Here are websites I’ve found you may enjoy.
http://www.retailmenot.com/ - Coupon codes for online shopping
www.spambox.us/ - Temporary email address
www.neave.com/planetarium/ - Planetarium
www.gethuman.com/us/ - Human customer service
www.sizes.com/ - Well, sizes of lots of things…
www.etchy.org/ - Online Etch a Sketch
www.pcdecrapifier.com/- Remove unwanted programs
www.afreedll.com/browse/x.html - Need a DLL file? Here ya go.
www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml - Don't set up a computer w/out it.
www.siteadvisor.com/ - Protect yourself from bad searches.
www.browserfirefox.com/tips-tricks.php - Easy to follow Firefox Tips/Tricks.
www.techguy.org/ - Free Tech Support
http://fonts500.com/?view=XXX_09NNN/ - Free Fonts
www.speedguide.net/downloads.php - Optimize your Internet connection
www.windowsxp.mvps.org/index.html - Windows XP Help
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Wireless ‘Net Security
Have you ever heard of wardriving? You don’t need an armored vehicle to go wardriving. You don’t even need a slicked up Hummer. Wardriving is driving around in a car searching for an open wireless connection, i.e. an unsecured wireless connection. You don’t even need a car to use someone else’s wireless setup.
Your next door neighbor might now be accessing the internet via your unsecured wireless connection. In fact, if your connection is unsecured you are vulnerable to anyone in your neighborhood taking a free ride and possibly seeing personal information as well. The legalities of this are sketchy but the moral implications are obvious for most.
There is an easy way to secure your wireless internet from wardrivers, warwalkers or warwhatever (who attached ‘war’ to such a thing anyway). It’s probably sitting close by at this moment. It’s your wireless router & it contains a tool that provides a range of options and allows you to password protect the tool itself as well as any access to your wireless connection.
It’s called Base Station Management Tool. You access this tool via the internet. It’s the remote administration of your router and the address is something like http://192.168.1.1. So, how do you know exactly what your address or the Default Gateway of your router is? Go to Control Panel, Network Connections, Wireless Network Connection. You will see two tabs, General & Support. Click on Support. There you will see a collection of numbers with Default Gateway toward the bottom. That number is the address of your routers remote administration otherwise known as Base Station Management Tool.
Simply put that number into the address bar of your browser & hit enter on your keyboard. That will take you to a log-in page. Having never logged in before you will need to input the default password that came with your router. Odds are it is admin. The manual that came with your router will tell you. This is the first thing you will want to change.
After you’ve logged in you will see a set
of links to the left such as Home, Management, Local Area Network, etc. Click on Management to change the default password to one only you know. You now see a choice on the main page to Change Password. Click on this, put in the old password (like admin) and put in one you want. Click Apply. Record in a safe place for future reference.
The very next thing to do is to enable wireless security. Keep your neighbor from hogging your bandwidth and thus slowing your connection or worse from possibly seeing your information sent over the net. Go to Security on the left hand side of links. When that page comes up click on the Wireless Security link. On the page that appears you see a drop-down box for Wireless Encryption. Go for the strongest & enable 256 bit WPA-PSK (you may have an even stronger option depending on the age of your router:~ ). Below this on the same page you must make a password of completely random characters and numbers with a length of 8-63 characters.
Click Apply.
A word of caution as you go exploring other options in the Base Management Tool.
*Do not disable SSID broadcast or enable MAC filtering*.
It is too much trouble (trust me) & in my opinion are worthless precautions that may cause connectivity problems.
Your next door neighbor might now be accessing the internet via your unsecured wireless connection. In fact, if your connection is unsecured you are vulnerable to anyone in your neighborhood taking a free ride and possibly seeing personal information as well. The legalities of this are sketchy but the moral implications are obvious for most.
There is an easy way to secure your wireless internet from wardrivers, warwalkers or warwhatever (who attached ‘war’ to such a thing anyway). It’s probably sitting close by at this moment. It’s your wireless router & it contains a tool that provides a range of options and allows you to password protect the tool itself as well as any access to your wireless connection.
It’s called Base Station Management Tool. You access this tool via the internet. It’s the remote administration of your router and the address is something like http://192.168.1.1. So, how do you know exactly what your address or the Default Gateway of your router is? Go to Control Panel, Network Connections, Wireless Network Connection. You will see two tabs, General & Support. Click on Support. There you will see a collection of numbers with Default Gateway toward the bottom. That number is the address of your routers remote administration otherwise known as Base Station Management Tool.
Simply put that number into the address bar of your browser & hit enter on your keyboard. That will take you to a log-in page. Having never logged in before you will need to input the default password that came with your router. Odds are it is admin. The manual that came with your router will tell you. This is the first thing you will want to change.
After you’ve logged in you will see a set
of links to the left such as Home, Management, Local Area Network, etc. Click on Management to change the default password to one only you know. You now see a choice on the main page to Change Password. Click on this, put in the old password (like admin) and put in one you want. Click Apply. Record in a safe place for future reference. The very next thing to do is to enable wireless security. Keep your neighbor from hogging your bandwidth and thus slowing your connection or worse from possibly seeing your information sent over the net. Go to Security on the left hand side of links. When that page comes up click on the Wireless Security link. On the page that appears you see a drop-down box for Wireless Encryption. Go for the strongest & enable 256 bit WPA-PSK (you may have an even stronger option depending on the age of your router:~ ). Below this on the same page you must make a password of completely random characters and numbers with a length of 8-63 characters.
Click Apply.
A word of caution as you go exploring other options in the Base Management Tool.
*Do not disable SSID broadcast or enable MAC filtering*.
It is too much trouble (trust me) & in my opinion are worthless precautions that may cause connectivity problems.
This done you have now sent those wardriving voyeurs elsewhere.
Cowabunga dude!
Monday, January 29, 2007
Ed's ComputerWorks Tips
Faster PDF
For those of you who dislike how long it takes Adobe Acrobat to open when you want to read a PDF file you might try Foxit Reader. I have been using it for a long while. I even removed Adobe Reader from my system thus getting rid of the bloat. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads
Tiny URL
Sometimes I want to send someone a web link to check out but find the web address is so long as to take up two lines of text. This could lead to problems in navigating to the site. Well, there is a great & easy solution. Go to Tiny URL. There you input the unbelievable long address intop a box & with the click of a button they turn that long address into a very short one that takes you to the exact same place.
www.tinyurl.com
Convert MP3 Files To WMA
For those of you who may want to convert MP3 audio files to WMA (Windows Media Audio) you could check out this link. Have some files to convert? Here you go.
Tinyurl link: http://tinyurl.com/y9yzhz
The original link: http://www.download.com/Free-Mp3-Wma-Converter/3000-2140_4-10442362.html
Darik's Boot And Nuke
If you're comfortable enough with your knowledge of computers, here is a hard drive eraser for free. Whenever you sell/give your computer to someone you may want to make sure the HD is really, really clear of incriminating evidence of well, whatever. Maybe you have personal data on the hard drive & want it permanently deleted before letting the puter go. This free software will do the trick, permanently wiping out all data. It's called DBAN or Darik's Boot And Nuke.
Get it here: http://dban.sourceforge.net/
DBAN works on Windows & Linux OS's. You should label this utility carefully (boot floppy or boot CD) & keep it where no one will accidentally put it in your puter & reboot. Bye-bye data.
For those of you who dislike how long it takes Adobe Acrobat to open when you want to read a PDF file you might try Foxit Reader. I have been using it for a long while. I even removed Adobe Reader from my system thus getting rid of the bloat. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads
Tiny URL
Sometimes I want to send someone a web link to check out but find the web address is so long as to take up two lines of text. This could lead to problems in navigating to the site. Well, there is a great & easy solution. Go to Tiny URL. There you input the unbelievable long address intop a box & with the click of a button they turn that long address into a very short one that takes you to the exact same place.
www.tinyurl.com
Convert MP3 Files To WMA
For those of you who may want to convert MP3 audio files to WMA (Windows Media Audio) you could check out this link. Have some files to convert? Here you go.
Tinyurl link: http://tinyurl.com/y9yzhz
The original link: http://www.download.com/Free-Mp3-Wma-Converter/3000-2140_4-10442362.html
Darik's Boot And Nuke
If you're comfortable enough with your knowledge of computers, here is a hard drive eraser for free. Whenever you sell/give your computer to someone you may want to make sure the HD is really, really clear of incriminating evidence of well, whatever. Maybe you have personal data on the hard drive & want it permanently deleted before letting the puter go. This free software will do the trick, permanently wiping out all data. It's called DBAN or Darik's Boot And Nuke.
Get it here: http://dban.sourceforge.net/
DBAN works on Windows & Linux OS's. You should label this utility carefully (boot floppy or boot CD) & keep it where no one will accidentally put it in your puter & reboot. Bye-bye data.
Google Mobile
Ever wanted to Google when out & about with no computer? Maybe you need directions, a phone number, the latest Redskins score or the weather. Ever thought of using your cell phone? You can & you don't need the internet to do it. You can text Google!
Here are Google's directions:
1.Start a new text message and type in your search query
2.Send the message to the number "46645" (GOOGL)
3.You'll receive text message(s) with results.
Here is the Google website for this Google Short Message Service
http://www.google.com/sms/
You can give it a test spin at the website.
Ed
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Send To It
Ever need to edit a registry file Using Notepad? Yeah, you can go to START, RUN, type in Notepad & hit OK (I like Windows key, R, enter) & then copy & paste. Ah, but there is a facile solution meines freunds. Make Notepad part of the 'Send To' option. It's much quicker to right click a file and send the thing to Notepad.
1. Go to Documents & Settings in Windows Explorer. You get to Windows Explorer in XP by going to START, MY Computer, & right click on LOCAL DISK & click on EXPLORE). Hit Documents & Settings then the plus sign next to your account (usually your name). As this expands you will see "Send To" down the line. Click on it.
2. Right-click in the right hand panel & select New, Shortcut.
3. Create a new shortcut to Notepad.exe in the Send To folder.
Now when you right-click a REG, TXT, etc file you will have the option of the Send To menu & you can send the file to Notepad which opens it for editing.
Please leave a comment & let me know what you think of this tip.
What is RSS?
A typical website is static; doesn’t change a whole lot in the day to day milieu of life. Blogs (online journals) and news sites change daily. You can stay on top of all the news YOU are interested in or a favorite website that changes often. How? With what are called Web Feeds.
Web Feeds is an information format to provide regularly updated content. To read a Web Feed there are Feed Readers. They come in stand alone creations or built-in to your browser readers. You can choose what interests you from a variety of web feeds. The available web feeds are many. They include news from many sources including local, national or global hard news or your latest hobby or interest. This allows you to collect all your news sites and web feeds from various sources into one place. It’s one-stop viewing!
Whenever a web site is RSS (Really Simple Syndication) capable there is an orange icon at the end of the web site address in the navigation bar or somewhere on the web page. You can click on that and subscribe to that feed or right click the RSS icon and hit properties and get the web feed address. To have this option available you must be using Firefox, Opera or Internet Explorer 7 as your browser. Otherwise you need a Feed Reader such as one of the few mentioned below.
Once you have collected your different sites into your reader you will have all your updated news and info at hand. It beats surfing from one web site to another to another …
Feed Readers:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)