Even Browsers can give your location

Yes. If you are on facebook, or for the matter on any web site,  and worry about your privacy, which you should then what to do?.

The first thing that you can or should do is, disable your location. Let your browser not know your location. How do get this done on three main browsers.

1. Firefox. (works on Ver 26)

a. Open a window and type about:config

b. Agree to the warning.

c. Search for geo.enabled and Set it as false. Look in the image.

2. Google Chrome

a. Open a windows and type chrome://settings

b. Click on Advanced Settings

c. Under Privacy click on “Content Settings”

d. Scroll down and choose “Location Setting” and select

3. Internet Explorer

a. goto Tools->Internet Options

Select the “Privacy Tab”

And check the box as shown above.

 

And now surf the internet atleast not worrying about your location is tracked. What next?

Lessons : The honest truth about dishonesty.

On my recent travel I read this book. Very relevant and lots of research gone into it.

 

You can click on the book to goto Amazon.

Dishonesty, that we hardly think about in our daily lives is sometimes very subtle. I look back and find that in my life as well there are cases where it can be seen. For instance taking more than an hour for lunch, or sometimes taking a long tea break. Also the research done in the book gives insights on how we can ensure practices that can reduce dishonesty in our work place.

A worth read.

Cloud Storage. What to look for.

Every one talks cloud. Let us look at Cloud Storage. What it means? You store your data at a third party place. Why? May be lower cost, administration simplification, security, protection etc. All these things encourage us.

Where are the risks? Like all business a cloud business can fail too. What if your cloud company is the single point of failure. What happens then?

a. Your data sits on the cloud. Your cloud provider closes shop. Do you have enough time to get it back? Even you have that time, do you have enough space to get it back. Even if you can get it back will the provider have enough bandwidth for all those who want their data?

b. Suppose you got back the data, you also somehow managed to secure some storage, will your applications work? Who will make changed to them? Can you keep your RPO?

So then what is the solution? May be in a next post.

Bye Bye Altavista

Come 8th July and another search engine altavista is going to leave cyberspace. Altavista has been one of the first search engines, indexing millions of pages. It was a product that too ahead of its time. Some how through companies buying each other, it came with Yahoo. Now Yahoo has decided to stop this product.

Surprising but in my two decades in IT I have started to see even good products reaching their end of life. Have a look at this page as of today.

From 8th July the domain name www.altavista.com will redirect to yahoo.com.

Source : BBC

Google Reader

After all the requests, signatures, announcements, one of the very good service from Google, the Google Reader will be retiring tonight. When I logged in today I got this message,

Felt sad to see this. I had been a regular of this since many years. So finally I logged in today and deleted all my feeds. Make the life of Google a bit easier.

I hope Google changes its mind. And hope that other of my favorite services like GMail, Search Engine, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Documents also do not face the same fate as the Reader.

Get Start Button in Windows 8

One of the notably sad omission in windows 8 is the start button. The 8.1 version had lots of promise. Bloggers got greatly impressed with it when they saw the preview. The actual working was never published. What happened when 8.1 was released? The magical start button never came. The one put is practically of no use.

So how do we get the start button back. A genuine start button. One that works the same way it worked in Windows 7 and earlier versions. The best and free among the pack is Classic Shell.

So what happens after you install the Classic Shell. It should look something like this.

Where do you download it from?

a. From here

A normal setup.exe, next, next, finish. And you have the shell.

A thanks to the developers of classic shell.

Get back productive, and get back fast.

Allway sync

The amount of data that we are storing is on the rise. A normal household owning a computer easily has a TB of data. You just add up the hard disks, USB sticks, DVDs and CDs. Loss of data can mean a great loss.

What is the easiest way to sync your data. Say for instance you want to sync your internal disk to an external USB hard disk.

Of the many software one I like is AllwaySync. Easy to use. Download and within minutes you are on the go.

Some pieces of advice.

1. Keep your hard disk organized. I mean decide a directory structure and maintain it. For instance you can have folders like the following that I have on my disk.

I always like to begin with numbers. That way the organization is well and easy to understand. Alphabetical order is just a waste.

2. Keep the same structure on all your hard disks. So you need to thus create one plan

3. Keep atleast sync to two USB disks. This way you keep three copies. One on your local hard drive, two external copies. Sync them say every Friday. Since they have the same structure, It is just a single click.

 

So next time there should be no way to lose data.

Happy Syncing.

Firefox.

Firefox has taken the browsing wars by storm. It has been very successful. Browsers are no more browsers and are never complete without the extensions. In the next series of posts (it is vacation time), I will try to help make your web experience secure. Assuming here the installation is on Windows (Desktop). I will try to cover other OS later.

1. First stage is of course you need to install Firefox. 

Click here to download. Run the EXE file and select the default options and complete the installation. Run Firefox and make it as your default browser if you are asked for it. And then get these extensions.

2. How do download the extensions?

I have installed the wallnut theme. Never mind if your browser does not look the same.

3. In the list you see, select Extensions from the left. Your list should be empty. The Extensions that we need are listed here.

4. We start with the list. Adblock Plus. This was the original adblock software. You can read more about it here.

So what are the visible effects after you install this extension?

When you click on the circle on the lower left in your browser, you see filter subscriptions. The first item is already added by default. What you need is the other next 4 in the list that I have added.

Uncheck this box, to make the filter complete.

 

Next extension tomorrow.

“Take care on social networks”

For those who are using Facebook (or any other social networking site) there are some precautions that you can take. I have listed a few.

1. All you post on Facebook is public. So please be careful on what you are posting. Try to enter your name in google.com search box, and it will bring out so many surprises. When you apply for job or admission to university, or offer your services anywhere, your future employer or manager can always check this information.

2. What you post on your wall or your friends wall stays there forever. So before posting double and triple check on what you write. Do not post anything that you are not sure of, that you have not verified, or that you have no document to prove it is right or wrong.

3. Many applications and games that you play, ask you for your permission. Please read the details carefully. It may be taking your personal information, your friends list, your pictures etc.

4. What information you don’t like don’t post. For example information like date of birth, phone numbers, company names, family names (brothers, sisters, and parents), place of birth etc is considered personal. Think twice before you put them.

5. Limit the time you spend on social networking sites. You can save time and use it for better purposes.

6. Posting Photos. When you post photos be sure that either you are the owner of the photo or you have taken permission from the photographer or the photo is already in public domain. Internet may look like it is public, but those are in network administration can tell you everything that we do (login, logout, machine, etc all information is logged).

7. Give credit to what you take. If you taken a quote from somewhere or you have taken an article from somewhere, it is always good to mention the source. Give credit.

Let us have a safe and productive surfing.

Suresh Ranga

30.01.2011

 

 

* I posted this on one of the Facebook groups that I was an admin almost 2 years back. Thought would be helpful.

PDF Books from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is just brilliant.

One of the great features of this site, I liked was, the ability of combine a few pages of our interest and convert it to a PDF file. This can be used for either

• later reading
• sending to customer.

This blog post is showing how to create a PDF of some of our like minded pages. Let us say we need to create a PDF of some information on Storage Area Networking, Fibre Channel and SCSI.

Step 1.

1. Goto the page of Storage Are Networking

2. Choose Create a Book

3. Start Book Creator

5. Goto the next page on Fibre Channel Protocol

6. Add this page also.

7. Goto the SCSI page and add it as well. You should now be able to see 3 pages.

 

8. Click on Show Book, and on the next screen enter the title.

9. On the right click on download

10. There are many formats to choose from. Let us say you choose PDF and Download.

Ultimately, you get a Download link. (Press F5 to refresh)

The book is ready a PDF file.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

MD5

MD5 is or message digest 5, is a cryptographic algorithm to generate the hash value (say of a file). It generates a 16 byte or 128 bit value. Often it is used to check the integrity of downloads. Once you download a file, how sure are you that what you have downloaded is what the file is supposed to be.

For instance, let us say you are downloading Ubuntu. At the page you can see the file and know what is the md5. Once your download completes, you should get some utility to check the md5. If the strings match, you are sure that you downloaded what you want. This is useful in cases where there are mirror sites, that allow for download files in local regions. From the main site you get the MD5 checksum (string), and once you have downloaded the file, you run a local MD5 generation program on the downloaded file and compare.

So how do we generate MD5. There are plenty of utilities available. There is one from Microsoft itself. You can download it from this KB Article. Download and run the file. Instructions are here.

Run the program to calculate the checksum, like this.

The md5 of the downloaded file, calculated by fciv utility from Microsoft. The original value of iso I got from the web site.

That guarantees that I got the file right.

 

Sources.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5

2.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290

Random Characters Folder Deletion (Windows 7)

After a windows update it not un-usual to see a folder with random characters. This folder cannot be deleted with regular deletion. For example, there is this folder with random characters after an update.

I try to delete the folder and get the message.

How to go about deleting the folder. The process is to change the permission and try the deletion.

1. Right click the folder, Select Properties.

2. Select Advanced, Owner Tab, Edit, and change the owner to Administrator. Check the check box to ensure everything inside the folder changes as well. Confirm with OK button.

3. Goto Command Line (cmd.exe and run as administrator) and get the ACLs on the folder

Brief explanation what the command is doing.

a. cacls is for changing permissions (access control lists). In Windows 7 it is replaced with icacls.

b. This command has been since Windows NT days and is a convenient way to modify ACL’s of a large number of folders. (Alternative would be to go via Windows Explorer)

c. /t is for replacing the permissions.

d. /g is to grant permission, with :F meaning full control.

e. /f will give a “Yes” by default. else you need to answer the question “Are you sure (y/n)”

 

So there you are. You can now go and delete the folder.

What’s hot on Google Plus Removal.

Since I am moving over to Google Plus slowly, one annoying feature has been “What’s hot on Google Plus”.

You suddenly see your page filled with something like this.

I have filtered the Author’s name etc. Now yes the feature may have its good intentions. But sometimes

we are not interested in it. Finally there is a proper way to hide this stuff (or rather tell Google + that,

Please, I am not interested to see them). How should it be done.

1.

(Select what’s hot as shown in the circle)

or

or

or

I choose the last option. And yes there are no more the extra posts.

 

Hope it helps.

ePUB files.

Every smart phone today can read ePUB files. These files are the preferred ebook reader files. But how do we convert a web page to these files. The following post will show you how.

1. Get Google Chrome browser if you are not using it already. Go to this page to download.

2. Next we need Google Chrome extention, dotEPUB. This extention can be downloaded from this place. Remember we are downloading the extention from Chrome Store.

3. After you install it, your chrome will have a green dot.

4. You need a ePUB reader as well to test. So get a chrome extention that is a epub reader. Download the magicscroll reader from this place.

5. Now goto a page of your choice, Let us say this blog as well.

6. Click on the green dot.

7. Ignore the warning and click ok.

file is downloaded.

 

8. click on Add a book to your library. And begin reading

 

Try to get your favourite articles and read them on phone.

For all PC Windows users, CCCleaner

One good thing of PC is the ability to install and uninstall software. Install, try we like, use it and sometime later we remove.

All applications are not disciplined enough to clean back the registry entries, during uninstall. They leave out a lot of unwanted stuff. The average user may not not what rubbish is left. A simple and decent software is CCCleaner. It is free. You can download the software from here.  Once you download and install it.

Part 1: Run it.

Click on Analyze.

Your list will look different. (Close all browsers before running)

Click Run Cleaner. (It might ask if entries listed needs to be deleted, Confirm it if asked).

Click on Analyze again. And you should see a clean screen.

 

Part 2: Click on Registry on the left. Select “Scan for Issues”.

Select “Fix Selected Issues”, and If asked, select to delete entries.

Part 3: Select Tools and you can uninstall unneeded programs.

 

Part 4: Now for this you need to be CAREFUL. Certain times lots of programs like to start automatically when the machine starts. Some of the programs like to keep their updater to run all the time. These programs un-necessarily occupy RAM and slow down your PC.

Click on Startup and disable the entries. If you see something you are not very sure then do a quick search on google.

 

So that is the end of the post. Keep your desktops and laptops within your control.