Archive for the 'Power User Tips' Category

Power User 115 - The Page File

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Richard McEachin
on July 28, 2008
in Power User Tips, Privacy, Security and The Investigator's Computer
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With Windows XP, to clear the page file on shutdown go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools-> Local Security Policy->Local Policies->Security Options->Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile … enable it. It is wise to enable this setting on every computer you use.

We tell people to travel with a “clean” laptop.  However, Windows creates a lot of  temporary files. The most damaging can be the Page file. Everything that went into virtual memory is there in a file on the hard drive. Of course you should also use a good file erasure programme before shutting off the laptop.

Power User 114 - File Wipers

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Richard McEachin
on July 23, 2008
in Power User Tips, Privacy, Security and The Investigator's Computer
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Even computer ‘wipers’ leave a mark

Evidence Eliminator and similar software can kill out files and perform other tasks. But their use can raise red flags in a legal dispute.

But the wiper programs don’t ensure a clean getaway. They leave behind a kind of digital calling card.

“Not only do these programs leave a trace that they were used, they each have a distinctive fingerprint,” Kessler said. “Evidence Eliminator leaves one that’s different from Window Washer, and so on.”

I recommend the use of file erasure tools, especially when crossing international borders with computers. If you use such a programme regularly you have plausible deniability if you’re accused of erasing data to keep it from the police or the courts. If you always use it, then its “fingerprint” will always be there. If the install date matches the computer’s purchase date, then they can’t say you did this to eliminate the evidence the courts or police were seeking. Also, get a receipt for the wiper programme to show when it was purchased for the same reason.

File erasure programmes are part of prudent security practices and should not be viewed as something suspicious.

Power User 113 - Two Monitors

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Richard McEachin
on July 22, 2008
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I don’t know how I ever lived without it — I really don’t. BIG monitors are great. Size does matter! Two big monitors are even better. I used to do real manly work, but I swear, having those two big monitors is better that driving a 200 ton dump truck or blowing-up a bridge.

When I produce a report, two monitors makes it much easier to arrange the source material, cut and paste, create citations and foot notes. This is more than a convenience. This allows me to produce a better product with less effort and to do it quicker.

To use two monitors you require a true video card. A video card built into the motherboard will not work. You will need a DVI cable for the main monitor and an analog cable for the second monitor. When you first connect the monitors it is not likely that the second monitor will work until you go into  Display Properties >Settings and check “Use this device as the primary monitor” for the DVI monitor and then select the second monitor’s icon and select “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor”.

FireFox 3 - Incompatible Browser Add-ons

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Richard McEachin
on July 18, 2008
in Power User Tips
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In Power User 110 - Browser Add-ons I recommended the following two FireFox add-ons:

Tab Mix Plus provides all sorts of Tab options that don’t exist in Firefox.

Internote allows you to create persistent sticky notes on a web page which will be there once you return. Notes are very customizable, and come with many small, useful features. A manager is available, in which you can see all of your saved notes, edit them, print them, and delete them.

Neither of these is compatible with FireFox 3 and no updates are available at this time. It looks like there may be a updated version of Tab Mix Plus at some future time.

Power User 112 - Spring-Cleaning Ritual

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Richard McEachin
on May 6, 2008
in Power User Tips and The Investigator's Computer
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How often do you clean-out your computer? Do you give it a good spring-cleaning?

I must confess to being a Power User. I go everywhere on the Internet. I run applications until I run out of memory. Multiple screens don’t give me enough desktop for all the stuff I have running. This creates a problem if I have a problem with my computer. If something goes wrong, it is almost impossible to find the source of such difficulties if it is anything but a hardware breakdown.

Periodically, I format my hard drives. I then do a fresh install of my OS and applications from an Ghost image. After that is done, I install the latest service packs and upgrades if they exist. When everything is working properly, I create a new image. Of course, this ritual might be a nightmare for somebody who frequently adds and deletes programmes, or has a lot of updates to install that are not on CD.

Normally, this is is a spring cleaning ritual, just like cleaning-out the dust bunnies with a leaf blower and checking the fans inside the box. Getting the built-up dust out of the power supply is important to reliable operation of the PC.

The spring-cleaning ritual allows me to start with a clean slate. It provides the best defragmentation. It gets rid of all the garbage that accumulates on the hard drive that sometimes causes problems and slows the PC.

Power User 111 - Windows Security Threat

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Richard McEachin
on March 6, 2008
in Power User Tips, Security and The Investigator's Computer
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Hack into a Windows PC - no password needed

A security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password.

To use the tool, hackers must connect a Linux-based computer to a Firewire port on the target machine. The machine is then tricked into allowing the attacking computer to have read and write access to its memory.

With full access to the memory, the tool can then modify Windows’ password protection code, which is stored there, and render it ineffective.

“If you have a Firewire port, disable it when you aren’t using it,” Ducklin said.

“That way, if someone does plug into your port unexpectedly, your side of the Firewire link is dead, so they can’t interact with your PC, legitimately or otherwise.”

The moral of this story is: don’t let unauthorised people have physical access to your computer and shut off the Firewire port unless you are actually using it.

Power-User 110 - Browser Add-ons

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Richard McEachin
on February 13, 2008
in Power User Tips and The Investigator's Computer
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I do not use IE as my default browser due to security concerns. For several years I have used Firefox, first to address the security issue, then because I liked the tabs and add-ons. Here are my favorite add-ons.

NoScript  allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site, and guards the “trust boundaries” against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS). Such a preemptive approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even unknown!).

Tab Mix Plus provides all sorts of Tab options that don’t exist in Firefox.

Cooliris Previews lets you preview a web link without having to open up the whole page. You can expand the preview to a full tab/window, navigate within the preview, e-mail the site/page link to others, etc..

PDF Download solves all the problems with opening PDF files in Firefox.

Zotero is a citation manager, recommended and supported by about 100 academic institutions.

Split Pannel allows you to view two pages simultaneously for comparison or copying info from one to the other. Can be resized by dragging the bar between the main browser and new panel.

Internote allows you to create persistent sticky notes on a web page which will be there once you return. Notes are very customizable, and come with many small, useful features. A manager is available, in which you can see all of your saved notes, edit them, print them, and delete them.

Resurrect Pages 1.0.8 allows you to see dead pages, broken links by searching through five big page cache/mirrors: CoralCDN, Google Cache, Yahoo! Cache, The Internet Archive, and the MSN Cache.

The two following add-ons save time and allow access to pages that are browser specific without switching browsers to view IE only websites.

User Agent Switcher allows access to sites that might restrict your access based on which browser you are using. Since it does not render a page as another browser might and doesn’t work with every site.

IE Tab enables use of the embedded IE engine

Power User 109 - What’s Running on Your Computer?

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Richard McEachin
on November 5, 2007
in Power User Tips and The Investigator's Computer
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Your computer is running slow. You’ve used system cleaners and virus checkers, spyware and malware removal tools and more. Now you’re in Task Manager looking at what’s running on your computer — what in the world is crss.exe? pmmon.exe? isass.exe? You might as well be looking at ancient hieroglyphics.

Try Process Library. It allows you to search for meaningless process terms and retrieve familiar easy to understand descriptions of each process. Quickly find out if a process is needed or malicious and what to do with it. Complete with search, security rating, description, and recommended action, this is the perfect tool for cleaning up unwanted processes haunting your computer.

(Reproduced with permission from The SurfReport Vol. 96)

MS Office Phooey

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on August 30, 2007
in Power User Tips, Report Writing and The Investigator's Computer
. 1 Comment

The drastically redesigned MS Office 2007 interface, called the Fluent User Interface, (FIU), and yes, it is pronounced Phooey, should be a wonderful exercise in frustration.

The tradional toolbar has been replaced with the “ribbon” that is supposed to be an improvement over the old toolbars, if I ever figure-out where anything is really located. Thankfully the keyboard commands still work.

The people who will suffer most the most performance degradation with this redesign are knowlegable users who employ a wide variety of the features.

Combine the performance degradation with the new file format and you have a massive migration project for the power users.

Thank-you MS for something else that I won’t use until there are no other options.

Power User 108 - Styles & Templates

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Richard McEachin
on August 7, 2007
in Communication, Power User Tips, Report Writing and The Investigator's Computer
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A style is a set of text formats such as fonts, sizes, text alignment, spacing, etc.. A style can then be used to create text or to format existing text.

Styles should form a hierarchy that makes the report look organised and consistent. MS Word is not a typewriter. For instance, the normal style is the paragraph style. It should be set-up to insert the space before and after the paragaraph. The typist does not insert carriage returns to start a new paragraph.

Every document is based upon a template. A template is a collection of document formatting options upon which a new document is based. A template should not have more than 20 styles.

Templates need to be properly managed throughout the company. The templates provide a consistent reporting format and the text that is frequently repeated in each report. To properly maintain the templates they should reside in only one directory on one server. If a change is made it is made by an authorised person and only one template needs to be altered.

In MS Word, a template ends with .dot as in normal.dot. It is not a document that is used over and over again, all the while collecting style after style, until it causes Word to crash because it is creating corrupted documents.

Power User 107 - MS Word

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Richard McEachin
on July 13, 2007
in Power User Tips, Report Writing and The Investigator's Computer
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If you must use Word, then get what some users are calling the “Word Sanity Package” - a collection of utilities that address Word’s most irritating shortcomings:

* Payne Numbering Assistant - replaces Word’s utterly mystifying auto-numbering/outlining system with an interface that makes it actually work the way people expect it to.

* Metadata Assistant - a must-have for every Word user. Removes Metadata from outbound Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. Also lets you view all the Metadata contained in documents you receive.

* Levit & James CrossEyes - similar to WordPerfect’s Reveal Codes for Word. This is a real time-saver as it let’s you “look under the hood” of your documents to find and resolve problems.

* CrossFingers from Levit & James - repairs corrupted Word files. Unfortunately, this tool is needed more often than it should be.

* Stylizer from Levit & James - conforms internally generated and externally received documents to your standard styles. It reduces the time wasted by Word documents others send to you that contain messed up styles that begin to infiltrate and ruin your internal document base.

How To Be A Power User 106

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Richard McEachin
on June 25, 2007
in Power User Tips and The Investigator's Computer
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Did you know you can streamline your start menu? It’s always amazes me how PC users suffer with a horrible mishmash in the start menu. To sort the entries in the start menu alphabetically, right click on the start button and then on Properties. In the Start Menu tab, click on Customize. This is where you can add or remove items from the Start Menu. It also offers you the opportunity to Sort the menu items alaphabetically when you click on Sort.

Once you click on Sort, click on OK and wait for the PC to work its magic. Click OK again and go to the newly alphabetically arranged start menu. If for some reason a few items don’t sort to where you want them, then Left click and hold the mouse button down while you drag the item to its proper place and just release the mouse button.

How To Be A Power User 105

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Richard McEachin
on June 17, 2007
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Well organized, efficient, and fast, describe the Power User.

To get fast access to files, a Power User will create 3 toolbars to access the most used folders from the desktop or from within applications. These toolbars will appear at the top, left, and right margins of the screen.To create the toolbars just right-click a folder and drag it to the desktop and create a shortcut there. Next drag it to the edge of the using the left mouse button and release the the mouse button and you now have a toolbar. To enlarge it, pass the cursor over the edge until the double arrow appears and drag the edge to to where you need it.

You can add another folder to the toolbar by right-clicking on an unused part of the toolbar and selecting Add a Folder. Now right-click on the toolbar and select Always on Top and Auto-Hide.

Folders with a large number of files or URL’s may occassionally take some time to display their contents. To avoid this problem, orgainize the folder contents into separate sub-folders.

How To Be A Power User 104

Published
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Richard McEachin
on June 11, 2007
in Communication, Power User Tips, Private Investigator, Report Writing and The Investigator's Computer
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When you install software it frequently adds features you don’t want. One such feature is loading itself, or some part of itself, at startup. This makes the boot process much too long and unnecessarily ties-up memory resources.

To correct this annoyance click on Start then Run. In the dialog box type msconfig and hit enter. Now select the Start-up tab and uncheck the offending programmes and restart your PC.

You will be confronted by a warning message. Read it carefully. Do not check the box to eliminate it just yet. Got to Start/Run and enter msconfig again. Look at the General tab, you will notice some changes but don’t do anything. Use your PC for a day to be sure everything runs OK and then shut it off normally. When you start it the following day, check the box to eliminate the warning message if everything is working properly.

However, if you experienced problems go to Start/Run and enter msconfig and revise your choices in the Start-up tab or select Normal Stat-up in the General tab.

How To Be A Power User 103

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Richard McEachin
on June 3, 2007
in Communication, Power User Tips, Report Writing and The Investigator's Computer
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Everyone who uses MS Office needs two little extras that make writing reports easier.

The first is a Windows Clipboard extender called Ditto. This saves every item copied to the normal clipboard for easy access in any application, MS or not.

The next indispensible programme is a Dictionary and Thesaurus called WordWeb. This is the easiest to use of all the similar programmes I have tried. Just click on a word and open WordWeb from the QuickLaunch toolbar.

The best feature of these two programmes is the cost — they are free.

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