The Best Antivirus Software in 2011 - VIPRE

Vipre Antivirus has a great combination of feature, and though the company is relatively new on the security screne, their antivirus software is one of the best. It's not a typo, 'VIPRE' stand for Virus Intrusion Prevention Remediation Engine. The software includes antivirus and antispyware protection, as well as a number of additional compelling features.


Probably the most unique offering from Vipre is their unlimited home site license option. With the unlimited license you can run the software on as many computers (as well as laptops and netbooks) that you have at home. For families with three or more PCs, this is a very affordable option.

Despite still being relatively new in the competitive field of antivirus software, VIPRE AntiVirus + AntiSpyware comes out swinging this year with what PC antivirus review team of reviewers found to be the best, lightest-running antivirus software for 2010.

The balancing act with antivirus and anti-spyware is managing to be light-running while still providing PC protection. This is one place where VIPRE delivers on its promise better than any of its competitors.

The team testing consistently showed VIPRE to be among the best performing software in every test they ran. In fact, some of the older better known antivirus programs like McAfee and Norton didn't do nearly as well as VIPRE this year.

In comparison, VIPRE's light resource usage, strong antivirus and antispyware protection, and excellent customer service consistently pushed it to the front of the pack. Installation is a snap. The user interface is clean and easy-to-use. Email protection is reliable and solid.

Overall virus, spyware, and malware protection is equal to or better than we've seen in most any antivirus software--especially from software that's a relative newcomer compared to the household names like McAfee, Norton, and Kaspersky.

Antivirus Installation: 100%

VIPRE Antivirus installation is easy and straight forward. Just download and run the initial installer which sets up the files you need for installation. you will need to reboot your PC at this point. After the installation, a wizard runs to configure your initial options. These are for things like:

• definition update frequency
• internet access settings
• registration options

At the end of this wizard you'll find a link that launches a video which describes the software and some basic usage.Even if you're a seasoned computer professional, you'll be well-served watching the video. It's well done and may introduce you to some features in VIPRE you're unaware of.

Installation only took about 1 minute, and total time from download through reboot was about 6 minutes.

User Interface: 98%

The user interface (UI) is very good looking with easy-to-use navigation. The background color is muted, and alerts are color-coded green or red when they need attentionm making it easy to see what's important.
VIPRE marks the appropriate settings by default for the novice user, but more advanced users can click an "Advanced" link that allows you to adjust more detailed settings. In our opinion, the default settings should be adequate for most users.
Each tab has a help button that opens to the appropriate page in the help file where you'll also find a complete, indexed help section.

Real-time Protection: 93%

VIPRE detected 90% of the viruses and other malware during our real-time protection tests - a superb score considering no antivirus software can ever be 100% perfect. The only files VIPRE didn't initially identify were all quickly captured and removed when the viruses actually tried to run. Thus effectively making the viruses and malware useless. Once a virus tries to do something nasty, even if VIPRE didn't initially detect it, VIPRE's real-time engine kicks in and stops the whatever the virus is trying to do.

VIPRE is known for its fast scanning and response time, all while keeping a low resource footprint. When real-time protection was enabled on computers in the test lab, only about 65MB of memory was used.

Resource Usage: 95%

Real-time resource usage was the lowest of all the antivirus software we tested, using only about 0.5% of memory. A full-system, manual scan peaked occasionally at 50% - 60% CPU usage, then dipped back down as it moved to different parts of the antivirus scan. Only about 60MB of memory was used during a manual scan.

Very good, especially compared to some of VIPRE's heavier competitors.

VIPRE used only 0.5% memory during real-time protection.

VIPRE used only 60MB of memory during a manual scan.

VIPRE used only 60% of CPU during a manual scan.

Integrated Packages vs Software Suites

In large company, people tend to do specialize their works or responsibilities. Therefore, it is common to see people perform a task repeatedly day after day. These people with these limited can usually get a single computer program, which is as specialize as they are. Conversely, for small business, people typically has different job duties or tasks need to be performed. In such a diverse work environment, integrated packages and software suites can make their life easier.

The typical integrated package places a variety of applications--a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database manager, a communications module, and a graphics component--on the same electronic "desk." There are numerous advantages inherent in an integrated package.

1) Low cost. It is affordable for the small business.

2) Convenient. An integrated package lets users juggle multiple tasks with similar ease. Switching between the individual applications in an integrated package usually requires a few keystrokes or mouse clicks.

3)Able to share information between modules. As its name implies that integrated packages typically make it easy to transfer, integrated data from one application to another. For example, after making financial calculations in a spreadsheet, we could copy the results directly into a project proposal being written with the word-processing module.

4)Each individual modules generally share a similar command structure. For this reason, procedures learned in one module can be applied to other activities as well.

However, integrated packages do has some drawbacks. Each module such as spreadsheet is limited to some basic functions. And, it may not be compatible with other popular business software. For this reason, it is not the best choice of large companies and professional use.

While, software suites is a collection of separate application programs bundled together and made available as a group. In other words, a software suites is a set of applications which can each stand alone. This is where it is different from the integrated packages.

The pros of software suites is also similar to the integrated packages. That is, it is more cost saving if purchasing the programs in a bundle. Another advantages is that all programs use is similar graphical user interface (GUI) of icons, tool, and status bars and menus which give them the same look and feel, and makes them easier to learn and use. Also, their programs are designed to work together seamlessly and import each other’s file easily; no matter which program is being using at the times. These capabilities make them more efficient and easier to use that using a variety of individual package version.

The cons of software suites are most users claimed that there are many software suite features are never being used. Furthermore, it requires a lot of disk space.

Basic Application Software

Application software is a program or group of programs that is designed for end users. There are different types of application software: Basic applications and specialized applications.

1.0 Basic application software

Basic application software also known as general purpose applications and productivity applications. These programs are widely used in nearly every discipline and occupation. Word processors, spreadsheets, database management systems, and presentation graphics are the common types of basic application software.

When talking about the Microsoft Office, I would like to share some different between the Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft 2007. Even though I am using 2007 now but I hope I can try it and see what attractive it is.

Microsoft Office 2010 VS Microsoft Office 2007

In Microsoft, there does not appear to be a big different between both. The toolbars use in Microsoft Office 2010 is still shown as Ribbons and the reformed composition of icon also remains the same. However, there are still something different between both.

1- File Menu

Office Button has been replaced with File Menu. File Menu not only shows popular functions such as save, print and others, but it also improve the recently view (10 documents they had been working on) by include the recent locations too.

2- Text Effects

Formatting effects have been taken out of WordArt. In where text with these effect applied could only displayed in WordArt format, this enhanced function can now be spell-checked and threaded like normal Word Text. In addition, many of the same effects used for the image are now available to both text and shapes. It enabling user to seamlessly coordinate all of their content.

New effects- additional photo editing is minimized. Pictures can be adjusted with color saturation and temperature controls.

3- Co-authoring

Users can use Microsoft Office 2010 to edit documents and share ideas with others at the same time as well as viewing the availability of others and even initiate a conversation while still in Word.

4- Enhanced Features for Recovering Work

In Microsoft Office 2007, the Close button became a prominent feature as an alternative to clicking in the top right corner screen. When the users did this when there are only one document file is open, they are risky closing the whole program down. It means the users would have to reopen the program. If there is unfortunates, users could even lose their work. However, this problem has been fit in Microsoft 2010 by recover draft versions of recently edited files.

5- Cut, Copy, and Paste

This function is the most common way to move content between applications. In Word 2010, users can copy and paste in many formats. Many options are available at paste time through the Preview before users paste the contents. These options include keep source formatting, merge formatting, use destination theme and keep text only.

6- Protected View

Files from potential unsafe location such as internet and mail attachment or even files that contain of the active content such as macros or ActiveX controls are validated and can open in Protected View. When the users open these files in Protected View, the editing functions are disabled.

In a conclusion there are not a big different in the appearing to Word 2007. The color setting is still blue, black and silver but more diluted tones. The Ribbons have lost their bevel vibrant look and are simpler and more spaced out which easier on the eye.

2.0 Specialized software

Second type of application software is specialized software. This is software that is designed for a specific task rather for a broad application area. Specialized software includes thousands of other programs more narrowly focused on specific disciplines and occupations. Graphic programs, audio and video editors, multimedia creation programs, web authoring and virtual reality programs is a common types of specialized software. Specialized software is software that is written for a specific task rather for a broad application area. These programs provide facilities specifically for the purpose for which they were designed.

2.1 Graphic programs include desktop publishing, image editors, illustration programs, image galleries and graphic suites. It is a collection of programs that allow users to manipulate visual images on a computer.

2.1.1 Desktop publishing (DTP) allows users to mix text and graphics to create publications of professional quality. While the word processors focus on creating text and have the ability to combine text and graphics, desktop publishers focus on page design and layout and provides greater flexibility. Example of Desktop publishing programs is Adobe Page Make.

2.1.2 Image editors are programs that use for creating and editing Bitmap images. A Bitmap image (also known as raster images) is a type of image files that use dots or pixels to represent an image. Examples of the image editor are Adobe Photoshop and Corel PhotoPaint.

2.1.3 Image galleries are libraries of electronic images that are using for a variety of applications. There are two basic types of image galleries, Stock photographs and Clip Art.

2.1.4 Graphic Suites is a bundled graphic programs that users can buy a large variety of graphics programs at a lower cost. The most popular suites is CorelDraw Graphics Suite and Macromedia’s Studio.

2.2 Audio and video programs are very useful when the users want to create their own compilation movies. Video editing software allow users to recognize, add effect, and more to users digital video footage. Windows Movie Maker is a common type of video editing software. Audio editing software help users to creates and edits audio clips and enables users to create their own MP3s. the most common audio editing software is Sony’s ACID.

2.3 Multimedia is the integration of a variety of media into one presentation. It includes of this five elements- video, music, text, voice and animation. Moreover, multimedia should include user interactivity.

2.4 Virtual reality consists of sensory equipment to stimulate alternative realities to the real world. Artificial or simulated reality generated in 3 dimension by the computer and commonly known as VR, artificial reality or virtual environments. Virtual modeling language (VRML) sed to create real time animated 3 dimension scenes.

2.5 Web authoring is software that allows users to develop a website in a desktop publishing format. This software will generate the required HTML code for the layout of the web pages based on what the users have been designed. Web authoring begins with the site design and then follow by the creation of document.

Web authoring Programs also known as Web Page Editors or HTML editor that will support for web site design and creates HTML codes. The most famous HTML editors and site management tools are What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). WYSIWYG has become popular is because of the low learning curve, and yet it is important to get some understanding of HTML since WYSIWYG HTML editors can be limiting. The popular programs are Macromedia Dreamweaver, NetObjects Fusion, Microsoft FrontPage and so on. Web site design help users to create graphical map of overall content and add multimedia elements like animation.

Netscape - Once Upon A Time

After there was Internet and before there was Internet Explorer there was a browser called Mosaic Communications Corporation. Later Mosaic Communications Corporation changed its name to Netscape Communications and Netscape Navigator was Born. Netscape Navigator was released in 1994 year end.

Netscape had an attractive licensing scheme that allowed free use for non-commercial purpose. This ultimately led to its massive popularity on the popular windows platform. Netscape presented Livescript to the internet which is now known as JavaScript. Netscape's web browser was once dominant in terms of usage share. Netscape remained the leader with a browser share of more than 50%. Microsoft later licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc. and turned it into Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer was integrated into the windows operating system and was set as the default browser which led to its wide usage resulting in a drop in Netscape's share. Netscape lost more of their share to Internet Explorer during the first browser war. By the of 2006, the usage share of Netscape browses had fallen from over 90% in the mid 1990s, to less than 1%.

American Online (AOL) on November 24,1998 announced it would acquire Netscape Communications in a tax-free stock-swap valued at US$4.2 billion at the time of the announcement. The Acquisition was seen as a way for AOL to gain a bargaining chip against Microsoft, to let it become less dependent on the Internet Explorer web browser. On November 14, 2000, AOL released Netscape 6, based on the Mozilla 0.6 source code. Unfortunately, Mozilla )0.6 was far from being stable yet, and so the effect of Netscape 6 was to further drive people away from Netscape brand.

AOL has a long history on the internet, being one of the first companies to really get people online. Throughout its lifetime, it has been involved with a number of high profile acquisition, perhaps the largest of which was the 1999 acquisition of the Netscape Communications Corporation Netscape was known to many as the thought leader in web browsing, and had developed a number of complementary pieces of software that allowed for a rich suite of internet tools.

At the time of the acquisition, the Netscape team had begun working on converting their flagship product - the Netscape Communicator web site - into open source software, under a new name: Mozilla. AOL played a significant role in the launch of the Netscape 6 browser, the first Mozilla-based, Netscape-branded browser that was released 2000 and continued to solely fund the development and marketing efforts of Netscape-branded browsers. In 2003, an independent foundation was created to support the continued development of the open source web site. AOL was a major source of support for the Mozilla Foundation and the company continued to develop versions of the Netscape browser based on the work of the foundation.

While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment Needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Mozilla meanwhile had grown in popularity for its various products especially the Mozilla Suite and the Firefox Browser. Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, AOL feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox.

On 28 December 2007 AOL announced the cancellation of the development of Netscape Navigator. the support for the same ends by 1 February 2008.

The Internet, The Web & Electric Commerce

Basic History of Internet
In 1960, internet was created by some of the visionary thinking by people because they saw it is a great potential value in allowing computer to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields.

The internet then had been known as ARPANET in where it was brought online in 1969 under the contract by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). When the internet is started to introduced, almost of all the user is coming from computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians background. While, there are no user from home or office personal computer. Furthermore, to those people at that time who know how to use the internet can be categorized as the people who are very knowledable.

As mention earlier, the early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no home or office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, whether a computer professional or an engineer or scientist or librarian, had to learn to use a very complex system.


Who was the first person started to use the internet?
HINT^.^


If you want to know the answer. Please highlight the section below. :)

Charley Kline in Oct 29, 1969

Dr. Charles Kline is a consultant on Internet technologies, network security, software patents and business strategies. He is also an 'angel' investor and advisor for startup companies.

As a graduate student at UCLA, Charles ('Charley') Kline worked with Steve Crocker, Vint Cerf, Jon Postel and Len Kleinrock on the development of the ARPANET and Internet. In September of 1969, he sent test transmissions between the computer at UCLA and the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) in order to develop the earliest protocols. On October 29, 1969, Charley attempted to remotely access the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) computer and managed to send the first letters of the word 'LOGIN' before the computer at SRI crashed. Later that day, he was able to successfully login to the SRI computer. At that moment, computer networking changed from a concept into a reality!

Charley continued his research at UCLA and received a Ph.D. for his pioneering works on computer system security, network security and encryption protocols. He remained at UCLA and led research efforts into the fundamental concepts of distributed computing.

Charley left UCLA to form Locus Computing Corporation, one of the largest Unix and open systems companies. Locus developed the AIX operating system for IBM as well as the first PC networks. After Locus, Charley has been involved with several startup companies. More recently, Charley was a senior technologist and product line manager at Cisco Systems.

Advantages and Disadvantages of using internet

Advantages
1.Email- is an online correspondence system. By using email, we are able to receive and send many document by electronic. For example, we can sent an email to inform the whole class that the cancellation of class. By adding a number of recipients in our email contacts, we now can send one document to the whole class member. So it can make our work become more easy. Furthermore, email is free compared to the use of telephone calls or short-message-services (SMS) services.

2. Online shopping- Nowadays, internet is a very effective way to buy and sell products without boundaries. There are many online stores that allow customers to use their credit card to buy whatever they want without step out from their house. This business to customer (B2B) services had delight the household which enable them to do all shopping experience from the web. In this case, Amazon. com and E-Bay are the most popular online stores.


Besides that, another type of online shopping is customer to customer (C2C). Here, a consumer can buy products from retailers or suppliers, and then sell it to another consumer. While, there is also consumers who put their personal items on the website for another consumer to buy it from them. One of the most visited online stores in Malaysia is Mudah.com.



Disadvantages

1. Spamming- It refer to the activities that sending unsolicited e-mail in bulk, which serve no propose and unnecessarily clog up to the entire system.

2.Personal information- For example, when we are using credit card for online services purpose, these information is exposed to the danger. Our name, credit card number, addresses and other information may be theft by the other person.

As a conclusion, internet has its own advantages and disadvantages. If we use it in the right way, it will benefits us. In contrast, when we use it for illegally, it will harm us.

The Evolution of Secondary Storage

From the past lecture, our lecturer had mentioned about secondary storage devices in Malaysia for the past decade. She had said that during her university life, they needed a lot of diskette to submitted one assignment. It had arouse my curiosity about the evolution of secondary storage devices.

Therefore, i did a little bit of research and below is my findings.

History of secondary storage is quite interesting, with each generation, it gets better, faster, secure, reliable and smaller it size and always expanding the storage capacity.

The first external storage device was paper punch card. It used paper card with holes as data. A hole means zero, and no hole was one. Printer that time were used to punch the output for storage.

Paper was quickly out-dated once the Floppy Drive (8'') started to be used for storage. It became popular as it was more robust and handy than the paper roll, and could store more data.

The advancement of floppy drive with the 3.5'' that is small and sturdy enough to carry in the pocket. This floppy drive even had cover for the area that is use for reading. The purpose is to protect it from dust.

The first released of Zip Drive was capable of holding 100MB of data. Compare to floppy Drive, this technology were more quality and superior which needs specialized drives for reading and writing on the media. It became a good backup drive.

Flash drive also known as pen drive is the next revolution in secondary portable storage device. The main attraction was capable of being used on any computer equipped with USB port. So now virtually nothing more is needed for this drive to work if you have a computer with USB port.

Card media (SD/MMC/MS) is a stamp sized media that became popular from portable devices like cameras and phones. Media started shrinking and its capacity always increasing. It uses the same technology as the USB drive internally, only the interface is differing in order for it to be used by various devices like camera and mobile phones. Now days Card Reader for these type of media are getting shipped as a standard accessory from leading Computer manufacturers.

Week 1- Information Technology, The Internet and WE

Information technology is a set of tools, processes and alternatives used to collect, analyze, and present information. It has been used widely in many industries nowadays. We could not deny that IT play an important role in our lives. The are many reason why IT is so popular because it could help us to process large amount of information and present it in a more clear and concise manner. This could help the recipients easily grasp the information and understand the message that the sender try to convey. Speaking of businesses, IT could improve the company productivity, improve performance by increased the ability of sharing information within company, and others.

As we know, the Internet has helped in the development of civilization. In the past century, human lived in the world that has no communication network. Now, we can stay connected with people from all over the world. Other than that, we could share information to our friends or business partners in anytime at anywhere. How can human do that? The answer is the Internet. The Internet had made the world become 'visible'. We feel grateful for the invention of the Internet.

From the last lecture, we had learn that information system (IS) consist of five parts:
1) hardware - tools or equipment that processes raw data to create information.

2) software - a series of instruction that convert the data into information.

3) data - any data that have not been processed and does not have meaning in its.

4) procedure - instruction or guidelines that the user must be follow when they are using hardware and software.

5) people - the most important in information system, it determine who will create and use the information.


Besides that, we have learn on the evolution of web. Thus, we have do some research on this topic.

First, web 1.0- Read-or-Write Web

• authors write down what they want to share and then publish online.
• readers can watch what the author wrote in the web and subjectively comprehend the meanings.
• link between writers and readers become generally disconnected.
• does not facilitate direct communication between web readers and writers.
  

Second, web 2.0- Read/Write Web

• writers and readers both can read and write to the same web space.
• allow establishing friendly social communication among web users.
• link between writers and readers become generally connected.

Third, web 3.0 (Semantic Web)- Read/Write Request Web

• connect victual representative of real people who use the world wide web (www)
• eliminate the distinction between readers and writers on the web.

To sum up, web 1.0 connect the real people to the world wide web. Web 2.0 connect real people who use the world wide web. Then, the latest web 3.0 connect virtual representative of people who use the world wide web.