What’s On My PC – Blogs We Like – Computer Shopper

We try to train young IT professionals to be as resourceful as possible.   Because the internet is so vast and there is so much information available, we have found ‘key’ resources to use during an hour each week out of the 30 training hours.  Reliable and detailed resources are used to ‘open’ the minds of these young professionals.

One of the reliable resources we use is whatsonmypc.wordpress.com. Over the Christmas break it was a pleasure to see a fellow blogger named to Computer Shopper’s Blogs We Like.   A retiree, Rick gives details on programs, security, networking and a collaboration of blogs with his Launchpad (a resource center of fellow bloggers and websites).

If you are breaking into information technology or are a computer hobbyist, go over and pay him a visit.

Cannot Access Banking Websites

* Before starting this tutorial, you should never respond to a banking email under the suspicion of phishing.

If you cannot access your banking website, always check several things -

• MTU settings should be 1492 or 1500 use TCPOptimizer
• Is Your Date and Time Correct?
• Check any special software (firewalls or Anti-Virus Security Suites) to make sure you are not blocking port 443
• Check Your Router (Sometimes the MTU needs to be 1492)
• Check Your Computer for Malware (use Malwarebytes or A-Squared)
• Reset Your Browser (Tools  / Internet Options)
• Restore your computer to the date it was working (A Bad Update? A forgotten change you made?)
• Under IE, Tools->internet Options->Advance->Check “use SSL 2.0″
• Have you installed any new software?

You Need to Fill a Network Administrator’s Position

So you need to fill a Network Administrator’s position.   You’re looking for someone with advanced skills and dedication that works through the holidays, after hours and has the drive to make you company competitive.   Don’t risk hiring your friend’s cousin Eddie who setup a network at his grandma’s house.  Look for the following qualities and skills:

• On call 24/7
• Skills that include-
  • Active Directory
  • Network Security
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Expert Level Networking
  • SQL
  • E-Commerce
  • Expert Level Wireless Networking
  • Disaster Recovery and Planning
  • A million other skills….

With over 1400 positions available nationwide, it is estimated that over 4000 jobs are available as network administrator’s alone.  Link Here’s a list of questions that could be asked – Questions

Why USBs Can be Dangerous

Not only can infected USB drives infect your computer with a virus, your personal information can be stolen.  Utilities such as USB Switchblade from Hak5 can steal your data.

How to Prevent Autorun and protect your computer.

• The How-To-Geek (Disable Autoplay)
• Enable USB scan on your antivirus (AVG shown below)

1. Open the AVG user Interface.

2.On the Tools menu click advanced settings. Next select scans and select removal device scan select or enable removable device scan and make sure “automatically heal/remove infections “is checked.



So how do you protect your computer from someone who has access to it?  Make sure you have a complex password and make sure you practice physical security.  Always lock your computer when you leave it.  Lock your drive with a USB drive.  See our article on Predator.



I have also wrote many articles on NirSoft software.  NirSoft offers USBDeview which shows all USB devices that have been attached to your computer.



And with new USB Firewalls, these programs offer protection of your USB drive.



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Can’t install Security Software Malwarebytes A-Squared

If you can’t install security software such as Malwarebytes or A-Squared, you can try this - Link

Network Scanner

Need to scan your network and scan the ports on your network to check your LANS security? Loaded with the Features below, LanSpy 2.0 helps you to audit your network.  (See my test network below)

• Ping
• Domain name
• NetBios names
• MAC address
• Server information
• Domain (workgroup) information
• Domain controllers
• Remote control
• Time
• Disks
• Transports
• Users
• Logged users
• Global groups
• Local groups
• Security options
• Shared resources
• Sessions
• Open files
• Services
• Processes
• Registry
• Event log
• TCP port scanner
• UDP port scanner

Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP

If you have several computers on your network and would like to see the computers on your network, Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP to speed this process up.

To enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP on Windows 7:

1. Click Start, and then click Network. (click Start, type ncpa.cpl into the search box for Windows 7 or Vista, hit ENTER).
2. Click on the Network and Sharing Center
3. Click Manage Network Connections.
4. Right click on the Local Area Connection select Properties.
5. Select Internet Protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
6. Click the Advanced button under the General tab.
7. Click the WINS tab.
8. Click Enable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP.
9. Click OK and Exit the settings.

Setting up WINS

Why the Value of Certifications Can Drop

In a technology driven world, IT Professionals are defined by certifications, skill and worker ethics.  Certifications are designed to give ranking to IT Professionals.  With a collection of simulated exams that are too close to the real exam, the real exams lose value and respect in the IT community.  I’ve watched people test and come back to a testing center continuously and hold up their final exam to say they are an ‘Engineer’ in a highly respected area of expertise, yet as they hung around for a lecture, they didn’t know the basic fundamentals of SNMP, Telneting, CIDR, Domain policies, basic security information or about virtualization.

Certifications are earned through hard work, studying and ‘hands-on’.   The motivation behind getting as many as you can in the past involved promotions, salary increases and time in the field.    While many young IT Professionals ‘think’ they know it all, an old IT dog like myself will tell you that it is impossible to know it all.   Information Technology is changing daily.  Daily.   Hmmmm.  Hourly.

Companies promising Cisco or Microsoft in a week or two are looking for candidates that pay extraordinary amounts of money and who can memorize an exam.   These boot camps should be limited to IT personnel who have worked in the field for a certain amount of time.    Exams should also be limited for students who have ‘x’ amount of time in a classroom and lab.   Where we teach topics that have certifications, students spend 432 hours in the classroom and labs at a minimum before the first exam.   More advanced exams that are layered (curriculum that overlays) on these certifications usually result in the student spending two to three times this amount of time in the classroom and labs before earning a second or third exam.

I’m not saying our methodology of teaching is better than others, I’m saying that their is a big difference in the quality of a candidate from our classroom and other places that have the same practice compared to facilities that have students memorize exams.   Our students even in this economy have been acquiring jobs with large corporations and the government.    I do believe the value of their certification is greater than someone who has memorized an exam.  Not only is it an understanding of the materials, it is the ‘hands-on’ that makes a candidate stand out.

IT Managers have their work cut out for them when hiring from a pool of ‘certified’ individuals.

Ubuntu Security Audit

Want to check the basic security settings in Ubuntu?  Install Tiger for an audit of your Ubuntu setup.

Open a Terminal window and type:

sudo aptitude install tiger

After the installation, in a terminal window, type:  sudo tiger

This is a CPU intensive program and your system may slow.

VMWare’s Virtual Appliances List

VMWare’s list of Virtual Appliances appear to be endless.  With over 1300 applicants available, VMWare’s list gives technical details and download information for these solutions.  Virtual appliances allow often turnkey solutions for businesses.

So what is a virtual appliance?  Virtual appliances are solutions (OSs, databases, storage, and other applications) that operate in the virtual infrastructure of an organization.   In layman terms – a pre-built pre-configured software application for virtualization that includes the operating system.

So if you download VMWare, setup a server, download a set of files (Virtual Appliance),  power on your virtual device, and the application is instantly available for use.

• Virtual appliances can be moved from one VM to another without impacting the user.

An example of this includes a SDK for Amazon’s which is a web service that provides re-sizable compute capacity in the cloud.  This application is used to interface with Amazon’s EC2 service.

Or Moodle the Online Learning Management System that major colleges and companies use for training is another great example of a turn-key solution.  Moodle is easy to set up and use allowing  you to create courses and technology that goes above and beyond the needs of colleges world-wide.  This version is Ubuntu based and gets security updates automatically.  Here’s a small list of universities that use Moodle.

1. University of California, Irvine  http://learn.uci.edu/cms/
2. University of Georgia   http://cantor.english.uga.edu/moodle/
3. Texas A&M University   https://maysportal.tamu.edu/
4. MIT Teacher Education Program   http://education.mit.edu/moodle/
5. Ohio State University Math Department  https://webwork.math.ohio-state.edu/moodle/
6. Iowa State University  http://tesl.engl.iastate.edu/courses/
7. Orange Coast College (well-known in California, where I am)  http://occmoodle.occ.cccd.edu/moodle/moodle/

and of course we do….

Bottom-line?   Companies are buying large servers with tons of disk-space, memory and other resources and then loading VMWare or other virtualized server software onto these servers and loading appliances creating more servers for their organization that use less space, less energy, can be managed on one physical machine and have  turn-key applications (Virtual Appliances).

How about a list of Linux based turn-key solutions?  Network Area Storage,  Domain Replacement, Joomla, Moodle, MySQL and more.

Help Your Antivirus – Use Immunet

Immunet has been designed as a cloud Malware/Antivirus protection application that uses a cloud design.     Immunet  recently secured a $2 million dollar investment – from DarkReading

Read about how Immunet helps to protect you.  Link

Google Adds DNS Servers for Public USE

Last week, we got a call from one of our ISPs stating they were sorry that we were down (our internet service).  We weren’t.  I never told the technician different.   You see, we have a load balancer with two ISPs.  This of course is a form of redundancy that helps to prevent the loss of internet service.   We can move our DNS server numbers around in our servers if we have a lot of latency (slow down).

To help with speed / performance and security, you can change your DNS to one of Google’s DNS servers.  If you are unaware of how to change your IP address, do a little research and you will find it is easy to do.  Before you do this, you can go to a command prompt by typing cmd in the RUN or Search box.  At the prompt, type ipconfig /all.  Write down your DNS server numbers.   Close out this window.

Right click on network (in Vista or 7, open the network center and change your adapter) and select properties.  Right click on your adapter and select properties.  Double click on TCP/IP.  Select to manually enter your DNS server numbers.

The Google Public DNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

I recommend entering Google’s i DNS number into the first one and one of your ISP’s DNS servers in the second boxed area.  Now click on advanced and select the DNS tab.  Enter the second Google DNS and your ISP’s second DNS number.

Google on Performance

Google on Security

Using Google DNS

Another alternate DNS server services is OpenDNS.

Benchmark Your DNS Server