didik's blog

All about keylogger

2010-04-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

By : Sienna Johansson

What actually is a Key logger?
A key logger, sometimes called a keystroke logger, key logger, or system monitor, is a hardware device or small program that monitors each keystroke a user types on a specific computer keyboard.

According to experts, keystroke loggers pose more risk to PC users than any other tool used for committing crime online. They are small programs or hardware devices that monitor each keystroke you type on a specific computer keyboard, including typos, backspacing and retyping.

Many times it' s used as a type of hack tool, which is illegal in most cases. Meanwhile, there are people apply it as smart program of backup or some other serviceable purpose.
A classic Key logger is a tool that invisibility listens to the keyboard, records the typed keystrokes, passwords, composed emails, chat conversations, instant messages. It has become more and more popular this days. However, serving various goals.

Who uses the Key logger?
Primary, there' re three groups.

Parents
Nowadays, almost every child gets to access to the internet. Meanwhile, there' re also risk involved inevitably. According to a survey, 85% of children between the ages 6-16 encountered pornographic content intentionally or unintentionally (most of them while encountered while preparing their homework). 25% of children between ages 9-17 will freely disclose their home address in the Internet. 60% of children who committed suicide, declared their intentions online directly or indirectly. As scary as it sounds, the danger is ubiquitous in the virtual world.So every protective parent will choose a key logger to track what their kids are doing online and make a clean,healthy environment for them.

Spouse
Took place in United States which includes married couples only, 56% of the participants of the survey said that during their marriage they had at least one sexual encounter with a person that is not their spouse.

The partners seem to use the computer late at night, they drop the screen down when someone enters the room and they like to be addicted to the computer. Their acting suspiciously could be signs of an affair. The Internet, as we know,is a place that has made it extremely easy to carry on an affair with anyone anywhere in the world. Key loggers may be sophisticated enough to monitor for specific activity, as to retrieve the relationship and find out the truth, so it' s is a principal option.

Employers
it' s almost a line principle that employers monitor employees during working hours,especially in IT company. Key logger software installed in the company computers can record detailed activities of employees, which varied from emails to websites visited. Fortunately for employers, most of the monitoring can do a positive effect of employees' working discipline, in other words, creating more profit.

Besides, key logger is applied for recovering password, keeping track of suspicious activity on personal own computer.

How to identify a high quality Key logger?
Key logger such as Spy-Agent is one of the high quality key logger in the market now. Except the very basic features, it characterizes a the number of additional functions. Configurable self-removal.

Logs can be saved to a portable device or transferred by three basic means – email, LAN and FTP
Great additional parental control features -both of the Parental Control options and all of the filtering ones except the Ability to watch certain programs’ and Several days report building’ are implemented.

10 More Tips and Tricks to Make Windows Easier

2008-08-28T02:12:00.000-07:00

By : Duncan

As promised, here are a further list of tips and shortcuts to make your usage of Windows a bit more slick. Some of them you may know, but it's amazing (to me at least) how many people don't know these simple shortcuts and helps.

(If a key name is in bold, it means you HOLD IT DOWN while pressing the other keys)

1. When entering things like usernames and passwords into a dialog box, you normally press tab to go to the next item. If you want to go backwards (or up) to the previous item, press Shift Tab. This is useful when you want to type over whatever is in the edit box, as shift tabbing to it makes it highlighted, so that you just type, and that highlighted text is replaced without you having to delete it first.

2. To put a CD/DVD into a drive without it playing automatically, just hold the shift key down while you load it.

3. In Internet Explorer, to go back to a previous webpage, press the Backspace key on your keyboard. This is useful when the webpage comes up without a back button that you can click.

4. The F5 key usually refreshes the window you are in. If you've just saved a file and it doesn't appear in your file list in Explorer, hit F5 and it should appear.

5. Ctrl U Underlines your selected text. Ctrl I puts it in Italics.

6. Ctrl Z is an undo function. Even works in Solitare! To reverse your last mistake, just do Ctrl Z.

7. Windows Key and D minimise ALL your open windows. Doing it again restores them to normal. It's the same thing as clicking the little desktop icon on your quicklaunch bar.

8. Ctrl Home will take you to the beginning of your document (or web page). Ctrl End will take your cursor to the end of your document or web page.

9. (I'm sure everyone knows this one, but our secretary didn't!) If you want to open a link in a web page in a new tab, in Internet Explorer 7 and above, click the link with your mouse wheel. (If you push the mouse wheel down it also clicks, for those who don't know.)

10. Select a word in your document and press Ctrl H. A Replace dialog box will pop up and you can then replace all occurrences of this word or phrase in your document. Similar for Ctrl F which is to find other occurences of the phrase.

Bonus tip! If you have a lot of tabs open in Internet Explorer, press Ctrl Q to view overgrown thumbnails of all your open web pages. Kinda funky! Then you just click on the one you want to go to it.

Well, that's all the tips for this article. Knowing your way around all the keyboard shortcuts can be very useful, because the keyboard is one window that's always on top, always available!

I hope this has helped you. I will publish some more as soon as I can find my list, which I put in a safe place. I wish there was a Ctrl FIND key I could press to get hold of it!

Duncan Kelly

You gotta see the free SQUEAKY CLEAN JOKES page at The Wrinklyo Web Node Also lots of previous computer, search engine and humorous articles, free stuff to download, lots of interesting information and other cool stuff. Thanks for your support! Duncan Kelly

DOWNLOAD WINDOWS VISTA

2008-08-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

by : Gen Wright

We are all witnesses of how the Windows operating system has evolved since Windows 95. You have to admit, the Windows operating system has come a long way. From Windows 95, an OS that's very buggy and often crashes to the current highly visual Windows Vista. So what happened in between?

Well, we have Windows 98, Windows Millenium, Windows 2000, and for enterprise level systems, we have Windows NT and Windows Server 2000. These different operating systems are created to suit the needs of the various market segments. A home user will choose the home edition, and a developer could choose the professional edition.

For most home users, Windows 98 second edition is already a rather stable OS, compared to Windows 95. However, it's still lacking in features. There is no firewall, and networking features are almost non-existent. As home users grow more and more sophisticated, the demand for these features grow as well. For enterprise level users, they face similar problems as well. Windows 2000 server doesn't come any form of protection, making the Internet Information System (IIS) prone to packet attacks. Packet attacks mean hackers are sending bogus packets of data to the server from computers that they hijacked all over the world. So the server administrator will experience the server slowing down to a crawl, till it's almost non-functional. Since then, many software companies have sprung up to fill this gap by introducing protection software.

Meanwhile, the hardware side of the personal computer industry is heating up. CPU power is doubling almost every year, RAM is getting bigger in size as well, and hard disk cost have taken a nose dive. Improvements in hardware provides the fertilizer for improvements in software. No longer are software constrained by hardware specifications. Recognizing this trend, Microsoft knows that it's high time that they get their act together, and surprise the market with a brand new software - the birth of Windows Vista.

The process of creating Windows Vista was a painstaking one. Microsoft took pains to really listen to customers. They talked to customers, did surveys, analyzed the results, and based their new OS on what the customers want. Everyone was talking about Windows Vista for many months before it was finally launched. The result?

Many users were tremendously pleased with the visual improvements in the OS. Windows 98, was a far cry from Mac's OS in terms of visual effects. With the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft has finally been able to close the gap. Many additional functions such as firewall, desktop personalization, etc. that were non-existent in previous versions of the OS are now made available. The new OS is definitely more stable, but as with all new software, there are some compatibility issues with other third party software and drivers. But none are too serious to matter much. Now, it's time for the software vendors to play catching up. And many have already done their part by upgrading their software shortly after the launch of Windows Vista.

Today, Windows Vista is a formidable force. The additional powerful features sure make it very tempting to perform an OS upgrade. With online downloads so conveniently available, it's no surprise that most will be downloading their own copy very soon.

For more information on how to Download Windows Vista, please visit www.Vistadownload.com

Back to Back User Agents for Telecommunications

2008-07-16T04:05:00.000-07:00

by: Danny Loeb

Today’s telecommunications networks are a delicate blend of clients and servers that together offer virtually endless possibilities when it comes to services and applications. For every new client developed, there seems to be a score more on the way — from mobile handsets, PDAs, terminals, telephones, video phones, IP set-top-boxes, and so on.

There are essentially two types of servers that connect between clients on large networks: Proxy servers and Back-to-Back User Agent (B2BUA) servers. The more prevalent Proxy servers feature predictable behavior — simply connecting between clients. Effectively, B2BUA servers are much stronger and intelligent entities that perform actions which Proxy servers cannot. Moreover, B2BUA servers provide a flexible solution for a wide range of applications and services and are becoming the primary engine for more and more SIP servers in NGN and IMS networks.

The difference between Proxy servers and B2BUA servers is sometimes not fully understood. In this article, we will explore what makes B2BUA servers such an appealing alternative to standard Proxy servers. Better understanding of B2BUA servers can help managers understand the value, and the tradeoffs, of choosing a B2BUA server, as well as the frameworks needed to develop a wide range of SIP applications and SIP services using it.

Figure 1 - Architectural difference between Proxy servers and B2BUA servers

B2BUA Server Defined
B2BUA servers are used to provide value added features for point-to-point calls and manage multi-point calls. The power behind a B2BUA server is derived mostly from the fact that it has a very generic definition, which gives it almost unlimited power. However, this same characteristic is the root of the controversy surrounding it.

IETF standard (RFC 3261) defines a back-to-back user agent as “a logical entity that receives a request and processes it as a user agent server (UAS). In order to determine how the request should be answered, it acts as a user agent client (UAC) and generates requests. Unlike a Proxy server, it maintains a dialogue state and must participate in all requests sent on the dialogues it has established.”

B2BUA servers have capabilities that far exceed those of other types of SIP servers, and answer the need for developing sophisticated value added SIP applications that cannot be implemented as Proxy applications.

Some of these capabilities, which are unique to B2BUA servers, are outlined below:

3rd Party Call Control (3PCC) Features
3rd Party Call Control (3PCC) is the ability of an entity (usually a controller) to set up and manage communication between two or more parties. 3PCC is often used for operator services and conferencing.

3PCC actions are important capabilities, exclusive to B2BUA servers since “passive” non call-stateful elements, such as Proxy servers, cannot initiate these types of activities. Some examples of 3PCC services are online billing, QoS, resource prioritization, call transfer, click-to-dial, mid-call announcement and more.

3PCC actions can be initiated automatically by B2BUA server applications, like disconnecting a call following credit expiration in an online-billing system. Or they can be initiated by remote administrative control (OSS), e.g. invite parties to a multi-point conferencing session.

Figure 2 - Schematic outline of B2BUA server offering 3PCC functionality

Inter-working Function (IWF) for Interoperability

SIP was designed as a highly flexible and extendible protocol. The very strength of this flexibility is also an inherent weakness, since the vast array of client types in the market still need to connect.

B2BUA Inter-working Functions (IWF) defines a wide range of powerful SIP servers that connect SIP clients that “speak” in different protocol dialects, or support different capabilities. This Inter-working function is very important in enabling connectivity between clients with different capabilities and/or protocol dialects. Or even between clients and networks – where the B2BUA server actually acts as an access device.

Examples of what IWF can do include:

• Connecting SIP clients to IMS networks by adding and removing IMS SIP protocol extensions (AKA P-Headers) that are essential for connecting to the IMS network
• Connecting clients with different Session Timers settings
• Connecting clients with different media capabilities and with distinct Session Description Protocol (SDP) messages by relaying between the two types of control sessions
• Connecting to different types of networks (e.g. IPv4, IPv6) and support for different transport types, such as TCP/UDP/SCTP/TLS

Figure 3 - Schematic outline of a B2BUA Inter-Working Function

Multi-point Call Management

B2BUA servers an also implement multi-point call scenarios where multiple CPE devices connect to the B2BUA, and the B2BUA provides services to all CPE.

Due to these unique capabilities, B2BUA servers are widely used in the communications industry. A few examples are listed below:

• Online-billing/prepaid functions
• Servers supporting Resource Prioritization (RP) and/or Quality of Service (QoS) features
• Multi Point Conferencing servers
• IVR servers
• PBX Applications and Softswitches
• Application Layer Gateways (ALG)
• FW/NAT Traversal applications
• Privacy servers
• 3rd-Party Call Control Applications (3PCC)
• Service Creation Environment (SCE) runtime engines
• Session Boarder Controller (SBC)
• IMS S-CSCF, P-CSCF, I-CSCF
• SIP Inter-work Function (IWF) Gateway
• Security Gateway (SEG)
• Voice Call Continuity (VCC) servers

In addition, B2BUA servers play an important role in emerging IMS networks. Recent releases of 3GPP IMS specifications (3GPP TS 24.229 V8.0.0) indicate that an increasing number of IMS network element servers, such as P-CSCF, IBCF,SBC etc., are B2BUA servers. The reason for this is that value added services are usually session stateful, and feature capabilities that go beyond basic call proxying. Applications written on top of B2BUA Application servers fulfill several roles, such as SIP User Agents, SIP Proxy servers and SIP Registrars.

B2BUA Server Challenges

B2BUA application developers face many challenges, such as achieving rapid time-to-market, conformance and interoperability, offering customization for proprietary services and support for High Availability (HA) and redundancy. A comprehensive B2BUA framework can help developers overcome these challenges.

A solid B2BUA framework should have modular application building block architecture for increased flexibility, abstraction and short delivery time. Traditional architecture, which features a single configurable state machine, is not flexible enough. Also, a B2BUA framework should facilitate developing B2BUA applications by flexibly linking “pluggable” high-level Modular Application Building Blocks (MABB). Developers should have the ability to combine these MABBs and they should be designed in a way that allows developers to further customize their behavior if needed. This type of architecture complies with contemporary Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts, and is suitable for powering flexible business communication platforms. This modular architecture can save months of work. With a set of MABBs in hand, developing the application is a matter of combining existing MABBs to produce the required business logic. In addition, this architecture enhances efficiency; development of new MABBs can be done concurrently.

A B2BUA framework should facilitate developing applications that fully conform to standards and are interoperable; without restricting developers from customizing protocol behavior for special cases. Moreover, it should conform for non-standard implementations, as well as to mediate between two versions of the same standard. This type of framework allows developers to focus on their proprietary application with the confidence that their final application will be fully interoperable.

And finally, a B2BUA framework should provide the ability to configure, amend and replace application building blocks to create proprietary features. With this ability, developers can maximize existing code – significantly reducing development time, shortening testing cycles, and reducing overall time-to-market.

Figure 4 - Traditional architecture of a B2BUA framework

RADVISION’s B2BUA Application Framework http://www.radvision.com/Products/Developer/SIPServer delivers these capabilities and more. The B2BUA Application Framework module is a part of the RADVISION SIP server Platform, a software framework that offers the essential building blocks for the development of a wide variety of high performance SIP and IMS servers. The rich set of components and modules can be flexibly combined to match customers’ requirements for developing SIP servers that offer both standard and advanced SIP services.

Applications written on top of RADVISION’s B2BUA framework are developed by combining customizable modular application building blocks. This is effectively large chunks of functionality that can be strung together to form ad-hoc applications, enabling developers to focus on the high-level business logic and use building blocks that hide low-level details.

As one of the most popular IM applications, Yahoo! Messenger was the first large consumer player that adopted B2B UA. Yahoo! Messenger combined its backend scalable platform with RADVISION’s B2B UA to serve millions of monthly unique messaging users around the world. Yahoo selected RADVISION’s B2BUA due to its robust performance and scalability features.

Figure 5 - The architecture of RADVISION B2BUA Application Framework

RADVISION also offers automatic High Availability (HA) and Redundancy support. The B2BUA framework automatically replicates the run-time state of the different Services and B2BUA framework core. In the event of a server outage, a redundant server takes over seamlessly and provides uninterrupted service continuity.

B2BUA framework benefits in a nutshell

• Significantly reduces time to market developing proprietary B2B applications and services.
• Allows adding advanced services easily to retain competitive advantage and evolve to meet growing customer demands.
• Focuses on the business logic and hides low level operator communication intricacies.
• Delivers off-the-shelf conformance and interoperability.
• Enables rapid development of applications that can interoperate with different vendors.
• Enables adding high-availability features easily.

Click here http://www.radvision.com/Resources/WhitePapers/b2bua.htm for more extensive information on B2BUA Servers.

By Danny Loeb, RADVISION http://www.radvision.com Product Manager

Can Data Breaches Be Expected From Bankrupt Mortgage Lenders?

2008-07-16T04:04:00.000-07:00

by: Tim Maliyil

The stock market is in a tumult. Actually, it has been for about a year, ever since the subprime fiasco (anyone take a look at Moody's performance over the past year?) Now that that particular issue has been beaten to death, other mortgage related issues are cropping up. Most of the stuff covered in the media is financial in nature, but some of those mortgage related issues do concern information security.

It's no secret that there are plenty of companies in the US that discard sensitive documents by dumping them unceremoniously: leave it by the curb, drive it to a dumpster, heave it over the walls of abandoned property, and other assorted mind boggling insecure practices. In fact, MSNBC has an article on this issue, and names numerous bankrupt mortgage companies whose borrowers' records were found in dumpsters and recycling centers. The information on those documents include credit card numbers and SSNs, as well as addresses, names, and other information needed to secure a mortgage.

Since the companies have filed for bankruptcy and are no more, the potential victims involved have no legal recourse, and are left to fend for themselves. In a way, it makes sense that companies that have filed for bankruptcy are behaving this way. (Not that I'm saying this is proper procedure.) For starters, if a company does wrong, one goes after the company; however, the company has filed for bankruptcy, it is no more, so there's no one to "go after." In light of the company status, this means that the actual person remaining behind to dispose of things, be they desks or credit applications, can opt to do whatever he feels like. He could shred the applications. He could dump them nearby. He could walk away and let the building's owner take care of them. What does he care? It's not as if he's gonna get fired.

Also, proper disposal requires either time, money, or both. A bankrupt company doesn't have money. It may have time, assuming people are going to stick around, but chances are their shredder has been seized by creditors. People are not going to stick around to shred things by hand, literally.

Aren't there any laws regulating this? Apparently, such issues are covered by FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, and although its guidelines require that "businesses to dispose of sensitive financial documents in a way that protects against 'unauthorized access to or use of the information'" [msnbc.com], it stops short of requiring the physical destruction of data. I'm not a lawyer, but perhaps there's enough leeway in the language for one to go around dropping sensitive documents in dumpsters?

Like I mentioned before, inappropriate disposal of sensitive documents has been going on forever; I'm pretty sure this has been a problem since the very first mortgage was issued. My personal belief is that most companies would act responsibly and try to properly dispose of such information. But, this may prove to be a point of concern as well because of widespread misconceptions of what it means to protect data against unauthorized access.

What happens if a company that files for bankruptcy decides to sell their company computers to pay off creditors? Most people would delete the information found in the computer, and that's that-end of story. Except, it's not. When files are deleted, the actual data still resides in the hard disks; it's just that the computer's operating system doesn't have a way to find the information anymore. Indeed, this is how retail data restoration applications such as Norton are able to recover accidentally deleted files.

Some may be aware of this and decide to format the entire computer before sending it off to the new owners. The problem with this approach is the same as deleting files: data recovery is a cinch with the right software. Some of them retail for $30 or less-as in free. So, the sensitive data that's supposed to be deleted can be recovered, if not easily, at least cheaply-perhaps by people with criminal interests.

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. I've been tracking fraud for years now, and I can't help but conclude that the criminal underworld has plenty of people looking to be niche operators, not to mention that there are infinitesimal ways of defrauding people (look up "salad oil" and "American Express," for an example). An identification theft ring looking to collect sensitive information from bankrupt mortgage dealers wouldn't surprise me, especially in an environment where such companies are dropping left and right.

The economics behind it make sense as well. A used computer will retail anywhere from $100 to $500. The information in it, if not wiped correctly, will average many times more even if you factor in the purchase of data recovery software. Criminals have different ways of capitalizing on personal data, ranging from selling the information outright to engaging in something with better returns.

Is there a better way to protect oneself? Whole disk encryption is a way to ensure that such problems do not occur: One can just reformat the encrypted drive itself to install a new OS; the original data remains encrypted, so there's no way to extract the data. Plus, the added benefit is that the data is protected in the event that a computer gets lost or stolen. However, commonsense dictates that encryption is something ongoing concerns sign up for, not businesses about to go bankrupt. My guess is that sooner or later we'll find instances of data breaches originating from equipment being traced back to bankrupt mortgage dealers.

The stock market is in a tumult. Actually, it has been for about a year, ever since the subprime fiasco (anyone take a look at Moody's performance over the past year?) Now that that particular issue has been beaten to death, other mortgagerelated issues are cropping up. Most of the stuff covered in the media is financial in nature, but some of those mortgagerelated issues do concern information security.

It's no secret that there are plenty of companies in the US that discard sensitive documents by dumping them unceremoniously: leave it by the curb, drive it to a dumpster, heave it over the walls of abandoned property, and other assorted mindboggling insecure practices. In fact, MSNBC has an article on this issue, and names numerous bankrupt mortgage companies whose borrowers' records were found in dumpsters and recycling centers. The information on those documents include credit card numbers and SSNs, as well as addresses, names, and other information needed to secure a mortgage.

Since the companies have filed for bankruptcy and are no more, the potential victims involved have no legal recourse, and are left to fend for themselves. In a way, it makes sense that companies that have filed for bankruptcy are behaving this way. (Not that I'm saying this is proper procedure.) For starters, if a company does wrong, one goes after the company; however, the company has filed for bankruptcy, it is no more, so there's no one to "go after." In light of the company status, this means that the actual person remaining behind to dispose of things, be they desks or credit applications, can opt to do whatever he feels like. He could shred the applications. He could dump them nearby. He could walk away and let the building's owner take care of them. What does he care? It's not as if he's gonna get fired.

Also, proper disposal requires either time, money, or both. A bankrupt company doesn't have money. It may have time, assuming people are going to stick around, but chances are their shredder has been seized by creditors. People are not going to stick around to shred things by hand, literally.

Aren't there any laws regulating this? Apparently, such issues are covered by FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, and although its guidelines require that "businesses to dispose of sensitive financial documents in a way that protects against 'unauthorized access to or use of the information'" [msnbc.com], it stops short of requiring the physical destruction of data. I'm not a lawyer, but perhaps there's enough leeway in the language for one to go around dropping sensitive documents in dumpsters?

Like I mentioned before, inappropriate disposal of sensitive documents has been going on forever; I'm pretty sure this has been a problem since the very first mortgage was issued. My personal belief is that most companies would act responsibly and try to properly dispose of such information. But, this may prove to be a point of concern as well because of widespread misconceptions of what it means to protect data against unauthorized access.

What happens if a company that files for bankruptcy decides to sell their company computers to pay off creditors? Most people would delete the information found in the computer, and that's that-end of story. Except, it's not. When files are deleted, the actual data still resides in the hard disks; it's just that the computer's operating system doesn't have a way to find the information anymore. Indeed, this is how retail data restoration applications such as Norton are able to recover accidentally deleted files.

Some may be aware of this and decide to format the entire computer before sending it off to the new owners. The problem with this approach is the same as deleting files: data recovery is a cinch with the right software. Some of them retail for $30 or less-as in free. So, the sensitive data that's supposed to be deleted can be recovered, if not easily, at least cheaply-perhaps by people with criminal interests.

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. I've been tracking fraud for years now, and I can't help but conclude that the criminal underworld has plenty of people looking to be niche operators, not to mention that there are infinitesimal ways of defrauding people (look up "salad oil" and "American Express," for an example). An identification theft ring looking to collect sensitive information from bankrupt mortgage dealers wouldn't surprise me, especially in an environment where such companies are dropping left and right.

The economics behind it make sense as well. A used computer will retail anywhere from $100 to $500. The information in it, if not wiped correctly, will average many times more even if you factor in the purchase of data recovery software. Criminals have different ways of capitalizing on personal data, ranging from selling the information outright to engaging in something with better returns.

Is there a better way to protect oneself? Whole disk encryption is a way to ensure that such problems do not occur: One can just reformat the encrypted drive itself to install a new OS; the original data remains encrypted, so there's no way to extract the data. Plus, the added benefit is that the data is protected in the event that a computer gets lost or stolen. However, commonsense dictates that encryption is something ongoing concerns sign up for, not businesses about to go bankrupt. My guess is that sooner or later we'll find instances of data breaches originating from equipment being traced back to bankrupt mortgage dealers.

2008-07-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

by : Len Hutton

Blogs are now an extremely popular and important part of the internet. Millions of people blog every day. As blogs have evolved over the years, so has the commenting system. Now anyone can make comments on a particular blog posting. As blog commenting has grown more popular, so has spam commenting. In this newsletter, we’ll go over why comments are a great form of feedback for your blog, how they help the credibility of your content, what spam comments are and how to prevent them from happening.

Comments – A great form of feedback

When blogs first came around, they were simply online journals. No one could post comments on a blog posting. That all changed in 1998 with OpenDiary, a site which allowed people to comment on blog postings. Now every blog, whether it is remotely or self-hosted, includes this option to comment.

Commenting is great because it allows real people to tell you what they think about your form. It gives you feedback on what you are doing right and what you may need to improve. Comments can be encouraging to you and motivate you to post more quality blog messages. Or they can be constructive criticism to make you work harder to get better at writing content.

Whatever the style of comment is, it is still very useful to your blog. High numbers of comments have the ability to make a blog look credible because they show that the blog is being read by a lot of people. That’s something that every blog owner wants, and comments help to let them know just how many people enjoy their content.

Bad comments

Unfortunately, spammers have now started to use comments as a way to spam. How do you know what a spam comment is? Well, a spam comment is a comment that only advertises another site or product. If the comment seems bland/generic with a cheap link thrown in, then it’s definitely a spam comment.

Here is an example of a typical spam comment:

“Hey, this site is really cool. Check out my really cool site at spamsite.com.”

Of course not all spam comments will be this blatant, but you get the point.

Fortunately for bloggers, as spam comments have grown, so has the ways to prevent it. Here are a couple ways that you can prevent spam comments from even being posted on your blog.

#1: Close off commenting on older blog posts

There are options for you to stop comments from being posted on any particular blog post. Lots of times, spammers will post comments in weeks or months old posts. So take away this opportunity from them to keep it from happening. Most blog hosters now offer this as a standard option in the tool panel. If one of your posts has been up for a couple weeks, close it up.

#2: Take advantage of software offered to prevent comment spam

If you host your own blog using WordPress, you can use an option in that software to prevent spam. Even if you aren’t using WordPress, you can still use other Spam comment blocking software like Spam Karma, Akismet, and Bad Behavior. While these aren’t 100% effective, they have proven to be quite effective in preventing spam from happening.

#3: Take a look at your settings and see what can be tweaked to toughen your protection

Lots of blogs now have settings to help prevent spam. If you already have a spam blocker on in your blog and are still experiencing spam, take a closer look at the settings to see if there’s anything that can be tweaked to make your protection stronger. However, if you do this, you should closely monitor your posts to make sure legit comments aren’t being blocked out. If they are, you might have to lighten up a bit.

#4: Regularly read your blog comments

Be sure to keep an eye on your comments. Even the best software or setting can’t prevent everything, so you will have to occasionally manually remove comments on your own.

By applying the above principles, you can ensure that your blog is full of only good, quality comments, which will help your credibility tremendously.

Comments are a great form of communication between yourself and your readers. They help the credibility of your blog!

How to Clean the Registry

2008-07-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

by : Ray Gaide

In the beginning Windows' registry consisted of two files totalling around 5mb in size. Today it consists of at least 12 files with the Software file itself being 30mb or bigger in size. As the size of the registry has exploded, so has the trash and clutter in it. It may seem like a daunting task, but cleaning the registry properly can fix system problems, speed your computer up, and make it run more efficiently.

I have spent many years developing and refining thousands of procedures to do just that. I could share these methods of hunting down the trash with you and let you find them and delete them by hand, but if you were to sit down at your computer right now and work nonstop, you would still be busy with them a week from now when the next issue of Ray's Computer Tips arrives. By then your registry would have new clutter and you would have to start all over again.

To make registry cleaning easier on everyone, I wrote a program called RegVac Registry Cleaner (http://regvac.com/regvac.htm) to perform those procedures. It has been so successful that several companies have asked me to model their registry cleaners after RegVac and even more have copied processes that first debutted in RegVac.

The first place RegVac cleans is the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section (the Classes Vac in RegVac does this). This section contains settings for the classes of Windows. Think of a huge box full of snakes and you will get an idea of how complicated and interwoven it is. It is so complicated that many registry cleaners bypass it or simply perform surface scans of it. RegVac uses over a hundred processes to follow each tentacle of each class deep into this area and make sure that they abide by the rules.

Next RegVac validates the entries in 22 lists with 7 different methods (the FilesList Vac does this). This is a minor part of RegVac but the bulk of most other registry cleaners even though they usually do not clean all 22 lists.

Another part of RegVac, the Software Vac, which is unique to RegVac, finds old software sections in the registry and provides a way to remove that software's entire branch. Other registry cleaners only remove a few entries in this area often leaving huge portions of the registry that do nothing but take up space and get in the way.

Even more trash can be discovered in hundreds of stashes used to store data you will never use. Most registry cleaners do not even touch these. The Stash Vac lists these stashes and lets you go through and select which ones to empty out. Please use caution when using the Stash Vac because some of the items listed there may be important. For example, one folder in the Stash Vac lists places where data for international keyboards are stored. You probably will never use the data for Bulgarian keyboards, so you can remove it, but if you live in the US you may experience problems after removing the United States 101 keyboard. The items that you can safely remove are usually obvious.

Last but not least, when cleaning the registry, you should look for broken links to files on the computer (this is what the Bad Link Vac does). If a file is referenced in the registry but it does not exist on your hard drive, that is a good indicator that something is wrong. Many programmers start out writing a registry cleaner thinking all it has to do is check for these broken links and remove them. In fact, that is all many registry cleaners do.

Even though that is all they do, they often don't do it correctly. If you check the results of such scans, you will find out that many of the broken links are really good links. I spent several months refining this part of RegVac so that as far as I know it is 100% accurate. Despite this, please realize that some software enter broken links in the registry and require them to be there in order for them to run. RegVac skips the ones it knows about, but you still need to be careful with this part of RegVac.

RegVac has six more tools that clean even more areas: the Add/Remove Editor, the System Config Utility, the OpenWith Editor, the AutoComplete Editor, the Junk Keys Editor, and Registry Backup, Pack, and Restore.

Many of you already use RegVac but if you don't, you can downloaded a free 30 day trial of RegVac at http://regvac.com/regvacz.exe. For more information about RegVac Registry Cleaner go to http://regvac.com/regvac.htm. If you like RegVac, you can purchase it for only $29.95. All future updates are free.

Keep the Windows registry clean and running smoothly with RegVac Registry Cleaner.

Symantec Norton Antibot The Latest In Norton Computer Protection Software

2008-07-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

by : Lisa Carey

It seems like every other month a new “program” comes along to make our lives that much easier. For example, first we could bookmark favorites, and then RSS feed them, and then came widgets and now “bots” which are robots that do a lot of our computer work for us in the background. Examples of friendly bots are weather bots, game playing bots, instant messaging and my favorites are those on AOL Instant Messenger which do all kinds of functions for me like shop, find movie times and even give updates on the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately not all bots were created “equal.” Some are friendly and some are not. The ones that are not friendly can be a form of malware that allows control of your computer to be released, providing hackers with the opportunity to access your information and spread harmful bots to others. This type of computer virus can then be used to spread spam and commit various types of identity theft and other online fraud.

So with new threats to our computers and information, new methods of protection are required. One of the oldest and most well known software protection designers has recently released a new protection program, Symantec Norton AntiBot. This is a software product designed to prevent the hijacking of one’s personal computer by bots and uses the bots on design programs against them, to located and destroy them.

Many people already employ some form of protection on their personal computer, such as increasing the protection level from internet information to “high.” But these cannot detect some of the most recent bot programs and may not be the most efficient means of information protection, especially with the Internet being used more and more frequently for online shopping, ticket purchases, travel and other “high risk” activities.

A more effective method of detecting and eliminating threats caused by bots is to install software designed specifically to detect, destroy and prevent bots from having access to your computer. With Symantec Norton AntiBot software, protection against bots is enhanced several times and the threat of bot attack is greatly diminished. It’s program protects against bots by blocking bots from entering your computer through downloads and e-mail attachments (two of the common ways bots enter a personal computer), checking for any unusual behavior on your personal computer and eliminating it, and detecting malicious bot software at all levels; keeping your personal, financial and credit card information safe and stopping identify theft before it can occur.

Because bots operate in the background and are not detectable by antivirus or antispyware programs, many computer users are completely unaware that their personal computer has become infected. Many problems caused by bots go undetected until it is too late. Warning signs that your computer may have been accessed include: slowness of computer speed and unusual or irrelevant error messages. However, many times com these symptoms are sporadic and computer users will take little notice. Many people will continue to use their personal computer, unaware that bots have hijacked their personal computer and are slowly at work; looking for credit card numbers, passwords, and logon information which can be used for identity theft and in committing other types of online crime. This program scans your personal computer on a continuous basis, closing the gaps that could allow bots to infect your personal computer and better ensuring that bots do not invade and gain control.

The use of Symantec Norton AntiBot to determine what a harmful or useful bot and allows you to continue using those bots you love and have come to depend on for information and services. It can be used in addition to several other antivirus and antispyware programs. Its compatibility is not limited to only Norton products.

The cost of this software is $29.95 for one year of service. It was awarded PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award (2007) and underwent rigorous testing which included using AntiBot on computers with existing threats as well as allowing threats to try to access the computer after installation.

With the growing threat of identity theft and credit card fraud Symantec Norton AntiBot offers an additional level of protection needed to combat the threat of bots and prevent them from turning one’s personal computer into a robotic that turns into an instrument of destruction to both your personal and financial well-being.

The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers

2008-07-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

by : Nicholas C Smith

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.