Software
This section of Tech Tips covers all articles that are software related. This includes topics such as software updates, spam blocking, security and more. Geeks.com is your trusted source for information and instructions on computer technology. We've designed Tech Tips to help educate consumers so that they can be intelligent shoppers. Smarter shoppers are happy customers. Every week we post a new Tech Tip. As the Tech Tips archive builds over time, we hope that the software topic you are interested in will be listed. Enjoy!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Managing Your Passwords in 2012
It seems like every month, a handful of companies disclose that their user database has been hacked, informing you that you should change your password and monitor your credit card statements for strange activity.
In late 2010, popular blogs Gawker and Gizmodo were hacked and their databases were posted online. In 2011 there was another security breach that affected millions of users.
When news broke of the Gawker attack, I searched the actual database that was posted online, and sure enough, there was my email and my favorite password at the time, listed in plain text for the entire Internet to see.
I did some common password searches, just out of curiosity. You’d be surprised at the number of people who use “password”, or even “ABCDE” or “1234” as their password. It was staggering, to say the least. Now, I know, these were probably mostly throwaway passwords, right? I really hope so.
Next, I set about changing my own passwords at every site I could think of. Before long I had set a new password for my accounts after a lot of crossed fingers that I still had access to my email account, but I was still using the same basic passwords almost everywhere because I wanted to remember them. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I did it anyway, because I was lazy--there, I said it!
Read Full Article Managing Your Passwords in 2012
Managing Your Passwords in 2012
It seems like every month, a handful of companies disclose that their user database has been hacked, informing you that you should change your password and monitor your credit card statements for strange activity.
In late 2010, popular blogs Gawker and Gizmodo were hacked and their databases were posted online. In 2011 there was another security breach that affected millions of users.
When news broke of the Gawker attack, I searched the actual database that was posted online, and sure enough, there was my email and my favorite password at the time, listed in plain text for the entire Internet to see.
I did some common password searches, just out of curiosity. You’d be surprised at the number of people who use “password”, or even “ABCDE” or “1234” as their password. It was staggering, to say the least. Now, I know, these were probably mostly throwaway passwords, right? I really hope so.
Next, I set about changing my own passwords at every site I could think of. Before long I had set a new password for my accounts after a lot of crossed fingers that I still had access to my email account, but I was still using the same basic passwords almost everywhere because I wanted to remember them. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I did it anyway, because I was lazy--there, I said it!
Read Full Article Managing Your Passwords in 2012
Sunday, October 30, 2011
NaNoWriMo Month - What a “Novel” Idea!
Have you even been half way through reading a novel and and thought to yourself, “I can write something like this - and do it better! ” Or perhaps, you have writing a novel on your “bucket list” - something to accomplish before you die. Maybe you always wanted to be an author (or to just look like one).
If so, then November is the month to stop putting off writing that book because it has been declared as “National Novel Writing Month! ”
In this Tech Tip - we’ll take a look at that phenomenon known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) and see what they can do to help you “git ‘er done! ”
1,667!
It all started back in 1999 in the San Francisco bay area when a group of friends (headed by one Chris Baty) decided to stop putting off writing that book - and to (paraphrasing the famous words of the Nike commercial) “JUST DO IT”. Fast forward to today and you now have a something that just can’t be stopped! You have it all its glory - NaNoWriMo! The goal is simple, to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. From November 1-30, you write for “thirty days and nights of literary abandon” - creating your masterpiece for the personal satisfaction of knowing that “you just did it! ” That’s a mere 1,667 words a day. When you break it down that way, you realize that it is really doable.
Read Full Article NaNoWriMo Month - What a “Novel” Idea!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
What are Bitcoins?
Bitcoin is a digital peer-to-peer currency system that provides a decentralized method for performing transactions.
Bitcoins (BTC) are also the name of the unit of currency. The Bitcoin protocol is based off a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” that is designed to allow monetary transactions between users without a central authority like a bank or services like PayPal.
Avoiding a central authority allows you to be anonymous, can lower the cost of transactions, prevents your account from being frozen, and lowers the entry barrier for new users. Of course, without a central authority, that leaves nobody to make sure users are not counterfeiting or double-spending their money, right? The Bitcoin protocol protects against this using its peer-to-peer technology to verify each transaction and make sure only the authorized users are transferring their own bitcoins.
“…When you make a transaction, it is announced to everyone on the network, so everyone knows your wallet made a transaction to another wallet to prevent double-spending.”
Read Full Article What are Bitcoins?
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