I highly recommend that you signup for OpenDNS as you can access the following features:

• Web Content Filtering
• Block any website or category
• Malware/Botnet Protection
• Phishing Protection

Web Content Filtering

OpenDNS offers various levels of protection: high, moderate, low or custom. You can block themes like Alcohol, Hate/Discrimination, Tasteless, Adult Themes, Nudity, Pornography, Adware, Drugs, Gambling, and P2P/File Sharing.

In addition, you can block individual websites or allow specific websites. For example, let’s say you block “Social Networking” but it’s alright for you & your users to access “facebook.com”. Simply scroll down to “Manage individual domains” and  select “Never Block” and enter “facebook.com”. Note, it’s better to enter “facebook.com” rather than “www.facebook.com” and the prior will allow facebook.com and any subdomain.

The other great content filtering feature is malware/botnet protection. Here’s the description provided by OpenDNS: “When certain Internet-scale botnets are discovered or particularly malicious malware hits, we offer protection to all our users so that as many people as possible can be protected from the threat. At this time, this feature blocks the Conficker virus and the Internet Explorer Zero Day Exploit, and is continually expanded to include other types of malicious sites.”

Other Protection Features

• SmartCache
  OpenDNS’s proprietary DNS caching technology finds and locates the last known good IP address for Web sites that are experiencing difficulty, making Web sites that are down for the rest of the Internet load for OpenDNS users.
• OpenDNS Guide
  Provides responsible and helpful search results for people on your network when they make typos in the address bar, freeing them of the annoying error page experience.
• Shortcuts
  Browser shortcuts let your users map a short term to a long URL via the address bar.
• Typo Correction
  Automatic typo correction auto-corrects the most common typos in top-level domains like .com, .edu and .net.

In conclusion, OpenDNS is a great way to protect your computers from undesirable Internet content but that’s not all.  Businesses can definitely use it in the workplace.  I personally use it to improve my Internet experience. To get an idea of how popular, effective, and trusted OpenDNS is you can check out a list of their business customers.

The first thing to know is that antiviruses detect viruses by either a definition or a heuristic test. Once the antivirus program expires, the virus definitions no longer update but it still may catch viruses through heuristic detection. In the most basic way, “heuristic testing” basically means that an antivirus looks for what “acts” like a virus. So, with this known, you may have guessed that the best antivirus program would be one that offers both forms of detection. Any program that does more than that, such as firewall protection or spyware detection is great.Our recommendations differ every year after we read and review the AV Comparatives report. However, we don’t simply recommend the “overall winner” every time to everyone because it may not be the best software for a particular client.

Here is what we recommend:

Our primary recommendation for most users would be Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). I know most people are curious about this, but first hear me out. MSE provides a clean interface and all the most important functions are easily found. In addition, it doesn’t require much (if any) user interaction after install… it simply works. However, MSE doesn’t do a good job at detecting spyware and doesn’t offer any Internet protection, which is why I usually recommend that users install Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM). MBAM is actually one of the few freeware applications that I see huge value in purchasing the full version. The full version offers “background protection” in that if you attempt to access a known “spyware” website it will completely block it. While it’s a little more complicated to setup than MSE, it is worth it.

F-Secure Internet Security 2011 is what I’m running on my computers right now, even though it’s a paid program coming in at $59.99. However, for “power” users or those that simply want all-in-one protection this one wins in every category. F-Secure offers virus and spyware protection, browser integration (if you’re searching for something online, it would be a check mark next to safe websites), an advanced firewall, network connection protection, email filtering, and parental controls. All of these features can be turned on or off at any time (for example, I disabled parental protection). The one downside that I noticed while installing the application is that post-install it has to download a ton of updates which can take a while and completely slow down your computer. I’m not sure why the internet download doesn’t contain the updates, but I guess it’s a rather minor issue. Even with F-Secure though, I still have Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware running for extra protection.

Here is a look at the products evaluated by AV Comparatives:

While there are other applications that also do this, none do it as quick and as effortless. What’s also nice about CCleaner is that whenever you clean your registry it gives you an option to back it up. Furthermore, if you accidentally deleted software you can go into it’s built-in System Restore function.

CCleaner is extremely easy to use and is highly recommended by everyone at FourLeaf IT.

Here are some additional features from their website:

Cleans the following:

Internet Explorer
Temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat files. 

Firefox
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history. 

Google Chrome
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history. 

Opera
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history. 

Safari
Temporary files, history, cookies, form history. 

Other Supported Browsers
K-Meleon, Rockmelt, Flock, Google Chrome Canary, Chromium, SeaMonkey, Chrome Plus, SRWare Iron, Pale Moon, Phoenix, Netscape Navigator, Avant and Maxthon. 

Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files, Log files, Clipboard, DNS Cache, Error Reporting, Memory Dumps, Jump Lists. 

Registry Cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… 

Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Windows Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more… 

100% Spyware FREE
This software does NOT contain any Spyware, Adware or Viruses. 

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Being new to rooting an Android, I did a ton of research to make sure I had a good idea of potential issues and how to solve them. While doing this, I ran into a lot of supposed “quick root” applications such as Droid2Root and RootMyX2 but both of them ran into issues and told me that it wasn’t successful after attempting to root my phone. So, I went the slightly more “manual” root by using a simple application called DoRootForWindows.

1. First, since you’re going to need to install the Android SDK you’ll need to download Java JDK. I’m running Windows 7 x64 and thought that installing the x64 version would do; however, you’ll also need to download the x34 version as this is what Google looks for.
2. Next, you’ll need to download the Android SDK package to your computer. It would be easiest to install it to something like “C:\Android\Android-SDK”. After downloading & installing the SDK, you should update it.
3. Now, you’ll need to download the Motorola Drivers: (32-bit or 64-bit)
4. After you install the drives, plug in your device directly into your computer (not through a hub) and set it to “PC Mode” (note: a lot of people have success in other modes, this is what worked for me).
5. Next, you need to enable USB Debugging on your phone and plug it into your PC. (Settings>Applications>Development)
6. After downloading & extracting DoRootForWindows.zip copy the files (not the folder) and paste them into the platform-tools folder (ie: C:\Android\Android-SDK\platform-tools\)
7. Double-click and run doroot.bat
8. Let it run (this can be the most frustrating part of all – I tried running it several times before it actually worked).
9. While running, it will tell you something like: “restart adb server on desktop and re-login”. In order to restart the adb server, quickly unplug your phone and plug it back in.
10. After your device is rooted, it’s time to search the marketplace for “clockworks bootstrap”. When you attempt to run this application, it should prompt asking you if you’d like to give the application superuser permissions (which you’ll want to grant). Click the “Reboot” option.
11. When rebooted, you’ll be given some options. It would be best to first backup your device. This could take ~5-10 minutes. You can navigate by pressing the volume buttons and using the camera button to select the option. Pressing the “power” button takes you back to the main screen.
12. Now, select “wipe data/factory reset”
13. Select “Yes — delete all data”
14. Go back by pressing the “power button”
15. Select “install zip from sdcard”
16. Select “choose zip from sdcard”
17. Find and select LibertyX-1.5.zip
18. Reboot your device.
19. Ta Da! You’re now using Liberty!

I hope this step-by-step really helps people curious about rooting their Droid X.

To release our new company, we’re offering $5 off per hour if you call/email us and say, “I want to keep IT lucky!”.

Well, we’ve got other blog postings to make… so please keep an eye on our website!