Category Archive: Security

Apr 27 2012

Microsoft Security Essentials Levels Up

Just a quick note for those Windows users out there using Microsoft Security Essentials. The latest version has recently been released and hopefully Windows Update has notified/nagged you to upgrade it to Version 4.0.1526.0. It still retains the same simple interface that many people have come to appreciate and will remain quiet until it finds …

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Apr 26 2012

Check Your Java For Explotability

A quick tip tonight for people with Java installed on their computers. Generally, there are three principles regarding the safe usage of computer software: If you weren’t looking for it then don’t install it on your device, If you do need the software then always keep it up to date, If you no longer need …

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Apr 19 2012

Beware of NTFS USB Drives and Encrypted Files

Perhaps an edge case for a lot of people out there but perhaps something worth considering if you have formatted your USB stick with NTFS rather than FAT or FAT32 or you use portable hard drives formatted with NTFS. Some corporations will enforce the use of folder encryption on your computer (rather than whole disk …

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Mar 25 2012

BitLocker and iPods – Will They Blend?

Leading on from yesterday’s article about BitLocker and the unfortunate situation that Mac OS X users find themselves in when BitLocker to Go is enforced at work when using USB devices we should also consider one popular USB device, the iPod. It may be a lesser known fact that iPods will use either HFS+ or …

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Mar 24 2012

BitLocker Drive Encryption and Mac OS X

Earlier in the week, a colleague of mine had his work laptop upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows XP. To many of us this would seem to be a welcome change but for some this could actually be a complication. As part of the changeover, “BitLocker to Go” drive encryption is enforced on USB drives as …

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Feb 28 2012

Fix Choppy Audio in VLC Player

For a long time, VLC has been one of the well regarded media players with its ability to play almost any audio and video format without having to install special codec packs. It’s relatively small size in terms of disk space consumption and memory footprint comparison to other media players was also a bonus. However, …

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Feb 18 2012

Antivirus Software is a Potential Preventative Measure, Not a Cure

This might polarise the audience a bit but I just wanted to expand on my thoughts in this earlier article. In that article, I noted the only 100% effective solution to cure an infected computer is to format and reinstall or restore from a known good backup. Today, I tried and tried unsuccessfully to eradicate a trojan from …

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Feb 06 2012

Automatic Updates Coming in Internet Explorer

Here’s something to keep in mind when using Internet Explorer on Windows XP, Vista and 7. For a while now, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have possessed auto-update capabilities (Firefox being more explicit about it while Chrome silently updates itself in the background and applies the changes when it is restarted with nary a peep). …

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Dec 01 2011

Microsoft Security Essential Beta – Testing Underway

Just a short update tonight. I’ve installed the recent beta of the upcoming version of Microsoft Security Essentials (Version 4.0.1111.0) to see how it performs and how different it is to prior versions. The upgrade only took a minute and I am setting it off on a scan to assess its speed. No major red …

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Nov 25 2011

Upcoming Beta of Microsoft Security Essentials

Looks like Microsoft are prepping a new major release of the popular Security Essentials package by enlisting a stack of beta testers prior to the final version going out. Amongst existing features, it’s expected that new feature will include automatic malware removal (removing the requirement for user interaction) plus enhanced performance and protection capabilities. At …

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