Archive: July, 2013

Tweets from 2013-07-28

Can/should I run more than one antivirus program?

This is an older article which appeared in the Register-News.

 

Baseball Mom from our forums has a situation where her children ‘accidentally’ installed a second software on her home PC. This happens more and more every day as our kids grow up around technology and often know how to use computers and the Internet better than we do.

Can you do it? Probably. Some antivirus programs contain a check to see if there is other protection software present, and others do not. In this case, Norton did not check to see if there was protection present and installed itself.

Now, should you do it? In my opinion, nope. My reasoning is that the software will possibly ‘fight’ about which is actually supposed to be protecting the system. This can make for system resources being hogged by both programs that are attempting to do the same job. This amounts to your system performing double-duty on a task that should only require one or the other program to be active.

The second reason to not double-up on antivirus software is that you will have false positives and run the risk of one program destroying the other. Antivirus programs use definitions of viruses to check your PC and remove any bugs that might sneak in past your firewall (you are running one, aren’t you?).

If you have two antivirus programs keeping you protected, when one scans files it should find the definitions from the other software. This may result in a scary moment where you are advised you have a virus. You don’t, but the definition matches, and the program is not smart enough to know the definition is not a real virus. The false-virus is then deleted, making your first program less effective.

Later, your first program scans and finds the definitions from the second program. Again, you are told you have a virus, and delete the bad file. The end result is that neither works as it should, possibly leaving you even less protected since you think you are safe and may be a little more careless with your activity.

So, the short version is that you should not be running two antivirus programs. They will bog down valuable resources and work against each other, hurting you. What you should be doing, is using Windows’ Automatic Update, install a firewall, use an antivirus program (ONE), and not go to questionable sites.

Dan Voyles repairs PC’s professionally in addition to providing this column to the Register-News. He can be reached at askageek@register-news.com

Tweets from 2013-07-27

Sony BDP-S570 Blu-Ray Player

This is an older article which originally appeared in the Register-News.

 

For almost a year, I have been trying to squeeze a Blu-ray player out of our budget to go with our LCD television. As always seems to be the case a car would need an oil change, new tires, or some other expense that stopped me from getting a Blu-ray player. However this Christmas I managed to squeeze enough dollars together (about $190) to get my precious Blu-ray player.

Since I have been wanting one for so long my research was already done about what brand, model, and features I wanted with my new player. In my research, LG and Sony kept rising to the top with the reviews and value (price versus features) comparisons that I performed. For my house, the machine must have wireless Internet access built-in, Netflix access, and decent loading time.

Most, if not all, Blu-ray players are ‘Internet ready’ or ‘Wi-Fi ready’. Unfortunately most people do not realize that ‘ready’ can mean a lot of different things. Internet ready usually means it will connect to your Internet connection using a wire. This can be a pain if you have to run wiring from your router to the Blu-ray player. That is why I chose to get a wireless (Wi-Fi) player – to avoid having to run a wire from my router to the living room. Beware of units that say they are wireless or Wi-Fi ready – this means that you may have to buy a wireless connector to connect to your wireless network.Since the BDP-S570 has wireless built into the machine, I knew it met my wireless requirement, and it has Netflix built in as well.

In addition, this Sony has very good reviews of the load times for Blu-ray discs. The reason this is important is because Blu-ray discs can have MUCH more data (special features, etc.) on the disc than regular DVDs. This is one of the reasons Blu-ray can provide a much clearer picture than a normal DVD. Less-expensive players can be cheaper because they often have slower chips in them that makes them take longer to load with the extra content.

When it came time to make my purchase, the Sony model was surprisingly cheaper than the LG model. So that day I left the store with my Sony S570. Upon getting home with the Blu-ray player, I connected it with the HDMI cable (not included – make sure you pick one up), turned it on and then went through the setup to connect it to my wireless network. This information is all included in the handy ‘Quick setup guide’ in the box with the player.

Once the player was connected to my wireless network, I performed a software update. This added to my available Internet video choices. The choices now include Netflix, Hulu Plus, Qriocity, YouTube, and more. Hulu Plus is offering a 3 month trial, so I’m giving it a shot. With all of my updates complete, I tried out the Netflix streaming service. Netflix seems to work fine with no hiccups, including the past 2 weeks of use. Very convenient with snow outside and nothing on TV. Hulu Plus has also been working without any problems as well.

Of course the real test of the player is watching Blu-ray movies and DVDs. I have to say that ‘The Matrix’ movies looked good on DVD, but look superb on Blu-ray. If you want to see how beautiful a movie can look on Blu-ray, go rent ‘Avatar’. I didn’t care for the movie much, but the color and details on the Blu-ray through an LCD television are spectacular. I cannot wait for more movies to take true advantage of what these new Blu-ray discs can show us.

In my opinion, the Sony S570 Blu-ray player is fast, performs well using wireless, and is quite easy to setup. For the money (now $150 at most retailers) you will not find a better powered and feature rich next-generation player. You can find details about this player at http://www.sonystyle.com .

Tweets from 2013-07-26