I know, passwords are a pain. We pick ones that are easy to remember, but that leaves us vulnerable. Memorizing one good password is hard enough but do we really need a different password for each site? What makes a good password? As more and more of our lives are online from pictures, banking and social activities, these are all questions people should be asking more and more. Luckily, P.C. Tantrums is here to help with this quick guide for password hints and tricks.

Things to avoid:
Here are some of the things to avoid when thinking up a new password.
- Never use a birthday as the password.
- Don’t use pet, spouse or children’s names.
- Don’t use your company name as your password.
- Don’t use words that can be found in the dictionary.
- Don’t make it to short (6-10 letters is ideal)

The most commonly used passwords are:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123

So we have gone over the donts, now lets figure out how to make a good password. First of all, we have to figure out what’s in a good password. A good password has the following characteristics:

- It has nothing to do with you.
- It is long.
- It has letters, numbers, a capital letter and preferably a symbol of some type like ! @ # or &.
- It is something you can remember.

Now I know what you’re saying. 1 threw 3 cancel out 4, but here are some ways to make them more memorable.

Tip 1:
Move everything to the right one. If you want your password to be fluffy, type the letters one space to the right of the letters you want. That way fluffy becomes g;iggu. You can even capitalize the first letter and that would give you three of the desired characteristics. It has nothing to do with you, it has a symbol and an upper case letter. Now if you could just make it longer and get a number in there, we would be off to the races.

Tip 2:
Substitute numbers for letters. If you want your password to be Mississippi, replace all of the s’s with 5′s making it Mi55i55ippi. That would be a lot harder to guess.

Tip 3:
Take the first letters of the first ten words in your favorite song, capitalize the first one and add a number at the end. Still requires some memorization, but it’s easier to remember over time.

These are just a few tips to help make a more secure password. Alternatively there are simple but powerful tools that can help you generate and keep track of your passwords like my personal favorite LastPass, but I will write more about that in a future post.

I hope this post has helped educate one not only the importance of maintaining a secure password, but provided easy tips on how to make one.

If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to email us and we would be more than happy to see if we can lend a hand.

“What the hell was that all about” I asked. “Oh, he’s going to his office to install this thing he has been talking about non stop for months” she said, looking annoyed by the inerruption. “What is it?” I asked. She shrugged and said “I don’t know, something called Windows 95″. Staring at the stairs where you could almost see his smoke trail from his blazing path all I could say was

“What a Geek”

Now fast forward to 2009. Everyone of my computers has a timer on the desktop counting down to the release of Microsoft’s new Operating System Windows 7 (19 d, 18h 49m 11s at the time of this writing). No doubt I will be standing in line on release day, speeding back to the house, crashing threw the door and flying to my office to play with all of the GUI (or gooey) goodness Windows 7 has to offer.

Tips for healthy computer use:

Use Common Areas.
I can’t stress this one enough. Always keep the computer in a common area (living room, kitchen) where anyone walking past can see what is on the screen. If you child has a laptop, tell them they can only use it in these common areas.

Passwords.
While it is better to not have a password at all, if you child wants to have one (ie: doesn’t want siblings reading their journal) make it a password of your choosing. Many newer laptops have built in fingerprint scanners that can have multiple fingers programmed so only you and your child can have access to that computer. It is recomended that your child know and understand that you have full access to their computer at all times.

Give them their own account.
All modern operating systems allow each user to have their own “profile” where they can keep their own files. They can even customize it with their own wallpaper and icons. There are several types of accounts thought, some allow for the users to have more control over the computer then others. Setting your child up with a “Standard User” account will stop them from being able perform certain potentially dangerous operations like installing new software or disabling content restrictions.

Enable Parental Controls.
Most modern operating systems (including Microsoft Vista and Windows 7) include Parental Controls that you can assign to your child’s profile. This enables you to restrict access to certain programs, ban games over a certain ESRB Rating and it can even restrict access to the computer at various times defined by you. If you want more powerful restrictions and monitoring capabilities, there are third party programs like Netnanny or Spector Pro.

Warn Them About The Dangers.
Many parents skip this step as they don’t want to scare their kids but the truth is, this conversation should be no different than the “Don’t talk to strangers” conversation. Letting them know some of the risks on the net can help them stop suspicious behavior and let them report it to you.

All that being said, it is mainly about finding a healthy balance. You know your child and you know what they are like. Some children need more supervision than others but following at least these simple steps will go a long way to ensuring all of your surfing experiences will be happy and incident free.

If you would like to research this topic further, here are a few websites you can visit for more in-depth conversation. They also cover more topics like Cyber Bullying, Chat Room Safety and Sexting.

http://www.safekids.com/
http://www.getnetwise.org/
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/guidelines/default.mspx

If you have any additional questions about this topic, please feel free to CONTACT us at any time.

*Update*
Google just launched their Family Safety Center that outlines Google’s built in safety tools, offers advice from parents and video tips from Google parents.

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On  July/7/2009 Google announced two things. One, after five years Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs would finally be coming out of Beta, and 2010 would be the year we see Google release their new operating system. Hold it… what? An Operating System by Google? I almost shot coffee out of my nose when I read this.

Here is the official announcement on their blog.

So, what are we talking about here? Will this be an Operating System to rival Microsoft? Will it’s simplicity and ease of use finally kill Apples struggling OS? Well at this point no one really knows.
Here is what we do know. It will be a web-centric operating system meaning most of the apps will run in the browser. This may sound a little limiting at the moment but of you look at the current trend, their vision becomes clearer.

More applications that we use every day are going online and there are exciting plans to move even more in the near future. Email is almost exclusively online using applications such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. More and more people are putting expensive applications like Microsoft Word aside for free browser based options like Google Docs (which I am using right now to write this). There are even new technologies coming out like oToy that will enable low end PC’s to run super high end games and graphical programs by doing all of the rendering online using server farms.

Companies are excited about this for several reasons. If you have to log onto their website to be able to use their software, that eliminates pirated software as well as hugely reduces tech support calls as all of the hardware would be handled on their end. Really the only thing that could go wrong on the user end would be internet, browser or keyboard/mouse related.

The truth of the matter is that know one knows what to expect from Google. We have not even seen any (credible) screen shots. The few that were released turned out to be fakes. So if you hear anyone saying that Google OS is nothing special or someone else saying that it will be a huge game changer, they may both be right.

One thing is for sure, everything Google does makes a huge impact so it will be interesting to keep an eye on.

For example, if you look above you will see my wonderfully constructed header image. Its nicely placed and sized, but the code needed to put that there looks like this:

<img title=”browser wars” src=”http://www.pctantrums.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/browser-wars.jpg” alt=”browser wars” width=”330″ height=”180″ />

Not nearly as pretty is it? So a browser simply translates the line of code to show the pretty picture above.

So now your asking, “If they all do the same thing, what’s the difference”?

Good question. The easiest analogy would be to compare them to cars.  A Honda Civic and a BMW will both get you from A to B, the differences are in the bells and whistles and speed in which they get you there. There are also other differences like security and reliability but we will get into that later.

First lets identify the main players in the browser game:

1. Internet Explorer (IE)
2. Firefox (FF)
3. Safari
4. Chrome

If you look at the graph (that I stole borrowed from Wikipedia) you can see the percentage of usage per browser as of May 2009.

As you can see IE (shown in blue) is by far the the most used, but that is mainly because it comes installed in every Windows computer and most people don’t know they
have a choice of other browsers. Following IE is FF, then Safari, Chrome Opera (not worth mentioning) and other.

So now let’s get to the differences. While IE is the most popular, it does have it’s issues. Critics will say that it is the most vulnerable but that can be attributed mainly to the fact that it is the most used. It suffers from the Apple vs PC syndrome where Apple users boast that there are very few viruses designed to attack Apple systems, but virus makers look at them and say “why would we waste our time attacking something only 7% of people use?” Now that more people are using Mac’s we are seeing at least 2 new viruses released every week.

Since most people use IE, it has been picked at more and more vulnerabilities have been uncovered. There are however, some very nice advantages to using IE. When designers are making websites, they make them with IE compatibility in mind so you are more likely to have a consistent browsing experience with IE. It also integrates useful applications like accelerators, tabbed browsing and Phishing Filters.

Accelerators are Quick Access options for actions people use every day. If you are looking up an address that you found online, instead of highlighting it, copying it, opening a new window, launching Google maps and pasting it into there, you simply click on a little blue box that comes up and select the operation you would like to preform. Other Accelerators include Define, Translate, Search, Send and Shop.

Firefox is the second most used Browser on the market. As with the other browsers, it is free to download and use. This is the second most used browser and the most used by Geeks around the world. It is fast, stable and customizable. Because most Geeks use Firefox, they also make add-ons called “Plugs-Ins” that can drastically increase the functionality and usability of the browser. This can be great except for one major drawback. Not all coders are created equal and adding poorly coded plug-ins can cause more annoyances and frustration then they are worth.

Third is Safari. This is number three because it is the standard browser included in Mac Operating Systems. People that know better use either IE or FF on their Mac, those that don’t, continue to use Safari and suffer. It is by far my least favorite browser.

Coming in at number four is the new kid on the block and one to keep your eyes on. Chrome is made by Google and is one of the fastest browsers on the market. Unfortunately I find it to be to young and under developed a browser to use all the time. Google knows that more and more is being done in the browser. More people are using online applications like G mail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and so on. Chrome is designed to take full advantage of this.

So what one is the best? Unfortunately no one can answer that one but you. I love IE’s Accelerators, Firefox’s Plug-Ins and Chromes speed. While I  find my self using Firefox more than the others, I really enjoy using the other two as well.

The defining two features for me are being able to drag tabs out of the window to create new windows, and being able to view all the tabs at one time. Unfortunately there is no browser on the market that can do both. IE can show a preview of all open tabs but you can’t drag a tab out and make it into a new window as you can in Firefox and Chrome. But you can’t preview all open tabs in  Firefox and Chrome. (sigh)

As I mentioned, all of the browsers are free to download and use to feel free to try them out using the links below.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or questions in the comments section below.

IE 8 – DOWNLOAD
Firefox – DOWNLOAD
Chrome – DOWNLOAD
Safari – DOWNLOAD

Here is a quick overview from someone who has been using Windows 7 exclusively for a few months now.

Windows 7 has been called by many “Microsoft’s best Operating System ever!” and I would have to agree. Windows XP is fast and stable, but it is also 8 years old. Windows Vista received a bad reputation out of the gate and while it was very innovative, it could never shed that reputation.

Windows 7 is as fast and stable as Windows XP with all of the innovation and advancements of  Vista. It is truly a pleasure to use. The interface is minimal and clean. It is incredibly stable as well as fast. Microsoft has spent a lot of time tweaking every aspect of the system from the deepest code all the way up to the new and improved calculator.

While Windows 7 has not officially been released, Microsoft has released the RC (Retail Consideration) for early adopters to use. Since then they have changed and tweaked over 2000 objects based entirely on user feedback.

I will be writing a lot more about this in the future, I just wanted to give a quick outline on what it is and how it runs.

As always, feel free to ask any questions using our “Contact Us” section.

Now you may be asking, “why wouldn’t I just plug my computer or monitor directly into the wall?” and that’s a good question. Computers have many parts that are sensitive to fluctuations in electricity. Most of the time the current coming into your house or office is pretty consistent but we have all experienced brown outs, power spikes and even power outages. While rare, these fluctuations in power can be very harmful to computers. Ever notice the lights dim or flicker for a second when your fridge or furnace turns on? Your computer does as well.

The UPS keeps its battery constantly charged from the wall then delivers a steady and consistent flow of electricity to any devices plugged into it. This completely protects your devices from the negative effects of power outages, brownouts or power spikes. Many UPS’s even come with a “connected devices warranty” meaning if the product should fail to protect any device plugged into it, they will pay to replace it free of charge.

The most common parts effected by power fluctuations are the power supply, motherboard but more importantly the Hard Drive, where all of your data is stored. Even something as simple as turning off the computer by hitting the off button on the power bar or pulling the power cable out of the back of the tower can cause loss of data.

UPS’s come in many different flavors and can range in price from 35.00 to thousands of dollars. The average household UPS’s run in the 35.00 to 75.00 range depending on how much you need to plug into it. Most users will plug in their computer, monitor and modem so that if the power does go out, they can have an additional 15 to 30 minutes of power to finish what they are working on and shut everything down.

Here are just some of the advantages to using a UPS:

• Constant and consistent supply of clean power to all connected devices.
• Connected device warranty.
• Included software monitors your computer so if you are out of the house and your power goes out, it will save and close all of your documents ie: word, email etc and shut down your computer safely.
• Automatic self-test Ensures early detection of potential problems by periodic testing of UPS components.
• Keep working during power outages for up to one full hour.

This product is available for purchase threw P.C. Tantrums.

Please CONTACT US for more details and information.

Many have spoken of how the world of computers keeps changing, what is not spoken about as much is how the computer itself is changing. The life of the computer seems to be following the life of the T.V. First there was only one per block. Everyone would crowd around and watch someone save something to a 3 1/2 floppy drive, or if you have a really good memory, you might remember the old 5 1/4 floppies. Then they became more affordable. More people bought them and started surfing the net. They paid by the hour at blazing speeds of 14.4k or even 56k if they were lucky.

Now you can pick up a high end system for under a thousand dollars, the internet is available almost everywhere and the computers we carry in our pockets are more powerful than the ones we used to have on our desk.  But with this new found power, the way we interact with it has changed as well. Now we have a computer at home (usually more than one), one at the office and one at the cottage. This however, is starting to present a problem. How do you get your music from home to the cottage? How do you get your files from the office to the home? There are solutions for that with remote access and portable hard drives but they are clunky and can be forgotten. Enter the laptop.

Once an “Executive status symbol” they have quickly entered the main stream. 2007 saw laptop sales soar by 21 percent to 31.6 million units almost matching desktop sales of 35 million units. While all of the 2008 numbers are not in yet, industry insiders expect laptop sales to surpass desktop sales for the first time by occupying 71 percent of computer sales.

Some of the historical drawbacks to Laptop over Desktops have been:

Lack of power:
This is changing rapidly with the introduction of the “Desktop Replacement” category. These are high powered laptops able to perform just about anything a desktop can. They often come with 17”, 18 ½ or even sometimes 20” screens. Recent advancements in mobile video cards and CPU’s have given this category huge advantage in the past five years. Tasks once reserved for Desktops such as Video editing and Photoshop can now be handed with relative ease on these laptops.

Storage space:
Storage space has always been an issue but now that new laptops such as the Asus M70Vm-C1 can handle two hard drives and up to 1TB of storage, this is no longer a problem.

Ability to upgrade:
On the average laptop, there are two things you can upgrade, the RAM and the Hard Drive. On a desktop computer you can upgrade just about any part should it fail or need more power. Now, with the average consumer upgrading every 3 to 5 years, this has become less of an issue.

Price:
Traditionally, getting a laptop that had comparable specs to a Desktop meant spending an extra 600 to 1000 dollars. That margin has been shrunk to 100 to 200 dollars in most cases, and in some cases the laptop is actually cheaper.

There are many advantages to laptops. They take up less space, can be used anywhere and require much less energy to run. Having just gone to a 100% laptop system myself, I must say its much nicer writing an email on the back patio on a warm summer day then stuck in my office. The convenience of having all of my files everywhere I go is like a breath of fresh air.

So, are desktop computers on their way out? I think there will always be a place for them in super high end systems, but with new, more powerful laptops coming out with touch screens and intuitive interfaces, I think we will start seeing a lot less towers on store shelves in the years to come.

What do you think? Feel free to leave your thoughts on this topic or this article in the comments section below.

If you are not familiar with the term, a Netbook is a new breed of laptop. Its main purpose is (as the name would suggest) going on line. Many companies (Microsoft, Google amongst others) have launched entire software suites that exist only online. This is known as “Cloud Computing”. Both have stripped down versions of Word, Excel and other software that you can use for free and access from any computer with an internet connection. Because of this, the computer running it does not have to be powerful or have much storage capacity as the files are stored on the “Cloud”.

Traditionally, any computer with a screen smaller than 9 inches and a price between 300 and 400 dollars was considered a Netbook. They also use smaller incredibly cheap processors. Most of them use Intel’s Atom processor made popular by the “One laptop per child” program. Lately that definition has started to become blurred with larger screens and higher priced devices still being labeled as Netbooks. Asus has their Eee PC S101 with a 10.2” display and retails for over 875.00. Sony refused to enter the Netbook race calling it a “race to the bottom” but recently released a “pocket sized” Notebook with an 8 inch screen but is expected to sell for about 900.00 for the lower end model and 1500.00 for the high end version. That is more expensive then some higher end 17 inch HP entertainment Laptops.

So the question still remains, is a Netbook right for you? While the definition of a Netbook may be becoming more blurred, their purpose isn’t. These are for browsing the internet and that’s about it. You could view pictures on them or watch short videos but be prepared for slow load times and choppy performance.

While they might be small and cheap, Netbooks are usually used to compliment a laptop as they have long battery life and fit easily in most bags, not replace them.

1) Clicking on a link in an email.

2) Clicking on a link in an instant message like MSN or ICQ.

3) Clicking on a link in Facebook.

4) Running an unsecured network or out of date software.
It used to be that virus creators did it for bragging rights. It was a challenge and point of pride to see how many systems they could infect. Nowadays though, it’s big business. In the good old days they wanted you to know that you were infected. Sometimes a large message would come up on the screen informing you that you had been infected, and then it would erase your hard drive. Nowadays they don’t want you to know that they are there and go to great lengths to try and make your computer run as if nothing is wrong.
They run quietly and can perform any number of functions. Some record your browsing history and try to send popups related to your search habits. Some record your keystrokes and send them back to their creator who searches for Credit Card Numbers, Bank Account numbers and any other useful information they can mine from it.
Sometimes they add your computer to what is known as a Bot Net. A Bot Net is a group of computers (sometimes hundreds of thousands large) that can be remotely controlled by the creator to perform tasks without the user even knowing something is going on. One example of this would be to launch a DOS (Denial of Service) attack. Websites are designed to handle a certain number of visitors, but if a website were to have 200,000 people visit it all at once, it would crash and sometimes take hours to get back up. Someone who controls one of these Bot Nets would call a big gambling website a couple days before a big fight or race and “make them an offer they can’t refuse”. For a few hundred thousand dollars, they will make sure no one launches a DOS attack on that site, thus crashing the site and costing them millions of dollars in lost gambling bets.
So, now that you have heard all of the worst case scenarios and I have scared you so much you are about to pull your power cable out of the wall, let me tell you a few simple things you can do to make sure you stay uninfected.
As I say to my customers, most viruses can be avoided by practicing “Safe Surfing”. This includes:
Don’t go to websites you don’t know:

If you have seen a website advertised then they are usually safe, but watch out for websites linked from other sites or emails sent to you by email or instant message (more on this later)
Don’t install software from a third party site:

One of the ways these sites will try and trick you into installing a virus is to disguise it as something else. Your friend sends you a link to a website promising something cute (usually without knowing), you click on the link to view the video but are greeted with an error message saying you can’t view it because you don’t have the latest version of Flash “click HERE to download the latest version” it promises. You click and download it to your computer, you follow the instructions to a tee by double clicking on it to install but nothing happens and you still can’t see the video. That’s because that was not the latest version of Flash, but a virus, and now it’s on your computer. If a website tells you that you need a new version of Adobe Flash to view the video, go to Adobe’s website and install it from them directly.
Don’t click on links in Emails, Instant Messages or Facebook:

This may sound harsh but the huge majority of viruses out there are spread this way. The main problem with these are generic or vague subject lines or titles. If you see an email in your inbox with the subject “funny video” and the body is nothing but a link, delete it as fast as you can. Even if it comes from a friend, actually, especially if it comes from a friend. Most of the time people don’t know they are sending these messages. Their computer is infected with a virus which is causing it to send these messages to everyone on their contact list. The solution to this is pretty simple but not widely practiced. Make sure messages are personalized. Instead of sending an email with the subject line “Funny Video”, have it say “Hi Tom, I saw this video and thought of the conversation we had the other day at lunch” or put the time and date you sent it in the subject line so they know it’s not a generic letter. I have even been known to call people if I get an email from them and I am not sure if they knew they sent it or not.
Secure your computer:

Antivirus software is great, but for the most part it doesn’t kick in until there is already a problem. Using a hardware firewall such as a Router is one of the best ways to protect your computer from online attacks. If you have a wireless router, make sure you have enabled the wireless encryption.
Stay up to date:

Microsoft releases patches for Windows and Internet Explorer on the second Tuesday of every month. If there is a serious problem that arises, they will sometimes release before that but very rarely. Make sure you download and install these updates as they fix security holes and vulnerabilities. Don’t think your safe if you’re running a Mac either. With the recent increase in Macs market share (up 2% from 5% to7%) more people are making viruses for Macs, and even Apple is recommending their users install Anti Virus software.
That’s about it. Follow these simple rules and you should enjoy many years of happy, virus free surfing. That is until your kids or baby sitter get on your computer and click every download button in sight J
If you have any questions or comments about this article, feel free to leave us a note down below.