. I started to see what it was like to form relationships with customers and how important that was to the success of the business. We could anticipate people’s orders and how they took their coffee; we saved the last pecan roll for that one person who showed up long after they sold out, and we ordered that obscure newspaper for the gentleman who visited for two weeks in August. I would listen to my parents talk over dinner about how good it felt to make a difference in someone’s day with something as simple as a good cup of coffee and a warm smile.

I remember the first time I didn’t provide good customer service quite vividly. We were running low on milk, so I swiped the ceramic cow from between our favorite elderly couple for someone else’s coffee. A few minutes later, my stepmom asked, “Where did you find that?” When I told her, her eyes grew wide, “Did you ask them first?” My heart sank. It never occurred to me. They needed the milk for their granola, and now there was none left. She made me apologize to them. I was sobbing, red-faced, and mortified. Our favorite couple softened and said it was OK, and my stepmom was embarrassed at my reaction. Sure, I was a little sensitive, but it was the first time I really felt that I had let a customer down and I took it personally.

There were some not-so-nice customer experiences as well. We had people who insisted loudly that the coffee was burned even though we just made it and forced us to make a whole new pot and waste the perfectly good one we had.  Some would make fun of the name of the business and tell us it was stupid (It was my stepmom’s father’s middle name and my father’s mother’s maiden name). And others would yell at us for seemingly no reason at all. I would get upset and say mean things about them when they left. My stepmom would let me vent and then say, “Well, we don’t know them. Maybe they got some bad news.” I would roll my eyes and get in one last jab, but that idea stuck with me.

Since that time almost every job I’ve had has been customer service in one form or another. At each one I learn a little more about people and a lot more about patience. And at each job I have experiences that I treasure—laughing with customers at inside jokes, going the extra mile for customers when they least expect it, and anticipating their needs before they even think of them. I even cherish the more challenging experiences like when a customer yelled at me for ten minutes straight because she missed her massage appointment because she didn’t leave the mall on time. Did I secretly wish a pox upon her? Sure! But I also learned to listen to her and separate her emotions from my job. She returned for her rescheduled appointment and apologized to me for her behavior. She said she was embarrassed that I treated her so kindly after all her abuse. I told her we all have bad days.

I’m not here to tell you I’m a saint or that I give the best customer service 110% of the time. I’m as human as everyone else and have my fair share of bad days when I can’t provide the level of service customers deserve.  Providing good customer service in an IT company like Fandotech is especially challenging. Every phone call and email we receive is from a person or company with a problem we need to solve right away. Every person who calls or emails us is experiencing pain and inconvenience, and every company is worried about losing productivity and business until we can fix it. I won’t lie to you—that’s not the easiest thing to walk into every day! But I know at Fandotech that I’m working with the best team of people around, and I can say with confidence that we all do our absolute best for each and every customer. We’re going to miss a project deadline or have a challenge getting a server up and running before the start of the school day every once in a while. As long as each job has a positive customer experience I consider that a success. Sometimes that means a customer giving me feedback when he feels his issue wasn’t addressed in a timely manner or expressing disappointment when a technician shows up an hour late. When a customer trusts me with that kind of information I know we’re on the right path, I’m doing what I have been trained to do, and I can help the team provide a superior customer service experience the next time.

When I feel a little beaten and I’m having a difficult conversation with a customer I have to remember that they aren’t yelling at me.  They’re frustrated and stressed and most likely there’s a boss that is yelling at them because something is broken. Despite the drama of servers crashing, hard drives failing, PCs blue-screening, and networks dying there is a human being on the other end of that phone or email. So I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and remember that each interaction with customers is an opportunity to make a positive difference. And I always try have a good cup of coffee thanks to our resident barista, Craig Samson, and a warm smile on the other end of the phone or internet connection.

Sarah C. Marino

It’s been over a month since I began using my Blackberry Storm and filed my initial review article. I’ve had time to use the device casually and professionally. I’ve also had time to monitor the response to my initial review, particularly in terms of how people found my review through search engines.

I learned that many users couldn’t copy their contact list onto the Blackberry Storm. Like me, they discovered that Verizon’s Backup Assistant program does not work on the Storm. And then, like me, they searched online for an automated solution. What they found: another complaining Blackberry Storm user that couldn’t copy his contacts. Oh, and no real solutions to the problem, either. There’s not even a way to export your contact list from Verizon’s Backup Assistant website. Absolutely nothing easy, period.

One possible solution I did find was to bring my Storm to the nearest Verizon store where, either for free or at a cost, the helpful Verizon staff would be able to copy my contacts off my old phone. I suggest doing that if you don’t want to re-enter your contacts list manually. Otherwise, look upon this as an opportunity. It’s a valuable chance to reassess your contacts list. Do you still need Bernard Madoff in there?

Since receiving my new Blackberry Storm, I’ve pulled together a list of fifteen observations, in no particular order:

Keyboarding ease. I’ve improved my typing skills using the on-screen keyboard (in particular, the landscape qwerty version). I’ve somewhat improved both my speed and accuracy. But I’m glad I’m not typing this article on it.

Dialing out. After an initial bit of confusion (basically, I felt at-a-loss without number keys on the phone), I’ve really taken a liking to the Storm’s on-screen interface for outbound dialing. The number keys are nice and large and work particularly well with the screen’s click feature. And from this screen, I have simple one-touch access to both my recent calls list and my (freshly tidied) contacts list.

Oh-so-small, the wee icons are. I sometimes wish for a stylus, because some of the buttons, icons, game pieces, text boxes, etc. are very small touch targets for my big fat fingers. I’m frequently thankful for the “Go Back” button on the Storm.

The fumble buttons. Have I mentioned that I have big fat fingers? Well, I’m clumsy enough with the phone that I often accidentally press the buttons along the device’s sides. Those buttons activate the camera, the voice dialing interface, and the volume and track advance features. I wish Research In Motion (RIM) would have repositioned these buttons or made them operate like the screen lock and mute buttons.

RIM's Blackberry Storm

Volume and track advance buttons. It took me a while to realize that volume and track advance were integrated into the same buttons and that the difference between the commands was quite subtle. Press lightly and the volume adjusts. “Click” the button to advance audio tracks.

Screen locking and muting. Somewhat hidden along the top edge of the Storm is a pair of buttons embedded within its skin. On the left is the screen lock button and on the right is the mute button. The selection of these two features placed in those locations is brilliant. I always lock the screen before putting the phone in my shirt pocket. I also like to mute/pause the music player when I unplug the headphones. And, the buttons do not easily get pressed accidentally.

Ringtone configuration. I spent some time and created my own custom ringtone scheme. I opted for various low-volume and pleasing single alert tones, as well as vibration-only for certain functions. The Blackberry offers quite a bit of ringtone customization, and I paid particular attention to creating a quiet and unintrusive scheme that wouldn’t disturb other folks nearby when it “rings.” I think everybody should do the same.

Music playlist troubles. In theory, the Storm’s touch screen interface should make it easy to add items to a custom playlist, so I assembled a Christmas assortment. For each and every song or folder I added, the Storm asked me if I was sure I wanted to add the song to the playlist. This confirmation step is tiresome and unnecessary. Also, the Storm did not reliably play the playlist. Both in shuffle mode and standard play order, the Storm would “veer” off the playlist and start choosing tracks from my greater music collectiom after playing only a few songs from my playlist.

Answering incoming calls. When a call comes in, the Storm displays the caller information clearly. On-screen buttons give me one-touch access to answer the call, mute the ringer, or ignore the call. I like the ease-of-use of this interface.

Watch it spin. That firmware update I mentioned in my earlier post really put the spin into the Storm. The interface rotates swiftly from portrait to landscape mode as I turn the phone (no more shaking required). Sometimes, though, it spins the screen at the slightest unintentional rotation of the Storm. This is a minor complaint: I’d rather it spin too easily than resist spinning at all.

Plugging in the charger. Is the MicroUSB port tough enough to withstand nightly plugins for the next couple years? We shall see. It seems like a lot of wear and tear.

The joys of visual voicemail. This is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread, and I think Verizon knows this. Annoyingly, they charge a couple dollars extra for this service each month. However, the service integrates so slickly into the phone that I’m seriously impressed. If I miss a call, the Storm displays a small window that tells me who called. If I click the link in the window for Details, I see a summary of the call information and there’s a Play button. All I need to do is press the Play button to hear my voicemail, no need to call into voicemail first. There’s also a whole visual “inbox” interface to this, as well.

The annoying wrong “1 new message” indicator. My Storm’s gmail inbox insists that I have a new message. I don’t, but it clings to its certainty. I’ve tried everything I could think of (including verbal threats) shy of deleting and reinstalling it to make the indicator go away. My next resort is to delete and reinstall, but how annoying. I’ll add a comment to this review when I get around to resolving this issue.

[ Edit: Yay! I finally solved this one! Lots of folks have been complaining about this issue. I finally discovered where the new message was hidden. It turns out that I did have a "new" message. I went into the standard Messages application and hit the menu (Blackberry logo) button and chose the View Saved Messages option. In this "hidden" group of saved messages I had one message that was, indeed, new. I read it and the new message indicator finally went away. Sigh... ]

Pairing the Jawbone II with the Storm. Here’s another item of great interest to the teeming masses. I love the super-simple look of the Jawbone, but it does make the pairing experience a bit daunting. I will admit to having some trouble the first time I tried to pair the Jawbone to my Storm (was I pushing on the right part of the device?). I followed the directions at least twice before succeeding. Now, to pair the devices, I get them into proximity of each other, pop on the Jawbone, and press its outer surface for a few moments and the devices magically connect. The Storm’s LED blinks blue when the devices are successfully paired.

The alarm clock. Since this is my first Blackberry, I don’t know if all the models do this, but I love it that the Storm displays a clock on its screen when plugged into the charger. If you click this screen, you can easily set an alarm. The type of clock display (analog or digital) and the alarm tone are configurable. I’m ordering a charging stand for the Storm. I’m hopeful that this will both cut down on the wear and tear on the MicroUSB plug, and allow me to see the clock while it’s charging. I might just ditch my old alarm clock and switch to my Blackberry, like everything else.

Craig Samson

Author Robin Williams (not to be confused with the famous actor and comedian of the same name) wrote a book entitled The Non-Designer’s Design Book some years back. This book is a brilliantly conceived and written guide to making your documents look professional, but explained in a non-technical manner that simplifies the basics of design into a handful of easy rules. Prior to writing that book, Williams wrote another called The Mac is Not a Typewriter (there is a PC variant of this book, as well) in which she explores a series of distinctions between the typography rules used for typewriters and those used for computers (and professional typesetters). If design and typography interest you, I highly recommend these books. Not only are they informative, but they’re written with style and humor.

This article presents some of these rules in a capsulated format that you can swallow in one blog read. I’ve selected those rules that apply to those of us writing everyday things like emails, various Word documents, blogs, presentations, etc. First, though, I need to run through a handful of basic design odds and ends.

Monospace font illustration

To begin with, what is the difference between typography rules on a typewriter and those on a computer? The main difference between the classic typewriter and a modern word processor like Microsoft Word is the choice of font. With those old typewriters you typically had only one font, what we call Courier today. Courier is a monospace font, meaning that every letter takes up the same width on the page. The thin “l” and the thick “m” are exactly the same width in Courier, with the l’s baseline being stretched really wide and the m’s strokes being all squished together. The result is that you can draw a grid on the page where each square contains one letter, because every letter lines up in vertical columns. This rigid structure demands certain accommodations be made for readability’s sake.

Proportional font illustration

Meanwhile, most of us using Microsoft Word or any other modern application use proportional fonts such as Times New Roman, Garamond, or Helvetica. A proportional font uses different-width characters for a more natural appearance. No grid can be drawn over one of these pages, because the letters don’t line up in neat columns like monospace characters.

Different rules apply to both types of fonts. Appallingly, so many of us that learned to type on a computer and not a typewriter were still taught the rules of monospace fonts versus proportional fonts. So, if you’re not using a monospace font like Courier, forget those typing class rules and pay attention.

Serif and Sans-Serif character illustration

Most fonts are either serif or sans-serif. A serif is the finishing stroke at the tips of the lines that make up a letterform. Sans-serif means without serifs. Serif fonts include Times New Roman, Garamond, Bodoni, and Palatino among zillions of others. Sans-serif fonts include Arial, Helvetica, Avant Garde and a million more. There are many classification systems and many fonts that don’t fit into either of these categories. But, for our purposes we’ll ignore those.

Then there’s the difference between legibility and readability and the spin that the WWW puts on this. Legibility primarily refers to the ability to quickly recognize a snippet of text, such as a headline. Readability refers to the ease of reading a block of text, like this blog article. In print, a sans-serif font is considered most legible, while a serif font is considered most readable. So, choosing Garamond for the body text of your next document is more appropriate than Arial. On the web, most folks are reading right on the computer screen. Our monitors have a lower resolution (the density of the little dots that make up an image) than does a printer. As such, on-screen text may not be more readable with serifs, so you may want to use sans-serif fonts for body text.

When mixing fonts together, never use more than two on the same page. And when mixing, you can achieve one of three effects: concord, conflict, and contrast. Concord is created when you mix different sizes and weights (such as regular and bold) of the same font on the same page. Although rather boring, this look is conservative and may work well in some instances. Conflict occurs when you mix two similar fonts, such as two different sans-serif fonts (like Arial and Helvetica). Together, these fonts are too close for comfort, they look very similar yet different somehow; it’s all just a bit disturbing. Contrast is a good thing that occurs when you mix two very different fonts, particularly if they are of a different color. (Color in this case refers not to the rainbow, but to the thicknesses of the letterforms.) For instance, mixing a bold Helvetica with a regular Garamond creates a pleasing contrast.

Enough background information, I’m now onto  five useful rules that will make your documents look more professional:

Place only one space between sentences. That’s right, only one space after the period, question mark, exclamation point, whatever. I was taught to type two in typing class, but that rule is for monospace fonts. In the real world, we use proportional fonts and the rule for those is one space between sentences. Honestly!

Never underline anything! And I mean it. Underlines are an editor’s mark for indicating that something needs to be italicized. On a typewriter, italics typically were not available, but you could underline. So, underlining became a popular way (and an ugly one) to emphasize. You may have been taught to underline book titles when creating citations; however, it is more proper to italicize book titles. Underlines often cross-out letter descenders like those in the word golfing (note how the underline passes through the bottoms of both g’s)—how ugly! On the web, it is still considered good practice to use underlines for hyperlinks because it is a commonly understood visual cue that identifies the link at a glance. I hate the way underlined links look, so, as a web designer, I struggle with this one every day.

Word shapes illustration

Never put your text in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. This is yet another typewriter emphasizing trick. Except for acronyms, avoid placing text in all capitals. I recommend using bold or italics, or both. But, whatever you do, be consistent with your method of emphasis throughout your document. All caps is significantly less readable than mixed case. This is because the shape of words is as important to their recognition as the letters themselves. Words in all caps are rectangles, whereas lowercase words have more unique shapes that make them easier to recognize. On the web, all caps means you’re SCREAMING. And, if you make people read documents written in all caps, they’re likely to end up with a headache.

MS Word first-line indent illustration

Either indent the first line of every paragraph or provide extra space between paragraphs. Never indent with the spacebar. In fact, take care if indenting with the Tab key. If tabbing, set your first tab to a measurement that is about as wide as the capital letter M in the font that you’re typing in. That little indent is enough to do the job (a half inch is way too much). If putting space between paragraphs, never press the Enter key twice. Instead, set your paragraph spacing to a point size equal to half the font size you’re using. Therefore, a common 12 point font should have 6 points of spacing between paragraphs. And, you don’t need to use both indents and paragraph spacing together. They both serve the same purpose, which is to provide a visual cue that a new thought (paragraph) is starting. Incidentally, half inch indents were common in the monospace typewriter era, but look much too wide in this proportional world we now live in.

Align your text to the left and avoid full justification. Left aligned text (also known as ragged right) has a cleanly aligned left edge, while the right edge varies from line to line, determined by how many words can fit on any line. Full justification is what you see in newspapers, where both edges are aligned. The problem with full justification is that extra space needs to be added between words and sometimes individual letters to “spread” the line out to make the margins even. This can lead to awkwardly spaced lines that just look ugly. On the web this is especially true. No excuses here, never fully justify on-screen text (to be fair, there are rules for figuring out when you can fully justify, but they’re a bit complicated for this writeup). And, just for good measure, remember that a newspaper is never a good design resource (they do layout for efficiency, not beauty and design professionalism).

And now on to C.R.A.P., where the rules get a bit more designer-ish. Although never actually written as such in The Non-Designer’s Design Book, Robin Williams hints at this arrangement of letters that stand for her four basic design principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. I’ll go through each and describe what these ideas mean to you.

Contrast draws the eye to the page. Avoid leaving various items on the page looking similar. If the items, such as font, colors, sizes, shapes, etc., are not the same, then make them very different. Our eyes like contrast, and we use contrast to help us sort through the importance of various items on the page.

Repetition involves reusing design elements throughout a document. When you repeat visual elements throughout a document (and even from one document to the next), you improve the organization of your document and strengthen its visual unity. You might call this “being consistent.”

Alignment refers to how the elements on a page are lined up with each other. You should never place anything on a page arbitrarily. Everything should be positioned in such a way that it forms visual connections with other items on the page. It’s a good rule of thumb not to mix alignments. A common mistake, for instance, is to center a title over a left-aligned block of text. Instead, you should left align your title, thus pulling together the headlines and paragraph text into a uniform, and intentional look.

Proximity refers to keeping related items together. When you place a headline close to the text that it headlines, it creates a single visual unit, rather than multiple individual units. Generally speaking, this helps organize the information on the page while reducing visual clutter.

To conclude, a rule about rules. Don’t break design rules unless you’re a designer and know what you’re doing. The first five rules I outlined above should never, ever, ever be broken. The last four rules, being more general principle than rule, are intended to give you a sense of how a designer approaches putting stuff on a page. If you can apply all of these practices in your documents, not only will they look more professional, but your message will be more effectively delivered.

I may someday do a follow-up to this article and include within it some of the other slightly less common design and typography rules that didn’t make the cut today. Until then, I hope these rules help you with your everyday documents.

Craig W. Samson

Each day, about 250 million email messages zoom around the Internet. Some of them, no doubt, head to your inbox. Do you look forward to seeing messages there? Is it work for you, even if the messages are personal? If so, you’re not the only one overwhelmed. Email has taken over just about every occupation, home and cell phone. As a result, you have to deal with it or drown in an increasing swell of messages—risking missed information from both the personal and professional sides of life.

I have a few simple steps (among many possibilities) that can ease email anxiety:

Terri's Inbox

• Use software (or webmail) that works for you. If you don’t like Outlook Express or Windows Mail (the defaults on most Windows PCs), find something that you do like. Here is a list of other applications.
• If changing software, etc. is not possible, customize it so it is something you like to see. Let’s face it, you’ll have to spend a bunch of time staring at it anyway—why not make it pleasant to look at? Most business mail applications have different themes or color schemes. For example, I need to change Outlook 2007 to use the black theme because the default blue theme is just too bright for me. I’ve included instructions to do this here.
• Use rules or filters to sort incoming mail into folders or labels (if you use Gmail) to allow at-a-glance assessment of your newest mail and thus priorities. My inbox is pictured here as an example. Note that the folders or labels only have to make sense to you, no one else. Use shorthand, but don’t be too clever and outwit yourself. I once confused myself after a long vacation—it can happen to anyone! Here are directions to use Outlook rules.
• Use rules or filters to push ads to a junk or ads folder. This is not pure spam I’m talking about; this is the stuff that comes from legitimate sites that you have ordered from or read regularly. And maybe you are interested in their special deals. However, automatically put these messages in a separate place to look at when you are ready to shop or read about it. They can be very distracting and overwhelming when you are in the middle of something else. A good hint: create a rule that dumps everything not sent to you specifically in the To: or cc: lines into this ads folder.
• Create an archive folder. Save important personal or professional information here instead of letting it fill up your main inbox. A good rule of thumb: clean out your inbox of these things every month. Software like Outlook allows you to automate archiving. Gmail encourages you to archive. Do it and save yourself the stress of looking at the same list of messages over and over again. Of course, if you have acted on or responded to an email and have no use for it afterwards, delete it! Click here to learn about archiving in Outlook.

Stay slim when the glut of email heads toward your inbox. Get rid of the huge list of unread emails and have your mail software break it down into digestible, prioritized parts. Let the technology make it easier on you–that’s its job.

Terri Croop

Having only worked on the Fandotech team for a few months, I see a lot of users catching malware or viruses which could have been avoided entirely. It’s unfortunate, especially when you see the same users come back with the same problems. Whether these problems are from opening email attachments from unknown sources (a common problem that can easily be defeated by user education) to malicious Javascript running automatically when browsing to a web page (defeated mostly by just paying attention to what you’re doing), they can be quite serious and can cause a lot of frustration and downtime. Frequently, the quickest and easiest way to clean an infected computer is to completely format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Any IT professional will try and save important documents before doing so, but in this field there aren’t any guarantees.

So, without any guarantees, there is no way to ensure complete and total security. The best method might be abstinence, which in this case translates to completely unplugging from the internet. But that’s hardly feasible in any sort of environment, since the Internet has become such an integral part of society. So here are a few steps to help ensure a moderate amount of security, both at home and in your place of business:

1. Always work behind a router. A router is a device that allows multiple computers to use an internet connection (and share files with one another, among other things). If you’re in a business, this is pretty much a guarantee. At home, not necessarily. Routers are very, very common in households these days, especially since wireless connections have become so huge. However, they don’t exist everywhere. A lot of people may have the misconception that a router isn’t necessary if they only have one computer that needs internet access. This just is not true. Basically, when you sign up for internet access, you get assigned a public IP address (think of it as your home address: it’s how information finds your computer). This is an IP address that is routable from the internet, and is not something you want your computer to have. It is a better security practice to purchase a router. That way, the router will have the public IP address and will give your computer a private IP address. This is good practice even if you have a software firewall, even if the ISP tells you otherwise.
2. Pay attention to what you’re doing. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds—many people don’t quite have this method ingrained into their behavior. They’re simply not used to having to pay attention to every link they click. Many times there are website URLs that look legit, but are actually a slight misspelling of a real URL. Sometimes, you can have a malicious email sent from someone you know and trust. It’s difficult to defend against such things, so just try and pay attention. Work on modifying your behavior if you need to. If you get an email from someone close to you that doesn’t seem to have the right language/tone that you’re used to seeing, email them back before clicking any links or downloading any attachments it contains (this method is how my wife avoided getting a virus from me many years ago: she knew the message in the email was not something I had written).
3. Make use of anti-virus software. This is #3 on the list because it is absolutely useless if you don’t do #2. If you click a link or open an attachment, there is a good chance it will not be tagged by any anti-virus software. However, anti-virus software can detect viruses—but it’s not fool-proof. Viruses change and morph constantly, and each time they change, the anti-virus software you use needs to be updated, otherwise it is useless against new threats. Most programs do this for you automatically, but it’s wise to check and make sure it’s being regularly updated nonetheless. There are many who can argue the merits of which program is the best, but something is better than nothing. AVG and Avast! are free anti-virus programs you can use, and some ISPs offer free software for their subscribers (for instance, Comcast offers free McAfee subscriptions). In this day and age, there is no excuse not to have some sort of anti-virus software helping to protect your computer. It is also worth noting that Windows does not currently have any sort of built-in anti-virus software. The reason I mention this is because one of the more nasty rogue programs out there tricks users into thinking their machine has a virus, and tells them that Windows Antivirus 2008/2009/etc. has detected threats and must be purchased in order to protect your computer. This is not a legitimate program and will do nothing to protect you against attacks. If you see a program like this, you’ve already got a virus on your system, because it is the virus.

   

   Windows Antivirus 2009

4. Make use of anti-spyware software. I was going to combine this with #3, but I think it should have its own place on the list. Viruses and spyware are different, and best approached using different programs. A program that you choose to install on your computer could contain spyware, and it wouldn’t necessarily classify as a virus since you choose to install it. Windows has an anti-spyware program called Windows Defender, which you can get for free. There are also plenty of free third-party solutions, such as Spybot, Malwarebytes, and Ad-Aware.
5. Try an alternative browser. Every PC that ships with Windows ships with Internet Explorer as the only browser installed, and therefore it is the most widely used of them all. I’d venture to guess that most end-users don’t even know what a browser is (I have many times heard Internet Explorer referred to as “The Internet”). Since IE is the most widely used, it is therefore the most vulnerable. I won’t even begin discussing the security holes or which browser is the most secure based on its coding—in my eyes IE is the least secure because it is the most widely used, therefore the most targeted for attacks. There are other solutions, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera (to name a few) which have only a fraction of the market share, and therefore are less likely to be compromised. None of them guarantee you security, but it only makes sense that the majority of malicious software written will try and hit the most users.

Those are just a few of the basic steps any end-user can take to help make them a bit more secure. Any of these are helpful to practice on a regular basis, but the best approach is the combination of some or all of them. As I said before, there is no single way to make you completely secure—merely several things that can add to your level of security. As I said at the beginning of this article: I’ve seen many occasions where the only feasible way to clean malicious software from a computer is to completely delete everything on it and start over. If your information is important to you, make a small effort to protect it.

Corey Slack