PC Fast Fix

You know the story. You need to do something on your computer but it’s not switched on. Ouch. You’re probably in for a long wait whilst Windows gets everything in order. So just how do you make windows boot faster?

Short of holding a gun to the head of someone in Seattle, there are things you can do to speed up things, at least a bit. Part of the trouble is that Windows is now such a big operating system that it needs to go through lots of things before it can safely start up. Sure, it’s been through these things tens or hundreds of times before on your computer. But at the end of the day, it’s just being cautious.

You might have changed something whilst its back was turned - added a new piece of hardware, installed some software that really, really needs to start up every time Windows starts. That kind of thing.

Start by checking what starts up whenever Windows starts.

You can do this by running a program called Msconfig: in XP, select Start, Run, type msconfig, and press Enter. In Vista, select Start, type msconfig into the Search box, and press Enter.

The Startup tab will tell you what runs every time you boot up your machine. If there are programs there that don’t need to be there, you can stop them from running the next time you switch your computer on.

Just be careful to make sure that you don’t disable anything critical. If necessary, copy the command line from Msconfig and see what the program actually does as the startup item name doesn’t always mean much.

Whatever you do, set a System Restore point before you mess about with your startup programs. Then if things don’t go to plan you can use the Windows restore option to get your computer back to how it was before.

Tags: PC Speedup by admin
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Firewalls are the your first line of security defence against viruses, hackers, trojans. It is extremely important to ensure is configured properly in order for this security tool to be effective. I would like to share with you my hands-on Real-life firewall experience:

As an IT Security Engineer, I received a high priority call from a large corporate company and the last message was Server was hacked ! When I got there, I found out that one of the main server has a user and directory created that no one in the company can identify.

There was a high-end firewall installed but guess what, the was only 1 rule set. Allow All (meaning as good as no firewall). Period. Naturally, we (security company) came in and did a technical security assessment (audit). Further, recommended and implemented the appropriate server hardening, firewall reconfiguration, IPS (Intrusion Prevention System), Anti-Virus, user security training and this company had became one of the long lasting major customer.

So the lesson learned is to install a firewall and get the rules working for you. It will do you good.

The firewall acts as the first line of defence against any Internet attacks. A typical firewall have 3 types of network interface. e.g. Internet (External), Internal Network and DMZ (Dimilitarized Zone).

Some of the features of a firewall which should be configured includes the following:

Able to be configured to be invisible to external parties. Do not allow “pings”.

Administrator password must be at least 8 alphanumeric characters and held tightly by the person that you trust.

Tight Packet filter rules ( A must) They act by inspecting the “network packets” traveling between the firewall. It is sort of like a postoffice between the Internet and your office servers/PC.

If a packet matches the packet filter’s rules that state it is fine to pass through, the packet filter will pass the network packets to your Internal PC/Servers. If it does not match, the packet filter will drop the packet, or reject it (discard it, and send “error responses” to the source). Bottom line: ensure rules are configured properly.

Sync Protection : Ensure this protection is enable to protect against Sync Attack.

Typically a connection between PC and Server is establish when “3 way handshake is established”. The sender PC will send a SYNC flag, then the receiving Server will send back a SYNC ACK flag. After that the sender PCwill send a SYNC ACK flag. Once these are all done, connection is established. The PC and Server can go about their business of connecting application e.g. FTP.

Now an intruder will keep on sending the server with SYNC flags. The server do not know what to do with it and will just hold them. Denial of Service attack will be established when the server cannot handle the load and deny any legitimate connections to the server.

IPS

Nowadays, a firewall is not adequate to protect the network. It should be complement with IPS which has updated signatures make access control decisions based on application content, rather than IP address or ports as traditional firewalls had done.

Tags: Computer Security by admin
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Do you have an older machine? Or do you you have an ultra obsession with downloading all types of software? Then you probably need to get rid of some older or unwanted programs that just take up room and slow down your computer.

Just follow the following and you will get rid of useless programs;

• Click Start
• Click Control Panel
• Click Add & Remove Programs
  • If you are using Vista click on Programs and Features
• You will now be able to see a big list of all your programs
• You can now click on the programs you want to uninstall and do it easily and simple

Now that you have uninstalled any unwanted programs your computer will run faster and have better performance.

Tags: PC Optimization, PC Speedup by admin
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With green as the official color of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), HP announced today its commitment to implement a 25 percent cut in energy consumption across its entire lineup of volume desktop and notebook PCs by 2010.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas the computer firm proclaimed its intent to cut the carbon footprint of its desktop and notebook PCs by adopting more efficient power supplies and lower energy chipsets and processors.

The company plans to reach its 2010 goal through a variety of strategies, including more efficient power supplies and lower-energy chipsets and processors, across its volume PC portfolio.

Customers will have the option of the Verdiem Surveyor remote power management software preloaded on certain HP PCs.

Thanks to its ultra-efficient 80 PLUS® power supplies, low-energy chipsets and other energy-smart systems, HP has maintained a long line of eco savvy products going back to the HP Compaq rp5700 - the first PC to receive EPEAT’s Gold certification.

Tags: New Computer Products by admin
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Wired Magazine warns that hackers for the first time are targeting Facebook users in a scam that harvests their log-in details and passwords.

According to Wired, some Facebook users checked their accounts Wednesday and found postings on their “walls” with this message: “lol i can’t believe these pics got posted … it’s going to be BADDDD when her boyfriend sees these.”

But the link leads to a fake Facebook login page hosted on a Chinese .cn domain. The fake page actually logs the victims into Facebook, but also keeps a copy of their user names and passwords.

Tags: Computer Security by admin
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