PreparedPC

SteadyState for Windows 7?

On March 15, 2010, In Toolkit, Utilities, Windows 7, By PreparedPC

Microsoft’s SteadyState is a great tool. After you install and configure SteadyState, you basically have a local backup image of your computer, exactly how you’ve set it up. Any changes that a user makes (installing programs, getting infected by viruses, etc.) get undone with a simple reboot.

This is really helpful in situations such as school computer labs, or if you’re the technical support for a relative who isn’t computer-savvy.

The good news is that SteadyState is available for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no plans to create a Windows 7-compatible version of SteadyState.

Would you benefit from a Windows 7-compatible version of SteadyState? Let your voice be heard by speaking out in this message thread at Microsoft’s SteadyState forum.

No Longer Using Internet Explorer? Lock It Down!

On March 4, 2010, In Security and Privacy, Web Browsing, By PreparedPC

Unless you live in the European Union, your Windows computer will have Internet Explorer installed.

Maybe you no longer use Internet Explorer for browsing, and have moved on to a more security-conscious browser like Chrome or Firefox? You’ll still need IE, or rather, Windows needs IE for downloading patches. Also, programs like Microsoft Outlook are closely integrated with IE, so they need access to it as well.

The Problem
IE, by default, allows scripts on web pages you visit to execute. Most of the time, these scripts do something useful, but too often, a malicious script can install spyware or do something else nasty on your computer. Microsoft continues to be fairly diligent in fixing these issues as they’re discovered, but the big problem is when malicious scripts execute on unpatched computers.

The Solution
Steve Gibson, on a recent Security Now! podcast, shows us how to lock down IE so it still does what we need it to do, but essentially turn off scripting. This can protect you from the next IE security vulnerability.

Here’s how to lock down IE: (more…)

Make Your Own Custom “20th Century Fox” Fanfare Opening Movie

On March 2, 2010, In Multimedia, By PreparedPC

You know the famous 20th Century Fox fanfare opening?

Here’s how to make your own for free (though this will take your computer a few hours to render). It makes for an impressive, personalized 20-second opening sequence for your personal video productions.
(more…)

WordPress 2.9 Available!

On December 25, 2009, In Multimedia, WordPress, By PreparedPC

WP 2.9 is out for your upgrading pleasure. Finally, the ability to upgrade multiple (up to 10) plug-ins simultaneously is built-in. Video embedding is also much easier. Also, you can now do some basic image manipulation, such as cropping and rotating images.

Untangle for Windows: Step-by-step Setup

On October 10, 2009, In Security and Privacy, By PreparedPC

The skinny: Untangle for Windows is a Unified Threat Manager (UTM), which acts as a gateway to filter all web traffic on your small (up to 10 computers) network. It’s available as a free download from Untangle’s site. Untangle for Windows doesn’t need a dedicated computer (it runs in the background). Based on which options you choose, you can block advertisements, stop viruses, allow or block websites (based on category), and have access to these and other commercial-grade technologies that not too long ago were too expensive for the home office/small office.

The configuration we set up is a for a simple home network (see diagram below). The computer where Untangle for Windows is installed must have a wired connection. In our case, all other computers access the network through the wireless router. This way, anyone using your wireless network (for example, a visitor who wants to access your wireless network with their computer) will also benefit from whatever options (virus blocking, advertisement blocking, etc) that you have set up. (more…)

Tagged with: free • UTM

Sorry!

On October 4, 2009, In WordPress, By PreparedPC

We recently incorporated Twitter into the PreparedPC website. TwitterTools was doing its job, passing along the Tweets we created from the Wordpress dashboard to Twitter. Then we hooked up Twitterfeed, which tweeted every time we published a new blog post. So far, so good.

Then, we told TwitterTools to create a blog post from every Tweet we created. D-oh!

TwitterTools and Twitterfeed dutifully created an endless loop, with each one creating a duplicate blog post and Tweet every hour for several days.

Our apologies to subscribers and Twitter followers. We’ve fixed the issue and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.

5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook

On September 24, 2009, In Security and Privacy, By PreparedPC

5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook http://bit.ly/gDrPH

The 2nd Most Important Thing a Home Computer User Should Do: Create a Standard User Account

On September 19, 2009, In Security and Privacy, By admin

As a home computer user, your most crucial task is to make sure your data is backed up, and that you’re backing it up regularly.

The 2nd most important thing? Create and use a standard user account. By default, Windows (XP, Vista and now 7) create administrative accounts as part of the initial setup. These accounts are necessary if you need to install software, change security settings, etc, but for everyday use they are a liability.

Why Not Always Be Logged in as an Administrative Account?

In a word, protection. When logged on with a non-administrative account, viruses and spyware can’t infect your computer as easily as when you’re logged in with an administrative account.

How to Create a Standard User Account
Each flavor of Windows has its specific way for creating a standard user account, but the process is similar:
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7 (Ironically, this nicely-written how-to guide is from UnixWiz.net)

Whether you’re using Windows XP, Vista, or 7, it’s very easy to create and use a standard user account for your everyday tasks. Doing so makes your computer much less vulnerable to virus and spyware infections. It’s much more time-consuming to clean up an infected computer than to prevent an infection in the first place, so make sure you are using a standard user account for your day-to-day tasks.

Weekly Round-up 2009-09-12

On September 11, 2009, In Web Browsing, Weekly Round-up, Windows 7, WordPress, By PreparedPC

A quick run-down of posts and tweets from the past week:

Untangle for Windows-Free Unified Threat Management for the Rest of Us – We posted about Untangle for Windows, a free download of an open-source based Unified Threat Management suite. The Linux-based version of Untangle is very stable and mature, and Untangle for Windows, though it is beta software, shows great promise. We will be detailing our experiences with Untangle for Windows in an upcoming post.

Windows 7: How to Reset the Recycle Bin – In Windows 7, a corrupted recycle bin can prevent you from deleting files or emptying the recycle bin. Tech-recipes.com shows us how to fix this issue.

Wordpress 2.8.4 – Lorelle warns us that a security vulnerability in all pre-2.8.4 version of Wordpress (used for self-hosted blogs, as opposed to Wordpress.com blogs) is being actively exploited. Upgrade now to close that security hole.

GeoChirp – GeoChirp is a Twitter/Google Maps mash-up that shows what your neighbors (as identified by your and their IP addresses) are tweeting.

Keeps those comments and questions coming. We appreciate them!

Untangle for Windows – Free Unified Threat Management For the Rest of Us!

On September 4, 2009, In Security and Privacy, Utilities, Web Browsing, By PreparedPC

The skinny: Untangle for Windows is a free way to protect your home/small office network (up to 10 computers). It leverages open source software to give you advanced control of your network that until recently was only affordable to larger corporations. Its features are impressive, especially for a free download.

Unified Threat Management (UTM) software is a fancy name for a collection of dedicated software (or a hardware appliance) that work together to protect a network by providing for example, virus protection and web filtering.

Years ago, UTMs were only available as hardware appliances which were installed in a server rack in a data center. More recently, software UTMs were released by companies like Endian and Astaro and Untangle that can run on PCs. These software UTMs require a dedicated computer. (more…)