Securing your computer Typer Tappers style!

Considering 90% of users use Windows 9% Mac and 1% Linux I shall focus on Windows, now we all know how buggy Windows XP is just look at the security updates you get everyday, its silly.

Normally I tell people to download Linux like Ubuntu, Kubuntu or PCLinuxOS, but we all know it’s not easy to learn another operating system.

So I shall point out some key factors in securing your windows box stopping the occasional viruses.

So lets start with basic stuff your security applications, running Microsoft’s firewall disable it and download a better one, there are a lot out their for example sygate (before taken over by Symantec), not really recommended if you are a novice user.

Instead you want to be looking at a more user friendly firewall one I like is Comodo, gives you a lot of detail on what its doing and will alert you when applications try to access the internet.

Next Anti-virus programs, one of my most preached application is Avast on access scanner this will scan all incoming and outgoing traffic from emails to P2P files and even web pages, so if a malicious active x script runs in your browser Avast will stop it in its tracks so you don’t become infected.

Program Of The Week: Launchy

If you like linux you may have come across an application called Katapult which you can use by hitting alt + space which will then bring up a screen where you can type a name of a application such as kcalc which will then be launched, I’ve been looking for a similar thing for windows as if you look at my start menu you will see that I’ve attempted to order everything but its just too many folders to look through, so I started my hunt and found Launchy.

Launchy is very easy to customize you can have it search any directory for any file for example all my mp3’s are on Z drive at a whopping size of 40gb’s which makes it hard to look for a song so i just added that to the index and had it just search for a file type of .mp3, it also finds your applications by looking at your start menu location such as C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs in that it will look for the .lnk files and place them in the index.

Choosing You’re Password

Many of you might think that passwords don’t have to be very long like for example you might want to use your first name like john which should never be done, this can be easily broken into by co workers or even people that know you.

Choosing a password can be very easy but the main rule that you shouldn’t do is using anything that can be linked to you for example your own name or the name of people in your family these will be broken into.

A correct password should contain something like 3 letters, 3 numbers and 3 symbol.

Here is a example of a password h5b&j4!5?, now personally I use about 5 different passwords that are like that I remember these by actualy putting a post it note on my laptop when I’ve learned it i will remove it.

If you want to use a generator to make your passwords you can use this from pctools.com but I prefer to make my own.

O2 Wireless Modem, Internet Access Anywhere

I found this absolutely amazing product its called Sierra Wireless 875U USB Data Modem basically it allows you to have a wireless connection anywhere using your cellphone provider for example this is a O2 product so i take it all you do it place a sim card in it and your ready to go.

The thing about it that i find brilliant is the idea it is wireless, you can get standard PC cards to just put your SIM card inside it to access the web but this, this allows you to (i take it) have multiple people connecting to it.

Now I’ve seen many amazing DIY wireless to carry around with you but they where very bulky this just look at it its pocket sized

Temporary Email Forwarding

You might of read my previous post on temporary email addresses but now I’m going to post about a service called temporary email forwarding this allows you to change your email address when you feel like it but the unique factor about this is you can use your original account like gmail and you can have all your emails forwarded to that account for example you can be johnsmith@temporaryinbox.com and any emails will be forwarded to johnsmith@gmail.com.

If you start getting extreem spam you can then change it to something like johnsmith1@temporaryinbox.com and still have it forwarded to your gmail account.

I checked with the creator to see if the emails could still be checked online and he said that all the email would be sent to the private account so its secure enough.

If you hate spam this seems to be a good way of getting rid of it so check the website out http://www.temporaryinbox.com.