How to: Secure your network!!

The other day I was setting up a wireless printer for a customer. 

New printer, new laptop. A fairly simple job which took not even 30 minutes. 

And the kicker?.....it was an unsecured open home network.

Always...ALWAYS ensure your wireless network at 

least has a WPA password protected network. 

WPA2 is preferred and WEP is weak.

New poll sponsored by the Wi-Fi Alliance finds that 32 percent of those questioned admit to trying to access Wi-Fi networks that weren't theirs, up from 18 percent two years ago.

CNET has a good article on unsecure home networks here.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20030695-94.html?

Tech News: Wikipedia SOPA Blackouts

Wikipedia was among several websites to shut down Wednesday in protest of the bills.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/18/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google

Tech News:

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business.

The U.S. government could order the blocking of sites using methods similar to those employed by China. Among other things, search engines could be forced to delete entire websites from their search results. 

That’s why 41 human rights organizations and 110 prominent law professors have expressed grave concerns about the bills.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Gaming Machine

Recently worked on a customers system that had two ATI 4800 GPU's using Crossfire.

It's a technology that ATI developed so up to four graphics cards can be used in a single computer to improve graphics. Crossfire has the advantage over Nvidias SLI (Scalable Linked Interface) where you don not need to have both cards the identical GPU.

You'll usually only find systems that use Crossfire or SLI in high end gaming machines. The customer I recently visited had a quad core Intel processor running 3.2ghz, 8gb ram, 600gb HD, and CCL lighting galore in the case!!.... very nice!!