It sometimes may be important to hide folders on a multi-user system to avoid access to the files stored within. It makes sense for instance for important documents to prevent that other users (kids anyone?) tamper with the data or access it. Hidden folders are not really a protection on the other hand, as it [...]

Categories: Security, Software, Windows

If you are living with children under one roof you know that it is important to limit their access to the computer. Best options are to create user accounts for each family member, monitor activities and limit access to specific programs and settings. On the other hand, many families use only one user account on [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

It might be necessary to password protect programs – and other files – if other people have access to a computer system. This can be true for families who share one computer system but also in dorms and even for businesses. The password protection should ensure that a certain program is not executed on a [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

The Windows operating system does not ship with a program that can be used to password protect files easily. There are on the other hand several reasons why someone would want to password protect files. This can be to protect children by preventing their access to certain applications or files, protecting files in case they [...]

Categories: Security, Windows

If you do not want to end like British government officials who lose USB devices with unencrypted data in front of pubs you might want to consider encrypting the data so that it cannot be recovered if the USB device would be lost. It is not entirely true that the data cannot be recovered but [...]

Categories: Security, Software

Sharing a computer with children can be a great way for them to get started early on. It does however raise a few concerns that have to be addressed. One area of concern are games. Everyone can play games on a computer if they are installed on it. Sure, there are the parental controls in [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

We all have files on our system that are valuable to us and that we do not want to lose. This could be everything from Word documents to images or mp3 files. But there is still the chance that those files do get deleted, either by chance, by another user or by malicious software. The [...]

Categories: Operating Systems, Security, Software, Windows

Files do not last forever. Corruption can be caused by hard drive failures or unreadable compact disks for instance. The files might be partially readable but this does not help much if it is corrupted. There are some ways of preparing yourself against data loss. One obvious way is of course to make regular backups of your important files. But it could of course happen that backups get corrupted as well which most of the time happens in the worst moments possible.

Categories: Operating Systems, Tools, Windows