Tag Archives: Microsoft

Secure Your Passwords

How do you choose your passwords? Is it based on something people could guess about you? Is it a common word in the dictionary? Do you have a password you use over and over?

Consider the number of security breaches that have already occurred this year. Sony’s Playstation Network was breached and down for weeks before coming back up. Credit card information was stolen from Sony’s databases. Epsilon, a wholesale email provider, was compromised. They handle mass emails for many large companies. You may have seen notices from many different companies regarding this breach. RSA was attacked and SecureID tokens were stolen. As things stand now, 2011 is looking to be the worst year for security breaches yet.

So what can you do to minimize your risk in the Internet age? Taking yourself off of the Internet is becoming less of an option everyday. It’s time to take a look at a password manager.

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Get Notified by Boxcar

Apple added push notifications to iOS in June 2009 when iOS 3.0 was introduced. It does an excellent job of allowing applications to send you notifications while preserving battery life. It does however have a few shortcomings which will likely be improved upon in future Apple releases. Today, you can improve on notifications with Boxcar.

Blackberry users give a few reasons why their devices are superior to an iPhone. One of those is the email notification on the device. Apple’s push email is helpful and it will show a number of messages on the mail icon. It doesn’t however work for all email services or provide as good a visual or audible cue.

An example of a service that doesn’t provide good notification for me is email from our company Exchange Server 2003. While newer versions of Exchange provide good support with the iPhone, 2003 has its limits. I am able to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to gain access to the email. This however requires you to login and check even if there is nothing there that you care about. Boxcar can help.

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Get a Deal with InvisibleHand

While this post is a little late for Christmas, shopping never goes out of style and neither does getting a good deal. InvisibleHand is one of those tools that can save you money while you are browsing the internet.

InvisibleHand is a browser plug-in for Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox. It also works on Windows, OS X and Linux. If you are on a site that has pricing for a product, InvisibleHand will start working in the background and if it finds pricing from other web sites it will notify you how your current site compares.

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Get the Best Free Windows Software

If you are looking for a great way to download the best free software out there for Windows then look to Ninite Easy PC Setup to make this really easy. The web site makes it simple to get the up to date versions of all of the software listed in one quick process. Check off the applications you want and then click on Get Installer. The site builds a custom installer that when it is run will download each of the programs and then install them. It couldn’t be simpler and is a great time saver. Come back again and select different applications to try something else out.

The site is divided up into the following sections and I have listed specific applications you may want to consider.

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