Computer Password Security

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Passwords are the keys we use to access personal information that we have stored on our computers and in our online accounts.

If criminals or other malicious users steal this information, they can use our name to open new credit card accounts, apply for a mortgage, or pose as us in online transactions. In many cases we would not notice these attacks until it was too late.

Fortunately, it is not hard to create strong passwords and keep them well protected.

What makes a strong password ?

To an attacker, a strong password should appear to be a random string of characters. The following criteria can help your passwords do so:

Make it lengthy. Each character that you add to your password increases the protection that it provides many times over. Your passwords should be around 8 or more characters in length; 12 characters or longer is ideal.

Many systems also support use of the space bar in passwords, so you can create a phrase made of many words (a "pass phrase"). A pass phrase is often easier to remember than a little password, as well as longer and harder to guess.

Combine letters, numbers, and symbols. The greater variety of characters that you have in your password, the harder it is to guess. Other important specifics include:

• The fewer types of characters in your password, the longer it must be. A 15-character password composed only of random letters and numbers is about 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, you need to make it considerably longer to get the same degree of protection. An ideal password combines both length and different types of symbols.

• Use the entire keyboard, not just the most common characters. Symbols typed by holding down the "Shift" key and typing a number are very common in passwords. Your password will be much stronger if you choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row of the keyboard, and any symbols unique to your language.

Use words and phrases that are easy to remember, but difficult for others to figure out. The easiest way to remember passwords and pass phrases is to write them down. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with writing passwords down, but they need to be adequately protected in order to remain secure and effective.

In general, passwords written on a piece of paper are more difficult to compromise across the Internet than a password manager, Web site, or other software-based storage tool, such as password managers.

Create a strong, memorable password in 6 steps

Use these steps to develop a strong password:

1. Think of a sentence that you can remember. This will be the basis of your strong password or pass phrase. Use a memorable sentence, such as "My cats three years old."

2. Check if the computer or online system supports the pass phrase directly. If you can use a pass phrase (with spaces between characters) on your computer or online system, do so.

3. If the computer or online system does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password. Take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you've created to create a new, nonsensical word. Using the example above, you'd get: "mctyo".

4. Add complexity by mixing uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It is valuable to use some letter swapping or misspellings as well. For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Aiden's name, or substituting the word "three" for the number 3. There are many possible substitutions, and the longer the sentence, the more complex your password can be. Your pass phrase might become "My cATs THreE YeaRs olD." If the computer or online system will not support a pass phrase, use the same technique on the shorter password. This might yield a password like "McTyo".

5. Finally, substitute some special characters. You can use symbols that look like letters, combine words (remove spaces) and other ways to make the password more complex. Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of "MycAT i$ 3 yeAR$ old" or a password (using the first letter of each word) "Mci3y0".

6. Test your new password with Password Checker .Password Checker is a non-recording feature on this Web site that helps determine your password's strength as you type.

Password strategies to avoid

Some common methods used to create passwords are easy to guess by criminals. To avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:

• Avoid your login name. Any part of your name, birthday, social security number, or similar information for your loved ones constitutes a bad password choice. This is one of the first things criminals will try.

• Avoid dictionary words in any language. Criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly guess passwords that are based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions. This includes all sorts of profanity and any word you would not say in front of your kids.

• Use more than one password everywhere. If any one of the computers or online systems using this password is compromised, all of your other information protected by that password should be considered compromised as well. It is critical to use different passwords for different systems.

• Avoid using online storage. If malicious users find these passwords stored online or on a networked computer, they have access to all your information.

The "blank password" option

A blank password (no password at all) on your account is more secure than a weak password such as "1234". Criminals can easily guess a simplistic password, but on computers using Windows XP, an account without a password cannot be accessed remotely by means such as a network or the Internet. (This option is not available for Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Me, or earlier versions) You can choose to use a blank password on your computer account if these criteria are met:

• You only have one computer or you have several computers but you do not need to access information on one computer from another one

• The computer is physically secure (you trust everyone who has physical access to the computer)

The use of a blank password is not always a good idea. For example, a laptop computer that you take with you is probably not physically secure, so it's better on those to have a strong password.

How to access and change your passwords

Online accounts

Web sites have a variety of policies that govern how you can access your account and change your password. Look for a link (such as "my account") somewhere on the site's home page that goes to a special area of the site that allows password and account management.

Computer passwords

The Help files for your computer operating system will usually provide information about how to create, modify, and access password-protected user accounts, as well as how to require password protection upon startup of your computer. You can also try to find this information online at the software manufacturer's Web site. For example, if you use Microsoft Windows XP, online help can show you how to manage passwords, change passwords, and more.

Keep your passwords secret

Treat your passwords and pass phrases with as much care as the information that they protect.

• Don't reveal them to others.

• Protect any recorded passwords. Be careful where you store the passwords that you record or write down.

• Never provide your password over e-mail or based on an e-mail request. Any e-mail that requests your password or requests that you to go to a Web site to verify your password is almost certainly a fraud.

• Change your passwords regularly. This can help keep criminals and other malicious users unaware.

• Do not type passwords on computers that you do not control. Computers such as those in Internet cafés, computer labs, shared systems, kiosk systems, conferences, and airport lounges should be considered unsafe.

What to do if your password is stolen

Be sure to monitor all the information you protect with your passwords, such as your monthly financial statements, credit reports, online shopping accounts, and so on. Strong, memorable passwords can help protect you against fraud and identity theft, but there are no guarantees. No matter how strong your password is, if someone breaks into the system that stores it, they will have your password. If you notice any suspicious activity that could indicate that someone has accessed your information, notify authorities as quickly as you can. Get more information on what to do if you think your identity has been stolen or you've been similarly defrauded.

Dave Burton
http://www.bargain-motors.com
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7 Easy Ways to Speed It Up the Computer

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new computer will perform at its best speed. How fast it runs is of course a function of it's components. The fastest computers have a high end processor and a lot of RAM memory.

Then again your speed for surfing the internet depends entirely on your internet connection speed. Obviously a high speed cable connection is much faster than a dial up.

When your computer seems to gradually run slower over a period of time there can be a number of reasons for this and you can correct the problems fairly easily in most cases.

1. Do you have enough memory in your machine? Anything less than 1 gigabyte of RAM is barely enough these days. If you have less you should upgrade to at least 1 Gigabyte of RAM and 2 or more gigabytes would be better. Same applies to your hard drive. If you download a lot of stuff you should have a big hard drive. A minimum of 100 gigabytes is needed these days.

2. Have you got a lot of programs you never use on your hard drive? Uninstall as many as possible. The extra hard drive space will speed things up especially if you have a small hard drive. Aim to have no more than 50 to 60 percent of your hard drive space in use.

3. You should defragment your hard drive regularly to keep things running fast and smoothly. When pieces of programs are scattered throughout the hard drive the computer is slowed down as it attempts to find the many pieces of a program. All the pieces of a program should be together on the hard drive and defragmenting accomplishes this.

4. Regular use of an antispyware program will eliminate spyware which has been installed on your machine by someone unknown. Adaware and Spybot are free programs which you can download. Your computer resources are used up by spyware as it goes about its dirty business. Take it out and speed up your machine.

5. Many people will have months or even years of old emails taking up hard drive space. Remove all deleted items,sent items and old inbox items regularly and you will free up a surprising amount of hard drive room. This will enable your machine to run faster.

6. Your startup menu may be clutterd with all kinds of material which need not be there. You can access any of these programs quite easily if you need them. No need to have them slow down the booting of the machine. Edit them out of the startup menu. No need to delete them,just remove them from startup and booting will become faster.

7. All Windows PCs will slow down over a period of time. The computer registry gradually becomes choked with excess material. This greatly slows down the operating system as it tries to locate the data it needs to run your computer. The solution is to remove all the unwanted data from the registry and clean it up.

If you have the necessary computer knowledge you can do this manually using the Regedit function which is installed in all Windows computers for this purpose. Regedit will give you access to the registry files and you can then delete any material you don't want in there.

A serious caution is in order at this point however. If you do not know exactly what you are doing you should not remove any data from the registry. Many entries are there for the purpose of running the computer and if you should delete any of these important files your computer could be disabled. It might become necessary to reinstall the operating system to get the machine back in working order. Needless to say you want to avoid this at all costs.

Fortunately there is a safe and easy way to remove the unecessary material from the registry. You simply need to download a registry repair application from the internet and this will take care of the problem for you quickly and easily.

A number of these programs are available to download and they vary considerably in ease of use and in performance. We purchased and tested several of them and found that some were superior to others.

The first necessity is to get a free scan of your computer which most of these applications offer. This will determine whether or not you do have a registry problem and will report to you what the problems are.

You can look at this report and decide what you would like to do. It is well worthwhile to pay the reasonable charge to have the registry repaired and this is what we recommend.

The registry cleaner will quickly do it's work and your computer will be returned to full operating speed. Your computer will run like a new machine again.
source:shttp://www.bestregistryrepaironline.com
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Are Search Engine Optimization Services Really Necessary?

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earch engine optimization services go well beyond the one dimensional yellow page listing. The two are tantamount to having a brochure versus the printed business card to market one’s business. While the yellow page ad or business card features basic company information, search engine optimization services and brochures share a common denominator about your business: They highlight your company’s offerings in a directive marketing format. So if you are still thinking, I suggest that you give it a try and see the difference for yourself.

When market researchers compare the efficacy of the online directory to that of an Internet marketing company the latter achieves leads in a twelfth of the time (a year), it takes the a Yellow Page ad to produce results. Once upon a time, consumers referred to an oversized-bulky directory to search for businesses specific to their needs. Shopping decisions were made in a matter of moments based on listings provided in the Yellow Pages. Customer acquisitions were high.

Small Business Marketing Research Findings:

Today, our choices have quadrupled. Armed with a plethora of information and options, consumers spend between three and eight hours gathering information, comparing prices and evaluating merchant related shopping terms. A market study published by Nielsen Media showed that 88 percent of small business proprietors start their shopping using major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

On the contrary, the findings of these same business owners’ marketing habits were disquieting. Less than 50-percent were using search engine optimization services to promote their own company. Only 44-percent of the small businesses that were polled had a website.

Other market research studies indicate that the vast majority of consumers start their research online and complete most transactions by phone or in-person. Given these trends in consumer behavior, it is paramount for the small business to market their services on the Internet.

Among small business owners, there are innumerous misconceptions about the capabilities of search engine optimization companies. From the cost-effectiveness, to the measurable results, and the power to generate new leads and customers, Internet marketing clearly has its lists of advantages. Not to mention, for the business, advertising with the online Yellow pages, the business with a website outshines the one without.

When visitors arrive at the destination site, their actions are the most critical aspect of the small business search engine marketing strategy-transaction. Search engine marketing services are not only based on driving targeted traffic the distance. It takes eight seconds to make a favorable or unflattering online impression. The time span is the difference between motivating a visitor to learn more, attaining a new prospect, and turning away new business. To learn more about how internet marketing services can improve your business, visit our site at The Click Depot.

Integrating search engine optimization services with the small business marketing strategy affords multiple financial rewards. Primarily, most Google certified, SEM Companies warrant a return on investment (ROI). In other words, search engine optimization services done right deliver reliable and measurable returns- guaranteed. To learn more about how search engine optimization services can improve your business, contact at The Click Depot.

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_835578_62.html

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What Is SEO And Link Building Services?

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EO known as search engine optimization is one of the well known marketing tools that enable the website to get listed at major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn. SEO involves link building, link exchange, and other methods which could lead to a higher rank at major search engines.

The process of increasing link popularity of a page by submitting your site on other domains is known as Link Building. When looking to increase the page rank of a website, using SEO link building services is one of the best options available. The amount of knowledge going into search engine optimization is quite vast and fast, and very few individuals can keep up with the constant changes. Using a link building service can help in getting all the latest advances in SEO, and also a higher page rank and more site traffic.

Link building ameliorates the popularity of your website in search engines. It means number of sites pointing towards your site. Search engines not only look at the numbers of sites pointing but also the quality of the sites. It is one of the most important factors for a website to be successful in the online world.

Also you can exchange links with similar websites. I mean the websites which offer either same services or related services as yours. Take for instance, if you have education based website, it will be astute to develop back-links from websites dealing in schools, universities, colleges, and learning institutions and related content.

Another essential step is that your website should have quality content in it. Often people think that link building services have no concern with content. Let me tell you this is absolutely wrong. Content is considered the king of the website. So make sure you have quality content. Try and develop links with the websites carrying engrossing content. I mean look for the website that not just has good content but also has optimum usage of keywords and key phrases in the content.

There are number of companies out there offering link building services. But Mosaic is the one to opt for. It outshines everyone. The links offered by them are the best and quality links, which boost your business and page rank. Following the correct path, Mosaic tries to deliver what exactly you are looking for. Thus you always stay ahead in the business. If you wish to know more about link building services, link popularity services, you can find it online.

At the end, I would like to tell you, link building is a very effective way to promote your website. But you should also learn more about keyword density, web page content, and similar products before wasting too much time searching for relevant links.

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Directory Submissions: The Ways And Means Of Building Massive Inbound Links

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o some extra reading on directory submissions online and you’ll find a lot of opinions on the subject, most of them based on old information or a misinterpretation of recent developments. An effective directory submission process is reliant on two very important marketing principles:

Driving traffic to your website

Building link popularity to your website
Driving Traffic Through Directory Submissions
Directory submissions are effective in driving traffic to your website for one reason and one reason only: People interested in visiting sites like yours visit those directories to find what they are looking for and they typically find the directory in one of two ways:

Through a search query at one of the search engines
By referral from someone they know and trust

It doesn’t really matter how a visitor who visits your website found the directory that lead them there. The important thing is that someone found you through a directory. But if you don’t submit your site to the directory then no one can find you. Directories don’t crawl websites like search engines do so the only way your site can be listed in a directory is if someone submits it there.

Using Directory Submissions To Build Link Popularity

Link popularity is the measure of your website’s inbound links. Many people think it boils down to the number of links that point to your website, but that’s only a part of the equation. The other part is the quality of the links and that quality is measured by several factors as well. Some of the factors that influence link popularity include:

Age of the website linking to you
Authority of the website that links to you
The relevance in topic or subject matter of the website linking to you
The above three factors as they pertain to the specific page linking to you

Anchor text, or specific words and phrases, used to link to your website
How quickly your link popularity develops
Diversity of link mix

Virtually everyone who understands link building agrees on the first six factors of the link popularity equation. Where much of the confusion comes in is when discussions about link diversity come up. In a word, the search engines don’t like to see all of your links coming from the same type of website or websites of a particular nature. That is, if you build up 1,000 links in a single day and all of them are from directories then that might not help you much with the search engines. On the other hand, if you build up your link popularity slowly and include links from sources other than directories, 1,000 links from general website directories could very well be a positive.

Directory Submissions Are Not The Devil’s Girlfriend

One common misconception about directory submissions is that they are no longer effective. This just simply isn’t true. Google doesn’t favor one directory over any other. It does, however, discount links from link farms and bad neighborhoods. That’s why it is important to choose your directories carefully.

What it boils down to is why you are seeking a link from a directory in the first place. Search engines don’t want you building links just so you can increase your search engine rankings. They want you to build links in a natural way. That’s why directory submissions are not a bad thing if you add those submissions to a diversified portfolio of links rather than focus on directory submissions alone.

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_840091_62.html
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