Computer Knowledge: 5 Tips To Protect Yourself From Being Hacked

I was hacked this weekend !!!

If you've ever had a car stolen, your house broken into or your bike wheel "roll off" you know the feeling — you're exposed, vulnerable and looking for answers as to how this could have happened.

I've never been hacked before (at least to my knowledge) and immediately researched what to do and how to guard against it happening again.

Not all hackers are malicious, but those bent on ill will are usually exploiting security loopholes in the websites we use. While the average user can't do much about lax security on the site itself, we can make our browsing experience safer. Here are five tips for doing so:

Use HTTPS Everywhere
When using public wifi, your computer and login credentials can be "sniffed" by malicious hackers on the same network. Always use HTTPS to secure your information. HTTPS Everywhere automatically forces HTTPS onto hundreds of popular sites, thus ensuring your safety. You can download the free plugin here.

Careful where you click
Most of us are well acquainted with not clicking of fishy links in email. But if you happen to use sites such as Twitter or Facebook, you're not out of the dark. If links from friends look "spammy", it's often the case that their account has been phished. Avoid clicking on the link (or even hovering over it, in some cases). Whenever in doubt, don't click!

Create a different secure password for each account
The truth about passwords is that we are horrible at creating good ones. Too often, it's your cat's name, your wife's maiden name or your favorite celebrity. Secure passwords should be a random combination of letters, symbols and numbers. Applications such as 1Password are excellent at generating random passwords and keeping a list of them so you never have to wonder. Best of all, 1Password syncs on the Mac, PC, Android and iOS with Dropbox, so you can store your passwords and always have them synced with your devices. I highly recommend using this application or something similar.
And remember, don't give your password to ANYONE!

Encrypt your data
In the case that you are hacked, you'll want to make sure your important data is safe. TrueCrypt, free and open source encryption software, is available for Mac and PC and can do just that.

Shop safely online with temporary credit card numbers
Worried about giving your credit card number to some no-name guy in Florida in exchange for sending you some rad Ghostbusters patches? Well I sure was! Most, if not all, banks offer the ability to create a temporary credit card number. This number can only be used once. It links directly to your credit card, so you can keep your actual number safe.

I hope these tips have been helpful. If you've got your own to share, please let us know how you keep safe in the comments.

Computer Knowledge: Tech Tips for Troubleshooting Your Computer

A broken computer can seriously impede your work flow. Find out how to troubleshoot some basic computer problems in order to avoid losing valuable time and effort to a malfunctioning PC.

A malfunctioning computer can spell disaster for students and office workers alike. Whether you’re a student at  Absegami High School, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, or you’re an employee at a local office, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by knowing how to troubleshoot some common PC problems.
One of the most common computer issues is a significant slowdown in the performance of the computer over time. If your computer is running slow, it can mean your computer is launching too many applications on start up; it can mean you’ve got some malware on your system slowing it down; or it can mean you’re in need of a RAM upgrade.

Make sure you have an up-to-date antivirus installed on your computer. If you don’t have one, check out Avast or AVG–both are free, and both do a great job of monitoring your computer for malicious software.
Run a full system scan with your antivirus of choice once a week and you’ll be able to remove most malicious software from your computer.

In order to make sure your computer isn’t starting too many applications when it boots up, you’ll have to open up msconfig and make some changes. In windows XP, open the start menu and click “Run”. Type in “msconfig” and press enter to open it.

In Vista or Windows 7, just type msconfig into the search box at the bottom of the start menu and hit enter.
Once you’re in msconfig, click on the “start up” tab. You’ll see a list of applications with checkboxes next to them. The only checkboxes that should be filled are those for programs you want to run when Windows starts up.

Once you’ve cleaned up the start up section, move on to the “services” tab. At the bottom of the services tab, there’s a checkbox that will hide all of the services from Microsoft – make sure that box is checked.
Uncheck any services you don’t need running all the time. If you’re not sure what a service does, take a second and Google it. Some of the services are tied to the various pieces of software you use, and disabling a service that’s tied to a piece of software could cause performance issues, so it’s important to know exactly what you’re disabling.

If all else fails, you can always reformat your computer using the recovery disc that came with it. By doing so, you’ll be resetting the computer to the way it was when you first bought it, so make sure to back up all of your files before doing this.

You can also boost your computer’s speed by installing additional RAM. You can usually get RAM for a reasonably low price by purchasing it on Amazon, and installing it yourself, but if you’d rather have someone take care of the installation for you, most electronics stores offer free installation when you purchase a stick of RAM from them.

Anyone who owns a Windows PC is familiar with the blue screen of death. Each blue screen lists a STOP error made up of a series of numbers and letters. While they might look like nonsense, those characters actually indicate what went wrong with your computer to cause the BSoD.

This guide will help you decipher those codes, and figure out what went wrong with your computer.
If your web browser’s homepage keeps changing, or if you keep getting a different Web page than what you were expecting when you click on a link, you’ve probably got some spyware on your computer.

Malwarebytes will find, and remove just about any piece of malware on your computer. Fire up the software, let it check for updates, and then run a full scan on your computer. If you’ve got spyware interfering with your web browser, Malwarebytes should take care of it.

You aren’t going to be able to solve every computer problem on your own, but by using these troubleshooting tips, you can eliminate some basic problems without having to go to a repair shop, or contacting the company’s IT guy.

12 SSD tips to optimise your drive's performance

Keep your SSD in trim condition with these handy tips

Solid state drives have tumbled in price in recent months, which is great news for us demanding PC users.

There's a problem though: Windows isn't fully optimised to get the best from SSDs. There's also the lingering worry about the longevity of this type of storage device.
We say don't be put off - the benefits of fitting a solid state drive far outweigh any potential downsides. Happily, the negatives that remain can be sidestepped easily with some tweaks and tips. Read on and we'll show you how to make your solid state drive purr.

1. Reduce write-heavy tasks
One of the early concerns about solid state storage was that it wouldn't be able to handle the same intensity of read/write cycles that traditional hard disks manage. Many tips for extending the life of drives centered around reducing unnecessary writing to disk.

Things have improved considerably since then and, while this concern is still broadly justified, you'd have to write intensively to disk for many years before you'd wear out a modern SSD.
However, write times are still a little slower than read times for these drives, so in theory reducing the number of write operations to SSD should result in a performance boost. Moving temporary storage or working folders to RAM may help, but avoid merely transferring these to a slower drive, otherwise you won't see any improvement.

2. Enable write caching

This is generally enabled by default, but it's worth checking that data written to the drive is cached in its RAM before it's stored permanently. There's a slight risk that a power outage will wipe out the data stored temporarily in RAM, but this is only really a problem with external drives that don't have their own power source.

You can check to see if write caching is enabled in Device Manager. To do this, right-click 'Computer' and choose 'Properties'. Select 'Device manager' from the left-hand pane and expand 'Disk drives'. Select the solid state drive, right-click it and choose 'Properties. Select the 'Properties' tab and tick the box marked 'Enable write caching'.

3. Tweak paging files
Using a portion of hard drive as virtual memory can lead to intensive writing to the disk for swap purposes, which can degrade SSD performance. You can achieve some speed boosts by moving the swap file to a different disk, or turning it off altogether if you have sufficient RAM installed.
Virtual memory tweaks like these produce varied results depending on the kind of operations you need to carry out.

To move the file, click 'Start', right-click 'Computer' and choose 'Properties'. Select 'Advanced system settings', choose the 'Advanced' tab and then click 'Settings' under 'Performance'. Choose the 'Advanced' tab and click 'Change' under 'Virtual memory'.

Clear the box marked 'Automatically manage paging file size for all drives'. Select the SSD and choose the radio button next to 'No paging file'. Click 'Set', then click 'OK' in each of the open dialogs to clear them.

4. Move temporary files
If you have another drive available, try moving your temporary Windows files onto it. Again, this reduces the need to write to the SSD during routine Windows operations.

Choose 'Start', then right-click 'Computer' and select 'Properties'. Choose 'Advanced system settings', pick the 'Advanced' tab and click 'Environment variables'.

You should see values listed for 'temp' and 'tmp' for the current user and the system. Select one of these and choose 'Edit' to move it to a different folder. Make sure you select one that's on a different drive.
 
5. Disable indexing



Disabling indexing on your SSD may help reduce writing to the disk, but think carefully before you decide to do so. Indexing can have a negative impact on your drive's performance, but it can also massively improve your productivity if you have a lot of data on the drive and you need to find something quickly.
The improvement in performance is likely to be negligible at best, but if you're keen to squeeze the most out of your system, it may be worth considering.

If you decide to disable indexing, open 'Computer' on the Start menu, right-click the SSD and choose 'Properties'. Towards the bottom of the dialog, clear the box marked 'Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties'.

6. Create a RAM disk
It's not always practical to move temporary files and so on to a different drive - you might not have one available, or what you have might be of markedly lower performance than the SSD itself. One way to get around the issue of moving the various caches to a different disk is to create a RAM disk, which will run at lightning speeds compared to any physical drive.

You need at least 3GB memory installed to use a RAM drive for caching, and the more you have available, the better its performance will be. You can install a RAM drive using the Dataram RAMdisk program, which is available from here.

Download and install it. Once the program is launched, you need to open the 'Settings' tab and select the filesystem you want to use for the drive. Enter the disk size, bearing in mind how much memory you have available, and click 'Start RAMDisk'. The free version lets you set up drives up to 4GB in size.

7. Move caches to RAM disk
Now that you've set up a RAM disk, you can move Windows caches to it, thereby reducing the strain on your SSD and prolonging its life.

In fact, even if you don't have an SSD but have enough RAM available to set up a drive, this is still a great way to improve system performance, because RAM is always faster than a physical drive. Just bear in mind that all its contents will be lost once the power is shut down.
8. Temporary internet files
You should consider moving your internet cache to the RAM drive too. To do this, go to 'Control Panel | Internet options', then select the 'General' tab and choose 'Move folder'. Browse to your RAM drive for the new folder.

If you use Firefox, enter about:config in the address bar and search for 'browser.cache.disk.parent_director'. You can now double-click this value and enter the new location for your browser cache.

9. Check TRIM functions


The TRIM command lets operating systems inform SSDs which data blocks are no longer needed so they can be wiped internally. This helps to keep the disk in optimum condition, and therefore maintain its performance. Windows 7 supports TRIM, but it may not be enabled in your system.

You can check the status of TRIM by launching the command prompt using administrator privileges. To do this, go to 'Start | All programs | Accessories' right-click 'Command prompt' and choose 'Run as administrator'.

Now enter the following command:
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
Press [Enter]. If TRIM is working correctly, you'll get a response of 0 (zero). If the result is 1, then you'll need to enable TRIM by entering the following command:
fsutil behavior query|set DisableDeleteNotify = 0

10. Check disk TRIM support
Not all solid state drives support TRIM, although you'll find that an increasing number do. It's a good idea to check through your drive's documentation or go to the manufacturer's website to see whether or not it's supported.

There may well be a firmware upgrade available for your drive that enables TRIM, so this is worth investigating too. You should be able to get this from the support section of the manufacturer's site, along with instructions on how to apply it.

11. Advanced Host Controller Interface
Windows Vista and 7 natively support the AHCI SATA controller standard, which enables faster data throughput, but it's worth checking that your motherboard does too.

Enter the BIOS by restarting your PC and hitting [Delete] as it starts up, or watching for the key combination displayed for you to enter the CMOS utility. The location varies, but it's often in chipset settings. If you find it's disabled, enable it.

12. SSD Tweaker


As an alternative to tweaking Windows settings manually to get the best configuration for your SSD, you can get a tweaking program such as SSD Tweaker to do the hard work.

The free version lets you clear the paging file and disable indexing, system restore, NTFS 8.3 name creation and file date stamping. There's also a handy 'Auto tweak settings' button that sets the most common SSD tweaks in a single operation.

The pro version includes more advanced settings, like querying the TRIM status and modifying hibernation settings. There's also a TRIM optimisation manager that enables you to optimise TRIM for your drive.