Winternals Administrator's Pak collects multiple enterprise-class utilities in single toolkit

Various tool and utility software suites are available to help information technology professionals administer and recover failed systems. iolo technologies' System Mechanic 6 Mobile Toolkit is one such example. While a competent suite for small business troubleshooters, System Mechanic doesn’t necessarily scale well to enterprise-size environments in which remote administration and Active Directory configuration are often required.

Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak offers enterprise administrators just such a toolset. In addition to offering a wide array of more intensive utilities, the Administrator’s Pak supports numerous remote administration capabilities. However, there’s a price to be paid. Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak’s list price is $1,439, considerably more than System Mechanic 6 (list price $299 on Amazon).

The additional cost will prove wise within enterprise environments, though, as all of the following utilities are included in Winternals’ Administrator Pak 5.0:

• ERD Commander 2005
• Remote Recover
• NTFSDOS Professional
• Crash Analyzer Wizard
• FileRestore
• Filemon Enterprise Edition
• Regmon Enterprise Edition
• Insight for Active Directory
• AD Explorer
• TCP Tools (TCPView Professional and TCPVStat)

Figure A

Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak includes a Navigator menu for accessing its many tools and utilities.

Here’s a quick rundown of each utility.

ERD Commander 2005

Winternals’ ERD Commander 2005 supports creating a bootable CD to simplify system and data recovery. Using an ERD Commander rescue CD, administrators gain access to powerful recovery utilities, including disk management, command line, networking and other tools, on a wide variety of Windows systems (including Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and Server 2003 platforms).

ERD Commander 2005 works by bypassing the installed operating system and booting to a self-contained graphic interface providing access to the system’s hard drives and configuration settings (including the Windows registry). In addition to powering a Console for processing batch files and other commands, administrators using ERD Commander 2005 benefit from a host of additional tools.

Viewing the Event Log helps determine system, security and application errors that may be fouling a system’s performance. The Hotfix Uninstall Wizard enables undoing Windows service pack, update and hotfixes that may be preventing a system from booting or operating properly. A Locksmith tool, meanwhile, enables changing Administrator and local user passwords, which can prove a lifesaver when locked out of a critical PC or server.

Remote Recover

Remote Recover simplifies recovering data on remote systems or configuring remote systems for new installations. The ability to mount and administer remote system hard disks saves administrators the trouble of having to travel to systems across town or on a different floor when data must be recovered over the network, removing malicious files from a remote system using a local antivirus or antispyware application and more. Remote Recover supports creating bootable CDs and floppy disks, as well as a PXE boot option for systems without an operating CD or floppy drive.

NTFSDOS Professional

Remedying NTFS errors is much easier when you can actually access the NTFS-formatted disk in question. NTFSDOS Professional enables the creation of a boot diskette administrators can use to access and repair NTFS volumes on Windows NT 4.0 and newer operating systems.

Figure B

Several Administrator’s Pak utilities include their own wizards that walk administrators through the process of specifying custom configuration options to be used with a tool.

Besides providing full read and write access to NTFS-formatted volumes, damaged NTFS partitions can be repaired by virtue of NTFSDOS Professional’s ability to boot nonfunctioning NTFS drives and create an environment in which checkdisk, antivirus and third-party recovery programs can be executed.

Crash Analyzer Wizard

Winternals’ Crash Analyzer Wizard interprets Windows crash logs to help determine the cause of system lockups and crashes. The Crash Analyzer works in tandem with Microsoft’s Debugging Tools for Windows to trace errant drivers. The wizard displays not only the driver likely responsible for a system crash, but also a friendly description, the drive’s file location, the publisher and other diagnostic data.

FileRestore

FileRestore provides administrators with a tool that makes quick work of searching for and recovering deleted data from hard disks and other media. Despite being deleted by system applications, processes, users or utilities, many files remain on a hard disk, flash drive or other media. FileRestore offers a solution for searching FAT, FAT32 and NTFS volumes on Win9x/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP and Server 2003 systems for file remnants and recovering previously deleted data.

Filemon Enterprise Edition

Filemon Enterprise Edition monitors file activity. Using Filemon, IT professionals can track file activity on both local and remote systems. Further, Filemon tracks the applications that access files and records the data in real time to simplify troubleshooting problematic applications and file access issues. Filemon works with the Windows NT 4.0/2000/XP and Server 20003 operating systems.

Figure C

Filemon lists processes, requests, disk paths and more.

Filemon’s captured file activity data can be filtered according to a number of criteria to help narrow searches to specific criteria. Once the appropriate information is captured, the file activity events can be output as a text file or printed for review.

Regmon Enterprise Edition

Tracking stray and problematic registry errors can prove maddening. Regmon Enterprise Edition monitors registry access in real time, which greatly simplifies not only determining which applications are accessing the registry when problems occur but also in determining the actual registry keys in question. Regmon can monitor both local registries and those on remote systems.

The utility captures data according to filters you specify. Once captured, Regmon data can be output to a text file and printed, just as with Filemon.

Insight for Active Directory

Identifying faulty Active Directory configuration issues is much easier with Insight for Active Directory, which monitors LDAP calls (and the results of those directory requests) made from any system on the network. Using the data Insight for Active Directory collects, administrators can review the causes of authentication and access issues, research logon, file sharing and application errors and determine the source of replication failures.

Figure D

Insight For Active Directory lists processes, requests, input information and more. When an event is selected, additional information associated with the event is displayed in the bottom pane.

AD Explorer

Another potent Active Directory troubleshooting tool included within Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak, AD Explorer, provides a time-saving utility for finding, removing and editing objects and attributes within Active Directory. Using AD Explorer, administrators can also insert new objects within an existing Active Directory domain, view object properties and configure security settings.

AD Explorer is a powerful accompaniment to Insight for Active Directory. Double-clicking an entry from within Insight for Active Directory’s Event Pane prompts AD Explorer to open the item. The linked behavior helps Winternals’ two Active Directory utilities work together and simplifies Active Directory troubleshooting by ensuring that additional information about an event, object or attribute is never more than a few clicks away.

TCP Tools (TCPView Professional and TCPVStat)

Winternals’ TCP Tools combine two networking applications into a single utility.

TCPView Professional supports monitoring network traffic on Windows 9x/NT 4.0/2000/XP and Server 2003 platforms. While Windows’ native netstat command provides basic networking monitoring capabilities, TCPView Professional reveals additional data associated with network traffic, including the application responsible for generating specific network activity. TCPView Professional’s ability to display activity listed by process in real time makes it easy to diagnose which application or endpoint is congesting a network. The utility possesses several filtering options and can log data to a text file to aid troubleshooting efforts associated with specific systems, actions and processes.

TCPVStat provides an additional console-based utility for monitoring network traffic. Using TCPVStat, additional information (such as the process that opened the endpoint connection or the amount of data transferred using that endpoint) can be displayed for a TCP endpoint. TCPVStat can also perform DNS name resolution to reveal the friendly name of a system associated with an endpoint or process.

Neither TCPVStat nor TCPView Professional are installed by default with Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak. I suspect this is due to conflicts that can occur when the utilities are loaded on networks that also use Norton Antivirus software. When installing the Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak, you must select a Custom installation and specify that the two network monitoring tools are installed with the other Adminisrtator’s Pak utilities.

Mid to large support

The tools and utilities included in Winternals’ Administrator’s Pak are geared toward IT professionals supporting midsize to large organizations. The tools’ remote configuration capabilities certainly contribute to the software suite’s cost, but the ease of use and flexible administrative options they add justify the expense.

Future installments will explore in greater detail the steps required to maximize ERD Commander 2005’s recovery tools, the file and registry monitoring utilities and the Active Directory applications.

The Meta Description Tag

The keywords and phrases you use in your Meta description tag may not affect your page's ranking in the search engines, but this tag can still come in handy in your overall SEO and social media marketing campaigns.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

It's a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the <Head> </Head> section of a web page. It is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag (if you use one), although the order is not important.
The proper syntax for this HTML tag is:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Your descriptive sentence or two goes here.">

If you're using a content management system (CMS), look for a field to fill out that's called Meta Description, or possibly just "Description."

Many years ago, the information contained in a Meta description could slightly help a page rank highly for the words that were contained within it. Today, neither Google, Bing, nor Yahoo! use it as a ranking signal.

In other words, whether you use your important keyword phrases in your Meta description tag or not, the position of your page in the search engine results will not be affected. So in terms of rankings, you could easily leave it out altogether.

But should you?

There are 3 important ways that Meta descriptions are being used today that make them an important part of your SEO and overall online marketing strategy:

1. They can be used as the description (or part of the description) of your page if it shows up in the search results.
2. They are often used as part of the descriptive information for your pages when Google shows "extended sitelinks" for your site.
3. They are often used as the default description in social media marketing links such as Facebook and Google+.

Let's look at each of these in more detail.

1. Meta Descriptions in the Search Results

People often think that whatever they put in their Meta description tag will be the default description that the search engines use under the clickable link to their site in the search results. While this is sometimes true, it's not always the case.

Currently, if you're searching for a site by its URL (for example www.highrankings.com) Google tends to use the first 20 to 25 words of your Meta description as the default description in the search engine result pages (SERP). However, if you have a listing at DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP) and are not using the "noodp" tag, they may default to that description instead. (Do a search at Google for www.amazon.com to see an example.)

Bing and Yahoo!, on the other hand, don't always default to the Meta description tag for URL searches. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. A search for www.highrankings.com at Bing or Yahoo! shows content from my home page as the description rather than the contents of my Meta description tag.

Of course, real people aren't typically searching for a site by URL, so what the search engines show for those types of search queries is not as important as a true keyword search. So don't get hung up on what you see when you search for your site by its URL or if you're doing a "site:command" search to see how they're indexing your pages.

Instead, go to your favorite web analytics program and find the keyword phrases that are currently bringing you the most traffic. Then see what your description looks like at Google when you type in those keywords.

And surprise! What you'll find is that your search results description will be different for every search query! You may see any combination of the following used:

• Your entire Meta description tag text as the complete description (typically if it's highly relevant and contains no more than 25 words).
• A full sentence pulled from your Meta description tag, but not the entire Meta description (if it contains more than one sentence).
• Text from one part of your Meta description mashed together with text from another part of it (if it's more than 25 words long).
• Some text from your Meta description mashed together with some text from the page.
• Some text from your page mashed together from some other text from your page (nothing from the Meta description).

Some of the circumstances that cause Google to not use text from your Meta description may include:

• The information in the Meta description tag was not specific to the page it was on.
• The search query used some words that were not in the Meta description, but those words (or some of them) were used in the page content. This includes words that Google considers somewhat synonymous, such as "copy" and "copywriting" or "SEO" and "search engine optimization."

But even the above are not hard and fast rules. Google doesn't always use all or part of the Meta description even when the exact search phrase was contained within it – especially if the search query is also contained within the content of the page. Suffice it to say that there are no hard and fast rules for when Google will show it and when they won't.

My recommendation is to always use description tags on any pages where you get search engine visitors (or hope to get them). Make them very specific to the page they're on by describing what someone will find when they click through to the page from the search results, while also using variations of your targeted keywords.

Because Google will show only show around 20 to 25 words as your description, many SEOs recommend that you limit this tag to a certain number of characters. In reality, however, you're not limited to any specific number. Your Meta description tag can be as long as you want it to be because Google will pull out the relevant parts of it and make their own snippet anyway.

For instance, if you're optimizing a page for 3 different keyword phrases, you could write a 3-sentence Meta description tag, with each sentence focusing on a different phrase. You could probably even insert more than 3 phrases in those sentences if you're a good wordsmith. The idea, however, is not to stuff this tag full of keywords, but to write each sentence to be a compelling marketing statement – a statement that naturally uses the keywords people might be typing into Google to find your site.

2. Meta Descriptions and Extended Sitelinks

These days, Google often uses the first few words from your Meta description tag when they create the "extended sitelinks" for your website. But this too is not set in stone and is highly keyword dependent. You'll see different sitelinks and different descriptions showing up depending on the words a searcher used at Google.
As an example, if you do a search for "High Rankings" at Google, you'll see my sitelinks for that search query.

At this moment, Google is showing my home page as the top result with 6 inner pages beneath:

• Forum home page: Description is from DMOZ/ODP. This page has the generic Meta description that is on every page of the forum.
• Link building forum home page: Description is content pulled from the page that uses the words "High Rankings" in it.
• SEO articles page: First part of Meta description.
• Newsletter home page: First part of Meta description.
• SEO/SEM resources page: First part of Meta description.
• SEO classes page: First part of Meta description.

For the most part, they're using the first part of the Meta description as the sitelink snippet, but not always. You may have noticed that I optimized those Meta description sitelink snippets that are showing by front loading them so that the first 5-7 words or so are a short description of what the page is all about.

But here's the rub. Do a Google search for "Jill Whalen SEO." You should still see sitelinks, and you'll even see some of the same ones as with the previous query, but some of the descriptions are different:

While the forum home page shows in both, this time Google has pulled text from the page rather than using the DMOZ/ODP description. This is likely because this search query had the word "SEO" in it while the other one didn't. The SEO articles page also shows up here, and it is using the same Meta description snippet as the High Rankings query. The other sitelinks are different from before, with 3 out of 4 using the Meta description.

As you can see, while you do have some control over your sitelink descriptions via your Meta description tag, Google might not always use them (just as Google does with their regular search results). Your best chance of having them show is to use, close to the beginning of your description tags, the words that you know pull up sitelinks. Also, be as descriptive as possible within the first 5 to 7 words.

3. Meta Descriptions and Social Media Marketing

Ever wonder why some Facebook links have great descriptions and others don't seem to make any sense? It's because some site owners have taken the time to write a summary of the article and place it into their Meta description tag, and some have not. If your article has a Meta description, Facebook and Google+ will default to that when you share a link on your profile or "Page." If there's no Meta description, you'll usually see the first sentence or so from the page being used as the default.

While anyone can edit the description that Facebook defaults to, most people don't. And at this time on Google+ you can't even edit the default description. You can either leave it as is or delete it all together. Let's face it -- most of the time the first sentence of an article is not a good description of the rest of it. It's not supposed to be, because that's not what a first sentence is for!

Therefore, I strongly advise you to always write a compelling 1- or 2-sentence description for all of your articles and blog content that may be shared via social media, and place it into your Meta description tag. This will give you a big jump on your competitors who haven't figured this out yet, making your social media content much more clickable because people will know what the article is actually about before they click on it.

Overall, the Meta description tag gives you a little bit more control over what people might see before they click over to your site. The more compelling it is, the more clickthroughs you should see. If your Meta description tags can help with that, then it's certainly worth the few minutes of time it takes to create interesting, keyword-rich tags that sum up what users will find when they arrive!

An introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I’m going to assume that a fair number of my readers have a website, blog, or other web presence. Many of you have probably built a website or two. I’m going to give you some quick SEO tips that I have found to be most important.

SEO expert spends nearly every day researching the current trends in SEO. If you try to do the same, and you’re the only one running your site, you won’t have any time to improve your site and come up with new content. You need to determine the right balance of time to make your site a success.

• Define your goals – The first thing you need to do is ask yourself what the purpose of your site is:
  • Are you trying to sell something online?
  • Are you trying to get leads?
  • Is your site simply a place you direct people to for more information?
• Focus on Google – Google is the by far, the most popular search engine. Most likely, you’ll want to focus your attention on them.
• Make life easy for Google – If you expect Google to make decisions, you might not like the results.
  • Avoid duplicate content – If you have the same content on more than one page, you may be penalized. At the very least, Google won’t know which content to give you credit for.
  • Make your HTML as simple as possible. A well formed XHTML design will go a long way.
• Optimize the way your pages look in the search listings – Google will only show the first 60 or so characters in your title, so keep that in mind. Make sure you DO use meta description tags in your pages, because Google WILL use those in it’s listings. Remember, you’re not just optimizing for the Google index, you also want your titles and descriptions to entice users to click on your result.
• Write original content – Google is looking for original content, and it has often been said that content is king. Even if Google isn’t giving you points for original content, Google is looking for information that is relative to the times. If you’re consistently writing good, original, and up-to-date content, Google will eat it up.
• Create a sitemap – Sitemaps allow you to give the search engines a "map" to all of your pages, which ensures that they’ll be found as quickly as possible. It also gives you an opportunity to specify how often pages change. If you’re using WordPress, you can use an automated sitemap generator.
• Get relevant links – Google is built on a reputation system. When reputable, related sites link to you, Google will realize the popularity of your pages. The best way to get good links is to write good content. Another way is to make friends in the community, that have similar interests. They might be willing to add your site to their blogroll, or mention you in their content.
• Tell Google what to NOT index – You can create a "robots.txt" file that tells the search engines what they can, and cannot index. You want to filter out all of the pages that are not original content. For example, on this blog, I filter out everything except the front page, about page, and the posts themselves. You can see my robots file here. I have talked about using a robots.txt file to avoid duplicate content in the past.
• Use the Google webmaster tools – If Google is having problems indexing your site, you’ll certainly want to know why. I check the webmaster tools daily to make sure that there are not any problems.
• Do what Google asks – Google publishes their recommended webmaster guidelines. You definitely don’t want to do something that Google explicitly forbids. Your playing their game, you need to play by their rules.
• Have simple URL’s – Your URL’s should be human readable, and more importantly, should be simple enough that search engines won’t get confused. Avoid URL parameters, and instead opt for path or page based names. For example, http://www.yoursite.com/posts/seo-tips.html.

If you have the time to take your SEO skills to the next level, there are immense resources available. The best way to find them is to simply do a Google search. The sites that do the best job with SEO should appear at the top!

How to rename multiple files quickly with FreeCommander

This free Windows utility gives you the ability to rename a batch of files with one click.

 

FreeCommander is a feature-rich yet free file management program for Windows that lets you view your file hierarchies in two separate panes. Among its many features, and the one that is the sole focus of this post, is its ability to rename multiple files in one fell swoop. It lets you select a group of files and create a sequential list with a single click.

Take those images you just imported from your camera--IMG0154.jpg, IMG0155.jpg, IMG0156.jpg--and turn them into something more meaningful, such as beach1.jpg, beach2.jpg, etc.

When you launch the app, you'll be greeted with a small window with two panes. Use either pane to drill down to find the files you'd like to rename. Highlight the files to rename and select File > Rename (hitting F2 will also do the trick).

Next, from the Multi rename window, you'll see your selected files at the top and renaming options at the bottom. Below, under the Pattern header, is a File name field for renaming your files. You can type in a new file name, and you can also type (or choose from the blue downward arrow to the right) in placeholders to keep some of the existing file name. The symbol [n] is a placeholder for the name of the file, and using [c] lets you use the counter to the right to number your files. From the counter area, you can choose a starting number, the interval between each numbered file, and how many digits to include.

 

For example, I have a group of photos imported from my camera with useless IMG1523.png file names. I typed "fall trip [c]" into the name field and chose to start at 1, step by 1, and 2 for the number of digits in the Counter field, and my photos were then renamed fall trip 01.png, fall trip 02.png and so on. Much more useful for me.

There is a lot more to FileCommander, but the batch renaming function is great. And my favorite aspect of it is the preview of your new file names it shows at the top, next to the old names, making experimenting with the many renaming options risk-free. When you find a naming convention that works, click the Rename button and all of your files are instantly renamed.

For a different approach to renaming multiple files, check out Rapid Streams Name-Dropper.

How to set up timed Web site blocking in Windows

Popular Web sites are the bane of any would-be productive day's existence and, fortunately, there are ways to help.

If willpower isn't your thing, there are lots of programs out there that can block access to Web sites. The problem with a lot of these programs is that you have to manually disable the block--if your conviction really falters your can still unblock it before your work gets done.

FocalFilter is a program for Windows operating systems that can block a user-generated list of Web sites for a specified period of time. The lock on these sites will persist until the time as elapsed, at which point you can extend the lock or unblock them.

Step 1: Download and install FocalFilter.

 

Step 2: Open the Windows start menu and type FocalFilter into the search box. Run the FocalFilter program the appears in the list.

 

Step 3: Click the Edit My Site List to open a new window containing the sites to be blocked. Add sites that you want blocked, one on each line. Click the Save button when finished.

 

Step 4: Click on the area next to the label Block for. A list of available times, ranging from 5 minutes to 12 hours, will be displayed. Select the time the best fits your needs.

 

Step 5: Click the Block My Site List button to block your browsers from visiting your list of Web sites. Note that you might have to restart your browser before the block will work.

The nice thing about this program is that the blocks are completely temporary. You can use other programs to block access to websites that you or anyone else who uses your computer never want to visit, and not have to worry about accidentally disabling those blocks when unblocking your favorite site.

This is what you'll see when the timer ends.

All About PIPA and SOPA, the Bills That Want to Censor Your Internet

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. While the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, effectively shelving it indefinitely, the very similar PIPA bill is still alive and well. Both SOPA and PIPA put power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language is vague enough to target sites you use every day, like Facebook and Google, making these bills a serious problem. Here's what you need to know about the bills and what you can do about them.

PIPA and SOPA, the Bills That Want to Censor Your Internet

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. While the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, effectively shelving it indefinitely, the very similar PIPA bill is still alive and well. Both SOPA and PIPA put power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language is vague enough to target sites you use every day, like Facebook and Google, making these bills a serious problem. Here's what you need to know about the bills and what you can do about them.

What Are SOPA and PIPA All ABout, and Why Should I Care?

The idea behind these bills sounds reasonable. They came about in order to try and snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited that many people are downloading their products without payment or permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. The methods are ineffective. Here's what they are and why they're problematic.

SOPA and PIPA were initially designed to do two things. The first was to make it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simply capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement. This would have been bad for everyone because such a measure doesn't actually prevent piracy. The reason that blocking a domain name isn't effective is because any blocked site can still be accessed via its numeric IP address. For example, if lifehacker.com were blocked, you could still find it by visiting a number-based address. In fact, before the bills were even supposed to come to a vote, tools were created to automatically route domain names to their IP addresses to completely render this measure of SOPA and PIPA useless. As a result, the IP-blocking provisions have been removed from both bills.

The other, still-active measure present in the SOPA and PIPA bills would allow rights holders to cut of the source of funding of any potentially infringing web site. This means any other companies doing business with this site would have to stop. Whether that means advertising, links in search engines, or any other listings would have to be removed.

There is, however, an important difference between SOPA and PIPA. SOPA targeted any site that contributed to copyright infringement, even if it was simply facilitating the act by providing a tool that could be used for illegal purposes (regardless of intention). PIPA, on the other hand, requires the targeted site to have no significant use beyond copyright infringement. Basically, PIPA can only be used to censor a site if it's more likely to be a source of illegal content than not. This is still problematic because a tool designed to accept user-generated content is, to some extent, at the whims of its users. If infringing content is found, rights holders already have the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to help them request the legal removal of that content. They also have the ability to sue infringers for damages, as we've previously seen with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) when they, for example, sued a 12-year-old for downloading music. SOPA and PIPA provide a means to censor the tool that provided a means for the infringing content to exist on the internet rather than the content itself. This puts a lot of power in the hands of rights holders and has significant potential for abuse.

This is, of course, our interpretation of these bills. Because we love the internet and oppose censorship, we have an obvious bias. While we believe the right thing to do is to oppose these bills, you should make an informed decision on your own. For more information, please read the exact content of both the SOPA and PIPA bills.

What Can I Do About SOPA and PIPA?

 

Currently Twitter, Google, Reddit, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Zynga, Facebook, and several other sites have spoken out in opposition of SOPA and PIPA. In fact, many sites are censoring their logos (e.g. Google) or completely taking down their sites (e.g. Wikipedia) in protest on January 18th, 2012. There is incredible opposition to these bills because they don't just affect users like you, or small startups, but even very large companies with a large stake in the great things the internet and modern technology have to offer. If you'd like to join in your protest, there are a few things you can do.

First, call your congressperson on the phone. This is especially important if you live in a state with SOPA and/or PIPA supports or sponsors. Nonetheless, if your congresspeople do not support these bills you should still contact them to voice your support for their position.

Second, get the word out. Post this article, the American Censorship Day web site, or any other information about SOPA/PIPA on your social media accounts. Send emails to friends and family. If you oppose the bill, help others to understand why you believe they should oppose and encourage them to read more so they can make an informed choice.

Let's End the Fight and Start a Discussion

Finally, if you know a supporter or person in favor of SOPA and/or PIPA, have an open discussion. Myself and many others believe that the root of this problem stems from a lack of communication on both sides. Despite what my articles may suggest, I'm not a supporter of piracy. I do believe there is a compromise that both sides can reach with enough discussion, education, and understanding. It's important to remember that both the supporters and opposers of SOPA and PIPA have legitimate concerns. This should not be a fight but rather a cooperative discussion to find a solution. Whichever side you're on, please encourage a conversation that will move us towards change that is good for everyone rather than extreme measures that won't help anyone.

 

For this post all credit goes to: http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet

How to check all your Windows passwords for security

We know we need high-quality passwords to keep our data (and credit cards) safe, but many of us stick with old, weak passwords out of inertia. 

Password Security Scanner is a great, free wake-up call for Windows users that checks programs like Internet Explorer, Outlook, and many others for stored passwords, and scans them for relative strength without revealing them. It's great for checking computers when you're volunteering as IT help (like with parents). Here's how to use it: 

1. Download and install Password Security Scanner. 
2. It will run automatically when your installation is complete. The resulting window has a lot of information, but Password Strength is what you're most interested in, and it's almost all the way over on the right. You really want it to be greater than 25, and more than 45 is terrific. 

3. If some of your numbers are low, this is a good time to fix them. You should have everything you need: the program, account, and username are all provided, so you should be able to track it down quickly and make the changes you need. For help choosing a strong password, check here. 

That's it. If you haven't checked or changed your passwords in a while, now is a great time to take care of it. Like backing up files, maintaining strong passwords is vitally important, but easy to blow off. 

Note: Password Security Scanner does not yet support Chrome. Nirsoft, the developers of PSS, have a separate utility that lets you export Chrome passwords and then import them into Firefox, which should help veteran Chrome users considerably. 

Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip!

How to turn old hard drives into one large drive in Windows

Can't afford a 1TB drive, but you've got two 500GB drives just lying around? Windows can combine them. 

The Windows XP/Vista/7 feature is called spanning, and it can extend the usefulness of older, smaller hard disks. Here's how to create a spanned volume: 

Step 1: Go to Start, then type "diskmgmt.msc" in the search box. This will launch the Windows disk management tool. Make sure that the disks you want to combine, are unformatted and don't contain any partitions. In our example, we're going to combine Disk 1 (298.09GB) and Disk 3 (186.31GB).  

Step 2: Right-click on one of the drives to be combined, then select New Spanned Volume.

 

Step 3: When the New Spanned Volume Wizard appears, click Next, then add the disk(s) you want to combine, to the disk you already selected. 

Step 4: Complete the rest of the wizard, which involves selecting a drive letter and formatting the new volume. 

Step 5: Once you complete the wizard, check the Windows disk management tool for the volume you just created. You should see the new volume listed at the top. The disks should also be labeled in purple (Disk 1 and Disk 3 in our example). 

That's it. We recommend including the spanned volume to your regular backups, because if one of the drives in the volume fails, the entire volume will be destroyed.