ReviewSaurus – Technology Rocks!

LyteByte was facing a problem with IE 7 where it was hanging a lot and was getting stuck and didn’t allow our Mr. Byte to do any browsing. I’m sure that many of you must have faced a similar situation. Although, Mr. Byte was able to solve the problem and found out that it was the incompatible software (not compatible with Windows Vista) which came with HP desktop machine which was causing the problem.

Mr. Byte suggests that we should not install the software on Windows Vista untill and unless it is compatible with Windows Vista. It may be the case that the software may work in Vista but it may cause other softwares to function improperly.

Apart from that, if you get stuck in such a situation where IE stops responding then you may try these steps and try to make it work :

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Open Internet Options.
3. Go to Advanced Tab.
4. Untick the box which says Enable Third-Party browser extensions.
5. Click OK and then Open Internet Explorer.

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There are cases when we want to Sync e-mail accounts between our computers. So, here are the steps which will help you shift your e-mail box from one computer to another computer of yours.

Instructions for ThunderBird : Terence Chang has given good description including images on how to Sync ThunderBird Profiles between two computers. This will also move the plug-ins which you may have installed in ThunderBird. So, you don’t have to worry about that too!

Instructions for Microsoft Outlook :

1. Export the Mailbox File from MS Outlook : Click on File -> Import and Export -> Select Export to a file -> Click Next -> Select Personal Folder File (.pst) -> Click Next -> Select Personal Folders in the tree (Top on the list) -> Tick Include Sub Folders –> Click Next -> Select the location where the back needs to be saved (most likely Desktop) -> Click Finish.

Here are the Step by step images for the exporting of PST file :

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Being part of communities is really helpful as it lets you know that what kind of concerns people are having. I’m part of Cnet’s community (although, I’m not an active member there but I’m trying to be one) and this week’s question from another member provoked me to write something about it and share some of my thoughts about that question. So here’s the question and here’s what I think about the situation :

My wife and I had two laptops stolen from our room in an upscale hotel in Norfolk, Virginia last Saturday night. My question is somewhat open-ended. Is a concern justified for identity theft from the info available on the machine? Having owned the laptops for 1 to 2 years and using them as the primary home/travel computer, it is safe to say that everything was on the hard drive. Not only the 20GB of pictures, nor the finance stuff, or the research database, or all the cookies, etc.; even the money for the cost of the computers is poof–gone. What is the concern that the community would have for such a loss: identity theft, system hijacking, sleepless nights, having to buy new ones, and so on. In the future, in case of another loss, what are some solid security measures I can use to prevent someone from obtaining what I have on my laptops?

First of all, I’m sorry for Dave’s loss of laptop (the member who posted the question) and I’m sorry to say that your concern is just right and equally terrifying too. However, what has happened has happened and can’t be changed. Let us look at the concerning factors first and lets find out more about them and then we’ll try to figure out possible solutions, in case something like that happens :

The concerning factors :

1. Identity theft is definitely the biggest concern over here. The person can easily portray himself as you and can create problems for you in future. Imagine that he can e-mail all sort of stupid things to your contacts and in turn harming you on a personal scale. He may make use of your identity to commit various crimes, like taking loan on your name, doing transaction on the internet using your credit card information. It all depends on the kind of information you’ve kept on the laptop’s hard hard drive, if at all you’ve saved your social security number or any document which can reveal all your information.

Identity theft mostly covers the concerning factors, the ways through which one can use your computer to steal your identity are :

1. Information stored on cookies. (already mentioned by Dave)
2. Browsing habits.
3. Emails – Just in case if you use some email client like Outlook or Thunderbird.
4. Stored passwords.
5. Downloaded bank statements or credit card statements.
6. Your finance managing software.

2. Financial loss is also possible as you may have saved password of your bank account login or kept information about other financial stuff. I think, I don’t have to further say anything on this one, as it is pretty much clear to everyone that how you can get in trouble with this thing.

The solid measures to keep these factors away in case something like this happens :

To be honest there is no guaranteed way of being safe from such a loss. However, we can always take precautions to avoid it to a certain level. Few things which we can always try are :

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Those who know me through my blog know this that today my blog was down for about 3 hrs. time and it was because one of post got popular on digg and managed to reach the homepage of digg! A big thank you for all those who dugg the story.

The digg effect did its trick and the blog was down. With the excellent support of my web host, I managed to get it up, however, things did started to look bad when the blog was down. Things got back to normal when finally the story got removed from the homepage.

Here are some of the things which I learned with this incident :

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Passwords are the most important part of our online affair. We have so many logins and we maintain so many passwords to ensure the security. But, do we actually create those simple and easy to remember passwords ? Well, there are many friends of mine who have revealed their passwords and I’ve got to say that I had an Idea, that it will be their password. The reason, they kept the password as their Girl Friend’s name :D. Anyway, Nirmal has mentioned some really good points which tell you that what you should do, while setting up a password :

1. Never use your personal information as password.
2. Do not use actual word.
3. Use combination of words and characters.
4. Do not use same passwords for all.
5. Change your password frequently.
6. Use password managers.
7. Use passphrases.

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