Sometimes you delete something and realize later that you still need the file(s) that you´ve deleted before. Its easy to recover them if they are still in your trashbin, but you need special tools to recover files that have been deleted permanently under windows.
Lets assume your system has been hacked. What steps would you undertake after the hacking attempt ? The article written at techtarget.com tries to answer the question and presents a checklist of things to do after being someone hacked into your system. Its more of a checklist for corporate networks than for individual computers but it would not hurt to take a look and probably get some new ideas that you did not think about.
The free ftp software Smart Ftp 2.0 has been released and is available for download at the developers website. Changes include a new graphical user interface with tabs, a new local and remote browser and support for 64 bit windows operating systems. If you are looking for a free ftp program give it a try, it might be exactly what you are looking for.
Freeware: I always try to use freeware or open source software whenever its possible. 100-downloads.com lists 100 of the best on their page listed neatly in categories like audio, imaging and security. They list lots of freeware tools that I´am using and some that I did not know about and will definatly try out.
It´s always a good idea to backup your hard drive(s) every now and then to prevent data loss. The guys, eh Gina, over at lifehacker wrote a nice article. It only describes the procedure for windows computers, all you need is an external hard drive, a ftp server and the freeware tool Syncback.
Folder Size is a nice little freeware application that adds a new column to the details view of your windows explorer displaying the size of every folder that exists in the current directory. Its mighty helpful if you want to clean your hard drive. It shows exactly which folders contain the biggest files and its always a good idea to start cleaning there.
I have a very noisy fan at the back of my pc tower. It spins to fast and therefor makes to much noises. There are various ways to reduce a fans speed and one of them is using the free software speedfan.
Kenny created a new little tool that might be helpful for some of you. Its called Privacy Browse, a freeware tool that uses those free proxy sites to surf the web. Download privacy browse from ghacks.net, unrar it to a location of youre choice and run it by double-clicking on Privacy.exe.
I know that some of you are using a firewall and therefor the home pc firewall guide site might be worth a visit. The website has more sections than I can list here so i stick with some interesting ones and leave the rest to you. To start with a good one, Installig Security Products, a guide on how to install security type software on a new windows operating system.
First of all, Merry Christmas everyone ;)
Config Inspector is a nice little freeware application for windows operating systems that could be described as an advanced task manager. Besides offering more information about loaded applications and processes it also displays vital information about memory and cpu usage, network utilization and general windows information.
Windows Directory Statistics is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. It reads the disk content once and displays three different views.
The directory list which is sorted by file / subtree size, the treemap which shows the whole content of the directory tree and finally the extension list which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.
This guide will provide you with the means to detect and remove spyware that is installed on your system. Before we start we should define the term spyware. There are different categories of spyware, like adware and malware, that make it difficulty for the user to distinguish between them and select the right tool for their removal.
I found a pearl script at binaryhack.org that lets you mass-download images that are hosted at imageshack.us. All you need is the pearl script and the mechanize module to download images from imageshack. If you are running windows you need a pearl interpreter, PxPearl seems to work with this script.
I sometimes have the difficulty that the space of my desktop is not sufficient to show every information I need. This happens for instance when I use SSH to work on my rootserver and use a browser to find information.
This looks cool. That was my first reaction when I saw the generated images at the electricsheep.org website. Electricsheep is a free screensaver that runs on pc and mac and is used by lots of people around the world.
When the screensaver is installed on your system all computers currently displaying the screensaver combine their power to create morphing abstract animations known as "sheep".
Only the pointer to the file is deleted when you opt to delete a file in windows. The whole file still exists on your harddisk and its possible to recover it using the right tools. You probably have some files where you want to make sure that the file is deleted and not recoverable at all.
There are occasions where you probably want to run a different os without really installing it. If you are running windows you probably would like to refresh your linux skills but dislike the idea of installing it on one of your partitions. The guys at wolphination explain an easy way to run on os inside your real os.
A friend of mine moved to a new house and had to change his internet provider as well. The room with the computer and the one with the phone line were not close to each other and he decided to buy a wireless lan router and use it to connect to the internet.
We had to do a scan of the surroundings of course and found lots of unsecured wireless lan networks. I don´t know why people keep these unsecured, maybe its laziness, maybe they simply don´t know the risks involved. Its like leaving your doors open when you leave your house. Lots of things can happen..
Only a few days ago I wrote a first small article about true crypt and recommended it. Back then I bought a usb 2.0 hard drive with 300 GB capacity and encrypted its entire partition with true crypt. This was done to test the programs functionality but also to see if it would slow down my main computer (athlon 64 3000+, 1 gb ram).
To my great suprise it did not slow down the pc and I decided to expand the encryption to cover all my hard drives. Let me tell you why and how i did this and why you should also be considering this.
Astalavista Security Group have a beta page up that lists top freeware software products in various categories including Data Recovery, Anti Virus-Tools, Firewall and IDS and Anti-Spyware. The list contains some of the freeware tools that I already wrote about but also some new ones that might interest you.
Every know and then I accidentally delete files and later find out that I still need them. I configured my trashcan to hold no files at all, means files that I delete are gone by normal means and can´t be recovered that easily.
You probably wondered why google is giving you two gigabytes of space for your gmail account. The reason could be pretty simply, no one will ever use those two gigs anyway. Even if you recieve lots of emails including attachments you´d need years to fill the space.
Some clever folks came up with an idea on how to use the empty space of your google account. The answer: Use it as online storage..
Taskbar++ is a software that allows you to sort (move) the buttons of the Windows taskbar by Drag & Drop. It´s for the people who care about the buttons' position such as "Mailer is the leftmost!!", "Internet Explorer is next to Explorer", and so on.
I thought about encrypting my hard disks, or at least part of them that contain personal data, for at least one year. I never did it because I thought it would be a lot of work involved. I had to find a good program, one that would offer good encryption algorithms, would be free and easy to use.
I do a lot of signups for example on webmaster forums and sites that require you to be registered to view the content. Its a tedious task to enter the information that are required by hand. You often have to add more information but the username and password, name and location for instance.
Auto It is able to help you fill those fields automatically, but not only that. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks. AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting.
After a lot of people told me that I forgot one of the best anti-virus freeware products out there I decided to take a look at Clam Win to get a better judgement on the claims made. The good thing besides that its free is that it´s also Open Source which makes it more transparent than the rest of the free antivirus programs.
Pc Magazine wrote a article with such a long title that I had to cut it to make it fit, the article "Maximum Security: 94 Essential Tips for Staying Safe" has some useful tips for everyone that wants to have a secure as possible computer. They divided the article into several categories, system, networking and wireless, e-mail, Web surfing, malware, and mobile.
You´d probably heard this before. Everyone should secure his personal computer. You read stories like this in every other computer mag, your geeky friends probably tell you the same and even name some programs that you should use because they are the best and most secure. I know that you would like to have a secure computer, well a secured computer, there is nothing like 100% security if you are on a network or the internet. Keep that in mind.
Programs can be loaded at startup of your windows machine, this is called autostart. There are unfortunately numerous places in windows that allow programs to be added to the autostart. The tool Autoruns 8.4 from sysinternals.com lists all known autostart places and programs that use this location to autostart.
Did you ever ask yourself if your firewall is secure enough for your internet activities ? The major concern nowadays is related to pieces of software installed in your computer which may contact and exchange information with the outside World without being authorized and noticed by you.
I always was angered at the fact that I had no possibility to watch certain series and movies in my country while they were highly successful in another. I also dislike the fact that I can´t watch big sportevents live on tv but only recieve a minimal report in the news at that day.
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware.
In case you have not heard about it yet, Nmap is quite simply the best network security scanner around. To top it off, it’s free and even open source. While Nmap is designed primarily for use with *NIX systems, there is an excellent Windows version as well, sadly without the graphical interface NmapFE that is available for *NIX users. WiNmap now provides Nmap with a new face for Windows users.
VIEWTCP is a free network monitoring tool by MicroWorld that examines TCP/IP activity on your Windows-based systems. This free utility lists all TCP and UDP endpoints on your PC, including the remote address (along with Domain name of the remote address) and state of TCP connections.
Its always a good idea to have some web proxies at hand. You can use them to hide your own ip when you navigate to a site that should not have your IP in their logs. You can use them to
bypass web restrictions / censorship from schools, universities and business and also use them if your country is one of those that likes to prevent its people from collection information on their own.
Picmv is a freeware image viewer that also features image management functions. It was specifically designed to work well with digital cameras but also works great as an image viewer with tumbnail display. It features an advanced search function which is helpful if you have a large image archive, its also able to sort the images using lots of parameters like time, color, ratio, how many times it was viewed, pixel number and more. I suggest you take a look at this beauty if you have lots of images or own a digital camera.
If you are looking for an alternative to the windows xp build in unpacker you might want to take a look at 7-Zip. I was always looking for an unpacker besided the big two Winrar and Winzip who are both not free, after some researching I found 7-Zip which handles the most used file formats like zip and rar without problems.
Finally, after a very long time, Daemon Tools 4 has been released. For those who never heard about this fine piece of freeware, it could be best described as a cd and dvd drive emulation software. It simulates up to four additional cd or dvd drives connected to your pc and uses cd or dvd images on your hard disk that contain the cd or dvd content.
I found an interesting article over at logicalexpressions.com that presents an astonishing solution if you have forgotten your windows xp password. This is clearly a security hole because everyone is able to change the passwords, the only requirement would be to have the original windows xp cd at hand.
Crash Doctor is a useful windows freeware that tries to recover crashed windows programs. The program activates itself when a windows program crashes and tries to recover the program from crashing state by careful analysis of the program.
The second purpose of Crash Doctor is to prevent further damage to other files that are dependant on the crashed program. If the program tries to open an existing file for writing CrashDoctor intercepts this and copies the original file to a backup location. This prevents any further damage done by the misbehaving program.
