Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

Fun Friday

It’s hard to imagine what life was like before the Internet, isn’t it? I’ve been using it for more than half of my life, but today’s generation of kids grew up with it. Those are the kids that don’t even know the difference between life before and after the Internet came along, but I’m sure you can remember the differences, like…

1. Balancing your checkbook required waiting for your statement to come from the bank because there was no online banking access
2. Along the same lines, if you wanted money to be transfered from your checking to your savings account or visa-versa, you had to physically walk into the bank to do it instead of quickly logging into your online account…
3. You actually knew all of your friends in “real-life.” There weren’t “virtual” friends or people you call friends but have never met
4. To communicate with friends and family who lived far away, you hand-wrote letters and mailed them through the Post Office
5. Google and Yahoo didn’t exist which meant researching was done with the help of books
6. You received the weather forecast on TV, from the newspaper, or even over the phone…
7. Planning a vacation meant going to see a travel agent to have them arrange the flight, tours and hotel stays
8. You called 411 or used a phone book to look-up telephone numbers
9. Finding out who won a sporting event that you missed meant waiting for the next day’s newspaper to arrive at your doorstep
10. There was no way to track a package that was being delivered to you via UPS or FedEx, you simply had to be patient
11. When you had something you wanted to sell, you ran an ad in the newspaper and hoped someone in the area would be interested because there was no eBay or Craigslist
12. Finding out the show-times for movies at the local theater meant calling their pre-recorded message and listening through the whole thing to hear what movies were playing and at what time, or just showing up at the theater and seeing what was playing
13. To get human interaction, you went to physically visit your friends instead of chatting in forums or leaving messages on message boards
14. Keeping an account of what was going on in your life meant writing it out on paper with a pen or pencil instead of keeping an online blog or journal
15. Watching a home-video or sharing it with friends meant you needed a VCR, there was no YouTube or other video sharing services
16. Buying music required going to a physical store and purchasing a cassette tape or a CD and playing it in your Walkman or Boom-box, there was no iTunes
17. Talking to multiple friends at the same time required that you be in the same room, this was what life was like before instant messaging…
18. No one had heard of the terms “Identity Theft” or “Phishing”
19. The only way to pay bills was to mail them or maybe pay using a check over the phone because online bill-pay wasn’t an option…
20. Finding a book at the library meant searching through the little cards in the card catalogue and not using an online system

After looking through this list, it really makes me thankful at how far we’ve come! I can’t imagine needing to wait for a newspaper to arrive to get the news or needing to walk into a Travel Agent’s office to plan a trip. Even worse is the thought of physically mailing all of my communication between friends and family, we really are spoiled with email, aren’t we?

This beginning part of this Chris Pirillo video is kinda humorous and fits in well to today’s topic, so take a look:

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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The recent pilfering of PlayStation Network passwords and personal info shows that having a strong passcode doesn’t always guarantee your online safety. However, key-pattern analysis (KPA) software from researchers at American University of Beirut may be able to keep our logins secure even if they’re stolen. You create a unique profile by entering your password a few times while the code tracks the speed and timing of your keystrokes. The software then associates that data to your password as another means of authentication. Henceforth, should the magic word be entered in a different typing tempo, access is denied. We saw a similar solution last year, but that system was meant to prevent multiple users from accessing subscription databases with a single account. This KPA software allows multiple profiles per password so that your significant other can still read all your email — assuming you and your mate reside in the trust tree, of course.

Key pattern analysis software times your typing for improved password protection originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 May 2011 00:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gizmag  |  International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions  | Email this | Comments

This article was written on December 11, 2007 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

I’m sure many of you have seen the Last Known Good Configuration option at some point or another when starting Windows, but do you actually know what it does? It says that it will use “your most recent settings that worked,” but that could mean a variety of things.

Then there is the Windows System Restore, which by the name would almost make people assume it does something similar to the Last Known Good Configuration, but in reality they are pretty different. Lets see how the two of them differ, and when you would want to use each of them.

–Last Known Good Configuration–

Each time you successfully startup your computer, Windows saves any system-related settings to the Windows Registry. Some of the information that is written to the Registry is in regards to device drivers and services that are used by Windows.

When you choose to use the Last Known Good Configuration mode all of the settings contained within the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet Registry key will be restored to the last state when you’re computer booted up successfully. This will not modify any files, but it will be able to point the system back to older drivers, assuming that they are still accessible on the machine.

Using the Last Known Good Configuration…

1. Start your computer.
2. When you see the “Please select the operating system to start” message, press the F8 key.
3. When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, use the ARROW keys to select Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked), and then press ENTER.

Use Last Known Good Configuration if…

• The last time you started Windows you didn’t have any issues.
• You install a new device driver, restart Windows, and the computer will no longer boot. By reverting back to the Last Known Good Configuration you will restore the settings so that they point back to the old driver.
• You disable a driver that turns out to be more critical to the operation of Windows. By reverting back to the Last Known Good Configuration you will restore the settings back to when the driver was still enabled.

DON’T Use Last Known Good Configuration if…

• Windows won’t boot because you deleted some system files.
• You copy a new driver over top of an old one. Switching to the last known good control set will not undo anything since the configuration never changed.
• Windows boots up, a user logs in, and then Windows freezes. By this point it is too late because Windows has already written over the Last Known Good Configuration backup.

–System Restore–

System Restore was haphazardly introduced back in Windows Millennium Edition, but wasn’t actually found to be useful until Windows XP was released. It’s progressively gotten better as more versions of Windows have been released, and in Vista it includes some new features.

Restore points (a.k.a. checkpoints) are, by default, created every 24 hours or when the user manually creates them. Aside from that restore points are also automatically created when some applications are installed, Windows Updates are installed, or non-signed drivers are installed.

System Restore is very selective in what it backs up. It keeps track of changed system files (extensions: EXE, BAT, DLL, etc…), Windows Registry, drivers, and more. It never touches file formats related to things like documents, email, music, and a few others that aren’t critical to the system’s operability. It will also ignore things placed in “My Documents” giving you a little reassurance that you won’t wipe out your documents during a restoration.

CAUTION: It’s important to know that all programs installed after the selected restore point will be uninstalled when rolling back your system using System Restore.

Using System Restore…

1. Open System Restore by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking System Restore.
2. Choose a restore point and proceed through the wizard.

One of the nice things about System Restore is that a checkpoint is also created before you proceed with the restoration. If using a restore point didn’t help you’ll always be able to jump back.

Use System Restore if…

• Problems started to occur after you installed an application, Windows Update, or a driver.
• You accidentally removed or modified an important system file that is causing the system not to function properly.

DON’T Use System Restore if…

• You have installed an application since the selected restore point, and you’re afraid of losing the application itself.
• You have important files placed throughout your computer, and you’re not sure if System Restore will ignore them. Place all of your personal files into the “My Documents” folder to ensure that they are protected.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Being number one is usually an honor, but not when it comes to Kaspersky Lab’s top ten PC vulnerabilities list. Unfortunately for the software giant, Adobe took top dishonors for Q1 this year, pulling in five total spots on the list, including the top three. According to the security firm, all of the vulnerabilities appearing on the list allowed cyber-criminals to control computers at the system level. The number one spot was occupied by a vulnerability in Acrobat Reader that was reportedly detected on 40 percent of machines running the application, while Flash Player flaws took second and third. Other dishonorees included the Java Virtual Machine, coming in at fourth and fifth place, Apple QuickTime, Winamp, and Microsoft Office. That ain’t bad, considering Microsoft ruled the vulnerabilities roost in 2010.

Adobe dominates Kaspersky Lab’s top ten PC vulnerabilites list originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Inquirer  |  Kaspersky Lab  | Email this | Comments

Hey, look at that: it’s a keyboard dock for the Galaxy Tab 8.9. The folks at mforum.ru caught this guy on camera at the Russian launch of Samsung’s latest slates. We don’t have a lot of details here, but it looks a heck of a lot like the dock for the original Tab. In fact, the only difference we could spot is that it seems to cradle the tablet in landscape mode instead of portrait, which is a small but very welcome change — Sammy probably just pulled out the plastic insert used to prop up the older model and called it a day. As for price or ship date, only Samsung knows for sure but, so you don’t walk away feeling cheated, there’s a lengthy hands on video after the break. We don’t speak Russian, so we’ve got no idea what the handler’s impressions are, but you get a pretty thorough tour of the TouchWiz tweaks for Honeycomb.

Continue reading Galaxy Tab 8.9 keyboard dock spied in Russia, TouchWiz poked on video

Galaxy Tab 8.9 keyboard dock spied in Russia, TouchWiz poked on video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Tech Digest  |  mforum.ru  | Email this | Comments