ADSL xmas interference

At this time of year it is possible for your connection to become affected by interference from Christmas lights; these may be either internal or external to the premises.

Interference from Christmas lights may cause your router to lose the ADSL signal (loss of synchronisation) or the connection may become intermittent. One way to determine this is to check to see whether the ADSL light on the front of your router has gone out.

If you have lost synchronisation it may be possible for you to identify any causes of internal interference by turning off any Chistmas lights and once again checking your ADSL router to see if your connection has returned.

It may also be possible to locate the exact cause of interference by tuning an analogue radio to Medium Wave 693 down to 612. By tuning in and walking around the premises with the radio you may pick up a high level buzzing when in the vicinity of faulty equipment.

Hopefully these simple checks will help you to easily identify any possible sources of interference over the Christmas period.

More Protection for Home Computers

Here is another of my posts on computer security, prompted by the recent surge of hackers taking remote control of home computers. All the software mentioned here is free, but read the licence agreement to ensure the restrictions suit you and your computer at home

3 new programs to install and run on your computer if you are running Windows XP or Vista -- remember you should ALSO be running in addition to these a good anti virus and spyware application such as AVG and have Firewalling and automatic Microsoft updates turned ON, AVG provide a nice free anti virus and Spyware application for home @ http://free.grisoft.com 

SECUNIA PSI

This application checks ALL the software on your PC, it then works out if there are updates available for ALL the software. This is important as hackers/id thieves use faults in outdated software to get unauthorised access to your PC. Remember 'Microsoft Update' just updates the Microsoft software, NOT everything.....Hence you need this great tool to be sure you are not leaving holes in your Computer that someone can exploit..

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

RUBOTTED 

This program checks if your PC is being remotely controlled by a hacker, these remote control programs are known as 'bots' or 'zombies', hence "R U Botted". This one is very important if you use Windows XP at home on a broadband connection. Trend are an excellent company and give this software away for free.......An amazingly huge number of computers are BOTTED......see here from September 2008 -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/zombie_surge/

Your anti virus program may not detect BOT's, this application spots BOT like activity and thus discovers if you under remote control.

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/rubotted

HAUTE SECURE & TREND SECURE

These 2 programs check that the webpages you are visiting are SAFE, Haute Secure is run by ex Microsoft employees ....it works with Firefox & IE browsers. The Trend Micro program does a similar job but for XP - Personally I prefer Haute Secure as its browser neutral.

http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/trendprotect

http://hautesecure.com/

Worried about losing your USB Flash Drive?

Worried about losing your USB Flash Drive?

It seems everyone these days are carrying around USB flash drives, see my blog article here on buying a drive

http://tonycossey.blogspot.com/2008/08/usb-flash-drives.html

Thus everyone now store lots of sensitive information on the drives in their pocket, which is dangerous if you lose the drive......Unless you are lucky enough to afford the fantastic military grade encryption IRONKEY, a bit like the VERTU of the flash drive industry......Well you can protect yourself using this free software which makes any drive a little like the IRONKEY

TRUECRYPT

http://www.truecrypt.org/

Truecrypt installs on the Microsoft Windows family, Mac OSX and Linux..........it even can create a encrypted portion of your computer hard disk to stare sensitive information on, this makes the files within the drive virtually impossible to recover.

You can encrypt a blank USB drive and then only mount the drive with  your own password, thus if you lose the usb device nobody else can use it.......it even supports a wide range of high grade encryption algorithms.......

The software makes it childs play to manage.....

IF MY Bank or Building society goes bust, what happens to my money?

IF MY bank or building society goes bust, what happens to my money?

It depends on where your money is held. If it is in a deposit account, you are entitled to compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £35,000. If your money is held in investments such as stocks and shares Isas, the compensation entitlement increases to £48,000, or 100 per cent of the first £30,000 and 90 per cent of the next £20,000.

The compensation limit for long-term insurance contracts, which include pensions, is unlimited, protecting 100 per cent of the first £2,000 and 90 per cent on amounts above that. Some investments, such as unit trusts, are "ring-fenced", so if the company goes bust, it loses money, but yours is fully protected. The category that an account or policy falls into should be in the terms and conditions of the contract. If you are not sure, call the FSCS on 020 7892 7300.

Am I covered for more than £35,000 if the money is spread between different banks?

Since the run on Northern Rock, the golden rule has been to keep no more than £35,000 with any one registered institution. The key word here is "registered", as many banks are owned by one parent group and registered under the same name. For example, Intelligent Finance is registered as HBOS. If the banks you hold money in are separately registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA), you will be entitled to £35,000 from each. However if they are registered under one name, you will only be covered for up to £35,000 in total. To check whether your bank is independently authorised, call the FSA on 0845 606 1234.

My bank is being taken over. Will that affect my compensation entitlement?

It depends on the takeover. Lloyds TSB and HBOS have not yet decided whether the two brands will remain separately registered. Santander has confirmed that Alliance & Leicester and Abbey will be authorised separately, meaning that savers with up to £70,000 spread between both will be fully covered. However, the Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies will be subsumed under the Nationwide umbrella, so anyone with more than £35,000 in these societies might want to move excess cash elsewhere.

I have savings and borrowings with the same bank. Can I still claim compensation?

Anyone who has borrowings and savings with the same bank would not be entitled to compensation if their debt is bigger than their savings balance. For instance, if you had a mortgage for £100,000 and savings worth £25,000, you would be "ineligible" for compensation, and you would end up owing £75,000.

Equally, if you had £20,000 in savings and a £10,000 loan, you would receive only £10,000 in compensation. Offset mortgage borrowers take note: you are still protected only up to £35,000.

I have money in a joint account. What happens?

You could receive up to £70,000, or £35,000 per person. In the event of a claim, each account holder would receive a cheque for half the compensation, unless they ask for just one cheque.

I have a small business account. Do the same rules apply?

Yes, as long as you meet two out of three conditions: that your total turnover is less than £6.5 million, that your balance sheet is lower than £3.26 million and that you do not have more than 50 employees. Larger businesses are excluded, although there are some exceptions to this for deposit and insurance claims.

Are the rules different for foreign banks?

UK subsidiaries of foreign banks registered with the FSA are covered in the same way. These include Firstsave, ICICI and Kaupthing Edge. Some European banks including Anglo-Irish, Icesave and ING Direct have compensation schemes that are partly funded by the home country then topped up by the FSCS. Savers would have to apply to the foreign scheme first. The Treasury Select Committee called for compensation claims from foreign banks to be made easier earlier this week.

Is anywhere 100 per cent safe?

Yes. National Savings & Investments, the government-backed savings institution, fully protects deposits with no maximum limit. Northern Rock also offers savers full protection now that it is nationalised.

How do I move my savings from one bank to another?

First, check best-buy tables for the best interest rates available. When you have selected your new account, check the terms on your existing account, as some require notice before a withdrawal, or levy a penalty. To close the account, ask for a withdrawal form at a branch or on the phone. If you have an online account, you can transfer the money to your current account yourself, although most banks require written notice that you wish to close the account. To open a new account, you will need to show the new bank proof of identification and address. Once open, you can arrange to transfer the money from your current account.

If no UK retail bank has ever gone under, is it worth all the hassle?

After the Northern Rock debacle, there is very little chance the Government would allow a bank to collapse, as its efforts to rescue HBOS proved. Most are not in trouble, and would be at risk only if customers began collectively withdrawing their money. However, it is a good idea to spread your money anyway. Keeping below compensation limits will give you extra peace of mind.

data Sourced from www.timesonline.co.uk

Hamilton 'fair & square' ?

So I sit thru another Grand Prix and i am enthralled AGAIN for about a minute and a half of the whole race.....fairly 'par for the course' these days in regards to F1 and where thrills are concerned. But the new british hero Lewis once more proves some pretty important points about himself.

1. He IS very much like Senna - let Kimmi thru after cutting the corner to aviod a collision and giving Kimmi 6 centimeters of grace before then slipstreaming him into the next corner.....Very Senna but very clever.
2. Saying resolutely "nobody will overtake me on the outside ever again" in the 'pre race' interview, then on lap 2 get overtaken on the outside by Kimmi, reminding me somehwat of the Mansell / Senna classic episode of overtaking
3. Chasing down Kimmi in the final stages of the race, before the 'racing' incident that cost him 25 seconds, was very Senna.

Of course while Lewis is a 2nd year rookie, Senna is one of the true legends of formula1, Lewis can only aspire to 'acting' like Senna and is slowly working hinmself into the category of great McClaren drivers.

Should he have been pegged back 25 seconds? Well in my opinion NO, if the roles had been reversed I don't think the Kimmi would have been put under penalty.......I think the 25 second penalty was another "Nigel Stepney" award for McClaren.....however it does bring the season to a climax nicely....Still Alonso, the best driver in F1 of course WON'T win the championship..... but its going to be close (but boring unless it RAINS every race).

USB Flash Drives

I keep getting asked by people where to buy USB memory sticks to stick on your keyring or pop in your pocket to carry computer data such as excel or word docs or multimedia files. Over my lunchtime snack i thought i would create this post.

Also people keep strolling into PC world and buying sticks at massively inflated prices, they see the 4 gig one i use and are stunned that they paid £40 and i paid £8. Lesson = buy the sticks on the internet as they very cheap and all made in the same factories in the far east then differing plastic cases get stuck on the drives for branding......(apart from the ironkey below).

As a guide to how much DATA you can fit on a stick, see below which is guide for 8 gig or 4 gig ipods from apple, which use similar storage inside the case. If you have an old stick to compare with (Andy Hall copied here has a 512k) then 512k = 0.5 gig.

Capacity Guide

• 4GB or 8GB flash drive
• Holds up to 1,000 (4GB) or 2,000 songs in normal 128-Kbps AAC (IPOD) format
• Holds up to 3,500 (4GB) or 7,000 (8GB) iPod-viewable photos
• Holds up to 4 hours (4GB) or up to 8 hours (8GB) of video
• Of course these devices will hold thousands of typical word / excel docs

Warning: these devices will not last forever, there are limits to the number of times a block of flash memory can be erased and rewritten before it loses the ability to reliably store data. That limit is generally around 100,000 cycles THUS backup the data on your computer or buy two drives and keep them identical each by copying the data each month

Dabs (add delivery or go for free delivery over 5 days)

4 gig at below £8
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=52JF

8 gig at £180 - Very secure IRONKEY usb flash drive - see www.ironkey.com for details - nobody can steal your sensitive data using this device
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=54TQ&CategorySelectedId=11152&NavigationKey=11152&ExposedRefinement=11003

EBuyer (add delivery or go for free delivery over 5 days)

4 Gig below £8
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/123365

8 Gig below £14
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126211

16 gig at £30
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140985

32 Gig at £60
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140327

Capello's Captain

Well I think England may have found the right man to run the national team, what a good decision by Capello to abandon the "Terry versus Gerrard" argument and give Rio the captains armband for the French game.

I am a Chelsea fan and I think John Terry is an outstanding player, however I do think that the constant badgering and abuse of officials by JT and his fellow premiership players is frankly something that should be stamped out.

John Terry has perhaps forgotten the traditions of England greats like Bobby Moore who have held the England captain's position. I don't recall Mr Moore charging down the pitch and screaming into an officials face from close range when playing for his club. I think this fact rather than ability or having the drive to lead a side has lead to him losing the captains armband for the French game.

Rio of course has had his faults in the past, missing drug tests because he was shopping, was not his best moment, but he paid a VERY heavy price and seems to have learnt from that experience.

Even without a ball being kicked in Paris I think Capello has indicated the way he wants to play - as a TEAM, playing CAPELLO's way, under HIS rules.....Hmm.... been a while since we had those qualities in a manager, reminds me of a guy called Alf.....Sir Alf you may remember him from the mid 60's.

Repeat until Fade

Linked below is an article at Lifehacker, it gives a guide on how to ensure a Microsoft XP/W2K PC is kept in shape to perform well and also is protected from internet nasties. I have performed this type of operation what feels like a million times, now with this guide i can just point people to this Lifehacker article. Then wait for them to call me again to get me to do it no doubt :-)

Full URL : http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/geek-to-live--how-to-fix-mom-and-dads-computer-138113.php

OR Click HERE