Written on
May 10, 2008
by
Kay
As computers become more incorporated into our everyday lives—online shopping, bill payment, etc.—it’s easy for your hard drive to become filled with online shopping receipts , electronic statements, miscellaneous login/password information, and other private documentation that you’ll want to keep away from wandering eyes. What’s the best way to keep your personal information private on your computer? With a little common sense and armed with a little technical knowledge, you’ll be able to maintain your privacy while enjoying the benefits the digital revolution has to offer.
Create Your Own Account
Even if you don’t share your computer with other people, it’s always a good idea to create an account that you need to manually log into. Windows does a pretty good job at keeping users’ files private and out of reach from other users. This security technique isn’t rock solid, and certainly shouldn’t be relied upon as one’s only means of privacy and security, but it adds an extra layer of obstruction to further frustrate unauthorized, roving eyes.
Windows’ Built-In Encryption
Using Windows’ EFS—Encryption File System—technology will obfuscate your files, making them truly confidential and “for your eyes only”. EFS is available in most versions of Windows: Vista, XP, and 2000. Fire up an instance of Windows Explorer and navigate to a file or folder you’d like to encrypt for privacy purposes. In the popup menu, select Properties, General Tab, Advanced, and select “Encrypt content to secure data” to begin the encryption process. You’ll receive a confirmation dialog asking you if you want to encrypt the files and child subfolders inside the folder if you’re encrypting an entire directory with files residing inside of it.
Once the encryption processes finishes, your files will be encrypted. The beauty of using Windows’ built-in encryption is that you don’t need to input a password or jump through hoops every time you want to access your encrypted files; all you need do is login to your account, and you’ll be able to treat your encrypted files as if they weren’t even encrypted! Other users on the PC won’t be able to access your protected data, as the only way to do this is to have access to your private account, so, as common sense dictates, keep your login/password confidential and arbitrary enough so that they cannot be easily guessed for nefarious reasons.
An Alternative: TrueCrypt
If you would rather use an encryption method that doesn’t depend on Microsoft’s OS, give TrueCrypt a try. TrueCrypt is free and is great at creating encrypted “containers” to store all your precious data in; these encrypted containers can then be mounted via the TrueCrypt service to gain access to the container’s contents on the grounds that a correct password is input when prompted.
TrueCrypt isn’t as convenient as Windows’ built-in encryption routine, as with the built-in method, all one needs to do is be logged into their account to access their protected data; with a TrueCrypt container, you must manually mount and enter in your password each time you want to access your encrypted data. The extra step involved isn’t a big deal, and the added benefit of not having to rely on EFS makes TrueCrypt even more appealing.
By keeping all your important data encrypted and away from prying eyes, you’ll create peace of mind and protect yourself from data thieves
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Written on
May 4, 2008
by
Kay
I certainly remember the heyday of Napster; p2p—or peer to peer—became a household phrase, and the lossy compression of the mp3 format made downloading a single song over dial up bearable. I also recall many of my friends frantically downloading every song they could off the Napster network when word got out that Napster was shutting down its servers due to legal pressures. Let’s face it: people love to get something for nothing. We all love free stuff! So it’s very tempting to imagine a world where music flows from the tap; but this isn’t reality, and the consequences of illegal music sharing are complex and convoluted. Let’s look at some ways to share your music without fear of getting sued.
Check out Lala.com
This music sharing site allows you to legally trade your CDs with other members on the site. When you sign up for an account on Lala.com, you’ll be asked to fill out your profile along with the CDs you’re willing to let go of, as well as the CDs you desire to have. If another member discovers that they want something from your music playlist, an email will be sent to you containing shipping information, and you’ll also get a CD on your wish list in return, in true tit-for-tat form. Shipping and handling will set you back $1.75 USD.
Lala.com is a lot more than a CD swapping site; it’s also a great music service that you should take advantage of. This music service also allows you to take one of your CDs, rip the tracks into mp3 files, and upload them to your LaLa account, which ultimately lets you listen to your music collection from any computer with an internet connection. Syncing your iPod from your account is also easy to do.
Browsing other members’ playlists is a great way to discover new music that you may want to acquire. Lala.com lets you sample tracks off other members’ playlists, and you can get excellent music advice from the friendly LaLa forums. There’s also an onsite store, so buying that new CD online becomes an easy, convenient experience.
iLike.com: Sharing Your Tastes
Installing the iLike program will embed a sidebar that presents itself in iTunes or WMP. The purpose of this sidebar is to serve up recommendations based on what’s currently playing in your music player. For example, if you’re currently playing The Deftones, the sidebar will display other musical recommendations based on the genre that The Deftones represent. Along with these recommendations, you’ll also get to listen to 30 second samples to better determine whether you’d like to actually purchase the album in its entirety. The Friends Tab will let you peruse what your buddies are currently listening to, and the Artists Tab provides information on your favorite bands and singers.
Even if you don’t use iTunes or Windows Media Player, you can still make use of the iLike service if you have a MySpace or FaceBook account. The MySpace and FaceBook social networking sites offer widgets that be embedded into your profiles, spicing it up and giving your page access to your iLike account.
Songza: Find That Song!
Let’s say that you just absolutely must listen to a particular song right now, what do you do? Surf on over to Songza, search for your song, and if it finds it, you’ll be able to enjoy it by streaming it directly to your computer; nothing could be easier!
You can stream the song, give it favorable or scathing rating, view the YouTube video, place it into your social networking profile or add it to your blog to audibly liven it up, and others. Get your quick song fix by visiting Songza!
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Written on
April 25, 2008
by
Kay
Microsoft has now released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) through automatic updates. It has been released in English, Fresh, German, and Spanish as well as a Japanese version. However the update is not available to everyone immediately as the company is releasing it in phases. Service Pack 1 (SP1) addresses a number of bugs and glitches in Vista. It also seen as an important milestone before businesses begin to adopt Vista. Initial tests of SP1 have been fixed with some users reporting problems with the install and others reporting third party software issues after implementing SP1. See our forum for user comments
The service pack is also meant to address concerns of over application compatibility and lack of drive support that remains a problem with Vista. The good news however is that service pack is just around the corner if you are using Windows XP.
Service Pack 3 for Windows XP which has already been released to manufacturing (RTM), OEM and corporate customers, will be released to the general public early summer. In fact demand for XP remains high and as a result Microsoft has extended its commercial availability until later this year.
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Written on
April 12, 2008
by
Kay
In this week’s overview, we are looking at overclocking. Overclocking? You may ask what is that? Overclocking is simply a way of getting more out of your hardware by changing certain settings in the system bios.
Just like turbo charging a 4 cylinder engine in a coup, you,
too, can push your computer’s CPU—central processing unit, the
brains of your PC—to faster speeds; the more data your CPU can
process in a given interval of time, the faster and smoother
CPU intensive programs will run—think video games, video editing software and suchlike. The vendor supplied factory presets of your CPU and GPU—graphics processing unit—can usually be altered, overclocked to jack up your CPU’s performance, yet still run comfortably and in a stable state.
Bearing that in mind, realize then that you don’t need to break the bank, shelling out thousands for a new gaming box, as one can often achieve the same results of a newly assembled gaming PC simply by overclocking your existing CPU and graphics chip, and the price is certainly right: free! Before you decide on upgrading your existing processor or graphics chip, try bumping up the clock speed to see if you can squeeze a little more juice out of your current hardware; you may be very happy with the results and end up saving a pretty penny.
The Art and Science of Overclocking
If you’re nervous about voiding your warranty, overclocking may result in more anxiety, as most manufacturers toss the warranty out the window once you start tweaking around with their hardware, pushing it past its factory presets; but if you exercise a little prudence, you’ll be able to overclock your PC without hitting any snags, and you’ll gain a more intimate rapport with your PC because of the hands-on time you’ll invest in overclocking it.
It goes without saying that the faster something works, the more heat it’ll probably produce as a result of the increased speed. This is certainly true about your CPU: the faster you push it,
the more heat it’ll need to let off to cool itself down. You definitely don’t want your processor to go up in a caustic burst of binary; keeping your CPU nice and cool is a simple procedure that’ll greatly extend the lifespan of your CPU. Maintaining a cool processor is paramount and must be considered should you decide to overclock your PC.
In this extreme example liquid nitrogen is used to keep a system cool
However, on a more practical basis, you can easily purchase and install a water based cooling system. Its not as complicated to install as you may think.
Meet the Multiplier
There are basically two methods for overclocking your box: stepping-up your PC’s FSB—front side bus—frequency, or increasing your CPU’s multiplier to achieve the same results. Altering your CPU’s multiplier can be done without even opening up your PC’s case; however, most modern CPUs have their multipliers locked. If your CPU’s multiplier can be changed,
you’ll need to go into the BIOS to find and crank up this setting. This is how your CPU’s multiplier works: say your FSB is clocked at 200 MHz, the multiplier at 10; your CPU is now
clocked at 2.0 GHz, as 200 x 10 is 2000; upping the multiplier to 12 will then set your CPU at 2.4 GHz. This process usually takes a little trial and error to achieve desired satisfaction and stability.
FSB: Push the Bus
Pushing the FSB past its factory preset is the preferred method of overclocking considering most modern processors have their multipliers locked, but this method has an advantage too: not only does it boost the CPU’s clock speed; it also increases the rate in which data migrates between main memory and CPU. Always exercise caution when calibrating your FSB’s clock
speed: crashes usually ensue when first tweaking out your FSB, so you may need to experiment with memory and voltage settings in your PC’s BIOS to stabilize your system.
Overclocking your PC is a great way to squeeze every bit of performance out of your CPU; after all, you paid for it; why not get what you paid for?
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Written on
April 6, 2008
by
Kay
QUESTION:- Thank you for this tip, which I find most helpful, except for the bit where you say "Sure, you can back up all your documents, emails & photos to a thumb drive on a regular basis, ……" Can you please explain how I can do this in Outlook Express for I have
made many attempts & used several programs that claim to enable this to be done, but so far not one email has been able to saved from Outlook Express to anywhere else!!
Roger, New Zealand
ANSWER: -
Hi Roger
Outlook Express stores emails with dbx file extensions
For example your inbox file is called ‘Inbox.dbx’ and send items is ‘Outbox.dbx’
These are usually hidden in a user’s data files so you may not be able to find them straight away.
First thing to do is start Windows Explorer.
From Windows Explorer, click on Tools – select Folder options
From there select the View tab and then check the box under
‘Show hidden files and folders’
Press OK and close Windows Explorer.
Then go Start, select Search and type in the following without quotation marks
‘*.dbx’
This will usually find your Outlook Express files in your directory
C:/Document and Settings/User name/Local Settings/ Application/Identities
You can then add the path, once you have found it, in your backup program or tool. You can also do a manual backup of the location of where your inbox files are found
I suggest that if you do it manually, then create a folder in your backup drive or device and add a date to the folder name so that you know the date of when you made the backup
Thanks
Kay
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Written on
April 4, 2008
by
Kay
Can you still recall the days of 56k dialup connections? One would login, hear the awful screeching sound as the modem negotiated with the ISP’s server, and surf the web at a snail’s pace; it’s a quaint technology that is quickly becoming extinct. With today’s ISPs offering super fast broadband access to their customers, Internet instant gratification is finally realized. No more logging in with an access number and waiting while your modem connects. With broadband, as soon as your PC boots up and Windows is in a ready state, you’re already connected to the Internet. Whether you have DSL or cable, broadband is a quantum leap over dialup.
Sometimes, however, you may experience down time or sluggish browsing. This could be a result of a problem on your ISPs end, or it could be something on your end. So, before calling tech support and being put on hold, try a few things that could help remedy the situation, allowing you to quickly get back to browsing the web and checking your email.
Speed: How Fast is your Connection?
It’s a good idea to know the speed of your connection when everything’s working OK. Most users have a general “feel” for their broadband connection speed: web pages loading fast, pulling downloads at a nice clip etc. For situations like this, though, the bottleneck could be on the other end—the other server—and not your connection. A fantastic way of detecting your optimal speed is by surfing over to BroadBandReports.com where you’ll be able to get a good reading of your connection’s speed. BroadBandReports.com sends data packets to your computer. Based on the elapsed download and upload it takes your PC to pull and push these data, you can determine your maximum download and upload speed. One caveat, though: you’ll probably receive various results based on the location of the server doing the test. BroadBandReports.com maintains servers all around the globe, so make sure you choose a test server that’s closest to your location for the best possible results.
Checking Local Hardware for Bottlenecks
Even with a T3 line pumping data into your computer at greased lightening speeds, if your PC is an ancient relic with fossils for hardware, you’ll probably have a poor Internet experience. Web pages have become increasingly complex and interactive these days. A lot of web sites aren’t even web pages any more, in the traditional sense, but are web applications that perform their duties just as well as a local desktop program that you download and install to your hard drive.
When your web browser downloads a web page, it must store this data into your computer’s main memory. Think of “memory” as a temporary holding tank for data that your PC is currently mulling over or is needed for quick access when the time comes. If your computer is starved for memory, then chances are that your entire computing experience—not just your internet—is going to be slow and feeble, as your computer will need to resort to your much slower hard drive to emulate “memory” for its needs. If you’ve an extra slot, installing more system memory can really boost your computer’s performance
Spring Cleaning the Cache
Slow web browsing may be the fault of your web browser. Behind the scenes, when surfing the web, your browser is busy reading and writing to your computer’s hard drive. If you neglect to clean up your browser’s cache, temporary Internet files can pile up, hindering your PC’s performance and Internet speed. In Internet Explorer, simply navigate to the Tools menu; next, go to Internet Options and select the General Tab, clicking on Delete Files and Clear History. When browsing with Firefox, go to the Tools menu and select the Clear Private Data menu item.
Configuring your Settings
Taking full advantage of your broadband speed may mean tweaking out a few of your computer’s settings. Taking the “Tweak Test” offered by BroadbandReports.com is an excellent way to optimize your broadband speed. To take the “Tweak Test” surf on over to BroadbandReports.com and click the “Test and Tools” link on the left side of the page. At the conclusion of the test, BroadBandReports.com will ask you to enter in your service type—DSL or Cable—and other information that may prove useful in optimizing your connection. After BroadBandReports.com goes through the motions, it’ll recommend useful tweaks that you can apply to make your broadband connection as efficient as possible.
If all else fails, DrTCP may be able to rectify your broadband blues. DrTCP is a desktop application offered by BroadBandReports.com that makes altering your computer’s system registry a less daunting task. Of course, it’s always a good idea to back up your current registry configuration before making any changes to it.
If the above tweaks fail to provide any relief, then you may need to call your ISP’s tech support center, as the problem may reside on their side of the fence. Also, make sure that your modem and router are in good working order, for failing broadband hardware can cause significant lags and downtime.
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Written on
March 29, 2008
by
Kay
Does your hard-drive continue to spin and make rattling noises while you do next to nothing on your PC? Chances are that there are hidden processes working in the background such as indexing. By continuously indexing items on your PC, in theory you can reduce the time searching for files on your PC. The only problem with this feature is that it can slow down your PC with little option to control when indexing starts and stops
For this purpose, there are two options; decrease the number of files for indexing or disable this feature. I only recommend the latter if you encounter continued performance issues with your PC.
Reducing the Number of Files for Indexing
The best way to keep indexing running without sacrificing your resources is to reduce the number of files meant for indexing. This way you can index a few or particular set of files such as ‘My Documents’ and save your hard disk from losing its performance over time.
In order to decrease the number of files for indexing, go to Control Panel and double-click on “indexing options” and modify the way your files are being indexed.
You can also select particular locations to be indexed like Control Panel or Start Menu, etc. You can also modify these options later on.
Stop Indexing
If you encounter performance issues with your PC, switching off indexing is an option. In order to turn off “indexing,” go to Start, then in the Search window type “services.msc”. A window will popup displaying the list of services running on your computer.
Search for Windows Search in the list of services and double-click on it to open up the properties dialog box. In the start type drop down menu, select “Disabled.”
Finally, STOP the service and press OK to confirm the changes. Next time you restart your computer, you will find the indexing feature disabled.
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Written on
March 18, 2008
by
Kay
The long awaited service pack one (SP1) for Vista is now available from Microsoft for public release. If you cannot wait for the service pack to be downloaded through Microsoft updates, you can download the 32 bit version from here (applicable to most users) and the 64 bit version from here
Before installing the service, pack, please spend a few minutes and back up your data. I cannot stress this enough as users have got into a muddle when installing service packs for previous builds of Windows. I suspect this service pack is probably is no different from others.
Initial reviews of the service pack are mixed with most PC analysts dismissive of Microsoft’s claims of improved performance and power consumption. In some cases, the service pack 1 has slowed down Vista even further. I will be back later in the week once we have done some bench-marking tests of our own.
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Written on
March 15, 2008
by
Kay
Windows Movie Maker is a powerful video editing software that is included in all premium editions of Windows Vista.
First of all, find a video file that you would like to edit in Windows Movie Maker. For example, let us suppose you have two clips and you want to merge or join these clips together. You can easily add professional touches to your video with background music or transitions, to really show that you are video maestro.
Ok, lets begin maestro! - Open Windows Movie Maker by clicking on Start Button on the left corner of desktop window. Go to Programs and then select windows Movie Maker.
After the Windows Movie Maker has opened up, click on the Import media button and select the two clips that you want to join and edit.
Right click on one of the clips and select “Add to timeline”. Follow the same procedure for the other clip.
Now that you have added the clips we can edit them. You can also change the order of the clip by dragging the clip and moving it to the other place. In order to add background music, click on Audio or Music in the Import Section and choose an audio file for the background music.
Right click on the audio file and select "Add to timeline".
If you want to synchronize the audio with your clips according to your wish, position the mouse at the start/end of the audio file (2 red arrows should appear) and drag it to the desired position.
If you want to add Transitions to your clips, click on the Transitions button, select a transition and preview it. Transitions are meant to add a professional look to your video.
Preview all the transitions and drag the one to the timeline that suits you best.
You can also add Credits and titles, Narrations and other professional effects to your video. The last step in the creation/edition of movie is publishing. Publishing is required to save the changes or the editing that you have done and save the final video. Once done, you can then email, upload or burn a DVD of your movie - its that simple!
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Written on
March 8, 2008
by
Kay
If you are tired of Windows or need an alternative to boot up your PC or unable to find your recovery files, why not consider creating a Linux boot-up disc. Creating a Linux installation is far easier than you think it is, and you can leave your Windows files in tact.
One Linux install that is simple to use is PuppyLinux created by Barry Kauler and enthusiasts. All you need to is download an image file (which is to create a CD replica file) and then create a CD from this image file. Once this is done, all you need to do it reboot with the CD inserted into the dCD rive. In some cases, you may need to change your system bios to boot from your CD drive.
PuppyLinux is very small and runs direct into RAM disc. Its includes a bunch of programs to browse the Internet, write documents and do graphics. In fact you can download other Linux applications such as OpenOffice. In addition PuppyLinux includes a full suite of multimedia players and programs.
Step 1
Download and save the latest image file from here
Step 2
Then start your CD burner software such as Roxio
If you do not have any CD burning software, download ImgBrn which is free
Step 3
From Roxio or equivalent, Start a New Project and then select Copy, and Burn an Image
Step 4
Find the image that you downloaded earlier, the file ends with an extension .iso, insert a blank CD and press Burn. Your disc will be created in a matter of minutes
Step 5
Leave the CD inserted in the CD drive and shutdown your PC. Reboot your PC and boot from the CD. Most PCs will boot automatically from the CD - but you may need to enter into your system bios to change the boot drive sequence in preference to the CD drive.
Step 6
When you boot the CD, the software will test your display and mouse. After which it will apply an appropriate driver for it. You will be surprized by how quick this procedure is and how fast your PC responds
Step 7
When you shutdown from PuppyLinux, you may want to save the configuration files onto a USB memory card to avoid having to go through the setup sequence each time.
For further advice and other videos on how to set up your network and wireless cards, see these excellent videos here
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