These days people are way to used to posting information on the Internet thanks to sites like MySpace and Facebook.  The downside to this is that everyone knows way more information about everyone, including people that they don’t know personally.  It is amazingly easy to find out when people are out of town, or out at dinner, and where they are.

This is especially true of the younger kids on the Internet.  They may think nothing of posting way to much information on the Internet, information that you as a parent you don’t want them posting.

As these kids get older they may begin posting things on the Internet which could get them in some trouble at work, or even cost them their jobs.  There are several stories of people getting fired from their jobs by posting on Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Here’s a guy that was fired from a brand new job for posting something stupid on Twitter, or this girl who was fired for posting that her job was boring on Facebook.  There are countless others out there just like these.

The even bigger number who probably be the collage grads who don’t change there security status of their Facebook profiles before starting the job hunt.  All those fun college parties probably shouldn’t be public while looking for that first office job.  While the hiring manager assumes that you had a good time in school, the pictures of you doing a topless keg stand will not help you get the job.

Those of us that write and live our lives publicly are probably not the best examples to follow sometimes, but we have been doing this a while, and when we interview we are given a little more leeway on some of this stuff than someone who is new to the field (what ever field that may be).

While it may not seem fair that your future employer is going to search the net looking for you, they are.  Live isn’t fair, and the company which may hire you needs to make sure that they are getting the best worker for their money, and how you spend your after hours time is taken into account.

While changing your security settings on Facebook is a good plan, it isn’t going to fix the problem.  Google, Bing, etc will have all those photo’s and posts cached so while Facebook won’t let someone see the page, the cached versions will still be available via the search engines, not to mention the Internet Archive.

Denny

Depending on the article you read only 87% of people have an anti-virus software package installed.  Of those 87% ruffly 52% of them actually have the software package up to date.  That number alone is just staggering.  Now if those people were to install even a free anti-virus package that would give them some level of protection.  But with the free anti-virus packages out there you don’t know what you are actually getting.  Do they offer you a way to keep getting updates?  Are they going to go out of business?  How quickly are they going to be able to issue an update after the next big threat comes out?

Getting a virus on your computer can be anywhere from an irritation to a major problem.  There are viruses which just sit there and do DDOS attacks against websites, or send out SPAM on behalf of someone else.  There are others which steal your banking information when you log onto your online banking websites.  There are others which delete files off of your computer.  Without a good anti-virus software installed you’ll have no way to know you have a virus, or how bad the infection is.  And when you get one, you usually don’t have just one for long.  A lot of viruses will open up a lot of holes in your computers security so that other viruses can more easily get into your computer.  Some will even activly go and download more viruses into your computer.

The guys that charge for Anti-Virus software every year have a lot more resources to throw at the problem, and they are almost always able to get a new update released much faster than the free anti-virus guys can.  And when it comes to anti-virus software faster is better.  The faster you get the new updates the faster you are protected from the next big bad that’s running around the Internet wreaking havoc on company and personal computers the world over.

Are the paid for anti-virus products perfect?  No of course not, but they are better.  And in the ultra fast moving world of virus attacks, better is well, better.

If you don’t have an anti-virus package installed for crying out loud go get one.  If you have one of the free ones I highly suggest you pick up one of the paid for ones.  They usually have decent coupons at Frys, Bestbuy, etc where you can get them for a decent deal.

Denny