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 Computer's Financing To Update Your Equipment

You should take a look at these promotions and analyze whether you can take advantage of them or not. Here are some tips on how to decide whether a particular promotion suits your needs or not.

Banks and financial institutions want to invest their money and thus they offer loans and lines of credit. Computer manufacturers want to sell their products and thus, associating with lenders widens their sales by making laptop computers more affordable. You, as a consumer can take advantage of this situation and shop around both for lenders and laptops and get the best offer possible. There are many bargains out there.

Credit Card Promotions On Laptop Computers

By associating with certain credit card issuers, manufacturers or retail companies offer their laptop computers payable in several installments with 0% APR. These offers are excellent as you can purchase your laptop on several payments without having to put all the money down. Some of them even offer a 10% discount on the retail price in order to attract more customers. It can actually end up being even cheaper than purchasing in cash.

What do they get in return? Well, the manufacturer or Retail Company gets to sell the products and the credit card issuer gets to retain you as a client for at least a year if you select 12 payments or two years if you select 24 and so on. These practices create fidelity at a very low cost for the credit card companies and though you may not pay interests for this particular purchase you will pay interests for all the others you make.

Small Loans For Laptop Purchases

These loans are offered by retail companies sometimes in association with financial institutions sometimes by creating a financial institution ad hoc. These loans feature advantageous terms and small installments to attract consumers. The idea is to make goods affordable when they would otherwise be rather expensive. With these small loans laptops are presented as affordable items because the purchase price is concealed behind the small installments.

These loans have simple qualification processes. Usually the only requirements for approval are some sort of identification along with a copy of a paycheck receipt or some other proof of income. Some retail companies will require only a copy of a credit card resume sent to your home to show proof both of income and residence. Thus, getting approved for these loans is fairly simple and has little to no hassles at all.

As you can see, laptops can really be affordable if purchased through these means. Thus, if you were planning or considering the purchase of laptop computer you may want to shop around for these offers and choose whether to buy your laptop with your credit card or by requesting a small loan specifically created for this purpose. In any case, you can get a great deal and repay the money in affordable installments.

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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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Apple Laptop

Apple has always seemed to amaze the world with their new technology, but now they have really put the cherry on the cake. Their latest design, the MacBook Air is a slim, high performance laptop of the finest quality. When you take a quick glance at this piece, it is hard to believe the specs it holds because of its size. As they say "dynamite comes in small packages" and in this case, this statement could not be more true! It has a full size display screen and keyboard, making it the most convenient laptop on the market, a must for anyone who likes to work in style.

Many faces watched with wide eyes and gaping mouth as Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple presented the MacBook Air recently in San Francisco at the MacWorld Expo. All tech fans will want a piece of this nifty device, everyone knows that, but just how many of them are able to afford it? With a rumored price of $1,700, that is the big question, but if they want it as badly as we think they do, they will surely make a plan to get their hands on it, one way or another. The new Apple laptop is the latest talk on the streets in many firms and households; it will be interesting to see their sales after a few months.

This amazing Apple laptop is a full-value one, with a very healthy casing made of aluminum and features a 13 inch display screen. At the presentation, the CEO of the wealthy company had the pleasure of comparing the Apple laptop with Sony's new piece, the Vaio TZ. Unfortunately, only those who were lucky enough to be at the presentation will be able to verify what was said within the comparison. What was revealed is when Steve said that the thinnest section of Sony's Vaio is in fact the thinnest part of Apple's MacBook Air. However, what Steve failed to mention is that the Vaio laptop has certain features the MacBook Air does not, like a UMTS module, a modem and a DVD burner.

The new laptop from Apple, the MacBook Air has an Intel Core2Duo Processor featuring either 1.6 or 1.8 (GHz) of power. This time, Apple sent the new laptop into the world of public with a much stronger CPU (central processing unit) than the ones they are currently competing with.

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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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How To Replace Your Laptop Computer's LCD

Laptop computers have been around for ages. Just as a human, laptop computers also age. Along with age comes broken or damaged parts. Hence, you either have to replace the laptop computer or repair the broken parts. One of the most expensive parts of a computer to replace is the monitor, commonly called the LCD.

LCD stands for liquid crystal display - the technology used to make the flat panel screens and laptop computer screens.

Some common reasons that might make you consider replacing your laptop computer's LCD are (1) the screen has been cracked; (2) you want to upgrade the standard computer screen that came with your unit to a higher resolution LCD screen; or(3) there are lots of dead spaces on your screen which might come from dead pixels.

If you want to tackle the task of replacing your laptop computer's LCD, consider the following steps to ensure that you perform the replacement seamlessly.

Step One
Power off your laptop computer and disconnect the battery and all cables. You will also want to remove the battery as it could cause an electric shock if it remains installed through the process.

Step Two
Remove the rubber screw covers to expose the screws that hold the screen frame in place.

Step Three
Gently pry the LCD screen frame loose. You should then be able to find the LCD screen cable and power cord. Unplug both of these and remove the tape (if any) that is holding the screen in place.

Step Four
You will next need to find out who the manufacturer of your laptop computer's LCD screen is. Keep in mind that the screen's manufacturer might not be the same as the manufacturer of the computer. Ensure that you match the screen that you purchase matches the screen's manufacturer model number.

Step Five
Once you have obtained the appropriate replacement screen, plug the new LCD screen in, secure it with tape, and replace the frame. Be cautious not to crimp any cords when you replace the frame.

Step Six
When you power up your laptop computer, your LCD screen should work properly. If it doesn't, call the supplier where you purchased your replacement screen and ask for technical help.

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The Hewlett Packard HP Pavillion dv6000 Laptop Computer

The Hewlett Packard Pavillion dv6000 laptop computer is a wonderful computer that is both easy to use and fully equipped with Microsoft Vista. It comes with an Intel Pentium dual-core processor. The computer is small and thus easily transportable for typing anywhere.

The Hewlett Packard Pavillion dv6000 has many wonderful features, many of which are a part of Windows Vista. It has a DVD/CD ROM drive/burner and two USB ports. The battery does not last for too long however, so portable typing and computing must be done in a timely fashion. There is a port for a printer, dial-up and cable modems, an expansion port, and a port for another monitor.

Quickplay DVD controls are highlighted in blue above the key board. The Hewlett Packard Pavillion dv6000 is really an entertainment computer and is great for playing music, watching TV or DVD's, storing and playing with photos. HP imprint allows for high-gloss finish to printed photos and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 allows for fine photo editing. The expansion port allows for connecting to the internet and more and the dv6000's integrated 5-in-1 digital media reader allows quick file transferring and sharing. The computer boasts a 100 gigabyte hard drive and is good as a game computer as well as for photo and digital fun.

The laptop has a plasma screen with an amazingly nice display. Vista comes with Microsoft Works as its standard paper template, but files can be saved as html or Word and even more. The computer allows for different network and internet connections, including wireless broadband. It does not have a three and a half-inch floppy disk drive, but those are mostly a thing of the past anyway, but it does have USB ports for a portable three and a half-inch floppy drive which can be purchased for around twenty-five dollars. The Hewlett Packard Pavillion dv6000's price tag is around a thousand dollars, but this little computer pays for every dollar spent.

In conclusion, the Hewlett Packard Pavillion dv6000 laptop computer is an affordable entertainment computer which is portable, lightweight, easy to use, and perfect at home, college, or at work. Photo fun with the Pavillion is its specialty along with typing documents, internet surfing, and DVD's and music. All in all this computer is one fine machine and if you are looking for a new laptop computer the dv6000 might be the computer to suit your needs.

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