Security Optimization

Use these programs to kill infections and prevent them from attacking your machine in the first place.

• Comodo Firewall Pro (free) this excellent firewall has been rated as one of the top tools of its kind by the independent testing site Matousec , which found that Comodo has the highest level of “antileak” protection(in sense, a measure of a Firewall’s effectiveness). It offers two-way protection and a great view into your system and your internet connection as well.

• Avast (Free) A lightweight antivirus utility, Avast won’t weigh down your system by consuming too many system resources –yet it does a great job scanning

• AVG Antivirus Free Edition (Free) AVG’s excellent antivirus software is similarly prudent with PC resources, simple to use, and easily configurable.

• Spyware Blaster (Free) keep your system in top running form by stopping the installation of active X-based malware and other types of spyware.

• Spybot Search & Destroy (Free) A longtime favorite, spybot offers live protection against spyware installations, and scans your system for pre-existing spyware and squashes it.

• Ad-ware 2008 (free) some people like to use more than one scanner.

Ad-ware does a great job of scanning, and it lets you put potentially damaging software in a quarantine area, where you can later restore the item if it isn’t dangerous.

• Trend Micro HijackThis (Free) it you think your PC is infected with spyware, but your spyware killer can’t track it down, try this freebie, after Hijack This analyzes your Registry and file, which you can upload to one of several HijackThis Web forums for the community to analyze.

Creative’s Zen X-Fi : An All-Around Star

Creative’s Zen X-Fi is a tremendous digital music player , offering more out of the box features than Apple’s recently revamped iPod’s . the X-Fi has great sound, superb headphones, expendable storage via SD Card, and the ability to stream and download music from your PC wirelessly. It looks great, too. Its features differentiate this player from the competition. Not only can you download music, video and images wirelesslt to the device, but you can also stream media from your PC from creative servers, or from a computer that’s running on an open network.

Creative’s heralded X-Fi Xtreme fidelity Audio playback deserves much of the credit fro this player’s amazing sound. It delivered dep, clean well-defined audio.

As much as I found to like about the X-Fi, it does have some limitations. It doesn’t work with Mac OS X (only with XP and Vista); its online chat application doesn’t work well; and you won’t get the same degree of integration with third –party speaker systems, car stereos, and accessories that you would with the ubiquitous iPod.

The masses may continue to think iPod first when they need a new MP3 player. But you check out the X-Fi , too : it might be the most innovative, features-packed player on the market, and it’s an absolute steal for the price.