I’ll bet that headline got your attention!
We all know that the purpose of computer passwords is to protect personal information that you’ve stored on your computer, and in your online accounts.
With access to your passwords, cyber-criminals (they come in all shapes, sizes and flavors - so don’t be fooled), can and will, steal your identity and without a doubt severely compromise your financial security. Stolen passwords have the potential to cause serious havoc in your life.
There are numerous ways of course that a password, or software license key, can be stolen. Popular methods employed by cyber criminals include, but are not limited to:
I dig mouse gestures because I am usually using my own laptop. I have certain gestures mapped to do certain things but if I was using someone else’s machine I would not have access to those gestures. On my tablet I use a little app called StrokeIt but, like most Windows applications, it needs to be installed.
So toss this one on your thumb drive and go gesturing like crazy wherever you might be getting your computer on. Visit this direct download link to grab the zip file. Extract it to your memory stick and you are ready to rock - well at least doodle 
In my capacity as “the guy who knows something about computers”, I occasionally get a phone call from a frantic friend or acquaintance to come round and help them fix their computer. Their problems normally come about because they’d thought they’d see what would happen if they deleted the “Windows” folder or because they thought it was their lucky day when someone emailed them an attachment entitled “nakedBritneySpearsphotos.exe”. I guess you get the idea what kind of people we’re talking about.
Make Use Of’s Mac section has been growing steadily over the past couple of months and we’ve published a lot of articles about random topics i.e. productivity, music, plugins, etc. So I’ve decided to start a biweekly column dedicated to people who have just started using Macs, a.k.a “Switchers”, focusing on the issues they might face with the operating system during the early transition periods.
Hopefully this will ensure that your switch to Mac is a smooth process with minimal hiccups. So without further adieu, here is the first Make Use Of “Macnifying OS X” column.
What is your nastiest experience with viruses and/or other malware? The other day just before presentations my friend came to me with his laptop and showed me the havoc that had reigned on it! He had burnt some discs for others, using data from their USB drive and in the process got infected. Now he was unable to run Powerpoint, nor was he able to scan with the anti-virus as it won’t start a scan due to the infections (see the irony). Just the splash screens and boom - nothing seemed to run.
We all love our USB drives, don’t we? You should probably be using some portable apps on your USB drive – if not, check out our huge list of portable applications for your USB drive here.
In this post, I want to cover a few apps that will make managing your USB drive easier. In essence, I’ll talk about tools that can be used to make things easier if you’ve got a USB drive – not about apps that work from your drive.
So here we go - five applications to make things easier if you’re using a USB thumb drive.
While we have mentioned SharePod in our free iPod tools round-up before, I wanted to take a closer look at this free iPod manager program that is designed to sync and manage my iPod.
To install SharePod, visit the SharePod download site and download the .zip file. Once you unzip it, you can either drag and drop SharePod onto your iPod or run SharePod directly from your hard drive. Because it does not require any installation to your hard drive or “Programs” folder, you can also install it onto your USB or flash drive. This is great if you use different computers or want to get some music from a friend’s computer without using iTunes.
| Several times I’ve been called upon at a moment’s notice to troubleshoot a misbehaving PC system either at work or at a friend’s or relative’s home. Being the “go to” guy for these sorts of problems is both a curse and a blessing, but I guess that is besides the point.
One tool that I have found to be valuable beyond compare is the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD). This compilation of software has just about everything you need to diagnose hard to find low level problems, and also some other tools that every PC technician should have available. |
During my day to day Admin duties I get a lot of people pulling me over to the side to ask me “home networking” or “personal” questions. A normal one I get quite frequently is “how can I find out the IP address of a device on my network?” or “What is my TiVo’s IP?”
These end users always make it seem like they are trying to sell me Drugs a kidney on the black market…
“Pssst… Karl. Umm I have a… Ummm”
“What’s going on random end user dude?”
Last time, I wrote about Live CDs and how you can make your own custom one. Live CDs are great, but let’s face it, sometimes even a CD is just too big to carry around. You male geeks probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but the other ladies can testify that the pockets on our clothes are just too small to carry around anything bigger than a small cell phone. CDs also have the magic ability to go from pristine to horribly scratched about 5 minutes before you need them and, since they’re CDs, don’t save changes.
Do you want to take your favorite programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more wherever you go and use them on pretty much any computer ? If so here are four free tools that can help you with that. These are portable software packs that can be installed on any USB device. Download the pack, install it on your portable device and done. Use it at work, a friend’s PC, college lab, anywhere.
About two years ago I gave up trying to memorize all of my online accounts. I used a “three tier” password system for a while - with a low security, medium security, and high security password for the majority of my accounts. However, this still did not leave me at ease - knowing that if on one of these accounts my password was compromized, it potentially left the others open to attack.
After looking around for different password managers, I came across KeePass. The main features that drew me to this program:
Want to have identical browser settings on every one of your PCs ? How about keeping documents on your office and home PCs synchronized? For these and several other ways to sync your data read further. Enjoy!
1. Google Browser Sync - Sync Browser Bookmarks, History, Settings, etc. between diff. PCs
Google Browser Sync is a Firefox extension from Google that can auto synchronize your browser bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across multiple computers. It even lets you restore open browser tabs and windows across different machines so you can always pickup from where you left. It’s completely automated, all you need to do is to install it on all computers that you use on a regular basis.
2. SyncToy - Synchronize Files Between PC and USB Thumbdrive
Got a USB Pen Drive? They’re great for backups. Do you carry files across in USB drives? It might sometimes be exhausting to copy files and folders to and from your hard drive and USB Stick. There’s an easy way to sync files between your hard disk and USB Flash Drive. Here’s how:
2. Run SyncToy from the Start Menu
3. You’ll now have to create a Folder Pair
4. Choose a Left Folder (this is a folder on your PC’s hard disk) and a Right Folder (this points to your removable USB Pen Drive)
Hey MUO Readers have I got a sweet suite of free tools for you network admins and regular end users. Being in the networking world for so long I have loads of tools in my admin tool box (My USB Stick). But recently a fellow tech blogger Paul Bauer introduced me to a nifty program that has more than 175 applications and features.
Did I stutter?
There are so many applications in here that I can not even begin to list all of them here. It puts A LOT of tools at my fingertips in its < 25mb install The program is aptly named Net Tools 2008 and it was written by Mohammad Ahmadi Bidakhvidi.
One thing that is guaranteed to irritate me is when I have to email a file to someone and the file is too big. What do you do then? Well, you could compress it or you could use one of file transferring services such as Pando. But recently I discovered another possibility. Using the freeware program JR Split File, you can split the file up into little pieces - and then the person at the other end puts it all back together again.
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