How to Get the Gmail Address You Want
So you want to sign up for Gmail (or change your username), but the Holy Grail of email addresses — Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com — is taken.
With more than 350 million users, it's hard to grab a unique username on Gmail these days — especially one you can use for the long run. (SorryXxXButt3rflyCuTee@gmail.com, it's just not going to work out.)
But don't despair entirely. Here are some tips for generating a viable and unique email address you'll still want to use in three years.
1. Don't Frustrate Yourself
Even if your desired address is no longer in use, you can't get it. Gmail won't let an identity be re-registered — ever. Instead of getting frustrated, move on to other options.
2. To Dot or Not to Dot
Despite the abundance of email addresses with firstname.lastname formatting, Gmail doesn't distinguish between them. Emails like John.Smith and johnsmith and jo.hn.sm.ith are all the same username in Gmail's eyes. This can work to your advantage or disadvantage.
If the email address you want is already taken in one format, it's taken in all of them. But, with a little creative dot placement, you can turn an unclaimed username into one that works for you.
For example, if RonaldCCar@gmail.com is already taken, you can turn rccar@gmail.com intoR.C.Car@gmail.com.
3. Get Creative
If you have a common name, try using your initials, middle name, or a nickname (though keep it memorable and professional). Some people have creative amalgamations of their names; Brandon Anderson becomes Branderson, for example. You can even add your profession in, likeMarketer.Steve@gmail.com. Just avoid things that may be a little too weird or unprofessional for use down the line.
We also advise against putting your company in your personal username. You probably won't beSterlingCooper.Peggy@gmail.com forever.
4. Register Your Own Domain
If this still isn't working for you, you can register your own domain and use Google Apps instead.
Google Apps for Domains offers all functionality of a standard Google account (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Google+, etc.), but it's mapped to a custom website. It costs about $10 to register your own domain and then set up Gmail as your email client.
Now you've got a cool email address like Jane@JaneDoe.com, but with all the Gmail goodness you're used to.
5. Route Another Service Through Gmail
If you don't want the trouble of setting up a custom domain but still want all those Googly features, you can set up an email address through a free service and route it through Gmail.
About.me is one great option. It comes with a handy About.me profile, which is a great web space for displaying your bio or portfolio. You can sync this to any Google account and useyourname@about.me as a Gmail address, assuming it's available.
Got any ideas we've missed? Let us know in the comments. And if you're already a Gmail power user, check out these tips and tricks to get the most out of your inbox.
4 Films That Make Hacking Cooler Than it Actually Is
At least, that’s what Hollywood seems to think.
The reality is much less interesting. And of course, much more illegal. Examples can be found here on just why it doesn’t pay to hack.
But the beauty of cinema is that it looks really cool. Here are 4 films that make hacking seem like a viable career alternative…
Die Hard 4
Bruce Willis has taken on everyone you can think of. Now it’s the cybercriminals turn to face the music. Hacking into America’s infrastructure, this film highlights just how a country can be brought to a standstill using a computer terminal a little ingenuity.
Hacker line: “It's not a system, it's a country!”
Swordfish
Hugh Jackman is offered a ludicrous amount of money to hack into a government system. It might seem like a really great way to go, but it does come with drawbacks. Namely, said government will be after you, meaning you probably won’t be able to stay in one place for very long. The internet might be a place you can get lost in, but your physical self can still pick up the tab.
Hacker line: “Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.”
Sneakers
An all-star cast are professional hackers, paid by companies to break into their systems so they can prevent people from breaking into their systems. Actually, this seems like a sensible career option. That is, until, you find something that people don’t want you to find out. Then it’s nothing but trouble.
Hacker line: “The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons. “
Hackers
Possibly the film that makes hacking appear to be the coolest thing you could ever do. When hackers are framed for a crime they didn’t commit by a master hacker, a group of teenagers are forced to work together and repair the damage done. With the stunning visuals, it makes hacking look colourful and surreal. Instead of the mundane reality of a screen being filled with reams of code.
Hacker line: “Hack the planet!”
25 Ways to Promote Your Website or Blog
I have hand picked all of these resources based on their usefulness,
rate of success and overall quality. I have written this article to help
people find new sources of traffic for their website or blog and to
shed some light on some of the best resources related to each method of
promotion. I hope you find this article informative and useful! Enjoy!
Article directories are a wonderful way to get traffic and backlinks
to your website. There are many well established article directories
that have been proven to get websites traffic. People search for
articles in different categories and after reading the article they
usually follow a link at the bottom of the article to your website.
www.GoArticles.comwww.eHow.com
www.EasyArticles.com
www.ArticleDashBoard.com
www.Article99.com
www.ValuableContent.com
www.EzineArticles.com
2. Business Directories
Posting in business directories is still an effective way to get
backlinks and small amounts of traffic. Most directory sites have many
listings that are organized into. Being that there are so many business
directories, the best way to find one related to your site would be to
do a Google search or to use the websites below to find them.
www.dmoz.orgdir.yahoo.com
www.lii.org
www.stpt.com/directory
www.business.com
www.cannylink.com
3. Classifieds
Classifieds are a common way to easily make posts for free, and reach
large amounts of people. They tend to work better for business or
service-based websites, but you can also drive traffic to other types of
sites as well
www.Kijiji.comwww.craigslist.org
classifieds.myspace.com
classifieds.yahoo.com
4. Forums
Forums are another good way to get backlinks and traffic, but you
need to contribute to the forums and not just spam them with your links.
I recommend becoming an active member of forums that are related to
your site, as well as including your website link in your forum
signature. By making intelligent and informative posts people will be
inclined to check out the link in your signature because youve built
interest about yourself.
The best way to do this is to manually search for forums related to your site and then sign up to start posting.
Social networking sites are often overlooked as a way to market a
website or blog. Having lots of friends and access to groups can be a
good way to contact a lot of people in an easy and efficient manner.
Most social networking sites also have forums and classifieds that you
can post in.
www.myspace.comwww.facebook.com
www.linkedin.com
6. Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites can be an amazing way to promote your
website. What a lot of people will do is write a killer article and then
submit it to the social bookmarking sites to drive traffic to that
article, hoping it will get bookmarked a lot.
www.netscape.com www.digg.com
del.icio.us
www.furl.net
www.stumbleupon.com
www.reddit.com
ma.gnolia.com
de.lirio.us
myweb2.search.yahoo.com
www.simpy.com
www.newsvine.com
7. Search Engines
This is probably one of the most difficult ways to market a site, but
also one of the most popular ways due to the fact that the traffic you
get can be extremely targeted to exactly what your site offers. This is
especially important for sites that sell a product and are looking for a
high conversion rate. It is usually better to start off targeting niche
markets and low competition long tail keywords. Ranking well on Google
for a phrase like ‘graphic design’ in the search engines would be
extremely difficult to do, so look for longer keywords or more detailed
ones.
www.google.comwww.yahoo.com
www.msn.com
8. Word of Mouth
This is a very basic and old school way of marketing but it has
remained because it really is effective. All you have to do is tell all
your family, friends and co-workers about your new site or blog and let
them do the work! Be sure to have business cards on hand to give out to anyone you speak with.
9. Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC advertising takes a lot of studying to do right, and can cost a
decent amount of money, but if your site is well designed and converts
well, or you are just looking for traffic, it can be a very powerful
marketing tool when done right.
adwords.google.comsearchmarketing.yahoo.com
adCenter.Microsoft.com
10. Banner Advertising
The difficulty in banner advertising is simply creating a very
alluring banner design in the amount of space specified. Some sites
dont let you create animated banners, but if you have a very
intriguing static banner on a good site it can get you traffic for sure.
The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs
related to your site and contact them for a banner exchange.
11. Text Link Advertising
Text link advertising is usually cheap and can bring in lots of traffic, but the traffic tends to be rather unspecific – which is ok sometimes. I find it best to look for sites related to your website to buy text links spots on. Or, if you are just looking for tons of traffic, you can go to major text link sites that offer spots on very large websites.
www.text-link-ads.com
www.adbrite.com
www.adengage.com
12. Print Advertising
Print advertising can be very expensive, but is especially useful
when advertising in a specific location. For example, if you are opening
a new restaurant in a city, sending out flyers is a surefire way to get
people to your website and restaurant. You could also drop off business
cards or flyers at local stores and start offering your services to
local people.
www.4over4.comwww.modernpostcard.com
www.vistaprint.com
www.clubflyers.com
www.alocalprinter.com
13. Portfolio Sites
There are many websites that host portfolios of designers and
artists. By submitting your work to their sites you will often get a lot
of exposure to your own site by way of a link.
www.behance.netwww.altpick.com
www.portfolios.com
www.deviantart.com
14. Tutorial Sites
Submitting tutorials is a great way to get traffic to your website
via a link. A lot of designers submit tutorials to sites like the ones
below, and get a lot of exposure. Most of these tutorials sites are very
well ranked so getting a link on them can be very good for your website
or blog.
www.pixel2life.comwww.good-tutorials.com
www.tutorialoutpost.com
15. Link Baiting
Linking baiting is when you write or post something that has the
potential to be blogged about, linked or bookmarked a lot. Good content
in general will help your website or blog out a lot, but you can step it
up a notch by producing videos or articles specifically for link
baiting.
16. Contests
People love entering contest, especially if there is a desirable
prize. Contest prizes range in types. Some sites will offer you exposure
and links and other sites will offer money or actual physical prizes.
The key to a successful contest is obviously getting lots of people to
enter, so make sure you promote your contest as much as you can on
forums, classifieds and more. Also, dont be afraid to enter contests
for a chance to win some money or prizes, yourself!
17. Link Exchanges
This is arguably one of the most important ways to rank well for
keywords and bring traffic to your website. It is important to exchange
links or get one-way links from relevant sites. Make sure you are using
an important keyword because your links anchor text and not a word like
‘click here’ or something you dont want to rank well for in search
engines.
The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs
related to your site and contact them for a link exchange. Also, check
out the two sites below.
www.seopen.com/seopen-tools/blogsearch.google.com
18. Email Marketing
Email marketing can be very beneficial if done well. You do not want
to be a spammer or buy lists of emails, though. The way to work email
marketing is to have an opt-in email form on your website where users
can sign up to receive emails and special offers. Offering a free e-book
or tips is a good way to get people to sign up. Once they are signed up
you can send emails once in a while to bring them back to your site or
to promote something.
www.aweber.comwww.icontact.com
19. Viral Marketing
This is the hottest new way to market a website, but it is not easy!
You have probably heard about all these YouTube videos getting millions
of views, and articles on Digg getting thousands of hits. If you can
think up a really clever, funny or useful idea and tie it into your
website via a link or some other way, you can drive incredible amounts
of traffic to your site with very little money or possibly none at all.
20. Videos
Creating videos has become very popular since the creation of YouTube
and other video-based sites. This ties into viral marketing and is a
good way to get people interested in your blog or website. It is most
common to show or say the URL of your website at the beginning and/or
end of a video, or tie it into your video site profile some how.
www.youtube.comvideo.google.com
vids.myspace.com
video.search.yahoo.com
video.msn.com
video.aol.com
www.metacafe.com
21. Podcasting
This is basically creating audio files and then letting your users
download or stream them via a link on your website or blog or via RSS
feeds. This is a good alternative to creating videos if you don’t have
a video camera or don’t like being on film. I have seen many sites
successfully offer audio downloads as a way of bringing users a large
amount of information quickly. You can even post on craigslist.com and
hire voice over talent for your podcasts at affordable prices.
22. Blogs
Blogs are a great way to reach a lot of people in a fast manner. They
take a lot of work, and to make a blog really effective they need to be
updated with fresh content at least several times a week. A lot of
websites will have a blog in addition to a main website as a sort of
news system for their main site, or just as a way to drive traffic to a
website.
www.wordpress.comwww.blogger.com
www.twitter.com
www.squidoo.com
www.tumblr.com
23. eBooks
eBooks have become very popular and they tend to spread well in
downloading communities. You can even sell your eBook on eBay, via a
website or just offer it as a gift to get people to sign up for your
newsletter.
24. Press Releases
Press releases can be an efficient way to get media attention if your
website or product is newsworthy enough. There are several websites you
can do this on. However, more commonly press releases are mailed,
faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio
stations, television stations, and/or television networks.
25. Networking
Networking can have many benefits to promoting your site. I am always
adding people on instant messaging services and talking to people
related to my field. By networking and making friends in the business
you can learn from each other and help each other which will benefit
your site.
The best way to do this is to meet people in forums or on sites
related to yours and chat via instant messengers. I usually run 5
different instant messengers that are all filled with business contacts
and friends.
www.aim.comwww.skype.com
messenger.yahoo.com
get.live.com/messenger/overview
www.icq.com
Top 10 Best Free Cloud Storage
Cloud Storage has become an inevitable term in Computing lately. With
ever increasing demand of data storage each day, Cloud Storage is likely
to be the safest way to store and backup your data.
Amazon Cloud Drive
Best Free Cloud Storage
DropBox
- Dropbox is one of the most popular Free Cloud Storage providers which is available for both desktop top as well as web platforms
- Dropbox provides 2 GB of free space. Premium Plans start from 10$ per 100 GB space.
- Flexible file sync on the Dropbox servers. It doesn’t sync well with files present on the client servers
- Dropbox is available on all popular OS platforms like Windows, Mac, iOS and Android
Google Drive
- Google Drive is a relatively new Free Cloud Storage provide which made it’s debut release on April 24th this year.
- Google Drives provides a whopping 5 GB of Free Space and 100 GB for 5$ , almost half the price of Dropbox services
- Google Drive can perfectly sync with almost every Google service like Docs.
- Google Drive is available on Windows, Mac and Android only
SkyDrive
- One of the most loved features of SkyDrive Cloud Storage is it’s astoundingly high Free Storage Space of 25 GB. But recently, it was dropped sharply to 7 GB for new customers
- Additional Space costs around 0.5$ per one GB
- SkyDrive only supports Microsoft and iOS platforms
Amazon Cloud Drive
- Cloud Drive is a Cloud Storage service from e-commerce giant Amazon. It offers 5GB Free Space
- Perfect File Sync and Backup Scheduling
- Features an online Cloud player which supports few Video and Music formats
- Premium Services are priced extremely high. 1 GB extension in addition to your Free Space costs around 1$ Per a GB
Box
- Box is one of the most popular Free Cloud Storage. It offers a whopping 50GB of Free storage Space.
- It’s major thumbs down is it’s incapability to support file sync with your device
- It is available for Android as well as iOS handheld platforms
SugarSync
- The Perfect File Syncing Cloud Storage Provider. It provides 5 GB of Free Space
- You can get additional bonus Space for free by referring your friends to the service
- Perfect Synchronization with any folder and filesystem, doesn’t require you to place in certain server side folders
Apple iCloud
- iCloud is the latest Cloud Storage Solution from Apple Cloud Computing network
- iCloud provides 5GB of Free Space. iCloud isn’t actually a alternative storage for your iOS devices. It synchronizes your multiple iOS device and your personal computer powered by Windows or Mac
Adrive
- Adrive is comparatively less popular Free Cloud Storage provider
- It Offers 50 GB of Free Space ! Too Good to Believe, Right?
- Very Poor Support, Since it is just a start up, there are many bugs out there and very least rated by it’s frustrated users.
Benefits of Cloud Storage
- Data Backup: Free Cloud Storage provides an intuitive way to backup your files . You no longer need to worry about losing your daughter’s birthday photos or your favorite music, With Free Cloud Storage, you can recover your files anytime during crashes and virus invasion.
- Data Storage: You may not be concerned about Data Storage if you are an home user, but Large Data Networks require huge storage devices which require a lot of manual administration. Cloud Storage lets you access virtual data literally with a click of a button
- Portability: Cloud Storage brings you the power of the cloud. You can access your data from anywhere in the world
- Cost Effective: Many companies offer Free Cloud Storage which are of course restricted to limited Bandwidth and Storage limits.
Tag :
Cloud
Transfer Contacts from one Cell Phone to another
Did you just buy a new mobile phone? The first thing that you’ll
probably is copy all the phone numbers and other contact information
from the old phone to your new cell.
How to Transfer Contacts another Mobile Phone
The process may
vary depending upon the phone support cloud but broadly, there are
three options. I will discuss the most popular mobile platforms like
BlackBerry, iPhone, HTC, Nokia, Windows Phone, Samsung and Android.
1. SIM based transfer
If the address book of your old phone is relatively small and you only want to copy the phone numbers to your new cell phone, simply use the SIM card.
Just copy the phone numbers from the old phone’s memory
to your SIM card, insert this SIM card into your new phone and then copy
the phone numbers in your new phone’s memory. Here’s a detailed guide on how to transfer contacts from the Nokia to an iPhone using the SIM.
2. Transfer Contacts via your Computer
The SIM card based approach is good only for transferring basic phone numbers but if your phone’s address book includes long names, email addresses, and other details of your contacts, you need some sort of software to help you with the transfer process.For instance, if you have a Nokia phone but are shifting to a BlackBerry or an iPhone, you may use Nokia’s Ovi Suite application to copy your phone’s address book to Microsoft Outlook on your desktop computer. You can then use BlackBerry’s Desktop Manager software, or iTunes in the case of iPhone, or Kies for Samsung Galaxy, to transfer contacts from the PC (Outlook) to your new phone’s address book.
Windows Mobile users, like Samsung Omnia or HTC HD2, may again use Microsoft’s Device Center (or ActiveSync for XP) to copy their phone address book to the desktop via Outlook. If you are simply switching from one Windows Phone to another, you can transfer contacts via the cloud itself using Microsoft’s My Phone service.
If you have an old CDMA based mobile phone from, say Samsung or LG, you can use the free BitPim utility to copy the phone book to your computer. BitPim is available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines and it can export address books in standard vCard format (.vcf) that you can easily import into Outlook and other contact managers.
3. Transfer Phone book “Over the Air”
If you have an Internet enabled phone, you can easily copy contacts from your old phone to the new phone over-the-air without even requiring a computer.An online service called Mobical is free and it works with most mobile phones from Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and so on. You first need to setup Mobical on the old phone and it will create a backup of your phone contacts in the cloud. Now setup Mobical on the new phone using the same credentials and it will automatically download all the contacts from the cloud to your new phone.
Then there’s Google Sync, a cloud based service that works with BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia and most other mobile phones that are SyncML capable. Google Sync keeps your phone’s address book in sync with your Google Contacts. Therefore, if you now install Google Sync on both your old and new phone, they’ll have the same phone book entries automatically.
Android based phones can sync with Google Contacts out of the box – you can then export Google Contacts out as a CSV file and copy it to any other phone manually via the desktop tools. HTC even offers a desktop utility called HTC Sync that you may use to synchronize Outlook contacts with your Android phone. This will be handy when you want to copy your HTC’s phone book to another phone that is not web-enabled.
Tag :
Tips and Tricks
Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox
You have your files, photos and documents on your home computer that you would like to access from other locations on different devices. Dropbox has been the de-facto choice for long but that could potentially change as Microsoft and Google have just entered the arena with the launch of Windows Live SkyDrive and Google Drive respectively.
The three services are very similar – you get online storage (you can access your files anywhere) and file synchronization – edit a document on one computer and the changes are propagated to all your other computers almost instantly.
SkyDrive vs Google Drive vs Dropbox
Supported Platforms
Dropbox is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, BlackBerry and
Android devices. Windows Live SkyDrive is available for Windows, Mac,
iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone devices while Google Drive is currently
available for PC, Mac and Android phones /tablets. All services do offer
a web mobile version that can help you access your files from the web
browser of any mobile phone.
The other important difference is that Dropbox is also available for Windows XP and Linux while SkyDrive is not.
Dropbox offers 2-3 GB of free online storage storage, Google Drive offers 5 GB while SkyDrive, if you are new, offers 7 GB of storage space.
You can upload files of any size to Dropbox through the desktop client while that limit is 2 GB in the case of SkyDrive. Both SkyDrive and Dropbox let you upload files up to 300 MB from the web browser while that limit is 10 GB in the case of Google Drive.
Storage Plans
If you are running out of storage space on SkyDrive, you can buy an additional 20 GB for about $10 per year or 50 GB for $25 per year. Dropbox Pro offers 50 GB of storage space for $99 per year while Google Drive offers an extra 20 GB for $2.49 per month.
Built-in File Viewers
Both SkyDrive and Dropbox web apps have built-in file viewers for most common file formats including Office documents, PDFs, videos and images. Google Docs supports even more formats – including Photoshop mockups and AutoCAD drawings – and no wonder that you can also view these files in Google Drive without additional software.
Unfortunately, maybe because of licensing issues, none of these drives will stream MP3 songs in the browser – you will to have download the MP3 file locally to play the audio.
File History
Your free Dropbox account will save any file’s history for 30 days meaning if you accidentally delete or change a file, you can easily restore the previous working version for the next 30 days. SkyDrive and Google Drive also store the previous versions of all files though they have not exactly specified how many reversions are preserved.
If you delete a file or folder inside SkyDrive web app, it’s gone forever whereas in the case of Dropbox and Google Drive, the files are moved to the Trash from where they can be easily restored.
Account Security
Since your Google Drive is connected to your Google Account, you can apply 2-step protection and non-authorized user won’t be able to access your online file even if they are aware of your Google username and password. This extra layer of protection is not available to Dropbox and SkyDrive users.
Google Drive and Dropbox also maintain a detailed log of every single change that was made to your files (or account) but this seems to be missing in SkyDrive.
File Search
This is one area where Google Drive has a definite upper hand.
When you search for a file on Dropbox.com, it returns results where the file names matche your search keywords. SkyDrive lets you search the content of documents that are in common Microsoft Office formats. Google Drive goes a step further as it can even read the text content of scanned documents and photographs using OCR. That is, if you have saved a photograph of the whiteboard to your Google Drive account, you should be able find that image by text without having to remember the filename.
Offline Access
The mobile apps of Dropbox and Google Drive let you save any document or file on your mobile for offline use. Such a facility is not available in the iOS apps of Windows SkyDrive though you can always export the document to another app (like iBooks or Good Reader) from SkyDrive and access it offline.
Selective Sync
If you have multiple computers, all these “online drives” will copy your files across all your machines. Sometimes, you don’t want this to happen and both Dropbox and Google Drive offer you an option to selectively synchronize folders per computer. For instance, you can tell Dropbox not to download your family photographs folder on the work computer. This saves bandwidth and your hard disk stays light too.
Selective Sync is however missing in SkyDrive.
What I like about Windows SkyDrive
SkyDrive
offers plenty of storage space but the best part is that the SkyDrive
web app lets you access files and folders of all your other computer
right from within your browser. You just need to have SkyDrive on these
machines and you can then easily access any of their files from any
other computer, anywhere simply using your Windows Live ID.SkyDrive is an absolute must-have service for Microsoft Office users because it gives you the ability to edit documents in the web browser while preserving all the formatting.
What I like about Google Drive
Google
Drive offers the most pleasing interface, the search feature is
brilliant and the new grid view lets you quickly browse your stored
files visually. You can email any file from your Google Drive account to
another user as an email attachment, a useful feature that’s missing in
all the other online drives.If you live in the Google ecosystem and do not have Microsoft Office on your computer, skip SkyDrive and go with Google Drive.
What I like about Dropbox
The
basic Dropbox account offers a mere 2 GB of storage space but you can
easily increase your account space to 16 GB by referring a couple of
friends to Dropbox. Also, you can find tons of apps that make the Dropbox service even more powerful and useful.Google Drive and Windows Live SkyDrive are extremely promising services but none of them support as many platforms as Dropbox does. The best part about Dropbox is that it just works and it won’t be easy even for Google and Microsoft to build the kind of developer ecosystem that currently exists around Dropbox.
Windows 8 Security flaw : Logon Passwords Stores in Plain Text
Windows 8 is the first operating
system from Microsoft to support alternative non-biometric authentication
mechanisms such as Picture Password and PIN. A vulnerability discovered by
a password security vendor - "Passcape" in Microsoft’s Windows 8
operating system that it saves a log on password in plain text and allows any
user with admin rights to see the password details.
In September, though, some drawbacks
of the new authentication method were reported by Passcape Software. The picture password had seemed invulnerable,
because whoever tries to guess it must know how and what parts of the image to
choose, and in addition, the gesture sequence. However, security experts from
Passcape discovered that such a unique password is based on a regular account.
A user should first create a regular
password-based account and then optionally switch to the picture password or
PIN authentication. Notably, the original plain-text password to the account is
still stored in the system encrypted with the AES algorithm, in a Vault
storage at %SYSTEM_DIR%/config/systemprofile/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Vault/4BF4C442-9B8A-41A0-B380-DD4A704DDB28.
"Briefly, Vault can be
described as a protected storage for user's private data. Windows Vault emerged
with the release of Windows 7 and could store various network passwords. In
Windows 8, Vault has extended its functionality; it has become a more universal
storage but at the same time lost its compatibility with the previous versions.
Thus, the 'old' Vault implements a custom password protection. While in Windows
8, it seems, this feature is frozen and it uses DPAPI-based protection only.
Windows Vault is used by other applications as well. For example, Internet
Explorer 10 uses it to store passwords to websites." described by researchers.
Any local user with Admin privileges
can decrypt the text passwords of all users whose accounts were set to a PIN or
picture password. In this regard, the picture/PIN login cannot be considered
the sole reliable means of ensuring data security against cracking.
Experts warned that users should not
only rely on the security of the picture password. It is difficult to break,
they agreed, but it is necessary to take additional measures to protect the
original text password.
ISPs will warn you about pirate content with Copyright Alert System
Copyright Alert System
Controversial "Copyright
Alert System" will hit the U.S. within weeks. A blog post
by Jill Lesser, executive director of the Center for Copyright Information,
revealed the long-awaited Copyright Alert System (CAS) will begin "in the
coming weeks" and provided some details about the partnership with ISPs to
deter subscribers from infringement over peer-to-peer networks.
However, offenders can request a
review of their network activity by paying a $35 billing fee. If the offender
is found not guilty, the $35 will be refunded. The Copyright Alert System
is able to detect illegally downloaded material through MarkMonitor,
which is a brand protection company. Neither the Center for Copyright
Information nor MarkMonitor are able to obtain personal customer information.
The organization said it is “designed
to make consumers aware of activity that has occurred using their Internet
accounts, educate them on how they can prevent such activity from happening
again, and provide information about the growing number of ways to access
digital content legally.”
“Contrary to many erroneous
reports, this is not a ‘six-strikes-and-you’re-out’ system that would result in
termination,” the group said in a press release. “There's no
‘strikeout’ in this program.” Still, neither the Center for neither
Copyright Infringement nor ISPs have spelled out what happens if people
continue to download or share pirated files, even after six warnings.
Tag :
Security
How to Remove Personal Information from your Digital Photos
This iconic Situation Room photograph, captured at the White House,
has now been viewed more the 2.5 million times on the web. There’s
little information available about the photograph but if you download
the full-size version,
you can get details about the camera model, the camera settings and
even the software that were used to edit this picture before it was
published online.
This information is stored in every digital
image, in the form of EXIF tags, and you can extract it using Windows
Explorer or with the help of even the most basic image editing software.
In the case of mobile phones, your pictures may even include location
information thus giving others an idea of the exact geographic
coordinates where that shot was taken.
How to Remove Camera and GPS Data?
If you are planning to
share your personal photographs over email or on a public website (like
Tumblr), it may sometimes make sense to remove the camera data and the
location information from the images before putting them online.
There’s a free Windows utility called QuickFix
that can help you here. Simply drag-n-drop the photographs in the
QuickFix window and click the Clean Metadata button to remove all
identifiable information from the photographs. It creates a new copy and
won’t overwrite your original photographs.
QuickFix will not only
delete the EXIF data and the GPS location information from your
photographs but also the IPTC and XMP tags that may have added by the
photo editing application.
Microsoft also offers a free utility called Pro Photo Tools that you may use to edit as well as delete common metadata from digital photographs including the GPS location.
An Alternative Way to Remove EXIF Information
If
the photographs are in one folder, you can easily remove the EXIF data
from one or more of these photographs using Windows Explorer itself
without requiring any additional software.
Select all the images
files, right click and choose Properties. Now hit the Details tab and
click on the “Remove Properties and Personal Information” link. The next
screen will give you an option to remove the various metadata that is
embedded inside the pictures. Simple.
Control Two Computers with a Single Keyboard and Mouse
Let’s say you have two computers on your desk and, in an effort to
save space, you want to operate them using a single pair of keyboard and
mouse.
There are two solutions here. If the computers are connected to the same network, you can use software programs like Input Director or Synergy to operate them with a common keyboard and mouse. In the other scenario where the machines aren’t connected, you can get a KVM switch to share one keyboard and mouse between them.
A Better Alternative to Synergy and KVM Switches
My work setup is quite similar to what you see in the illustration above and I have been using the Input Director software all this while to control the two Windows PCs with one keyboard and mouse. Input Director is reliable and (mostly) works without problems though it does require some understanding of the Master and Slave concept.Last week, I switched to a new Windows utility called Mouse without Borders and find it so much better than my previous solution. Wondering why?
The best part about Mouse without Borders is how easy it is to set up. You install the utility on all your Windows computers, enter the security code provided by the software and your computers will get linked. This is almost as simple as pairing a set of Bluetooth devices.
Once installed, you can not only use the same keyboard and mouse across your computers in a seamless manner but you can also drag and drop files between them. This is so convenient. Earlier, I had to create shared network folders or had to use Dropbox to transfer files but now I can simple drag them from desktop A to desktop B as if they were on the same computer.
With the Mouse without Borders utility installed, you can also send screen capture of one desktop to another by pressing a hotkey or from the system tray menu. After having used the tool for about a week, I never experienced a crash though I did have problems sharing clipboard especially when the copy operation was done inside a Flash application.
Mouse without Borders can only be used to control Windows based computers. If your work environment involves a mix of Windows, Linux or Mac computers, Synergy could still be the only good choice for you.
Tag :
Tips and Tricks