One of the biggest problems with security today is people still choose terrible passwords. Using your dog or kids name as your password is not secure. In today's social networking world (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), names of family members or other personal information like where you were born, your birthday, anniversaries, etc are not good choices. The list of what not to use is enormous but here are some key points. Any word in the dictionary is bad even compound words with numbers or symbols.

Here is how to create a strong password that you can remember and will not easily be cracked. Create a phrase to remember, "I walk to the bus every morning". That's pretty easy to remember right. All I have to do is remember "I walk to the bus every morning". Here is how to turn that into a password. Simply take the first or last letter of each word in the phrase. Using the first letter my password would be "Iwttbem", or using the last letter it is "Iktesyg". Look at those passwords. Who is going to guess one of those? They contain nothing a brute force dictionary attack would have.

Want to step it up even more? How about this, I hate to pound nails into concrete . Transform that into "Ih2#nic" instead of using the "t" from "to" we replaced it with the number 2 and we added a # (pound symbol) where the word pound was. You can use all kinds of symbol word replacement, using these words in your past phrase. Add dollar, percent, carrot, and star, dash and minus just to name a few. I will give you one more example with the above technique and the symbols above. I paid a dollar at the store for carrots , could be "Ipa$@tsf^". That's one of the strongest passwords I have seen in a long time.

Wrapping up, I have shown you a really easy technique for creating and remembering strong passwords. Yes that means you have to change your passwords but a lot is riding on the strength of your passwords. How many bank websites do you use that are using weak passwords as described in the first paragraph?

Everyone loves wireless routers, you don't need to plug into another wire or cable and can get access from anywhere!  BUT did you setup your wireless security settings so that your neighbors can't use your internet or someone passing by can't use it for something illegal!?  That's right, even if you think your wireless is secure it may not be. If you are using WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol) you are not secure. Simply software available on the internet can acquire you WEP password after listening to some of your wireless transmissions. You should be running WPA or WPA2 (preferable WPA2) with a strong password, if your password is a single English word then your password can be obtained via brute force dictionary file run against your wireless.

To this day I still come across wireless networks that have been "professionally" setup that are using WEP. This is not a good sign.  Ask the person that's setting up your wireless network what security they are using and if the are using a password make sure its hard to guess.

How do I secure my wireless you ask? Well its not as hard as you think. First you must login to your wireless access point or router. Most DLink, Linksys, Belken and other consumer wireless routers have a web interface that you can access with a web browser.  Here are the simple steps to find your router and configure.

Windows Computer

1. Goto Start->(Run or Find) and type cmd and hit (enter)
2. This will bring up a command prompt
3. Type ipconfig (enter)
4. your looking for the "Default Gateway" (192.168.0.1?) four numbers separated by dots that's an IPV4 address.
5. Open your web browser and goto http://192.168.0.1 or whatever your Default Gateway address is
6. Most routers will ask for a password, well the default for a lot of routers username/password is admin/admin
7. if that does not work, its time to access the manual for you router.  Most companies that make routers have the manual on there website so go and find the manual and find your default password.

Assuming you have logged into your router follow these generlized procedures bellow, you will probaly need your wireless router/access points manul to continue.

Some routers have the ability to see if they have new firmware. Read your manual and upgrade the firmware if you can.  This can fix security holes plus enable new features such as WPA2.

Next, find the wireless security part of the configuration and enable WPA2. If that's not available then use WPA.  If you only have WEP and you are running the latest firmware its time to get a more secure wireless router.

Most newer wireless routers will let you change the transmit power.  If you live in a 600 square foot apartment you don't need to transmit for a mile? If you can get three of the five bars on your wireless meter everywhere you use your computer, you probably will have great wireless performance.  Move the wireless to the middle of the area you want to cover and avoid walls as much as possible.

If you do the three things above, your wireless will be more secure.  But remember in the future someone will most likely figure out how to penetrate WPA2 encryption so be vigilant and understand that going wired as much as possible increases your security by having less traffic over your wireless.

Lastly, if you made it this far :) and are concerned about your wireless security and need help, its possible for my company to help you! We have the tools to remote connect to your computer and help you configure your wireless security (while you watch). Check out our services page for more information.

Over the years I have flashed hundreds of bios and firmware updates. I have never had a problem until a recent bios flash went south.  I have a Gateway T-1616 laptop and I was going to install Windows 7 on it so I could start playing with the new Windows.  Well I thought this would be a good time to reflash my bios to the latest version.  I downloaded the latest version from Gateway's website and ran the update.  I then rebooted the laptop and nothing; the only thing from the laptop was some activity from the DVD-ROM.  The screen was blank and nothing happened.  Well this is a first; I had never had a flash go bad.

Well after two days of scouring the Internet for info on recovering after a bad flash I learned that most modern bios's have a recover mode .  In this mode the computer boots up with the ability to reload the bios from a floppy or USB drive and reload the damaged bios.  In this mode there is no screen output and the bios either does this automatically if it detects the right files or you need a key combination to initiate the recovery mode.

I was unable to initiate the recover mode of my laptop, and Gateway support was no help.  If you are out of warranty they send you to their paid support.  Rather then spend the money on the paid support or to have someone solder on a new bios chip for my motherboard.  I will just buy a new motherboard for the laptop since I can change that out my self, saving the labor charges.

I want to begin this blog by saying I am not a wordsmith of any sort. I m a computer geek . So bare with me as I explain to you my preferred selections of open source solutions.

What software should you use that will save you money? For every major tool out there, there is a comparable open source solution. Unfortunately for the day to day average user Microsoft has the easiest operating system out there. The most interesting windows alternative I have seen is way to alpha for day to day use but is promising ReactOS.

For most productivity software there is some really great options for you.  We will begin  with Microsoft Office; a great product but pricey.  For this I see two really great tools. First is OpenOffice.     It is pretty much a drop in replacement for MS Office. It may not have all the bells and whistles but for 99% of users out there its worth the free price. Secondly I advice my clients to use Google Apps. This is a great tool, its 100% online and if used with Google Apps for you Domain it s a great money saver with centralized storage on Google s servers. 

Email is a big issue. For a long time I have used and loved Exchange/Outlook. It s the best email solution out there from both a user and an administrative perspective.  But it s expensive. Since I found Google Apps for my Domain I have advised all my clients who want to provide email for 50 people or less to use it.  You get GMail for your own domain with Google Apps for 50 users for free!  When I moved myself away from Exchange I wanted a few things.  My phone to sync email, contacts and calendar and even though its running windows mobile it works with Google!  Again Google Apps for your Domain does not have all the bells and whistles that Exchange has but I found I could not justify the expense of upgrading my Exchange server when I could move to Google for FREE. 

As I work on web design I don t want to pay for Photoshop so instead I use GIMP. GIMP is an open source image editing software that works similarly to Photoshop. I am not a Photoshop power user so I have not found anything that GIMP does not do.

Zip files are the standard for compressing data and everyone seems to use WinZip. Why pay for WinZip when you can get 7Zip for free? 7Zip works pretty much the same as WinZip. There s no need to pay for a tool when I can get a comparable version for free that has more supported formats. 

There are a tremendous amount of options for media playing software. I have seen and used so many tools out there and as far as I m concerned there is only one you need. VLC has been the most reliable, easiest and best performing software to use for all my media play back. And it s free!

Do you use accounting software? Well I have not used it much but the one I have toyed with a little is GnuCash.  If you don t want to buy quicken or peach tree this might be a good option for you. 

Well this is my list of money saving software options for people. If you have any that you recommend please feel free to share with me.

I personally use AVG Free on my personal computers, its free for non-business computers and it has worked great for me over the years.  Generally when I setup a computer for someone (or fix it) I will uninstall other name brand anti virus and install AVG Free.  The question that I get asked is what about the other features that products like Norton and Symantec come with like Firewalls and Anti-Spy ware.  Well Windows XP and above comes with a firewall and most people who have a router connected to their broadband Internet connection have a firewall. So your average user has two firewalls - a hardware firewall and the software firewall running on the local computer.  I find with my hardware firewall that Windows built-in firewall has been enough for me and most users I have supported.

I recently read this article from PC World and while AVG was third on the list I’m not changing what I use or recommend.  The number one anti-virus has daily popup ads and the number two anti-virus has a poor interface.

The only real exception that I would mention is if you connected your laptop up to a lot of different wireless networks.  You just don’t know what’s out there on the network your attaching to and that’s when your software firewall is your only line of defense.

As for most virus and security problems that I have witnessed, the best way to have avoided some of them is to not use Internet Explorer to surf the web. It’s the number one browser and so that’s where the most virus/hackers are going to focus their efforts.  I recommend using Opera or Firefox for Internet browsing. The other source of problem is your Windows has not been updated with the latest patches.  Turning on “Automatic Updates” is easy and will keep your computer more secure.

In conclusion, to really increase the security of your computer make sure at least Windows built-in firewall is active.  Install a free anti-virus like AVG Free and don’t surf the Internet with Internet Explorer and Turn Automatic Updates on.  The simplest way to check the status of your computers anti-virus, Firewall and Automatic Update is the Security Center in the Control Panel (Start->Control Panel->Security Center).