As you can imagine, keyloggers are one of the most dangerous ways for someone to wreak havoc in your name. However, there are many ways to make sure that you never get infected with a keylogger, they are as follows:

1. Download and install suitable anti-spyware and anti-virus software.
2. Remember to run a full system scan on each of these at least once a fortnight.
3. Be careful with what you download. Use your anti-virus' on-demand scan or an online file scanner to be super-safe.

Using an online file scanner is by far the best way to check a file because most of the online virus scanners use more than one engine to check for viruses or malware within your file. VirusTotal, for instance, currently uses 32 different engines to check your file.

I ran this scan on a file that I knew was malware, and as you can see only 40% of the engines actually found it to be harmful. Obviously, this shows that relying on a single anti-virus engine is not the best idea and that is why it is always good to have more than one engine installed on your computer at any one time.

I use the following anti-virus and anti-spyware programs to ensure that I am not infected.

1. AVG Free Edition – free for home and non-commercial use: I use this as my main anti-virus application, because it runs in the background performing on-access scans (so that every time I read/write a file, it is checked for viruses) and uses very little processing. I used to use Symantec's Norton AntiVirus, but it was too bulky for a home operating system and could sometimes use more memory than a small game. You also have to buy a new CD or license every time they release a major update, which can get expensive.
2. Ad-Aware Free – free for personal home use: This is my main anti-spyware engine, even though it has no on-access protection or automatic updates, unless you buy the full version. I update it manually and run a scan every week, if I remember.
3. Spyware Doctor – free with the Google Pack: This does pretty much the same as Ad-Aware, but if you buy the full version you can have a live protection guard, which guards you from browser threats, cookie exploits, malicious files, ActiveX exploits, keyloggers, malicious changes to your network settings, malicious processes and notifies you of changes to your startup. On top of that you can also install an Anti-Virus engine which can scan for viruses as well as spyware.
4. Windows Defender – free: Windows Defender is probably the program I use least out of all of the ones I have, it really doesn't seem to catch diddly-squat, but it does notify me when changes are made to startup and port forwarding.

If you use a public computer or a computer that can be used by others, look out for any hardware you didn't connect yourself. Many hardware keyloggers connect to either your USB or keyboard port, often between your computer and your keyboard cable. The device does all the recording and the "hacker" simply collects the device later on. Spyware detection software will most definitely not uncover these devices.

When you buy a pre-built computer, often you aren't given an operating system CD, this is because pre-built systems get special access to Original Equipment Manufacturer (or OEM) versions. Actually, so do you, but I wouldn't advise buying an OEM version. Most OEM operating systems have limited functionality when compared to the retail versions and, in some cases, that can include the limitation of being usable only with the hardware it came with. So upgrading your Dell computer when it becomes old and decrepit, really isn't as easy as you thought it would be.

Many people argue that with a pre-built computer, you get extra customer support and warranties that you don't normally get with a home build. However, most retailers will happily exchange a damaged item for a new one and, unless you are not familiar with computers already, there isn't really much need for the customer support.

My computer was homebuilt a few years back as a Christmas present, simply because it was cheaper to do so. Also, it is a lot easier to upgrade your homebuilt system because you know what went into it and how things work. This is a real plus point for me because I upgrade my system so often. Truthfully, the only part of my computer that is from the original system is the case, and I am even thinking of upgrading that soon.

Anyway, here is a midrange computer from Dell:

• £269 – Starting price for the Dell Inspiron 530.
• £289 (+£20) – Upgrade to 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 processor.
• £318 (+£30) – Upgrade to Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium.
• £458 (+£140) – Add Dell 19" Wide Flat Panel monitor.
• £519 (+£60) – Upgrade to 2048MB, 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 RAM.
• £539 (+£20) – Upgrade to 320GB, 7200rpm hard drive.
• £574 (+£35) – Upgrade to 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS graphics card.

So £574 for a midrange Dell machine with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS, a 2.2GHz dual core processor, a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM.

Now let's look at how much it would cost to put together a comparable system on Novatech, an online components retailer. Keep in mind that this build will exclude any component comparison shopping, which would bring the price down further.

• £27 – Starting price for the Novatech Midi ATX black case with 400W power supply.
• £55 (+£28) – Add MSI PT890 NEO-V motherboard.
• £131 (+£76) – Add 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 processor.
• £177 (+£43) – Add 2048MB OCZ 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 RAM.
• £205 (+£31) – Add 256MB Novatech GeForce 8400GS graphics card.
• £253 (+£48) – Add 320GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive.
• £363 (+£110) – Add Novatech 19" Wide TFT monitor.
• £384 (+£21) – Add Logitech EX110 Cordless Desktop keyboard and mouse.
• £454 (+£70) – Add Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium OEM.

With Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium retail, the price is actually more than a Dell computer (at £210 from Novatech), so I went for an OEM version after all. The homebuilt system is £116 cheaper than the system built by Dell. If you go with Ubuntu, an Open Source operating system, then the homebuilt system would be £186 cheaper. Your choice.

I installed Red Hat Linux on to an 80 gigabyte hard-drive in the same computer that my Windows operating system runs on. So, it should be quite a fast combination of hardware and software. However, it was slower to start-up, shut-down and open applications than that of my Windows operating system even though the Linux system only had the basic applications to load – I had not even installed the server-side tools and services, so no server was attempting to boot.

It has a lovely layout, graphical user interface and set of basic open source applications, which includes Firefox. But I think it falls down in other aspects, such as basic computing – data handling and saving, installing and processing. The graphical user interface is nicer than Windows XP and looks as if it is written and drawn in Flash (which of course it isn't). It seemed to be more secure than Windows and required me to type in my administrator password at least twice to access the system settings and tools.

So, I can accept that Linux is a lot more reliable and safe although I have had no problems with my current installation of Windows so do not see that as a plus side to using Linux. Maybe if I went for a less server-orientated version I would get better results and response times, but I am not sure.

The first thing I noticed that didn't seem as good as Windows was the file system and hard-drive access. I was not allowed to access every level of the hard-drive, which was a little surprising. When I went to update the Firefox browser to the latest version I couldn't find where to place the files (there were so many folders that I could have tried). In fact, when I tried to 'install' anything I couldn't find the location in which to extract the files too so that they would be classed as applications and could be opened. Maybe I should have followed a few help files, but I didn't think that it was worth it as I knew that I wouldn't be staying with Red Hat Linux due to its speed, unless I purchased or downloaded a Linux distributable for a home system rather than a server.

So the file system meant that I was unable to download and use some of the Linux-only applications that I thought might be worth giving a try. Either way, I don't think that using Red Hat Linux as a home operating system was really such a good idea, simply because it isn't made to be used in this way – I really should have tried downloading a free distributable (such as Mint). I will try something more home-system orientated at later on, but until then my status on Linux as a home system stays as "not the best idea". I do use Linux for all of my websites and servers though and it has been perfect in that respect.

1. Headings: In my opinion no headings should be underlined, center aligned or in italics, they should always be formatted as right aligned, bold and slightly bigger than the main body text but without manually formatting them unless you are using a word processor that does not have them predifined. Microsoft Office Word has a nifty feature enabling you to quickly select the heading style, saving you time and effort, use it.
2. Paragraphs: In word processing, anything about paragraphs that your English teacher has told you should be forgotten, except punctuation, of course. Indents is what I am talking about, no paragraphs should be indented- it makes the place look untidy – and there is actually no need for a lump of white space before the text, it just makes the reader have to work harder by moving their eyes across the page.
3. Alignment: This gets me too, I see a lot of paragraphs or chunks of text that have been left aligned with a border or margin along each side, it looks a hell of a lot better if the paragraph is justified as it then lines up with both sides of the page.
4. Margins: Try not to over do the margins. As I have stated above, the white space just makes your readers tired and they begin to wonder why they even began to read your article with white space the size of cars.
5. Fonts: If you see a word processed document with a font list the length the same size as the document you are accessing, don't even start to read it. Who wants to read something where the font changes half way through a sentence to Windings? Don't over use the font feature – stick to one for body and one for heading.
6. Font Size: Ahh yes, font size, another wonder of the word processing world (if used correctly, of course), just don't make some of your text size 12 and the rest size 16 and don't start off at size 64, the default size of the document when loaded is normally a perfect size for the body of the text (generally set to 10-14).
7. White Space: I wouldn't advise white space that is inconsistent with the rest of the text either. For example using 2 returns for a new paragraph at the beginning of the document, but in the middle you change to 1. Not good.
8. Tabs: Many people tend to misunderstand the function of a tab. It is to create columns within the body of a text when a table would look out of place. So don't use the spacebar to space out something from the main text.
9. Page Breaks: Random page breaks in the middle of a document are a little annoying to the reader – refer to margins to see why – only use them if you think that the paragraph you are currently typing will not fit on the page or you feel you need to create a front page to your document.
10. Table of Contents: Many word processing applications have a little feature which uses the headings within a document to create a table of contents, so there is no need to manually type one.
11. Punctuation: I have to admit, this is one of the mistakes I do all the time. I seem to over do the punctuation with commas and hyphens, but at the same time not using enough periods. Try not to do this, if it is possible.
12. Spellchecker: Spellcheckers are your friends, use them. It really helps to use the spellchecker to check your work while you are typing.

Maybe this will help a few people to sort out their own word processing habits.