Viruses come and go. Some of them are simply annoyances, but others are nasty little bits of malicious single-minded code that want to take down your machine or take away your data. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you deal with the problem. Some of those tools are well known: Symantec, McAfee, Norton. But you can also find tools that will serve you at a fraction of the cost or a fraction of the CPU processes. I’m going to introduce you to some of these lesser-known antivirus tools. In the end, you will have more tools for your toolkit than you ever though you would have… all of which are ready to immunize you from machine-crushing code.

1: BitDefender

BitDefender is one of my favorites on the list. Why? Because it has one of the best graphical virus tools available for the Linux operating system. Of course it doesn’t offer just a Linux solution. BitDefender offers antivirus for both Linux and Windows, as well as for various server installations. In fact, BitDefender has solutions for mail servers, Samba servers, desktops, and much more.

2: Avira Antivir

Avira Antivir has, in many cases, found viruses where others have not. One of my favorite uses for this solution is to slap it on a Linux machine (the Linux version is command-line based, but does have a GUI if you prefer), attach an infected Windows drive externally, and run Avira on that drive. Much like BitDefender, Avira will find viruses many other solutions won’t find. And because it is mostly command line, it is also quite a bit faster than other tools.

3: ClamAV

ClamAV is mostly a mail server antivirus for Linux, but it does a bang-up job. If you’re hosting a Linux-based mail server, you will want to include ClamAV on it; otherwise, you risk winding up spreading the love of viruses around the globe.

4: Avast

Avast is not as much a wallflower as the other tools, but it certainly has never been crowned Prom Queen. It’s an outstanding tool that offers a lot of options many other tools over look. One of my favorite aspects of Avast is the built-in rootkit check. You can’t go wrong when you know your antivirus is keeping you safe from rootkits.

5: rkhunter

rkhunter is not so much an antivirus tool as it is an anti-rootkit tool. If you’ve never come across a rootkit on a machine, consider yourself lucky. Very lucky. Rootkits are the Mac Daddy of viruses. And if your current antivirus solution doesn’t protect you from rootkits, either add a rootkit protection tool on your system or uninstall and install one that does!

When you’re dealing with a system that won’t boot, you need a robust and dependable recovery tool. Here are a few Linux tools that might save the day.

1: Knoppix

[UPDATE: New link] Knoppix is one of the better tools for rescuing data from sick machines. It’s a full-blown live Linux distribution with a strong, user-friendly GUI that will allow you to easily mount a drive and then copy the data (which you will locate in an easy-to-use file manager) to an external source. Of course, Knoppix comes with the full arsenal of Linux commands, which place just about everything you need at your fingertips.

2: Trinity Rescue Kit

Trinity Rescue Kit might leave you wondering, “Why isn’t this tool being developed faster and on a larger scale? Although TRK is rather slow to develop, what it offers is just short of amazing. Place it on a USB drive, boot your virus-laden machine, and scan the mounted drives with clamav, antivir, bitdefender, and more. This tool is all command line, so you might have to bone up on your commands to really make use of it.

3: Avira AntiVir

Avira AntiVir is a command-line antivirus tool that is fast, robust, and dependable. There is a GUI tool, but installing it is almost more trouble than it’s worth. (It requires Java.) Installing AntiVir on Linux isn’t the easiest of tasks, but it’s certainly no kernel compilation.

4: GParted Live

GParted Live is a live Linux distribution that allows you to manipulate partitions on a drive. It supports numerous file systems and lets you can resize, create, and delete, partitions. You can run GParted Live from a CD or a USB drive, so it’s very portable.

5: SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd is another live Linux rescue CD that offers numerous tools to handle numerous tasks, including partition manipulation, file recovery, hard disk testing, ftp, and disk formatting. As with most live Linux distributions, you can place SystemRescueCd on either or CD or USB drive, and it offers an easy-to-use GUI and plenty of tools.

1: Reference Desk

Reference Desk is good for students or anyone who needs to research information. It installs: DeeperWeb (navigate through Google search results using tag-cloud technique), SimilarWeb (find related sites), Converter (unit, time zone, and currency converter), Merriam-Webster (dictionary), Wired-Marker (highlighter), ScrapBook (save and organize sites), Reframe It (connect and share your thoughts online), and Read It Later (save sites for later reading).

2: Web Developers Toolbox

Web Developers Toolbox will help speed up your development process with extensions for troubleshooting, editing, and debugging Web projects. This collection includes Test Pilot (test Firefox features), Pixlr Grabber (Screen grabs), iMacros for Firefox (macro recorder/player), Stylish (install themes for just about any site that is theme-able), Colorzilla (advanced eyedropper), ShowIP (show the IP address of the current page), Greasemonkey (customize the way a Web page displays), FireFTP (cross-platform FTP client), Web Developer (menu and toolbar with Web developer tools), Firebug (edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and javascript), and FoxyProxy Standard (proxy management tool).

3: Traveler’s Pack

Traveler’s Pack is a great tool for those who are on the go. You can plan, book, and document your trips. This collection includes: BabelFish Instant Translation (translate language), FoxClocks (know what time it is no matter where you are), Flagfox (displays a country flag according to the site you are on), Deep Web Search Engine (share sites through Samucaya), ScribeFire Blog Editor (easily post to your blogs), Lonely Planet (Search travel guides), Fotofox (drag, drop, and arrange pictures; upload pictures to services without interrupting your browsing), Minimap Sidebar (maps and mapping tools), and Yapta (comparison shopping).

Stand-alones

4: IE Tab

IE Tab will embed Internet Explorer tabs within Firefox. With this extension, you can take advantage of the power of two browsers in one window. NOTE: This extension is not available for Linux.

5: Power Twitter

Power Twitter adds feature to the Twitter Web interface, such as inline YouTube and other sites, link to page title translation, specific user search scoping, status history on mouseover, AND link shrinking.

Well, not really. Although IBM's launch of the Personal Computer (IBM 5150) in 1981 set the industry standard for personal computing, IBM had introduced a variety of small computers for individual users several years before that. So while now is certainly an appropriate moment to salute the legendary IBM PC on its 20th birthday, it's also a good time to take a brief look back at some of the pioneering IBM products that immediately preceded it.

One of the earliest IBM attempts to move computing into the hands of single users was the "SCAMP" project in 1973.

This six-month development effort by the company's General Systems Division (GSD) produced a prototype device dubbed "Special Computer, APL Machine Portable" (SCAMP) that PC Magazine in 1983 called a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer."

To build the prototype in the short half-year allowed, its creators acquired off-the-shelf materials for major components. SCAMP could be used as a desktop calculator, an interactive APL programming device and as a "dispenser" of canned applications. The successful demonstration of the prototype in 1973 led to the launch of the IBM 5100 Portable Computer two years later.

IBM 5100 Portable Computer

Weighing approximately 50 pounds and sized slightly larger than an IBM typewriter, the 5100 Portable Computer was announced by the company's General Systems Division (GSD) in September 1975. The Portable Computer was intended to put computer capabilities at the fingertips of engineers, analysts, statisticians and other problem-solvers. Available in 12 models providing 16K, 32K, 48K or 64K positions of main storage, the 5100 sold for between $8,975 and $19,975. The 5100 was available with either APL or BASIC — or both — programming languages. If the size and weight of the 5100 seems huge by today's standards, then the Portable Computer was very slender compared to a late-1960's IBM computer with the equivalent capability. Such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton.

Windows Vista has some great new security and functionality features, as well as cool eye candy, such as Aero transparency, Flip 3D, and other graphical tricks. But all this comes with overhead that may lead to a performance hit on anything less than a top-of-the-line supercomputer.

If you find Vista’s performance lagging, the good news is that you can make it run faster. Here are some of the steps you can take.

#1: Add more RAM

There’s no denying it: Vista is a RAM-hungry operating system. Whereas XP usually runs great on 512MB, you really need a minimum of a gigabyte to run Vista acceptably. Two gigs is even better, and if you turn on all the graphical features and keep a lot of programs open, especially those that use a lot of memory, four gigs isn’t overkill.

Luckily, RAM is still relatively inexpensive — but it’s rumored to be on the rise, so get as much of it as you can, while you can. You won’t regret it.

#2: Use ReadyBoost

Can’t add physical RAM? Maybe you have a laptop that already has the maximum amount of memory installed. In that case, Vista provides you with a way to fool your computer into thinking it has more RAM than it does. You can use a flash memory card or USB key to boost the system memory; Vista can access the flash memory more quickly than data stored on the hard disk.

It’s best to use a high performance flash card or USB drive for ReadyBoost. When you insert it, Windows will ask if you want to use it to speed up system performance, and then you can allocate how much of the card’s/drive’s memory you want to use for that purpose. The rest can be used for storing data. For more info about ReadyBoost, see this Microsoft feature description.

#3: Get a good video card

There are lots of reasons why a project might not be going well or may even fail. When your boss wants to know why, there is a world of difference between offering an excuse and providing a legitimate reason. In truth, most excuses only make your manager more upset and put the blame on you. Here are 10 common excuses that employees give their managers — and how you can turn them from weak excuses into a way of getting your supervisor to help you resolve the problems before your project is jeopardized.

1: I didn’t understand the assignment

Not every boss has great communication skills. And yes, having a manager who is not good at explaining what needs to be done makes life difficult. At the same time, using your boss’ inability to explain things as an excuse for not doing them just does not fly. If an assignment does not make sense, it’s your responsibility to find out what really has to happen. And if you find yourself in this situation more than once, it is a sign that you need to be extra careful when working with this particular person to get things fully understood.

2: The deadline was impossible

We all know this situation: A manager hands you an assignment with a deadline attached to it. You tell the manager that the deadline can’t be met and you’re told, “I don’t care; make it happen.” When the deadline is missed, you say, “But I told you the deadline was impossible!” and the boss is still angry. The disconnect here is that simply saying that the deadline is not possible is not good enough. As soon as the boss tells you to do it and you passively accept the ridiculous deadline, you make it your responsibility to meet it.

Your best defense is to negotiate a better deadline, and to do that, you need a project plan. The fact is, you always should be able to paint a picture of what a project will entail with some broad strokes anyway, and it is fairly easy to assign some rough estimates of the time to make each step happen. When you show your supervisor that even the most optimistic rough draft of a plan that omits a million minor details shows that it will take three months and they are demanding three weeks, guess what? It is now your manager’s responsibility to deal with the deadline issue. You have turned an opponent into an ally, and no sane boss can hold you accountable for the bad deadline anymore.

3: A valuable resource was not available

A good part of a manager’s job is to ensure that the team has adequate resources in the form of time, money, and equipment. If you are missing a critical resource, your manager needs to know now — not when the project is late or has failed — so that he or she can fix the problem immediately. When you tell your boss ahead of

If your Excel skills are perennially rusty, this cheat sheet will help you knock out basic tasks without forcing you to scramble back up the learning curve.

1: Toggle the display of formulas

When you need to see what’s going on under the hood of a worksheet, you may want to turn on Excel’s formula display. There’s a convoluted way to do this via Excel options (and Excel 2007 offers the Show Formulas button in the Formula Auditing group of the Formulas tab - if you want to remember that). But you can toggle the display on the fly just by pressing [Ctrl] ~. If you select a cell whose formula you want to troubleshoot before turning on the display, Excel will also show you the dependent cells for the formula.

2: Convert a formula to its results

Sometimes, you may need to replace a formula with its results - either to preserve a static value or to optimize your sheet by reducing calculations. There’s a pretty simple trick for this, but a word of warning: Be sure you really want to wipe out a formula before you do it. (There could be undesirable consequences.) In fact, a good practice is to create a backup copy of the workbook as a safety net in case things go awry.

To convert a formula, click in its cell and press [F2] to enable in-cell editing. Next, press [F9] to calculate the formula and display its results. Then, hit [Enter], and your formula will be replaced by the value it produced.