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.

oDesk Profile: 6 Commonly Overlooked Items

The oDesk Contractor Profile

On oDesk.com, one of the first things contractors are encouraged to do is to create and improve their profiles. The profile is where you as the contractor showcase your skills, certifications, education, portfolio items, employment history, and of course your work history and feedback on oDesk.

“Your oDesk profile is online proof of your experience as a freelance professional on the site.”

It’s online proof of your experience as a freelance professional, which is why you need to improve your profile as much as possible to be able to succeed in your applications and establish a good reputation on the site. To put it simply, your profile is the bait that will catch the employer’s attention, despite the fact that hundreds of competing candidates have applied for the same job as well.

6 Profile Items Contractors Miss

Sure, using fancy words and high-end descriptions about yourself can boost your profile, but there are details; nitty-gritty overlooked details in your profile that are actually vital to your success in winning the job. Here are 6 items newbie and regular oDesk contractors tend to miss out on:

• English self-assessment – Does the self-assessment score reflect the English writing and speaking skills of the contractor? You can see this in the content of the profile already.
• Titles – How does the contractor describe himself in his title? The title is the sentence beside his profile picture, ending in what type of freelancer he is on oDesk.
• Spelling and grammar – Some contractors forget to proofread and edit their profiles for spelling and grammatical errors. Do you see any of these errors in your own profile?
• Overview – This section is your objective as a freelancer. It’s where you explain in a paragraph or two why you think employers should hire you and why you are the perfect match for the job. Sadly, more often contractors forget to improve this part of the profile and seem to be satisfied with vague descriptions and objectives.
• Test scores – Some contractors take the free oDesk skill tests, fail, and leave them public on their profiles
• oDesk Readiness Test – Are you truly familiar with the system and the tools of oDesk?
• Hourly rate – Are you rating yourself way too low or way too high? Is your hourly rate both reasonable for employers and can compensate for all of your expenses?

We tend to get so caught up on applying for jobs and fighting with other bids that we forget that the profile could be the solution to winning that job. Don’t allow yourself to neglect your oDesk profile any longer.

A detailed profile and a great cover letter are your weapons whenever you enter the freelancer battlefield, so take the time to complete, customize, polish, and finalize both your profile and your cover letter.

Improve Your Profile Based On These 6 Items

Now that we’ve uncovered the 6 profile items that are usually taken for granted by oDesk contractors, let’s have a look at these helpful tips, some of which are comments taken from on the oDesk forums, on improving your oDesk profile:

• Assess your English oral and written skills with honesty. Even if you are confident that you’re a 5.0, it’s not going to work if your profile is full of misspelled words, grammar lapses, wrong capitalization of letters, so on and so forth.

Be as honest as you can be with this self-assessment score and rate according to how proficient you really are with the English language. Don’t be ashamed if it’s lower than a 5.0; in fact, take this as a challenge to study and brush up on your English skills for more effective communication.

• Your title should be a short yet catchy description of what you do. A title that only emphasizes on a contractor’s status as a student or a “hard worker” isn’t going to attract employers.

In all honesty, no one in this global marketplace is going to hire a student or a run-of-the-mill worker, no matter how diligent or talented he or she may be. With that said, remember that you are part of a tough competition and that you’re competing with actual professionals from around the world.

Start by asking yourself the question, “What does a student have to offer?” If you can’t come up with a good answer, change the title into something that will really highlight your skills. Webmaster, data entry specialist, tech writer, the list goes on.

• Always, ALWAYS, check your entire profile for spelling and grammatical errors. You don’t want your employers to reject you because of such carelessness. It is issues like this that jeopardizes your chances of landing good projects on sites like oDesk.

Ask a friend or someone with strong English skills to help you proofread and edit your profile if you are not confident with the outcome of your profile. Once it’s clean and ready to serve, you’ll be surprised with the increased number of invitations for interview.

• Your overview should already tell the employer what you, the freelancer, can do for him. Focus on your client by using “You” instead of just “I, me, me, me”. Ask your prospects if they’re looking for a qualified and experienced freelancer, tell them what it is they need, and how you can help them achieve their goals. To sum it up, end your overview with a call to action, which is of course to hire you for the project.
• Tests are proof of how knowledgeable you are with your skills and industry, so make sure that you publicize scores at the Top 10% or Top 20%. Take tests that are related to your expertise because quality employers may use this as a search category when searching for freelancers.

Hide those that are below 60% as these are not impressive and will not support your claims of being an expert in your field. The good news though is that oDesk tests can be retaken every 30 days, giving you enough time to brush up, study, and prepare yourself for better results.

• Being “oDesk ready” means you are familiar with how the oDesk system works, its Terms of Use and policies, and the tools to get work done. Passing the oDesk Readiness test is important because employers won’t tutor you on how to use oDesk. Their main priority is to get work done, so make sure that you know how the system works, have gone through the Learning Center, and are familiar with the oDesk Team 3, which is the desktop application used to track time worked on hourly projects.
• Decide on a reasonable hourly rate for work.Many contractors complain about how unreasonable employers are with their budgets nowadays that rants, complaints, and disheartening comments have flooded the entire oDesk contractor community.

My take on this is to set an hourly rate that you know is worth the time, brain power, and money spent on the project. Don’t ever decrease your hourly rates to a measly $1/hour to $5/hour just to beat the competition.

Take note that these tips are based on experience, opinions and advice contributed by experienced oDesk contractors, and even from the oDesk Help Center. They are not meant to dictate how you create and build your own oDesk profile.

What may work for me or for others may not work for you, so it’s up to you to decide how you will improve your oDesk profile. You can also visit the oDesk blog for more tips and advice.

How long has it been since you analyzed and edited your oDesk profile? Is your profile attracting good projects?

Hacking Layer 2 : Fun with Ethernet Switches

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Understanding Windows 7 GodMode

Although its name suggests perhaps even grander capabilities, Windows enthusiasts are excited over the discovery of a hidden "GodMode" feature that lets users access all of the operating system's control panels from within a single folder.

By creating a new folder in Windows 7 and renaming it with a certain text string at the end, users are able to have a single place to do everything from changing the look of the mouse pointer to making a new hard-drive partition.

The trick is also said to work in Windows Vista, although some are warning that although it works fine in 32-bit versions of Vista, it can cause 64-bit versions of that operating system to crash.

To enter "GodMode," one need only create a new folder and then rename the folder to the following:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Once that is done, the folder's icon will change to resemble a control panel and will contain dozens of control options. I'm not sure it's my idea of playing God, but it is a handy way to get to all kinds of controls.