Removing Address Bar Suggestions

Windows 7, as with past versions of Windows, includes a feature called AutoComplete that is always enabled by default for the address box. This is normally a very convenient feature because it can help you when typing in an address by presenting you with various suggestions based on your browser history. With the convenience comes the danger that it can reveal your online whereabouts. When I start typing “twe” in my address bar, it automatically suggests tweaks.com because I previously visited the site. Anyone who uses my computer and starts typing addresses in manually can see sites that I have visited. If they just type in www.s or www.t, they will be presented with a small list of all the sites that I have visited that have URLs that start with s or t.

How do you stop the suggestions? It depends if you want to remove just one entry or clear all.

Removing a Single Web Site from the Address Bar

Windows 7 includes a number of great new privacy features that gives control of your information back to you. When you come across an address bar suggestion in Internet Explorer 8, you can hover over the entry displayed in the drop-down list and a red X will appear on the right.

Just click the red X delete button and the entry will be removed for good while preserving the rest of your browser suggestions. This is one of my favorite new features that you will see throughout Windows 7 that really allows you to control your information much better than previous versions of Windows.

Clearing All Address Bar Suggestions

In the past, clearing all the address bar suggestions was a big job in which you had to delete a file that was in use. With Internet Explorer 8 it will just take a few clicks:

1. When Internet Explorer is open, click Safety and then Delete Browsing History.

2. On the Delete Browsing History screen, uncheck all items except for History.

3. Click Delete, and all your address suggestions will be deleted.

Keep in mind that in IE8, address bar will also search your list of favorite web sites. If you want to prevent one of those sites from showing up in the address bar suggestions then it is best to delete the favorite.

Clearing Temporary Internet Files, History, and Cookies

Every time you visit a web site, the files for the web page (such as the HTML and the images) are downloaded and stored in a temporary directory known as Temporary Internet Files. Over time, this directory can become full of images and HTML from various web sites you visited. This directory can end up taking a lot of storage space. Additionally, a user can browse your Temporary Internet
Files directory and find out exactly what sites you have been visiting just as if they were looking at your browser history. If you are concerned about your privacy,
or just concerned about disk space, then clearing the temporary Internet files is a must.

The web browsing history is another area that users often like to clear. Internet Explorer, by default, is configured to record all the web sites that you visit for
a 20-day period. If you are concerned about your privacy, your browsing history should be cleaned frequently and history settings configured best for your privacy. Doing so will ensure that any user of your computer will not easily be
able to see what you have been doing.

Cookies are also created on your computer when you visit web sites. Contrary to popular belief, cookies are not all bad. Most web sites use them to save user data to a browser. An example of this is site automatic logon when you visit a web site. A web site you visit can detect if the web site has given you a cookie already that has your user ID stored in it. If it finds one, then it knows exactly who you are and logs you on automatically. Advertisers also use cookies to store personal data. Instead of showing you the same advertisement 50 times, they use cookies to keep track of how many times an advertisement is displayed on your screen.

However, some advertisers abuse what are called third-party cookies to track what web sites you visit and then deliver relevant ads based on what you do online. Because of the abusers it is best to just delete all your cookies because it is hard to separate them. I’ll show you more about how to protect against third-party cookies in the next section.

Clearing the temporary Internet files, history, and cookies is a very simple task. Just follow these steps to clear these files:

1. When Internet Explorer is open, click Safety and then Delete Browsing History. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + Shift + Delete.

2. On the Delete Browsing History screen, check all items except Preserve Favorites website data.

3. Click Delete and all will be deleted.

Now users will no longer be able to see what web sites you visit from the cookies and temporary Internet files that are stored on your computer. Additionally, you will have freed up some disk space by deleting these files.

The IPsec protocols rely on traffic passing unchanged by intermediary devices, such as routers and
firewalls. If a device changes the contents of packets (IP addresses, ports, checksums, and so on)
as they pass between two IPsec peers, then the packet’s cryptographic signature will no longer be
correct and the packet will be rejected by the receiving peer.

This makes it difficult for NAT and IPsec to work properly together. The IETF IPsec Working
Group identified this as a problem and wrote several drafts and RFCs to resolve the problem.
The collection of drafts is known as NAT Traversal, or NAT-T, and they describe how two IPsec
endpoints can determine if there is a NAT device between them, and how to deal with the situation.

During the IKE negotiation, if a peer can do NAT-T, it indicates this capability by adding
VendorID information for each IETF NAT proposal it supports to the initiator. The responder also
advertises its NAT-T capabilities via VendorID.

If both sites support a common proposal, the two sides send each other their real IP addresses, and
then compare that with the header information in the IKE packets they have been receiving from the
other end. If there is a mismatch, then whichever side detects the mismatch informs the other side
that there is a NAT device in the path. The two sides then encapsulate outgoing ESP packets within
UDP packets, using port 4500 (depending on the proposal), to complete the IKE negotiation.

IPsec passthrough (sometimes called VPN passthrough) was a kludge pre-dating the NAT
Traversal proposals, and is performed by the NAT device itself without an understanding of the
IPsec protocol at all. The NAT device tries to correlate IPsec traffic that is passed through it, and
tweak the NAT accordingly. Usually these devices have a limit as to how many IPsec devices they
can handle—many are limited to only a single host behind the NAT device. Unfortunately, IPsec
passthrough breaks NAT Traversal.

Included in every Windows 7 retail box are 32-bit and 64-bit media for two versions of Windows 7. The most common version used is still the 32-bit variant that has been around for ages, but recently the 64-bit version is becoming more popular for a number of reasons I’ll get to shortly.

32-Bit or 64-Bit?

Making its debut in April 2005, the first version of 64-bit Windows was released as Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Although the 64-bit edition was a true 64-bit OS, it was plagued by spotty driver support that limited its adoption. This was caused by the fact that the new 64-bit kernel required 64-bit drivers for all hardware devices. This vastly cut down on the number of compatible hardware devices. Hardware manufacturers had little incentive to rewrite drivers for the niche operating system. That all started to change with the release of Windows Vista that was the first Microsoft Windows release to come out in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions at the same time. Hardware manufacturers responded and 4-bit drivers are now available for almost all modern mainstream hardware.

The 64-bit Windows has started to mature and the number of Windows 7 64-bit installations will begin to grow much faster. What is the real difference between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7?

Aside from the obvious fact that you need a 64-bit CPU to run Windows 7 64-bit (which just about any new CPU you buy today supports), there are other differences, such as the ability to use more RAM, additional processing power, and extra security features.

The primary advantage of a 64-bit operating system is the ability to utilize the larger 64-bit registers that are a feature of the 64-bit CPU. This allows larger calculations to be performed with one cycle and also addresses and accesses significantly more RAM. With 32-bit Windows 7 the maximum number of memory addresses available is 232, which equals 4GB of RAM that can be used. 64-bit
Windows 7 can use up to 192GB of RAM with the Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.

There are also features that are only included in the 64-bit version of Windows 7, such as PatchGuard. This is a helpful piece of technology that attempts to protect the kernel of the operating system from being patched by malicious and legitimate software. In my opinion, anything that tampers with the kernel is bad, because it can affect the stability of your system. Microsoft is trying to put a stop to this by implementing the PatchGuard feature and creating a new API for legitimate software to interact with the kernel in a safer way.

Some mathematic intensive applications such as rendering a 3D scene will also perform better on 64-bit Windows 7 when used with a 64-bit version of the
rendering application. Encryption programs also seem to run faster on 64-bit Windows.

Now that you know the benefits of the 64-bit version of Windows 7, it is important to decide which is better for your hardware. For me, RAM and driver support are the main decision factors. I tend to use 32-bit Windows 7 on my older hardware for which no 64-bit drivers are available. I use 64-bit Windows 7 on my newer hardware, so I can take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM.

The upgrades to Windows Firewall really make it a very powerful security
solution that was once provided only by advanced third-party firewall software.
The next two sections guide you through the basics of using the advanced firewall
configuration tool and enabling the outbound firewall.

Configuring Windows Firewall

The Network and Sharing Center is where you configure all the network-related
settings on your Windows 7 PC. The Windows Firewall can also be accessed
from the Network and Sharing Center but only the basic controls are exposed.
Instead, the best way to manage the Windows Firewall is through the Windows
Firewall with Advanced Security Management Console. Click the Start button,
type wf.msc in the Search box, and then press Enter. When Windows Firewall
with Advanced Security window loads, you will see the complexity and the
power of the new firewall. Maybe it was a good idea Microsoft decided to hide
this from inexperienced users after all. On the main screen you will see a list
of the profiles.

This main screen is where you can see an overview if the firewall is on and if
the Inbound and Outbound Rules are active. The next step is to view the specific
rules. You can do that by simply selecting Inbound Rules or Outbound Rules
from the list on the left. Go ahead and click Inbound Rules now.

Shortly, you will see all the rules currently set up on your computer. If they
are enabled, they will have the green icon. If not, the icon will be gray. You can also see what firewall profiles the rule is used in. If you ever need to enable or disable a rule, just right-click it and select Enable or Disable. You can also edit an individual rule’s properties by
right-clicking the rule and selecting Properties. Working with the Outbound
Rules is exactly the same as working with Inbound Rules; Outbound Rules just
control a different direction of traffic.

For the sake of demonstrating how to add a new rule, say that you just installed
some type of server on your computer that users will connect to on TCP port
800. Follow these steps to open up a hole so that your users can connect:

1. If Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window is not already
open, click the Start button, type wf.msc in the Search box, and then
press Enter.

2. After the management console loads, click Inbound Rules.

3. Under Actions in the right pane, click New Rule.

4. The new Inbound Rule Wizard loads and asks you for the type of rule
you would like to create. For this scenario, you are going to select Port.
Click Next when you have selected Port.

5. You are asked to specify what type of port to open. Unless you have an
application that specifically requires a UDP port, almost every time you
will be selecting TCP. For this scenario, select TCP. Also on this screen,
type 800 in the specific port box because you want to open up only port 800.
Click Next when you are done.

6. The next screen asks you to define the action of the rule. You can choose
to Allow the connection, Allow the connection if secure (on a network
with IPSEC), or Block depending on what you want to do. Select Allow
the connection and click Next.

7. You will need to select what profiles this rule will be part of. By default,
all the profiles are checked; uncheck any profiles you do not want your
rule to be part of and click Next.

8. The last step is to name your new rule. Type a name and a description if
you want and click Finish.

Your new rule will now appear on the Inbound Rule list. It will automatically
be enabled when you click Finish.

Enabling the Outbound Firewall

In Windows 7 Microsoft decided it was best to disable the outbound connection
filtering because it can cause headaches for many inexperienced computer users.
This may have been the right choice, but not filtering your outbound traffic
can increase the possibility that an application can steal important personal
information and send it to a remote computer. If this application is malicious, it
can be used to steal personal information such as passwords and bank account
numbers. Turning on the outbound firewall filtering and enabling only the rules
that grant your normal applications access to the Internet will greatly increase
the security of your computer.

Enabling the outbound firewall rules on your computer is easy to do after you
know where Microsoft hid the setting. Follow these steps to turn the outbound
firewall back on:

1. If Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window is not already
open, click the Start button, type wf.msc in the Search box, and then
press Enter.

2. When the management console is loaded, click Windows Firewall Properties right in the middle of the opening screen.

3. When the settings window loads, you will see a tab for each of the different firewall profiles. Select the tab for the profile on which you would like to enable outbound filtering.

4. Under the State section, locate the Outbound connections drop-down box and change it to Block.

5. Click OK when you are finished to activate the outbound firewall on the profile you specified.

Windows automatically detects any applications that try to access the Internet
or other network resources that are now blocked with the outbound firewall
turned on and will prompt you automatically to authorize the application to
send information out to the Internet.

When something bad happens, such as a hard drive failure or Windows being broken beyond repair, it is better to restore your computer from an image. That is why I suggest you follow the next section to create a backup image of your computer at least once a year.

Create the Image

Windows 7 includes tools that help you create an image of your entire hard drive, burn it to a series of DVD discs, save it to a network share, or save it on another hard drive. I have a Windows Home Server in my home so I save backup images to that. If you don’t have a network server available, you can always use writable DVD media or an external USB hard drive to store your backup. Regardless of the storage option you select, the steps are the same:

1. Click the Start button, type in Backup and Restore, and then hit Enter.

2. On top of the side menu, click Create a system image.

3. When the Create a system image utility loads, select where you want to store your image and click Next.

4. The following screen will confirm the settings. Click Start backup to begin

When finished, store your backup data in a safe place. You will also be asked
to create a System repair disk, but click No because you already did that in the last section.

Restoring a System Image

In the event you ever need to restore your backup system image, you will need to boot up into the System Recovery Console. You can do that by pressing the F8 key right after the POST and after you turn on your computer and select Repair my computer. Alternatively, you can use the custom made System Recovery Console Boot CD/DVD that I showed you how to make, as well.

After you load the System Recovery Console, follow these steps:

1. Insert the last DVD of a backup set, or attach the external hard drive on which you stored the backup image.

2. Click System Image Recovery on the System Recover Options menu.

3. At this point the utility should find your backup (if you inserted the correct final DVD of a backup set or attached the correct external hard drive). If it doesn’t, try clicking the Retry button. If you stored your backup on
a network location, click Cancel on the Windows cannot find a system image on this computer screen.

4. Click Next on the initial welcome screen.

5. If you stored the image on a network share, click Advanced to locate the image on your network. Otherwise, skip this step.

6. When you see your image on the list, select it and click Next.

From this point on, follow the simple wizard to apply the image to your computer.

]]> http://futuretech.us.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=306 1 http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=306 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/us/futuretech/~3/W-4N7SK_HCM/ http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=299#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:47:41 +0000 Gabriel http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=299 Windows automatically creates a new Restore Point. You can also manually create Restore Points in Windows. We will start first with the normal way and then show you how to create a desktop shortcut that allows you to jump directly to the Create Restore Point screen.]]> System Restore has been in Windows for almost 10 years, but it has matured
into something very valuable for any power user who tweaks his computer.
Every time you make a change there is a risk that something could go wrong.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could easily undo any change with just a few clicks?
System Restore is the solution to that problem by allowing you to jump back in
time to an earlier state.

I will show you how to create Restore Points before you tweak
and then how to restore to a previous state if something goes wrong.

Creating Restore Points

Restore Points in Windows can be created a number of ways. Every time you
install new software, Windows automatically creates a new Restore Point. You
can also manually create Restore Points in Windows. We will start first
with the normal way and then show you how to create a desktop shortcut that
allows you to jump directly to the Create Restore Point screen. To get started,
do the following:

1. Click the Start button, type in Create a Restore Point, and then hit
Enter.

2. This will load the System Properties System Protection tab. This allows
you to view your System Restore settings and create Restore Points.

3. Next, click the Create button near the bottom of the window.

4. On the next screen, type in a name for your Restore Point and click
Create.

After you click the Create button the Restore Point will immediately begin
taking a snapshot of your system. You will be shown a progress screen and
notified when it is complete. In my experience it only takes a few minutes at
most to create a Restore Point. Sometimes it takes less than a minute.

Reverting to a Previous State

The second half of using System Restore is using the Restore functionality to
revert your computer to a previous state. This is with the System Restore utility
that allows you to jump back to previous Restore Points.

Before proceeding, it is important to understand that System Restore will not
delete any of your personal documents such as photos, music, and Microsoft
Word documents when you revert to a previous state. However, all system
changes made between points, such as installing new drivers and new software,
will be wiped out. It is also advised to close all open applications before
restoring your computer.

1. Click the Start button, type in System Restore, and hit Enter.

2. After the System Restore utility has loaded, click Next on the first
screen.

3. You will now see a list with the date, time, and a description of each
Restore Point. There is also a Show more Restore Points checkbox on the
screen that I advise checking, so you can see all available System Restore
Points.

4. When you have the Restore Point selected that you want to revert to, select
it and click Next.

5. Check the confirmation page, and then click Finish.

6. Click Yes on the final confirmation screen.

Your computer will now log you off and start the System Restore process.
When completed, your computer will restart.

One of the best parts of System Restore is that you can always undoing the
recent restore if restoring your computer did not solve your problem or created
new problems. You can undo the recent restore by starting up System Restore
again. You will see the undo option on the opening screen after restoring to a
previous point

]]> http://futuretech.us.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=299 1 http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=299 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/us/futuretech/~3/SNXvcvGfEGs/ http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=252#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 17:16:16 +0000 Gabriel http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=252 subfolders and files.]]> Windows 7 runs on the NTFS file system, which allows users to set file and
folder permissions. These permission settings enable you to specify the users
that can view a particular file or a whole folder on your computer. In fact, file
permissions in Windows 7 are so detailed that you can even specify whether a
person has the ability only to read your files while preventing them from saving
any changes. For the sake of privacy, file permissions are very helpful because
they allow you to prevent other users from even being able to gain access to
your private folders.

Setting the permissions on files and folders is easy to do. Just follow
these steps:

1. Right-click any file or folder for which you want to modify permissions
and select Properties.

2. Click the Security tab and press the Edit button.

3. Make sure that your username is added to the list and that you give yourself
Full Control. You can do this with the Add button.

4. Remove all users from the group or username list that you do not want
having access to this file. It is a good idea to remove the Everyone group
because this includes everyone that can access your computer, including
guests. Make sure that you do not accidentally remove your username
from the list. Also watch out for the SYSTEM account. This is one account
the operating system uses to access files but can be safely removed unless
you experience problems with a specific application or service.

Tip

If you are having difficulties removing users from the username list, this
could be because the user is inherited from a parent folder. Permissions are
passed down to all subfolders and files. If you want a user to have access to
a folder but not its subfolders, then you have to click the Advanced button
on the Security tab of the Properties window. After the Advanced Security
Settings window loads, click Change Permissions and then clear the option
that says Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects.
A Security notification box will pop up. Click the Remove button to remove all
the inherited permissions so that you have full control of the folder.

5. Now that you have the list of users and groups taken care of, set the specific
permissions that the user has on the file or folder. Select the name
of the user that you want to modify, and then check the corresponding
boxes in the Permissions for list for the activities that you want them to be able to do.

6. When you have finished setting the permissions for all the users, click OK
to exit the permissions screen.

After you have set the permissions for all sensitive directories, you will have
greatly increased your security and privacy. Also keep in mind that file permissions
are inherited. Every folder within a folder inherits the permissions of the
parent folder unless they are specifically removed. Therefore, if you set the file
permissions for a folder, all the subfolders and files will be automatically set
with the same permissions.

File and folder permissions can be very useful. If you have a program on your
computer that you do not want anyone else running, simply set the permissions
on that folder so that only you can read and execute.

]]> http://futuretech.us.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=252 0 http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=252 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/us/futuretech/~3/8DEtT7lOwzI/ http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=248#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 16:45:52 +0000 Gabriel http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=248 Over time, your hard drive can become cluttered with temporary files left behind from applications and the operating system. These files not only take up space, but they can be tracks of activity on your computer. Removing the temporary files is a great way to clean up any garbage information that is left behind, increase your privacy, and free up some disk space.

]]> Over time, your hard drive can become cluttered with temporary files left
behind from applications and the operating system. These files not only take
up space, but they can be tracks of activity on your computer. Removing the
temporary files is a great way to clean up any garbage information that is left
behind, increase your privacy, and free up some disk space.

The complexity of Windows has increased over the years. In the early versions
of Windows, there was just one temp folder in which all temp files were
located. With Windows 7, temp folders are all over the place. To remove the
files, you could go to all the different folders and manually erase the files, but
there is a better way.

To clear my temporary files from my hard drive, I like to use Disk Cleanup.
Disk Cleanup is a utility that comes with Windows Vista that makes it easy to
remove your temporary files. It works by automatically checking the known
temporary file locations for you and removing the files. With Disk Cleanup, you
do not have to worry about where to navigate on your hard drive to delete the
files. Instead, just execute the program.

To get started using Disk Cleanup, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button, type Disk Cleanup in the Search box, and then
press Enter.

2. If your computer has multiple hard drives, you will be prompted to select
which drive you want to clean. Select the drive you want to clean and
press OK.

3. After the utility has analyzed your computer, it gives you a report of
various types of files that it can clean. Scroll
through the list and make sure that only Temporary Internet Files and
Temporary files are checked.

4. Click OK to run the cleanup.

5. Hit Delete Files on the confirmation screen. The utility will now run and
exit automatically when it is finished cleaning your hard drive.

Disk Cleanup is the perfect way to easily clean up your temporary files. Now
that you know how to use it, I recommend that you run it at least once a month
to keep your temporary files under control.

After you have cleaned your user files you can also use Disk Cleanup to delete
temporary system files. On the main Disk Cleanup screen, just click Clean up
system files and then follow the previous steps starting with Step 2.

Another method to clear temporary files on your computer is to use a
third-party utility that is designed to delete files in known temporary folders
all over your computer. My favorite utility for this task outside of using Disk
Cleanup is called CCleaner by Piriform. CCleaner is a very helpful and free utility
that will clear temporary files from your computer with just a few clicks. Visit
www.ccleaner.com to learn more

]]> http://futuretech.us.com/home/?feed=rss2&p=248 0 http://futuretech.us.com/home/?p=248