It's a no brainer that adding more memory to your computer can increase performance and speed. But before you add additional memory, you need to know how many open memory slots are available and what kind of memory is installed in your computer.

One way to find out is by shutting down your computer and crack open the case. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done if your desktop computer is buried or the thought of opening your laptop, without breaking any tabs, more than once is something you rather avoid.

Instead, there is a much easier way to see inside your computer…without touching it.
While several tools exist that will report the amount and type of memory installed in your computer, the tool I use frequently is Crucial's Memory Advisor.

• Just got to Crucial site (http://www.crucial.com) and click on the "Scan My System" button at the top of the home page.

• On the next page, check the terms and condition box, then click on "Download The Scanner" and save the file to your desktop.

• Now, locate the CrucialScan.exe file and double click on it to begin (no installation is required).

• Next, you will see the scan in progress page…

• …followed by the scan results. As first it looks a little confusing, but if you scroll down to the second boxed results on the page, you will see your computer memory information, including the number of memory slots used and available.

As you can see on my laptop that I am using, both memory slots are being used.

Additional information can be found such as the type of memory to use, max amount of memory that can be added, are matching pairs needed, etc.

While Crucial provides great information, it doesn't identify the exact type of memory that is currently installed.

To find that information, I like to use the awesome SIW (System Information for Windows) tool.

Just go to SIW site and download (http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html) the SIW Standalone version, which requires no installation.

After downloading to your desktop, double click on the siw.exe file to run it, then using the left navigation pane, scroll down to the Hardware\Memory section.

Here you will find the type of memory that is currently installed in your computer, including manufacturer, part number, speed, etc.

Once you have gathered all the information using both tools, you can now easily add more memory to your computer the right way without any guess work.

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It seems, anymore, that almost everybody has a cell phone, PDA, iPhone, Blackberry or whatever. And while these devices can have Internet access, texting has become the popular choice of communication among many people.

Now, depending on your plan, it may not be feasible to have texting capabilities, because of costs or you just don't want it.

But, just because you don't have texting capabilities, many people do not realize, you can send a text message to someone cell phone as SMS (Short Message Service) using email.

Just about everybody has an eamil account somewhere. And sending a text message to a cell phone via email is simple and can be done to most major cellular providers.

All you need is the person 10-digit cell phone number and the carrier they use.

For example, if your friends carrier is AT&T, and you know their cell phone number, to send them an SMS text message, you would address the email as:

AreaCode+MobileNumber@txt.att.net (use full 10 digit cell number with no spaces or plus sign)

3085551212@@txt.att.net

Or if the carrier is Verizon, you would address the email as:

AreaCode+MobileNumber@vtext.com

Any email provider can be used (GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, your ISP or company email). The reason why you can use email, is because, many cell phone providers (especially in the USA) have an email SMS gateway that allows anyone to send an email that will, in turn send a text message.

So, how do you know if a provider has an email gateway. Since carriers change often (merge, shutdown, etc..) your best bet is to do a Google search for the carrier which will likely return the domain suffix to use (such as vtext.com for Verizon), or you can check with the cell carrier's web site (obivously you can also check with the person you want to text for the information).

Below are some of the popular providers for sending text messages:

Alltel      @message.alltel.com
AT&T         @txt.att.net
Sprint         @messaging.sprintpcs.com (or @messaging.nextel.com for Nextell)
T-mobile     @tmomail.net
Verizon     @vtext.com

In addition to sending text messages (SMS), some carriers allow sending MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) messages that include multimedia content, such as photos, videos, etc.

To send MMS using email, you will need to use the carrier domain address which may be different than the SMS address. Below are some of the popular carriers (again, do a Google search to fond carriers not listed below):

Alltel
AT&T         @mms.att.net
Sprint         @pm.sprint.com
T-mobile     @mms.uscc.net
Verizon     @vzwpix.com

Now that you know how to text someone cell phone using email, their are a couple of things to keep in mind.

• Make sure the message does not exceed 160 charaters, otherwise it may get cut off.

• Just because your email account is free (meaning you are not charged per message), doesn't mean the person you are sending the text message to (receiving) won't be charged per text message. Check with them first, otherwise they may not be your friend anymore.

• Be patient. Some carrier gateways may delay message delivery, so don't use it for emergencies or when an immediate response is expected.

• Use simple text. Don't bother with fancy fonts or formatting.

• Don't spam anybody cell phone. Do so, and you will end up in a world of trouble (it's not worth it).

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If you have not heard, Microsoft awesome Sysinternals site has released the beta version of Sysinternals Live. What this service offers is the capability to connect directly to the Sysinternals site and run their tools without the need to download.

If you are not familiar with Sysinternals, they produce some of the best tools, such as Process Explorer, Autoruns and Process Monitor for Windows systems. Microsoft bought the company in 2006 and continued to offer it's extensive library of diagnostic, troubleshooting, and management utilities for free.

Why is this very cool? Because Sysinternals Live allows to you connect and run all their tools with out needing a web browser.

For example, Vista owners can connect from the Start menu Search bar by entering \\live.sysinternals.com\tools.

Windows Explorer will open, displaying the connection to the share listing of all the tools available.

You can click on any available tool and run it immediately (Sysinternals tools require no installation) without needing to download and unzip.

Or if you know the name of the tool, you can just reference it's name to have it launch and run with the following command syntax:

\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<toolname>

For example, to run Autoruns, you would use:

\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\autoruns.exe

If you're a command line user, this means you can also run the tools directly at the prompt by entering the same command as above (be patient and give it a few seconds to launch).

But I find mapping a drive to be the best method, since it's convenient to have all their tools available using a drive letter.

You can easily map a drive from the Run dialog windows, by pressing Windows Key+R or click on Start \ Run… and entering the following command:

net use * \\live.sysinternals.com\tools

Of course you can use any browser and connect using http://live.sysinternals.com/tools/.

The Sysinternals Live tools should work in all x86 and x64 versions of Vista and Server 2008 as well as previous version of Windows.

No matter what method you use to connect, having access to these tools with out the need to download, is a big bonus, especially for those times when family or friends bug you to fix their computer and you don't have your handy USB stick around!

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Do you have a wireless internet connection at home, or at the office? Isn't it great?

With a wireless connection you can move your laptop from room to room and still access the web and your email. But keep in mind that by its very nature, a wireless connection is slower than a wired connection.

Having said that, if you're concerned that your wireless internet speed isn't what it should be, there are things you can try to speed it up

Move the wireless router

Your wireless router is the hub for your wireless internet experience. Your wireless signal broadcasts from it, and if it's tucked away in a far corner, you're connection quality can suffer.

Keep in mind, too, that structural elements like wiring and plumbing can interfere with a wireless signal. A building's structure, too, can be sufficient to affect wireless performance.

Remember you can always check your wireless signal strength by hovering your mouse over the wireless internet indicator found in the system tray, near the time of day in the corner of your screen. Generally speaking, the stronger the signal, the better your internet connection. So physically moving the router to a more central location – one away from structural elements – may well help.

Update the wireless driver on your computer

If your driver for your wireless router is out of date, your performance may be enhanced by getting the latest version. There's a reason vendors release new drivers. Often it's to address performance or security issues. Either way, it's a good idea to keep it up to date.

Fortunately, Windows can automatically get the latest driver – with just a bit of help from you. Click on your Windows Start button, and then right-click on My Computer (or just Computer for your Vista and Win 7 users).

In the pop-up menu, select Manage. In the resulting Computer Management screen, click on the plus sign next to Network adapters. Find the entry for your wireless adapter (hint: it will probably contain the word wireless or WLAN) and right-click on it. In the pop-up, select Update Driver Software.

Windows will search the internet for the latest version. In case Windows isn't able to query for the driver, you can always go to the manufacturer's web site and download a setup program for the driver manually.

Upgrade the router's firmware

Just like it's important to keep current on the adapter's driver version, the router's software may well have updated since you installed it. And again, this update may well improve performance or security.

The router's firmware can be upgraded through the router interface. You access that by typing the router's IP address into a web browser. Refer to your router's user guide for further instructions.

Change the router's broadcast channel

Other devices such as cell phones, cordless phones, microwaves or even house wiring can also interfere with the wireless signal. It's for this reason that you have the ability to change the channel that the wireless router uses to broadcast its signal. Frequently, changing the channel on the router will bypass this interference.

Again, you access this feature through the router's web browser interface. And again, refer to your router's user guide for this information.

Purchase a wireless range expander

If your wireless connection overall is good, but there are areas in the building where the signal strength is weak – and you can't move the router to a better location – a wireless range expander may be the solution you need.

A wireless range expander will receive the wireless signal from the router and re-broadcast it. The advantage is, the re-broadcast signal will be as strong as the signal going out from the router. So by installing a wireless range expander in an area that has "fair" or "poor" signal strength, you can improve the strength in that area to "excellent".

Check your internet speed

Finally, you can check your internet speed before and after applying any of these fixes to actually determine if they work for you. There are several free speed tests on the internet. One of The Computer Psychic's favorite can be found at www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Author – Steven O Smith – With over 20 years industry experience, Steven O Smith is the owner of The Computer Psychic, providing affordable on-site computer repair to residences and business in the Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR area. Visit http://www.thecomputerpsychic.com for more valuable information and free software.

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How many times have you searched Google only to have millions of results returned that have nothing to do about what you're searching for? Probably often. After all Google is a computer and almost robot like.

….not really.

Actually Google is pretty smart, especially when you give it a little help with finding exactly what you are searching for. But how do you tell it to find things with words or phrases that have multiple meanings?

Well, since Google is a computer (one big gigantic computer), it can accept commands with the words or phrases you are searching for, just like using a command prompt in Windows.

Here's an example. If you searched for the word batter , Google is going to return a whole slew of search results ranging from batter in terms of Baseball, to batter in terms of cooking and so on.

So, to tell Google that you just want search results for batter relating to Baseball, just use a hyphen (minus sign) and the category you want to exclude after the word you are searching for. For example to exclude cooking with the word batter use the following format:

batter -cooking

Google will return search results that are more relevant based on the query you enter and remove items that don't relate specifically to cooking.

Now, you will probably notice that even though you told Google to exclude a certain category, it still not perfect and other type of results will be mixed in. To get better search results, you should try to be more specific and use phrases.

So using the above example, if you used the phrase baseball batter -cooking the results return will be more specific and you will have less non-relevant items to sift through. To get better results, use two, three or even four word phrases.

As you can see, the Internet is huge, and Google does it;s best to find the possible combinations you are looking for, Sometimes it just needs a little help with understanding exactly what you are searching for.

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One question I get from new users to Ubuntu is "how do I view my computer name?"

Since most of these people are new to Linux and Ubuntu, or switching from Windows, they want to know how to view their computer name from the desktop, like they can in Windows.

Fortunately Ubuntu is user friendly and this can be easily accomplished from the GUI or at the command prompt.

To see your computer name from Ubuntu's desktop, just click on the Shutdown icon on the top panel next to the date and time, and select Lock screen.

The lock screen will appear (if it does not, just click anywhere on the desktop or press any key) and your computer name will be displayed.

That was easy.

To view your computer name from the command prompt, click on Application \ Accessories \ Terminal from the top panel.

You will quickly discover that the Terminal window is more than happy to display your see the computer name which is shown after your username and in the title bar.

You can also execute the command hostname which will also display the computer name as well.

Now that you know how to view and display the computer name on your Ubuntu system, find out what else you can do in our Ubuntu tips section.

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By far the most common reason accounts get hacked is that they had easy to remember and simple – sometimes even trivial – passwords.

In other words, the accounts have easy to hack passwords. Passwords like a pet's name, a friend's name spelled backwards, a favorite movie catch phrase, a significant other's name (or "iheart" followed by that name), and so on.

Hackers are extremely resourceful at guessing and ferreting out those all-too-common password schemes. And sometimes it's not even the hackers that end up with your passwords.

Here are seven key steps to keeping an account from being hacked due to simple and common password theft.

1 – Pick A Good Password. "iHeartSue" is bad. "qicITcl}" is great! The problem's pretty obvious, though – if it's easy to remember, then it's probably a bad password. Instead, use a blended approach: never use full words or names; mix upper and lower case letters, use numbers. Use at least 8 characters. A password like "ILoveWindows" is bad, but a variation – "1luvwind00s" could be very good. "CorgiDog", not so good, but "Igroc7Pup" might be ok. Get creative, using a technique you can remember that no one else could possibly guess.

2 – Keep Your Password Safe. Tell no one. Even in a close and presumably trusting relationship – if anything ever happens consider the damage that the person could do knowing your password. Too many account theft scenarios begin with trusting someone just a little too much, and then having the relationship go bad. Your friends are your friends until one day they're not. Especially if someone is pressuring you or if there's the least little bit of doubt, don't share your password.

3 – Use a "Secret Answer." Most systems use the answer to a "secret question" as a way to recover or reset a password. Unfortunately many people choose answers that anyone can guess, or easily research on the internet. Answers like where you were born or your pet's name are frequently easy to find out with a little searching. The good news is that your secret answer doesn't actually have to make sense. Pick something unrelated or bizarre instead; choose answers like "Pickle" as your city of birth, "Confusion" as your mother's maiden name, or perhaps "Flat Tire" as your favorite pet. As long as you can remember, it doesn't matter.

4 – Maintain That Alternate Email Address. An "alternate email address" is used by many mail accounts as a place to send you a password reminder or reset. Be sure to set up an account on a different email system for your alternate email address (any other free email system will do), and then use that address as your alternate everywhere else. Of course, keep the alternate account active so as not to lose it, since without it you may be out of luck.

5 – Remember. Remembering sounds easy, but like we said earlier: if it's easy to remember, then it's probably a bad password. And yet remembering and being difficult to guess are both critical. You must remember your password, failing that your secret answer, and failing that your alternate email account. Forget or lose them all, and you're severely out of luck. If written down, be sure to keep it all in a secure place – not something like the almost cliche scenario of finding poorly hidden sticky notes containing passwords near your computer. It might be safe to keep something in your wallet, since you already treat that as secure. An encrypted file or password container on your computer might be another option.

6 – Don't Get Taken. There are shady services that will claim to be able to retrieve your passwords and account access. Many are simply scams to take advantage of you when you are vulnerable and only take your money or login information for another account that they can then breech. The only place trustworthy enough for password and account recovery help is the service you've lost access to itself. If they can't help, then neither can a reputable third party.

7 – Learn From Your Mistakes. Finally, if you now know that you have a weak password, if you've told it to someone you shouldn't have, or if you've not set up that secret question or alternate account, fix it. Now. Change your password to something stronger, set up the alternate recovery methods, and keep your information private. If you've been hacked and you don't have any of that set up, you're very likely out of luck. Make sure to take more secure care of your account password and information with your next one.

Get more free tech help and advice from Leo Notenboom by visiting http://ask-leo.com With over 30 years of industry experience, including an 18 year career as a software engineer with Microsoft, Leo gives real answers to real questions from ordinary computer users at Ask Leo! Subscribe to Leo's weekly newsletter now and receive a free ebook: "Internet Safety – Keeping Your Computer Safe on the Internet", a collection of steps, tools and concepts you need to know to keep your computer and your information safe.

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One thing is for sure with Windows XP and Vista computers, over time you will have installed many hotfixes and a service pack or two from Windows Update. For many people, you may not have to worry about which updates are being applied to your system

But what if one day, you need to verify if a hotfix has been installed on your computer. One way you can check is to open up Add or Remove Programs from the Control Panel.

As you can see, viewing updates from Add or Remove Programs don't offer much information for each update and is pretty useless. Instead there are better alternatives that provides more useful hotfix and service pack information installed on your system.

View Hotfixes On Windows XP

For XP systems, an excellent portable freeware utility called WinUpdatesList from nirsoft.net, provides an easy to use interface that displays a list of all Windows updates (Service Packs and Hotfixes) installed on your computer.

To run the program, download the zip file from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wul.html (scroll to bottom of page and click on "Download WinUpdatesList in zip file "). Now unzip the file, wul.zip , then double click on wul.exe to launch the utility.

WinUpdatesList list all hotfixes and service packs that have been installed, who installed the update and when it was installed. You can sort the list by clicking on any column. For example, to view by date, click on Installation Date column. Scrolling over to the right, reveals more information such as Web Link for each update and the uninstall Command.

Clicking on an update in the list displays all the files associated with the update in the lower pane including version information and file path. To display detailed information, right click on an update in the upper pane, and select Open Web Link. Your browser will open and display the knowledge base article on Microsoft web site for the update.

WinUpdatesList also allows you to search for an update (select Edit \ Find from menu) and can print a report by selecting View \ HTML Report .

View Hotfixes On Windows Vista

Unfortunately WinUpdatesList has not been updated for Vista yet. But you can get similar information by clicking on the Start menu and searching for update (from Start menu). In the search results, click on Windows Update.

Then in the left navigation pane, click on the View update history link.

You will then see all the updates that have been installed on your Vista computer and you can sort them by clicking on the Date Installed column or view all successful and failed update installations by clicking on the Status column.

Although Windows Update does not provide as much information as WinUpdatesList, it does provide the capability to view the knowledge base article on Microsoft web site, by right clicking on an update and selecting View details.

Then click on the link under More information to open up the knowledge base article.

Now that you know how to view installed updates on your XP or Vista computer, it can be usefull for times when you are having problems and need to verify which updates are installed.

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Happy New Year everyone from Watching The Net!

Once again a new year is upon us and it's time to take a few days off and enjoy the holiday. So if you somehow can still read this post after ringing in the new year all night long, there is probably one thing on your mind. How to get rid of that hang-over.

Drink a lots of liquids and watch College football all day!

Happy New Year 2010!

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From us to you, Seasons Greetings to everyone from Watching The Net.

It's time to get away from your Computer and Internet problems (Ho Ho Ho, hopefully Santa fixed you Computer today!) and enjoy these great Computer parodies of 'The Night Before Christmas'.

Happy Holidays From Watching The Net

'Twas the Night Before Christmas For Computer Owners
(WTN Comment – floppies!! what are floppies?):

' Twas the night before Christmas and all through the nets
Not a mousie was stirring, not even the pets.
The floppies were stacked by the modem with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The files were nestled all snug in a folder.
The screen saver turned on, the weather was colder….continue reading

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Computer Version 1)
(Scroll down to second version)

' T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the shop,
The computers were whirring; they never do stop.
The power was on and the temperature right,
In hopes that the input would feed back that night.
The system was ready, the program was coded,
And memory drums had been carefully loaded;
While adding a Christmasy glow to the scene,
The lights on the console, flashed red, white and green…continue reading

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Computer Version 2)
(Scroll down to third version)

' Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a peripheral was stirring, not even a mouse.
The modem was plugged to the phone line with care
In hopes that a download soon would be there….continue reading

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Computer Style)

' Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a peripheral was stirring, not even the mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that new software soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of the Internet danced in their heads…continue reading

'The Night Before Christmas: Microsoft Version

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, except Papa's mouse.
The computer was humming, the icons were hopping,
As Papa did last-minute Internet shopping…continue reading

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Unlike big Corporations that you may work for, having a strict policy for changing your own GMail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Windows Live Hotmail or any other email password probably does not exist.

If you are like many users who use Internet based email, most likely you have not changed your password recently, or for that matter, still have the same password since the day you first created the email account.

If you never experienced having your email account hacked, consider yourself lucky. Believe me, you don't want to experience it. Worse, having a false sense of security in thinking that no one will ever find out your email account password is just ridiculous thinking.

The only way to minimize the chances of preventing someone from hacking into your email account (by discovering your password) is to discipline yourself into changing your password every 30, 60 or 90 days along with creating strong passwords that are harder to break.

So, are you an Internet warrior and change your password(s) or do you wing it and never worry about it?

Take the poll and let us know.

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In today’s online world, having a strong password is a must. However, the problem with strong passwords is that they can be difficult to remember.

Altering the passwords you currently use by adding a meaningful symbol is one step toward making them difficult for Internet thieves to crack. Here is a list of symbols, some suggested uses, and some examples of how to incorporate them into your passwords:

! excitement, strong emotion
@ the letter A, the word “at”
# number, pound, tic-tac-toe
$ money, value, the letter S
% a part of something
^ raised eyebrow, upside down V
& the word “and”, this and that, twins
( the letter c, the moon
) the moon; anything lunar; crazy
* sunny, bright, starry
+ adding one thing to another
= balance, equanimity, this equals that
< this is less than that, this is younger than that
> this is greater than that, this is older than that
? unknown, variable, questionable
~ water, wind

Here are three examples. When you see the symbol in them, reference the above list to see how it is used.

First example:

1. Your 1st born daughter’s initials are JLM
2. She was born in 1987
3. She has a sunny and bright disposition

Potential password: *1stJ87lm>

Second example:

1. You are a twin
2. Your initials are ABO
3. Your twin’s initials are STO
4. The last two digits of your Social Security Number are: 58

Potential password: Abo58&Sto

Third example:

1. Your oldest child’s initials are MWP
2. Your next oldest child’s initials are SEP
3. They were born in 1981 and 1983, respectively

Potential password: Mwp81>83Sep

Here are six more tips for strong passwords:>

* Spell letters phonetically: the initials ABO can become AyBeeOh
* Use both upper and lower case letters
* Use at least one number
* Do not begin or end the password with a number
* Make the password at least eight characters
* Practice your new password in your word processor; get it to flow smoothly off your fingers

I strongly suggest that you stop everything, go, right now, and change your banking and any financially sensitive passwords. Other types of passwords can wait. Do it now, before you forget.

Author -Do you have a specific accounting or QuickBooks problem? Would you like to see an article written about it? Jennifer A. Thieme invites you to contact her today with your accounting or QuickBooks article suggestion. Resolving accounting or QuickBooks issues is her specialty.Email her today to receive a free initial consultation, free QuickBooks software trial, and a free payroll processing quote.She’s the owner of Solid Rock Accounting Services and has been in the bookkeeping, income tax, and payroll business for nine years. She’s a Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, and a Registered Tax Preparer. Her clients receive QuickBooks training, general bookkeeping, income tax, and/or payroll processing services.

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You heard the old saying "were not alone". Well, the same can be said about your Wireless Home Network.

Have you ever wondered if someone else is on your network, with out your knowledge, watching every site you visit or stealing account information from your GMail or bank account?

Sure you probably went to great lengths to implement and secure your wireless home network, but any Network Security professional will tell you NOTHING is bullet proof.

While nothing is bullet proof, being proactive with monitoring can catch the un-wanted guest…off guard.

So what can you do to monitor and identify if someone is wondering around on your home network?

You can use some simple tools, when combined, will help you see your Network and give you a view of who's online.

NOTE: With these tools chances of identifying someone on your network increases, but will NOT prevent them from gaining access to your Network. Other tools exist than described in this article, but the goal is to show you the different type of tools and how to use them.

1 – Firewall Logs – is a good place to start. If you have a Firewall running on your Computer or on your router, look for suspicious activity by scanning the logs for anything out of the ordinary with inbound and outbound traffic.

One method you can use is to look for patterns. For example, if someone was scanning your computer to see what ports are open, the logs will show continuous activity from the same IP Address (an intruder's computer) sending a stream of data to many different ports to a single IP Address or range of IP Addresses.

Obviously, with a smart hacker, they can do many things to cover their tracks, but one thing is for sure, data must be transmitted to probe your computer, and patterns is one method to use for spotting trouble on your Network.

2 – DHCP Logs – if the unwanted guest is not Network savvy, or security on your router is not up to snuff, they may be able to drop in unannounced, by receiving an IP Address from your wireless DHCP server.

You can easily view a list of active addresses by connecting to your router and checking the DHCP log. For example, on my Linksys router, the log is located in the Wireless MAC Filter tab and is shown in the screen shot below.

I can see and identify all active PC's on my Network. But this does not guarantee that these are the only active PC's on my Network.

Why?

Unfortunately, a more sophisticated hacker can get around the need to rely on DHCP. If they did their homework (you can be sure of that), they probably figured out the range of IP Addresses in use on your Network, found an unused address in that range and configure their PC with the static address.

3 – Check Who's Connecting To Your Computer – Now that you identified the trusted computers are on your network (from the DHCP logs), you can check who is connected to your computer.

To do this, open a command prompt and enter the following command:

netstat -an

where:

a = Displays all connections and listening ports
n = Displays addresses and port numbers in numerical form

Netstat is a useful tool that displays network connections (both incoming and outgoing) on computers. This will allow you to see all IP Addresses that have made a connection to your computer.

Netstat shows you the type of connection (TCP or UDP), IP Address and port number (number after addresses separated by a colon) for both Local (your computer) and Foreign addresses.

To find your IP Address, just enter ipconfig at the command prompt.

You should be able to easily spot any addresses (Foreign column) that is outside the DHCP range on your router and investigate.

You can also see what executable are involved in creating each connection by using the -b switch with the netstat command (netstat -b)

Now this great for checking connections on your Compter, but what if someone is on your Network and not connected to your Computer?

4 – Scanning your entire Network – When Computers communicate with each other, they do so with ports (as you saw with the netstat command). Some ports that may be familiar to you are 80 (HTTP), 443 (SSL). 25 (SMTP), 110 (POP). For example, when your Computer browses a website, it opens up port 80 and sends the request out,

To see open ports on a Computer, a tool called Port Scanner can be used that can scan a Network and identify devices by probing for open ports.

Information that can be found is the connection type (TCP or UDP), type of port and IP Address.

Many Port Scanners exist, such as Advanced Port Scanner (Famatech Software) and can scan a range of IP Addresses as shown in the screen shot below.

By scanning a range of IP Addresses, you can quickly see who is on your Wireless Network what they are doing from the list of open ports.

You can easily find out the entire range of addresses (including addresses outside the DHCP scope) your router uses. To do that, connect to your wireless router administration of interface and look for the router subnet mask information.

On a typical Linksys router (above screen shot), the default setting for the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. Using a subnet mask calculator you can determine the range of IP Address that can be used on your Network.

For example, the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 with the IP address of the router – 192.168.1.1 (Class C) has an IP address range of 192.168.1.1 – 192.168.1.254. (Note that DHCP reserves address 192.168.1.100 thru 192.168.1.149 which means all other addressees in that range can be used as static address).

Time To Be Proactive

As you can see some of the methods used above are good for random check ups on your Wireless Home Network.

But just being proactive is not enough and using a combination of monitoring, tightening up security and changing your passwords often, among other items, can help from having your identity stolen.

I'm sure there are Network Security Professionals out there who may have better methods than described in this article. If you are one if them, I welcome you comments and suggestions to provide us with more tips and suggestions.

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Jusched.exe is the Java Update Scheduler. This process is installed by Sun Microsystems' Java to periodically check for updates related to Java handling, runtime environment and internet browsing and install them whenever present. By default, it is installed as a service and set to start automatically.

This process is a nonessential process and can be safely terminated since it sits there eating memory space only to check once a month for updates from the Sun community. Note that terminating the process will prevent automatic updates to Java.

To prevent the Java Update Scheduler from launching on Startup, in Windows XP/Vista open up the Java Control Panel and uncheck "Check for Updates Automatically".

When asked if you would like to update monthly, click on "Never Update." However this will mean that if a Java security update is made available you will miss it. If you want to update Sun Java at a later stage, simply go back to the same Java plug-in icon in the Control Panel, to the "Update" tab, and click the Update Now button.

What you can also do to set it up to run once a month automatically without you having to remind yourself to switch the feature on is, go to Start >> Control Panel and find Scheduled Tasks. Follow the wizard along to pick a month and date, and then when you get to the "Start a Program" screen, use this as the path:

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_01\bin\jucheck.exe"

adjusting the path if you are running a different version of Java. The key thing to note is that you run the jucheck.exe in your Java directory thus if you don't know JAVA Runtime Environment you're running, go to "C:\Program Files\Java\" and check in there.

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Files ending with the extension TMP are frequently found on computers. So what are these TMP files?

Well, as the file extension might suggest, they are temporary files. These files are typically created by applications to store some form of temporary data, in a permanent form than RAM, on your hard disk. TMP files are commonly produced either when a program can't allocate enough memory for its tasks, or as part of inter-process communication.

Modern operating systems usually employ a virtual memory system, where if a program exceeds its allotted memory space usage, it can provide the application with part of the hard disk space as a substitute for memory. Programs which use large amounts of data, like video editing software, may need to create many TMP files.

TMP files are usually deleted automatically by their parent application (the software, game, application) which created them. However there may be instances where these files aren't removed from your computer and end up taking unnecessary space. This happens particularly either because the parent application crashed during runtime, or because the program's developer forgot to add the necessary code to delete TMP files when finished using them. TMP files tend to accumulate over time and take up a lot of disk space.

All this said, I have to add an important note: not all TMP files are safe to remove. So how do I know when a TMP file can be removed or not?

Usually it is safe to assume that if a TMP file is several weeks or months old, you can delete. You can check the meta data to know when the file was created or last modified, by right clicking on the file and choosing Properties. For example when you are using a word processor and have the auto-save option enabled, the application will most probably create some form of temporary file to store the content of the document you're working on in some pre-defined location in your hard disk.

Other temp files as they are usually called, are created by the Windows and its default applications. One well known default application which creates hoards of temporary files is the Internet browser.

Whenever you access a webpage, buy from an online shopping cart, access your email, your browser is transparently saving and caching some data pertaining to the action you've taken for various reasons. One of the reasons is for optimizing your web experience and loading the web-pages you visit the most frequently faster.

Temp files which are created by default Windows applications are usually stored in a few pre-defined locations in your hard drive mainly C:windowstemp folder. For these reasons there may be temp files, unbeknown to you, scattered in various locations all over your computer. The easiest way to remove temporary files created by Windows and its applications is to use the Disk Cleanup service.

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