security
Is Society’s Internet Addiction Affecting The Children?
February 3, 2010
This generation of kids (and in fact even the ones before them) have often been portrayed as fat couch potatoes by the media at large, children who are slowly loosing the ability to use language and their legs correctly and who are developing a distorted view of the world based on bad communication skills, the Internet being for porn and mass killings with terrorists in Russian airports.
There will always be people to defend them – mostly a mix of gaming enthusiasts, the occasional scientist and games manufacturers PR departments – but the results of a recent survey are fairly condemning where they show that kids are spending nearly eight hours online every day!
Continue reading »Stealth Laptop Sleeve (Postal Envelope Bag)
November 27, 2009
Crafted from super strong fabric, the Stealth Laptop Sleeve gives you the power to carry your laptop with you wherever you may go, without having a sling a laptop backpack over your shoulder. It looks just like an old manila envelope so passers-by won’t be looking at you with a painful look of disgust and sharing whispers about your tatty 90’s IBM laptop bag.
Of course, this doesn’t really happen, but either way, it’s something different. A novelty method of safely transporting your notebook PC so you can be a little bit out of the ordinary, but also it will actually deter those more unscrupulous types who might be looking to steal a standard looking laptop bag.
Continue reading »Rovio – Remote Home Security Robot
November 22, 2009
Rovio can be the eyes and ears of your house whilst you’re out, whether you don’t trust your housemates, your cleaner or perhaps a babysitter. A Wi-Fi driven remote home security robot loaded with a webcam and camera so you can roam around your house from room to room from the other side of the globe using any device with web access.
The Rovio has a wide range of uses, from spying on your housemate or simply an extremely different way of chatting with anyone in your home whilst you’re away. It has three wheels for ease of travel. I guess it could be difficult to turn over after an unexpected crash and flip.
Continue reading »Google Chrome Operating System Demo – Will It Be Any Good?
November 22, 2009
Chances are that you are reading this on a Window’s machine, or that failing that either on a Mac or some species of Linux – it’s pretty much a three horse race, and a biased one at that. So obviously when Google decided to enter the operating system market with Google Chrome OS there’s always going to be some excitement especially when they promise to ‘revolutionise’ the way we use our computers.
Aiming to be more in sync with the way we use computers today (i.e. on the web) it focuses more on speed, security and simplicity which Google are hoping will help it to break into the O/S market – but what makes Google Chrome OS special, and will you be throwing your Windows away when it’s released? Let’s have a look!
Continue reading »Carbonite Review (Online Computer Backup Service)
October 29, 2009
Do you back up your data? I’ll be brutally honest and admit that I never have, and will most probably come to regret it one day even though we’re always told it’s best to keep a local and remote online data backup…The phrase “A man’s computer defines who he is” comes to mind – you’ve probably not heard it before because I just made it up, but nevertheless it’s still very true. We keep everything on our computers, so what happens when your computer and/or hard disk dies on you? Enter Carbonite…
Carbonite is an online file backup service, which offers you unlimited backup storage which is automatic and very simple to use for anyone, for $54.95 a year. It’s available for both Windows and Mac OS X via a small application that controls all of your remote data backup service. As you may know from previous articles, I quite like applications that stay out of the way when I don’t need to know what they’re doing, so from the start Carbonite and I got on quite well…
Continue reading »Microsoft Security Essentials – The Best Free Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware Software?
October 24, 2009
This one slipped out quietly, as most people don’t even seem to know it exists.
Anyway, fact is, Microsoft now give you complete anti-virus and malware protection, free of charge. So is it any good? Well that’s a very difficult question to answer, because unlike many other kinds of software, anti-virus is typically proven to be good over time, in the real world and with demonstrated resilience. Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) hasn’t been out that long, so its competency is yet to be proven.
I must say though, I already like it more than any of the other free offerings. It does exactly what AV should do, it installs without fuss and it leaves you alone. I wouldn’t necessarily advise you to bin the likes of AVG or Avast just yet, but I’d certainly recommend it over horrid, paid-for bloated-beasts like McAfee or the satanic monster known as Norton.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 3: Security
October 21, 2009
Ah, User Account Control – arguably the most irritating feature of Windows Vista. Sure you had the option to turn it off somewhere deep in the control panel, but then you had a balloon demanding your attention in the bottom corner of the screen telling you to ‘Check your security settings’. When Vista was in development, Microsoft made a point about security, but the answer wasn’t exactly great. So what’s changed in Windows 7?
For starters, UAC is still here, but it’s more subtle than it was in Vista, as you have the option to choose between 4 levels of notification: Always notify when programs install software, make changes to your computer or if you change Windows settings (Vista…); the default option which is the same as the top level apart from not notifying you when you change Windows settings; the third level, which is the same as the default settings, except it doesn’t dim the screen when UAC appears and the fourth level, which doesn’t notify you at all. Unlike in Vista, there aren’t any annoying balloons demanding your attention on the quick launch bar when you turn UAC off either.
Continue reading »Masked Passwords – Security Over Usability?
July 1, 2009
The masking of passwords is one of those things that we don’t really think about – it’s safe to say that 99.99% of the time you enter passwords on a website the letters/numbers are blanked out with nice stars or circles – surely this helps to promote Internet safety and a way to Get Safe Online?
But isn’t this just common sense? Surely having it as a failsafe in case someone is looking over your shoulder isn’t such a bad idea? Well according to a couple of experts in the field not only are they pointless, but can also be counterproductive with regards to security and are calling for the end of them.
Continue reading »How To Be Safe Online – Internet Security/Safety For Students
April 28, 2009
Yesterday I brought up the issue of technology giving us more than we can handle with the case of highlighting Swine Flu, but it can also have worrying implications with our safety and how susceptible we are to giving out our personal emails.
In a recent survey commissioned by ‘Get Safe Online’ it was found that internet users in full time education were far more vulnerable to online crime and security threats than any other demographic, which may be surprising as both the people in question and the general population see them as being ‘very computer literate’.
We have all got the spam emails from our friend who is stuck in Nigeria and needs £3000 to get back, and apart from the first time where we went through our phone book to find out if any of our friends were on holiday in Africa we delete them instantly. But although this may seem like the most prominent threat, and although it is so widely publicised, young people are still falling foul to the internet.
Continue reading »
