Cable Management For PC Building increases airflow, makes it easier to work on your rig and it also makes it looks better. You can immediately tell the difference between clean cable management and someone who did not have the time for it. One reason why i think many people do not get around to it is because you have to spend lots of time on it. It really is the cherry on top of a PC Build and it just adds that touch of cleanliness and perfection to your final masterpiece.  Here are a few tips to get you started, and if you also have more tips to add please comment and help a fellow builder out with some solid advice.

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What’s The Difference Between POP & IMAP and Which One to Use

IMAP and POP are the protocols or technologies using which you can download messages from mail servers on your computer and access them with the help of mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird etc. The main advantage of this technology is that you can access your emails via a feature-rich browser-independent mail client. In case of POP, you get offline access to old mails too.

Difference between IMAP and POP

IMAP and POP are two different protocols. There are many differences between these two. The main difference is that IMAP (Internet Messaged Access Protocol) always syncs with mail server so that any changes you make in your mail client (Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird) will instantly appear on your webmail inbox. On the other hand, in POP(Post Office Protocol), your mail client account and mail server are not synced. It means whatever changes you make to your email account in the mail client will not be transferred to the webmail inbox.

In simple terms, if you are using IMAP and mark a mail as read, it gets marked as read in your web based inbox too (because the changes are happening on the server). However, this won’t be the case if you are using POP, because the mails are downloaded to your PC and the changes won’t reflect on the server.

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Unsolicited commercial email, or “spam,” is the starting point for many email scams. Before the advent of email, a scammer had to contact each potential victim individually by post, fax, telephone, or through direct personal contact. These methods would often require a significant investment in time and money. To improve the chances of contacting susceptible victims, the scammer might have had to do advance research on the “marks” he or she targeted.

Email has changed the game for scammers. The convenience and anonymity of email, along with the capability it provides for easily contacting thousands of people at once, enables scammers to work in volume. Scammers only need to fool a small percentage of the tens of thousands of people they email for their ruse to pay off. For tips on reducing spam in your email in-box, see US-CERT Cyber Security Tip ST04-007, “Reducing Spam”: http://www.uscert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-007.html

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Running Google Apps is very cost effective, especially if you are running 10 or less email accounts. Below I have outlined 7 different reasons why Google Apps should be considered for small to medium businesses.

Reason #1 Maintenance

With Google Apps, Google handles all the maintenance. I personally have not seen any downtime; the updates are pushed out seamlessly.  This also has to do with cost savings, plus all the hassle of updating the software if I were to manage it.

Reason #2 Collaboration

Here’s a common scenario prior to implementing Google Apps: a document was worked on by someone, emailed to a colleague, who sent another revision to someone else, who ended up making a few changes and sending the wrong updated copy by mistake…. this can get very frustrating.  Google Docs fixed that issue.  With Google Docs, users can simultaneously edit documents in real-time, eliminating the previous issue of multiple versions of a document.

Reason #3 Features and Upgrades

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As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time wading through e-mails, finding the best e-mail service is paramount in my life.

Realizing that, I’ve done my fair share of shuffling from one e-mail program to the next–trying to find the best service that not only offers speed and stability, but also reliability and spam control. And although e-mail services are getting better, it’s abundantly clear that few offer the kind of experience I’m really looking for in an e-mail client. But Google’s Gmail app is different. It’s better than its competition on a number of levels and provides the kind of e-mail experience that’s simply unrivaled online.

Spam, Spam, Spam

I’ve used practically every e-mail service on the Web and I can say, without a doubt, that Gmail blocks the most spam. To those who open a new account, spam may not be a serious concern. Your spam folder will likely remain empty for a while until your new e-mail address makes its way into the wild. But for my e-mail address, which is widely available and easily attainable, spam is a constant headache.

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Whether you’re a parent of a kid in elementary, middle or high-school or a college-bound young adult, your last few days of summer probably seem to be anything but lazy.

With so many things to think about, you don’t want to put your computer security on the back-burner. At the very least, make sure your computer is equipped with the basics. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you get ready for the upcoming school year.

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With the new school year starting up it’s time for a refresher on keeping your kids safe online. Below you’ll find three simple Internet safety tips to make sure that little Johnny or little Janie can browse for school-related info without you worrying about inappropriate content, malicious software being installed accidentally, and cyber-pervs.

Set Ground Rules:
Sit down with your kids and make sure they know what’s appropriate to look at on the Internet and what isn’t. Also make sure they know to come directly to you if they see something they shouldn’t. Emphasize that they won’t get in trouble if they stumble upon something by accident and you’ll likely get a better response out of them if they do happen upon the more unsavory side of the web.

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PEAK Internet Technology Tips

1) Keep your Operating system up to date with the manufacturer’s suggested updates.  Perform these checks once per week, or even better, allow them to be installed automatically!

2) Choose strong passwords, and change them frequently; every 90 days or sooner.  Do not use the same password for your email, banking, IRA, etc… accounts.  Randomly generated (good) passwords are available at http://www.peakinternet.com/passwords/

3) Use anti-virus software, and allow it to update and scan
automatically.  Many anti-virus software vendors integrate their solution with your Operating Systems firewall.

4) Use only the software you need, from reputable suppliers.  You don’t really need a coupon bar for your web-browser, or a free search advisor toolbar, or an automatic wallpaper/screensaver updated daily. Consider the risks to your computer’s security that these programs introduce.

5) Keep your applications up to date. Your Web Browser, Microsoft Office, PDF viewer, Java, Flash, etc… Are EASY ways that an attacker can take over your computer, and security updates are available frequently.

How do you protect your home computer? Surge protector? Check. Antivirus and anti-malware software? Check. Avoiding non-trustworthy sites? Check. What about backing up your computer files? The fact is that you could do almost everything right to protect your computer, but all of your precious files could be lost in an instant if a hacker accesses your computer information, or if a fire or flood destroy your house. Sound too harsh? Imagine if it really happened! Make sure you’re taking all the necessary precautions, and have a system in place to backup your computer data.

So you’re doing a good job protecting your computer, now it’s time to make doubly sure that those files are protected. There is now an array of internet backup providers out there that can help you to do just that. If you are interested in backing up your data securely, PEAK Internet would love to hear from you. Don’t wait! Find an internet backup service today, because the longer you wait the greater the chance your data could be destroyed. Having an external hard drive is not enough anymore.

In today’s day and age we have put our trust in our computers’ memories to preserve our own memories, in the form of pictures, videos, letters, and more. Digital cameras and camcorders have become the norm, and all of our precious memories are susceptible to all the dangers that our computers are susceptible to. Don’t worry, though, because there are ways to protect the files, and memories, on your computer.

PEAK is considering offering a backup service to our customers, please let us know if you are interested in purchasing backup services. Use the form below or giving our customer service reps a call at 1-800-731-4871

Despite repeated reminders to select strong passwords and not to reuse them across Websites and services, online users continue to be frighteningly lax in their password security, according to a recent analysis of leaked passwords.

Security experts recommend taking a multilayered approach to security. Instead of relying on a single point of failure, organizations should be implementing several mechanisms to make it harder for cyber-attackers to steal sensitive, confidential data. Considering how easy it has become to steal passwords, using phishing emails or by installing keyloggers on a target computer, relying solely on passwords to protect data is very risky.

What makes a strong password?

PEAK recommends to all of our customers that a strong password must constitute the following:

• It needs to contain a special character such as @#$%^&!
• It must be a minimum of 8 characters long.
• It must not have any common words such as password, 123, your birth date, your login name and any words that can be found in the dictionary.
• a variation of capitalization and small letters are a must.

In my opinion, even if your password consists of the above, it is still not enough to be hack-proof. Your password needs to be totally unique and different for each and every one of your online accounts. This is to make sure that in the event that one account is hacked into, your other accounts will not be affected.

Organizations are often leery of putting up any security measures that may affect the user experience and interrupt workflow because they are worried users will get annoyed and go elsewhere. But some tolerance for inconvenience is necessary, since it will result in a “significant boost” in security. Many banks are rolling out additional protections such as image verification and hardware tokens, which may feel a little tedious.

Other protections include multiple security questions, forcing users to change passwords regularly, and checking to ensure the passwords aren’t dictionary words or being reused.

Attackers should have to get past multiple gatekeepers before they even get to the database. Organizations should be combining all the security layers that will help trap attackers, or at least slow them down enough by raising enough flags for the IT department to notice something is wrong.

There’s no such thing as “security nirvana,” but organizations can try to foil attackers by making their environments harder to breach than the payoff may be worth. Motivated attackers will always find a way, but there’s no need to make it easy.

That applies equally to users. Angry users blame the vendor for not taking proper security measures after a data breach, but the fact remains that users must share the blame. While Gawker and Sony were both criticized for running obsolete software and not protecting password data stored in the database, a recent analysis of passwords stolen from those two companies reveals a significant degree of overlap.

Software architect and security researcher Troy Hunt analyzed the torrent of files released by LulzSec shortly after the group hacked Sony Pictures and Sony BMG Music and the password lists that another hacker group, Gnosis, leaked in December after hacking Gawker’s commenting database. According to Hunt’s analysis, 88 people were in both data sets with the same email address, and 67 percent of them used the same password.

Admittedly, 88 people is a very small number, considering there were 37,608 accounts in the Sony files and more than 188,000 accounts from Gawker. However, the two sites are pretty independent in terms of the kinds of users they attract, Hunt noted. For skeptics who may not consider this significant, Hunt identified “well over” 2,000 users who had accounts with both Sony Pictures and Sony BMG using the same email address. Hunt found 92 percent of the users had the same password across both accounts.

Based on these findings, it’s reasonable to assume many of these user-name or email combinations with the password could turn out to be the “key” to access other Gmail, eBay and Facebook accounts. “There’s a statistically good chance that the majority of them will work with other Websites,” Hunt said.

Attackers are already doing just that, testing leaked passwords against other Web services. LulzSec recently breached the Website of Infragard, a partnership between the FBI and private security firms, and obtained the email database. It turned out one of its members, Karim Hijazi, was using the same password for his personal Gmail and work email accounts. Hijazi also happened to be the CEO of white-hat hacking organization Unveillance. Password reuse also helped hacktivist collective Anonymous when it went after HBGary Federal in February.

Security that depends on users having strong, unique passwords is not enough, not when modern-day malware can easily intercept that information. Security experts often say user authentication should be a combination of what the user knows, such as a password, and what the user has, such as a hardware token, that randomly generates a passcode every 30 seconds. Some major Websites, including Google and Facebook, have implemented two-factor authentication based on user phones to access their services.

For Google’s Gmail, users who have opted into two-factor authentication enter their user name and password as usual, and then are directed to a “verification” page where they enter a six-digit code that is generated by an application on the smartphone or sent via Short Message Service.

Some banks turn to the cloud to handle two-factor authentication, Ken Hunt, Vasco Data Security CEO, told eWEEK. Vasco customers issue hardware tokens, similar to the SecurID tokens from RSA Security, which randomly generate pass codes that users enter on online banking sites. The DIGIPASS cloud service authenticates users before allowing them to access applications, Hunt said.

Ray Wizbowski, global director of marketing and communications in the security business unit at Gemalto, takes that a step further for cloud-based applications. Wizbowski suggests that authentication should be a combination of the physical device, something the user knows, and “something we are.” Identity-based information would provide a “stronger verification” that the user is really the one supposed to be accessing the cloud data, Wizbowski said.

Source: eWeek.com