We all love our computers, right? I don't care if you punching the keyboard of an IBM ThinkPad or a Mac PowerBook, chances are this is your best buddy. I have no problem saying that I can't survive without mine. Hey, I write on the thing for a living. What'd you expect? I'm certain there are many others who share my opinion/viewpoint. We've pretty much conformed to the computer age. It's all about Papa John's online and emails. I don't want to revert back to the old-school methods. This is exactly why I take my computer's health seriously. No way do I want my baby to be attacked by a virus. So, this is where virus scanners come in handy. Are you doing a regular scan on your PC? If not, it's time to start.

Technology has made the world smaller, and therefore more dangerous.

As a kid I talked often with my grandfather about how the world was changing. Most of what he said centered on the ways technology complicates our lives. Supplementary points: People are less honest now than they used to be, and the world is getting smaller and more dangerous. I've given a lot of thought to those discussions, and I think my grandfather was right: Technology has made the world smaller, and in some ways it is more dangerous. Every day we're attacked in ways that most people (including the security community) couldn't imagine before the past two decades—let alone 80 to 90 years ago.

The risk of malware attacking mobile devices has been largely exaggerated. But does that mean your cell phone is completely sate?

In the world of computing, being paranoid means being protected. But with viruses that attack cell phones and USB devices, the hype seems to have outmatched the threat. The cell-phone virus scare dates back about five years, when Spain's Telefonica virus made international news. And recently, gadget viruses hit the front page when CNN reported on an Associated Press story in March. The story warned of gadget viruses that originated in Chinese manufacturing facilities and plagued everything from iPods to digital photo frames.

The more you use your computer, the more power it consumes. Simple enough. A recent McAfee Avert Labs blog cites a conference presentation that claimed the average PC consumes approximately 76 watts of energy under normal load, and approximately 114 watts of energy under full load (for example, 100 percent CPU utilization).