Keeping your Laptop Safe and Secure

When people think of computer security they think of things like Trojan Horses, viruses, spyware, worms and other nasty things that hackers can send to you over the internet. No matter how many blocks you have in place, or how many firewalls you erect, though, there is a type of security that you are probably forgetting when it comes to your laptop.
With huge numbers of people using laptops both at home and at work, and the rising number of people taking their laptops with them on trips to anywhere from the coffee shop down the street to the next continent over, there is an important security issue also on the rise. The theft of laptops is at a record high, and once a thief has your computer safely in his hands, he has all the time in the world to crack the rest of your security or take your computer apart to sell the pieces.
Keeping your laptop safe is not just an issue of internal security and regular checkups (though these things are important), but also of physical security and making sure that your computer does not leave your possession.
Security at Work and School With the theft of laptops on the rise, the job of protecting them has become big business. If you bring your laptop to work, then it is important to keep it secure at all times. Especially in a busy office with many people coming and going, a two-minute bathroom break can mean the loss of a couple of thousand dollars worth of technology, and a lot of data.
For a laptop on your desk in the busy office place, there are several options for keeping your laptop tied down and in place no matter what. One of these methods is attaching your laptop to a security cable to stop casual theft. These cables can only be released with a key or code, and keep others from lifting your laptop when your back is turned.
If you bring your laptop to work, but do not use it the entire time you are there, if you are a student or parent concerned about others accessing your computer, or if you foresee being away from your desk for a period of time, locking your laptop in a file cabinet or desk drawer can be ideal. If these options are not available, a laptop locker will keep others away from your valuable tool. Mount the laptop locker under your desk, in the trunk of your car, on the wall, or in the closet to prevent theft and unwanted access.
For a laptop that many people may need to use or have access to, and one that is not supposed to go anywhere, ever, then a tie-down bracket is the option to keep your computer safe. Popular with libraries and hotels, these brackets protect your laptop usually whether open or closed, but will not allow the laptop to be removed. These are also good for computers that can be in danger of falling from things such as store displays, car mounts, and laptops on hospital carts.
For schools or companies that provide laptops for special use to many people at once, a lockable laptop cart is idea. The cart provides room for fifteen to thirty laptops at once. These carts are constructed to be both mobile and extremely difficult to break into. When not in use they should be kept in a locked room for additional security, however even if someone gets one of these carts, it will be virtually impossible to conceal.
If despite your best precautions your laptop is lost or stolen, having installed a stealth signal program or other tracking program means that your laptop can call out for help. Report your laptop as lost or stolen, and your computer will begin transmitting its location to a control center. These control centers can then help you retrieve your lost computer, hopefully before any damage is done.
The best security you can offer your computer is keeping your eye on it at all times. If you choose to bring it with you anywhere, do not leave it alone unless it is under lock and key. People are tempted to set their bags on the floor and doze in waiting rooms or airports, but it only takes a second to lose your valuable investment and all of your data.
Security Online and in Networks Don t think that just because your computer is locked up from theft makes it perfectly safe, either. Information you keep stored on your computer such as bank data, passwords, credit cards, and other sensitive information make a tempting target for hackers and identity thieves. The best security for your personal information is to not save it on your computer anywhere, ever.
It may not just be your data that thieves are after, either. Once they have established a connection, they can come back again and again to make use of your fancy processor and your internet connection to attack other computers and hide their own activities. These intruders get in through email viruses and weaknesses in existing programs, and often install programs to keep their access to your computer open. It is hard to tell that your computer has been invaded, but keeping your connection secure is vital.
There are things that everyone should know, and most people don t think about. Do not, for example, open an attachment from someone you don t know. If possible, avoid opening the emails, too. If you do open attachments, make sure they are scanned for a virus first. Infected friends can inadvertently send viruses on to you.
Visiting innocent web sites can also provide entry points into your computer. If you think of the internet as one big room, any program listening can hear your conversation (the data you exchange) and interpret it. Do not think that your computer is talking directly to the computer on the other end of the line. Your conversations/information are relayed through computer after computer until it reaches its destination. Programs can be installed to encrypt the information you send out over the internet to protect you from this mode of invasion.
Password protection is key, as is backing up your work every so often. That way even if you are infected with a dangerous virus, you can possibly format or use another method to wipe it away. Passwords should also be strong, containing letters and numbers, and not your own personal information like birth dates. You should also rotate passwords, not using the same one twice.
Anti-virus programs should be installed and updated frequently. They should also be used to actively scan for viruses on a regular basis to keep your computer or laptop as safe as possible. You should also make sure to keep your system updates with all the latest patches available, since they may help close a back door that an intruder could take advantage of.
A firewall program is not the same as an anti-virus program, but it is just as important. A firewall means that no one gets into your computer without your knowledge or permission. A person or program attempting to access your computer from a remote location will not be allowed through unless you specifically enable them.
There is a lot here to remember, and a lot of information to process. Following the advice outlined here, however, and searching regularly for new security measures and updates will help to protect your computer and all of the information stored on it. Safety, after all, is the key.
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Losing Your Mind With Data Recovery

For nearly all computer users, losing data can be a very traumatic experience. If you use your computer for a business or for other important matters, it can be very stressful and very traumatic to lose everything you have worked months, and possibly even years to build.
Even though you may back up your data on a periodic basis, you ll still need to check the backup to make sure that everything works. Nothing can be worse than backing something up, only to find months later that something went wrong.
No matter who you are, or what business you work for, data loss can happen. Computers are great, although they aren t perfect. Over time, your hard drive can crash or malfunction, which will result in the loss of everything you have stored on your computer.
Whenever this happens to you, it s always a good thing there s data recovery. Without data recovery, it wouldn t be possible to retrieve files, recover information, or simply get back to the data you spent years building.
To recover your data, you ll need to send it off to a company that specializes in data recovery. They will need to run some tests on it and see what shape it is in, how bad it is damaged, and just what needs to be done to recover your data.
This process will normally take around a week or so, all depending on the problem. It can be quite expensive as well, depending on where you send it. Keep in mind though - the more experience the data recovery technicians have, the higher the price will be.
Those that are more expensive are great if you have the money to spare, for the simple fact that they are experts and are more apt at saving your data and information. The cheaper data recovery companies are great as well, although larger companies and those with extremely important data will want to put their trust in the best that money can buy.
With most cases, companies can rebuild the hard drive, providing the drive isn t totally corrupted. In cases where the hard drive is totally gone, it will need to be rebuilt, which can take quite a bit of time. No matter what the situation may be, data recovery experts can normally find a solution to recover your data.
At some point in time, everyone will experience some type of hard drive crash or malfunction that will result in the loss of data. When this happens to you, you shouldn t get all shook up or alarmed, you should instead make sure that you are prepared to always expect the unexpected.
Even though your data can normally be recovered, you should still back up everything on a weekly basis just to be on the safe side. This way, when your hard drive is sent off to be repaired, you ll have the information you need backed up to keep on going as normal.
To be on the safe side, you should keep your most important documents and files stored on a CD, by using a CD burner and CD-R media. This is by far the cheapest and easiest way to back up your data, and it will keep you more than prepared for when your hard drive malfunctions and crashes when you least expect it.
If you prepare yourself by backing up your data, a hard drive malfunction won t be as traumatic on you. You should always be prepared, and ready just in case something happens. Computers are the wave of the future - although they aren t perfect by any means.



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What Makes A Good Photo Printer

What makes a good photo printer? Do you need PictBridge? Is it really necessary to have a photo printer that will accept images from your PC? How many colours should the printer support? Which size of paper? Do you need different paper types? Everything depends on what you are going to do with your photo printer.

In this article I will specifically focus on quality elements, both in terms of mechanics and results. I carry with me an experience as a reviewer of high-end printers of over ten years. Let s start with the quality of the components.

Photo printer quality

These days, you can buy an inkjet photo printer for less than 200 Euros. Although you always get quality in relation to what you pay, most inkjet photo printers --even the cheap ones-- have a decent quality of build.

The problem with very cheap photo printers is that the manufacturer cannot make a profit from them, and therefore has to find a way to generate money through other means than directly from selling the hardware. The easiest and most obvious way to do that is to sell ink cartridges that get depleted soon. Most cheap inkjet photo printers are therefore expensive in terms of ink consumption.

Many people will replace the manufacturer s ink with third-party ink. This is a viable strategy provided you don t care much for the longevity of your prints and the replacement ink that you buy is of a decent quality. Most replacement inks of good quality are just as expensive as the manufacturer s.

Lyson in the UK sells fine quality inkjet inks that come in bulk packaging (www.lyson.com).

Some ink manufacturers will make larger ink bottles, so that the price per unit decreases. This is actually the only way to get acceptable quality for a decent price. However, a cheap inkjet photo printer is not built to support intensive printing, so if that is why you buy those large ink bottles, then be prepared to replace your photo printer every 3 months instead of every two years. If you re printing many prints, the life span of a cheap photo printer may be much less than a year.

Better quality photo printers

If you have a bit of a larger budget, there are somewhat more expensive photo printers (between 300 and 700 Euros) on the market that have much better quality components, which last longer and which are capable of much better quality prints. More importantly, these printers consume less ink.

What should you ask a vendor of such higher-quality photo printer? For starters, such a photo printer should come with built-in calibration. Calibration is a technique that makes sure the printer is put into a known state. We use that state to make sure the colours and output quality we get from the photo printer are consistently the same. This also means we can create colour profiles for the printer, and have it print without colour streaks or gaps in the output.

Another issue that you must take into account is the ink spillage that occurs because of cleaning cycles. Every inkjet photo printer, including the cheap ones (I should say especially the cheap ones) have to clean their print heads from time to time. Some brands are notorious for wasting large amounts of ink during this process.

Cleaning the print heads involves flushing the head with a small amount of ink, in order to get the print heads firing their tiny bubbles of ink correctly. Ink tends to clog inside the heads, hence the need for cleaning. Epson photo printers waste a lot of ink on this process. Up to 20% of an ink cartridge can go to waste, especially when a shallow cleaning cycle is not enough for the heads to unclog.

HP has the lowest cleaning waste in its newest top-range photo printer, the Photosmart Pro B9180. Only 1% goes to waste with every other deep cleaning cycle. I reviewed the Photosmart Pro B9180 on www.IT-Enquirer.com. I also covered this printer s capabilities in depth, as it represents a whole new generation photo printer.

With more expensive photo printers usually also comes the ability to drive them through a Raster Image Processor (RIP), which is a sophisticated printer driver that enables you to save paper and control the ink density (the amount of ink splashed onto the paper) for each colour. RIPs are usually reserved for the larger photo printers.

Output quality of photo printers

The output quality of a photo printer depends on a number of factors, but colour accuracy and the ability to fill a patch uniformly with colour must be among the determining ones. Your photo printer should be capable of printing accurate colours. Most entry-level photo printers will allow you to print your photos directly from the camera. That s fine, but if the photo wasn t perfect or near-perfect, the odds are that you will want to fine-tune the photo.

This involves downloading the photo to your PC, editing it, and then printing it through a printer driver. The crux here is the part where I said "through a driver". If you don t have a printer colour profile for the paper you are using, chances are the photo will come out in a whole different way than what you expected.

Colour management will remedy this, but that s a topic out of scope for this article. Remember that you need good colour profiles that come with the printer in order to get the most out of it. From all the manufacturers that I have reviewed photo printers from for the different magazines that I write for, only Canon and HP have excellent colour profiles. Epson s profiles are mediocre to say the least.

If you don t know what a colour profile is, Wikipedia s article on color management may clarify.

Conclusion

If you re serious about photo printing, and your budget allows, don t buy the cheapest model. It will cost you more in ink consumption and will output mediocre quality. If you have the budget and you re a serious amateur or even a semi-pro, then a high-end photo printer will be a pleasure to use. Canon and HP are both excellent choices. Although many professional photographers use large format Epson photo printers, and while their output quality is certainly good, Epson has less appeal in the lower ends of the market than the two other brands I mentioned earlier.

There are yet other brands of photo printers. However, those are all aimed at low-end consumer usage.



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Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for Small Businesses

You manage a small business and have a collection of computers that operate your company, complete with Internet connections and email. As the key person in charge, you know it s important to have Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans in place and could use some hints on the subject.
First, be aware the topic of disaster recovery and business continuity is both deep and wide. There are highly specialized, certified individuals (and organizations) dedicated to the definition, practices, precision, and ranking of top-tier disaster recovery / business continuity environments. The associated resources, procedures, time and effort are vast, necessary, and expected for such solutions. Conversely, small business stakeholders often desire a lighter-weight approach, which, for our discussion, presumes you already understand the concept of a disaster, the need to recover from one, and how you d get back to continued normal operations: the business continuity part.
The following tips and information contain key elements from the pros , moderated by the capability and constraints common to your mini-corporation. For simplicity, you might consider disaster recovery and business continuity as a joint single plan with two parts.
Array Systems (Los Angeles IT Consulting) suggests your disaster recovery / business continuity plan include:
Categorization. Where possible, the plan should be condensed enough to be complete, yet flexible enough to cover the range of disasters out there. Of course, the loss of a printer is not as great as the loss of payroll, and neither is as painful as a destructive earthquake. Conduct a serious discussion to determine what may, should and must be in the plan. Understand what defines it will never happen , total overkill , and any points between these two for your organization.
Backups. These include a method of backup storage for key data files, software, documents, and other items you will need to recover from a disaster. Second-copy paper, optical, magnetic, electronic, online, etc. mechanisms can be part of this activity. Obviously, some form of testing/validating the retrieval and usefulness of your backup processes and procedures are implied.
Technology. Sometimes, a simple solution can resolve critical problems. For example, an office of writers simply switched from desktops to laptops to prevent the loss of work when experiencing intermittent power problems.
Communication. By this, we mean having a way to identify a disaster has occurred, a reliable method to alert internal stakeholders, external customers, and key responders, and finally, a reverse method to announce appropriate feedback to affected parties. The plan may include special messaging, phone calls, email, or other techniques depending on the level and content required.
Physical. Companies tied to physical components (warehouses, manufacturing, internal processing, etc.) will need added planning beyond restoring computer systems and IT services. For these more physical aspects (power, air conditioning, building security, fire/earthquake, etc.), business continuity may have a priority over absolute disaster recovery procedures. Perhaps a secondary location can be part of such a plan, and also part of the technology method.
Experts agree that inadequate planning, testing and senior-level support are the top mistakes companies make with regard to disaster recovery / business continuity execution. An even greater concern is not fully addressing the subject at all. If so, how do I start?
Perhaps the place to start is with an analysis of your business operation and review of your current disaster recovery / business continuity plan. Consider the listed suggestions, and don t forget possible training, documentation, and updates as your organization grows. Or, seek the help you may require; sometimes another set of eyes makes all the difference.
Sid Kato is the president of Array Systems Inc. and author of the Daily Breeze "computer-wise" column. Array Systems is an IT Outsourcing and Computer Network Support company that aims to help small businesses throughout the greater Los Angeles area with all of their technology demands. Array Systems has been in business since 1991. For more information please visit our website: Los Angeles IT Consultants or ask a question on our blog site: http://www.asksid.com



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CD DVD Duplicators - Intro to Hera Series

The Hera series CD DVD Duplicators by All Pro Solutions are explained below:
At All Pro Solutions, you will find a wide range of CD DVD duplicators. Our DVD duplication equipment range from low-end entry-level CD duplicator systems to high-end mission critical DVD publishers with integrated CD printers and advanced networkability. The Hera 3 DVD duplicator is a perfect example of an entry-level system. It is a basic standalone dvd autoloader with 3 DVD drives powered by the controller board within the tower. This autoloading system also contains a 160 GB internal hard drive for storing your data as well as an input/output capacity of 330 discs. Operation is very simple: load blanks into bins, place master on top of blanks, then press copy. The dvd autoloader does the rest by placing the master in a drive and loading to the hard drive in order to duplicate its content to the blanks waiting in the input bins.
There are 3 systems within the Hera Series; Hera 3 (3-drives 330 capacity), Hera 6 (6-drives 630 capacity), and the Hera 9 (9-drives 900 capacity). The Hera systems are by far the best bang-for-your-buck systems in the entire CD DVD duplication industry. The Hera contains an account management feature, along with a copy counter, and sticky-media separator function to separate that media that likes to stick to each other. You can also choose between single master and multi master modes (batch mode) among many other features and functions. Bottom line, there are a lot of features packed into this inexpensive and reliable piece of machinery.
Visit the Hera Series CD DVD Duplicators page by Clicking Here! Also, make sure to check out the demo video here!
Next Week: Bundle the Hera with an Apollo or Zeus printer autoloader system, or better yet, a Dual printer autoloader!
About the author:
Alex Czentye writes for All Pro Solutions, Inc. who are one of the leading manufacturers of CD Duplicators, DVD duplicators, DVD Publishers, CD DVD Printer Autolaoders, and the one and only Dual Printer Autolaoder!



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Free Movie Player Downloads

Communication technology is making fast strides and a lot of software can be downloaded from the Internet rather than purchased from physical stores. Music, movies, and news can all be downloaded from the Internet. We are witnessing a critical stage in motion picture history when movies can be freely downloaded from the net. There are three types of movie player downloads. They are Quick Time from Apple Computers, Real Players from Real Networks and Windows Media Player. Of these, Quick Time is most popular. It is a free movie player download that is available for both Windows and Mac. Quick Time 6 was downloaded more than 350 million times and more than 250 digital devices ship Quick Time as their standard media player. Around 25, 000 websites refer customers to Quick time downloads. Quick Time 7 offers a rich multimedia experience. It can figuratively take you on a trip to the moon or the premier of the latest movie. It makes use of the latest video compression technology called H.264. This technology represents the next generation of video for all applications from mobile multimedia to High definition playback. The video is compressed into small files without affecting quality and delivers clear, crisp pictures. Audio quality is amazing and provides 24 channels of audio and supports a wide range of industry standard audio formats. Real Player and Windows Media Player are suitable for some movies only. Most computers have any of these three movie players installed on their hard drive. Real Player10 comes with a 14-day free trial and features pause and fast forward live streams uninterrupted, excellent audio and video quality, supports portable devices and plays every media format. It also gives access to best program in media, and a 10- band graphic equalizer that gives high quality image and sound. Windows Media Player 7.1 consists of seven features in a single application, including a CD player, an audio and video player, a media jukebox, a media guide, an Internet radio tuner, a portable device you can transfer music files to, and an audio CD burner. These software programs are combined in one easy-to-use application designed to make playing digital media a wonderful experience. The player also allows one to play streaming or download digital audio or video Internet content. Version 7.1 adds a facility called Windows Media Audio 8 encoding and decoding for use in portable devices.Free Movie Clips provides detailed information on Free Movies, Free Movie Clips, Free Movie Player Downloads, Download Free Movies and more. Free Movie Clips is affiliated with Movie Player Downloads.



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Google s New Look On Links?

What is it that Google has been looking for now? I m sure by now you have read too many articles about the wicked Jagger Aftermath. Many things seemed to have changed and yet what has really changed? We still add relevant content and links, don t forget the links.
The idea of a good link, is what I think has changed the most. Nothing you read can be taken for the hardcore truth unless it is a leak from Google themselves and even then (who knows?) So, what I have to say I will not say is the truth but in our work with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) along with what some other SEO companies are writing, this is what seems to be the case:
Inbound links carry more weight then outbound links. It doesn t hurt to have a few outbound links however for relevancy, but that is all they will get you. Reciprocal links are about as worthless as outbound links, good for relevancy nothing else. (you may and will need a little relevancy) What Google is looking for now, is almost impossible for the normal webmaster to obtain. The golden egg that Google is looking for is the inbound link you get from a big, well trusted website that has very few outbound links. So how do you get a backlink from a well trusted site that doesn t give out links to everyone? Ummmm you can t!!!
When and if the sites were to give you or you and someone else a link from there site it degrades the value of the backlink and their link becomes no better then any other sites backlink.
The only way to combat this is to try not to have too many outbound links yourself just a couple to establish your market relevancy and add as many inbound only links that you can. These inbound links must have your chosen keyword (hyperlinked to your site) in the middle of your description text. This is what is called anchor text. Any other way can degrade the value of the link somewhat.
Sure, this is a good way for Google to fight against people that own or use link farms. It is also potent at stopping people from using reciprocal links as a means to get high rankings. But, if you are determined to get ranked on Google, it is safe to say it can still be done. After studying how the Jagger Aftermath has struck the population a murderous blow back in November, we have implemented some new SEO techniques that has really brought up Google rankings. Further proof that Google can still be a relevant search engine. However, they still show too many non relevant results for my liking. Most of the common people are still going to Google to do their searches. Right now you can take all of Yahoo s and MSN s user searches and still not get the number of searches Google gets.
What is stated in this article is not to be taken word for word this is just from my experiences and it only applies to Google so far as I have seen. If you are looking to get MSN and/or Yahoo the above does not apply. REPEAT THE ABOVE INFO IS BETTER USED TOWARD GOOGLE ONLY!!



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