Security Now!

How many password do you have now? Yeah...you know it...you won't tell anyone, but you use the same password on multiple sites. Admit it.

Ever surf on someone's else wireless? Admit it. Free hotspots are like finding hidden treasure. But are you safe?

Is your wireless router secure? Using WEP at least. You might still be open to the world....

Can someone spy on you just by listening to you type? Yep.

Buy any Sony Enhanced CDs lately? How do you spell ROOTKIT?

Do your kids download free music, and you have more pop-ups than icons?

You might need a good dose of Security Now!

Leo Laporte & Steve Gibson's Podcast discuss issues that relate to us all. The explain the problem, expose the flaws and make suggetions to keep you safe.

Take passwords for example. You go to amazon.com and you need a password. How about this trick? For web passwords, pick an arbitrary number or word, and insert within the website.

e.g. amazon.com + 1928 (the date that sliced bread was invented). Your password could then be: a1m9a2z8on

Not only is it a hard password to crack, it changes with every webpage. That's just one of the tricks you will learn if you take the time to listen to Security Now!

Enjoy...

Hacking an Elevator...

Ever been in a hurry, to only find yourself waiting for everybody to push elevator buttons below your floor. Floor 2? Why didn't you take the stairs dude!

Now, you can hack many elevators and take the express route.

Just press your floor number, while pressing the close door button at the same time. You should just shoot right up to your floor, and bypass all others.

This hack works on the following:

Otis Elevators (All But The Ones Made In 1992)
Dover (Model Numbers: EL546 And ELOD862)
Most Desert Elevators(All, But Model Numbers ELD5433 And ELF3655)

Thanks to thedamnblog.com for this info.

Happy riding...

It happens to the best of us...Spyware & the BSOD.

The famous Blue Screen of Death. The curse of every Windows user. Here I am, the proponent of good computing habits, getting infected by nasty Spyware. It happened one easy going Saturday afternoon. I was installing a game, and I lost my serial number, so I went to some crack sites to get a keygen (too lazy to look for it...). Of course, I got the pop-ups to install some software (which I always say no!). Inside the archive, there was this nasty little exe. My desktop got hijacked, and I knew I was done for. Next thing I knew, I could no longer get into Windows, and all was lost.

A format job later, and here I am. No data lost, but lots of time lost in the interim.

How can you avoid these problems. Well...here is what I now do.

First of all, install the Firefox browser. This will avoid many of the Microsoft Explorer exploits (Mostly related to Direct X). You will still need Explorer for certain functions, such as Windows Updates (Another important feature of your protection). Really, it feels very much like Explorer, and is the smart choice for browsing.

Download Ad-Aware + Spybot Search and Destroy from download.com. These are free programs that will search your computer for the nasties. If you have a legit version of Microsoft (Always a good idea), install the Microsoft Anti-Spyware. No spyware program can fully protect you, so a concoction of the three will be needed.

Make sure you have at the very least the Windows Firewall active. Install and encourage one of my employees by downloading his add-on to Windows Firewall called FirePanel.

Stay away from music sharing programs like Kazaa, which will surely install spyware. The only ones right now that I suggest (Of course for legal purposes) is Limewire and Ares. Better yet, get iTunes and download some cool Podcasts like Twit which is my favorite podcast right now.

The general rule of thumb is this:
Treat your computer like a tool (you of course take care of your tools), and all should be good. Treat your computer like a toy, and it will soon be broken.

The last thing you want to see if the BSOD.

Well...the last thing I want to see is:

-Bill Gates wearing a Speedo.
-My house on fire. The roof...the roof...the roof is on fire...
-Any romantic comedy starring Kevin Costner.
-My wife sporting a beard.
-The "Check Engine" light on my car.
-The person who inspects my underwear (Inspector 37).
-Herbal Viagra emails.

Stay safe!

Ubuntu - Not to be mistaken with a Nigerian Bank Fraud SPAM

I finally did it. I installed Linux. As you all know, I'm hooked on Podcasts, and listen to most of the Leo Laporte Podcasts, including his KFI The Tech Guy Radio Show. He spoke about this version of Linux that was basically a simplified version, with only the best programs integrated in it.

Ubuntu is a free Linux OS. It is an ancient African word that is translated as "humanity to others" and "I am what I am because of who we all are." The creators wanted to give back to the Internet community a free Linux flavor, with the best of the best included, but also simple to use. They wanted to bring the technology back to a human level...simple.

You can download the ISO (CD Image) from the site, or they will send you a CD by post for free (for a limited time). Installing Ubuntu was a breeze. It rarely asked questions, and when it did, they were simple to figure out. I installed it on a P3 system, to see how Linux would run on a slow system (had XP on there, and that was painful). Well...how did it go? Installation was perfect. Right out of the gate, I had working Internet, thanks to Firefox. Setup my email, and again, nice and easy setup. I wanted to see how it would handle a PDF file, and a preview viewer handled the file, letting me see the contents, as I would with Acrobat on XP, but without that long wait as all those Acrobat files load up...

It was getting pretty late, so I had to leave before giving it a real test drive. My first impressions though are very positive, especially if you have an older computer that you still want to be useful.

So, have I advanced to the level of Uber Nerd, now that I have a Linux system...so be it. At least I won't have to deal with Spyware like I did this week-end on my XP machine. Now that's a whole blog onto itself...stay tuned.

Looking for hidden treasure...Aaarg

Welcome to a sport/hobby called Geocaching. What is geocaching you ask? Call it a worldwide treasure hunt for hidden objects. At the time of writing this, there are 218,392 active caches in 219 Countries. Wow. For example, in Morin Heights, there are 1704 caches in a 100 mile radius. That's a lot of hidden treasure!

How to start out.

-First you get yourself a GPS unit.
-Create an account at www.geocaching.com
-Enter your postal code
-Find a cache you want to find
-Enter the coordinates on your GPS and start looking

Once you find the cache, you can find little treasures. Take one if you want, but also leave one for others to find. You might find a travel bug (trackable item that moves from place to place). If you have a travel bug, you can track its adventure as it travels to distant lands.

Give it a try and let me know how you find this activity. Worst case scenario, you get some good fresh air. Actually, I can think of worse...

• You are alone in the woods, and you start hearing dueling banjos from Deliverance
• You have number dyslexia and find yourself accross the country with nothing to show for it, but a huge gas bill
• The bear was hungry, and you were wearing Burt's Bees lotion
• You lick that geo marker during winter, to see if your tongue will really stick
• You are in the middle of the woods, no TP, and the Taco Bell lunch wants to leave your body

Happy hunting!