PCTips Box

Okay, so Apple PCs are still a lot safer than Windows PCs, but the next time an Apple owner smugly reminds you of the fact, just ask him or her whether they’ve installed the security update issued in April 19th. This fixes no less than 25 security flaws in OS X and it includes three patches for ‘Zero Day’ bugs, and vulnerabilities that would allow hackers to gain access to data. So far this year Apple has issued at least one security update each month and whilst the level of threat and number of attacks are nowhere near the level PC owners have to put up with, it does appear that Apple owners may no longer be as safe as they once used to be. (more…)

ARLINGTON, Va.–Simply booting up a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop can tell people sniffing wireless network traffic a lot about your computer and about you. Soon after a computer powers up, it starts looking for wireless networks and network services. Even if the wireless hardware is then shut-off, a snoop may already have caught interesting data.

Much more information can be plucked out of the air if the computer is connected to an access point, in particular an access point without security. “You’re leaking all kinds of information that an attacker can use,” David Maynor, chief technology officer at Errata Security, said Thursday in a presentation at the Black Hat DC event here. “If the government was taking this information from you, people would be up in arms. Yet you’re leaking this voluntarily using your laptop at the airport.” (more…)

I’ve featured some of these tweaks previously, in my PC optimisation guides, but some of these are new to me, particularly the tweaks to improve page file performance. The 10 tweaks are:

1. Disable Short Filenames
2. Name Your Files Appropriately
3. Use More Folders
4. Use More Partitions (more…)

If you take your Wi-Fi enabled laptop with you on your travels then, like me, you are always on the lookout for a free Hotspot hook-up when hanging around at airports, hotels or cafes. If you do your homework and visit sites like free-hotspot. Before you go you should be able to find one. However, be on your guard if you are casually trawling for a free connection, you could be opening up your PC and its contents to a hacker.

Here’s how it works. A crook with a Wi-Fi laptop sets up shop by hanging around a legitimate hotspot. Their PC is logged on to the web and set up for Internet Connection Sharing. Along comes our weary traveller and the Wi-Fi monitor on their PC flags up the bogus connection as open and available. They think it is Christmas, click on it to log on and bingo, the two PCs are linked by an ‘ad hoc’ or peer-to-peer connection and the data on the victim’s laptop is exposed.
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We spend so much time worrying about the speed of Graphics Cards and Memory, we tend to forget about optimizing one important component of all PCS - the Hard Drive.

These 10 tips will help to speedup your Hard Drives and your file access times. The ten tips are:
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Every time your laptop connects to a Wi-Fi hot spot, whether it’s in your home or down at the coffee shop, it logs the name of the access point that you connected to in the Windows Preferred Network settings. If you accidentally (or maybe even deliberately) connect to your neighbor’s access point, and then find yourself reconnecting again despite your efforts not to, you need to bump that listing down in your connection list and move your router to the top.
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