No doubt the first question after realizing you've been infected with a major virus, or been a victim of a more traditional "hack" is: "What Do I Do Now?"

Andy O'Donnell has you covered from start to finish:

I've Been Hacked! Now What?

Here are some other resources that might help during your recovery as well:

How To Wipe a Hard Drive
How To Clean Install Windows
How To Properly Scan for Malware

Image © linusb4: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/883988

Version 12.4 of the AMD/ATI video card driver suite is now available. This update adds support for the HD 7000 series in Windows XP, fixes a number of issues, and improves on several image quality variables.

Here are more details on some of the fixes and improvements in version 12.4:

• AMD Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs are now fully supported in Windows XP. Windows Vista and Windows 7 first supported the 7000 series in previous updates.
• Improves Level of Detail (LOD) image quality and texture filtering.
• Significantly improves Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA).
• Fixes issues in Windows 7 with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Rage: Vsync, and several other games, plus some issues with Windows Media Center and some overall problems.
• Corrects an problem in Windows Vista when opening Catalyst Control Center during Blu-ray playback with WinDVD.
• Fixes issues in Windows XP with Dirt 3 and Dragon Age 2.
• Updates AMD Radeon display driver, AMD Catalyst Control Center, and AMD Vision Engine Control Center to v8.961.

You can see all the details on this new release, including the full list of fixes, plus a full list of compatible AMD/ATI GPUs, in the Catalyst 12.4 Release Notes.

You can download the 32-bit driver version for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP at the respective links. Drivers compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows, and other ATI related drivers like ATI TV Wonder, ATI integrated video, etc., can be downloaded here.

Note: The Catalyst Driver Suite contains the actual AMD Radeon display driver, the Southbridge/IXP driver, HydraVision, the AMD Catalyst Control Center, and the AMD Vision Engine Control Center.

Note on Comments: The comments below are carried through updated blog posts when new Radeon drivers are released so some may apply to older versions than this one. I'll add a note at the end of each comment, reflecting the version number it was left for.

Related Topics:

• What is a Driver?
• How To Update Drivers
• How To Roll Back a Driver
• Am I Running a 32-bit or 64-bit Version of Windows?
• What Version of This Driver Do I Have Installed?

On Monday of this week, Microsoft officially announced the editions of Windows 8 that will be available. [They also confirmed that it would be called Windows 8. The release of the logo two months ago was a pretty good indication but it's for sure now.]

They are: Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Each will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Very simply, Windows 8 Pro is for techies and businesses. Windows 8 is for everyone else.

I'll save you the rehash and just send you to Microsoft's post:

Announcing the Windows 8 Editions [Microsoft: The Windows Blog]

Check out the excellent table mid-way down the page that compares the availability of major features between the Windows 8 editions.

I like the simplified options, at least compared to previous versions of Windows. What do you think?

ETA: There will also be a Windows 8 RT (aka Windows on ARM or WOA) that will only be available pre-installed on computers (primarily tablet computers) powered by ARM processors. There will also be an enterprise edition called Windows 8 Enterprise. The server version of Windows 8 will be called Windows Server 2012.

As you may have noticed in your years of Internet use, a lot of things online truly are free, especially when it comes to software. I've talked several times about free file recovery software and free registry cleaners. There are even completely free office software suites.

Here's another one that might surprise you: online backup. I've blogged about online backup services before. There are tons of them. Dozens of popular ones by my last count. But there are also free ones:

List of Free Online Backup Plans

Yes, completely free, and yes, of course there's a catch. You're limited as to how much you can backup. MiMedia gives you 7 GB, several others offer anywhere from 2 GB to 5 GB.

The really cool thing about these free online backup offerings is what isn't restricted: basically, everything else. In other words, all of these free online backup plans sport the same software, encryption, and feature set as their premium offerings.

That means that, as long as you only have a few gigabytes of files you find most important and couldn't live without, you can have the same awesome online backup service your neighbor has, and pays for, for free.

Have you ever used a free online backup service?