Giving the gift of PC security
Brian Krebs at the securityfix has a good article for those that are getting a new pc for Christmas (or those that know someone who is.) He has a nice outline of setting up limited privilege user accounts, installing windows updates, using a firewall and using antivirus. This is a nice concise guide to get a Windows machine tweaked to a fairly secure state.
That’s very important to do, because in spite of it being new, there are likely many Windows updates that have been released since the system left the plant, or was imaged, the antivirus (if any was preinstalled) is far out of date and needs updating. The unpriviliged user settings can prevent system wide spyware installs. And if you have a system on a high speed connection without a firewall, well… you have just a few minutes before you’re “owned”.