Battle Browser

Battle Browser update!

I'll probably start my first contestant with IE starting next week, just had to sort out my arbitrary rating system. It will be divided into several categories rated on a scale from 1-10. 1 is bad and 10 is good. Keep in mind that 5 isn't bad but it's also not good it's just average. The ratings are based off of my opinion and how I would rate them so based off my experience of rating things I would expect that we won't see a 10 very often and as a result I doubt any of the browsers will get a 10 overall. Also I wouldn't expect to see a 1 at least not on the top 3 browsers. If i can't decide on a number you might also see a half (.5) in the score I won't get down to anything more or less than that. (so no 6.0034 scores sorry if you were hoping to see a browser that is better by some inconsequential fraction) Along with the ratings I'll go over a few brief details of the browser that will hopefully be a little interesting as well as general pros and cons of the browser.

Heres how the ratings will go, each with come with a description on why I think it get's the score it does.

Performance: Make note that this is the performance of the browser not your internet connection. If you have a slow connection a browser will have little impact on how fast you can load pages. (I'll make a tip of the week on how to work with slower connection speeds)

Looks: This how good the default look is as well as the ability to change the looks.

Customization: This would be things like add remove buttons, add bars, other settings and such.

Stability: How often it crashes, also be doing a spam check by opening as many windows as quickly as possible to see if it crashes.

Security: This is how helpful it is in protecting you from viruses and other bad things and how much of a risk it is at being targeted by bad things.

Compatibility: There are some web sites that are not compatible with all browsers and require that you use a different one when accessing it. Compatibility is controlled by the website and not the browser but I still wanted to put this category in because it's reflected by the popularity of the browser and I'll cover that in another section that isn't rated.

Functionality: Does the browser have some special function that others don't? Also the way downloads are handled will be covered here.

Ease of use: This will be based on how easy it is used by the general public, as well if there is any thing special you need to do to set it up.

At the end I'll give it an overall score and maybe some more information if I feel like it. Also make note that this information may change as I continue onward if it does I'll be changing it for each of the past ones and put an update so you can check back. You can use the link on the right side of the blog to list all the posts for Battle Browser if you want to read or compare them.

(you also might have noticed I fixed the battle browser logo)

Computer Tip of the Week

This week's tip it brought to you by the letters: ********

I am going to talk about passwords today. There is many people who have insecure passwords and even some who think that they have a secure one but don't. I am going to give you tips on how to create a difficult and secure password that is also easy to remember. (all the passwords in my examples will have "quotes" around them and should always be ignored)

Take a moment to look at the picture of the keyboard Rubik's cube I put at the top of the post. I've taken the time to learn the secrets of the regular Rubik's cube and by those standards the cube in the picture is several times more difficult to solve. There's a few key point's that I am going to cover to help you create your own secure password that will be just as difficult for people to break as that cube is to solve.

What to Avoid:

The most common mistakes in creating a password is to use either the word: "password" or your username as your password, both of those are bad and shouldn't be done. Some places won't let you even use those as your password. Repetition, adding multiple or sequential letters or numbers, is bad try not to use more than 2 in a row. (example: aaaaa, gggggg, 11111, 12345, abcde... ect) Using the words: "root" "admin" or "administrator" is also a bad thing as they are common default passwords. having all the same type of characters. Using information that you used when registering such as your email address, or your name first and or last birthday. (it's alright to include this information in your password as long as you add other stuff to it. I'll give more details on this later.)

Complexity:

The more complex the password is the more secure it becomes. Just as the cube in my metaphor becomes more complex the harder it is to solve. The keyboard is full of characters that you can use for your password. There is 4 types of characters that can be used for a password they are: letters lowercase and capital, numbers, and then special characters. (!@#$%^&* are some examples of special characters) Most passwords will allow all of the letters and numbers to be used but some of the special characters can't be used, for example the space bar is technically a special character. Most places will require a password length of at least 6 characters but I would recommend longer at least 8-10. Having a complex password using all 4 types of characters with a good length will help to keep the bad people out.

Multiple Passwords:

Most people have multiple logins to multiple places. Email, Banks, Facebook, and other places. Having the same password for everything can be a big risk because some places might not have the same security protection as say your bank does. So "the bad guys" can crack your password in a less secure place and then get access to your bank account. Having a different password for each place is best but can cause issues with remembering your passwords. I would recommend that you come up with 2 or 3 different passwords with different security levels. (I'll cover creating passwords later)

Remembering your password:

So I made up a very secure password: "DFoef22134DSjl3*^&%*342t9dfs\njf" but the second I typed it in I forgot it. Writing it down on paper or typing it in a document on your computer is not a good idea. If some one got access to your list of passwords they would now have access to everything. Pick out 2 things that are memorable to you and turn that into your password. Things like a birth date, pets name, hobbies or other things that are eventful or personal to you. (for exaple: I'll take blog and todays date and make it a password: "blog22811" again I'll be getting to creating a password soon)

Character replacement can help you remember your password. This is where you take a word and replace 1 character with another. Replacing a lower case letter with an upper case letter is very easy to remember especially when it's the first letter of a word. Replacing a number with a special character is also easy to do. Take a look at the number 5 you should see % above it, as you know holding shift while pressing the number 5 will give you a %. So if your creating a password with a date in that has the number 5 some where you could hold shift while pressing the 5 to add more complexity to your password while it's still more memorable than just random characters. Replacing letters with numbers or characters, this can be a little tricky but can help. the characters @ and a, o and 0 (zero), i and !, l and 1, 8 and & all look the same and could be replaced with each other while still making the password memorable.

I mentioned before about creating multiple passwords to help remember multiple passwords I would recommend you create some kind of theme to help you remember them. I'm not a sports fan but if you are you could do something like picking out your favorite teams, players, and combining it with dates they won big games or the players number, using this example you could create an endless number of passwords with a similar theme that will help you remember.

Adding complexity will always make the password a little harder to remember. Make sure that after you pick a password that you practice it a few times to help you remember it.

You can also use a password layout to help remember your passwords. This would be something like always have a name followed by date for all your passwords or holding shift in the same places in all your passwords. (I'll give more examples of this when talking about creating your password)

Chang your password:

Depending on how secure you want your password to be should determine how often you should change it. Things like bank passwords and other financial sites should have the most secure password as well as frequent password changes, every 3 months or so. Other places like facebook or twitter would probably be fine to never change it. Maybe change it once a year if you would really care if some one got in and started posing things that you didn't want them to. Changing your password frequently will increase security but also make it harder to remember. Again keeping a theme and/or layout will help you remember them.

Creating multiple memorable and complex passwords: (yes it's finally here)

I'm going to walk though the steps on creating multiple complex passwords that are easy to remember. First I'm going to pick a theme I like Star Wars so lets go with that. I'll create a low medium and high security password using this theme then I'll create a few High security passwords using a layout with this same theme.

Low: "lukeskywalker"

enough characters to meet alot of password requirements but is all lowercase letters.

Medium: "D@rthV@der"

It's easy to remember to capitlaize the first letter of each name and replacing a with @ is also easy to remember while making the password much more complicated.

High: "@n!k!nSkyw@1ker?"

Take Anakin Skywalker and relpace the a with @, i with ! and l 1 also throw a random character at the end and now you have a very complicated password but is still memorable.

Multiple High passwords using a theme and layout: (remember to not include the "quotes")

"N3wH0p319&&"

"#mp!r3Str!k3s19*)"

"R3turnJ3d!19*#"

Can you figure it out? The theme is still Star Wars but here is the layout. I took 2 words out of the title of the 3 original Star Wars movies followed by the year they were released. I capitalize the first letter of each word and replace e with 3, i with !, and o with 0 (zero). Also if you notice that on the second one I used # instead of 3 because going with the theme I always capitalize the first letter but because it wasn't a letter I held shift while pressing 3 to get #. Also on the date I held shift for the last 2 numbers.

If I change the theme from Star Wars to movies I could extend the theme to an endless amount of passwords. Once you can remember your layout you can change your passwords many times while still remembering it and keeping it complex and secure.

Final note:

I just wanted to mention a few other things that can make passwords more or less secure, you might use some of these but probably won't use all of them.

Saving passwords in your browser: You should avoid these for your more secure passwords. If some one got access to your computer they could get the passwords out of the browser.

Biometric Devices: Most commonly this is finger print reader, the ones you can buy from the store or come built into a laptop are for connivance not security unless you spend lots of money on it. The cheep ones are often easy to break into and contain all your passwords. Also those high tech things you see on the spy movies like retina scans, facial recognition, DNA or hair follicle matches and anything along the lines of matching your password with some physical aspect of your self would be considered Biometric.

Random Password Generator: A device or program that will create a password or code that randomly changes on a set timer that will require you to use the device or software to find out what the password is before you can login. This isn't common and can often require a static password that you set.

Again as always feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need help creating a password. Also I am looking for more ideas for the tip of the week so if you have any question or ideas on more things I can cover please send me an email: warclark@msn.com

Battle Browser

I promised some more interesting content well here it is. I'm going to do a new segment called "Battle Browser". (I even made the logo my self. Isn't my mad photo shop skills great?) Basically what I am going to do is take a look at the 3 major web browsers as well as a few other less known ones and come up with some arbitrary rating system and determine in my opinion what browser is better than the others. In the end I will announce the overall champion as well as give out some imaginary rewards to the other browsers if they do something cool that the others done. (No actual rewards will be given.)

I'll do a review followed by some kind of chart with my arbitrary ratings on it with an overall arbitrary score of each browser probably once a week until we finish them all. Then at some point I'll do a wrap up post with the announcements of the results. I'll link these all together on the right side so you can read them all together if you want to. Also I'm going to try to use pictures more often because it makes my deadly walls of text less ominous.

Next week I'll start with Internet Explorer, because Microsoft wouldn't have it any other way.

Computer Tip of the Week

This week we will talk about the golden rule: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP, and BACKUP!

No matter who you are if you use a computer there is a good chance (around 99 and 3/4%) that you have data. For the most part we like to keep that data. The time I spent working for Dell Technical support I replaced lots of parts for may people from my experience I have noticed The most common part of your computer to fail is: anything that isn't inside it(mouse, keyboard that sort of stuff) But usually it's minor and easily replaced. The second most common part of your computer is your monitor(yes it's not in your computer but I keep that separate because it costs much more then that other stuff.) It happens less often now that most people are using LCD monitors(my guess is most of the CRT monitors are broken or are horribly distorted by now). Close behind is your hard drive maybe even more so if you use a laptop.

Your hard drive is a little silver box and it holds all your pictures, all your program, and all your documents on it. Now I want you to close your eyes(second thought keep them open so you can read) and picture your computer(it should be easy sense your probably looking at it) and imagine that it explodes into little burning chunks. It's unlikely that this will happen but this would be a scenario that would make your data impossible to recover. Now think of all the data on the computer that you will lose never to get back again. For a few people this may not be much and may not mean much for others it may be a lot and may be a very big deal.

There is many ways to backup your data and all of them are good ways to protect your data from nasty bad things happening to them. The best way to determine what backup method is best for you is to find out how much data you want to backup and how often that data changes. I'll list the methods of backing up data followed by an explanation of each method. The listed by amount of data needed to be backed up:

Under 1GB: CD

8GB: DVD

20GB or less: Flash drive(sometimes called thumb drive)

25-50GB: Blu-Ray Disks

250GB to 1TB(1000GB): Internal/External Hard drive.

With the reduced cost of flash drives compounded with the increased capacity CD's and DVD's aren't the best way to go they are better for sharing data with others. If you have a smaller amount of data to back up just stick with a flash drive for $20 you can get a good quality 8 GB drive and if you need a little more around $50 you can get 16-20GB. Blu-ray isn't gonna be the best idea unless you already have a Blu-ray burner. If you need to backup more than what a flash drive can handle your your wanting to backup your whole computer then an external (or internal) hard drive is the best way to do it. Right now 1TB external hard drive is going for about $100 and for peace of mind knowing your data is save it's not a bad deal. One of these drives should be more than enough to back up everything on your computer unless you have more data than the average user.

How should you back up data? There are a few programs that can help you backup data, some hard drives will even come with these types of programs. I was going to recommend some programs but I really can't because I haven't used many. The only one that I have used and like and would recommend is Symantec Backup Exec but that's more for Businesses and can cost over $1000. For my personal backups I use an external hard drive and a flash drive for other things. To manually backup your data all you need to do is open the location of your data and drag it to the hard drive. Once you see the data on the hard drive it's backed up and to restore it just do it the other way.

How do I make sure I backup everything I need? A great tip is to save everything you need in your "My Documents" folder (Just "Documents" in Windows 7). If you do that then all you need to do is open your documents folder and copy everything in there to your external drive. In XP and Vista it will contain your pictures and music as well, if you use 7 then just click on the start button (aka the Pearl) and in the text bar near the bottom type in "Libraries" and press enter. This will bring up 4 folders: "Documents" "Music" "Pictures" and "Movies" all of these folders should contain everything you need to back up. Don't get into a bad habit of saving things to your desktop, it's a bad idea and just makes it look messy. (it's also a pet peeve of mine) If you do just make sure to grab those files too, you can just drag and drop from the desktop to your backup location. Backing up programs that are installed on your computer isn't needed and even if you back it up it might not work if you copy it back, it's better to just reinstall programs if you lose them. If it's a program you downloaded off the internet and you want to keep it handy so you don't have to download it again just save the install file to your backup that way you have a way to reinstall it if needed.

Does email need to be backup up? If you use an internet email like Gmail, Live Mail, Yahoo, or anything that you can get to from a web browser then no you don't need to back it up unless you save it to your computer in some way. If you do save your emails just make sure to save them to your documents folder and your all set. Probably your work email will use an Exchange or POP email server this does require some more steps to make sure that it's backed up but I don't want to go so deep into that right now or this post will never end.

What about fires, thieves, or things that can physically damage data? If you keep data that would in some way be detrimental to you or others in any way financially or personally then taking extra steps to insure it's protection may be a good idea. There is a few companies out there that will help you backup your data over the internet like Mozy for a monthly fee. I would only recommend that you keep the data you backup over the internet to more critical data because backing up and recovering data over the internet can take much more time depending on your internet connection. But this will be able to access your data anywhere you can access the internet. Backing up data over the internet does also create new risks such as hackers trying to steal your data. It's a small risk and I'm sure the backup companies do everything to make sure that does stay at a minimum. Just make sure to keep a strong password. (I'll do passwords for another computer tip sometime.)

What do I do if something bad happens and I didn't backup my data? First let me say this: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!! But really if your hard drive crashes or your computer breaks, your you accentually delete your important files followed by emptying the recycle bin not all is lost there is methods of recovering data but this can become very expensive depending on how bad it is and isn't something that I would want anyone to experience. (I'll cover data recovery on another tip)

I want to end this post with an experience I had working for Dell technical support. I had a collage student call in who had purchased a laptop from dell. She was calling because there was a problem with her computer not being able to start. She was very concerned because finals was in a few weeks and she had been working on a big project or something. (can't remember exactly what it was but it was vital to her graduation) She continually reminded me of this every few minutes as I walked her though some steps to run the diagnostics on the computer. Once the diagnostics came back with the results confirming what I thought was the problem. I had to break the bad news to her that the drive had gone bad to the point where it will need to be replaced. She realized the severity of the problem while trying to hold back the tears she asked about her data. While Dell will replace the bad hard drive with a new one they don't cover any data so she will have to find a method of recovering the data from some other place. While trying to calm her down from her sobbing I tried to reassure her that it's still possible to recover the data and recommended a few places that might be able to help her and encouraged her to make sure she keeps a backup of her data from now on. I don't know what happened after that other then that she got a new hard drive but I could speculate that she would probably wind up spending around $400 or more just to try recovering the data and even then it's not 100%. All of her anguish could have been prevented by a simple little flash drive that you keep on a key chain.

As always if you need more help with backup or recovery talk with me I can at least point you in the right direction, if not help you more.

Facebook and the Like button

Sorry it's been a while, I started a post for the Tip of the week but just didn't like the way it was going but hopefully I'll get it out next week.

This will probably be short because there isn't much to say but I'm sure I'll go off on something. Recently I've noticed that companies out there have been taking advantage of the free advertising that Facebook has to offer. I'm sure you'll find a Facebook page out there for just about every product you could think of or at least for the company that sells the product. But why? Are you a personal friend of Ronald McDonald? Do you hang out with the Pepsi guys? Are you even an acquittance of the Verizon company or even know of some one who is? Then why would you "friend" them in Facebook? They would certainly encourage you to, in fact they would love it if everyone added them as friends on Facebook or "Liked" anything related to their product.

Why do they do this, well once your their your "friend" they are open to spam you and in turn everyone else that your "friends" with. It's free advertising they get their product out there by miss using a free social service. This is one of the reasons I hate Facebook, bad enough it's full of useless junk but to make it even worse to fill it full of ads. I don't know of any legal restrictions that would prohibit this, and if it was me I would probably do the same. Let's not encourage this sort of behavior by going along with their underhanded tactics. Facebook is bad enough with out that sort of rubbish.

(Sorry for that ranting it was kind of a lame post if you ask me. Just a pointing out my dislike of Facebook and the stuff that goes on not a lot of information. Mostly just trying to put up anything because it's been a while. I do have a few ideas that I will be doing in the next few weeks that will be much better, promise. Still have my tip of the week I haven't finished yet so I'll be getting that done first.)

In My Dreams

I was just browsing computer parts for fun (it's fun to me) as I will do every so often. When I noticed that Newegg.com sells a 1TB SSD (as shown above). An SSD(solid state drive) is the next generation of hard drives that are just starting to become common in general users computers. The benifit of an SSD over a regular HDD(hard drive disk) is that it doesn't use physical disks to hold data and this makes it able to access data much quicker. The only down side is that the SSD is much more expensive. The most common use for an SSD is to have a small one (under 100GB) and install Windows and maybe a few of your more often used programs and all other data is stored on a much bigger HDD. Doing this will improve computer performance by a good amount especially when turning the computer on or off.

When looking into more details on this dirve I was shocked in more ways then one. First off if you have ever seen what a hard drive looks like you'll know that that doesn't look like a normal one. The most noticeable part about this one is that instead of using the standard SATA cable that regular hard drives it plugs into a PCI slot that you'll normally find a sound card, video card or any other internal peripheral. The reason why they used PCI rather than SATA is to increase the speed of the already fast drive. The other thing that was shocking was the size I hadn't heard of a SSD being so big they usually come in sizes around 100-250GB. Lastly is the price, you can buy this bad boy for only $3,750(you save over $600) and a standard HDD of this size is under $100.

So maybe when I can afford a computer that costs more than a car I'll get the equivalent of what ever is available to this when that times comes(if ever) but for now I guess I'll just be stuck drooling over it(at least for like the next 5 years or when ever this becomes low tech and is affordable.) Oh and if anyone has like $10,000 they want to spend on building a computer please please please let me build it for you it would be a dream just to touch these kinds of things.