Someone should create an antivirus program meant to be installed on a USB drive, and call it The USB Prophylactic, or some other play on the concept of a condom for your USB drive - meant to protect your computer from the dangers of STDs (Software Transmitted Diseases).
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas McGrath III Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 8:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; How to use Revolution Subject: Re: Portable Apps..? Safe Portable App-ing An important thing to keep in mind when using portable applications is that they can be used to spread viruses between machines. While this isn't as much of an issue when you own or are responsible for both the machines you are using it on (say work and home), it can be a very big issue when you use a portable app on an untrusted or unknown machine (school, internet cafe, family member's PC, etc). For this reason, it is important that you practice Safe Portable App-ing! The Checklist * Use a solid antivirus program on your primary PC and keep its virus definitions up to date. * Scan your PC and portable drive for viruses on a regular basis. * Whenever you plug your portable drive into an unknown computer, you should assume that it may now be infected with a virus. If the PC has a virus that is currently in memory, it may attempt to infect your portable applications as soon as you plug it in. * When you then plug your portable drive into another computer (after an unknown), you should first scan it for viruses before running any of your applications. (Most antivirus software will make this available to you by right-clicking on your drive in Explorer or My Computer.) That way, if it is infected, you'll know before you run your applications and the new computer will not be infected. * Always wait until the drive access light has stopped blinking and then click the icon in your system tray to 'Safely Remove' your device. Don't just remove it. Just because the portable app's window is closed doesn't mean the app has fully closed and finished writing to the disk. * Back up your portable applications on a regular basis. If you follow these simple rules, you'll be able to enjoy your portable applications without getting stuck with a virus or losing your data. As always, there is still the risk of getting a new virus that your antivirus program can't yet detect, but the probability would be relatively low, and you run the same risk whenever you download a file from the internet. Thomas J McGrath III [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lazy River Software(tm) - http://www.lazyriversoftware.com Lazy River Metal Art(tm) - http://www.lazyriversoftware.com/metal.html Meeting Wear(tm) - http://www.cafepress.com/meetingwear Semantic Compaction Systems - http://www.minspeak.com SCIconics, LLC - http://www.sciconics.com/sciindex.html _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
