7 Steps to Securing your Home Wireless Network

The benefits of home wireless network are amazing. From the ability to be out in the backyard working while the kids are swimming in the pool, to not having to run cables all throughout the house for your network connectivity; the list of benefits are outstanding. I wouldn’t go back to a wired home network unless I absolutely had to.

However, what many people may not realize is that a wireless network can be an open door to others having full reign on your personal data.

A few simple steps can be taken to provide the best method of security on your home wireless network.

Use this as a guide for building a new home wireless network, or as a way to take inventory of where your existing home wireless network stands.

1) Router/WAP Password

As soon as you get your Router / WAP (Wireless Access Point) immediately change the password. Most of the common Router/WAP products today will have default passwords assigned that are well known and publicized. Choose a strong password for this device.

Here are a few tips on choosing a good password:

• It should be at least 6 characters long
• It should have a mixture of upper and lower case characters
• It should have a mixture of numbers, characters and/or punctuation marks
• Try to use uncommon words for your password

2) Protect your Wireless Network with Encryption

Always use WPA-TKIP encryption. Wifi Protected Access (WPA) is the new security standard adopted by the Wife Alliance consortium. The older “WEP” encryption has many weaknesses. Using WEP is like closing the door but not locking it.

You will need to be sure that both your router/WAP support WPA-TKIP as well as all of the wireless network interfaces on all of the devices attaching to your wireless network (Desktop, laptop, printer, etc). Some of the older network cards may only support WEP. Do yourself a favor and upgrade to better card.

3) SSID Best Practices

The SSID can be thought of simply as the network name. You should be sure to change this name from the default name that came with your router/WAP. Making the name something that is not common is a good practice.

You will likely also have the option of either broadcasting or not broadcasting your SSID. The most secure method for a home network would be to NOT broadcast the SSID. It just makes it that much more difficult for a hacker to gain entrance to your network.

If you do not broadcast your SSID you will just need to manually configure the SSID properties on your client computers.

4) MAC Address Filtering

Some router/wops have the ability to set it such that only specific network hardware addresses can have access to utilize your home wireless network. This is done by specifying the exact “physical hardware address” (or, “MAC address”) of the Wireless Network Interface card on the machines you want to give access to.

While this might not make sense if you have a lot of people randomly coming over and wanting to connect to your Wireless network, it certainly gives you an added step in a tightly secured wireless network.

5) Static IP Addresses vs. Dynamically assigned IP Addresses (DHCP)

DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) is a tool that allows your router/WAP to assign you an IP address automatically. This does come in handy when you have multiple people on a network that may be constantly coming and going.

However, on a typical home network things are pretty static and there generally isn’t much of a need for DHCP. Turning DHCP off will provide a more secure wireless network environment. With DHCP on there is the possibility for a hacker to allow your router to assign them an IP address and gain access to your network.

When you turn off DHCP you will need to manually assign a static IP (one that does not change) address to all of the computers that will need to use your Wireless Network.

6) Utilize the Firewall Features of your Router/WAP

Most Router/WAP devices today come with a Firewall feature that can either be enabled or disabled. Be sure the Firewall Feature is enabled. It surprises me how many people miss this very basic step.

7) Do not connect to any other open Wireless networks

I know it can be tempting at times to search for other available wireless network and connect to them for internet connectivity. The truth is, unless you have been given specific rights to do this, it is illegal practice. Not only that, but when you join your computer on another wireless network you become a target for others on that network to hack into your computer.

Following the above 7 steps will do you a lot of good in a world where hackers strive to find weaknesses to exploit.

Related articles

• 7 Steps to Securing your Home Wireless Network | DIGITAL LIFE – http://www.cubesquare.co.cc (thinkanytime.wordpress.com)
• 7 Steps to Securing your Home Wireless Network | DIGITAL LIFE – http://www.cubesquare.co.cc (techanytime.wordpress.com)

Excellent dark wallpapers

A Dark Starry Night Wallpaper

A Flying Tree

Collections of Dark Desktop Wallpapers

40 Collections of Dark Desktop Wallpapers are showcased below just for you… The wallpapers are themed around dark-colors. Feel free to download these cool wallpapers and make your desktop interesting and inspirational!

Black Cat Dark Room

Download Source

When Will It Stop?

Download Source

How’ll you get Faster Removal of Trojan Viruses from your Computer?

Have you been struck by virus attacks in your system? Are you looking for options to rescue your computer out of the abysmal virus threat? If you are looking for a perfect virus removal procedure, choose the online spyware removal software which are proving to be outstanding in data recovery and fixing computers from the threats of the virus attacks.

Do you want to rescue your computer from the virus attack without the help of any computer technician? Then here are some basic points allocated for you to guide you the right track while you are the job of virus removal by your own.

• If you are not that much of a computer expert; but eager to fix the virus issue all by your own efforts then the only way is the websites that can abide you with perfect knowledge to fix your machine in a proper manner.
• Online download the free edition of the AVG anti virus software and let it scan the computer. After the scanning you will find out that AVG has made a list of the virus, malware as well as spyware which are there in the system. Later on AVG will try to remove the viruses by its own but sometimes it is not possible to do because of the tricks of dangerous viruses.
• Do you find that AVG is not removing the virus list which it has made so far after scanning? Then check the virus vault; there the viruses have been stored up.
• Though this is also a fact that AVG is famous for destroying the Trojan virus with fast and convenient manner.
• If you are getting trouble in running the AVG free antivirus you can try the Trend Micro Housecall. This is famous is fixing the Trojans which AVG might have failed to notice.

These are some of the most important functions of the online free antivirus programs, which might help you to fix the virus threat in your machine. Try this process and give us a feedback.

How can you Configure AVG Anti-Virus with your Router?

Have you installed AVG Antivirus in your system? Whether you avail the business version or the home version, you will get firewall protection from it. No intruder can access your PC due to this protection. In spite offering your protection against the hackers, firewall can create certain problems in case you are using router for the home network.

In this case, proper configuration of AVG Anti-Virus software is necessary when router is used to setup the home network. For any such configuration and other services, you can subscribe to the technical support monthly packages to enjoy smooth computing. Any issue with your router, modem and computer will be readily solved.

Step 1 : Right clicking the icon of AVG, choose Open AVG User Interface > click on Components > select Firewall.
Step 2 : Next, click on Configure > choose Create a new configuration, in case you have not run the wizard of configuration. Then select Update Current Settings when you have already run AVG wizard.
Step 3 : When you have connected your computer only to your router, you have to select the option for one computer. However, if multiple computers are connected to the same router, you have to select the network option.
Step 4 : Again, when you are suing wireless router, the selection will be different. The remote technical support professionals are the best guides to help you with the selection process.
Step 5 : Click on Next > Complete Scan > Next for total scanning.
Step 6 : Lastly click on Next and make the choice of the domain according to the computing device you have connected to.

How to Restrict the Entry of Unnecessary Mails in your Inbox ?

Email – the one name that every PC user understands and makes use of extensively. Contact anyone at any corner of the world at a fast rate now! Send one mail and your message is conveyed. Just like it has advantages, similarly there are disadvantages of this process. Anyone who likes to sell something or have the intention of spreading malware can just send a mail to the receiver.

What you should do then? Contact the PC repair services and know the process of blocking all unwanted email messages. Block the mails which you don’t need in your inbox and secure yourself from identity thefts, spam messages and viruses.

The Procedure of Blocking Emails

Firstly, activate spam filter of the email program. You will get this filter along with the majority of the email programs, whether it is system-based or Web-based. How will you know whether you have a spam filter? In case you have the ‘junk’ folder, you are sure you have spam filter.

Secondly, you should set your email settings to its greatest level. With theremote technical support from the reputed service, you can set this security level for blocking the maximum number of email messages.

Finally, you can visit the email settings and by clicking on Block, you can make your own block list. If you like you can select the senders whom you wish to block. With this setup, you are assured not to receive any mails from the specific sender you have added to the block list.

Related articles

• How to Restrict the Entry of Unnecessary Mails in your Inbox ? (thinkanytime.wordpress.com)

5 Best Gaming PCs, Choose Your Preferred One

Unleash your gaming skill, explore the best computer games and feel the adrenaline rush. The market is buzzing with a number of stunning gaming PCs.  In this article we have discussed about the five best gaming PCs of 2010. Go through the article and choose your desirable one.

CyberPower PC Black Pearl – For the avid PC gamers, The CyberPower PC Black Pearl is a great product. Featuring Intel Core i7 980 Extreme, Dual GTX 480 graphics cards and 6GB of Kingston’s HyperX DDR3 (clocked at 1600 MHz) the computer is all set to offer the best gaming experience to the PC gamers. The system also features the Gigabyte X58 UD5 motherboard, Bluray drive and a DVD +/- RW drive. As far as storage is concerned, there is Intel 80GB SSD, and a regular 7200 2TB Hitachi hard drive.

Digital Storm Black Ops Assassin – Featuring dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards, Intel Core i7 930 processor, and six gigabytes of DDR3 RAM, Digital Storm Black Ops Assassin is one of the best gaming PCs at the recent times. It comprises EVGA X58 SLI LE, a 128GB SSD (solid-state drive) for faster operation. There is also a 1TB HDD included.

Alienware Area-51 ALX – This is another outstanding choice for computer gaming. The Area-51 ALX combines cutting edge hardware to provide an intense gaming experience. The computer comes with Dual ATI Radeon HD 5870, Intel Core i7 960, 6 GB DDR3, and 1.2 TB HDD.

Velocity Raptor Signature Edition – Powered by a super fast Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 975 CPU, the Velocity Raptor Signature Edition offers perfect gaming experience. It includes ATI Radeon HD 5870 Video Card, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 1 TB HDD and LiquiCool 4 Liquid Cooling System.

iBUYPOWER Paladin F875 – If you are looking for a gaming PC in low budget, this could be the best choice. Combining a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7 960 Quad Core running at 3.2GHz, 2GB ATI Radeon Video Card, 6GB DDR3-1600 RAM, the PC comes with 3 year warranty.

All the above mentioned PCs are meant to meet your gaming needs. According to your requirement and budget, you can choose any of them and take your PC gaming experience to an all new level.

How to Transfer your Email Folder to the Hard Drive?

Emails can have information as well as pictures and photographs. Various types of email files enter your inbox everyday – business mails and personal email files. These email files contain vital information which you may require to save in the hard drive. It’s a good idea!

You will not have any problem in saving the data. This transferring of information is essential since hackers can get inside your mail account and delete or ruin all your essential information. Email backup services can help you in moving all your mails from your account to the drive.

To add to your delight, you can also have the privilege of adding an entire folder by either exporting or saving it. Want to learn the process of saving an email folder? Take a quick look at the steps.

• Opening your inbox, click the message containing your email folder and then right click it. You will get the option of “Save As”, select it.
• Select a specific location on your hard drive and clicking on OK, save your files in that particular location. You should name the folder so that you can identify it later.
• Select “Save”
• Finally, click the heading of email folders where your messages are saved. It can be the Sent folder, Inbox or your personal folder.
• Double click or right click it unless you get the option of Save Folder.
• You can now save your messages as one document in your PC.

If you are not able to find the Save As option, get the remote computer services to help you in another way round.

How To Completely Uninstall Programs From Your PC

How To Completely Uninstall Programs From Your PC: A large number of PC owners have very little idea about what occupies the space on their computer. If you were to look closely, you would find that a large amount of hard disk space and system resources are consumed by programs that are either useless, obsolete or should not have been there in the first place.

So, how does your system get into this kind of chaotic situation? Well, some of the blame falls on the PC manufacturers who sell you computers with several applications that are pre-installed when you purchase them. In addition to these, you may have installed some programs but now do not require them anymore or they were not as good as you thought so you never used them. Some other programs may be spyware that secretly entered your system and are a burden on system resources in addition to sabotaging your information. You may also discover that some of the programs that you thought had been removed are actually still on your PC.

It is alarming that a large number of users continue to think that they can get rid of unwanted programs by deleting the folder that hosts the files of that program. Here are some of the ways to successfully uninstall programs using legitimate methods:

Use the Add or Remove Programs Utility: A majority of unnecessary programs can be completely removed using the Add or Remove Program utility provided in the Windows Control Panel.

You can browse through the list of programs, select the ones you would like to uninstall and follow the guidelines given for the uninstall process. You can use this facility for uninstalling Windows Media player and various other programs.

Some programs may not get completely removed using this tool. In such cases, you may need to take additional steps.

Use Program specific uninstaller: There are various programs that do not make it to the list of programs listed in the Add/Remove program list. Some of these programs give you an option to uninstall them by selecting the option in the Windows menu. If such an option is available you must use it to completely uninstall the program.

Use reliable Third Party Uninstall Software: Many applications are so huge that they make massive entries in your Windows registry and are very difficult to remove by using the normal methods. In such cases, deploying a good third-party software uninstaller may be a great idea to get rid of programs quickly. Some manufacturers also provide tools to remove their software on their Web site. For example, in order to uninstall Nero, you may download the Nero remove tool from the Nero Web site.

How to Remove Programs with no Uninstallers:

Some programs such as DirectX just do not give any option that enables you to uninstall them. In order to uninstall DirectX and other such software, you may reinstall or upgrade. You may even remove the registry entries if you have the updated version of the software to enable Windows to install the default version. However, you can not completely remove these software programs because they are essential for Windows to function normally.

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How to add polish to your PowerPoint presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint is a terrific medium because it allows you to reinforce your message with visual prompts. But too often, the power of PowerPoint is lost because the speaker doesn’t use it to help viewers focus on the message. Instead, PowerPoint itself becomes the focus.

Whether you are a frequent public speaker or a student who needs to make a presentation for the semester final, you can feel more relaxed and confident the next time you’re using PowerPoint to deliver a presentation with these four tips to help keep the focus on your topic—not on the medium. After that, expand your PowerPoint knowledge with 12 tips for creating better presentations. And, for a new look, you may also want to explore free PowerPoint templates.

Make consistent style changes on all slides using the slide master

Sometimes PowerPoint users forget that changes to features, like bullet styles and indentations, don’t have to be made on every slide—they need be made only once, on the slide master. The PowerPoint slide master stores information about the theme and slide layouts of presentations, including backgrounds, colors, fonts, effects, placeholder sizes, and positioning. Using the slide master can give you peace of mind as you make a presentation, because you know your slides will be consistently formatted.

Note: These slide master instructions are for PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2007. For PowerPoint 2003, take this training.

To make changes to PowerPoint themes or layouts, from anywhere within your presentation, click the View tab, and then click Slide Master. You will see a slide master, as shown here.

The PowerPoint slide master stores information for your entire presentation.

The slide master includes placeholders showing the layout of text on the slides and the style in which text will be formatted. The slide master includes corresponding layouts to accommodate different types of information. You can apply a layout to a selected slide in Normal view: On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click the arrow next to the Layout icon.

Remember that changes you make to the layout or formatting on the slide master are automatically applied to all the slides in your presentation. If you want to change the placement or text styles for a specific slide only, select that slide, and work in Normal view. Then, make any of the types of changes mentioned here.

To change the bullet style for all first-level bullets in a presentation, make the change on the slide master:

1. From anywhere within your presentation, click the View tab, and then click Slide Master.

2. Click anywhere in the first bullet.

3. Click the Home tab.

4. In the Paragraph group, click the arrow beside the Bullets icon and then click Bullets and Numbering.

5. Select the bullet style and attributes you want for your first-level bullets, and then click OK.

You can change the style for all first-level bullets in your presentation.

In a similar way, you can make other adjustments to the style and format of the slide master, using formatting options on the Home tab. For example, you can change the text color and size, and you can change the indentation of the bullets from the Paragraph dialog box.

You can use slide masters for a lot more than adding repeated information or changing formatting, too.

Find more ways to use and customize master slides

· PowerPoint 2010

PowerPoint 2007

· PowerPoint 2003

Read more about how slide masters can save time and improve results.

Include a date or a slide number on your slides

In PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2007, you can include a date, a slide number, or other information that will appear in the footer (bottom) portion of either a specific slide or all the slides in your presentation.

1. In Normal view, click the Insert tab.

2. In the Text group, click Header and Footer, Date and Time, or Slide Number, specify the information you want to appear, and indicate the slides on which it should appear.

Specify slide number or other footer information in the Header and Footer dialog box.

In this dialog box, you can also turn on slide numbers and add footer information. Each item will appear in the placeholder and in the style indicated on the slide master.

Read about slide information for PowerPoint 2003.

Reinforce your message with automated charts

People retain information in different ways—by reading text, by seeing graphical representations, and by listening. So it’s important to learn to create and to include at least simple charts when you make a PowerPoint presentation. With the automated formats PowerPoint provides, you have literally dozens of ways to build a unique presentation and to make your message memorable. If you have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer and you use PowerPoint 2010 or PowerPoint 2007, the chart you create is an Excel chart, with access to all the advanced charting features available in that program.

Insert a chart or graph in your presentation

· PowerPoint 2010

· PowerPoint 2007

· PowerPoint 2003

Careful use of animations and transitions is another way to make your presentation more memorable. Learn more about working with graphics in PowerPoint 2010, PowerPoint 2007, and PowerPoint 2003.

Jump easily between slides

If you didn’t know how to use a hyperlink, you wouldn’t be reading this online article. You may already use hyperlinks for quick and easy access to the web if you are connected to the Internet while making your presentation. Too often, however, a cool way to use hyperlinks within a presentation is overlooked. It happens when presenters include additional information at the back of a presentation as "backup" slides and then never refer to them because it’s too difficult to navigate to the end and then return to the main presentation. But if the information is important enough to reference in a backup slide, why not make it accessible within the slide show, too?

With PowerPoint hyperlinks, you don’t have to ignore that information at the end of your presentation, because it’s easy to jump between slides.

Insert hyperlinks between slides in your presentation and to references outside your presentation

· PowerPoint 2010

· PowerPoint 2007

· PowerPoint 2003

Note: Hyperlinks are active only when a slide show presentation is running—not while you’re working on your presentation in Normal view or in Slide Sorter view. To check links in PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2007, click the Slide Show tab. In PowerPoint 2003, on the View menu, click Slide Show.

Creating links between slides in your own presentation is just the beginning. You can also create hyperlinks in your PowerPoint presentation to slides in other presentations, email addresses, a page or file on the web, or new files.

4 reasons to synchronize your phone with your PC

Think about how much you do—or could do—with your phone: make phone calls and send and receive email, IM, and text messages. You probably download TV shows, movies, and music to your phone. And of course, you take, send, and receive photos. It’s truly amazing—anywhere you go, you’re connected. So here’s the question. If you already have everything on your phone, why sync it with your PC?

Because synchronizing your phone with your PC is the best way to transfer information, settings, and files. You keep all your information up to date. And you have it at home and at work.

Keep appointments

We’re all overbooked. If you’ve entered an appointment or meeting into your PC and haven’t synced with your phone, you could miss the appointment. If you’re scheduling appointments away from home on your phone and your phone’s not synced with the up-to-date schedule on your computer, you may miss the appointment and have to call the dentist, piano teacher, or doctor to reschedule. Often, you have to pay for those missed appointments. Plus, you go through the hassle of rescheduling.

The latest version of Windows Phone makes it even easier to keep track of appointments. The new Today screen that appears when you turn on your phone shows your appointments and any missed calls, unread messages, and your programs. The new Lock screen displays new messages and appointments without requiring you to enter a PIN when the phone is locked—all while providing access to mute, speakerphone, hold, and other functions during calls, so you don’t miss a thing. Call it appointment insurance.

Take work, projects, or homework with you

Need to finish your homework—a report on fifteenth-century Paraguayan dictators—or practice a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation? Now you can do this work on your phone while riding the bus or sitting in a coffee shop. Have to complete a report or speech or enter data into an Excel spreadsheet for a project you’re working on? Catch up with your work on your phone while you’re waiting for your teenager to finish guitar lessons or while you’re having the oil changed in your car. It’s possible just by installing Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 on your Windows Phone. And because you get the familiar Microsoft Office look and feel and the programs that you’re used to, there’s no learning curve.

If you’re using a touch screen phone, you get additional features, such as word count and spell check. You can create charts in Microsoft Excel Mobile, plus you can create documents in Microsoft Word Mobile, and you can highlight sections of content that you would like to fix later or that you’ve downloaded and want to remember. You can use OneNote Mobile to take quick notes or to save web links and then sync your notes with your PC, so you always have up-to-date information.

The latest version of Microsoft Office Mobile is compatible with the Office 2010 and previous Microsoft Office and Office Mobile releases, so you can work with all your existing Microsoft Office documents. Plus, Office Mobile gives you even more options for working with documents from your phone. Now you can create even richer charts in Excel Mobile, use SmartArt and Themes in PowerPoint Mobile, and view the contents of zipped folders. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a choice about how you view those documents? If you use Windows Phone, you do. With Windows Phone, you can choose between Mobile view (enhanced for display on phones) or Full Desktop view when working on documents. Also, the improved clipboard on your Windows Phone makes copying and pasting to and from any applications on your phone simple and intuitive.

Office Mobile 2010 includes a new application that makes working with documents on your phone even easier—SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010. This application makes sending your Microsoft Office documents from your phone via email or saving them directly to SharePoint Server simple. You can open SharePoint documents directly from your phone, edit them, and save them to the server. You can also sync them to your PC.

You can download a free Office Mobile upgrade for qualified phones. If Office Mobile is not pre-installed on your phone, you don’t have to get a new phone. You can just purchase Office Mobile separately from Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Read this article to learn even more about Office Mobile 2010.

Save pictures

You take pictures with your phone, right? You take your phone everywhere, so when you don’t have your camera, you just take pictures with your phone. You snap photos of your kids when they do something cute, which, let’s face it, as parents, you think is pretty often. You’re on a great mountain bike trail, and you take a picture to send to your friends. And what was once only available to private eyes and spies is now right on your phone. Espionage is at your fingertips. Sort of. Honest espionage. Like covertly snapping a shot of the cute guy you’ve been telling your friends about. Or taking a picture of the waterfront condo your parents want to buy. You can send these pictures right away, but you probably want to save many of them to your PC. One word: synchronize.

Protect your stuff against loss or theft

Here’s a question for you. What’s easier to misplace or even lose: your phone or your PC? Loss, theft, and malfunctions don’t just happen to others. They happen. To everyone.

Although replacing a lost or stolen phone isn’t exactly fun, it’s a job you can take care of pretty easily. Replacing the email, contact information, pictures, music, and documents that you stored on that phone, however, can prove to be an impossible task if you haven’t synchronized your phone with your PC on a regular basis.

And remember this. You wouldn’t dream of not backing up your PC. For your phone, synchronizing is your backup.

Want more peace of mind? Try the Microsoft My Phone service. It’s free. My Phone backs up the contents of your Windows Phone—contacts, calendars, photos, text messages, documents, and more—to the My Phone website for password-protected access and retrieval from any PC with an Internet connection. A bonus: After you’ve synced your phone’s contents to My Phone, you can search your text messages from the My Phone site. With My Phone, you can also easily send photos to social networking sites—from your phone—and even locate your phone if you lose it.

Sync and save—time, money, and your important information!

4 Best Practices To Secure Your Hotmail Account

Even though we discussed a lot about Gmail, Hotmail is still the leading email service in term of users. Gmail has introduced many security functions to secure the accounts of the people. Microsoft has also been doing great with Hotmail security but the features have largely been untold and silently integrated with Hotmail. Here, we will talk about the security options that Hotmail provides for security Hotmail accounts. 1. Using strong passwords This is the first and foremost setting that a user needs to be responsible for. You should be using strong and secure passwords so that no one will be able to use brute force methods to guess your password. So what is a strong or secure password? The password which is: § Not a dictionary word (regardless of any language) § Not a variation of a dictionary word § Not a sequential or repeated word § Doesn’t include any personal information like name, birthdate, Govt. issued IDs etc. There are many random password generators but if you want to remember your password then you should follow the way to create passwords recommended by Microsoft itself. 2. Connecting With HTTPS Using HTTPS instead of HTTP means that you’re using a secure means of communication between the Hotmail servers and your computer. If a hacker intercepts the connection during the communication, the connection will simply break and the hacker will not be able to get any information about the communication. Almost all the modern browsers will display a green bar that shows the owner of the site in the address bar. Make sure that the owner of Hotmail.com when you open it is Microsoft Corporation. Here’s how it looks like in Internet Explorer: And here’s the screenshot from Firefox: To always use HTTPS, just go to the Microsoft manage SSL page and select “Use HTTPS automatically“. Please note that if you’re using a desktop client with Outlook Hotmail Connector or Windows Mobile, you’ll get some problems with HTTPS. Then you can leave the above settings to “Don’t use HTTPS automatically” and then always open Hotmail using https://www.hotmail.com in order to check your email. 3. Password Reset Information You must ensure that your password reset information in your Hotmail account is always up to date so in any case if you forget your password, you’ll always be able to reset your password using the recovery information. To reset your password information, you’ll need to go to Windows Live account page. You should always have a secondary email address that you can attach to your Hotmail account so that your password reset information is sent to your secondary account if you forget the password. You can also add your mobile number as a recovery option so that the password reset information can be sent to your mobile phone in case of emergency but this option is only available to a few selected countries right now. You can also add a Trusted PC if you use your account only on one PC. Windows Live Essentials is needed to be installed in order for this feature to work. And the last and most important is the security question. The security question is like a password. You should always specify a secure security answer in order to have your account secured and away from hackers. Please refer to the “using strong passwords” topic for more information about secure passwords. 4. Using Hotmail On A Public Computer There are times when you’ll need to check your email on a public computer when your own trusted computer is not available. You should always use HTTPS instead of simple HTTP on public computers. There is another feature “Get a single use code to sign in with” which works great if you are residing in a supported country. You can get a code for one time use on your mobile when you want to sign in to your Hotmail account on a public computer. This will ensure that you don’t have to type your real password and will use an auto generated password which will work only one time. Keeping all these points in mind when using your Hotmail account will make sure that your account will always remain safe from wrong hands and hackers.

Make your Windows-7 Superfast | Digital Life – http://www.cubesquare.co.cc

This is the 3rd tutorial of the “Master Tutorial” series. I have already posted 2 other tutorials for Windows XP

and Windows Vista in past and now its turn of Windows 7.

Although Windows 7 is already very fast and reliable but this tutorial will help you in getting the max performance out of your system.

So without wasting any time, here we start our tutorial:

 

1. Registry Tweaks:

Following topic contains a few registry tweaks to optimize your system performance and add a few useful extras:

Collection of Registry Tweaks for Windows 7

You just need to download the ZIP file, extract it and run the file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it. Restart your system to take affect.

2. Right-click on Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press WIN + Pause/Break keys). Now click on Advanced system settings link in left side pane (You can open it directly by giving sysdm.cpl command in RUN or start menu search box). Now click on Settings button in Performance section:

It’ll open another window. Disable all unnecessary options in Visual Effects tab, you can leave following options enabled according to your requirements:

• Enable Aero Peek (If you want to use Aero Peek feature)
• Enable desktop composition (If you want to use Windows Aero theme)
• Enable transparent glass (If you want to use transparency in Windows)
• Show thumbnails instead of icons (If you want to show thumbnails in Explorer)
• Show window contents while dragging (If you want windows to show contents while moving them)
• Smooth edges of screen fonts (If you want to show smooth fonts)
• Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop (If you want to show shadows under desktop icon labels)
• Use visual styles on windows and buttons (If you want to use Windows Aero or Basic theme)

3. Open Windows Explorer and go to “Organize -> Folder and Search Options” and click on “View” tab.

Now disable following options:

• Display file size information in folder tips
• Hide extensions for known file types
• Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color
• Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items

4. Right-click on Computer icon on Desktop and select Manage (You can also open it directly by giving services.msc command in RUN or start menu search box).

Now go to Services & Applications -> Services. Here you can set a few unnecessary services to Manual, so that these services don’t start automatically with Windows and you can get a faster startup.

Visit following tutorial to know which services can be set to MANUAL to increase system performance:

Windows 7 Services that can be Safely set to MANUAL

5. Type msconfig in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. Now go to Startup tab and disable unwanted startup entries. You can disable your graphics card’s driver utility, Sound Card utility, etc to speed up the system startup and to increase system performance.

6. Open Sound applet in Control Panel (or type mmsys.cpl in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter). Now go to Sounds tab and select No Sounds from Sound Scheme section. You can keep some of your favorite sounds enabled but make sure to set Exit Windows, Windows Log off, Windows Logon and Start Navigation to (None).

Also disable “Play Windows Startup sound” option to disable the sound clip which is played at login screen.

7. Also don’t forget to:

• Defrag the hard disk regularly
• Install only necessary software

• Use the latest device drivers
• Keep your Windows up-to-date

After following all the above mentioned points, you’ll definitely notice major improvements in your Windows 7 performance.

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Monitor your internal LAN

If you have a Debian based server like Ubuntu you might be interested in finding out how much bandwidth each user uses.

Ipband – A cool tool to monitor your LAN regarding traffic

Install : apt-get install ipband

How to use :

 ipband eth1 -f "net 192.168.0.0/24" -a 60 -r 60 -o /home/user/log.txt

eth1 = the network card to monitor

-f “net 192.168.0.0/24 “ = will monitor every host in your lan

-a = how often total traffic and bandwidth should be calculated ( in our case for a time period of 60 seconds )

-r = Reporting period – number of seconds bandwidth threshold may be exceeded before it should be reported.

-o = the file where you want to keep your log