12 · 19

Everything You Wanted to Know About Viruses - Part 1

You are working on your computer one night, when all of a sudden a picture of the "Cookie Monster" appears on your monitor. Text below reads, "Feed me a cookie." You don’t know what to do so you just hit the <ENTER> key and he disappears. Ten minutes later, he reappears, once again asking for that cookie. "What is going on?" you ask. You hit <ENTER> again, but every ten minutes you are interrupted with the blue, furry guy asking for sweets. Here’s what you don’t know: Your computer is infected with the "Cookie Monster" virus. If you don’t type in "Happy Birthday Yoshi" (and how would you know to do that?) whenever he asks for a cookie, the virus goes out, randomly selects one file on your hard drive, and deletes it! In other words, every ten minutes, this virus plays Russian roulette with your computer files. By the way, “Yoshi” is the codename of the teenager that wrote the virus.
So, what is a virus, and how did you get one? Let’s start with the basics. A virus is a program. It is not a mistake or accident. You cannot “hit the wrong key” and cause a virus. They don’t just come out of nowhere. Viruses are not alive. They are programs created by people to “do something” (many times, malicious) to your computer. Viruses are not the same things as “computer bugs.” Computer bugs ARE unintentional mistakes made by programmers when developing software. Viruses are VERY intentional.
Five types of viruses exist: File Infectors, Trojan Horses, Stealth Viruses, Worms, and Polymorphic Viruses. Many of the newest viruses, though, fall into multiple categories.

File Infectors

No one in their right mind would ever double-click on a virus. So, how do viruses get around? Well, many viruses attach themselves to “good” programs. Whenever you double-click on the “good” program, the virus also executes or “runs.” For instance, if a virus infected Microsoft Word, every time you ran Microsoft Word, the virus would come out and do its mischief.

Trojan Horses

Much like their name implies, trojan horse viruses are simply “programs that claim to do one thing when, in fact, they do something else.” As an example, let’s say that I gave you a CD to take home. I told you that it contained a program called, “MakeMoneyFast.exe” and that by clicking on it, you would be well on your way to prosperity and happiness! Sounds great, right? Well, you get home, insert the diskette, and double-click on the “program.” It immediately begins to erase your hard drive. Trojan horses don’t replicate. They don’t spread like file infectors. They are single-use “mail bomb” types of programs. Typically, they are created by a “soon-to-be-fired disgruntled employee.” Many times, this angry worker will set the “bomb” to explode long after he’s gone, maybe even months later! An unsuspecting employer wakes up one morning to discover his corporate information has disappeared!

Stealth Viruses

Imagine a virus that can hide from “anti-virus software.” In the old days, anti-virus software only checked hard drives for viruses. A stealth virus could “sense” that anti-virus software was coming. It would then move itself from the hard drive and hide in RAM until the anti-virus program left. Then, it would redeposit itself back onto the hard drive. Pretty sneaky! Today’s anti-virus software can find stealth viruses by checking RAM at the same time as it checks the hard drive. Because of that, you don’t see many stealth viruses “in the wild” anymore.

Worms

Chances are, you will never see a computer “worm.” Worms primarily live on the Internet. They go after “servers.” A server is a computer that is on the Internet 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Your computer is not a server; therefore, you are not at risk of being “bitten” by a worm. When a worm finds a server, it will probe its defenses, looking for security holes. If it finds one, the worm wriggles its way in and begins to replicate like mad. After a while, the millions of replicating worms eventually overload the server, causing it to crash. Worm attacks are rare, but they do occur. The largest worm attack occurred in the late 1980’s. Dubbed “The Internet Worm,” this program affected nearly one third of the servers on the Internet! (Not that big a deal if you consider that only colleges and NASA used the Net during that time…) However, it did make the newspapers. Network administrators scurried to make sure that their servers were protected. Well, I’m quickly running out of room. In the next article, I’ll discuss the most insidious of viruses: the polymorphic virus. I’ll also discuss how anti-virus software works and how to choose a good one.
12 · 16

Importance of TITLE Tag in Search Engine Optimization

The TITLE of a web page is displayed on the title bar of the browser. The title text is placed between the <TITLE> - </TITLE> tags inside the HTML head section. There are a few important reasons why you should choose an intelligent title for a web page
  • Many search engines display the results using the content of the TITLE tag.
  • If the title is missing, such search engines will display the page as "Untitled". This is not only ugly but also very unprofessional.
  • The contents of the TITLE tag are used by search engines to index the page.
  • It's recommended that you write down all the important keywords that describe the web page contents and compose a sentence that should be used as the title of the page.
    About the Author Kyle Reddoch is a Web Development Expert and Internet Guru located in Amarillo, TX. To learn more about him you can visit his website at KyleReddoch.com
    12 · 16

    Contents of the HTML title tag

    I have always believed that <title> tags should contain the important keywords and key phrases. This helps the web page to rank higher in search engines. I usually follow the keywords with the web site structure. I first put the the description of the present page (so that all keywords are contained in this description). Be sure that all the keywords and key phrases are included in the <title> tag. You can use commas or hyphens to separate the key phrases in the <title> tag. You must remember not to use colons or the forward slash (/) in the <title> tag. When you save a web page using the "Save As" option from the browsers "File" menu, the contents of the <title> are used as the file name. Since colons are not allowed within filenames on a Macintosh system and slashes are used to represent directories, it's best to avoid them. Hyphens and commas, thus, seem as the best good choice.
    About the Author Kyle Reddoch is a Web Development and Internet Guru located in Amarillo, TX. To learn more about him you can visit his website at KyleReddoch.com
    12 · 16

    HTML TITLE tag - understanding web page titles

    Many web developers ignore the importance of the <title> tag. Though, according to HTML specifications, the use of <title> is mandatory, I have come across many pages on the Internet in which this tag is just not used. <title> provides us with an opportunity to spell out the content of our pages. It is also used by search engines to index pages. On search sites such as Hotbot, Altavista etc. the title of the web page is displayed as the link. This tip will show you how to write titles better, or rather, in a more logical manner. I have adopted this style and it has helped me in maintaining my web sites and in search engine optimization. Decide on the keywords for the page and then build the title tag around them. Make sure you have all the keywords / key phrases in the title tag.
    About the Author Kyle Reddoch is a Web Development Expert located in Amarillo, TX. To learn more about him, visit his website at KyleReddoch.com
    12 · 16

    Web page headings using HTML tags

    Headings form a part of the logical structure of an HTML document. There are six heading tags <h1> to <h6> each having its ending tag. To get better ranking in search engines, make sure that the web page headings contain all (or the most important) keywords and key phrases. If the same keywords and key phrases are repeated in the paragraph following the heading, the page will certainly get a boost in ranking. You should NEVER use headings to increase the size of text. You have at your disposal the <font> tag, and the <small>, <big> tags for that purpose. Furthermore, you can gain a better control over font size and other text properties using Cascading Style Sheets. Since headings provide a logical structure to the document, another important thing to remember is NEVER to use smaller level headings before the higher. Thus, <h4> should not be used before <h2> (though, HTML does not enforce this).
    About Author Kyle Reddoch is a Web Development Expert and Internet Guru located in Amarillo, TX. To learn more about him you can visit his site at KyleReddoch.com.
    Kyle Reddoch

    I am an aspiring Web Developer, Android Fanatic, Family Man, and all around Web Geek! I also do Freelance Development work.

    About

    My Journey through the Interwebs!