We all know that we must log off all our accounts before leaving a cybercafé. But is it necessary on our home PCs?
Turns out, you are better off logging out all accounts even at home.
I recently read somewhere that the Internet Explorer 8 is getting ready to protect users from clickjacking attacks. A little digging, and I found a lot of literature on this subtle attack called CSRF that is being dubbed “the sleeping giant” of web vulnerabilities.
Cross-site Request Forgery
Suppose Alice closed her bank page without logging out and that the session is still alive. Now she opens an apparently …read more

Ever wondered what the network connection details actually mean?

Physical Address: Also called the Media Access Control address, is a serial number that can uniquely identify your ethernet card or wireless adapter.
IP Address: An Internet Protocol address is assigned by your LAN provider(say, a modem at homes) to each of the systems connected to a network through the provider.
Subnet Mask: When there are multiple systems connected to a network, the network is divided into subnetworks to avoid interference (traffic), and routers manage the overall traffic. In a manner of speaking, the subnets can be differentiated by the subnet masks.
Default Gateway: As …read more

After the touchpad mouse failure (overuse and abuse) and the keyboard failure (accidental food spillovers), one of the most common failures in a laptop is the hard disk failure.
A quick survey using Google tells us that there are nearly a million results for laptop hard disk, about a half million each for laptop hard disk recovery and laptop hard disk replacement, and a quarter million for laptop hard disk failure.
Let us look into mechanical hard disk failures as there are recovery tools which can very well work in case of other kinds of failures.
One obvious reason why a hard disk …read more

Image via WikipediaI always find it funny how many people don’t simply search Google for their answers. Half of my IT knowledge comes directly off of a Google search anyway. I’ve always said that “Google is my friend” and at least one other person agrees with me. What’s even more amazing is when people search Google and still choose to not listen to what the all-knowing brain says. Take for example a story I heard the other day…
A friend was trying to clean up his old Apple Mac computer. His hard drive was getting low …read more

This will be a quick story that I came across from an angry IT guy. All you nonits, listen up as a friendly IT guy sent in this email:
Don’t lie to me when you need help with your computer. I don’t judge you if your PC messes up, these things happen but don’t think to lie your way out of it. I need to know what you were doing when the problems happened. If you spilled a coke on your laptop tell me, we all make mistakes.
Now, we have all come across the issue of lying about silly …read more

I love hearing great stories from IT people and nonits (what I’ve decided to call non-IT folk) and below is part of an email that a lovely IT reader sent in:
If something does break and there are error messages that come up, WRITE THEM DOWN. I can’t stress this enough, those error messages appear for a reason and usually indicate the problem. If you can’t duplicate the issue then it’s not an issue anymore.
To explain this a little clearer, lets break this apart into easier to digest chunks.

When an error message pops up on the screen, it means there is …read more

Check out these tips, tricks, and utilities for recovering data from a crashed hard drive–whether it’s been dropped, overheated, or simply worn out from old age. You can often resurrect your hard drive long enough to make copies of your critical files.

Having Problems getting what you need from tech support? I’m sure most of you know the feeling. You dial up a number or chat on the web with someone who is either 1) too full of himself 2) bored talking to someone whom he assumes isn’t as versed in computers as he is or 3) would just rather play world of warcraft than help you out. Here are some tips from PC Magazine to get what you want from tech support:

Here’s one tip from Extremetech:
Perhaps your RAM is dead, and causing the system to hang. When you start your computer, it checks for all (present) hardware, and if something fails (like my IDE drive), it either freezes, or it gives an error message.
Maybe you could try clearing the cmos , or replace your RAM stick, just to see if that does the trick. You can also try see if you can boot the computer up with a live cd (windows, linux).”
Also, check if your power supply is functioning properly, i had one of my PC’s go down a couple …read more

Did you know that you can ‘ask a tech‘ question about Windows XP here!
The email box is open at maryb5media[at] gmail [dot] com. If you have a technical question about Windows XP, no matter what level, send the question in. Keep it concise and limited to one question. You can send in more than one email, but each email should be short, to the point… You may also ask your tech question in comments. [Ask a Tech series, inaugurated by Aaron Brazell]
Question: The case of the disappearing icons: Jason Bean, writes: “I’ve got some icons that are missing …read more