Did you know that by networking your PCs, you can easily share files, back up important data, and more

Cyber criminals are carrying out reconnaissance mission on PCs, so they can tailor their attacks, according to Security Company, when hackers find a computer that is vulnerable to attack, they infect it with a small piece of malicious software called a downloader this will initially “sniff” around the victim’s PC, looking for other vulnerabilities, it can find out which operating system and security software the victim is using, and by identifying the IP address, the software can identify in which country the victim lives and the internet service provider they use. It will also look for other vulnerabilities in third party application, such as QuickTime, that the criminals can later exploit, other analysis is over, and the information is sent back to the servers used by the criminals controlling the attack, they can then tweak malicious software such as keystroke loggers and download the ones that can get the most …

Mozilla become the latest developer to add an optional “privacy” feature to its web browser, Firefox, the private mode will feature in the new Firefox version, it prevent the browser from downloading cookies or storing searches in the user’s web history, this means other people using the same PC/notebook can’t see which site a user has viewed. The feature is also said to tighten security on public computer as the setting can be used to prevent others from seeing bank web site and log-in details. The option is already available in apple’s safari and Google chrome, Google, meanwhile is under pressure from the European Union (EU) to do more to protect people’s search details.

A business doesn’t have to be large to benefit from asset management, but many of the available option are priced out of the reach of small businesses, Spicework is a free to low cost web based offering suite to business, Spiceworks is a free to low cost web based offering suite to businesses running one or two server and handful of network devices, this powerful online app creates an inventory of your network hardware and software then helps your manage it.

When printer cost as much as a small car, since those days, printer price have plummeted and most businesses have multiple printer but networking is still compelling, as your business grows, assuming that the economy turns around at some point, you’ll need to reassess your printer fleet, you can probably justify replacing a few desktop printers with more expensive network printer. Based on the saving in operating cost, various tools such as HP’s, Konica, NetCare, Toshiba and Xerox’s office document assessment can help you calculate those thing and manage your entire printer fleet, but they’re largely design to handle printer from one vendor, an alternative is printsolv, from the large distributor Synnex. Once you’ve review your printer fleet, you might want to start shopping around for new printer, the market these days consist of three basic price levels under $150 around $300 to $500 and over $1000, the lowest price …

Your digital photo hold all sort of information, you no doubt know what that you can find the date and time taken, date modified and exposure information in your photo’s metadata, you might also know that your photo can tell what make and model of camera you used and even the lens and flash, but you might also be storing your name, your home address and other private or potentially embarrassing information in those files as well all of which other people can see if you post the photos online. Photo Metadata Quite a lot of information is lurking around inside your photos more than you might know, you can uncover all that metadata either in windows itself or through a photo organizer, if you use Windows Vista, for example right click a photo and choose properties, then click the details tab, and you should see much of the metadata …

Businesses that bigger than sidewalk lemonade stand runs on information, which makes task as varied as keeping track of accounting data and managing the flow of proposals and orders crucial, over the past 25 years, computer have completely transformed the way that small business operate, enabling the people who run these companies to organize and manage information in ways that simply weren’t possible back in the days of paper ledgers and foot long index card files. Once your business grows larger than a single employee, however, you face a problem with managing that information, how do you maintain the data in an orderly way, and yet still make it accessible to the different people in the company who need to work with it, large companies have corporate IT department to do the heavy lifting of designing and maintain complex computer networks, but most small business are hard pressed to get …

Lost or stolen smart phones is more than just an in inconvenience, it can lead to identity fraud or corporate espionage and even compromise the integrity of your medical records, 24 percent of cell phone owners store PINs and password on a handset, 11 percent store personal identification info, and 10 percent store credit card numbers. If your mobile phone is stolen, the thief can do a reverse lookup of your cell number to obtain of your cell number to obtain your name and address, that and a stored credit card number can lead to “account take over”, where the thief changes an existing account’s billing address and unless your card issuer call you, the absence of your monthly statement might go unnoticed. With such info, a thief could also open new account using your name, as you often wouldn’t know these accounts are being opened, this problem can take …

Most small office network start with a PC, router and ADSL modem, but when small single user network grows into a larger multiuser network, your Wi-Fi router can run out of free Ethernet ports to connect various PC’s, networkable printers, small business server and other essential hardware. An Ethernet switch is a simple box that sits between your router and your networked device to control traffic flow across your network, the device come in two basic types, unmanaged and managed, with the former, you merely plug in your device and get back to work, but manage switches provide advanced features that prioritize data, link port for improved performance and enforce security policies on your network. An appealing middle ground for small business is a manageable switch like Linksys SLM2008, which offers some of the robust trunk and data prioritization of a managed switch in a compact package with a web …