They can still be useful. Just keep in mind that any info you put on these sites has the possibly of becoming completely public. In other words, don't put info there that you wouldn't want someone to see. Apply some common sense.
its actually getting bad. just as potential employers expect you to have a cell phone these days they also expect you to have a LinkedIn profile and your proper name in an email address.
not having any of these can seriously hurt your hiring potential, particularly in high tech.
Always check the addresses of ANY links you get in emails before clicking them. If they look suspicious in any way, don't click on them. Application of a little common sense goes a long way to protecting yourself.
In short : if the mouse isn't moved, it becomes active. If it is moved, it remains inactive. Plus, it takes a LOT of time for itself : It becomes active only after 5 minutes, then it performs the next stepts only after 20 minutes of remaining in inactive mode after each step.
I had to format and do a reinstall this weekend.
My virus checker picked up an aggressive virus this weekend and after several unsuccessful attempts at dislodging the thing, I formatted.
What tipped me off(other than the red warning) was the slowdown of my internet to a crawl. I monitored my internet connection and my computer sent over 200 mg of data and downloaded over 2 gigs. In about an hour. I checked and everything I could see was off including Steam, windows update,other pcs, phones and internet tv's. Opening the task manager revealed nothing.
Went pretty smooth except that Blizzard locked my account the first time I tried logging into Diablo3.
More recently, the Alureon rootkit has successfully subverted the requirement for 64-bit kernel-mode driver signing in Windows 7 by modifying the master boot record.[40]