20 Laptop Security Tips

1. Install Mozilla Firefox - Mozilla Firefox will stop spyware dead in its tracks. Mozilla Firefox has many different plugins and advantages for other browsers and has a large community dedicated to keeping it secure.

2. Firewall. If you're your operating system is anything but Windows 98 then you have a built-in firewall. The problem is that most computers I fix the firewall is turned off. You wouldn't leave your front door open!! Firewalls close all the open doors or ports that enable remote users or applications to connect to your computer. No firewall means that all open ports can and will enable some application to connect to your computer remotely.

3. Encrypt your files - I don't care if you have a super secret password on your computer and all the latest patches if someone has physical access to your computer they can take your hard drive and pop it into another computer and access your files. If your files and folders are encrypted then they can't access them and steal your Identity. Pick a folder for you important documents-right click the folder then press advanced and then press encrypt folders and contents.

4. Updates - I don't care what operating system you use but make sure that you enable automatic updates. Updates should be install within twenty four hours of their release. Hackers will reverse engineer the published updates and use the exploits to create their own, so patch away.

5. Car Storage - OK, easy suggestion but if I'm a hacker all I need to do is follow the target home and wait for them to leave the laptop in the car. Dumb, but I felt like it needed to be said.

6. Laptop locks - Don't buy cheap laptop locks. Some of the cheap laptop locks on the market can be cut with small pliers. Good laptop lock cables will mesh together preventing it from being cut.

7. Policy - If you have own a business make a policy on how laptops are to be stored. You need to have a double lock policy. If a laptop is left unattended in a room it needs to be locked down with a laptop lock and the door to the room needs to be locked.

8. Harden Your Operating System - Locking down your operating system means stopping all unneeded services, installing updates and proper configuration of applications and server apps.

9. Passwords vs Pass Phrases - Make your passwords longer and more complicated.

10. Inventory - Assign inventory numbers and asset tags to laptops prior to giving them to employees. When a employee is fired or leaves the company get the laptop back, simple but often overlooked.

11. Wireless Security - Enable some sort of wireless security like WPA2, if you have no wireless encryption set up then all of your wireless clients can be tracked and subject to exploit. Kismet and other hacker tools will not only sniff wireless traffic they will also identify all the wireless clients for that wireless access points.

12. Walking Away - When you walk away from your laptop you need to press control-alt-delete and lock your computer. Dumb but it needs to be said.

13. AD-HOC Wireless networks - If your at a library or on campus or at a coffee shop and you scan for wireless networks and you see a computer to computer network don't' connect some one is trying to screw with you.

14. Rename your computer - Pretty easy to find you target if you computer's name is your name. Once a hacker knows your name the social engineering game begins.

15. Virtualization - Install Virtual PC and install a virtual machine. Use the Virtual computer to test all applications prior to use. Utilize the virtual pc for all risky websites.

16. Drinks -I think I have seen more lost data from someone spilling a drink on a laptop than anything else. So keep your drinks away from your laptop...yea simple.

17. Stolen Laptops - Register your laptops with one of the many different laptop recovery services. If you install their software and the thief accesses the Internet they can track it, deleted your data, and report the location to the police...in theory.

18. Ant-Virus - Update your virus definitions.

19. Install Linux - Ubuntu Linux is free, you can install it in about 15 minutes, and its more secure than anything Microsoft has to offer.

20. Install Linux - oops I put that twice but I think it deserves two listings, good luck

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Laptop Bateries

There are indeed several types of laptop batteries that are essential for keeping a laptop running properly. In this regard, there are a number of ways to properly care and maintain a laptops main power source, the battery, since the batteries of laptop are constructed with a number of crucial components for regulating charge and power supply to the laptop.

What and how many types of laptop batteries are available in the market? Well there are many but if you are the consumer there is a need for you to check and also to know the ideal battery for your laptop. Now, in respect of the different types of batteries that come to our concern are the Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) Batteries, which are in reality were the first rechargeable batteries manufactured for laptops. Though inexpensive, and being of high output and versatility the have been abandoned by the laptop manufacturers with the introduction of several efficient and lighter-weight batteries. The next that do come in the category are the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) Batteries, which at the time of its commencement was regarded as big development concerning power output, reliability, cost, safety and capacity. It is to be noted, that it was the "memory effect" that was the only issue, which required them to be fully discharged before recharging to gain maximum output.

However, with the up gradation of batteries, these older ones are found in the older model laptops. In this respect, the Lithium Ion (LiON) batteries happen to be the latest version, and ahs become the most popular for laptops. This device has been most successful since the elimination of "memory effect", and also happens to be much lighter than the other two in weight. For this the market price is also the highest. But again, at the time of detecting the ideal one among the various types of batteries there is a need to be cautious of the battery cycle.

It is known that one battery cycle is used every time when a battery is charged or discharged. Now, what is a battery cycle in reality? It technical terms, it is defined as the number of cycles a battery can perform before its nominal capacity falls below 80% of its initial rated capacity. In addition, the lifetimes 500 to 1200 cycles are typical. Besides while buying try to have a prior knowledge of the run time of the batteries, which does depends on a great number of factors. In maximum segments, it is the design of, and the power demands made by the machine that determines the actual battery run-time. For instance, the three factors of using the screen, the hard drive and other accessories do play a significant role to influence the duration of the run-time. There are also other types of batteries, known as Smart and Dumb Laptop Batteries. There are some laptop batteries, which are, equipped with internal microprocessor circuits and do play a considerable role in the management of battery energy, setting the charger to the correct charge algorithm, predict running time, or according to Smart Battery System (SBS) forum, provide a state-of-charge (SoC) indication. Theses are known as "Smart" batteries. On the contrary, those batteries that remain devoid of these features are known as the dumb ones, found to provide power only.

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Laptop Memory

Memory Myths.

There is a very interesting observation made by one of these memory improvement guys who sell their books on the Television. He claims everybody has a good memory but we just fail to recognize it and utilize it the proper way. Sorry Sir, I am very much aware how much my memory is (its weak) and I know how to use it (I keep blaming it for all my faults).

The Laptop however has no such choices like me and is required to utilize the available memory for running all the applications. The Laptop memory issues are resolved internally and appropriate memory is allotted to the application depending upon its priority. The memory here implies the RAM which comes in the form of PCB mounded chips that can hold data for a short duration and transfer it at a very fast rate for necessary operations. This is totally different from the Hard disk which is a permanent storage/ memory space.

The Race For More. The memory hunger of Laptops has been never ending. The memories have increased manifold and starting from a modest 32 Kb the RAM now boasts of speeds in the vicinity of 16Gb. One remembers the 1980s Bill Gates comment regarding RAM, when he said "Who needs more than 64 Kb of RAM Anyway?" Eat your heart out Mr. Gates, your creation has clearly overtaken your own imaginations. The Laptop memory today is increasing at a fast pace to accommodate the advance computing softwares that are being flooded into the market everyday.

Laptop RAMs.

Any average Laptop user would tell you that a Laptop RAM of 1Gb would be good enough to run almost all the applications including the 3-D Graphics and multimedia applications. However, it is increasingly common to observe people demanding more RAM from the vendors with a preconceived notion that the higher the RAM the faster a Laptop would be. This notion though not wrong is not entirely correct. The RAM is faster than the main storage memory, however, it is still much slower than the processor and requires something called a cache to come on equal footing with the processor. Therefore, more RAM does not necessarily mean faster and more efficient Laptop.

The Tradeoff.

The ideal configuration of a Laptop would decide the optimum amount of RAM that can utilise all the existing resources of the Laptop. Thus the requirement of a Laptop memory would indeed depend upon the user requirement of running applications on the Laptop. Thus, a gaming Laptop would have a totally different requirement of Laptop RAM vis-…-vis a Laptop used entirely for Office work or say multimedia.

The additional data that the multimedia content device loads on a Laptop while running generally slows down the machine for a short span of time. It may even hang it for some time. However, even with a higher capacity RAM the effect wont change since the Graphic accelerator may be slow. The case may be different for different accessories. However, the fact about Laptop Memory that it can speed up the Laptop only upto a certain extent holds good.

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