This is almost unheard of in stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, or Egghead, yet the shareware programs offered within this price range rival even Microsoft's Office suite. Another advantage that shareware has over commercial software is its compatibility. We're not saying that shareware is compatible with all operating systems. They "operate" whenever there's a conflict among commands. Remember that computers essentially run off of a series of commands and it's usually a smooth process. But when one command conflicts with another command - or when one command asks for a process or information that isn't available, the computer returns results that aren't useable. This article will describe what viruses are and then point you in the direction of some rather unique protection and prevention. In short, a computer virus is a software program designed to destroy or steal data. It attacks computers via distribution - often unknowingly - through email attachments, software downloads, and even some types of advanced web scripting. Using Computers It's Not Rocket Science These days it's strange to hear people say, "I'm just not computer literate," as computers have evolved from archaic scientific calculators to simple point-and-click type machines. We suspect that today's "computer illiterates" are people who haven't taken the time to experiment with such a machine. If you use an online service like AOL (America Online), you can use its internal Parental Control settings to block access to various chatrooms and websites. You could even block instant messaging and email from anyone who isn't a fellow AOL user. Other tools available online operate similar to the way that AOL's Parental Control settings work, however no collection of tools could replace the reinforcement of mom and dad. Since we want these programs to load every day, we could create a shortcut to this file and then place the shortcut inside our computer's Start Up folder. That way, these three programs would load every time we turn on the computer. If you wanted these programs to start minimized, you could type the following into a batch file instead: START http://www.