By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Greatest PC Mysteries--Solved!
PC owners know that every computer has a unique assortment of components, applications and peripherals. Nevertheless, certain things--including a host of common PC problems and mysteries--are part of the shared experience of computer ownership. The editors at PCWorld have seen and solved hundreds of PC mysteries, ranging from balky printers to diffident video players to persnickety file attachments. Most of the answers to these tech questions are simple and straightforward, so we've taken the liberty of compiling some of the most frequently encountered PC mysteries into a single list that we'll update regularly. Following each question we provide a short response that summarizes what we know. For a more detailed explanation and some helpful tips, click the links in each answer.
Why is [Program X] always running when I start my PC?
Windows maintains a list of programs that automatically run every time you boot up your computer. Some of these startup programs (such as antivirus utilities) are beneficial, but many of them are not necessary and can slow your PC as they run automatically in the background. Speed up your boot time by disabling Windows startup programs.
Why does my PC keep making a grinding sound?
This can happen for a lot of reasons--and unfortunately almost all of them are bad news. The most likely answer is that a fan or hard drive in your PC is starting to die, causing it to spin off-kilter. PCWorld contributing editor Lincoln Spector wrote a smart guide to pinpointing the source of a grinding-sound problem in this Answer Line column. No matter what the cause turns out to be, you should immediately back up your hard drive, just in case.
Grinding sounds usually mean trouble, but backing up your data to an external drive can mitigate the damage.
Why do I need administrator access to delete certain files?
That requirement is just a security precaution: Windows 7 insists that you have administrator access in order to modify or delete files when doing so might affect other people who use the computer. If you need to delete something and you don't have the password to get into the administrator account (if you bought the PC used, for example) here's how to gain administrator access without a password.
Why did Windows come bundled with so many unwanted programs?
For once, Microsoft isn't to blame. Most PC manufacturers stuff new computers with extraneous trial versions of games, movie players, antivirus utilities, and other software. If you want to get rid of this bloatware, here's how to remove preinstalled software from your PC.
Why won't Windows allow me to delete a certain file?
If Windows refuses to delete a file or folder, some application or process is accessing it; you must close that application before you can finish deleting the unwanted file.
Why does Windows sometimes reboot without my permission, and how do I prevent that from happening?
This problem relates to how Windows installs automatic updates. Fortunately, you can make adjust some settings to put yourself back in control.
I updated my hardware drivers and now my PC is acting funny. What happened?
Though it's a good idea to download the latest drivers for your components, occasionally a buggy or beta driver update may degrade your PC's performance. If that happens, try to roll back to a previous version of the driver that you know is safe; if you can't do that, you'll have to uninstall the problematic driver entirely. Our walkthrough of how to uninstall drivers in Windows explains how to perform a rollback and how to uninstall a driver.
Does it matter whether I 'safely remove' devices?
Absolutely: If you ignore Windows' requests to "safely remove" your storage media, you could end up with corrupted files, unreadable media, or both.
Where did my downloaded files go? Why can't I find them?
Your browser chooses where downloads go, but you can control the process.
Why are some of my critical files hidden?
Windows typically keeps critical system files hidden from view to make it more difficult for untrained users to modify or delete them, and thereby inadvertently cause a system error. Usually the only hidden files are ones you shouldn't tamper with (such as your boot.ini file); however, if you need to find a file or folder and you think it might be hidden, check out our tips on how to view hidden files and file extensions in Windows.
Why doesn't my iPad charge when I connect it to my computer?
Your PC's USB port doesn't supply enough juice to charge a new iPad quickly--but you can still charge your iPad gradually. Some USB ports, however, like the ones highlighted in red below, have a higher trickle charge rate to help you charge smartphones, tablets, and other external devices.
If your PC has red USB ports, they sport increased power output and should be used to charge your iPad or other USB-powered devices.
Why does a video play on my desktop but not my laptop?
If a computer doesn't have the specific decoder required for a video format, you can't watch the video. Make sure that you get the right one.
My printer won't print, and Windows won't let me cancel or delete print jobs. What's going on?
Usually this problem arises because of a communication problem between the PC and the printer. When they have trouble talking to each other, you may need to help them.
I hear beeps when I turn on my PC. What do they mean?
Those beeps come from the BIOS (a piece of software built into the motherboard). Specific "beep codes" have specific meanings.
Why are my USB ports different colors?
UItimately your USB ports can be any color your motherboard manufacturer desires--or all the same color, for that matter--but USB 3.0 ports are often bright blue to distinguish them from older, slower USB 2.0 ports. USB 3.0 devices are backward-compatible with USB 2.0, and the ports look identical, which makes some sort of visual indicator (such as a coat of blue paint or a "USB 3.0" stamp) extremely useful.
Blue USB ports are USB 3.0, black USB ports are USB 2.0, and red USB ports have increased power output.
In a folder full of digital images, I often see a file called Thumbs.db. What is it, and can I safely delete it?
Thumbs.db is a Windows XP system file that contains the thumbnail cache for a particular folder. You can tweak Windows to get it out of your way.
Why does every digital camera--including the one on my smartphone--store photographs in a folder called DCIM?
DCIM (for Digital Camera IMages) is the default directory structure for digital cameras--and having such a standard is very useful.
I've noticed a strange port on my PC. What kind of connection is supposed to go there?
This is a common mystery, and the answer can be any mumber of things. To figure out what your mystery port is and how you should use it, check out our picture-filled primer on PC ports.
My Recycle Bin has disappeared. How do I restore it?
Whether it was the victim of a glitch or was never available in the first place, you can restore your Recycle Bin in a few simple steps.
Where do all of these mysterious Web browser toolbars come from, and how do I get rid of them?
Sometimes spyware installs browser toolbars, and sometimes you do it accidentally during software installation.
How did QuickTime end up on my PC, and do I need to keep it?
This media-playback software comes bundled with iTunes and installs along with it.
I have Microsoft Word installed on my PC. Why can't I open the .docx files my friend sent me?
If you use Word 2003 or an earlier version of the program, you need to pick up the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.
Why do some programs leave files and folders behind even after I've uninstalled them?
Many programs' uninstallers are ineffective. It's a good idea to use a utility that removes not only the application but also all of the pieces it leaves behind.
Why do Adobe Reader and Java update so frequently? Do I have to allow it?
Most Adobe and Java patches are made to plug security holes, so you should update them--or use alternative software.
Is it necessary to update Windows?
Yes, you should definitely apply Windows updates for security reasons, but you can take a few steps to reduce Windows' nagging and pushiness about when to make the changes.
You should always download and install Windows updates, but some tricks can make doing so less of a hassle.
Windows asks me if I want to enable Sticky Keys. What are they, and how should I use them?
The Sticky Keys feature makes certain keyboard functions easier to access.
Why can't I send a particular file attachment via email?
The file is probably too large. Check out free services that let you work around file-size restrictions.
How can I determine whether an unknown Website is safe to visit?
Read our advice on how to figure out whether a link is safe from malware or other threats before you click it.
What are the .dat files that I sometimes receive in email messages, and how do I open them?
Microsoft Outlook uses a modified version of Rich Text Format (RTF) to preserve fonts and the like, but the format often causes problems for the recipient. We have three suggestions for coping with this situation.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/254489/the_greatest_pc_mysteriessolved.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Google Drive vs. The Rest
Google Drive, Google's cloud storage service, is finally here, and it's no surprise that the competition is prepared after years of rumors.
Cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Microsoft's Skydrive have been adding new features ahead of the Google Drive launch, and I've been getting anticipatory e-mails from other competitors, reminding me of their existence, for weeks now.
So how do all these online storage services compared to the new Google Drive? We've put together a chart covering all the big features. Here are some of the highlights:
SkyDrive offers the most free storage at 7GB, and users who signed up before April 22 can get 25 GB free for a limited time.
Google Drive undercuts all of its competitors on monthly pricing, but Microsoft's Skydrive--which doesn't offer monthly pricing-- is cheaper on an annual basis.
SugarSync is the only service that can sync to any local file folder, but SkyDrive allows access to an entire remote Windows PC using two-step authentication.
Watch out for file size limits. SugarSync doesn't have any limits, and Google Drive's 10GB is much more generous than other services.
Web apps, public link sharing, and private file sharing are table stakes at this point.
The offerings from Google and Microsoft have their downsides: Neither one supports the other's mobile platform.
Of course, comparison charts won't tell you everything you need to know. You might, for example, prefer Dropbox because a lot of other people are using it, or Google Drive because you already use lots of other Google services and want to tie in cloud storage. Use the feature comparisons as a baseline, and then find the cloud storage service that's right for you.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 http://www.pcworld.com/article/254411/google_drive_vs_the_rest.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 http://www.pcworld.com/article/254411/google_drive_vs_the_rest.html#tk.hp_fv
Monday, April 23, 2012
Mobile Malware Incidents on Rise, Says Smartphone Survey
The cost-saving culture of 'bring your own device' smartphones is tempting enterprises into taking risks they would not contemplate for conventional computing devices, a survey by Goode Intelligence has suggested.
The Third mSecurity Survey (summary PDF) confirmed that Apple's iPhone is currently the dominant device, present in 77 percent of in the surveyed businesses, ahead of BlackBerry on 70 percent and the rapidly rising Android on 65 percent.
When asked whether their organisation allowed BYOD smartphone use, 71 percent said they did with 47 percent agreeing that company data was being stored on these devices.
Many of these smartphones were not being managed as secure devices, with fewer than one in five adding anti-malware and only half employing data encryption.
Perhaps not coincidentally, mobile malware incidents rose in 2011 with 24 percent reporting evidence of infection, up from nine percent in 2010 and 7 percent in 2009.
"The past three years have been extraordinary for mobile and there are no signs of this abating. Smartphones and tablet computers are having a transformational effect on the way that an organisation does business and manages information," said survey author, Alan Goode.
"There is a big question over whether information security professionals can keep up with the pace of change currently seen with smart mobile devices (SMD) and can manage the risks associated with them."
Against this striking incident statistic has to be set the size and scope of Goode's survey, which questioned only 130 IT professionals from a range of countries. Although (as the company points out) these figures are taken from real enterprises rather than being based on malware discovered by a secity company, it would be a stretch to infer similar incident levels in UK companies.
The report also supplied no data on incident rates on different platforms nor which threats had been encountered.
As with malware generally to some extent, mobile malware is extremely regional which reflects the culture of businesses in different countries and the way mobile applications are offered. The Far East and Russia have had problems with rogue Android apps being used for premium rate tariff fraud, a phenomenon that has not struck on any scale in Western countries - yet.
It is also difficult to infer is that BYOD itself is fuelling a rise in mobile malware although the relatively unprotected nature of many of the devices uncovered by Goode would tend to suggest some connection.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28 Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Zuckerberg did $1 billion Instagram deal on his own
Facebook shocked the tech community with its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, but perhaps more shocking is the price the photo-sharing app's CEO originally wanted for his company: $2 billion.
During three days of quiet negotiations, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg halved Kevin Systrom's asking price -- all without involving bankers or his own board of directors, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). In fact, Zuckerberg, who controls roughly 57 percent of the company's voting rights, had pretty much closed the deal with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom before even informing the board of the acquisition.
The board "was told, not consulted" about the deal on April 8, the day before the rest of the world learned of the deal, one person familiar with the matter told the Journal.
Zuckerberg began the negotiations on April 5 by calling Systrom and inviting him to drive down from San Francisco to meet with him at his Palo Alto home, the Journal reported. Zuckerberg reportedly informed Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg of the decision, but she did not participate in the negations.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57415565-93/zuckerberg-did-$1-billion-instagram-deal-on-his-own/?tag=mncol;editorPicks
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
During three days of quiet negotiations, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg halved Kevin Systrom's asking price -- all without involving bankers or his own board of directors, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). In fact, Zuckerberg, who controls roughly 57 percent of the company's voting rights, had pretty much closed the deal with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom before even informing the board of the acquisition.
The board "was told, not consulted" about the deal on April 8, the day before the rest of the world learned of the deal, one person familiar with the matter told the Journal.
Zuckerberg began the negotiations on April 5 by calling Systrom and inviting him to drive down from San Francisco to meet with him at his Palo Alto home, the Journal reported. Zuckerberg reportedly informed Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg of the decision, but she did not participate in the negations.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57415565-93/zuckerberg-did-$1-billion-instagram-deal-on-his-own/?tag=mncol;editorPicks
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
Monday, April 16, 2012
An 'Eazy' Way to Guard Your Privacy
A new site called Priveazy aims to make protecting your data on Facebook and everywhere else simple and effective. It might well succeed.
By Dan Tynan, ITworld Apr 16, 2012 7:29 am
Managing your privacy online ain’t easy. Between Facebook, Google, the online tracking cartel and Big Brother, everyone wants a piece of your data. Figuring out who has which pieces of your personal info and what they’re doing with it is a challenge even for privacy geeks like me.
Most normal people just give up. That is, of course, exactly what they want you to do. (Who’s “they”? Fill in your favorite conspiracy theory here.) Now there’s a new tool that can help normal folks untangle the privacy knot. It’s called Priveazy, and it opened the doors on its public beta earlier this week.
Like the name implies, Priveazy is pretty darned simple. The site consists of three things: Lessons, quizzes, and tasks. Watch a video tutorial on how, say, Facebook collects your data, take a quiz to gauge how much you really know about its data collection practices, then follow a series of tasks to lock down the social network’s labyrinthine privacy settings.
How to Protect Your Reputation Online
How to kill Web trackers dead
(For the record: I got a 100 on the Facebook quiz. Not that you care, but I just had to tell somebody.)
It’s not just Facebook. Priveazy also offers lessons on how to browse the Web safely, block Web trackers, make Windows more secure, and protect your email account. It offers step by step directions for tasks like upgrading your browser or turning off third-party cookies. Don’t want to do them now? You can set reminders and Priveazy will nag you later.
The site also sports a gloriously simple privacy policy, in part because the only bits of identifiable information Priveazy collects are your email address and your IP address, and the latter is discarded after 72 hours.
And the site is 100 percent free. So what’s the catch? At the moment, Priveazy is a labor of love for founder Jay Herbison and his small staff, but he has plans to turn it into a for-profit venture at some point.
“We have identified four or five ways we could make money, but advertising isn’t one of them,” he told me in a phone interview. “It’s simply not in our DNA. We will never share our users’ information with third parties or make money on the backs of people’s data. We just want get privacy awareness out there and empower people who are not IT pros about how to make the necessary changes to protect their privacy.”
As the site grows, Herbison plans to add lessons on how to lock down your Twitter and Linkedin accounts, protect your passwords, secure your home WiFi network, prevent identity theft, and keep data snoops from slurping up your location information.
Priveazy is in beta, so it’s still not entirely polished. It also relies heavily on video for tutorials, which as a Certified Old Fart ™ I find annoying. I’d rather read and skim.
If you’re a geek or you just eat and breathe Internet privacy issues, you might find Priveazy a bit too simplistic. On the other hand, if you’re tired of lecturing your mother/significant other/best friend from high school/random strangers about what they should and shouldn’t be doing with their personal information online, Priveazy is a good site to send them to. That's what I plan on doing.
Even if they don’t like it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253834/an_eazy_way_to_guard_your_privacy.html#tk.hp_new
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
By Dan Tynan, ITworld Apr 16, 2012 7:29 am
Managing your privacy online ain’t easy. Between Facebook, Google, the online tracking cartel and Big Brother, everyone wants a piece of your data. Figuring out who has which pieces of your personal info and what they’re doing with it is a challenge even for privacy geeks like me.
Most normal people just give up. That is, of course, exactly what they want you to do. (Who’s “they”? Fill in your favorite conspiracy theory here.) Now there’s a new tool that can help normal folks untangle the privacy knot. It’s called Priveazy, and it opened the doors on its public beta earlier this week.
Like the name implies, Priveazy is pretty darned simple. The site consists of three things: Lessons, quizzes, and tasks. Watch a video tutorial on how, say, Facebook collects your data, take a quiz to gauge how much you really know about its data collection practices, then follow a series of tasks to lock down the social network’s labyrinthine privacy settings.
How to Protect Your Reputation Online
How to kill Web trackers dead
(For the record: I got a 100 on the Facebook quiz. Not that you care, but I just had to tell somebody.)
It’s not just Facebook. Priveazy also offers lessons on how to browse the Web safely, block Web trackers, make Windows more secure, and protect your email account. It offers step by step directions for tasks like upgrading your browser or turning off third-party cookies. Don’t want to do them now? You can set reminders and Priveazy will nag you later.
The site also sports a gloriously simple privacy policy, in part because the only bits of identifiable information Priveazy collects are your email address and your IP address, and the latter is discarded after 72 hours.
And the site is 100 percent free. So what’s the catch? At the moment, Priveazy is a labor of love for founder Jay Herbison and his small staff, but he has plans to turn it into a for-profit venture at some point.
“We have identified four or five ways we could make money, but advertising isn’t one of them,” he told me in a phone interview. “It’s simply not in our DNA. We will never share our users’ information with third parties or make money on the backs of people’s data. We just want get privacy awareness out there and empower people who are not IT pros about how to make the necessary changes to protect their privacy.”
As the site grows, Herbison plans to add lessons on how to lock down your Twitter and Linkedin accounts, protect your passwords, secure your home WiFi network, prevent identity theft, and keep data snoops from slurping up your location information.
Priveazy is in beta, so it’s still not entirely polished. It also relies heavily on video for tutorials, which as a Certified Old Fart ™ I find annoying. I’d rather read and skim.
If you’re a geek or you just eat and breathe Internet privacy issues, you might find Priveazy a bit too simplistic. On the other hand, if you’re tired of lecturing your mother/significant other/best friend from high school/random strangers about what they should and shouldn’t be doing with their personal information online, Priveazy is a good site to send them to. That's what I plan on doing.
Even if they don’t like it.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253834/an_eazy_way_to_guard_your_privacy.html#tk.hp_new
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Give us a call today: 281-554-5500 or visit Friendly Computers to schedule an appointment.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Do-Not-Track Tools: Hands-On Showdown
Regulators are urging Internet companies to alert consumers about their data-gathering activities--but if you want to seize control now, some browser add-ons can help.
By Ian Paul, PCWorld Apr 8, 2012 8:00 pm
Online tracking is a hot topic these days, with the Obama administration and the Federal Trade Commission calling for tougher online privacy protections. The FTC recently issued a report urging voluntary practices for online businesses regarding data collection. Another popular proposal suggests building a universal do-not-track function into future Web browsers.
The proposed universal do-not-track tool won't be particularly robust, since it would simply make your browser send a "please don't track me" request to a website. Given the past misbehaviors of Internet behemoths such as Facebook and Google, it's hard to put much faith in a solution that depends on the best intentions of site owners.
Nevertheless, that’s the gist of the FTC’s appeal to Internet businesses for voluntary cooperation. Specifically, the agency suggests that privacy controls should be incorporated into new products and services by design (including that do-not-track feature in every browser, perhaps); that consumers should have simple ways to control their personal information; and that corporate data-collection practices should be transparent.
On balance, however, most of us pay via our eyeballs and our personal data for the majority of the information we access online. Targeted ads--sometimes laughably off-base, sometimes appropriate based on demographics--pop up on many sites in lieu of a paywall. If you really hate the ads, or if you don’t want to share anything about yourself and your browsing habits, you might shell out for ad-free access to a site.
The key here is the call for transparency. Sites commonly use cookies, a bit of code, to recognize you the next time you return. In some cases, cookies are an important part of the way the Web works. You couldn't click a Facebook "Like" button and have it work automatically, for example, without a cookie from the social network determining that you were signed in to Facebook.
But some cookies follow you around the Web. These tracking cookies, stashed in your browser, note your browsing habits and online activity, and can help a tracking company determine appropriate ads. Companies may serve up the ads directly, or sell your data.
The FTC’s proposals ask that privacy be the default, that sites’ collection habits be clear, and that browsers provide some protection from tracking--but remember, those are all just suggestions.
If you really want to stop sites from tracking you, and if you don’t want to rely on a site’s goodwill, you can turn to several browser add-ons that will shield your Web browsing habits from a host of advertising and behavioral-tracking technologies--or at least alert you to their interest, and enable you to grant or reject the request.
Here's a hands-on look at three tools designed to keep your browsing activity private.
AVG Do-Not-Track
AVG's free antivirus program for Windows now comes with a Do-Not-Track browser add-on that works with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
To get started, download AVG 2012 and then run an update to obtain the add-on. Current AVG users will receive the new tool as an automatic update. AVG automatically installs its Do-Not-Track feature in any of the three browsers available on your system.
Immediately after installation, decide whether you want AVG's Do-Not-Track tool to alert you whenever it detects a tracking cookie. To enable this feature, click the AVG icon and select Alert me when active trackers are detected. However, I don’t recommend activating the automatic alert, since it causes the AVG add-on to produce a pop-up window every time it detects cookies on a page; considering that almost every website has some form of tracking on it, dealing with these pop-ups can become tedious pretty quickly.
Settings: Although AVG automatically blocks a wide variety of ad networks by default, it doesn't block several social and Web-analytics features. Among the trackers it leaves unblocked are Comscore Beacon, Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugins, Google +1, Google Analytics, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Button, Twitter Button, and Yahoo Analytics. If you'd like to block some of those items, click the AVG Do-Not-Track icon, select Settings, and choose cookies under 'Block the following'.
AVG also adds a "do-not-track" header to your browser. This tells websites that honor the header to respect your wishes and not attempt to set any tracking cookies.
Browsing the Web: AVG's Do-Not-Track add-on keeps a running count of how many trackers it detects on a single page as that page loads. On PCWorld.com, for example, AVG found four trackers: two Web analytics trackers and two social buttons. The tool didn't block any of them, however, since by default it wasn't set to stop such cookies.
When AVG detects a cookie that it is set to block, the tool shows that cookie's name in the pop-up window with a line crossed through it. To see more detailed information about a tracker, you can hover over its entry in the pop-up window.
In the example shown here, AVG is telling me about the Bizo advertising cookie on the Wall Street Journal site. I can see that the cookie collects personal and nonpersonal data, and that it shares its data with third parties. To report on what kinds of data each tracking cookie collects, AVG pulls information from the privacy policy of the company setting the cookie.
Bottom line: In my tests, AVG's browser add-on appeared to work decently, but it was less robust than the other tools I tried. To its credit, AVG allows you to modify which cookies it blocks and which ones it doesn't. The downside, though, is that you must download and install the entire AVG antivirus program to get the Do-Not-Track tool. That's problematic, since AVG still has some bad habits such as installing browser toolbars and attempting to switch your browser's search provider by default.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253378/donottrack_tools_handson_showdown.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
By Ian Paul, PCWorld Apr 8, 2012 8:00 pm
Online tracking is a hot topic these days, with the Obama administration and the Federal Trade Commission calling for tougher online privacy protections. The FTC recently issued a report urging voluntary practices for online businesses regarding data collection. Another popular proposal suggests building a universal do-not-track function into future Web browsers.
The proposed universal do-not-track tool won't be particularly robust, since it would simply make your browser send a "please don't track me" request to a website. Given the past misbehaviors of Internet behemoths such as Facebook and Google, it's hard to put much faith in a solution that depends on the best intentions of site owners.
Nevertheless, that’s the gist of the FTC’s appeal to Internet businesses for voluntary cooperation. Specifically, the agency suggests that privacy controls should be incorporated into new products and services by design (including that do-not-track feature in every browser, perhaps); that consumers should have simple ways to control their personal information; and that corporate data-collection practices should be transparent.
On balance, however, most of us pay via our eyeballs and our personal data for the majority of the information we access online. Targeted ads--sometimes laughably off-base, sometimes appropriate based on demographics--pop up on many sites in lieu of a paywall. If you really hate the ads, or if you don’t want to share anything about yourself and your browsing habits, you might shell out for ad-free access to a site.
The key here is the call for transparency. Sites commonly use cookies, a bit of code, to recognize you the next time you return. In some cases, cookies are an important part of the way the Web works. You couldn't click a Facebook "Like" button and have it work automatically, for example, without a cookie from the social network determining that you were signed in to Facebook.
But some cookies follow you around the Web. These tracking cookies, stashed in your browser, note your browsing habits and online activity, and can help a tracking company determine appropriate ads. Companies may serve up the ads directly, or sell your data.
The FTC’s proposals ask that privacy be the default, that sites’ collection habits be clear, and that browsers provide some protection from tracking--but remember, those are all just suggestions.
If you really want to stop sites from tracking you, and if you don’t want to rely on a site’s goodwill, you can turn to several browser add-ons that will shield your Web browsing habits from a host of advertising and behavioral-tracking technologies--or at least alert you to their interest, and enable you to grant or reject the request.
Here's a hands-on look at three tools designed to keep your browsing activity private.
AVG Do-Not-Track
AVG's free antivirus program for Windows now comes with a Do-Not-Track browser add-on that works with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
To get started, download AVG 2012 and then run an update to obtain the add-on. Current AVG users will receive the new tool as an automatic update. AVG automatically installs its Do-Not-Track feature in any of the three browsers available on your system.
Immediately after installation, decide whether you want AVG's Do-Not-Track tool to alert you whenever it detects a tracking cookie. To enable this feature, click the AVG icon and select Alert me when active trackers are detected. However, I don’t recommend activating the automatic alert, since it causes the AVG add-on to produce a pop-up window every time it detects cookies on a page; considering that almost every website has some form of tracking on it, dealing with these pop-ups can become tedious pretty quickly.
Settings: Although AVG automatically blocks a wide variety of ad networks by default, it doesn't block several social and Web-analytics features. Among the trackers it leaves unblocked are Comscore Beacon, Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugins, Google +1, Google Analytics, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Button, Twitter Button, and Yahoo Analytics. If you'd like to block some of those items, click the AVG Do-Not-Track icon, select Settings, and choose cookies under 'Block the following'.
AVG also adds a "do-not-track" header to your browser. This tells websites that honor the header to respect your wishes and not attempt to set any tracking cookies.
Browsing the Web: AVG's Do-Not-Track add-on keeps a running count of how many trackers it detects on a single page as that page loads. On PCWorld.com, for example, AVG found four trackers: two Web analytics trackers and two social buttons. The tool didn't block any of them, however, since by default it wasn't set to stop such cookies.
When AVG detects a cookie that it is set to block, the tool shows that cookie's name in the pop-up window with a line crossed through it. To see more detailed information about a tracker, you can hover over its entry in the pop-up window.
In the example shown here, AVG is telling me about the Bizo advertising cookie on the Wall Street Journal site. I can see that the cookie collects personal and nonpersonal data, and that it shares its data with third parties. To report on what kinds of data each tracking cookie collects, AVG pulls information from the privacy policy of the company setting the cookie.
Bottom line: In my tests, AVG's browser add-on appeared to work decently, but it was less robust than the other tools I tried. To its credit, AVG allows you to modify which cookies it blocks and which ones it doesn't. The downside, though, is that you must download and install the entire AVG antivirus program to get the Do-Not-Track tool. That's problematic, since AVG still has some bad habits such as installing browser toolbars and attempting to switch your browser's search provider by default.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253378/donottrack_tools_handson_showdown.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Friday, April 6, 2012
Minimize Your Exposure to Email Spoofing
Did someone really hijack your email address to mass-mail spam messages? Not necessarily. Here's what might have happened.
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Apr 5, 2012 8:00 pm
Illustration by Tom WhalenYour mother calls you to ask why you keep emailing her about "enhancements," and your coworkers complain that you won't stop sending them ads. Does this sound like you?
A friend of mine recently found himself in this situation, as he began to receive a deluge of "bounced" spam email--spam messages that seemed to have been sent from his email account to invalid email addresses and then returned to the supposed sender. But the email address in question is for an account that my friend rarely uses, and he did not knowingly use it to send any spammy email to anyone.
Initially he conjectured that spammers had somehow hijacked the email account. But even after he reset the email account's password, the bounce messages continued to flow in.
Why was this happening? Were the messages really coming from my friend's email address, or were their actual senders just using his email address as a spoofed return address in the email headers? What could he do to stop the annoying activity? Was his only option to obliterate the email account and start over with an untouched one?
Compromised or Spoofed?
If you face this situation, your first step should be to determine whether your email account--or your PC itself--is infected or compromised in some way. The most likely culprit is "spoofed" email headers, in which spammers change an email header's "from" address to make it appear as though the spam originated from your email account, and which in turn causes any bounced email alerts to go to your inbox.
Spammers spoof mail headers in email messages to fool spam filters into letting the message through. The tactic can also increase the spam message's seeming legitimacy: You're more likely to open email that purports to come from a person or a company you know than email that comes from a total stranger.
According to Will Irace, director of threat research and services at Fidelis Security Systems, spoofed email headers are quite common. In the case of my friend, Irace says, "If he's sure he's changed his password, then it's most likely as he suspects: the spammer is forging ('spoofing') his address and not actually sending the bouncing e-mails from his account."
Melissa Siems, senior director of product and solutions marketing for McAfee Cloud & Content Security adds: "Most accounts are more likely to be spoofed than compromised, particularly if the owner isn't using the account. If the account is in use, then it could have been compromised by malware or a phishing attack or even something more subvert like a root kit attack."
Resolving a Spoofed Email Account
Bounced email alerts sometimes contain details within their message headers that can help identify the messages' true origin. Most often, they come from PCs infected with a botnet or compromised in some other way, so your chances of tracking down the actual spam purveyor are very slim.
If you can see in the headers the IP address for the computer that sent the spam, you may be able to determine where the messages came from. You can then contact that PC's Internet service provider and have that IP address blocked. In the short term, that may stop the email spoofing and the bounced messages; but overall it's a bit of a fool's errand. The ISP may not help you; and even if it does, there's nothing to stop the spammer from simply spoofing your email account from a compromised PC that has a different IP address.
If you don't normally use the email account in question, the most sensible tactic is to delete the account and start anew. Of course, for business email accounts and for primary personal email accounts that you've used for years, you may decide that jettisoning the account isn't an acceptable option.
Avoiding Spoofed Email Accounts
Unfortunately, you can't do much to stop spoofing once it starts--or to avoid having spammers harvest your email address in the first place. Irace offers some sarcastic advice on how to make your email address harvest-proof: "Don't do anything interesting [online], and never share your email address with anybody [else]."
Nevertheless, Siems says that adopting some commonsense security practices can reduce your email account's exposure. For instance, she suggests, use your primary email account to communicate only with people you know and trust. If one of those contacts gets infected or compromised, attackers may still harvest and use your email address, but the risk should be much lower.
Also, when sharing an email address with a website or posting information in a public online forum, use a throwaway email account, such as one from Gmail or Hotmail, that you won't mind deleting later on.
These steps amount to hazard mitigation, though. There's simply no fool-proof way to prevent spammers from using your email address in spoofed message headers on spam email.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253305/minimize_your_exposure_to_email_spoofing.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Apr 5, 2012 8:00 pm
Illustration by Tom WhalenYour mother calls you to ask why you keep emailing her about "enhancements," and your coworkers complain that you won't stop sending them ads. Does this sound like you?
A friend of mine recently found himself in this situation, as he began to receive a deluge of "bounced" spam email--spam messages that seemed to have been sent from his email account to invalid email addresses and then returned to the supposed sender. But the email address in question is for an account that my friend rarely uses, and he did not knowingly use it to send any spammy email to anyone.
Initially he conjectured that spammers had somehow hijacked the email account. But even after he reset the email account's password, the bounce messages continued to flow in.
Why was this happening? Were the messages really coming from my friend's email address, or were their actual senders just using his email address as a spoofed return address in the email headers? What could he do to stop the annoying activity? Was his only option to obliterate the email account and start over with an untouched one?
Compromised or Spoofed?
If you face this situation, your first step should be to determine whether your email account--or your PC itself--is infected or compromised in some way. The most likely culprit is "spoofed" email headers, in which spammers change an email header's "from" address to make it appear as though the spam originated from your email account, and which in turn causes any bounced email alerts to go to your inbox.
Spammers spoof mail headers in email messages to fool spam filters into letting the message through. The tactic can also increase the spam message's seeming legitimacy: You're more likely to open email that purports to come from a person or a company you know than email that comes from a total stranger.
According to Will Irace, director of threat research and services at Fidelis Security Systems, spoofed email headers are quite common. In the case of my friend, Irace says, "If he's sure he's changed his password, then it's most likely as he suspects: the spammer is forging ('spoofing') his address and not actually sending the bouncing e-mails from his account."
Melissa Siems, senior director of product and solutions marketing for McAfee Cloud & Content Security adds: "Most accounts are more likely to be spoofed than compromised, particularly if the owner isn't using the account. If the account is in use, then it could have been compromised by malware or a phishing attack or even something more subvert like a root kit attack."
Resolving a Spoofed Email Account
Bounced email alerts sometimes contain details within their message headers that can help identify the messages' true origin. Most often, they come from PCs infected with a botnet or compromised in some other way, so your chances of tracking down the actual spam purveyor are very slim.
If you can see in the headers the IP address for the computer that sent the spam, you may be able to determine where the messages came from. You can then contact that PC's Internet service provider and have that IP address blocked. In the short term, that may stop the email spoofing and the bounced messages; but overall it's a bit of a fool's errand. The ISP may not help you; and even if it does, there's nothing to stop the spammer from simply spoofing your email account from a compromised PC that has a different IP address.
If you don't normally use the email account in question, the most sensible tactic is to delete the account and start anew. Of course, for business email accounts and for primary personal email accounts that you've used for years, you may decide that jettisoning the account isn't an acceptable option.
Avoiding Spoofed Email Accounts
Unfortunately, you can't do much to stop spoofing once it starts--or to avoid having spammers harvest your email address in the first place. Irace offers some sarcastic advice on how to make your email address harvest-proof: "Don't do anything interesting [online], and never share your email address with anybody [else]."
Nevertheless, Siems says that adopting some commonsense security practices can reduce your email account's exposure. For instance, she suggests, use your primary email account to communicate only with people you know and trust. If one of those contacts gets infected or compromised, attackers may still harvest and use your email address, but the risk should be much lower.
Also, when sharing an email address with a website or posting information in a public online forum, use a throwaway email account, such as one from Gmail or Hotmail, that you won't mind deleting later on.
These steps amount to hazard mitigation, though. There's simply no fool-proof way to prevent spammers from using your email address in spoofed message headers on spam email.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253305/minimize_your_exposure_to_email_spoofing.html#tk.hp_fv
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Improve Your Laptop's Battery Life
Every laptop owner wants to maximize the time between battery recharges. Here's how to achieve that goal with a few basic hardware and software tweaks; as a bonus, they may improve your notebook’s performance, too.
By Marco Chiappetta, PCWorld Apr 2, 2012 8:00 pm
Longer battery life: Every laptop user wants it, but few know how to get it without buying a new machine. Though laptop manufacturers have made great strides over the past few years in increasing the efficiency (and thus the battery life) of their products, even the most efficient modern machines don't last long enough for many users. What you may not realize, however, is that your system is probably loaded with integrated peripherals and bloatware that you'll never use but that consume resources and reduce battery life.
In this guide, we'll look at ways to reclaim those resources and maximize your laptop's battery life. Some of the steps may require venturing into the BIOS or UEFI of your notebook, while others are simpler software tweaks.
Know What Kills Your Battery
Before diving in, review why notebook batteries die in the first place. From the CPU to the trackpad, every component in a laptop consumes power. The amount consumed varies from component to component and also fluctuates in response to environmental conditions such as temperature and system workload. The greater the number of components or peripherals attached to your laptop and the more work you do with it, the quicker the battery will drain. Every program, driver, or service that loads, every background task that runs, and every electronic circuit that fires up saps a tiny bit of battery life. Consequently, reducing the number of attached or active peripherals and minimizing the load placed on the notebook will prolong battery life.
Unfortunately, some of the burdens that the manufacturer or vendor places by default on your laptop's battery may not be easy to track down and eliminate. As a result, you have to make an effort to minimize resource consumption and maximize battery life.
Try These Quick Fixes
PCWorld has posted simpler articles about how to extend your laptop battery life, and we won't cover the same items here. Keeping your laptop cool, dimming its display, and enabling system hibernation are all good ways to prolong battery life; but in this guide we'll be focusing on hard numbers that illustrate the potential benefits of certain modifications.
Tweak Your Hardware and Software
You can make a number of hardware and software changes to prolong your laptop's battery life. However, some of these tricks might cause your laptop to function poorly or even to cease functioning entirely, so please be careful. Though we tested all of these tweaks on our own laptop, we can't guarantee that they'll work with your unique hardware; recognizing this, PCWorld cannot be held liable for any deleterious changes that might occur as a result of following this guide. When in doubt, make a backup.
On the hardware side, disabling or disconnecting unused components and peripherals will go a long way toward improving battery life. On the software side, disabling or uninstalling unnecessary (but resource-hungry) services and applications will help minimize power consumption. In addition, updating drivers--video drivers in particular--sometimes helps by enabling the system to optimize or offload certain processes, such as video encoding/decoding, from the CPU to relatively power-efficient dedicated hardware in the graphics processor.
Windows' built-in System Configurations utility (MSCONFIG) lets you quickly prevent unnecessary, resource hogging programs from launching with the OS.
Since every program or service that loads in Windows consumes system resources, you should disable the ones you don't need or want. Start by launching the Windows System Configuration utility MSCONFIG: Click the Start button, type MSCONFIG in the Search field, and press Enter. In the resulting window, click the Startup tab to see all of the programs that start with Windows. You'll probably see a number of programs that you won't mind disabling. Our project notebook (an Acer Aspire) listed eight items as automatically starting with Windows: antivirus software, Steam, QuickTime, three Adobe Acrobat-related items, Skype, and Trillian.
Having your most frequently used applications start with Windows can be handy; but if they're not vital, it's best to disable automatic startup and just start them manually when you need them. On our project system, we disabled everything but the AV software. To disable items in MSCONFIG, simply untick the box next to each program, apply the changes, and restart the system.
To prevent a particular service from starting automatically with Windows, double-click the entry for it in the list maintained in the Services management utility, and change its startup type to 'Manual' in the associated drop-down menu.
You probably also have a handful of Windows Services that you can disable to conserve system resources. To see which services are launching automatically on your laptop, click the Start button, type SERVICES.MSC in the Search field, and press Enter. The services management utility will open and you'll see a huge list of services installed on the system.
The vast majority of services listed in the management utility are vital to the operation of your OS, and you shouldn't touch them. But if you scrutinize the list carefully, you'll undoubtedly find a few services that you can safely disable. We recommend going through the list one by one, reading the descriptions (performing Internet searches for research if necessary) and disabling only the services you're absolutely sure you don't need. On our project notebook, we found a handful of services that we could safely disable, including the tablet PC input service, remote desktop-related services, the BitLocker drive encryption service, and a Qualcomm Gobi Download Service associated with an integrated 3G modem that we had never used. Bear in mind that our specific decisions may not apply to your situation; if you use BitLocker or if your laptop is convertible into a tablet, you'll want to keep the related services enabled.
To disable a service in the manage utility, double-click it in the list and in the subsequent window that opens, and then change the startup type to Manual in the associated drop-down menu.
If your laptop's system BIOS or UEFI doesn't permit you to disable unused integrated peripherals, try right-clicking them in the Windows Device Manager and then disabling them.
Disabling unused hardware or integrated peripherals is another great way to conserve resources and maximize battery life. If your notebook comes with integrated Bluetooth or a cellular modem, for example, or even a wired ethernet port that you never use, disabling the hardware will reduce power consumption and prevent their drivers from loading every time Windows starts.
You may be able to disable integrated peripherals in your laptop through the system BIOS or UEFI, or through Device Manager. The preferred method is to use the system BIOS, but many laptops don't provide the necessary options to take this route. To see whether your laptop does, power it off, turn it back on, and during the POST sequence (before Windows begins to load) press the necessary key to enter the BIOS or UEFI (it's usually DEL or F2). Once you're in the system BIOS, navigate to the Integrated Peripherals menu (if it's available) and see whether the piece of hardware you'd like to disable is listed there. If it is, select the item and disable it.
If your system BIOS doesn't provide the mechanisms necessary to disable unused hardware, you can disable them instead through the Windows Device manager. Note, however, that disabling hardware in Device Manager doesn't power it down; instead, the operation prevents the hardware's driver from loading with the OS. Though not an ideal method, preventing the driver from loading does saves memory, as well as preventing the hardware from initializing.
To disable a piece of hardware in Device Manger, click the Start button, type Device Manager in the Search field, and press Enter. In the resulting Device Manager window, expand the tree to find the appropriate piece of hardware, right-click it, and choose Disable from the menu.
Another quick and easy hardware tweak that can save significant energy is lowering your notebook's screen brightness. We'd suggest reducing the brightness to the lowest level that is still easy to read and comfortable for your eyes.
Putting the Tweaks to the Test
To gauge the improvement in battery life that our test laptop achieved as a result of the software and hardware-related modifications described in this article, we ran Futuremark's PowerMark utility on our Core i3-powered Acer Aspire test laptop before and after making the tweaks. We tested the laptop in three different configurations: unmodified, with maximum screen brightness and all hardware and software enabled; modified with software tweaks to disable unnecessary startup items and services, but with no hardware tweaks; and modified with both software tweaks and with unneeded hardware disabled and screen brightness lowered to 75 percent. Here are the results:
Unmodified laptop (100% screen brightness, all peripherals enabled)
Modified laptop (software tweaks alone)
Modified laptop (software and hardware tweaks, 75% screen brightness)
Battery life
3:16
3:28
4:19
Times are listed in hours:minutes.
In its unmodified state, the laptop delivered a respectable 3 hours, 16 minutes of battery life, according to PowerMark. After we performed a few simple software tweaks, the tested battery life rose to 3 hours, 28 minutes. But the biggest gains came after we fully tweaked the notebook and disabled unneeded hardware. With both the software and hardware-related alterations in place, the laptop's battery life improved by more than an hour, to 4 hours, 16 minutes; that's a battery-life increase of better than 32 percent.
In addition to maximizing battery life, correctly performing these system tweaks may increase your laptop's performance. Disabling unnecessary hardware and software also reduces boot times and frees up CPU resources and memory, all of which should increase overall system performance and enhance your computing experience. May your laptop live long and prosper!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/252373/improve_your_laptops_battery_life.html#tk.hp_ess
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
By Marco Chiappetta, PCWorld Apr 2, 2012 8:00 pm
Longer battery life: Every laptop user wants it, but few know how to get it without buying a new machine. Though laptop manufacturers have made great strides over the past few years in increasing the efficiency (and thus the battery life) of their products, even the most efficient modern machines don't last long enough for many users. What you may not realize, however, is that your system is probably loaded with integrated peripherals and bloatware that you'll never use but that consume resources and reduce battery life.
In this guide, we'll look at ways to reclaim those resources and maximize your laptop's battery life. Some of the steps may require venturing into the BIOS or UEFI of your notebook, while others are simpler software tweaks.
Know What Kills Your Battery
Before diving in, review why notebook batteries die in the first place. From the CPU to the trackpad, every component in a laptop consumes power. The amount consumed varies from component to component and also fluctuates in response to environmental conditions such as temperature and system workload. The greater the number of components or peripherals attached to your laptop and the more work you do with it, the quicker the battery will drain. Every program, driver, or service that loads, every background task that runs, and every electronic circuit that fires up saps a tiny bit of battery life. Consequently, reducing the number of attached or active peripherals and minimizing the load placed on the notebook will prolong battery life.
Unfortunately, some of the burdens that the manufacturer or vendor places by default on your laptop's battery may not be easy to track down and eliminate. As a result, you have to make an effort to minimize resource consumption and maximize battery life.
Try These Quick Fixes
PCWorld has posted simpler articles about how to extend your laptop battery life, and we won't cover the same items here. Keeping your laptop cool, dimming its display, and enabling system hibernation are all good ways to prolong battery life; but in this guide we'll be focusing on hard numbers that illustrate the potential benefits of certain modifications.
Tweak Your Hardware and Software
You can make a number of hardware and software changes to prolong your laptop's battery life. However, some of these tricks might cause your laptop to function poorly or even to cease functioning entirely, so please be careful. Though we tested all of these tweaks on our own laptop, we can't guarantee that they'll work with your unique hardware; recognizing this, PCWorld cannot be held liable for any deleterious changes that might occur as a result of following this guide. When in doubt, make a backup.
On the hardware side, disabling or disconnecting unused components and peripherals will go a long way toward improving battery life. On the software side, disabling or uninstalling unnecessary (but resource-hungry) services and applications will help minimize power consumption. In addition, updating drivers--video drivers in particular--sometimes helps by enabling the system to optimize or offload certain processes, such as video encoding/decoding, from the CPU to relatively power-efficient dedicated hardware in the graphics processor.
Windows' built-in System Configurations utility (MSCONFIG) lets you quickly prevent unnecessary, resource hogging programs from launching with the OS.
Since every program or service that loads in Windows consumes system resources, you should disable the ones you don't need or want. Start by launching the Windows System Configuration utility MSCONFIG: Click the Start button, type MSCONFIG in the Search field, and press Enter. In the resulting window, click the Startup tab to see all of the programs that start with Windows. You'll probably see a number of programs that you won't mind disabling. Our project notebook (an Acer Aspire) listed eight items as automatically starting with Windows: antivirus software, Steam, QuickTime, three Adobe Acrobat-related items, Skype, and Trillian.
Having your most frequently used applications start with Windows can be handy; but if they're not vital, it's best to disable automatic startup and just start them manually when you need them. On our project system, we disabled everything but the AV software. To disable items in MSCONFIG, simply untick the box next to each program, apply the changes, and restart the system.
To prevent a particular service from starting automatically with Windows, double-click the entry for it in the list maintained in the Services management utility, and change its startup type to 'Manual' in the associated drop-down menu.
You probably also have a handful of Windows Services that you can disable to conserve system resources. To see which services are launching automatically on your laptop, click the Start button, type SERVICES.MSC in the Search field, and press Enter. The services management utility will open and you'll see a huge list of services installed on the system.
The vast majority of services listed in the management utility are vital to the operation of your OS, and you shouldn't touch them. But if you scrutinize the list carefully, you'll undoubtedly find a few services that you can safely disable. We recommend going through the list one by one, reading the descriptions (performing Internet searches for research if necessary) and disabling only the services you're absolutely sure you don't need. On our project notebook, we found a handful of services that we could safely disable, including the tablet PC input service, remote desktop-related services, the BitLocker drive encryption service, and a Qualcomm Gobi Download Service associated with an integrated 3G modem that we had never used. Bear in mind that our specific decisions may not apply to your situation; if you use BitLocker or if your laptop is convertible into a tablet, you'll want to keep the related services enabled.
To disable a service in the manage utility, double-click it in the list and in the subsequent window that opens, and then change the startup type to Manual in the associated drop-down menu.
If your laptop's system BIOS or UEFI doesn't permit you to disable unused integrated peripherals, try right-clicking them in the Windows Device Manager and then disabling them.
Disabling unused hardware or integrated peripherals is another great way to conserve resources and maximize battery life. If your notebook comes with integrated Bluetooth or a cellular modem, for example, or even a wired ethernet port that you never use, disabling the hardware will reduce power consumption and prevent their drivers from loading every time Windows starts.
You may be able to disable integrated peripherals in your laptop through the system BIOS or UEFI, or through Device Manager. The preferred method is to use the system BIOS, but many laptops don't provide the necessary options to take this route. To see whether your laptop does, power it off, turn it back on, and during the POST sequence (before Windows begins to load) press the necessary key to enter the BIOS or UEFI (it's usually DEL or F2). Once you're in the system BIOS, navigate to the Integrated Peripherals menu (if it's available) and see whether the piece of hardware you'd like to disable is listed there. If it is, select the item and disable it.
If your system BIOS doesn't provide the mechanisms necessary to disable unused hardware, you can disable them instead through the Windows Device manager. Note, however, that disabling hardware in Device Manager doesn't power it down; instead, the operation prevents the hardware's driver from loading with the OS. Though not an ideal method, preventing the driver from loading does saves memory, as well as preventing the hardware from initializing.
To disable a piece of hardware in Device Manger, click the Start button, type Device Manager in the Search field, and press Enter. In the resulting Device Manager window, expand the tree to find the appropriate piece of hardware, right-click it, and choose Disable from the menu.
Another quick and easy hardware tweak that can save significant energy is lowering your notebook's screen brightness. We'd suggest reducing the brightness to the lowest level that is still easy to read and comfortable for your eyes.
Putting the Tweaks to the Test
To gauge the improvement in battery life that our test laptop achieved as a result of the software and hardware-related modifications described in this article, we ran Futuremark's PowerMark utility on our Core i3-powered Acer Aspire test laptop before and after making the tweaks. We tested the laptop in three different configurations: unmodified, with maximum screen brightness and all hardware and software enabled; modified with software tweaks to disable unnecessary startup items and services, but with no hardware tweaks; and modified with both software tweaks and with unneeded hardware disabled and screen brightness lowered to 75 percent. Here are the results:
Unmodified laptop (100% screen brightness, all peripherals enabled)
Modified laptop (software tweaks alone)
Modified laptop (software and hardware tweaks, 75% screen brightness)
Battery life
3:16
3:28
4:19
Times are listed in hours:minutes.
In its unmodified state, the laptop delivered a respectable 3 hours, 16 minutes of battery life, according to PowerMark. After we performed a few simple software tweaks, the tested battery life rose to 3 hours, 28 minutes. But the biggest gains came after we fully tweaked the notebook and disabled unneeded hardware. With both the software and hardware-related alterations in place, the laptop's battery life improved by more than an hour, to 4 hours, 16 minutes; that's a battery-life increase of better than 32 percent.
In addition to maximizing battery life, correctly performing these system tweaks may increase your laptop's performance. Disabling unnecessary hardware and software also reduces boot times and frees up CPU resources and memory, all of which should increase overall system performance and enhance your computing experience. May your laptop live long and prosper!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/252373/improve_your_laptops_battery_life.html#tk.hp_ess
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
Monday, April 2, 2012
Online Oversharing Can be Dangerous
Online oversharing can be downright unsafe, as an app making headlines for being creepy and undermining the privacy of women shows.
A geo-location based app called Girls Around Me shows users a radar overlaid on top of a Google Map, “out of which throbs numerous holographic women posing like pole dancers in a perpetual state of undress,” Cult of Mac reports.
These women who have used their mobile devices to check-in to locations near you aren’t hookers or people looking to hook up. They’re regular women who have innocuously shared their personal information, which then has been mined by technology and then served up to strangers in real time.
The app makes use of publicly visible Facebook profiles coupled with Foursquare check-ins. So not only can you see where specific women are hanging out, you also get their pictures from Facebook along with information from their profiles such as their full names, ages, relationship status and whatever else they have shared with the world.
Playing around with the app, Cult of Mac’s John Brownlee writes, “Okay, so here’s Zoe. Most of her information is visible, so I now know her full name. I can see at a glance that she’s single, that she is 24, that she went to Stoneham High School and Bunker Hill Community College, that she likes to travel, that her favorite book is Gone With The Wind and her favorite musician is Tori Amos, and that she’s a liberal. I can see the names of her family and friends. I can see her birthday.”
Image from Cult of MacThe fact the app shares these details with strangers is unnerving, but what’s really disturbing is that “Zoe” shared these details with the world in the first place.
People love sharing on their social networks, to a fault.
When PCWorld recently posted a story that offered tips to make the recent issue of employers snooping through prospective employees’ Facebook accounts a non-issue some people bristled at the idea of having to edit or curate social media posts for the eyes of others.
But here’s the reality: You don’t know who is lurking out there, so be careful.
How would you like it if some strange man was able to determine the location of your daughter, sister, wife or mother, then go to where she is and, armed with her personal information as well as likes and dislikes, was able to initiate a conversation?
Since Cult of Mac’s story posted, Foursquare has put the ax to the the app’s API access to its data, effectively rendering the app useless.
It doesn’t matter. What the Girls Around Me app makes crystal clear is that people share too much online. Even if this particular app fades away because of the media spotlight or Foursquare’s response others like it will inevitably pop up, or nefarious individuals will pursue this kind of profiling on their own.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
A geo-location based app called Girls Around Me shows users a radar overlaid on top of a Google Map, “out of which throbs numerous holographic women posing like pole dancers in a perpetual state of undress,” Cult of Mac reports.
These women who have used their mobile devices to check-in to locations near you aren’t hookers or people looking to hook up. They’re regular women who have innocuously shared their personal information, which then has been mined by technology and then served up to strangers in real time.
The app makes use of publicly visible Facebook profiles coupled with Foursquare check-ins. So not only can you see where specific women are hanging out, you also get their pictures from Facebook along with information from their profiles such as their full names, ages, relationship status and whatever else they have shared with the world.
Playing around with the app, Cult of Mac’s John Brownlee writes, “Okay, so here’s Zoe. Most of her information is visible, so I now know her full name. I can see at a glance that she’s single, that she is 24, that she went to Stoneham High School and Bunker Hill Community College, that she likes to travel, that her favorite book is Gone With The Wind and her favorite musician is Tori Amos, and that she’s a liberal. I can see the names of her family and friends. I can see her birthday.”
Image from Cult of MacThe fact the app shares these details with strangers is unnerving, but what’s really disturbing is that “Zoe” shared these details with the world in the first place.
People love sharing on their social networks, to a fault.
When PCWorld recently posted a story that offered tips to make the recent issue of employers snooping through prospective employees’ Facebook accounts a non-issue some people bristled at the idea of having to edit or curate social media posts for the eyes of others.
But here’s the reality: You don’t know who is lurking out there, so be careful.
How would you like it if some strange man was able to determine the location of your daughter, sister, wife or mother, then go to where she is and, armed with her personal information as well as likes and dislikes, was able to initiate a conversation?
Since Cult of Mac’s story posted, Foursquare has put the ax to the the app’s API access to its data, effectively rendering the app useless.
It doesn’t matter. What the Girls Around Me app makes crystal clear is that people share too much online. Even if this particular app fades away because of the media spotlight or Foursquare’s response others like it will inevitably pop up, or nefarious individuals will pursue this kind of profiling on their own.
By Friendly Computers Copyright: 2010-01-28
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