I have a habit of looking on the web for free things. I have a couple of laptops that I use for my DJ service, and they are very seldom used on the internet. So being the El Cheapo that I am, I downloaded some free versions of anti-virus and spyware software and installed them on my laptops. Also, my IP provider is supposed to have virus protection on the front-end of my service. I do not know how well it works, but I feel pretty safe.

Anyway, on my main computer that I am typing on right now, I have loaded what I thought was supposed to be good internet security suite. It came, free, the first year with a hard drive that I purchase to stick into one of my computers. Last year, I renewed it and upgraded it to the latest versions, which cost me about fifty dollars, but it has licenses for 3 computers. Sounded like a good deal.

Well to say, over this last year, I think I had to re-install this computer about 3 or 4 times due to viruses. Luckily, being an system/automation engineer for my profession, I used an imaging software and a boot cd that allows me to reload my computer within minutes, once i have taken an image of the working system. Norton Ghost 14 does this also for XP and Vista well, but since I am in the W2000 world with some of the older stuff at work, I had to find another back up system. The older Norton Ghost versions required a floppy disks for drivers, where in my atmosphere at work would go currupt in about 5 minutes from dirt,

At work, I am using a freeware called Snapshot for imaging. Snapshot is easy to use and it is not intrusive to the computer. It is networkable. With a little playing around, it allows me to keep the images on my back-up drives located other computers on the network. Once I have an operating computer, I take an image of it, and copy it to my backup hard drives. Snap shot also has the capability of just copying the new stuff from the last image, so it can be used as a backup tool, also.

I use BartPE for the bootable CD. When you create the CD, you can add any driver or software that you want to run from it. So with Raid drives on my servers, I was able to place the drivers for them on the CD along with the Snapshot software. This works real well for me. The only trouble is that it boots slowly from the CD, but i can live with it. It would take me two or more days to load everything from scratch.

I need to try to see if I can make a bootable USB drive. Now this would be cool, and probably a lot faster.

Well, I am going to not renew my old internet security suite software this next year and I am going to try some other software. I have a wireless router, so this provide a natural firewall, so I do not need firewall software. I am reading reviews on several virus and adware removal software. i am debating with myself (I am only half crazy, the other side half is normal) of just trying out the freeware.

Since I have everything backed up, and have fast recovery software available, I figure why not the freebies. It may be a mistake, but at first I may run free scans from other spyware software to make sure it removing everything..