The Great App-splosion

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Application software, also known as an application or an app, is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with documents. Apps may be bundled with the computer and its system software, or may be published separately. Some users are satisfied with the bundled apps and need never install one. 

Application software is contrasted with system software and middle-ware, which manage and integrate a computer's capabilities, but typically do not directly apply in the performance of tasks that benefit the user. The system software serves the application, which in turn serves the user.

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A Tough Cookie to Crack

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A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser while a user is browsing a website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user's previous activity. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember the state of the website or activity the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record of which pages were visited by the user even months or years ago.

Although cookies cannot carry viruses, and cannot install malware on the host computer, tracking cookies and especially third-party tracking cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of individuals' browsing histories — a major privacy concern that has prompted European and US law makers to take action.

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The Revolution of Email

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Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging.

Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages. An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message header, and the message body. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field and a message submission date/time stamp.

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Ways on How to Make your Computer Secure while Online.

Securing your computer while online seriously isn’t as difficult as it looks provided that you educate yourself to the dangers that is in existence or ever presence on the internet. Also make use of your good common sense like do not go to site that is known to have been a source of malware and the likes. In this post I shall be focusing on eight ways that you can do to make your computer secure while online can be compromised and some common sense approaches you can use to avoid this from taking place.

Many individuals get freaked out when you mention the expression “computer internet security”. They immediately leap to the assumption that it can only be done by somebody well-versed in computer expertise or you need to pay out big money on computer Internet security software. This is not true because even ordinary people can make their computer secure while online. This fear is completely unfounded and in fact there are numerous simple, common sense things that anyone, with even a tiny grasp of computers, can do to help preserve their computer security from dangers pose by using the internet.

1. Make use of well designed passwords. I have a post about this; never use your own name, birthday, street address or other personal information as a password. Anyone who knows you or has access even to general details about you can easily figure these out. There are even tools used by expert computer hackers that will crack dictionary-generated passwords. The best password frequently consists of no less than eight characters, a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols all randomly selected. Although these kinds of passwords are difficult for you to remember, they’re offer much tougher lock for the hacker to crack as well. A way for you to remember these special passwords is to create an acronym utilizing each of the numbers, letters and symbols used. In addition there are software programs available that will randomly create passwords for you. The key thing is you have to discover one way to remember them whether doing it manually yourself or having a program do it automatically.

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2. Change your password regularly or at least maintain a routine of keeping your password new. It all depends on you for how long, it makes be one month or longer before you change or alter your password. Regrettably this straightforward step is what gets many computer users into trouble. They utilize the same password year after year and sooner or later someone is going to gain access to it, either unintentionally or on purpose. Especially if an individual has needed to provide the password to other people to allow access to their computer for a specific program or account.

3. Be a Wise E-mail User. E-mailing continues to become one of the most utilized strategies by people implicated in Internet crimes to gain accessibility to a computer through spyware and other types of malware, or just for spreading computer viruses through the internet community. On no occasion for you to open e-mail attachments or click on links within e-mails from mysterious senders as they could either install unsafe programs onto your computer or send you to inappropriate internet sites. Never deliberately provide information to e-mails from somebody you don’t recognize, actually it is safer not to even to respond or forward them. Just tap the delete button. Be very wise and careful about these things from an email where the sender in not known to you.

4. Install an effective, trustworthy computer security software program on your computer and make sure that you keep it current by downloading any updates for the data security files. Always look to find out that the software application has this updating feature. Besides the security software, also make sure that your computer firewall, that is part of the operating system on your computer, is turned on. I also have a post in about firewall for ad deeper understanding. This stops unauthorized access to your computer from outsiders.

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5. Another programs that can be used to deliver harmful package is the Instant Messenger. It is a cool way of getting instant chat, but files received via Instant Messenger may by-pass your computer security scanning feature, so it’s best never to open any files received this way. Some of my friends who use IM for chatting has been a victim of virus attack delivered thru the instant messenger system. By clicking on a file to open it, activates the virus that can infect you computer.

6. Watch out for pop-ups. Many online companies use what are called “pop-ups” which are small windows containing advertisements that come into view when you are visiting a webpage. Frequently hackers will position links on these pop-ups that if clicked will begin the process of infecting your computer with a malicious program of some sort, be it spyware, adware, or some type of virus. To be safe, never click on any links that occur in these advertising windows. Nearly all computer operating systems now contain settings to block these types of annoying advertisements.

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7. Downloading “Free” Stuff. The FREE STUFF is one of the most enticing things on the internet. This should be a “no brainer” however lots of people still do this- downloading files, programs, applications and online tools from unknown web sites. There’s an incredible collection of great FREE products available online as shareware and test offers, nevertheless it is up to you to ensure the place you are getting the products from is a reputable source. When in doubt, often a quick search making use of a search engine such as Google, it can reveal if the website is being reported as being a rip-off site or not based on the experiences of others. If you are still apprehensive, then it’s best not to download from the internet site in question and search for another source.

8. Carry out a regular house-cleaning of your computer. Remove any programs, tools or applications that you simply no longer make use of as these not only will decelerate your computer, but in some cases may provide a gateway for malware to enter your computer system from an outside source. Also perform a regular virus scan to make sure that nothing is left out.

Having a poorly protected computer is just a catastrophe waiting to happen. Not only do you run the risk of having private and confidential information stolen and used to steal your money or even your identity, but it as well supplies a weapon for the hacker to make use of to gain access to other people’s computers also if they gain control of your e-mail address book.

By following the common sense tips above will definitely enhance your ability to protect your computer, yourself, and your loved ones from being victims of cyber-crimes. Still at the end of the day, you’ll need to think about the acquisition of an effective computer security software program as mentioned, if you do not have this already, to get the amount of protection necessary to prevent the more serious internet risks.

How to Have the Best Computer Passwords

In today age of inter connectivity where almost everything can be stored and access via the internet, one important aspect of storing our things behind lock and keys is the PASSWORD. Yup the old fashion lock and key has a digital equivalent called the PASSWORD. The PASSWORD is one of the most important aspect of security for keeping safe our files. We often used them in our computer so we lock the computer itself or put a password on the account that we used to log-in into our computer.

No sane person would ever like somebody else reading her email, or logging into their computer and swiping their allegedly secure search engine optimization information. Or for what it's worth some other person using her password and breaking into a monetary institution. You should, choose a powerful, secure password in such a manner that will be a hard nut to crack for others and easy for you to recollect. The more random and mixed-up you make it, the harder it is for others to break. Mind you, if your password is compromised, the password crackers will even take over your identity.

The password that we use to access all our account can be the same or every bit different from each account. If we use different password in all of our account then we need to write down or use a password manager. A password, if too short, is vulnerable to attack if an attacker gets hold of the cryptographic hash of the password. Present-day PCs are fast enough to try all alphabetic passwords shorter than 7 characters. We will be able to call a password puny if it is short or is a default, or which can sometimes be rapidly guessed by searching a subset of all possible passwords such as words in the compendium, correct names, words based totally on the user name or common variations on these themes.

On the other hand, a robust password would be sufficiently long, random, or which can be produced only by the user who chose it, so that ‘guessing ‘ for it will require too long a time.

For maximum security, the user should follow some simple guidelines:

1) Passwords should preferably be at least 8 characters long and not more than 14.

2) Passwords should contain a mix of numbers, letters, and special characters (%&3ac_ht4m7).

3) Passwords shouldn't contain a compendium word from any compendium, be it French, Spanish, medical, etc.

4) Each password should be different from the user’s User-ID and any permutation of that User-ID.

5) New passwords and old passwords should differ by at least 3 characters.

6) Avoid picking names or nicknames of folk, pets, or places, or personal info that may be simply found out,eg your birthday, address etc.

7) It’s sensible to stay away from common keyboard sequences,eg dfgh678 or abc345.

8) Never form a password by appending a digit to a word. That can be simply guessed.

9) Avoid writing your password down or storing it on your PC.

10) Never share your password with any other person.

Making sure that our password is safe and is hard to guess is just one of the many ways of keeping our digital information safe. We must also be very careful in using our computer in public places  or using public computers, because we never know what who or what kind of application is watching us input those very sacred alpha numeric combination. We must always be vigilant in everything that we do whenever we are logging in into our account wherever we may be.

Computer 101: How to Make your Computer Faster than Before

When it takes a computer a long time to respond to simple commands, open applications or load pages, it means it is using a substantial percentage of its memory. For someone who has just begun using a computer, this might not be a great concern as it may take a beginner a long time to respond to what appears on the screen or to type certain commands. However, an expert user will probably get frustrated with the amount of time it takes for the computer to respond to his or her commands. He or she will probably say, “I need to find out how to make my computer faster.”

There are numerous basic practices that can help a computer toward faster operation. In certain instances, improved speed is as simple as clearing the computer of unused files or applications, or cleaning up a desktop. Other times, one may have to perform simple maintenance tasks that are either free, or associated with a very nominal cost. The following are some tips on how to make a computer run faster:

* Turning the computer off completely and then restarting it can sometimes help. Many of today’s computer owners frequently opt to leave their computers running. This practice may have been started in an attempt to increase the monitor’s longevity. However, not ever rebooting the computer keeps the program settings in its memory. The computer’s memory will be freed up, and these programs released when it is shut down for at least 30 seconds at a time.

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* Empty your recycle bin. When files are deleted from your document folders or desktop they land in the Recycle Bin that is usually is seen with a wastebasket icon on your desktop. Items in bin are only temporarily deleted, since you can open the Recycle Bin and restore them. To permanently delete them, open the Recycle Bin and delete the files from the bin.

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*It may also be necessary to change the computer’s energy settings. Laptops will usually run faster if the setting is changed from battery life to high performance. However, if the computer is being used in high performance mode, it is important to use its power cord rather than its battery to ensure top speed is acheived.

* Use anti-virus software to detect and remove spyware or malware from your computer. Spyware is ill-intentioned third-party software that can collect any personal information you may type while surfing the Internet (which sites your visit, your passwords, credit card and personal identification information). Spyware causes your accounts to get hacked and your privacy to be compromised. It is undetected, most of the time, and takes up a lot of memory on your PC. Your anti-virus software can usually remove spyware.

* Clean up your disk space. You can do this by performing several functions:

1) Remove temporary files. (Go to C\Documents and Settings\your username here\Local Settings\Temp to find the Temporary Folder and delete all the contents of this folder).

2. Remove any applications or programs that are not in use.

3. De-fragment the computer’s hard drive. (This should be done once each week.)

4) Remove items from the system tray that you are not using. Most of these programs are running in the background and taking up memory. You can access them by clicking the CONTROL, ALT and DELETE buttons all at the same time and bringing up the Task Manager. Click on the program that you wish to stop and then click “End Now.” Be careful not to click CONTROL+ALT=DELETE twice, since this will power off your computer.

* Get a new computer. This may seem extreme, but it is sometimes necessary. Computer users on a fixed budget tend to add newer softward to old computers. Eventually, the hardware gives out because newer software has different memory requirements. New operating systems in old computers move sluggishly. It is likely that if you can afford to install a new operating system (Windows XP or Vista, for example), then it is worth it to invest in an entirely new computer that is equipped to handle your new software.

These memory-saving techniques can help make your computer work faster. Search the site for more information about any of these processes that you need more details for in order to increase your speed.

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Computer 101: Using the Remote Desktop feature in Windows

Sometimes the best way to fix a problem is have someone to show you how. Today there are many software that allows you and your friends to do remote desktop. It only needs two basic thing one is both of your should be connected to the internet and is using the same software for the process. or you are in the same network Also if your are using windows based system, it already has a feature called Remote Desktop. But first a point to always remember that the user you are using should always be a member of the administrator group or the administrator account itself. This is important because if the account you are using is not an administrator or member of the administrator group then almost all feature in a windows based system will not be available to you. For one without it you will not be able to setup a remote desktop in you computer. What is the purpose of remote desktop and how does this feature going to benefit you.

Before we setup a remote desktop lets talk about the benefits of using it.

With Remote Desktop, you can have access to a Windows session that is running on your computer when you are at another computer. This means, for example, that you can connect to your work computer from home and have access to all of your programs, files, and network resources as though you were sitting at your computer at work. 

You can leave programs running at work and when you get home, you can see your work desktop displayed on your home computer, with the same programs running. 

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When you connect to your computer at work, Remote Desktop automatically locks that computer so that no one else can access your programs and files while you are gone. When you come back to work, you can unlock your computer by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL. Do not worry in these days pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL will not restart your computer automatically but it will display a dialog box asking you to choose a specific task to do.  You can keep your programs running and preserve the state of your Windows session while another user is logged on. When that user logs off, you can reconnect to your session in progress.

Another is  with remote desktop fixing a problem in you computer can be done as if the other person doing the trouble-shooting is just beside you. With remote desktop any problem by your computer that does not require formatting and any actual physical hardware installation can really be a benefit to the user and the technical support.

Now that we have discussed the benefit let's go to the setup process of a remote desktop. How o you prepare your computer for remote desktop? Open the system icon in the control panel. Please see picture below. 

Then click the remote tab and then under remote desktop check or click Allow users to connect remotely to this computer. Then in the remote user dialog box click add. In the Select Users dialog box, do the following:

To specify the search location, click Locations, select the location you want to search, and then click OK.

In Enter the object names to select, type the name of the user you want to add, and then click OK.

The name will be displayed in the list of users in the Remote Desktop Users dialog box.

Please see picture below for more information.

Notice on the picture above that several option is grayed out. This simple means that the account that is used to access the remote desktop is not member of the administrator account. That why it is very important that you need to verify that the account you are using is a member of the administrator group.

If your account that is used to access the remote tab then it should look like the picture above all the option is not gray out. to setup remote access just check the box beside the allow remote assistance to this computer and choose with option is needed for connection which can be found just below it. For this just your LAN administrator or the person in charge of your network to choose which option is best for the remote connection. Once you have setup everything do not forget forget to press all the necessary OK button to make all the changes effective and has been applied to the setting of your computer. Then you just wait for the sign that a technical support person is connecting to your computer. You will know this because your mouse begins to move on his own or windows keep opening and closing  as if your computer is posses by something. Do not be afraid because it not posses it just your technical support  fixing the problem you encountered and have reported. Pretty soon your computer will be back to normal and all the problems has been solve for now.

BEWARE OF REGISTRY CLEANER FOLKLORE

This article has been contributed by David Ritchie. David is a software developer and technical writer with over 10 years of professional experience. He is currently interested in registry cleaner reviews.

Registry cleaners can be very helpful computer programs. They enable a computer to regain some of the speed that the computer had when it was first purchased, and when used correctly, they are very safe aids to provide an inexpensive boost to a computer’s power. However, there are certain myths about registry cleaners that appear to be pretty prevalent throughout the tech community and these sorts of folklores frighten many computer users away from these programs.

One popular myth is that the Windows registry does not need to be cleaned because it is self regulating. This is based on the idea that anything built into the Windows operating systems. Including the registry, would be automatically optimized by Microsoft to ensure the best possible state of operation. However, while this is true to a certain degree, problems in the operating system and removal of third party programs, aging hardware, or even user actions can suddenly spur the shutting down of a computer. 

There is also a claim that registry cleaners do more harm than good by removing registry entries that are useful for a computer system. All registry cleaners are certainly not made to the same level of quality, and certain registry programs can indeed rather cause more issues than solving them. Modern computer software, however, is very advanced and problems caused by registry cleaners are very rare. Many newer programs provide a registry backup function to guard against any issues that might pop up. Even if a program does not provide this functionality, it is very easy for a computer user to make a quick backup of the computer’s registry file. If ever there is a problem with what a registry cleaner program does, the changes that it has effected can simply be rolled back.

There are some risks associated with registry cleaners and unfortunately, the folklore makes it hard to separate fact from fiction.  Registry cleaners need to be kept up to date and they do not usually need to run very often – just once in every few months should do the trick. It is also important to follow the instructions provided with a registry cleaner program very carefully (this is true with any piece of computer software, of course). When these registry cleaners are used correctly, they can provide a huge speed boost of the computer by clearing up bad entries that cause the computer to slow down.  It is, therefore, a foregone conclusion that registry cleaners are a boon rather than a bane to computers.  

Computer 101: Google 2-Step Authentication for All your Google Accounts.

Everyone that have internet access or uses that internet regularly for gaming, research, business and many more have an email account, this email account can be a corporate or an organization based or the paid email accounts from different providers and the most common of all the free email account which is available everywhere in the internet. One such provider of free email accounts is Google.com which is a very big internet based company. They have a free email account service called the G MAIL or Google Mail, aside from that they also have a lot of free services being offered like blogger.com for creating your own personal blog in the internet. All this free account is link within the Google system, if you lo-gin to one account then you can access another by configuring a few option without typing a username and password again and again. This setup is very useful if you’re going to jump from one account to another within Google.

Now how do we use our email account? Well we use it for personal communication and transaction over the internet, some sensitive information has also been stored in our email. Now is this free email account really secure? Well yes they are secure because if not, in the first place no one will use them if they are not secure. The first level of security for these email services is the password. Yup that all important passwords, the things that we always keep forgetting is not used frequently or we have already to many password to memorize. Also the user name we used in combination with the all important password, the more complex the password the more secure it or the longer the password the more secure it also. Now nobody can access your accounts if they not know the username and password. But wait what if those two important information has been stolen form you? You say what, how they got my information?

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Well every heard of the term hacking and Phishing? Simply put it, theses terms means to get or acquire in this case sensitive personal information from one account. There are many ways on how to implement this technique. One is using software another is using link from email send to your email accounts from some one you though you know. Please click the link to see a more details and historical explanation for Phishing and for hacking. To cut it short, rather that securing your email account with just the username and password why not use another layer of security. Well this is where the Google 2-step authentication process comes in for all Google accounts users. This process although will take longer to access your G mail account is very important in keeping your account safe. It will add another layer of security. When we log-in to our email account the first thing that we do is we put the username and the password then we wait for the contents to display on our screen.

But with added feature security the second step for verification or authentication is it will send a code to your very own personal phone, via text or voice call. And you will encode the code on the box provided to verify that you’re the real owner of that account. After verifying the code is correct it will proceed in displaying the content of your G mail account. Also there is an option on the verification process that the computer that you are using can be remembered for 30 days. This feature allows the user to enter the verification only once within 30 days for the same computer. This is very helpful if you are using your own laptop or PC we don’t have to type in that code every time we log-in to our G mail account. This second layer of protection is also very handy while we access our G mail accounts from public computers.

Now the next questions are how do we activate this G mail verification process? To activate the process on your G mail account please click the link provided, it is the official blog for Google Email protection.  For other email service pleas check if they provide for free accounts.