I decided to do this blog on spam mail as it is so easy to to just open an email message that the email client hasn’t detected as spam.

Some people don’t know or understand what email message headers are so I will be using screenshots to show people how you read message headers.

Email message headers basically tell you who the email message is from and the route over the Internet the message has taken.

A few times I have email messages that say the message came from me, this is know as email spoofing and is often used by spammers.

Every time you open a spam message you are paying the spammer when you click on a link within the email message and you are also letting the spammer know that your email address is an active one.

Screenshot 1 below shows a highlighted spam message I received the other day with a red flag and a green square.

Screenshot 1: Highlighted Spam Message

The red flag represents a task needing to be completed in this case it was set for Saturday 28th March and the task was to do this blog on identifying spam.

The green square represents a strategy and that strategy being this blog.

The next screenshot will now show you the steps required to determine if the email message is actually spam.

By right clicking on the email message you are given several options for this blog we are going to select Message Options as shown in Screenshot 2.

 

Screenshot 2: Email Options Menu

The screenshot below now shows the message header showing who the email message was sent to and the return path of the email message.

In this example I don’t know who bobbylpueo@perpetuallyroseroad.cn is, so it is safe to say this person has sent  me unsolicited junk mail.

 

Screenshot 3: Message Header

Now that we have determined the email message is spam mail we have several options available for our disposal.

One you can simply delete the email message but you then have the off chance that this person will keep spamming you and these messages will go directly to your inbox.

The second and preferred option is to add this spammer to the junk mail list as I am about to show you in the next screenshot.

To do this you need to left click on the email message to highlight it and then right click to bring up the email options menu.

Go down to Junk Email highlight it and another menu will appear as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot 4: Junk Email Options

We know this is spam so what we are going to do is Add Sender to Blocked Senders List, what this will do is send the email message to the Junk Email folder.

In the future if you get email from this person it will automatically go to the Junk Mail folder as shown in the next screenshot.

Screenshot 5: Junk Email Folder

Though I have used Outlook 2007 for this blog this applies for most email programs and web based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Google Mail etc.

Last week I installed Comodo Internet Security which includes antivirus, anti-malware and firewall on my computer under my Windows XP Pro partition.

So far I have found it to be excellent as the virus database is updated twice a day much like the update routine of Avast.

After install Comodo Internet Security runs a malware scan in my case the program detected one malware program in Windows XP and one malware program under Windows Vista which isn’t too bad.

The video below was done by Comodo themselves and explains the advantages of updating from the free Comodo Internet Security to the Pro version for US$39.95 per year when you come to think of it, it isn’t a great deal of money compared to the subscription cost of McAfee and Symantec.

 

 

At one stage I was an affiliate of Comodo with their firewall, so  I will have to organise that with the Comodo Internet Security Pro subscription and put the link on this webpage.

Also must get back into listening to the Security Now! podcast again after I get my external hard drive to work.

I may need to get out my copy of SpinRite and run a scan on the external hard drive to repair the problem because as soon as you plug it into the USB port it crashes any computer it is connected to.

I have an old Pentium 3 that I can run it from so I should set that up and run SpinRite for a few days in order to get the external hard drive to work again.

Until next time enjoy my blogs and webpage and safe computing ……………… don’t become another victim of computer crime.

 

As I have said in previous post on encryption over the Internet that in order for encryption to work it has to be a two-way communications model.

This means that not only does the client computer require a digitally signed encryption algorithm, this includes business servers right up to the Root Zone involving the DNS (Domain Name Server).

The DNS is responsible for translating web addresses such as www.bigpond.com into a binary language that the computer can understand and has been exploited by hackers through DNS Poisoning.

In it’s simplest form the DNS is what allows Internet traffic to freely move around the Internet, a handshake between the client computer and the server.

As I have said in the past, encryption needs to be implemented on both sides and really should be military grade encryption though some people would beg to differ and call this overkill.

This is what DNSSEC (Domain Name Server Security Extensions) does it encrypts data from the higher hierarchy of the Root Zone and is what the US Government is trying to implement in order to make the Internet a more reliable and safe environment for people to use for online commerce.

If you want to know more about this, Carolyn Duffy Marsan of Network World wrote an article on DNSSEC which can be found at PC World Australia http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/277677/techies_bypass_feds_dns_security?pp=1&fp=4&fpid=762453.

According to the article while the US Government works out DNSSEC, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has come up with an alternative approach to allow for DNSSEC deployment without the need for the DNS Root Server being digitally signed through an alternative approach called the ICANN Interim Trust Anchor Repository (ITAR) which allows for a fully functioning DNSSEC deployment without the need to wait for the root zone to be digitally signed.

Steve Gibson at www.grc.com has done several Security Now! podcast on DNS and encryption over the past twelve months which some of you blog readers might find interesting.

I often check the status of my computer’s security and have found that Shields Up always reports I am fully stealthed which is a good thing.

My Internet connection is through a D-Link DSL-G604T Wireless G ADSL Modem Router with UPnP disabled.

I also have Denial of Service (DoS) disabled which also disables SYN Flooding Checking and ICMP Redirection checking.

Under Port Scan Protection I have FIN/URG/PSH attack, Xmas Tree attack, Null Scan attack, SYN/RST attack and SYN/FIN attack all disabled.

Also under Service Filtering I have all these services disabled in the modem router’s firewall, Ping from External Network, Telnet from External Network, FTP from External Network, DNS from External Network, IKE from External Network, RIP from External Network and DHCP from External Network.

This is how I get a stealth on every port in my computer I also use the Windows Vista Firewall but even when I disable the Windows Vista Firewall I still get a stealth on every port.

Basically I am totally invisible on the Internet, the way to be I believe though it is possible to create total anonymity over the Internet by going through a proxy server such as TOR (The Onion Router).

What is questionable is what are your motives for total anonymity on the Internet are you being unethical or acting in a manner which could be seen as illegal.

Black hat hackers are sometimes caught because of their carelessness on covering their tracks I don’t condone this behaviour nor am I interested in becoming a black hat hacker though I am interested in becoming an ethical hacker and assist clients in locating security vulnerabilities in misconfigured firewalls.

My background is in marketing with emphasis on e-marketing and online security this should be part of any organisational strategic marketing plan.

I look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts on this blog so please feel free to leave your comments as always.

 

I thought I would write a blog on how to get Second Life to run on an ATI Radeon HD2600XT video card.

My card is the AGP series of the card as my computer is an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ with 2 gigabytes of Corsair Value Select memory and a 250 gigabyte Western Digital Caviar hard drive.

I also have Windows XP Professional dual booted with Windows Vista Home Premium with Second Life installed on the Windows XP partition as you will see in the Second Life screenshots.

What I am about to show you through screenshots may apply to the PCI Express version of the card as well.

I tried a Google search for a solution to my problem first but only got more questions and very little in answers to a possible solution so I decided to delve into the 3D settings in the Catalyst Control Centre, below is the outcome of what helped me run Second Life.

The first step is to go to the Catalyst Control Centre and select the 3D Settings tab as Screenshot 1 shows below, this way you will be able to get to the Second Life login if you don’t do this initial step Second Life will load for a second and stay resident in memory but nothing will be on the screen.

Screenshot 1: 3D Settings in the Catalyst Control Centre

The second step is to go to the Catalyst AI tab in 3D settings and tick on “Disable Catalyst AI” as shown in Screenshot 2, by doing this it will allow Second Life to start without crashing.

Screenshot 2: Disabling the Catalyst AI in the Catalyst Control Centre

The other thing to remember is to allow Second Life to control anti-aliasing as well as de-select “Enable Adaptive Anti-Aliasing”. I also found that if you allow Second Life to “Control Anisotropic Filtering” Second Life will start without crashing.

This now brings us to the Second Life side of getting Second Life to start without crashes.

When you get to the Second Life login screen you need to select the Edit menu and then Preferences.

You then need to select the Graphics tab as shown in Screenshot 3.

  Screenshot 3: Graphics tab in the Second Life Preferences Menu

From here you need to select Hardware Options on the Graphics tab as shown in Screenshot 4 and de-select “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects”, I was also told that OpenGL VBO can cause objects not to display properly in the Second Life Viewer and also cause the viewer to crash.

  Screenshot 4: Disabling “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects”

So there you have it my solution to getting Second Life to run on an ATI video card, took awhile to work out but it’s cool.

Enjoy

 

After setting up the new Beta version of Windows Live Mail as my preferred newsreader I decided to look at the Microsoft newsgroups on Microsoft products and found several ones that were of interest to me.

As you can see from the screenshot below I have joined the microsoft.public.windows.live.messenger, microsoft.public.windows.vista.general, microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation_setup and the microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance newsgroups.

These newsgroups will give you access to people who can assist you in determining the cause of the problem and a possible solution.

You do this in the same manner as you would do for an online forum by posting your question and simply just wait for a response.

It is very important that you are very specific about the problem you are having, the more information you can provide the better the response to your newsgroup posting.

Also if possible use a screenshot of the error message, “A picture is worth a thousand words”.

You create a screenshot by pressing the print screen (PrtScn/SysRq) button on the keyboard and then right click in your newsgroup posting and select paste.

You can also use the Edit menu and select Paste, it’s really just user preference.

Be safe and have a great computer experience.

I just wanted to make aware to the visitors to my blog that over the past couple of months I have started a WordPress blog on IT.

This new more professional blog has some of my blogs I have written on my Live Spaces web page as I wanted to keep the two up to date.

I have also been setting up social networking as a means of obtaining more visitors to the IT Solutions Live Spaces webpage through using LinkedIn in which my profile can be found at http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulrayment.

Please feel free to check my profile out as I have networked with professional IT specialists and joined several groups for example: Information Security Community Group.

This has all taken place since my last blog, I have also been very busy with my marketing studies though I am more interested in e-business marketing then traditional marketing.

I still have at least ten Security Now podcast to catch up with which I plan to do in the New Year.

I also plan to do more in Second Life mainly catch up with friends and to look at real life organisations who have a presence in the virtual world of Second Life.

One thing I have noticed is the immerging genre of virtual worlds with new players in this online community though Second Life with it's share of problems such as congestion is still the best virtual world by far.

I want to write more on the moral and ethical obligations of being in Second Life at a later date as some people have great difficulty in ascertaining that what you do in the virtual world has direct bearing on the type of person you are in reality.

I've learnt that the love you have for someone in Second Life is more to do with the love you have for your friends in reality and is often confused with romantic love.

My friend Genayah in Second Life is a good example of a strong friendship that has developed over the past twelve months.

At times I will refer visitors to the IT Solutions web page to go and visit my Pauly Reyes  Live Spaces web page as it is my avatar's virtual space and it has more direct bearing on Second Life as this blog is more centred on IT solutions and not the intricacies of relationships.

Relationships are important to the IT Solutions web page but more to do with professionalism and being able to help people with computer problems.

In a previous blog I took you step by step through how to back up the Second Life Cache in Windows XP this time I will be showing you through screenshots how to back the cache up in Windows Vista.

There are two ways to do this:

1. Using backup software included in Windows Vista to schedule a regular backup of the Second Life Cache and
2. Manually copy the folder to somewhere else on the hard drive such as Documents.

For this blog I will be using option 2 to show you how to back up the Second Life Cache in Windows Vista.

The steps are as follows:

Go to the Start Menu and select Computer as shown in Screenshot 1 and then double click on C: drive and you will see a folder called Users double click on it as shown in Screenshot 2.

Screenshot 1: Go to the Start Menu and select Computer

Screenshot 2: Double click on C: drive and you will see a folder called Users double click on it.

When you double click on Users you will see two folders called Public and whatever you have called yourself at log-on at this stage you will need to go to the Organise Menu and then click on Folder and Search Options as shown in Screenshot 3 and Screenshot 4.

Screenshot 3: Click on the Options Menu

Screenshot 4: Click on Folder and Search Options

Once you have opened the Folder Options you need to click on the View Tab and click on Show Hidden Files and Folders as shown in Screenshot 5

Screenshot 5: Click on Folder Options and select Show Hidden Files and Folders

Double click on the folder that has your log-on name and double click on the AppData folder as shown in Screenshot 6.

Screenshot 6: Double click on the AppData folder

At this stage three folders are displayed Local, LocalLow and Roaming, you need to double click on the Roaming folder as shown in Screenshot 7.

Screenshot 7: Double click on the Roaming folder

Scroll down until you can see the Second Life folder and then double click on it as shown in Screenshot 8 and 9.

Screenshot 8: Scroll down until you locate the Second Life folder

Screenshot 9: Double click on the Second Life folder

You should now see several folders displayed browser_profile, cache, logs, your avitar name and user_settings.

Right click on the Cache folder and select Copy from the menu as shown in Screenshot 10.

Screenshot 10: Right click on the Cache folder and select Copy

 The next step is now to open the Start  Menu and click on the Documents folder as shown in Screenshot 11.

Screenshot 11: Click on the Start Menu and click on the Documents folder

With the Documents folder now open right click on any space you can find and select Paste as shown in Screenshot 12.

Screenshot 12: Right click on any space you can find and select Paste

It is a good idea to back up the copy of the Second Life Cache folder you just pasted to the Documents  folder to a CD or DVD depending on the size of the folder.

To hide files and folders you need to do the reversal of showing files and folders which can also be done while in the Documents folder.

I decided to do this blog on Microsoft Learning as I found it very interesting to know that Microsoft offer courses online about their software products which count towards obtaining Microsoft Certification.

As you can see from Screenshot 1: Microsoft Learning Website below this is the Microsoft Learning web page and can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/Learning/default.mspx.

Screenshot 1: Microsoft Learning Website

If you click on the Training tab you are presented with several training options as you can see from Screenshot 2: Training Menu.  

Screenshot 2: Training Menu

We will now look at a the first few tabs in order for you to become familiar with what Microsoft has on offer in regards to computer training.

Screenshot 3: Learning Manager (A)

After clicking on the Find Training tab you are presented with the Learning Manager web page which gives you several choices such as:

• Learning Resource Types
• Microsoft Technologies
• Subject
• Organisational Benefits

 

Screenshot 3: Learning Manager (B)

After you click on the Manage My Learning tab you are presented with My Learning as shown in Screenshot 4: My Learning and Learning Catalogue.

Screenshot 4: My Learning and Learning Catalogue

Before you can go any further you need to have a Windows Live ID in order to purchase and track your progress.

Courses vary in price from no cost up to about $100 depending on the nature of the training but check as I could be wrong about the cost.

Till next time as always enjoy my blog and if you have any suggestions for future blogs please don't hesitate to let me know as this website is here to help people who visit my web page.

After listening to a few Security Now! podcast on encryption I wonder if it is possible for businesses who want to to protect their intellectual property from phishing attacks to offer server side SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) authentication then allowing the client (end user) to encrypt outgoing data from the client side through the use of SSL Certificates.

I have also found with some web sites it is possible to put in the S after http in order to obtain a secure connection from the start to prevent phishing.

For example https://www.coles.com.au/ will take you to an encrypted copy of the Coles supermarket web site.

WestPac and the National Australia Banks allow you to do this, by looking at the orange padlock either next to the address bar of at the bottom of the browser window depending on the version of Windows you are using and the web browser you use.

By clicking on the orange padlock you can tell whether the web page has been authenticated by a certification authority such as Verisign.

If you don't see that orange padlock it is safe to say you are at a phishing site requesting you for your log-in details.

This is how these people gain access to your bank account and are able to transfer your money without your knowledge until it is too late.

It's not just a point of owning a computer these days all computer users need to be knowledgeable about online security and the best way to protect themselves from the various types of malevolent behaviour of some people.

Always make sure your operating system is up to date with the latest security patches as well as making sure your antivirus and firewall software is up to date and is configured correctly.

This is also very important if you have a home network whether it's wired or wireless and are behind a NAT router (Network Address Translation) to have it correctly configured in order to protect yourself from hackers.

I would recommend that you make sure all the network ports on your computer are stealthed the best way to check is to go to Steve Gibson's great web site and use Shields Up to check your computer for vulnerabilities the URL is www.grc.com.

Be safe and don't let your computer become compromised, sure it takes a lot of effort to secure a computer but in the long term you will thank yourself that you did take the time to make it secure.

If you are concerned as I am about the increase in online threats you will be happy to know that there is a way you can rate a web site based on criteria such as:

• Trustworthiness
• Vendor Reliability
• Privacy
• Child Safety

To do this you need to download the Web Of Trust (WOT) program from www.mywot.com and join as a basic member.

After you install the Web Of Trust add-on you will notice a green circle in your toolbar, this is the Web Of Trust add-on.

If you click on it a menu will open as depicted in Figure 1: Web Of Trust Add-on Menu for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

You can rate any web page you are visiting by clicking on the green circle and when the menu opens simply click anywhere on the coloured bar, red represents poor and green represents excellent.

Figure 1: Web Of Trust Add-on Menu for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox

As you can see from Figure 2: Profile Tab below the profile tab displays information about yourself, though you can opt to hide this information, this tab also displays any comments you have left about the web sites you have rated.

 

Figure 2: Profile Tab

The next tab allows you to edit different aspects of your profile, unfortunately I can't show you a screenshot of that tab.

The next tab over is the My Ratings as you can see from Figure 2: My Ratings Tab shows you how you have rated web sites you have visited over time.

 Figure 3: My Ratings Tab

The next tab is the Public View Tab, this is how other members see your profile as you can see from the Figure 3: Public View Tab screenshot.

 

Figure 4: Public View Tab

You can also see from Figures 2 & 3 of my profile I start off as a rookie level member and in Figure 4 I am a bronze level member as you rate web sites you go through different levels for example.

If you want to know more about the different levels go to www.mywot.com and go to the support menu for further assistance.

The Web Of Trust (WOT) add-on is available for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox web browsers, you will also find videos on how the add-on works and how to use it efficiently.

I hope you all enjoy this blog as I thought I would use screenshots to show you all what the Web Of Trust is and how it can help reduce Internet threats such as phishing attempts.

Today I further updated the IT Solutions Web Site to incorporate a blog archive of all my blogs, added custom html with the Friends Of  WOT - Web Of Trust link and image.

Also incorporated a live RSS feed to Steve Gibson's Security Now! podcast which will allow visitors to my web site to listen to the podcast in a separate browser tab.

I have also added del.icio.us Tags to my blogs and will be eventually adding them to all my blogs.

Keep visiting the IT Solutions web site over the coming weeks as I further enhance the web site and write several new blogs.

One of the topics I will be writing about is the online course offerings offered by Microsoft and how inexpensive some of these course are.

So until then happy computing.

As you scroll down the IT Solutions web page you will now find a Book List, over time I will add more of my favourite books to do with computing and other interesting subjects.

Some are professional and allow you to prepare for either the Microsoft Certified System Engineer exam or the Microsoft Certified System Administrator exam.

While others are step by step books on Windows XP, though Programing the Universe is on quantum computing if you understand binary code 010101 you will be able to grasp the fundamentals of quantum computing.

As per usual enjoy the IT Solutions web page and as always feel free to leave comments and feedback on the topics I have discussed in my blogs and of the web site in general.

Until next time happy computing ....... "Knowledge is the key to true understanding"

One could say from a technology standpoint that the future is looking good for telecommunications technology.

In May Telstra demonstrated their telecommunications capability by showcasing their ability to conduct a holographic projection at a business function in Adelaide by projecting an image of Telstra's Chief Technology Officer Dr Hugh Bradlow from his office in Melbourne.

Here are the links to the Telstra and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation articles on the holographic projection demonstration conducted in May.

(http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/27/2256945.htm?section=justin and http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/news/live-hologram-an-australian-first and www.musion.co.uk/)

One must ask themselves is this the future of business conferencing, the ability to telecommute from the main work office or even from a home office.

Picture this for a minute, you have a new business client who lives in the UK and you need to meet this client urgently to discuss the business relationship and how best to assist this client with his/her goals and objectives.

Flying to the UK may be a problem as you need to make arrangements of where to stay while meeting with this new client.

Holographic technology allows you to be in more or less two places at the same time in real time, you simply implement the technology into your organisation or home office and arrange a time that is both suitable to your business client and yourself.

Over the past 8 years of the early 21st century, technology has improved substantially more rapidly then any period of time in the late 20th century.

We live in a time of rapid change in how we interact with each other, the Internet has brought people closer and become a household item like television was when it was first introduced to the consumer market.

The Internet itself has grown beyond what it's creators had expected because of this rapid take up of faster broadband speeds.

Mudgee recently was upgraded to ADSL2+ always slow to get new technology ADSL2 became available when we got ADSL.

Always the case we in regional Australia are always left out in the cold with telecommunications I have to commend Telstra for the effort they are putting in to bring the country up to the level of the major cities.

People forget Australia is a vast country it would be extremely hard to keep track of infrastructure and when that infrastructure required repairs.

One time I had trouble with the land line not working properly so I rang Telstra and within a day or two they had  two technicians here replacing a damaged piece of copper cabling between the two junction points which was around five metres apart.

The copper cabling used for Australia's telecommunications network is well over 40 years old, what do you expect.

Fair enough the copper cables have been replaced but really do we need to keep using copper cabling when fibre is far more efficient in meeting the growing needs of the Australian population.

Telstra has the finances, the infrastructure and the workforce to build a fibre to the node network right now and has been ready for several years now.

The day when they lay fibre optic cable in Mudgee I will be very happy, China has it's own fibre network why shouldn't Australia.

The days when we used to call ourselves a clever country are gone, due mainly to this countries lack of confidence and heavy reliance on the US.

We are a multicultural society now, we often have the best minds from around the world living here in our country as well as Australian born scientists who are leading the world in most areas of technology.

I guess by now you have noticed I am proud to be an Aussie.

Though I never completed high school I understand complex things more than simple basic things, this is true of when I started building computers for myself.

I would always without a doubt place the IDE hard drive cable around the wrong way without fail and would get an IT friend of mine to check it and he just laughed and said I had the cable around the wrong way.

Ah those days are gone since serial ATA was developed, though I am still using Parallel ATA hard drives but I have recently built a computer with Serial ATA with ease.

Damn computer case cables still elude me though.

Until my next blog ................... happy computing.

As you all know from my profile I am a qualified marketing assistant and currently studying for a Diploma in Business (Marketing).

What astounds me is the lengths that online advertising agencies will go to, to know everything about a person and what their online browsing behaviour is.

If people are like me I use the Internet in a random fashion as task based, based on what I am looking for at that precise moment I do a Google search.

I don't want to be bombarded by online advertising rubbish, if online advertisers want to advertise over the Internet I say separate the Internet into two separate areas.

One for informational purposes and the other for online purchases, if that is not feasible they do not have the rights to collect information about me without my written consent.

Any attempt to gather information about a person's online behaviour without the consent of the person is thwart with the possibility of class action being taken by the individual who's personal information and online behaviour is being collected without consent.

Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte did an in depth Security Now podcast on Phorm an Internet advertising agency and how this company injects the web pages you visit with targeted advertising based on your browsing habits from an Internet Service Providers (ISP) premises.

Steve and Leo also did a follow-up podcast with an advocate on the invasion of online privacy by Phorm.

If you are interested in listening to this Security Now podcast you can find it at www.grc.com , I would also like to suggest people to download not only the podcast but also the transcript for the episode on Phorm which is in Adobe PDF format.

As always I would be interested in hearing the comments of the people who regularly visit my web page especially your thoughts on the increasing invasion of Internet privacy.

I felt compelled to do this blog as I have found in my local area how some people have very limited understanding about securing wireless networks.

What was disturbing was the fact that I could connect to their wireless network and surf the Internet off their wireless connection.

Without wardriving to triangulate where the signal is coming from I have no way of letting the person who has the the unsecured wireless network know that they have left themselves wide open for a black hat hacker to get in and steal anything of value on this person's computer.

The other thing that is disturbing is the rise of identity theft due to the world being connected through the Internet.

People can no longer have the attitude of it will be ok in today's day and age you can't even go out without locking the doors something you didn't have to do 20 or 30 years ago.

My advise to anyone who has an unsecured wireless network is to secure it with a WPA paraphrase (Wi-Fi Protected Access) or even better if their wireless network accepts it is WPA2.

If you need to create a strong unhackable  paraphrase head over to the GRC website (www.grc.com) and use Steve Gibson's Perfect Passwords.

The longer the paraphrase is the harder it is to use a brute force attack to gain access to the wireless network.

But NEVER for any reason store the paraphrase anywhere near the computer network because this seriously defeats the purpose of securing the wireless network which compromises any effort to secure the wireless network.

If it becomes too hard for a hacker to gain access to a secured wireless network they simply go on to a softer target.

Also listen every week to the Security Now! podcast as this ensures you develop an understanding for Internet security.

The podcast can be found at www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

I would also be very interested in any comments that any of the visitors that come to my webpage may have on the subject of Internet security.

Until next time take care everyone.

After a month of using Windows Vista Home Premium I have become quite familiar with Microsoft's latest operating system.

What I enjoy most about Windows Vista is the way folders are organised including the Start Menu, it appears to be more refined and user friendly.

One thing the end user can't fault is the level of security that Windows Vista offers.

Windows Vista will not let you run certain high level processes as a non-administrative user and requires administrative privileges in order to do higher level tasks such as using a disk defragmenter program this in it's own right makes it far easier for a person who doesn't know a great deal about computers to be aware from a security standpoint what is going on with their computer in regards to Internet connectivity.

I have also found at times 1GB of memory is not enough to run Vista efficiently as data held in memory has to be swapped out to system swap file (Also known as virtual memory and a page file) in order to complete tasks.

With 1GB of system memory the system swap file becomes well over 1GB in size, at the moment my current swap file size is 1.5GB in size.

So generally in order to reduce the size of the swap file on the hard drive it is more efficient to just purchase another 1GB of memory bringing the total amount of system memory to 2GB though my motherboard will take a total of 3GB of system memory.

I hope this blog has been of some benefit to visitors to my website, which I have noticed last week I had a total of 15 visitors to my website.

Alot of these visitors were cross references from Google where some of my blogs have been listed in Google at the number one spot in web searches.

Thank you to the people who frequently visit my website but can please leave some comments about any of my blogs or even what you think of my webpage.

Finally took the plunge and bought Windows Vista Home Premium over the weekend and installed it on a virtual machine in order to try the operating system out before installing it as my main operating system.

So far I have enjoyed using Vista, the User Account Control (UAC) warnings aren't all that bad not as bad as some people have made out.

Windows Vista seems to be a more robust, secure operating system and because of the User Account Control it let's the end user know what is going on in a transparent manner and not in the background.

Running Vista in a virtual machine has it's limitations such as the amount of memory allocated to the operating system.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 uses  generic device drivers for video and sound which doesn't allow the end user to download and install the correct drivers for the virtual machine as it doesn't detect the hardware on the host machine.

As a result of these limitations of a virtual machine running Windows Vista the Aero desktop can not be used.

I recommend anyone considering running Windows Vista on a virtual machine to only install the operating system in that type of environment to familiarise yourself with the features of the operating system.

I hope to install Windows Vista as my main operating system soon at the moment I have to clarify DRM issues with my bought music whether or not I have to be re-issued with licences.

Overall I am very happy with my experience with Windows Vista, the feature I like the most is the way folders are organised, click on an item and it tells you information about that particular file.

For sometime I have been subscribed to Security for Home Computer Users a Microsoft E-Newsletter about helping home computer users secure their computers on the Internet and how home users can protect themselves against online threats.

If anyone is interested here is the link for the sign-up page http://www.microsoft.com/protect/secnews/default.mspx.

Microsoft also have a lot of great Internet security add-on's for Windows XP such as Windows Defender that protects you from spyware.

Another good one is the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool which comes as an automatic update each month.

To use it in Windows XP just:

1. Click on the Start button and select Run
2. Type in the run box that comes up mrt.exe and then just follow the prompts.

If you have a large capacity hard drive it can take awhile to complete but if you do a full scan it is well worth the effort if Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool detects malicious software on your computer.

All the computers in our home network that I manage always show up as clean because of my diligence with Internet security.

I also regularly test the Comodo Firewall that I have installed on all the computers on the home network with Shields Up Port Scanner at www.grc.com though I am behind a NAT (Network Address Translation) Router which protects me anyway with the built in firewall, but it is always good to make sure that both the hardware and the software firewall's are truly protecting the computers on the network.

Hopefully, those of you that frequent my web page will get something out of this blog one can only hope that visitors to the web page benefit from it.

It suddenly dawned on me that the bottleneck to fast broadband speeds is not only the speed in which data can travel from the exchange to the ADSL broadband user, rather how the the computer has been set up for Internet use.

With network interface cards (NICS) becoming cheaper to buy I recently purchased a TP-Link TG-3269 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter for A$22.

10/100/1000 network speed sounds great but to my knowledge and I mean I tried to do research on this is that all ADSL broadband modem routers wireless or wired only come with 10/100 Ethernet ports why is that when Ethernet cards come in 10/100/1000.

I don't understand why have those speeds on a network interface card and not be able to reach that speed when transferring data across a WAN (Wide Area Network) just doesn't make sense to me.

It's like putting a Porsche motor in a mini expecting it to go just as fast as the Porsche, which in theory sounds great but just doesn't work. 

Sure you can use a Gigabit switch but you still have the bottleneck at the Wireless/wired ADSL broadband modem router by using a 10/100 network speed to connect to the Internet.

Hey if anyone believes I am wrong here I would like to hear from you to hear your thoughts on this, why pay for a 1500/256 Mbits/S broadband connection to the Internet if you can't obtain relatively close to the theoretical speed of that connection.

As always I enjoy reading everyone's comments about what I have talked about in each and every blog I write I try to keep the blog easy for people who aren't all that computer savvy to understand and the reason why I use bold text within brackets.

Well enjoy everyone, it has been a pleasure writing this blog today has been awhile though several weeks since my last blog.

Happy New Year everyone, welcome to my first blog for 2008, I decided to write another blog on Second Life as a guide to getting the social networking program to work efficiently in Windows XP even Windows Vista though I have not had the opportunity to try Vista yet.

The specifications for running Second Life can be found on the Second Life web site itself www.secondlife.com

My Recommended System Requirements

 

• Internet Connection - obviously Cable or DSL for streaming music and video within Second Life.
• Operating System - Windows 2000, XP or Vista
• Computer Processor - 2GHz or higher dual or quad core processor
• Computer Memory - 1Gb as a bare minimum, 2 or 3Gb for better system performance
• Video/Graphics - At least a Nvidia 6600GT graphics card or the ATI Radeon equivalent

By using the specifications I have recommended you ensure not only your enjoyment of Second Life but the stability of running Second Life with fewer crashes also see my blog on Reducing the Amount of Viewer Crashes in Second Life as this will ensure that the Second Life Cache files are in one place on the hard drive.

Feedback and suggestions on any of my blogs are always welcome, actually I appreciate the feedback because it allows me to determine whether or not I have succeeded in assisting people with their computer problems.