PCTechNotes :: PC Tips, Tricks and Tweaks » PC Tips

How Safe Is Your Child From The Internet?

slavezero — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:29:33 +0000

I used to own an internet cafe. And some of my customers are kids playing online games and some researching for projects or assignments. Sometimes, I wonder if they are safe using the internet… so I provide some restrictions in sites that they can visit.

Nowadays, Almost each household now has a computer and has access on the Internet and almost every child knows to use the computer. The Internet can be a great place of resources for children. They can employ it to seek school reports, to communicate with professors and, friends and other children, and to play the interactive games. Any child who is enough old to punch in some letters on the keyboard can literally reach the world. But this access can also pose dangers with your children. For example, your 8 years could open a session with a Search Engine and seize the word “Lego”. But with Just a striking missed keystroke, him or she can enter the word “legs”, and is directed towards thousands of Web sites with contents focus on legs – some of which can contain the pornographic material. This is why it is important to realize of what your children see and hear on the Internet, of they meet, and what they divide about themselves online. Just like any exit of safety, it is an good idea of speaking with your children about your concern, benefiting from the resources to protect them from potential dangers, and to keep a narrow eye on their activities.

Web content ‘disturbing children’

Three out of four children have seen images on the internet that disturbed them, an NSPCC poll suggests.

The charity is renewing its call for computer manufacturers and retailers to install security to stop children finding violent or sexual content.

The NSPCC, which polled visitors to its children’s website There4me.com, said it was “alarmed” by the accessibility of potentially disturbing material.

Some 377 of 497 votes cast claimed to have been disturbed by internet images.

One child posted a comment on a There4me message board saying: “I’ve seen violent images I didn’t search for. I was freaked out.”

Another said his eight-year-old sister’s search for “pictures of animals” generated pornography adverts.

The NSPCC wants social networking and video hosting sites to remove offensive material within hours of finding it.

Policy adviser Zoe Hilton said the NSPCC was “alarmed” by how easy it was for children to access “disturbing internet material”.

She said: “Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films such as adult sex scenes, violent dog fights, people self-harming and children being assaulted.”

‘More effort’

Ms Hilton said that every child should be using a computer with child protection software.

“High-security parental controls installed in their computers would help shield them.

“Currently computer manufacturers and retailers leave it to parents to find and install software that filters out material unsuitable for children. This can be a complicated process for customers.”

The charity wants retailers to ensure the software is installed before selling computers, and also manufacturers to start building such controls into their products.

She added: “Social networking sites must also put more effort and resources into patrolling their sites for harmful and offensive material and ensure their public complaints systems are clearly marked, easy-to-use and child-friendly.

“We would also recommend they give information on their sites about sources of help and advice, such as Childline, for children who have been affected by what they have seen.”

[source]

How to Display Hidden Files and Folders

slavezero — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:01:59 +0000

This tip is for beginners only and for people that don’t know about this tip. I’ve been ask a lot of times on how they can see files or folders that are hidden. So here is a quick tip on to show those windows hidden files.

By default, windows hides important files to keep them from deleted or modified. Remember not to remove or modify files you don’t understand to prevent your computer from being brought to Intensive Care Unit.

Follow the below steps to show hidden files.

Open Control Panel then on click Folder Options

Open Windows Explorer, My Computer or any Windows

Click on tools then Folder Options

Under the View tab, select “Show hidden files and folders” then click OK

You should be able to see your windows hidden folders.

Protecting your account – Choosing the best Password

slavezero — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:03:05 +0000

The Internet has really come a long way and it changed the ways things are done. Transactions such as payments for purchases, banking, transferring of files and other documents, and checking for messages are done online. As the internet technology advances so are the number of thieves adopting to the newest technology and developing their techniques to crack down sensitive info such as password. Most of the time, the account owner is the one to blame for his hacked password because he is not taking the necessary safety precautions to protect his account and his password are not strong enough to safeguard their account against hackers.

Choosing the best and strong password is always the best way of securing your account against hackers. Here are some tips to safeguard your passwords and withstand any crack attempt on your account.

Don’t use a password that is in the dictionary, even the foreign ones. There are lots of softwares for cracking passwords and it can be done in seconds that also means taht your account can be gone in 60 seconds or less.

Don’t use passwords that are associated with your maiden name, the place of yourbirth, your Social Security number, your children’s names, and phone numbers. It is a good idea to mix upper case and lower case characters and other allowed symbols like “hPld78j4″ in creating your password. This will be hard to crack and will it take a long time before a long time for a hacker to guess your password and will most likely to leave and go to his next target. Make sure that the password you use is easy to remember, associate it with any easy to remember words, dates, name or place.

Keep any record of your password offline. You can save your passwords to a CD or Flashdrive or any portable device. But placing your password record into a cd or any storage or portable device doesn’t mean your password is safe, record your password but don’t write all the characters, encrypt some of the characters for example your password is “SaFety125″ write in this in this way “S*F***1*5″ so just in case you lost your device where your password is located people will not be able to use it to hack your account.

Don’t use password on all your accounts. As much as possible use different password for every account.

Don’t use passwords that are commonly use like “123456789″

You can use a password generating and auto-filling software. This will prevent keyloggers from getting your password.

Your password is the secret key to your secured internet/computer account. Make sure that your key can really secure your account.

Great Tips in buying a PC

slavezero — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:36:03 +0000

Before buying a computer, choose the one that best suits your needs. Here are great computer buying tips which will surely help you a lot in choosing computers according to your needs.

If you will buy a computer for personal and office use, choose the cheaper computers. You need not spend much in computers for your office and/or personal use. You can buy a computer for as low as P6,000 to P8,000 ($150 – $200), which is good enough for typing, keeping your documents and for surfing the internet.

For business purposes, especially in computer gaming, invest your money to high speed, high tech, maximum capability computers. Computers with low specs will not support the speed requirements which is very much needed in computer games.

Always consider the price in buying computers. Manufacturers like AMD and INTEL often develop their products. The good news is everytime they have a new product in the market, the price of their old product goes down. You can save more with the old models but is still great when it comes to its performance.

The price and the product is really important. Take this as a good example. A brand new 80gb hard drive with a price of P3,800 ($95), brand new 120gb hard drive with a price of P4,600 ($115) and a brand new 160gb hard drive with a price of P5,000 ($125). If an 80gb hard drive is not good enough for your computer, which one would you opt to buy? The brand new 120gb hard drive with a price of P4,600 ($115) or the 160gb hard drive with a price P5,000 ($125)? Choose the 160gb instead. There is only a bit difference when it comes to price and take note of the capacity of the item that you are going to buy.

When it comes to choosing a computer case, heavy type cases are most recommended because of the quality material that was used. Problems always occur with light weight pc case. If you are going to use a 7200RPM hard disk with a light weight pc case, chances are, the case will shake which will make it very noisy. Also, light weight cases cannot discharge smoothly the heat. Heavy type of computer cases usually have a built-in air guide.

In buying a power supply, it must be supplied with a high voltage continuity. Instead of buying lower wattage, choose a 400w or higher power supply. If you will use a lower wattage, there is a tendency that the CPU will shut down without any cause and some small parts of the motherboard will be damaged. Using the 400w or higher power supply will help you save from buying parts that might be destroyed from using a lower wattage power supplies.

The newest CPU, Centrino Sonoma 1.7ghz is almost same speed with Pentium IV-3.0ghz. Consider an AMD instead of an Intel. You will save more if you will buy an AMD because it is much much cheaper compared to Intel.

Laptop are much preferred nowadays. When buying a laptop, always consider the CPU and the video card. Most of the parts are not upgradable so you must really consider the parts of the unit.

If you need a laptop for storing your documents and internet surfing only, you need not buy a very expensive laptop. Choose a laptop with lower specs but with good performance. It will be a lot waste of money if you will buy a high specs laptop which you will use for typing your documents only. What’s more. Buy a laptop which is light weight. Do not buy a laptop which is very heavy because it’s not very convenient to carry around especially when you are always on the road and you need to carry the documents together with you from time to time.

Secondhand laptops are as good as the brand new ones but lesser the price. Why buy expensive brand new laptops if you can buy a used with same quality and performance. Then compute how much you are going to save. That’s whole lot savings for your pocket!

Hope these computer buying tips can help you on choosing computers which is sure to fit your needs. Start investing your money with the right items and buy computers that are not heavy on your pockets.

Restore your desktop icons arrangement

slavezero — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:53:45 +0000

Do you share your PC at home? Do you feel like sitting beside your computer 24/7 every time someone uses your PC? Why? Because your fellow user has a habit of changing your desktop setup… and worse leaving it full of thrash?.

Worst, when your self-ordered computer will rearrange these icons with no particular reason. You have tried everything, rebooted your computer, changed screen resolutions, installed a new program, or something else, but the outcome is the same… the desktop layout you’ve always wanted has now completely changed and you must spend time to rearrange the icons again. (seems like there is a connivance between the user and the computer…hmmm)

Don’t be too hard on yourself, there is another way to make your stubborn computer follows you. Unfortunately there is no built-in option in Windows to save and restore the current desktop layout but there are numbers of programs, luckily most of them are freeware, that have been develop to save and restore your Windows desktop.

Listed below you will find information and many of these programs and links to download them.

Desktop Restore

One of my favorite programs to use for restoring a desktop full of icons is Desktop Restore by Jamie O’Connell. It works with Windows 98, ME, XP, NT, and Vista. It loads as a shell extension and can be used by right-clicking on a blank spot on your desktop. You should see a menu similar to the one below.

Desktop and you’ll be given the opportunity to save the current layout. If you would like to name this saved desktop, then choose Custom Save/Restore instead. In this way you can save multiple layouts if you so desire. Click on the Restore Desktop option to choose the layout you wish to restore and everything will return to normal.

Click on the link below to visit the website and download it
Download Desktop Restore

Icon Restore

Another popular icon restore utility is called Icon Restore. It installs a file called Layout.dll on the computer. This file installs two new options (Save Desktop Icon Layout and Restore Desktop Icon Layout) to the pop-up menu that appears when My Computer, Recycle Bin, or another system icon is chosen. Very handy, although you have to right-click on a system icon to use it.

Unfortunately, the install feature of Icon Restore does not include an uninstall option, however there is a separate utility to uninstall the program if you wish.

Click on the link below to visit the website and download it
Download Icon Restore

Solway’s Desktop Icon Saver

This is a simplest and easiest program to use. When installed it adds two options to the right-click menu when right-clicking on the desktop: Save Desktop Icon Layout and Restore Desktop Icon Layout. A simple click either saves the current desktop or restores it.

For more information on Desktop Icon Saver, visit Solway’s Software Page.

WinTidy

WinTidy is another very useful utility to save and restore the icon layout, however it does have its drawbacks. It does not work very well with Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is the XP version most people use. For this reason I dont recommend it as highly as Desktop Restore or Icon Restore.

You can learn more about WinTidy by clicking here
There are other useful utilities that will save and restore the icon layout of your desktop, however many of the other programs are not free. They either have nag screens or will timeout after the shareware trial expires.

Tips on how you can avoid virus infections

slavezero — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:41:48 +0000

I guess you know that computer viruses are everywhere. This guide will help you and your computer avoid being infected by viruses. There are many ways to help you prevent being infected by viruses having a good and an updated anti-virus will not always save you but it is one of the best way to prevent it.

Types of viruses

There are lots of types of viruses most of them are simply programs or scripts that will cause various problems or damage to your computer such as corrupted files, creating a copy of itself, deleting your hard rive files etc. Most of the viruses spreads itself by mailing themselves to people on your address book and some of them will try to convince you to open the attachment, But that trick never worked on me. In fact, I found myself emailing people just to make sure they really did send me something. It does not hurt to be safe.

Worms

Worms are different kind of virus but the same idea. Worms are designed to copy themselves a lot on a network and they usually eats up bandwidth by sending commands to servers to be able to get in. When the worm successfully infiltrate the system it will try and go into other servers from there. Some worms such as the SQL slammer will simply send themselves over and over so many times that they will clog up networks, and sometimes all of the internet. Worms usually affect servers more than home users, but again, this depends on what worm it is. It is suspected that most worms are efforts from the RIAA to try to stop piracy, so they try to clog up networks that could contain files. Unfortunately, the RIAA have the authority to do these damages and even if caught, nothing can be done.

Trojans

This type of virus is simply like a server that hackers use to get into the computer. An example of this is Subseven, it can enable a hacker to do various things such as control the mouse, eject the cd-rom drive, delete/download/upload files and much more.

MBR viruses

Boot Sector viruses are similar to file viruses but they go into the boot sector. These type of virus is hard to remove and can cause serious damage when the computer is booted, some of it’s kind can easily erase all the data on your PC just by booting your computer.

Most viruses have different characteristics. For example, a worm can also be a trojan and also infect the boot sector. It all depends on how the virus is written and what it is designed to do. That’s why there are not really strong structured categories, as they can easily mix one in the other.

Know the potentially dangerous files

Just like any other files, viruses must be opened before they can do damage. Most of them comes from e-mail attachments. Most of this type disguise as someone you know and convince you to open the attachment. My great advice: Never open attachments at any cost! Some viruses will infect files in programs, so opening a program will actually open the virus, maybe the same one, or another part of it.

All files have what is called an extension; This is the 3 last letters after the last period. For example, setup.exe has a file extension of .exe.

Extensions to watch out for are .exe .com .bat .scr .pif .vbs and others, but these are the most seen. .exe .com .bat .pif and .scr are valid extensions for executables. A virus writer will simply rename it to one of these and it will work the same way. .pif is a shortcut to an ms-dos program and will have the ms dos icon, but will still execute whatever code is in it, so an .exe can be renamed to .pif and be run the same way. .bat is a batch file, which can contain instructions to do various file activities, but again, a .exe can be renamed to .bat and it will execute it! .vbs is a visual basic script. For some reason, Microsoft provides this scripting language along with the scripting host to make it more convenient to design and write viruses quickly and easily, I’ve never seen another use for this scripting language other than for writing viruses. There are programs that are written with that language, but it is compiled into an exe. Exe is the usual extension for programs, you would not have a software CD install a bunch of vbs files all over!

Bottom line is, if you don’t know what a file is just don’t open it. Some viruses will sometimes be named a way as to mask the real file extension to make it look like a harmless file such as a image file. This is easily noticed, but can still be missed. Simply don’t open unexpected files.

If you get something that appears like something legit, just ask the person it came from if they sent it. Most viruses use a friend’s address to make it look like it comes from them. The virus does this by using the person’s address when sending itself to the address book contacts.

Downloads

Email is not the only source of viruses you can also get viruses from P2P file sharing programs such as Kazaa, Bearshare, Limewire, direct connect etc.

Watch out for the size when you are downloading programs. When you see a program that you expect to be rather large such as game don’t download it, don’t get files that is 10KB it is more like to be a virus than a legit file. File size is not the only thing to watch I’ve been caught with a virus even with large files, as an exe is still valid even if junk is added at the end, so a 64KB virus will still function even if it is turned into 650MB.

You should look for icons, fortunately, virus writers don’t take time to put icons. If you are downloading a setup file your setup file should have setup icon if it’s blank that file is more or less a corrupted file or a virus.

Best advice after downloading and before opening a file is to scan it with an updated antivirus. but rely on your antivirus as we all know virus scanners are not perfect, if the virus has not been reported to them yet, they won’t know to create a definition for it!

Changing settings to stay safe

If you happen to open a virus and you want to avoid the virus from infecting your friends the simplest to do is not to use the windows address book. It’s very easy for viruses to get through windows address book and unfortunately Microsoft is not doing anything to fix it. Just put them in a spreadsheet or even better write them down somewhere. Don’t use the address book!

Avoid using the auto preview some viruses can open themselves just by opening the mail. There are security holes in Microsoft mail programs that allow this. To disable auto preview on Microsoft outlook just click on the menu and remove auto preview. remember to do this for every folder but the inbox is most important. In Outlook Express, click on the view menu and go to layout. In the dialog box, you will see a check box for show preview pane. Uncheck it and click ok.

Removing a virus

Sometimes a clean install wont remove viruses the best way is perform a low level format. This is especially true of you got a boot sector virus, as even repartitioning and formatting won’t quite remove it, but sometimes you can get away with an fdisk /mbr, but not all the time. Use good virus removal tools but then again clean install is always the best way to ensure that it’s gone for good.

Viruses are out there, don’t be one of the many infected ones! Stay alert and stay safe! Don’t open unexpected files, regularly update your virus definitions and scan downloaded files!

I hope this article was useful for you!

Common Troubleshooting Techniques & Strategies

slavezero — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:40:14 +0000

Here are my five common-sense techniques and strategies to solve common computer hardware problems.

Swap Components (Trial-and-Error)

Personal computers by design are highly modular. The most effective way to troubleshoot your PC is by isolating the problem to a specific parts by trial and error. In this method you swap compatible components and see if the system works. Try other components or peripherals on different machines and see if the problem still occurs. Remember also to make one change at a time. This is a very effective method on locating a PC problem.

Check the cables

Almost 80% of all PC problems are related to cabling and connections. You must ensure that all cables are connected firmly. IDE and floppy ribbon cables and power cables can often go loose. Check if your microprocessor, memory modules, Video adapters and sound cards are inserted correctly and didn’t “pop-up” during transportation.

Don’t get frustrated

Don’t get frustrated and don’t be afraid of the computer problems consider it as the best opportunity to learn. For me troubleshooting is a fun part of having a computer. Just think of the satisfaction, the knowledge and experience it will give you after you solve the problem.

If you feel frustrated just leave it for a while, take a minute rest then go back with your fresh ideas to solve the problem or if it’s too much to handle seek help call someone who can help.

Rule of thumb: You shouldn’t spend more than three hours on the same problem at one time.

Take down notes

Taking down notes will be very helpful. Take notes of what you have done and all the error messages. Those notes will be valuable if you encounter the same problem. For instance, when you see an unusual blue screen with an error message, copy the entire message onto a piece of paper. In many situations, that message may point to the right direction in getting the problem solved quickly.

Look inside

Don’t be afraid to open and look inside of your computer. It’s OK to look inside your PC There is only 5V and 12V DC voltage supplied to the components outside the power supply. But always remember to power down and unplug the power chords before opening your computer.