AU Blogspot

 
             Thanks to Orin Optiglot for permission to use this Photo.

I was reading CSO magazine the other day (Corporate Security Officer) and came across a fascinating new security product for executives who transport highly confidential company documents.  A pharmaceutical issued a high security briefcase for its research executives.  The briefcase has two security modes.  The “Loss Proof” function alerts the executive with an alarm signal when he is more than five meters away from the case.  This is to not only discourage someone from lifting the case, but prevents the owner from leaving the case incidentally unattended. 

The “Robbery Proof” mode is designed so that if the owner is accosted and forced to give up the case, the case will wait until the briefcase is more than 100 meters away and then send a 30,000 volt shock throughout the case as well as sound an ear shattering alarm.  Click here to check out a similar case. 

Brad Rudisail
Computer Network Technician-Network Security Instructor
Ashworth University

             Thanks to David Cardoso for permission to use this Photo. 

Ten years ago the big upgrade in network speed was from 10 MB to 100 MB.  Organizations quickly began upgrading their LAN infrastructures to take advantage of this increase in performance.  This meant of course that CAT 3 cable had to be replaced with CAT 5 cable and all the switches and routers that couldn’t handle 100 MB had to be replaced.  Most organizations had to upgrade the NICs in all of their computers as well.  Five years ago, organizations started upgrading their datacenter structure to 1 Gig for all of their servers in order to enlarge the pipeline of data moving into and out of the datacenter from users. 

Although some organizations have provided 1 Gig throughput for their entire network, meaning that once again most switches, routers and NICs have to be replaced, many have not felt that the return on investment (ROI) is worth it.  Despite this, vendors are now touting the new 10 Gig Ethernet standard.   It will be interesting to see what type of demand for a speed that will most definitely require an organization to upgrade all involved switches and routers and NICS.  The cabling for 10 Gig is different as well.  

Brad Rudisail
Computer Network Technician-Network Security Instructor
Ashworth University

                            Image courtesy of Busted Tees.

Firefox includes a feature which allows you to quickly and easily access your bookmarked websites directly from the address bar. For each bookmark in Firefox, you can specify a keyword. Putting this keyword into the address bar brings you to your bookmarked web page. So, for example, you could set up a bookmark for micrux.net, and create the keyword micrux. Then, just type micrux in the address bar and the bookmark will be immediately accessed. But this feature is much cooler than that. Firefox allows you to put a %s in the address location which will be replaced on-the-fly with whatever text you put after your keyword in the address bar.

Here’s a simple example to quickly bookmark a Google search:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s

Put that string in as your bookmark location, and then you can put any convenient keyword, let’s use google as the keyword. Now save it. When you go to your address bar, type google micrux and Firefox will pass micrux as the search term to Google, and then bring you directly to the search results page. (more…)

               Thanks to radiorover for permission to use this Photo.

The following interview with Robert Moore illustrates the apathy that is still amazingly apparent in the IT industry today despite the strong awareness of IT vulnerabilities and the importance of tightening security for all organizations and even home users.  It also shows how easy it is for even computer novices to break into network devices.   

A quick Google search for sites showing the default passwords for just about any computer or network device sold on the market in the past decade can be easily found.  Many of these sites are not developed for malicious purposes.  The fact is that network devices are constantly resold and recycled.  This requires that the device be reset to its default configuration to erase the settings made by the original owner.  In order for the new owner to configure the device, he or she must know the default password credentials in order to access the device.  Because the original device documentation is often missing, these default password sites are vital. 

These sites make it even more important to immediately change the password for any newly purchased network device.  Recently, I heard a high school student inform me that he regularly accesses his neighbor’s wireless router by using the default logon for the device.  By doing this, the student can use his neighbor’s DSL connection for free.

Brad Rudisail
Computer Network Technician-Network Security Instructor
Ashworth University

I just read Computer World’s glowing review of the latest Webkit deveopmental build.  If you’re not familiar with Webkit, it’s an open source web browing engine that’s been “buzzing” around the I.T. industry.  It’s somewhat confusing to understand at first, but Webkit is also serves as the developmental version of the engine used in Safari.  As the review indicates, Webkit runs at a considerably faster rate than Firefox 3, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari’s standard browser.  I highly recommend that you keep a close eye on Safari-Webkit’s every development.  I’ll keep you updated on our blog, so be sure to check in frequently.  Take care.

David T. Ronan
Computer Training Instructor
Ashworth University 

             Thanks to Jen Montgomery for permission to use this Photo.

Have you ever been in the car, not driving of course, just a passenger on a boring trip somewhere and really wanted to get on the Internet, but couldn’t because you didn’t have a Wi-Fi connection?  As an Internet junkie, I experience this dilemma quite often.  I recently had to rent a car while my primary car was in the shop, not an interesting story in itself; however it became quite an experience because I had an opportunity to test out Autonet’s new and improved wireless router.  This device really does turn your car into a wireless hotspot.  Ok, so I nearly drove off the interstate a couple times watching the insane, yet compelling leaked Tom Cruise video on YouTube, but the fact that I’m here talking to you today proves something.  On the Autonet Mobile website, they list a couple possible uses: ‘you can provide the driver with directions to a restaurant’ or ‘check the weather forecast.’  Those are nice capabilities if you’re new school, but let’s take it to the next level. 

A friend of mine recently got married and his wife has literally banned him from playing video games on the computer.  I was initially horrified by this action until he handed me World of Warcraft with one request: “play it for me man.”  Out of respect for this friend, I will, I will play it for him.  Now that I know Autonet mobile is the real deal, I’m suddenly interested in carpooling.  Instead of driving to work listening to myself yell at other drivers, I will now be a passenger with a laptop and World of Warcraft.  I may even watch Regis and Kelly just because I can.  Everything has changed.       

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University School of Information Technology

 
               Thanks to Van Corey for permission to use this Photo.

Firefox is my favorite browser, when it comes to surfing the web. I support Firefox and suggest everyone to install it (Ok, no need to flame all you opera and IE lovers. Everyone has an opinion and so do I). In the Thank You series, I would like to Thank Mozilla Corp. for providing such a wonderful browser.

Not only it helps me in browsing safely (phishing filters, pop-up blockers, avoids active x based malware), its extensive plug-ins ensure that I can easily browse the web the way I want.

We can make out the popularity of the Firefox just by running a small search on Google Trends and here’s the graph of the Firefox. It’s gaining more and more popularity and capturing the browser market slowly and slowly:

I would also like to Thank all the developers who took their time to develop the plug-ins and as a thank you note here is the list of plug-ins which I use & posting the links to their reviews :

1. Adsense Notifier : A great plugin which keeps track of your Adsense income and lets you see if any stupid activity is going on with your Adsense account.

2. Answers : This plugin tells you about the specific word when you left click on any word with ALT button pressed. The list in the link has some other cool Firefox plugins too.

3. ChatZilla : This plugin ensures that you can make use of IRC to its fullest and that too for free. There are other software which lets you access IRC but they are no where close to this plugin and its simplicity.

4. Colorzilla : This plugin is really useful for all the web developers as it lets you chose the color values with the click of a button. (more…)