You have probably read about how people are able to gain access to an individual’s computer and essentially steal all their personal data. There are many ways that this can be done without the owner even knowing that someone is trawling around within their computer right under their nose. There a few simple steps that you can do to safeguard your personal information from internet predators.
Your home network is your first step to securing your personal data from the outside. You should have a secure perimeter network that stops any potential intruders from accessing your data. It is by far better to stop intruders at the perimeter rather than at your computer. Make sure that you have a hardware firewall enabled at the point where your home equipment connects to your internet connection. Hardware firewalls are more difficult to hack and do a good job of keeping unwanted eyes from seeing your personal computer.
A hardware firewall for homes normally comes in the form of a router. Some people have a modem connected to their internet connection but these do not come with a hardware firewall and are not secure. Make sure that you are using a router with a hardware firewall between your computer and the internet connection. If you are not sure which one has been supplied by your service provider, have a look at the original documentation or phone your service provider and ask them.
Most routers provided by internet service providers are wireless. This means that if you have a laptop, you can connect to the internet using a wireless network card from your laptop to the router, and finally out onto the internet. Even if you don’t have a laptop and use a desktop computer, the router from your service provider will still have the wireless functionality enabled. This wireless connection broadcasts a name called an SSID. This can be picked up by any wireless device normally within a 50m radius of your home. You need to make sure that the wireless broadcast is switched off if you do not use it. If you have a laptop and use it to connect to the internet wirelessly, make sure that it uses an encryption key to secure all communications. The older type of encryption is WEP and is now less secure; you should be using WPA which is more secure. Read the documentation that came with the router on how to configure encryption on your router.
By: Mike JJ Johnson
Posts Tagged ‘Laptop’
Securing Your Home Network
February 20th, 2010Windows 7 a Review You Will Understand
January 20th, 2010
The big question is… should we embrace or avoid Windows 7? This is the question I am going examine in this entry and I hope that I will be able to help you make an informed choice about whether to adopt Windows 7.
After the nightmare experience so many people had with Windows Vista on it’s release; it is no surprise that people have been waiting for positive reviews before trying Windows 7. So let’s get cracking and have a look at three of the features of Windows 7 that have really impressed me.
1. Improved Speed over Windows Vista
One of the big problems experienced with Vista was the speed at which it performed; so this was one of the big challenges that the people at Microsoft had to address. They did this by redesigning how Windows 7 displays graphics to your monitor.
Windows 7 can not start to display things before all the background information is worked out. So you do not get that feeling that your computer is freezing. This change has reduced the wait time for applications to load, save and respond to users’ requests. How this was achieved is not important, what is however important is the fact that this feature really improves usability in Windows 7 over Windows Vista.
2. Home Networking & Media
It is no longer the case that people just use a network in the office, therefore Microsoft have really catered for the home network in Windows 7. The ease at which you can now share your files between computers in your network will surprise you. It is also so much easier to connect printers to your home network and also to connect to your home Wi-Fi connection.
There are loads of new features in Windows 7 to make it easier to share all your MP3s, Videos and TV shows throughout your house by using your home network in Windows 7. You can view music or recorded TV shows from remote computer and play them across the home network. If you want to watch a recorded TV show, you can easily transfer it to your laptop so that you can watch it on the laptop at another time.
3. Not So Many Annoying Pop-ups
One of the things that really annoyed me about Windows Vista was the fact that when I wanted to do anything with my computer I got a pop-up box asking me if I was sure I wanted to do it; also if an application was looking to do something we got the same pop-up. These constant pop-ups became really quite frustrating. In Windows 7, Microsoft have introduced a setting where you can adjust the settings to reduce or switch off these annoying little pop-up boxes.
My experiences with Windows 7 are all positive and I will be suggesting to my clients based in Dublin to consider installing Windows 7 on new PCs. If you would like to talk to someone in iPing about Windows 7 or your IT support in Dublin please drop us a LINE
By: Mark Z Kelly
