The Retirement Network

The Life Transition Newsletter, Volume 1, Edition, #4, August 14th, 2008

retirementnet — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:46:54 +0000

The Life Transition Newsletter - Volume 1, Edition #3, July 31, 2008

retirementnet — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:41:53 +0000

The Process For Finding a New Career, a New Job, or a Volunteer Job

retirementnet — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:37:13 +0000

Recently, I have been asked to help several people to find a new career, a new job, or a volunteer job. What has been exceptional about this is that they believed they have to completely “throw out” their old skills and capabilities and start all over again. NOT SO! “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” You may still have what it takes to begin a new “career” (paid or volunteer) with your current skills, some new learning, and more insight into what is needed in the career or job you seek. Here is the process for my job/career/volunteer seeking friends and clients:
· Decide what you want to do. If you cannot decide, you need to go through the reconstructing of your capabilities and skills (call me for further information on “The Seven Steps to a New Career in Protirement”).
· Develop your networking plan. 95% of all job placements are completed by networking not by answering classifieds or sending out 500 resumes. Do not skimp on this, write down every person you know, whether or not you think they can help you. Remember everyone knows many people. They may know the one person who will introduce you to the exact position you are seeking. Be organized and prepared for each networking effort. (Again, I call for help with networking.)
· Write your resume to match the career/job/volunteer position you are seeking. Many people use the same resume for all jobs. This may be the wrong strategy. Employers want to see specific accomplishments and skills in their line of business. Much of the time people have matching skills, which they fail to emphasize or even identify.
· Develop a 2-minute “elevator talk” to use in answer to the question: “Tell me about yourself”. Many people find this to be daunting, but it is essential. Many who are asked the question: “Tell me about yourself”, embark on a lengthy discourse on their entire career and more. You must be cogent, succinct and to the point when asked about yourself in the context of a specific job.
· Practice interviewing with a friend or colleague. Never walk in cold to an interview. Three things you need to do when interviewing:
-         Know the job’s description for which you are interviewing.
-         Know your own skills and accomplishments in context of the job for which you are interviewing.
-         Practice answering questions to the point and succinctly. Answer the question as it is asked, not what you thought your heard or want to say.

There is more to this career/job search, but if you use the steps mentioned above, you will have a good start.

Stan Broitman

Certified Retirement Coach

631-427-4697

Email:retirmentnet@optonline.net

www.protirenet.com

The Difference Between Men and Women In Retirement

retirementnet — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:33:48 +0000

Life Transitions Newsletter Volume 1, Number 1 July 7th, 2008

retirementnet — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:53:00 +0000

Today’s Article: Ten Tips for Brain Fitness
Dear Friends,
I am beginning this periodic newsletter to keep you informed of developments in the world of transitions. What kind of transitions? All manner of life changes: career, retirement, family, relationships, leisure, residence, health, etc. I will send you great articles and tell you stories from my own experiences.
Write to me and let me know what you think.
Stan Broitman
retirementnet@optonline.net
http://protirenet.com
631-427-4697

Remember that when making a transition,
you might run into your old buddy FEAR. Just step
over him and continue on your way.

Ten Tips for Brain Fitness
1. Eat dark chocolate.

The task: Add some dark chocolate to your diet.

The reason: When you eat chocolate, you activate the systems in your brain that pump dopamine, an important brain chemical. These systems enable learning and memory, and help keep your brain sharp and fit.
2. Visit a museum.

The task: Go on a guided tour of a museum or another site of interest. Pay attention to what the guide says. When you get home, try to reconstruct the tour by writing an outline that includes everything you remember.

The reason: Research into brain plasticity (the ability of the brain to change at any age) shows that memory activities that engage all levels of brain operation — receiving, remembering and thinking — help to improve the function and hinder the rate of decline.
3. Memorize a song.

The task: Choose a song with lyrics you enjoy, but haven’t memorized. Listen to the song as many times as necessary to write down all the lyrics. Then learn to sing along. Once you’ve mastered one song, move on to another.

The reason: Developing better habits of careful listening will help you in your understanding, thinking and remembering. Reconstructing the song requires close attention and focus and an active memory. When you focus, you release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, a brain chemical that enables plasticity and vivifies memory.
4. Exercise your peripheral vision.

The task: Sit in a place outside your house, such as on a park bench or in a cafe. Stare straight ahead and don’t move your eyes. Concentrate on everything you can see without moving your eyes, including in your peripheral vision. When you’re finished, write a list of everything you saw. Then try again and see if you can add to your list.

The reason: Scientists have shown that the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is crucial to focus and memory, falls off with memory loss and is almost absent in Alzheimer’s patients. This activity should help you reinvigorate the controlled release of acetylcholine in your brain through a useful visual memory task.
5. Learn to play a musical instrument.

The task: If you’ve ever thought about learning to play an instrument or take up an old one, now is a great time!

The reason: Playing an instrument helps you exercise many interrelated dimensions of brain function, including listening, control of refined movements, and translation of written notes (sight) to music (movement and sound).
6. Do a jigsaw puzzle.

The task: Do a jigsaw puzzle that will be challenging — no fewer than 500 pieces.

The reason: Mundane as they may seem, jigsaw puzzles can provide real help for your brain. Completing one requires fine visual judgments about where pieces belong. It entails mentally “rotating” the pieces, manipulating them in your hands, and shifting your attention from the small piece to the “big picture”. To top it off, it’s rewarding to find the right pieces.
7. Turn down the TV.

The task: Set your television volume down a little from where you normally set it. See if by concentrating you can follow just as successfully as when the volume was higher. Once that setting gets easy, turn it down another notch.

The reason: You can’t get rid of radio static by turning up the volume. Many people raise the volume because their listening has become detuned, a little fuzzy. Matching TV volume to a conversational level can help you catch every word when talking with others.
8. Have a ball.

The task: Practice throwing and catching a ball up in the air.

The reason: People who master these kinds of sensory-guided movement activities can hone their brain’s visual, tactile and hand-eye coordination responses, with widespread positive impacts for the brain.
9. Step it up a notch.

The task: Find an activity you like to do by yourself, such as completing a crossword puzzle or knitting, and take it to the next level. See if by concentrating and giving more effort to the activity you can succeed better or more quickly.

The reason: There is limited value in working at a game or exercise that you can perform without paying close attention. It is important to always strive to take it up a notch to a higher and more demanding level to re-engage the brain’s learning machinery.
10. Learn to use the other hand.

The task: If you’re right-handed, use your left hand for daily activities (or vice-versa). Start with brushing your teeth left-handed and practice till you have perfected it. Then attempt more complex tasks, such as eating.

The reason: This is an exercise in which you know what you’re supposed to achieve, but must do it in a new learning context. This can drive your brain to make positive changes. Think of millions of neurons learning new tricks as you finally establish better control of that other hand.

Life Transitions Newsletter Volume 1, Number 2 Published Twice a Month July 17, 2008

retirementnet — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:49:57 +0000

The TEN Mistakes People Make in Planning The Retirement Transition

retirementnet — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:18:56 +0000

1. Believing that the next stage of life will be easier in every way than the last one. In other words, there will be fewer issues.
2. For those who are retiring, believing that they will now be on a permanent vacation.
3. Not recognizing clearly what you want to do.
4. Not knowing how to go about actually doing what you want to do and not asking for help.
5. Unwillingness to explore new possibilities in all walks of life: leisure, relationships, family, work, learning, financial security, etc.
6. Being afraid to try something new.
7. Trying something new and finding that it wasn’t what you wanted and then not exploring more to find your passions.
8. Then listening to your own mind telling you that what you want to do is impossible.
9. Leaving this transition totally up to yourself (and your own devices). Then saying to yourself (and others) “see, I told you it wasn’t possible!”
10. Looking back and saying to yourself: “I should have done that.”

The biggest mistake is that most of us don’t know that this next stage of life can be the best, if we just take the time and effort to find our passions and plan it out.

Stan Broitman
Certified Retirement Coach
email: retirementnet@optonline.net
blog: http://protirenet.com

631-427-4697

Life Transitions NewsletterVolume 1, Number 9 October 30, 2008

retirementnet — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:57:11 +0000

· Dear readers,
There are two articles for this edition:

Article one is on SEX by Jed Diamond. It is a very personal, informative and at times funny insight into a man’s view of his sex life. More than that, it gives us over 60’s a new view of sex we might not have seen before or maybe are unwilling to experience.

The second article is another helpful MASH review of backing up your work on a computer.

Sex in the Sixties vs. Sex in the 60s

by Jed Diamond
Born in 1943, I moved into my sexually active years as a teen in late 50s and early 60s. What boys learned was that girls weren’t much interested in sex. Since boys were very interested, it was our job to break down her resistance and get her to go along with our desires. Sex was mostly about “scoring.” If you were very lucky to find a girl you could coax, you did everything you could to get to “first base.” If successful, you tried to steal second. After that you were in “no man’s land.” You weren’t quite sure what you were supposed to do next. But you knew it was incumbent on you to try and make it all the way.
There seemed to be an agreement between the boys and the girls. It was the boy’s job to try and score. It was the girl’s job to continually remove your hands and keep her virtue intact. Pleasure and joy never seemed to be part of the package.
Most of my young sexuality wasn’t spent with girls at all, but with airbrushed images from magazines and imagined scenes from forbidden books like Peyton Place. In my fantasies these dream lovers would do all the things that real girls, I had come to believe, didn’t want to do. Masturbation became a much more consistent means for expressing my young sexuality.
Meeting my wife, “messing around,” and finally having sex after we had decided to get married, I entered a new phase of sexuality. I found that women not only enjoyed sex, but would take an active role in initiating and sharing it. It was a time of sexual exploration with a real person, without so much of the conflict over me pushing for it and her saying no. Though there was still the belief that I should want to do it all the time and she should want to do it at times, well at times that often seemed incomprehensible and mysterious.
As I’ve gotten older, sex has changed. Sometime in my mid-forties, the time I’ve called “male menopause,” I moved into a period where everything having to do with sex became awkward and confused. We became like pimply-faced teen-agers again. We were shy with each other. We seemed to have totally forgotten the ease of sexual intimacy and pleasure. We couldn’t seem to kiss without our noses getting in the way. Sex was hit and miss. Erections would disappear at the most inopportune times. They would jump to attention when least expected.
In talking with other men and women who came to see me for therapy, I realized that I wasn’t alone in this. There seemed to be a stage of life centered around “the change”, where it’s like adolescence the second time around. This was the most stressful period of our marriage. I would alternate between wanting my wife with all my heart and feeling that I should leave the marriage and find someone who I was more compatible with. She seemed to feel the same way.
As we moved into our late 50s and 60s, sexuality seemed to settle into a new phase. For the first time in my life I wasn’t driven by the need for intercourse. I found that sexuality would be more playful and less focused on orgasms. We enjoyed each other more even when we weren’t “having sex.”
In fact, sex started expanding in our lives. It went from sex being synonymous with intercourse to sex being anything that created pleasurable orgasms to sex being anything that was mutually pleasurable and created more intimacy between us. Sex started to include holding hands while we were sitting on the couch watching television. It even included unexpected looks of love and longing that would bring tears to my eyes.
It took me some time to let go of old beliefs:
· If I’m not trying to have intercourse all the time, anytime, day or night, there must be something wrong with me as a man.
· If I’m not the aggressor all the time, she’ll think I’m not attracted to her.
· If I accept sex as more loving, touching, feeling, and less “wham bang,” it will mean I’m losing my manhood and becoming “feminized.”
· If my men’s group found out how little we were “doing it,” I would lose face.
· If I can’t get an erection on demand or if it takes longer to get one, or if I lose it before we can have intercourse, I’m a failure as a lover and she’ll probably look for someone else.
· If her body doesn’t look like the models I remember growing up, I should look for someone who is younger, prettier, and easier to impress.
· If I go for days or weeks and don’t think about sex I must be getting old and decrepit and the next stop is Alzheimer’s and the nursing home.
It is true that sex in my sixties is different than sex in the 60s. When I’m nostalgic, reflecting on what I might do and who I might bed if I had another shot at the past, I become frustrated with what I have now. Most of the time, however, I’m content to let the 60s stay in my memories with the guy I was then. It’s actually kind of wonderful to be a man in his 60s with a woman in her 60s still trying to figure out what it’s all about.

Rob’s MASH Computer Corner
4 Important Data Backup Strategies For Your PC /MAC
(www.mashcomputersolutions.com)
Backup! Backup! Backup! Important Data could be in the form of pictures, videos, documents, software log files, movies, etc. For the most part, this data is safe. That is until the inevitable day that your hard drive crashes. If you haven’t prepared, your data is gone!

This situation is so common that the art of the ‘backup’ has spawned an entire industry. Today there are dozens of firms offering different data backup solutions.

Keep in mind, I will mention 4 important data back up strategies for Windows users, most of them being almost the same for Mac users except for the change in the software type. Check them out and start backing up.

Back Up Offline Files And Folders
Offline files and folders are things stored on your computer; you know, the files that are available to you when you’re no online. It can include all your pictures, documents, videos and many other files. To back them up, you should use an external storage device like an external USB hard disk drive. Such drives are plug and play and very easy to use.

I use an external 500 GB Western Digital MyBook for the purpose. I highly recommend signing up with an online backup service like Mozy or Carbonite and getting your files backed up with them. In case your external hard drive gets stolen or damaged, they will send you the DVDs containing your data.

A free tool called AceBackup works great. IdleBackup is an excellent tool, it’s free and automatically backs up files while you’re away from your computer. LifeHacker.com has a detailed description about the entire process and how it works.

Back Up Browser Preferences
If you are using Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari then you can export your bookmarks and save them to the external drive. Regarding the passwords, there are some paid tools to export and store IE passwords, although I haven’t tried any of them.

For Firefox users, there is much more data, like the extensions and preferences. Fortunately, the backup is not that tough. Check out this post - 3 Useful Methods to Back Up Your Firefox Preferences. My personal favorite is the FEBE extension which backs up everything with a single click. I used to restore all my Firefox preferences easily, after reinstalling Windows.

Back Up Emails
Now emails are something which are as important as any other data and they need to be backed up. If you are using any web based email account, a separate Gmail account can function as an online email backup center for those accounts. You can go ahead and set up the Gmail mail fetcher for the purpose.

If you are using desktop email app like Outlook, you can export and backup the emails using the Import and Export Wizard. You could even .

Sync Tools
We have discussed how to backup your data, however if you don’t organize and sync the data in your computer and the external storage device then that’s work half done. You need to setup tools which would also sync the data between the devices. IdleBackup, which I’ve mentioned above does incremental back ups which means it only backs up those files which have changed. So in a way it takes care of the sync task.

Other good tools which let you sync data between two locations are SyncbackSE and the free tool, . SyncbackSE comes with a free trial and is probably the best backup and sync tool available. It also offers a free version called which is a pretty awesome tool too.
Hope you like the backup strategies mentioned and make use of them to back up your data everyday. Don’t wait for a HD crash.

The Life Transitions Newsletter is a twice monthly publication. For your articles to be selected, they must be received by the second and fourth Monday of the month and will be published by the second and fourth Thursday of the month. Selected articles, ideas and comments must be as brief as possible. (Please note: that the next edition will be published on November 14th and articles must be received by November 10th.)

Stan Broitman
Certified Retirement Coach
email:
blog: http://protirenet.com

Life Transitions NewsletterVolume 1, Number 8 October 16, 2008

retirementnet — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:54:30 +0000

· Dear readers,
There are two articles for this edition; one is on making choices for what you do in retirement and the other is on the truth about the aging brain and what to do to preserve and enhance it.
                                                                         Stan
  Work, Learn and Love
While coaching many people over the past 5 years I’ve been finding that some people think that all they need to is do things that they want to do. Others experience anxiety because they can’t adjust to their new lives of choosing the things that they really love to do. Why? Maybe they no longer know what they love to do or can’t seem to reconcile that they no longer have to do anything. They can choose!
What is the difference? Those who are anxious are always seeking some sought of security that they don’t have, even if they have enough money and a financial plan to back it up. (Of course, this week with the stock market situation, they may have cause to be somewhat anxious.) But, even with the stock market down, the people with the jitters haven’t had that much invested; they still seem to have enough to be fairly certain of their financial security. But financial security is only one realm of life. These people are often bored to distraction in all areas of their life which creates the anxiety.
So why are the jitterers so riled up? They are searching desperately for a comfortable place for their imaginations. They live with fear of what they imagine will happen some time in the future, this isn’t ameliorated with a turn up of the market or a happy spouse or friend breathing happiness into their faces. Maybe, if they truly examine what they are fearful of, they would find something tangible. But this is almost an impossible task. You see, only the structure of their former jobs will do them any good. They are so used to being in a structured environment, that they can’t adjust to the “world outside”.
I can sympathize with these folks, because I lived through this myself. Then one day I created a new structure for myself; retirement coaching. Now this wasn’t easy. I explored, experimented, learned and worked to find the thing that I love to do. I WORKED; That’s not a dirty word for retirees. It merely means to accomplish or produce or create something. I LEARNED; I went through the coaching certification process which required that I learn a lot of new things. The product; I found something I LOVE.
So what’s the message? In retirement we may a have a world of choices and this in and of itself can be quite fearful. What can you do about this situation? Here are some ideas:
1. Find three (or even one) things that you want to do. Look for these 3 things in the area of work (new definition for retirement: to accomplish something, produce something or create something), leisure, family, relationships or meaningful activities (defined for yourself).
2. Narrow down your choices to the prime ones, no more than three (as few as one).
3. Do a brief plan of no more than three steps to be accomplished in the next week. Explore things before you begin to actually implement them. Example; Part time job (paid or volunteer). Search newspapers and internet to identify the type of job you’d like to have.
4. Do one step at a time and go slowly and deliberately. When you’ve found one feasible job or leisure activity, go see the environment, meet the people involved, etc.
5. If step 4 seems okay, then see if you can do the activity a couple of times before you jump in.
6. If the activity passes muster, then go ahead with it.
Try this process for all aspects of your life; work, leisure, relationships, family, financial, health (exercise, etc.). Remember, go slowly, you’re probably out of practice in the area of doing new things. But once you’ve experimented with this method, you’ll find it can work more and more as you go along.
If you’re having difficulties, call or email me!

The Upside of Aging

New research finds some brain functions actually improve with age. Our reporter on delayed retirement and how to stay sharp.
By SHARON BEGLEY

The aging brain is subject to a dreary litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, connections between neurons become sparser, blood flow and oxygen supply fall. That leads to trouble with short-term memory and rapidly switching attention, among other problems. And that’s in a healthy brain.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. An emerging body of research shows that a surprising array of mental functions hold up well into old age, while others actually get better. Vocabulary improves, as do other verbal abilities such as facility with synonyms and antonyms. Older brains are packed with more so-called expert knowledge — information relevant to your occupation or hobby. (Older bridge enthusiasts have at their mental beck-and-call many more bids and responses.) They also store more “cognitive templates,” or mental outlines of generic problems and solutions that can be tapped when confronting new problems.
Eric Kandel, 77 years old, who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in medicine, maintains an active lab at Columbia University and mentors younger scientists. “I think I do science better than I did when I was younger,” he says. “In science, judgment is so important, and I now have a better understanding of which problems are important and which aren’t.”
Growing awareness that old brains aren’t necessarily senile brains is already fueling a slew of consumer offerings. Brain exercises developed for older adults by Posit Science Corp. in San Francisco are being offered by retirement communities, senior centers and assisted-living facilities, as well as by insurers such as Humana to their Medicare enrollees. The computer-based program includes exercises intended to improve memory and attention, as well as sharpness of hearing. Continuing, peer-reviewed studies conducted by Posit scientists suggest it can roll back the mental agility calendar by at least a decade.
Some retirement communities and assisted-living centers are installing a touch-screen-based cognitive fitness program developed by Dakim Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif., that gives seniors practice on seven cognitive skills, including language and the kind of visual-spatial processing that helps you read a map. The system uses “age-appropriate” film and audio clips, such as Jimmy Stewart movies, as the basis for short-term memory exercises and adds new exercises every 24 to 48 hours.

The Life Transitions Newsletter is a twice monthly publication. For your articles to be selected, they must be received by the second and fourth Monday of the month and will be published by the second and fourth Thursday of the month. Selected articles, ideas and comments must be as brief as possible. (Please note: that the next edition will be published on September 11th and articles must be received by September 8th.)

Stan Broitman
Certified Retirement Coach
email:
blog: http://protirenet.com
631-427-4697

Life Transitions NewsletterVolume 1, Number 7 October 2, 2008

retirementnet — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:52:28 +0000

Living on Purpose
I was reading an article entitled “Are You Living on Purpose?”
by Marcia Weider who is “America’s Dream Coach”. It really embodied many of the aspects of making a transition from “working” to retirement. One important aspect of this transition is finding out what your purpose is.
Marcia’s premise is that most of us do not know what our purpose is because we have been so focused on our jobs that we just have not thought about this. Yet, in order to live our dreams, we need to determine what our purpose is. In the transition from work to “protirement”, it is a good time to answer this question. You are free to choose what that definition is for you, you are essentially independent, and you have acquired enough wisdom to make this determination.
What I like about Marcia’s methodology is that she offers a solution to the question: “Why am I here?”
Her advice is that “your Purpose is not a big, burdensome, heavy weight that you “must” accomplish in your life; rather, it’s a joyous expression of who you are. My client, who did not think finding his Purpose was the way to double his business, did not increase sales until he defined who he was; then it was easy. Standing in your Purpose, the quality of your dreams and you life, will change.”
“Your Purpose could be anything that gets your juices flowing; it comes from what turns you on in life. Your Purpose is anything that touches your heart and makes a difference to you. If you’re working at a job just for the money, and what you’re doing doesn’t make you feel proud, perhaps you’ve lost your sense of Purpose. The test is how you feel: are you turned on, or do you rationalize by saying that if you don’t “sell this product, somebody else will.”
Don’t get me wrong, selling a product can be wonderfully purposeful. It’s all up to how you look at it. A salesperson who fulfills the needs of a customer is doing a service for that customer.
Most people are so busy reacting to the needs of daily life that they’re happy just to be getting through the day. It’s hard to live on purpose when life revolves around daily crises and you’re always feeling overwhelmed. By taking the time to define your Purpose, you’ll open up more time and space, have more energy, and be more focused.
If you have attended one of my workshops or are a private client, you may have written a mission statement. I think this will help uyou tpo identify your purpose. Here are the basics of a mission statement:
A mission statement is a:
- declaration of who you are,
- what you “stand for”,
- what you will do in retirement to live your purpose,
- and bring satisfaction and meaning into your life.
The structure of a mission statement is one to three sentences which state:
▪ Who you are (your key characteristics),
▪ What is the essence of what you want to do with your life in retirement,
▪ How you will bring all this about.
It should not include:
- Every specific activity you want to do, just the most meaningful ones to you.
- Adjectives such as wonderful, good, etc. Or adverbs such as highly, quickly.
If you have trouble with writing your mission or statement of your purpose, give me a call oe write an email to me.
10 dumb things users do that can mess up their computers:
(www.mashcomputersolutions.com)
#1: Plug into the wall without surge protection.
Here’s one that actually can physically destroy your computer equipment, as well as the data it holds. You can protect your systems against damage from power surges by always using a surge protector, but it’s important to be aware that most cheap surge protectors will survive only a single surge and need to be replaced afterward. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is better than a surge protector; it has a battery that keeps power flowing smoothly even when there’s an outage, to give you time to gracefully shut down.
#2: Surf the Internet without a firewall.
Many home users plug their computers right into their spiffy new cable or DSL modems and hop onto the Internet without realizing that they’re putting themselves at risk from viruses and attackers. Every Internet-connected computer should be protected by a firewall; this can be a firewall built into the broadband modem or router, a separate firewall appliance that sits between the modem/router and the computer, a server at the network’s edge running firewall software, or personal firewall software installed on the computer (such as ICF/Windows Firewall built into Windows XP or a third-party firewall program like Kerio or ZoneAlarm).
#3: Neglect to run or update antivirus and anti-spyware programs.
In today’s environment, you can’t afford to go without virus protection. The malicious programs that AV software detects–viruses, Trojans, worms, etc.–can wreak havoc on your system. Spyware is another growing threat; these are programs that install themselves on your computer (usually without your knowledge) and collect information from your system that is then sent back to the spyware program’s author or vendor. Antivirus programs often don’t address spyware so it’s important to run a dedicated spyware detection and removal program.
#4: Install and uninstall lots of programs, especially betas.
There are many freeware and shareware programs made available as Internet downloads by their authors. Even if you install only licensed, final-release commercial software, too many installations and uninstallations can gunk up the registry. Not all uninstall routines completely remove program remnants and at the least, this practice can cause your system to slow down over time.You should install only the programs that you really need, stick with legitimate software, and try to minimize the number you install and uninstall.
#5: Keep hard disks too full (keep under 15% full ) and fragmented.
One of the results of installing and uninstalling lots of programs (or adding and deleting data of any kind) is that it fragments your disk. Disk fragmentation occurs because of the way information is stored on the disk: To access files, then, the disk’s read heads won’t find all the parts of the file together but must go to different locations on the disk to retrieve it all. That makes it slower to access. If the file is part of a program, the program will run more slowly. You can use the Disk Defragmenter built into Windows (Programs | Accessories | System Tools) or a third-party defrag program to rearrange these pieces of files so that they’re placed contiguously on the disk.
#6: Open all email attachments.
Getting an e-mail message with an attachment is like getting an unexpected gift. The most blatantly dangerous attachments are executable files–those that run code–with extensions like .exe, .cmd, and many others. Files that aren’t themselves executables, such as Word .doc files and Excel .xls files, can contain embedded macros. Scripts (Visual Basic, JavaScript, Flash, etc.) aren’t directly executed by the computer but are run by other programs. You should open attachments only when they’re from trusted sources and only when you’re expecting them. Even if the mail with the attachment appears to come from someone you trust, it’s possible that someone spoofed their address or that their computer is infected with a virus that sent the attachment to you without their knowledge.
#7: Mouse Click on everything.
Opening attachments isn’t the only type of mouse click that can get you in trouble. Clicking on hyperlinks in e-mail messages or on Web pages can take you to Web sites that have embedded ActiveX controls or scripts that can perform all sorts of malicious activities, from wiping your hard disk to installing a backdoor program on your computer that a hacker can use to get in and take control of it. Clicking the wrong link can also take you to inappropriate Web sites that feature pornography, pirated music or software, or other content that can get you in trouble if you’re using a computer on the job or even get you in trouble with the law.
#8: Share and share alike.
If you have file and printer sharing enabled, others can remotely connect to your computer and access your data. Even if you haven’t created any shared folders, by default Windows systems have hidden “administrative” shares for the root of each drive. A savvy hacker may be able to use these shares to get in. One way to prevent that is to turn off file and printer sharing–if you don’t need to make any of the files on your computer accessible across the network. This is especially a good idea if you’re connecting your laptop to a public wireless hotspot.
#9: Picking the wrong passwords.
That brings us to another common mistake that can expose you to attacks: picking the wrong password. Even if you don’t belong to a network where the administrator forces you to select strong passwords and change them regularly, you should do so. Don’t pick passwords that are easy to guess, such as your birthdate, loved one’s name, social security number, etc. Longer passwords are harder to crack, so make your password at least eight characters long; 14 is even better. Popular password-cracking methods use “dictionary” attacks, so don’t use words that are in the dictionary. Passwords should contain a combination of alpha, numeric, and symbol characters for best security.
#10: Ignore the need for a backup and recovery plan.
It’s essential that you always back up your important information and have a plan for recovering from a system failure. Data is the most important thing on your computer. The operating system can be reinstalled and so can applications, but it may be difficult or impossible to recreate your original data. Store backed up data on a network server or removable drive. Save time and frustration by backing up your system information too. You can create mirror images of your disks using popular ghost or clone programs. You can restore your system quickly instead of going through the tedious installation process.
Please try these 10 tips; I think they will help your overall comfort level and safety on the World Wide Web.

The Life Transitions Newsletter is a twice monthly publication. For your articles to be selected, they must be received by the second and fourth Monday of the month and will be published by the second and fourth Thursday of the month. Selected articles, ideas and comments must be as brief as possible. (Please note: that the next edition will be published on September 11th and articles must be received by September 8th.)

Stan Broitman
Certified Retirement Coach
email:
blog: http://protirenet.com
631-427-4697