Archive for July 2010
Hundreds of Free and Commercial Network Tools
Stanford has a list of several hundred networking tools. This list is kept current and has links for both freeware and commercial products. Their list covers 14 years of networking tools. More…
DNS Jumper – Speed Up Your Internet
My passion with computers is security and networking. We have featured many DNS programs that allow you to speed test your DNS servers. Rick over at Whats On My PC has just reviewed a program called DNS Jumper. DNS Jumper allows you to change your DNS server settings ‘On the Fly’ and speed test DNS servers (benchmark). Excellent program and an excellent review. Go over and read the full review.
Chrome Security Issue Found with Plugin
Apparently someone has created a plugin that when and if someone installed it, the plugin would ‘spy’ on the individual.
Here’s the deal…when installing plugins, know the vendor requiring the plugin..plugins are usually created by a third party.
What’s Wrong With this Picture?
Computers just don’t take care of themselves….
Pirate Bay Hack Exposes User Information
Pirate Bay Hack Exposes User Information
10 Reasons Why the PC Is Here to Stay
Great article on PC World.
Turn your 4 core processor into a 6 core processor?
Tonight I reminded my students to check their motherboard manufacturer’s website for downloads and support on their motherboards as their computers begin to age. Motherboard manufacturers often update BIOS to support more RAM, processors, other hardware or to correct issues reported about the motherboard. Sometimes for several years afterwards.
Amazingly we built our Quad Core computers two years ago and during our curriculum we covered the updating of the system BIOS. When we checked online, there is a flash available that will program the BIOS to accept hexacore processors on our motherboard’s website. This option is not available on all motherboards but it is always worth looking at. Why? The new BIOS may allow the motherboard to accept more memory or it may allow for a faster processor.
Warning- before attempting to update your BIOS, you should run, SIW, HWINFO or other software to see exactly what motherboard you have. You may also check the documentation and may have to check the motherboard and look for labeling that indicates the motherboard’s model number and the exact version number. If you flash the BIOS and it is not the correct BIOS you can ruin the motherboard. Always read your motherboard’s website on how to flash the system’s BIOS.
Using Technology to Track the Gulf Oil Leak
ERMA – at GeoPlatform.gov, is powered bythe Environmental Response Management Application® (ERMA), is a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) tool designed to assist both emergency responders and environmental resource managers who deal with incidents that may adversely impact the environment.
Make Your Own Game
Sauerbraten is an engine and editor for designing and playing your own first person shooter games. Designed for multiplayer LAN games Sauerbraten is similar to quake and other FPS games. With dozens of features, Sauerbraten is designed for server/client gaming.
is an engine/editor for designing and playing first person shooter games, primarily aimed at multiplayer LAN games
Sauerbraten too complex? Try out Fyrebug
or give Sploder a try.
A Great Tool to Get Rid of Toolbars – Improve Your Computer’s Performance
This little piece of software (Toolbar Uninstaller) gets rid of thousands of toolbars that may be installed on a computer. When connecting to the internet, your computer not only connects to the url that you requested, it connects to ad servers from the ads on the website. So when connecting to the internet, your computer may make several request to different websites based on the requested website’s ads.
Want to see for yourself? Go to a command prompt (go to search and type cmd and hit enter). Now type netstat -a . You’ll see something similar to these. The first netstat shows my connection to my wife’s computer (we use Connectify), to WordPress and two other websites.
The second connection shows a connection to a popular news website (many ads). Remember this is without any toolbars!
Now imagine if you have a tool bar or many toolbars that are installed and reporting back to their source. The more connections you have to the internet and software installed, the slower your computer will become. - ToolBar Uninstaller removes over 10,000 toolbars.
Free Up Memory Windows Vista or Windows 7
Memory Cleaner by KoshyJohn is a good program to free memory on the fly. Here’s a list of the features-
Detect Torrents On Your Network
Kolasa 3Dip draws your network in 3D. This visualization helps to show your traffic in realtime. By analyzing the data, you can see torrents and other malicious traffic on your network. Below the Youtube video is 3Dip on our tiny home network. With only two computers on the internet, you can see my wife and I visited just TWO websites have multiple connection because of ad servers. Notice we are using Connectify as our proxy. Her computer is the host. (More on Connectify)
Although we are not running torrents on our network, it allows you to see traffic. (More information on torrent capturing using wireshark)
Capture Torrents with Wireshark
Wireshark is an excellent network sniffer and protocol analyzer that is free. Easy to install, Wireshark is a must have on networks.
You can use Wireshark to capture torrent traffic (basic method) by Clicking on Capture, Interfaces, select the options button next to the active adapter. Now create your filter.
Now create a filter using ports 6881-6889 and name the filter torrent. While many torrents are setup on different or randomized ports, you can search a capture and look for P2P software.
After naming the filter, click OK and then Start.
So what about encryption? Look at the amount of traffic from a computer on your network.
Scheduled Post (14:22 7/3/2010)
Share Your internet Connection with Connectify
Living in the middle of nowhere the broadband providers in our area probably don’t even know humans live here. With that my wife and I rely on Verizon’s Broadband connection on her laptop. The question became how to share it without all of the proxy software on the web that is usually unreliable. Surfing the web, we found Connectify. Connectify on my wife’s laptop allows users to connect to the internet reliably. Easy to setup and less than 2 mb and free, Connectify is an excellent piece of software that works flawlessly with Windows 7. Any computer operating system or a Wii can connect to it.
Excellent for on the road business meetings. Connectify becomes a Wi-Fi Hotspot 
I have been in situations where someone was without internet and this software would have came in hand. Excellent.
IPv6 Tools used in Hacking
No I’m not going to link to the tools. It appears that as of this month a tool has been updated to further hack away at IPv6. These tools can be used maliciously and of course the tools also educate you. How? When someone develops hacking tools or tools to be used maliciously, it is often good so that code can be corrected. The tools that many people develop can be used against a users network to help identify problem areas.
As IPv6 becomes a reality, many hackers will begin to exploit the protocol. Some of the tools developed (the package we will call it) can check and find all local IPv6 systems, redirectors, create fake routers and much more. All in about 10 lines of code. And with less than 600 days left, I hope someone is looking into it. I will certainly be studying all aspects of IPv6 – migrating, using and securing.
350 Technical Blogs from One of the Best Blogs
Rick over at What’s on my PC has an excellent resource he has put together over time. Launch Pad contains links for some of the best tech blogs across the world. This resource for technical blogs has a wide variety of articles and links to articles, how-tos, security, technical documents, technical reviews and more.
We try to feature the his launchpad periodically for newer tech students. With technology changing everyday, you can never have too many resources.
