Every Internet user should at least have a basic understanding of the terms used in regard to online security and so I have collected a few of the popular ones and put them in this article with a brief explanation of each.

Adware means “Advertising Supported Software”. It refers to placing adverts in software or distributing them along side a software download.

Bots are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. Bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human editor alone.

Cross-site scripting This is a method of placing malicious scripts on websites that are then “executed” inside the web browser of the person viewing the website. These scripts can be dangerous at times.

DDos stands for Distributed Denial of Service. A DDoS attack attempts to consume the target resources so that it can not provide the service. In plain English this means a website can be brought down by aiming 1,000’s of page requests a minute until the website can no longer cope and fails!

A drive-by download is a program that is involuntarily downloaded to your computer, without your permission or even your awareness. A drive-by download can be commenced by simply visiting a Web site or viewing an HTML e-mail message.

Exploit This is name given to any process that seeks to take advantage of a code vulnerability, usually in a web browser such as Internet Explorer or FireFox.

Firewall In its simplest form it is a software security mechanism that prevents unwanted/unauthorized internet traffic from entering your computer. A firewall can also block software on your computer from sending out data as well. Having a software firewall on your computer is ESSENTIAL if you are connected to the Internet.

A keylogger is a small program that monitors each keystroke a client types on a specific computer’s keyboard. Keyloggers can steal valuable information that can allow a thief access to your online banking account etc.

Malware is software that is designed to damage a computer system without the owner’s informed permission. It is a combination of the words malicious and software. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

Phishing is the act of deception by giving someone secret information or tricking them into doing somewhat that they normally wouldn’t do or shouldn’t do. For example: distributing e-mails to a number of users falsely claiming to be your bank etc.. in an endeavor to cheat the users into yielding private information like passwords. The latest versions of Internet Explorer 7 and FireFox 2 have built in phishing filters to help spot this kind of activity.

Root Kit is a set of tools that hackers embed in a victim’s computer. They can act as a “back door” entrance onto your computer and provide information for the person who put them there. These tools have been especially designed to allow malicious processes/applications to run on your computer but evade detection.

Spyware is any technology that assists in collection of information about a computer user without their knowledge. Spyware is software that is put in someone’s computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spyware can get in a computer as a virus or as the result of installing a new program. If you have some annoying advertising that appears on your computer all the time you are likely infected with a spyware application.

Trojan is a software application that installs malicious software while under the guise of doing something else. These are nasty things to get infected by and are used to steal data from you as you use your computer!

Virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. A virus can only spreadvirus internet worm from one computer to another when its host is taken to the uninfected computer, for instance by a user sending it over a network or carrying it on a removable medium such as a CD, USB drive or by the Internet and eMail. Not all viruses are harmful BUT they all cause problems on the infected PC.

Worm is similar to a virus but with a different implementation. It is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other PC’s and it may do so without any user intervention. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms can bring a PC down to the point where it is impossible to use it because it it too slow. Worms can also harm a company network by consuming most of the available network bandwidth, so that the connected PC’s can not speak with each other.

A zero-day exploit is the one that takes advantage of security vulnerability on the same day that the vulnerability becomes generally known. Ordinarily, after someone detects that a software program contains a potential exposure to exploitation by a hacker that person or company can notify the software company and sometimes the world at large so that action can be taken to repair the exposure or defend against its exploitation.

Zombie is a program that secretly takes over another Internet attached computer and then uses that computer to launch attacks that are difficult to trace. Zombies are typically used in denial of service attacks (DOS), typically against targeted Websites. 10,000 zombie PC’s can be used in a single attack! What usual happens is a criminal gang will approach the “owner” of the zombie PC’s and pay them to perform an “attack.”

However you can generally remain safe if you:

Use an up to date AntiVirus package, AntiSpyware package, make sure your Windows Firewall is on and have Windows Updates set to automatically receive any updates from Microsoft as they become available.

In addition if you have not yet moved to Internet Explorer 7 or FireFox 2, from an older version, do so now!

“As my colleague Dan Frakes discussed, the MacBook Air is all about tradeoffs, even if Apple doesn’t present it as such. As Dan explained, it’s just that the MacBook Air’s tradeoffs are different than those other manufacturers have chose for their subnotebooks. Basically, Apple opted to focus on thickness (or thinness), weight, performance, and screen and keyboard size in the MacBook Air.In his Macworld Expo keynote presentation, Steve Jobs used the Sony TZ series as a point of comparison in some charts showing how the MacBook Air compared to the TZ in many areas. I thought it might be interesting to take that comparison deeper, examining all of the major features of a Sony TZ-series laptop against those same features in the MacBook Pro….”

Continue reading here

Microsoft has released a new showcase of its Silverlight web development frameworks, a graphical search engine called Tafiti. Tafiti, which means “do research” in Swahili, is an experimental frontend to Microsoft’s Live Search engine. It presents search options in three panes on the screen: the left pane is for entering search queries and switching between image, RSS, Web, and News, the middle pane contains the search results, and the right pane is used to “dock” results using drag-and-drop for looking at later.

To run the Tafiti web application, you must first download and install Silverlight. Silverlight runs on Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher. A Linux version of Silverlight is being worked on by Mono developer Miguel de Icaza but is not yet available.

The installation is a one-time-only affair, with the default setting to update Silverlight automatically in the background when new releases come out—a good thing since the Silverlight frameworks themselves are still in beta. Once installed, a browser restart is required, and then the Tafiti site will run. Tafiti runs on Internet Explorer 6 or 7, Firefox 2.x, and Safari 2.x, but it will not work on Opera or the new Safari 3 beta. I had some problems with Tafiti not rendering search results on Firefox 2.0.0.6, but others have reported no difficulties.

The user interface

Tafiti is intended as a demonstration of the power of rich web technologies, and in that it succeeds. The screens make good use of graphics and animation, making web searching feel a bit more like the mythical operating system that people use in movies. The search box looks like an old piece of lined paper, and past searches stack up behind new ones. There is also a “tree” view that shows a bunch of web results in a three-dimensional tree format, but it is awkward to use and, apart from looking good, doesn’t seem to be that useful. As mentioned, search results can be saved by dragging them onto the right-hand “shelf” for quick access later, even after a browser restart.

But what is it good for?

Ultimately, Tafiti is a “showcase” application for new Microsoft development technologies, much like the picture viewing and sharing program Microsoft Codename Max was for the .NET frameworks. Bugs aside, I cannot foresee myself using Tafiti for regular searching, simply because all the animation and eye-candy get in the way of the results, which are what people do searches for in the first place. As innovative as the application is, it doesn’t seem to add anything useful to the actual act of searching, with the exception of saving searches in the shelf for later access.

Still, it is an impressive demonstration of what web-based applications are likely to look like in the near future. One can only hope that web developers do not overdose on the eye-candy and forget that ultimately, web sites are about speed, ease of use, and functionality.

This article has been taken from the April 2006 issue of computer magazine DIGIT. I am sharing it here just because I thought it was worth it. The article is written as it appears in the magazine. The ME in the article is not me, it is the author of the article.

Oh Shush, You Little **** Activist! Piracy is Good

This is what was said to me when I recently chided a female friend who called me to ask for a “free version” of a very popular (and expensive) image-editing software! The verbal refuse did not ruffle me- but her statement,”Piracy is good,” left me speechless.

A lot of muttering and stammering and hurled abuses later, things calmed down a bit and I got down to asking her how exactly piracy was good, and for whom.

“Not unless you buy me coffee and get me that software,” she teased. Long story short, I took her out for coffee, but made sure she got someone else to do her piracy work.

Here’s what transpired:

Me: So how can piracy be good? Good, for you, yes, but not good for the poor developer or for our economy!
She: Nope. Piracy is good for the software developers themselves. I mean, it’s also good for me, but it’s lot more beneficial for the big software companies.

Me: Oh really, how? Do you know how many billions of US dollars of profit they lose because of piracy?

She: Sure, but how many billions more do they make with sales?
Me: Oh, that’s not a valid argument; it’s like saying that since 1 million citizens pay tax, why should the government want tax from rest of the population?
She: No, taxes are different. You have to pay them, but when it comes to software, I don’t have to use it; I could choose to be like you and not use paid software at all!

Me: So why don’t you?
She: Because I am keeping the balance of good and evil in the world! What do you think, dummy? It’s because there are popular software that are easy to use and the not-so-popular freeware that are a lot harder to get used to! I like to keep it simple.

Me: So piracy is justified for you because you are lazy?
She: No. Piracy is justified for me because I want to use same software at home as I do at work. My company will not buy me a copy for home, so I pirate it!
Me: Wha…huh…umm…that’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard! Why can’t you just use logic and listen to what you’re saying!

She: What I’m saying is logical. You just cannot grasp my logic. Perhaps you should buy us a couple of coffees more and I will waste another half hour of my time trying to put this in baby talk.

10 minutes later…

She: Ok look; can you tell me why software companies have not made un-crackable software products till date?
Me: Because they can’t. But they’ll probably be able to so soon enough!
She: Wrong! They haven’t because they just do not want to! Do you seriously believe that they couldn’t, at the least, make it a lot harder to crack software? I mean, how come a crack or patch is available in a week from when the software is released? There has to be more than just a simple “they cannot” answer to this.

Me: No, it’s because software is made by humans and thus it is crackable by humans!
She: Oh come on, don’t be so naive. Look at the bigger picture!
Me: There’s a bigger picture? I thought software vendors losing billions of dollars was the bigger picture!

She: Fine! Let me use an example to make you understand!
Me: Oh this ought to be good…

She: Ok, let’s say Microsoft makes a Windows version that is un-crackable. Let’s say its Vista for example. What happens then?
Me: Everyone buys Vista?
She: Nope, a lot of people start using Linux! Lindows, SuSE, Ubuntu, you choose.

Me: Its Linspire!
She: Oh whatever, correct all the little mistakes if you wish, but that’s the truth! Seriously, consider how so many people today have at least tried a Linux distro- alive or dead! Don’t you think they’d either just stick to using a pirated version of Windows XP, or just use a newer Linux distro?
Me: Umm…maybe. But we’re talking majority here, not the minorities.

She: Minority? Why do you think so lowly of us? I’m no techie, but even I’ve installed Ubuntu and tried it out. Sure, some things I just could not fathom, but for my kind of work it really made no difference what OS I was running! I found OpenOffice.org to be just as simple to type out reports in as Microsoft Office!
Me: True, I use it too.

She: See!

Me: No, I don’t see!

She: Typical! Why can’t you use your imagination a bit? Think of what would happen if I started using GPL software only at home…Take your own example…don’t you use the same software at office as you do at home?
Me: Err…yeah, so?
She: Well, now imagine the whole world doing that! We’d have open source software being used at home and at work- after all, companies would love to save money on software, wouldn’t they?
Me: OK! So a lot of people start using open source software. How’s that bad?
She: It is if you’re a paid software developer!
Me: Ouch!
She: Aww, the pwwooh baby lost an argument!

Me: (muttered some words)

She: Ok, I’m going back to office. Let’s do it again sometime!
Me: (mutter) Let’s not!

As I dejectedly stomped my way back to my office, the logic she had used to reach her conclusion started to sink in. I know that despite losing the debate, software piracy is still bad, and against the law, but I cannot help but wonder how beneficial it’s been to big software development companies. Sure the smaller guys stand to lose everything because of piracy, but then again, since when have smaller companies not risked everything?

1. Turn off Wi-Fi and BlueTooth – Most laptops have shortcut keys to instantly disable wireless networking.

2. Don’t play computer games, music or DVD movies – Multimedia activities drain laptop batteries.

3. Disconnect all external device like PC Card modems, Firewire, USB devices and optical drives. Use the notebook touchpad instead of an external mouse.

4. Adjust your screen brightness – Dimming your display saves battery power.

5. Tweak Windows Power Options – Choose a Laptop power scheme that turns off the notebook monitor and hard disk after 10 minutes of inactivity.

6. Decrease or mute the Laptop Speaker Volume.

7. Turn off all scheduled tasks.

8. Turn off Auto-save features in Microsoft Office and other applications.

9. If your PC has a built-in wireless card, turn it off or disable it when not in use.

10. Programs that are run from a CD or DVD can be copied to and run from the hard drive, which typically consumes less power than an optical drive.

Battery-saving sleep modes: Should I use Stand By or Hibernate ?

Standby mode
Use standby to save power when you will be away from the computer for a short time while working – your monitor and hard disks turn off, all applications and open files are stored in RAM. When you want to use the computer again, it comes out of standby quickly, and your desktop is restored exactly as you left it.

Hibernation Mode
Use hibernation to save power when you will be away from the computer for an extended time while working – your computer shuts down to save power but first saves everything in memory on your hard disk. When you restart the computer, your desktop is restored exactly as you left it.

When you choose Start, Turn Off Computer in Windows XP, your options are Stand By, Turn Off, and Restart. To Hibernate, place the cursor over Stand By, then hold down Shift and click.

Your computer can become slow as hell if it is not maintained properly. The average size of hard drive has become quite large in recent times, and this is one of the reasons for slow speed and decreased system performance. The main reason behind this is the fragmentation of files on the hard disk over a period of time. More space, less organized files. So today I will tell you how to increase your system performance with the help of two of the best freewares available around – CCleaner and Auslogics Disk Defrag.

Lets first download both these freewares:

Download the latest version of CCleaner here

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag here

After you have installed both the softwares, first run CCleaner. Clean up all the junk off your hard drive with it and also scan and clean up your registry.

Now exit all your programs and start Auslogics Disk Defrag. (There is an in-built defragmenting tool in Windows but it is too slow). Select the drive and start defragmenting.

Note: Defragmentation can take several hours depending upon the level of fragmentation and the number of files.

After you have defragmented all your partitions, you are sure to see a great difference in the performance and speed of your system.

I recommend you to defrag your hard drive at least once every month.

So now you know what are PDFs. (No need to remember what PDF stands for). And you are really impressed by its features, which stand high over other document formats. Its easy for me to guess what you want to do now. So here I am going to list some of the free PDF creators (and if you are thinking that PDF format was created by Adobe then you are thinking right, and the format was first used in 1993…so now you know why Adobe is dominant in PDF mania).

1. PrimoPDF

     PrimoPDF is one of the best free PDF creators. It is also very easy to use. All you have to do is to print the document to PrimoPDF printer (it installs itself as a printer). That means you can create PDF from virtually any application. You can also define security settings for your PDF.

2. PDF reDirect

    PDF reDirect is a free PDF creator with paid upgrade available. But the free version is more than enough for a beginner.

3. CutePDF

     CutePDF free version also provides you all the standard functions you need for creating PDF documents.

Now to view your PDFs you need a PDF viewer. You can view them with Adobe Acrobat, or if you don’t like to see the Acrobatics each time you open a PDF (sometimes one or two pages), then you can try these free PDF readers:

1. Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader has nowadays become one of the most popular free PDF readers (it has a paid upgrade though). It is extremely light on resources and amazingly fast. (But you can’t expect the same functionality as Adobe Acrobat, the Big Boss).

2. Free eXPert PDF Reader

    Free eXPert PDF Reader provides all the basic this-and-thats to view and print PDFs

Free softwares are the best option for home users. I myself use PrimoPDF and Foxit Reader as they best suit my needs (and pocket too). So choose for yourself and just let me know.

I know that you already know a lot about them, the PDFs. They have become quite popular in recent times.

PDF stands for portable document format. The most popular PDF creator is Adobe however, there are many different readers and other utilities on the market that can create these types of files and allow you to read these files on your computer.

PDF files are very popular as they can hold documents up to hundreds of pages. The pages will look exactly like the original document such as the font, colors, graphics, text, drawings, photos, business logic, 3D, and all full color graphics.

PDF files allows you to share your document with others around the world no matter what operating system they may have such as Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, UNIX, and other mobile platforms. PDF files can be viewed and printed without any problem thus giving you the ability to share your pictures, documents, graphs, and more with family, co-workers, or business associates around the world.

Certain Adobe PDF software programs such as Adobe Acrobat 8 and Adobe LiveCycle allow the creator to digitally sign or password protect their documents along with other PDF programs.

PDF files when compiled are searchable with such actions as locating certain words, data fields, or even bookmarks. PDF files are also created to be accessible with individuals with disabilities.

Hey! These number of advantages are enough to make them popular over other document formats. So next time you want to share a document, which contains more than text, convert it into a PDF, and have it seen as you want it to be.