OC3 Computers

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2/1/2010Issue 1

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A little about OC3 :

OC3 was formed under a General Partnership in 2005 and now has an entity in not only Kentucky, but Michigan and New Hampshire as well. OC3 llc. holds many Microsoft and Cisco certifications along with their many years of experience.

We are located in the prestigious McClure building on West Main street in Frankfort, Kentucky. The magazine is always available in our lobby.

The McClure building on West main St. Frankfort, KY

Robert Greenly is the CEO of OC3 LLC and the lead writer for OC3 Computers magazine, He is also a graduate of the US Army Computer Science School in FT. Gordon, Georgia.

After graduating with honors he served in Hawaii and N. Carolina. He was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom to maintain communication between US forces and their allies.

Harleena Singh is a professional freelance writer with keen interest in computer and technology related fields. She pens down impressive articles covering numerous genres. Logon to her website http://www.freelancewriter.co/ to view her writings and more articles.

Doug Fraser has worked as a short fiction judge for Best of the Net and is currently teaching computer programs to those unversed in Microsoft Office 2007. Do not pity him-- he's given free coffee and the expired packets of M&Ms from the vending machine.

Our contributors:

If you would like to advertise in the next issue please call our media department at (502) 871-4481 (option 5) or e-mail our media department at

[email protected].

What's inside this issue:

Computer security.................................................................................1Viruses? We don't need no stinking viruses!.........................................2Are we at "Cyber war"?........................................................................3Open source programs, will they ever climb as high as Microsoft's?..4Keeping you computer clean and virus free.........................................5Cloud computing, will business take to it?..........................................6

OC3COMPUTERS A Frankfort computer magazine Issue #1, Page 1

Computer Security and you.If only we were able to see those signs above the Information Super Highway, or take a drivers education course for it? In the virtual world just as the real world the same basic rules apply, don’t pick up hitchhikers, don’t leave your car unlocked when your not there, and keep up with the maintenance to avoid accidents and costly repairs. Imagine your computer as a car, it’s shiny, it’s fast and new. You have theft control and even that little blue button that connects you to a 24 hour monitoring service. Would you disable or not install them, probably not. If you want to avoid costly wasted hours and data while waiting for your computer to be repaired. First, get yourself a good anti-virus program with a Malware protection add-on. This will solve at least 50% of your problems before they happen. Second, turn your firewall on; if you don’t know how or have problems with certain programs working when it is on call someone.

The Windows firewall will work with just about any software when properly configured by a trained professional. Just by having these two applications turned on you will block 75% of possible issues caused by being connected to the internet. The third, fourth and fifth requirements that make up the final 25% are: security updates, patches and common sense. The security updates and patches help tighten the security and improve your software to make your life easier. As for the common sense step, not opening e-mail from people you do not know is a start. Clicking on the links inside of e-mails from people or companies you have never heard of is basically handing over the keys to your brand new car and wishing them a nice day.

Viruses? We don't need no stinking viruses!

Sandboxes take on viruses in new Google OS

Article contributed by: Doug Fraser

Beyond cutting slow start up times, the new Google Chrome Operating System is also looking to eliminate a word from the PC owner’s vocabulary: virus. And it’s a lot simpler than you think. Well, maybe.

Here’s how it works:

All of your information is housed via the internet in “the cloud,” allowing you to access your information from any Chrome computer, anywhere (with internet, anyway). Word processing documents, spreadsheets, music—they all run online.

And each program operates in a separate tab, by it own individual process. This means that if one tab running a website or program gets infected, no other tab will be affected. Such containment of information has been coined by Google as “Sandboxing,” but they know virus protection starts with prevention.

When you reboot your computer, a check is run on your system data, ensuring that it is both up to date and has not been manipulated. If an issue is encountered, the system will reset itself to its original, virus-free form.

Updates for programs occur in a similar automatic fashion, coming directly from the program’s creator, which cuts out malicious third parties. Another bonus? Auto updates also mean no annoying pop up reminders.


(Think it’s all crazy? Apply for Google’s Pilot program and find out for yourself.)


Are we at Cyber war?What is Cyber-warfare? Cyber warfare is the act of infiltrating, disrupting or shutting down another country’s infrastructure and communication. This being said, are we at the cusp of an upcoming cyberwar? Has the “virtual shot been heard around the world”? At the end of 2010 we saw the STUXNET Virus target a specific location and the Wikileaks fiasco has proven that with a small amount of motivation the world’s network infrastructure can be slowed down, even if just a little.

With the creation of the internet from the computer “Dark ages”, the U.S as a whole had given birth to a new age of warfare; A warfare where you don’t have to carry a rifle or be in shape. All you need is a computer and a connection to the internet.

President Barrack Obama stated that the U.S digital infrastructure is a “National asset” and under his order the US Cyber Command was created. The USCYBERCOM's mission is: “to plan, coordinate, integrate, synchronize and conduct activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

The short version of this is the same oath that every Soldier, sailor and Marine take upon joining the U.S armed forces; to protect the U.S against enemies foreign and domestic.

Cyber warfare will start with your computer, not some 16 year old hacker employed by an enemy of the state 3,000 miles away. Without the proper security setup on your computer a hacker could enter it, set the timer and then sometime in the future it would start attacking other computers anywhere around the world. Attacks are easy to trace and it could be your door that the authorities come knocking on next.


Open source software (OSS) pose open challenges to the closed-source program companies like Microsoft. The OSS have a higher demand-side learning, because users are free to change its source code for modification and improvement. Moreover, OSS are on the rise for their free installation and negligible costing, apart from generally being superior products.However, even with its impressive armory, it is unlikely that OSS will be able to reach the heights of Microsoft, mainly because of the latter’s large installed base, and the fact that majority of users are not concerned with the source code. Furthermore, Microsoft can always strategically price its prime product, the operating software (OS) to control the market. Not to mention, the unbelievable advantage piracy gives to Microsoft in keeping off the open source programs reaching the users.

This does not take away the credit from the OSS, and deem them weak or useless. Microsoft also realizes the importance and power of open source, taking steps recently to implement it in some of its products. Though the open-source programs are going to stay, it is more likely that Microsoft will retain the peak position owing to its early start advantage, strong positioning, and effective marketing strategy.

Article contributed by: Harleena Singh

Open source programs, will they ever climb as high as Microsoft's?


Anti-Virus and firewalls:

No, they do not do the same thing. Anti-virus protects you from, (you guessed it) viruses. Firewalls close all the entry ways into your computer that are not needed. This is just as important as the anti-virus, both should be turned on. Anti-virus programs should be reputable ones and should be kept up to date. Don’t just download the first free one you see, research it and read the reviews. A few good ones we have come across are Symantec, MacAfee, and AVG. Two out of the three you have to pay for. AVG is free for personal use and protects you from 99.99% of viruses (as long as you keep it updated). People ask, "what about Spyware and Malware, don’t I need a separate program for those”? We say no, Before you purchase do your research. Anti-virus software should have add-ons for Malware and Spyware detection, otherwise you will have 3-4 separate programs eating up memory as well as processing power and in the end it will just slow down your computer.

Protecting your computer is obvious, just not always easy. The main rule of thumb is: Going to sites that are questionable means you risk EVERYTHING that is on your computer and any information you type into your computer. There are many programs that will just sit there and record what you type and won’t cause any problems with your computer, It will even be nice enough to e-mail the data to the bad guys in a nice and neat, easy to read format.

You need to think of your computer like your house, when you have food laying around that you no longer want you throw it away right? If you don't it will start to smell.

The same goes for your computer, you need to clean it up every now and then and remove old programs that you no longer use via the Add/remove programs section in the Control panel. After deleting your old software you will need to clean up your hard drive. You do this by first rebooting your computer, then go to “My Computer” option either by your start menu or the icon on your desktop. Once inside select your C:\ drive, right click and scroll down to properties. This will give you a plethora of options. You will immediately see the option to run “Disk cleanup”. Run this program to delete any remnants of the programs you had removed peviously from the computer. Once completed select the "Tools" option and click on "Error check”. You should select the “Defragment now” option once a month to help keep your computer running smoothly.

Keeping your computer clean and virus free


Cloud computing, will business take to it?

You see the commercials from Microsoft about “going to the cloud”, and see how you can watch video from your home computer when you’re waiting for a plane. That is a very, very over simplification of what it can do. Remote connection technology has been around for years, but for businesses cloud computing is much more than watching your favorite TV show online from your desktop at another location, it’s about the bottom line and saving not only money, but time. Thanks to the “Great recession” innovation has taken over and we are seeing some big steps in this area. You once had to keep buying newer, better, faster hardware just to stay up with the current requirements of the latest software. Now it’s available online in a simple, web based platform at a cheap monthly cost without the headache, and it never goes out of date. If you need backups of your data you can purchase a monthly subscription to an online backup service. If you need word processing and do not want to pay the outrageous costs of software you can get it for free. For students, “Cloud computing” is a way to store your data online without fear that your dog might eat your homework. Big corporations don’t have to worry about trusting another company with their data, with the billions of dollars they already make they will and have created their own cloud services for themselves. In the end it’s really all about trust and dependability.


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