All the documents that we store on our computer are digital, so they are stored in a virtual place, as there is no phisycal evidence of what you have written or edited on your computer. It is very easy to write any document, as it is equally easy to delete it by mistake or because you wanted to. Accidents do happen, especially when you have some very curious kids around as I do. And you feel you are about to go crazy after spending a few long hours working on a document and left the room for a few minutes without saving the document and when you return you find out that either your kid just turned off the computer or there was a power failure. In any of the cases you are desperate to recover the lost document as it is very important for work and for you. You might get lucky as there are nowadays a lot of recovery software available, both for sale and even some free downloadable software that you can find on the internet. Any way it must be a good idea to have one installed at home any time because you never know when you may need it and it is to try to purchase one when you are desperate and in a hurry because you have just lost some important documents.
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Before deciding which recovery software to get, try more packages and see if they are compatible with you and your purposes. Try to get an easy to use and very explicit recovery software with as many features as possible available and also permanent support if you happen to have some difficulties installing or using the software. The best recovery software should beable to recover data deleted from the recycle bin, data lost because the files were damaged for various reasons, data deleted by computer viruses, data lost because of electricity blackouts, data from partially deleted hard drives and even data from CDs, DVDs or other external drives with bad sectors.


Here is a list with some of the best rated recovery software on the market: DT Utilities Digital Rescue, Recover my files, Data Recovery wizard, Disk Doctors Windows Data Recovery, Handy recovery, Pareto Logic Data Recovery Pro, Quick Recovery, GetDataBack, R-Studio, Restorer 2000 Professional and many others.But, besides the paid solution of purchasing this kind of software, there is always the free solution offered by the freeware or open source software dealing with recovering files: Pandora Recovery, PC INSPECTOR File Recovery, Recuva File Recovery, Undelete Plus, eDATA Unerase Personal Edition, eDATA Unerase Personal Edition, FreeUndelete, EASEUS Deleted File Recovery, TestDisk & PhotoRec, NTFS Undelete.


But let's take an example , one of the best recovery software , praised by professionals for its abilities and see what is it exactly that it can do. DT Utilities Digital Rescue Premium (formerlyknown as Migo) successfully combines the user friendly design, the multitude of features available and also manages to recover all the lost datafrom your computer. The search system is also very useful, as you can search the deleted files by name or by extension.

This software is very efficient in finding the lost data, either emails, photos, word files, music , video , etc if they are in the right format . However it can't recover images from a network. From the very beginning the software offers you the opportunity to choose one of the three basic recovery modules: recover lost email, recover lost data and permanently delete data. The software is very easy to install and you are given very simple and clear instructions regarding your actions, so there is no room for mistakes. It proved very efficient in recovering almost any kind of lost or deleted data , which is indeed a very good thing. Then there is the search ability that alloes you to look for a specific lost file by simply typing its name or extension and then pressing the "scan" button. This special feature can save you a lot of trouble and time. This is no doubt one of the best recovery software and helps a lot in case of accidents or unfortunate decisions.


Anyway, no matter how complex and good some recovery software may be, it cannot cover all the bases and perform all the kinds of file recovery, so you must choose the right one for you, according to your main purpose. The best recovery software packages may contain one or more tools for recovering different types of files from different types of storage media, but never all of them. Some software is specialized in a certain kind of recovery , so I will recommend the most fit recovery software according to its best feature.

Let's take a look at the best software product for each definite feature.

1.For undeleting and unerasing utilities - DiskInternals Uneraser is considered to be the best. It is fast and very easy to use and it takes only second or minutes to recover your erased files.


2. If you are looking for a hard disk and partition recovery tool that can recover the files and data on the corrupted hard drives and repair the broken systems, then NTFS Data Recovery is the best for you.

3. The latest technology allows people to store files on other media , too, for example digital cameras, iPhones, Zune andd iPods and some other things like that - USB sticks or flash disks. Sometimes even the data on these devices gets lost or corrupted and you need to recover it, especially when we talk about photos, music files and other important files for you. It seems like you need DiskInternals Flash Recovery 2.6.

4. You can even recover the data that was written on CDs or DVDs, but which are presently deteriorated . Recover Disc 1.0 helps you extract the intact portions and reconstruct the damaged parts.

5. There are also some tools that help you recover the password from your documents. You obviously have so many passwords to different accounts and documents that it is almost impossible to remember them all. But sometimes you need to change something on your own documents that you locked with a password and you just can't remember it. Some specialized software can recover the password for you, but yiou need to choose the right one, according to the document format.

6. You can recover the lost data base with DBFRecovery 1.0.0634

7. Mail recovery is not as easy as it may seem, especially when you deliberately deleted a file from the trash, but immediately after that realized that in fact it is important for you. Email Extractor 1.0 can help you with this.

8. You may find other useful tools here.

Malicious software is most commonly known as malware in short. Malware is basically that software that gets into someone's computer without the consent of the owner. Usually this software is meant to do damage on the infected computer and that is why it was called malicious. The computer specialists agreed to call "malware" all those kinds of software that is hostile and intrusive or even annoying, like adverts. This kind of software is usually sent via email and downloaded together with an attachment. Most people don't use this term, but the general term of "computer virus" is used generically to describe all kinds of malware, such as: realcomputer viruses, worms, trojans, root kits spyware or adware or any other software the user does not require and want.
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The name of this software come mainly from the bad intentions of the person who made the intruding software and not from some features the software might have.  Starting like pranks at the beginning, or even made out of curiosity because the creatore of such software wanted to see what happens if he dedigns such software or how quickly and how much it spreads, now this malicious software can have disastrous effects on the computers that are infected. It may access all the data on the computer and send them to the software creator who can use the data for his own benefit or with bad consequences for the owner of the infected computer. Some malicious software can even erase everything on the infected hard drive and you remain with no information that you stored on your computer.

All malicious software, especially computer viruses and trojans spread from one computer to another just like a disease and the infected computer becomes a source of infection in its turn. The internet is the best way of spreading such viruses and malicious software as it connects millions of computers in real time.

Later, together with the Internet, some other kinds of worms appeared, that were focused on attacking web pages instead of personal computers. That is the case of Code red worm who appeared in 2001 and vandalized web pages , that is infected them with graffitti like writing, making it impossible to read the original content of the page.

Malicious software was studies by computer specialists and divided into several categories, according to the features of the software applications belonging to each category: viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits , spyware and adware. Computer viruses spread exactly like disease viruse- they attack a system, then make copies of themselves and infect the software present on the infected system and in this way the once innocent software installed on that system becomes infectious itself. Then there are computer worms - they behave just like the organisms they were named after and find the weak point in a system, a bug in the computer's operating system or security, infiltrates there, multiplies there and then migrates from one computer to another in the network. Usually the infected computer and system have no idea that the worm is actually there and what it does. The trojans were named after the famous Trojan horse Ulysses built in order to mislead the soldiers of Troy and take it inside the city walls and after that they all got out of the wooden horse's belly and killed all the ennemies. Well, trojans behave in a similar manner and disguise into innocent software and actually get the user's consent to install the software.



The problem is that there are some kits with a molicious avtivity behid the surface. Rootkits operate changes into the operating system in order not to be detected and then they use breaches in the security system to spread to other computers, too. The spyware actually spies on your computer, but it does not act in a bad way directly on your system. It is used only as a spy and sends the information obtained from the personal computer to the inventor of the software and he uses this information in a bad way , usually illegal, that is stealing identity or even stealing passwords and accounts in order to access bank accounts and get material benefits. Finally the adware is in fact represented by unwanted adds sent via email, without any bad consequences, except for the annoyance of the email account holder who gets tired of getting so much advertisement.



You could see from this short presentation that there could be serious consequences if your computer gets infected with one of these computer programmes belonging to malicious software. The best way to prevent such an unhappy event is to always have a reaaly powerful antivirus software running on your computer, especially when you access the internet, which is the most dangerous environment from this point of view. Then you would better delete without opening any suspicious emails that you might get , especially if they have attachments. Even if the sender is someone you know, it is better to phone them and ask them about the importance of the email and avoid being infected this way.

Some other advice that you could use if you want not to get infected with malicious software:

- always watch what you are clicking when you are surfing the internet; read carefully everything written there and do not click any pop up window that appears advertising something. It may be a trick.



- update your antivirus software constantly, as it also updates the data base containing the signatures of all knows viruses so far and there are new ones appearing constantly, so it is better to have the latest information about it.

- try to use another web browser than Internet Explorer because it is well-known the fact that it has some bugs and allows some unwanted software to penetrate the system.

- scan your system regularly because the antivirus software is useless if it is not activated and used. So make sure you read all the warnings coming from your antivirus and act accordingly; do not ignore these messages.

Bear in mind that it is illegal to design and activate any kind of malicious software and the people who do that are under the incidence of the law, so they should be reported. Laws adapted to this kind of crime and now there are even cyber cops who deal with trying to find the people who are responsible for such bad things and you can report any kind of malware here. So make sure you use your computer safely and stay away of any kind of viruses.

Project management software is in fact a package of services delivered to you by the purchased or free software that can help you organize all the information, schedule, tasks and everything you need in order to start a project and see it through all its intermediate steps, allpwing you to finish it in due time, within the stimated costs and results. So it is not only about managing the project in itself. It is however about managing all the developing parts of a project and integrated everything as a whole in order to get the best result possible. This kind of software can be used in all the fields of activity and does not require special training to work with. In fact almost all the free or not project management software are more or less user-friendly, but thhey can surely be used by anybody, starting with a simple guy who wants to use the software for a personal project and finishing with huge companies involved in the production of consumer goods. All you have to do is install the software, introduce the necessary data and then make the corrections and updates that come with every step of the project evolution and in the end you will see the results (hopefully good ones).
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So project management software is used mainly in big projects that are really complex and have a lot of components. As it is impossible for one person, usually the project manager, to gather all the necessary data , analyze it and then take the best decisions based on that, some smart people thought about developing such useful software for business and personal use. So this software actually deals with all the component parts of the project and tries to sincronize them somehow. So the software included in the package must take care of schedules (making them and making sure the dead lines are respected or estimating some other dead lines), cost control ( the project must be done within a certain estimated budget), the resources available and their management, collaborations with different people or different companies, communication both inside the company and outside it, quality management and the administration of all these things.


Usually there are many people in charge, each in his or her own sector or field of expertise. This software allows all of them and each of them to have access to the entire data and bring the necessary changes in their sector. The automatic features of the software make the necessary connections and changes as they appear and based on the data that was introduced. For example if a work or a task was not accomplished in the allocated time and had to be fulfilled lated than expected, the final date of the whole project will have to be postponed.


The first step after the software is installed and you actually start the project is to stablish the main tasks to be completed in a certain estimated amount of time. As I showed before there are a lot of events and processes that depend on each other, so you need to calculate the critical path. Based on the preliminary information introduced by the people in charge in every department and according to the initial plans of the project, the manager will establish some clear requirements from his team. For example they will establish the tasks for people or groups of people and the programme according to which the resources will be allocated. The software gathers all the information available and helps you decide on the estimated time of the project and eacg of its parts. Again the software helps you realize in an early stage the eventual threats to the project anf offers you the possibility to take the necessary precautions to prevent it. It also gives you information about the workload of every team in every department and in this way it is easier for you to establish the length and opportunity of holidays. Not to mention the fact that you can find there all the information from all periods of the project even after it has already finished and gives you the possibility to draw the conclusions regarding the performance and progress made.

Paid and free management software can be divided into three basic categories: desktop applications - that can be installed and used directly on your desktop computer or server - like charts, calendar, etc, Web based services - that offer services that you can find on the internet and web based systems.


Professionals agreed that the best project management software is Microsoft Project . However it can be really expensive and it is not so affordable for everybody. But you can also find some free project management software to download from the internet, with enough features to fulfill your needs. This freeware or open source software is good enough and saves you a lot of money, as some of them are really good. For example OpenProj is very good open source project management software, with many useful features. Then there is Open Workbench , free project management software recommended for personal projects and organizations. GanttProject is free software, simple and easy, user friendly and i think it is the most recommendable of all.

Here is some useful information for those interested in free project management software: free desktop project management software, free online project management tools and free self-host web-based project management applications.


Every one of the options has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example the desktop version keeps all the data inside the company, but you need a lot of memory space available and a server, which is kind of rare for small companies. Then you can't have access to the information if you are not in the company, which sometimes can be vital because, as you know "knowledge is power". Then there is the online tools option. It is very convenient, as the data is recorded on somebody else's server, but you have access to it whenever you want to. But these are only tools that you can use. You can use one or two or how many you feel like it. They can only help you, but you still have to download the software on your computer. I consider web based applications the best and the most helpful, as you have unlimited access and also have the possibility to let all your team members access the information and update it when this is necessary. Sometimes you also have to pay a fee for the unlimited space and features granted by these applications.

In conclusion, it does not matter what free project management software you choose; the important thing is to be useful and compatible with you and to help you finish the project in due time and with all the tasks fulfilled.