Communication by speech is something that differentiates people from animals. We are considered smarter and more evolved because we can actually utter words expressing what we think or feel. The funny thing is that nowadays communication has moved from the real space, when people are talking face to face in a virtual space where people can talk and laugh and cry and break up with each other without even being in the same country, but from the distance of thousands of kilometres.

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Few years ago if you had seen a man speaking with nobody in the street, laughing and discussing without having a real interlocutor, he would have been taken to the mental house and considered crazy. Well, not any more. Now you can see this picture every day, as people communicate all the time and they use tiny headphones that can't be seen ans also tiny mobile phone hidden in their pockets, so apparently they all seem crazy or talking to thelselves or to imaginary friends. Now you even have the posssibility to read your email on your phone or send messages and what else not.



Blackberry is a mobile device released recently on the market and definitely  considered as one of the most trendy devices that you can use to communicate. This is not only a mobile phone, but a wireless mobile device. The company producing it is a Canadian one and is called Research in Motion or RIM in the short form. It is actually one of the best sold such devices in the world. it offers both smarphone applications like address book, calendar, appointment list, and also applications using the internet wireless connection. Because it also works as a miniature computer, it is obviously necessary to have some software installed.

This is the Blackberry Operating System, the software that allows the device to use all the applications available. It can be installed on your Blackberry smart phone, but it is also avauilable for the other mobile devices with internet access, like the PDA or iPod. this operating system is the Blackberry software platform that supports the internet access and all the other applications that you can use on the device.



Blackberry is best known for its email service, but it also has lots of other applications, like music and video playing and the much used Blackberry messenger, games and others. There aren't so many applications pre-installed on your device, but you can purchase them any time from the Blackberry App Store that offers a variety of almost 1000 applications for your Blackberry device. They are perfect for all the models, older or newer, monochrome or colour display. It is interesting that Blackberry browser allows your internet connections, but you may also download or import third party applications, too.

There are more smart phones available on the market, so the competition is tough. That is why the operating system is very important as it influences everything your smart phone can do, starting with its being easy to use or not, the way in which it surfs the web (quickly or slowly), the overall performance or the third party applications that it supports. because the users nowadays are ery demanding and want more and more features and applications available on their smart phones. That is why all comapnies producing them strive to keep up to date with all the latest technological features and innovations and keep releasing more and more improved versions of their devices.

Blackberry software is very easy to use and has a very friendly user  interface. You can find anything you are looking for immediately and benefit from all the features and applications supported by it. It allows you to edit Word documents, make calculations in Excel , watch photos and videos or listening to music, reading your email and sending or reading messages, all these due to Blackberry software that is pre-installed on your smart phone.



If you use Gmail, then you will find Blackberry very useful, as it offers you the possibility to download a standalone Gmail application directly on your smart phone ans use it afterwards in order to ease your access to email. This software is also very useful when it comes to web searching and browsing, as it offers a superior speed in loading the internet pages when compared to other similar operating systems from other wireless devices.

You can run different kinds of software if you want to listen to music or see videos and movies (MP3, MP4, Avi and so on) due to Desktop Media Manager, a media software that helps you to do that and some recent models of blackberry even support radio streaming.

Since this device can also support third party software applications, there are a lot of software companies that designed some applications specially for this device. However, the special connection between this device and its operating system makes it work so well, be easy to use; that is why it has gained so much popularity.



Now if you want to have more Backberry software applications and you are not satisfied just with what you have from the very beginning, you cn always visit the Blackberry App Store where you can find any application that you want for a fair price, starting with games, music, special ringtones and so on. All you have to do is access the link and download the application directly on your mobile smart phone after you have introduced the necessary details about your account 9you have to pay for these applications). Then easily install it and use it in a matter of minutes. It's that simple. Just make sure you are in an area covered by the wi-fi so that you can have internet access when you do this.

But if you are just tired to pay for all things including software applications, you might like something useful and free. Here are some free Blackberry software that you can use: Google maps mobile - that offers you real time satellite pictures of the streets you are looking for and updated information about traffic in certain areas in the big cities, which can be very useful; Beyond 411- also used to find your way and it can even offer directions telling you how to get to a certain place; Skip - some software offering information about the delays in plane's flights, so you can make plans accordingly; PocketMac - can sync all the contact data and address book from your Mac to your Blackberry; MobiPocketReader - used for reading ebooks and a lot others.



You can even use your personal computer to run some applications that you will transfer after that on your Blackberry. I am talking about the BlackBerry Ringtone Generator that will allow you to make your own personal and customized ringtone on your PC and then transfer it to your BB. Or Blackberry Video Converter 1.13 that you can use in order to convert video files in a format that is compatible with your device. Now that you can see how many possibilities you have as a Blackberry owner, you will be able to use it at its full potential.

A computer virus is in fact a computer software applications that has the ability to copy itself, create its own clones and infect the computer. Some people believe that all 'malware' is called computer virus and associate this name with other kinds of 'malware' that can't actually reproduce themselves. This self-reproduction and spreading of the virus is this software's basic feature. But the virus software is only a type of malicious software. It was called like that, as you can imagine, because it acts exactly like a medical virus - spreads from one computer to another and infects them if you do not take the basic precautions. The first step taken is, like in all diseases, isolation - that is necessary in order not to infect other computers, too.

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The first computer virus appeared as an experiment in the early seventies and used the Arpanet, a kind of ancestor of the present Internet, in order to have access to a remote computer and infect it. It was called Creeper, because it copied itself on the infected computer and showed the following message on the computer screen: "I'm the creeper. Catch me if you can!". The researchers had to invent another software that was able to remove the Creeper. This one was called The Reaper and was the first anti-virus software. Pretty funny guys those computer scientists. Well their purpose was a scientific one because they wanted to know what they have to do if something like this happens. They wanted to be prepared for anything.



And they were right. I don't know if the person who made the first virus outside a computer science lab borrowed this idea from them , but he surely meant it as a joke or a practical joke. It was the "Rother J" and appeared in 1981 . the program attached itself to the DOS operating system and was spread using the boot floppy disk. Actually this was the way in which computer viruses spread for a long time before the internet began being used on a large scale. But once this happened it offered a huge opportunity for computer viruses to be spread in different parts of the world in the blink of an eye.

In the early age of computer use the computer virus software was made only for fun, for making practical jokes or to show that you can, They were designed mainly by young computer enthusiasts who loved working on computers and just wanted to prove they are really good. But, in time, the people who did these computer virus software became professionals and also the main purpose changed: it wasn't innocent practical jokes any more, but malicious software who meant to do some damage on the infected computer.



Usually computer viruses attach themselves to some files or software that is necessary for your computer and it will be activated if you run that particular infected software or download the attachment of an email. After being activated it makes a replica of itself and infects another file on your computer. If it is sent via email the virus will be activated when you downlod the attachment. That is why my strong advice is never to open any attachment from people you don't know and never download any kind of software you find on the internet.Much of the free software offered is infected, so be careful what you download. The virus is programmed to do something and its target varies according to the person who wrote the software: it may simply display a crazy message on the screen or even delete all the data on your hard drive.

You may not even know that your computer is infected with a computer virus, as it may be sleeping there until something activates it or may be waiting for a certain number of activations to complete its task. In any case, there are some obvious signs that your computer is infected with a virus if: it restarts by itself out of the blue, shuts down without a command, starts acting chaotically, remains without space on the hard drive, starts running strange music in the speakers , displays odd messages on the screen, starts displaying icons of programs you don't have and some more. When you suspect that something is wrong with your computer, even without many of these signs, start a complete scan with your anti-virus software and see what it's all about.



Virus software is dangerous and forbidden by the law, as it can cause serious prejudices both to individuals and companies. Let's take for example the case of two famous viruses:Melissa virus spread in the word document sent by email. It only needed one person to open that word document and after that the virus was activated, multiplied and sent its copies to all the email addresses in the address book. And so on until it infected millions of email users accounts and forced some large companies to close their email systems until they succeeded to isolate and remove the virus.

It is dangerous because if one computer sends instant emails to at least two hundred email addresses and each of the other infected addresses send other infected email messages, you can imagine that the servers can't face such an invasion and crush down.



Another famous virus software was "I love you" that was spread on May 4th 2000 and it was actually very simple. The virus was added to the attachment of the email and if you were unlucky enough to open the attachment you were immediately infected with the virus. This time the damage was even bigger as millions of people lost precious data on the hard drive and it can be hard to replace.

That is why it is always recommended to back up all your valuable files "just in case", NEVER stay without an anti-virus software active on your computer, especially if you are connected to the internet, make sure you download software and other files only from secure sources, delete without opening any suspicious email you receive.



I know there are some people (kids especially) sitting in front of the computer and looking for free virus software because they want to see what happens , how it works or how many computers they can infect. I advise them to be careful, as they can download some dangerous stuff on their computers and be victims of their own curiosity. Besides, only people who are really good in computer science can do this kind of software and they can't share it with anybody, as they will be punished by the law.

IP spoofing software is designed and used by people who purposely try to break the law in order to get material gains or willingly undermine someone's image. IP is short for internet protocol and is in fact a number that is allocated to your computer as a web user and it can be identified every time you browse the internet, so it is rather like a trace that you leave behind on the internet and computer professionals can find out exactly where you were and what web sites you visited and everything you did on the internet.

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If that's OK with me, as I don't have anything to hide, some people want to change their identity on the internet in order not to be recognized and be granted access to certain web sites and internet browsers. Of course who does this has sometthing to hide and usually this something is not pretty at all. So they thought of a solution: to "borrow" somebody else's identity on the internet, that is his or her IP and use it as his own in order to make some illegal moves that could be severeley punished if his real identity could be found out.



Of course they use different illegal methods to change their identity, that is disguised under someone else's IP and access a certain web page they have been hunting for a long time. Well, what IP spoofing software does is to pretend to be the actual owner of that software and in fact redirect the person who wants to access a certain web page to another one created by them. Now there are two possibilities after you have been redirected by this tricky software: you either get to a "dirty" web site containing porn or dirty words or I don't know what else that could undermine the name of the web site owner or, even worse, it redirects you to an almost exact replica of the original web site, with the big difference that now he has control over whatever you type and do there, on the replica site.

Some of the guys who use IP spoofing software do this in order to have their revenge on the company that fired them and redirect all its customers to a web site that contains crap about the respective company. They make sure the stupid things they write there are crazy enough to draw attention and get to the newspapers and this way they consider their revenge is done.

Others disguise their real IP because they have been denied access to a certain web site because of security issues or because they did something the web administrator did not allow -multiple accounts, dirty language when talking to the other forum users , cheating in competitions and so on. These are all reasons to be banned access to a certain web site . But if they really want to go there, they steal someone else's IP or invent some bogus IP under which they disguise and try to have access to the wanted web site again. This could work until the next time he does something stupid and will be banned again.



And the last case, and the worst one at the same time, is the internet user who only wants the IP spoofing software because he wants to do some bad things and gain material advantages from tricking people. Let's see what happens. This person uses IP spoofing software to get another IP and in this way he succeeds in tricking people that a fake web site is actually the original one. How does he do that? Well, they clone the web site belonging to a bank usually, one that has internet access for the clients to manage their money .

When the clients want to access their accounts online, they are actually redirected to another web site, usually a replica of the original one. When they enter the identification codes (user name and password), this data is sent to the perpetrator and in this way he has direct access to the poor victim's funds. This is definitely a breaking of the law and also a serious crime. But what about the victim's security?



These spoofed web sites are very difficult to identify and usually it is even harder to prove who did what as the IPs differ . Well, the best thing for all internet users is to have a really powerful anti-spam software installed and to stay alert. In case you see something that is not right, a small misspelling, a different color of the usual web site or any tiny difference, do not hesitate to leave the internet browser immediately and contact the web site owner in order to make things clear. After all, it is better safe than sorry.

I am not going to search the internet for you and offer you IP spoofing software, as this kind of software is illegal . Do it at your own risk and expense if you want to. I just want to warn you that this is a serious matter and it breaks the law if used with a bad purpose in mind. Just be careful if you find such software offered for free download, as you might get "spoofed" yourself or get infected with all kinds of computer viruses and Trojans.



You can find some useful software that can protect you against this kind of fraud attempts and also from phishing if you visit www.downloadmanager.org. A network can be protected against IP spoofing if it uses Ingress filtering , that uses pakets to filter the inbound traffic. In this case the system will be able to find out if the packets come from inside the network or from outside it. Any way there are some other similar software programs that allow you to hide your IP and some people might use it for fun, but the bottom line is this is not OK, as it can be used in a very harmful way for other people.