Steps you can use to Enhance your Windows XP Security

What you do to keep your XP Operating system secure from virus attack? Putting an antivirus? Update antivirus everyday?.

All that steps above can be used to defend your operating system stability, but that’s not all.  To overcome the worst scenario, which is Reinstalling your computer, I’ve compile some steps :

1. Turn “Autorun and Autoplay” function off.

Autorun or autoplay is a function that will instantly offer you to open file when USB disk or CD ROM inserted into it’s place. This function sometimes helpful, but virus often use this function to run their program. So it’s wiser to turn this function off.

To turn this function off, you can use 2 ways, which is using REGEDIT for autorun, and GPEDIT for autoplay. Both has the same function, but with a different way to do so. Find the most suitable for you.

a. With Regedit command.

Open Regedit by clicking start > Run > write “regedit” (without quote) at the box availabe, then > click ok

Follow this string :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer

Double click at NoDriveTypeAutoRun and enter number 95 at Value Data.

b. with gpedit.

open gpedit by clicking start > Run > write “gpedit.msc” into box  available > click ok.

Follow this string :

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System

Double click Turn Off Autoplay and click enabled.

2. Disable Copy Paste function through USB.

Activate USB copy paste function only if needed. This can be set with regedit using string as follow:

a. Click Start > Run > write “regedit” > then click ok.

Click HKEY_LOCALMACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control

b. Right click at Control, choose New>Key, Name it “StorageDevicePolicies”.

c. Right click at  StorageDevicePolicies, choose New > DWord Value name it “WriteProtect”.

d. Double click at  WriteProtect tersebut, and change the value data to 1.

e. Then  Restart your computer/Laptop.

If  success, every time you copy and paste file, there will appear a message  : Error Copying File or Folder.

If you want to activate this function again, change the value data to  0.

3. Update Your Antivirus Regularly

The purpose of updating antivirus is to add a new virus data, so antivirus will know if there’s new virus found. Updating can be done by clicking automatic update, if your computer connected to internet, or by manual updating. Just check your antivirus site to do so.

4. Scan your Flash Disk

Scan your  flash disk connected to the computer. Open flash disk files only after they’re scanned and free from virus. Rescan your flash disk after yang terhubung ke komputer. Buka file-file flash disk setelah proses scan selesai dan dinyatakan bersih atau virus yang bercokol di dalam flash disk telah terhapus atau diperbaiki.

5. Recognize Strange File Application

This action is a pre-caution for us not to click or run unrecognized file, except file that we really know what that’s file is. This is because sometimes antivirus can’t detect new version of some virus, for example when we are not update our antivirus yet.

6. Do not save file where Operating system Installed (usually drive C:)

This step is very important, and most people often forget it. Why are we should do this?. When your hard drive got virus, or something happen to your operating system that force you to re-install it, then your data is not lost. So, save your data file in  D:\ or E:\, or another partition. You can use free disk partition software like Easeus Disk Partition or other to make a partition.

7. Do a Operating System Backup using application like Ghost.

This will help you to avoid reinstalling operating system when it crash or broken by virus. Actually, ghost is similar to reinstalling, but it’s simpler and faster because all of your computer setting were saved in Ghost image file, you you just put back the files and everything (including softwares you previously install) will be appear as if there’s nothing happen. Besides Ghost (most popular is Norton Ghost), you can use Easeus Ghost maker.

Well, that’s a steps you can do to increase your computer security. Who will aware about our computer if not ourselves?

Please comment and add your experiences in increasing your own computer security.

Google Advanced Syntax Query

It can be denied, that google is the most popular search engine. Their search result is more complete compared to yahoo or bing, for example.  It’s argue-able, of course, but the news that yahoo and microsoft ready to work together to compete with google is a good proof for this.

I often found that my friend complaining about google search result, they said that google return result which is not they looking for. Actually there’s a little trick to increase your google result filtering. And here’s some of them:

[ intitle: ]
The “intitle:” syntax helps Google restrict the search results to pages containing that word in the title. For
example, “intitle: login password” (without quotes) will return links to those pages that has the word
"login" in their title, and the word "password" anywhere in the page.

Similarly, if one has to query for more than one word in the page title then in that case “allintitle:” can be
used instead of “intitle” to get the list of pages containing all those words in its title. For example using
“intitle: login intitle: password” is same as querying “allintitle: login password”.

[ inurl: ]
The “inurl:” syntax restricts the search results to those URLs containing the search keyword. For
example: “inurl: passwd” (without quotes) will return only links to those pages that have "passwd" in the
URL.

Similarly, if one has to query for more than one word in an URL then in that case “allinurl:” can be used
instead of “inurl” to get the list of URLs containing all those search keywords in it. For example: “allinurl:
etc/passwd“ will look for the URLs containing “etc” and “passwd”. The slash (“/”) between the words will
be ignored by Google.

[ site: ]
The “site:” syntax restricts Google to query for certain keywords in a particular site or domain. For
example: “exploits site:hackingspirits.com” (without quotes) will look for the keyword “exploits” in those
pages present in all the links of the domain “hackingspirits.com”. There should not be any space between
“site:” and the “domain name”.

[ filetype: ]
This “filetype:” syntax restricts Google search for files on internet with particular extensions (i.e. doc, pdf
or ppt etc). For example: “filetype:doc site:gov confidential” (without quotes) will look for files with “.doc”
extension in all government domains with “.gov” extension and containing the word “confidential” either in
the pages or in the “.doc” file. i.e. the result will contain the links to all confidential word document files on
the government sites.

[ link: ]
“link:” syntax will list down webpages that have links to the specified webpage. For Example:
“link:www.securityfocus.com” will list webpages that have links pointing to the SecurityFocus homepage.
Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url.

[ related: ]
The “related:” will list web pages that are "similar" to a specified web page. For Example:
“related:www.securityfocus.com” will list web pages that are similar to the Securityfocus homepage. Note
there can be no space between the "related:" and the web page url.

[ cache: ]
The query “cache:” will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache. For Example:
“cache:www.hackingspirits.com” will show Google’s cache of the Google homepage. Note there can be
no space between the "cache:" and the web page url.
If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For
Example: “cache:www.hackingspirits.com guest” will show the cached content with the word "guest"
highlighted.

[ intext: ]
The “intext:” syntax searches for words in a particular website. It ignores links or URLs and page titles.
For example: “intext:exploits” (without quotes) will return only links to those web pages that has the
search keyword "exploits" in its webpage.

[ phonebook: ]
“phonebook” searches for U.S. street address and phone number information. For Example:
“phonebook:Lisa+CA” will list down all names of person having “Lisa” in their names and located in
“California (CA)”. This can be used as a great tool for hackers incase someone want to do dig personal
information for social engineering.

Addition

This is a little trick that work for me:

If you want a sentence to be search instead of part of their string, then put the sentence in double quote. For example, you want to search ENGINEERING EBOOKS, then you should write : “engineering ebooks”.

To expand this knowledge, suppose you want to search google adsense books only  from rapidshare.com, you can write something like this GOOGLE ADSENSE “rapidshare.com/files”. All this work for any site. The most important is, try to find unique pattern from a search.

Happy searching…

Open PDF File Faster with Adobe PDF Lite

Nowadays, PDF Reader Application Program (program to read PDF Document), has become very important program in our computer, such as Office program. We often you Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is the most complete Free PDF Reader that support newest features.

Unfortunately, Adobe Reader getting crowded with added features / plugins which, sometimes we not need it, and in turn, it makes this application load longer.

These features (plugins), such as auto update, autorun, running in background, actually not so important for us, but consume our hard drive space, memory and our computer CPU, and of course load slower than it should.

Alternatively, we can use other PDF Reader available online, such as Foxit Reader or Sumatra PDF, which is lightweight and fast, but sometimes for complex document, they can render perfectly.

To overcome this problem, some people has make a Lite version of Adobe Reader, that they call it Adobe Reader Lite. They call it Lite, because in this version, they only include more important features, and remove any un-needed features without sacrifying it’s ability.

Adobe Reader Lite Feature

• Remove dekstop shortcut  and autorun function
• Shortcut in start menu converted without any ad
• Some features commonly un-needed, was removed.
• Remove Agreement license pop-up
• Remove Auto Update feature
• AcroRd32Info.exe was removed without log error message
• Form Disertakan fitur Pengisian Form
• Dialog ( button for online ) in toolbar was removed  (”help make Adobe Reader better” and Create PDF using Acrobat.com” )
• Changing some interface (v9.1)

Installation file for Adobe Reader Lite 9.1.0.26 only about 18.29 MB, far more smaller compared to  Adobe Reader 9.1 which has size about  41.1 MB. Installation process is far more faster, besides disk space needed which is 60% less. Check the picture below for detail :

Download

You can check newest version of Adobe Reader Lite from majorgeeks.com. Alternatively, you can download from  softpedia.com.

– Download Adobe Reader Lite ( majorgeeks.com )
– Download Adobe Reader Lite ( Softpedia.com )

Behind Google Chrome Logo

Well buddies, if you were thinking that chrome’s logo is some thing very creative, then I think I should share this secret of Google with you……… that

google-chrome-logo

Actually it is their anger on Microsoft that forced them to do this…..

microsoft-> chrome

Do tell me what do you think

Internet Job Available for Freelance Programmer

If you’re a programmer, beside gathering information from internet, you can get money in your pocket by offering your skill to help other. There’s many possibility available, but here’s some web list you can start to promote yourself.

RentACoder – If you’re a good programmer, there’s many jobs posted by software buyer. Just sign in for free, and you’ll find many jobs available for you. Bid any job there, if they deal with your offer, then you can start coding. And after finish, RentACoder will charge you 7.5 – 15% from all successful transaction. Typical bid Range $100 – $500

DesignQuote – If you’re freelance programmers or web designers, you can get new client leads daily through this site. First you must purchase credits which are used to buy the lead. Higher budgets require more credits. Then designers contact clients directly via phone or email, which there are never more than 7 other designers bidding on a project. Once you get a client, they are yours forever. And you will never pay a commission or subscription. Bid Range Over $2000

iFreelance – Many available opportunities for programmers, web designers and graphic artists. Here, they charge you $4.69 to $9 /month, depend on membership type you choose. You can bid as many job as you want in any type of membership, and they don’t charge you for success job at all.

Heritage Web Solutions – Hosting company that hires freelance designers and programmers to build their customers sites. Must submit your portfolio for consideration. This site has a requirement that you must be 18 years old, and a U.S. citizen to apply. (All freelance employees must have a USB headset to contact clients through our in-house VOIP phone system)

Freelance Auction – Freelance web designers can place bids on proposals. Requires you pay them a commission from your earnings if you get the job for 10% or $10, whichever greater.