I recently downloaded the Windows XP Service Pack 2 beta. Good stuff, I’ve been very, very impressed with many of the innovations (if you want to argue about innovations, email me, hehe) in this “Service Pack” (to me, it’s nearly a full new version).

The biggest, to me, was the addition of the Security Centre. It runs through your patching, your firewall and your anti-virus to make sure these 3 foundational elements of home PC security are all in place.

Me, I had 2 out of 3. I didn’t actually have A/V installed. Little known fact. Less than 50% fo IT professionals have Antivirus software installed at home. We’re cheap bastards. Me? I don’t keep any important info anywhere that can be compromised easily, and my home computer is one of those. I scan for viruses very regularly using online tools.

But, this, thankfully, wasn’t enough for SP2. Every few hours a little popup comes up saying my PC isn’t protected. I’m just anally retentive enough to find this annoying enough to go out and do something about it. Nothing too extreme like actually spend any money… Just enough to get rid of that annoying little bit of toast (erm… just enough to secure my computer…).

So it was very cool that I found both AVG’s free antivirus offer as well as Computer Associate’s EZArmor Package.

I chose the EZArmor both because I’m intimately familiar with CA’s A/V products and because it was free for one year. Somehow, I’m more comforted by a product which has a business plan than one that simply offers itself free of charge. I guess I’m not as oldskool as I thought.

So, software installed. Little alert gone. World safe.

I now have 3 firewalls installed (Windows, work and EZArmor); Antivirus, windows update automated and…

Wait for it…

A fuzzy pink scarecrow on top of my computer. Nothing like a scarecrow to keep those script kiddies away.