81 North Blog

I recall visiting this site at some earlier time. Was it a year ago? Perhaps two or three years? For some reason I forgot about it or failed to bookmark it until today. How I ended up at this site again, I don’t know, but I’m glad I did.

Using an HTML DOM Visualizer Applet created by Sala, this site will go and fetch your site’s pages and create a blooming, almost organic-look graph of your page and site structure. Red stands for the dreaded table - so here’s hoping you don’t see too much of that color in your own site chart. Black is an html starting point - the root of your site - where everything starts and pages branch out from there.

One word of caution - it’s addicting. I had three or four tabs open, each one graphing a different website, taking screenshots of each one, so I could print them out and look at them later. Like works of art. Or new life forms. I have promised myself that I will visit this site only once a week, for 15 minutes at a time. Anything more than that and I’m going to feel really guilty. Well, okay, maybe 30 minutes on my birthday.

When you enter your url and click the “Show me the graph” button, you may see only an empty white rectangle at first. Some sites “bloom” into life really quickly, while other’s complexity requires more time. So don’t hit the “back” button or refresh your page - just give the script time to gather all the site details and get to work. As you might guess, this is why I had multiple tabs open, each working on it’s own life-form. If you are seated where you have a view of your dsl modem or wireless router - etcetera - you can see little blips of activity while it’s gathering information.

What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Here’s a view of 81 North’s bloom. Click on the thumbnail to see the full sized screenshot. And when your’re done, you can also go check out all the other bloom on Flickr - http://flickr.com/photos/tags/websitesasgraphs/

A List Apart has a much nicer bloom and you can see how visual comparision can easily identify problems areas, such as tables that haven’t yet been converted. ALA’s site is sweet, with no tables to embarrass them.

1. Install Mozilla Firefox - Mozilla Firefox will stop spyware dead in its tracks. Mozilla Firefox has many different plugins and advantages for other browsers and has a large community dedicated to keeping it secure.

2. Firewall. If you’re your operating system is anything but Windows 98 then you have a built-in firewall. The problem is that most computers I fix the firewall is turned off. You wouldn’t leave your front door open!! Firewalls close all the open doors or ports that enable remote users or applications to connect to your computer. No firewall means that all open ports can and will enable some application to connect to your computer remotely.

3. Encrypt your files - I don’t care if you have a super secret password on your computer and all the latest patches if someone has physical access to your computer they can take your hard drive and pop it into another computer and access your files. If your files and folders are encrypted then they can’t access them and steal your Identity. Pick a folder for you important documents-right click the folder then press advanced and then press encrypt folders and contents.

4. Updates - I don’t care what operating system you use but make sure that you enable automatic updates. Updates should be install within twenty four hours of their release. Hackers will reverse engineer the published updates and use the exploits to create their own, so patch away.

5. Car Storage - OK, easy suggestion but if I’m a hacker all I need to do is follow the target home and wait for them to leave the laptop in the car. Dumb, but I felt like it needed to be said.

6. Laptop locks - Don’t buy cheap laptop locks. Some of the cheap laptop locks on the market can be cut with small pliers. Good laptop lock cables will mesh together preventing it from being cut.

7. Policy - If you have own a business make a policy on how laptops are to be stored. You need to have a double lock policy. If a laptop is left unattended in a room it needs to be locked down with a laptop lock and the door to the room needs to be locked.

8. Harden Your Operating System - Locking down your operating system means stopping all unneeded services, installing updates and proper configuration of applications and server apps.

9. Passwords vs Pass Phrases - Make your passwords longer and more complicated.

10. Inventory - Assign inventory numbers and asset tags to laptops prior to giving them to employees. When a employee is fired or leaves the company get the laptop back, simple but often overlooked.

11. Wireless Security - Enable some sort of wireless security like WPA2, if you have no wireless encryption set up then all of your wireless clients can be tracked and subject to exploit. Kismet and other hacker tools will not only sniff wireless traffic they will also identify all the wireless clients for that wireless access points.

12. Walking Away - When you walk away from your laptop you need to press control-alt-delete and lock your computer. Dumb but it needs to be said.

13. AD-HOC Wireless networks - If your at a library or on campus or at a coffee shop and you scan for wireless networks and you see a computer to computer network don’t’ connect some one is trying to screw with you.

14. Rename your computer - Pretty easy to find you target if you computer’s name is your name. Once a hacker knows your name the social engineering game begins.

15. Virtualization - Install Virtual PC and install a virtual machine. Use the Virtual computer to test all applications prior to use. Utilize the virtual pc for all risky websites.

16. Drinks -I think I have seen more lost data from someone spilling a drink on a laptop than anything else. So keep your drinks away from your laptop…yea simple.

17. Stolen Laptops - Register your laptops with one of the many different laptop recovery services. If you install their software and the thief accesses the Internet they can track it, deleted your data, and report the location to the police…in theory.

18. Ant-Virus - Update your virus definitions.

19. Install Linux - Ubuntu Linux is free, you can install it in about 15 minutes, and its more secure than anything Microsoft has to offer.

20. Install Linux - oops I put that twice but I think it deserves two listings, good luck

The Wireless Ninja can make your wireless network and work place more secure and productive. Visit http://www.wirelessninja.com and we will save you money, time and prevent your IT heachaches. Don’t wait.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Meyer

Meyer, Eric. (2008, January 31). 20 Laptop Security Tips. EzineArticles. Retrieved February 05, 2008, from http://ezinearticles.com/?20-Laptop-Security-Tips&id=957338

Finding an email address is one of the most common tasks internet users are trying to perform these days. Privacy is something internet surfers are desperate for and tools to uncover email addresses have spread on the internet over the past few years.

Many users still think that through the use of free search engines they will be able to find email addresses or names but it would be a mistake to think that finding an email address or a name is so easy.

The main reason why finding an email address with free search engines like Google or Yahoo is very unlikely is because these databases collect millions of data purposely left by users online. If users do not want to be found, they are not going to leave any trail and put themselves at risk. This is why free database services can only work if the user wants to be clearly identifiable online.

With the emergence of scammers and illegal activities online, users who purposely hide or conceal their identity online is increasing dramatically, which makes the use of free search engine services useless. Free services will not be able to recover private data as most of their public records are old and useless.

If you want to find any email address and take your search to a professional level, you need to equip yourself with the most up-to-date tools available on the market to trace an email address.

Do you know what an IP address is? It is a unique series of numbers that are on your computer. These numbers will help identify the computer with that particular IP address. However, being able to identify the IP address of a computer is just a first step as you will be facing two problems.

Firstly, the matching between the IP address and the user’s name is confidential. Secondly, many users who do not want to be found access the internet behind a “proxy”, which is a “firewall” enabling them to forge the real IP address of their computer. In other words, even though you manage to establish a matching between the IP address and the user name, you can still have the wrong person.

This is why finding an email address on your own requires work and dedication. With the help of a professional you can access more sophisticated tools and take you email address tracing to a more advanced level.

Sophia Munoz is a journal writer who is versed into new gadgets. She has written hundreds of articles for specialized magazines and article directories. If you want to discover more about how to do a reverse email search, visit us for the latest tips! Also learn how to send anonymous emails to your boss…laugh guaranteed!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sophia_Munoz

We all have one thing in common as everyday business people. We all accept money for our service and/or product. Having the convenience of accepting many different payments types, can raise your web sales by 25 percent. Try and accept every payment type possible, from paypal, to American express, to e-checks. You can easily accept credit cards on your web business nowadays. There are hundreds of reputable credit card, processing merchants, that want your business.

Paypal is probably the most used payment method over the web. Even if you don’t like paypal, you will lose out, if you don’t offer it as a payment method. Google checkout is said to be better than paypal. Google checkout is making a big hit in the marketplace. They are trying to reach the goal to be an equal to paypal. Google offers better security and great customer service. Google is trying to be geared more towards preventing fraud. Where paypal seems to go along with fraud and the people who are committing the fraud. Google may change the face of web payment processors. After all, customers do want to feel secure, as they give their credit card numbers or other personal information away.

Security of different payments types is also important. Today’s identity theft, cautious customers, want to have a safe and easy transaction. Make sure you have hackersafe or other logos on your website. There is all kinds of coding that you can put into your website to prevent hackers. Most host providers include some safety features like hacksafe. If you have hacksafe features on your website, advertise it. Even though you know you have a secure website, let the customer know also. It really does help your sales.

If you are an ebay merchant, make sure you accept every payment method also. You will notice, the more payment options you give; the more your sales will increase. Think about it; if you wanted to buy something, but you only pay with paypal online, the website you are on only accepts credit cards, now that web site doesn’t make a sale. They lose out because you were going to buy something. But since they don’t accept paypal, you go to someone else’s website. The customer is going to buy it anyway. Why not give them the option to buy it from you?

Learn how to start your own home business by following this amazing step-by-step guide. Want to be an Ebay Powerseller? This guide will help you. Check out my Daily Blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Page