How to create strong passwords

Step 1: Choose a phrase

You can create a more secure password by starting with a simple phrase. For example, let’s use a quote from Ogden Nash:

“Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.”

If we use the first letter of each word, and substitute 4 for “for”, we get:

Hihas4ei

Step 2: Add special characters

This is a reasonably strong password but we can improve it a bit by adding some special characters:

#Hihas4ei:

Step 3: Associate it with a website

We can use our new password on several different websites by adding a prefix or suffix with a mnemonic link to a particular site. Let’s use the first letter and the next two consonants in the site name.

Just to add a bit more randomness we’ll alternate upper-case and lower case, and if the first character in the site name is a vowel we’ll start with upper-case. To mix things up a bit more we’ll use the same rule to decide whether to add the site mnemonic to the left side or the right side.

#Hihas4ei:AmZ    for Amazon
fCb#Hihas4ei:    for Facebook
#Hihas4ei:YtB    for YouTube
dRm#Hihas4ei:    for Drumbeat

This is just one possible rule for picking the prefix or suffix that you use to customize your password for each web site. Reversing the order of the letters in the suffix, using only vowels, only consonants, or adding some other characters that come to mind when you think about the web site are all possible approaches that will improve security.

While this technique lets us reuse the phrase-generated part of the password on a number of different websites, it would still be a bad idea to use it on a site like a bank account which contains high-value information. Sites like that deserve their own password selection phrase.

How to move the Yahoo! Messenger archive from a computer to other computer

Yahoo! Messenger  offers a simple method to move the archive from a computer to other  computer .

The first step: You need to close Yahoo Messenger.

Second step( For Windows Xp):
You need to go to C:\Program Files\Yahoo\Messenger\Profiles.  Here you will find folders for each id that loged in you Yahoo Messenger.

Third Step: You must to choose the folder of your id  Now. You open it and  save the Archive folder to a stick or cd.
If you use Vistaor Windows 7, the path for your archive folder is:
C:\Users\(windows_username)\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles.

Firefox – how to get low resouces consumption even with multiple tabs

Firefox uses a lot of memory when you have more than one open tab.

How to fix it? Easily, just follow these steps:

1. Write about: config in the location bar (where you usually write the address of a website) and then press enter
2. Right click on the window that appears
3. Choose “new”>”integer”
4. Copy in the new window: browser.cache.memory.capacity
5. Ok
6. Set the value to 60000
7. Restart Firefox

Ten tricks to improve your Windows Vista – Part two

5. Add a 2GB (or even bigger) Flash USB

To take advantage of the Windows Ready Boost (which offers an additional Memory Cache). Ready Boost is the Microsoft option which allows you to use an USB Flash as RAM. Ready Boost, obviously will improve the performance of your system.

To turn it on do this:

* Insert an USB Flash

* Press the Start button then Computer

* Right click on the USB Drive from My Computer

* Select Ready Boost

6. Turning off Windows Hibernation

The services running in the background of Windows hibernation can use a lot of your system. If you don’t want to use the Hibernate option too often than you can deactivate it, increasing the system performance.

To turn off the Hibernate option do this:

* Select Control Panel then Power Options

* Click on the Change Plan Settings

* Click on the Change Advanced Power Settings

* Enlarge the Sleep category

* Enlarge the Hibernate After category

* Select zero

* Click on Apply

7. Turning off the System Restore option

Although it’s very useful, the System Restore it’s eating a lot of your resources. You can turn it off, but in case the system will break down at one point this will option will not be available.

To turn off this service do this:

* Control Panel>System

* Click on the System Protection in the left panel

* Uncheck the main drive

* Confirm the deactivation

8. Deactivate User Access Control (UAC)

This Windows Vista option is strongly despised by the majority of users. In its attempts to protect you from Malware, UAC is asking you to confirm a lot of mediocre options. You can deactivate this option, and not only that your system will run faster but you’ll also get rid of the discomfort that it’s bringing.

To deactivate User Access Control do this:

* Click on the Start button, then on Control Panel

* Select User Accounts

* Select Turn User Account Control on or off

* Uncheck the User Access Control box

* If it’s necessary, restart the system

9. Deactivate the unnecessary Startup Windows services

As was the case with XP, Vista comes with a lot of services that load every time the system starts, although the majority of the users don’t even use them.

To see what loads at start up and uncheck the useless services (they can be turned back on later) do this:

* Click the Start button then Control Panel

* Select Administrative Tools

* Choose System Configuration

* Click on Services

* You can safely uncheck:

o Offline Files (only if you don’t use Offline File Sync)

o Tablet PC Input Service (only if, obviously, you have a tablet PC)

o Terminal Services

o Windows Search (only if you already unchecked the indexing)

o Fax (only if you don’t use a modern fax)

10. Deactivate the overfilling Windows options

Windows Vista comes with a lot of other options which are listed somehwere else than the ones from above.

You can deactivate them like this:

* Click on the Start button then Control Panel

* Select Program Features

* From the left column, select Turn Windows Features on or off

* You can safely uncheck:

o The indexing service

o Remote Differential Compression

o Tablet PC Optional Components

o Windows DFS Replication Service

o Windows Fax & Scan (only if you don’t use a modern fax)

o Windows Meeting Space (only if you don’t use Live Meeting Service)

Ten tricks to improve your Windows Vista – Part one

If Windows Vista is working lousy don’t worry, apparently some people discovered some tricks that will help you run your Microsoft operating system at full speed. The advices aren’t very different from the ones on how to speed up XP, it basically still depends on “turning off the useless things”.

1. Turning off Windows Search Indexing

Windows Vista is indexing all the time the computer’s files in order to make them more accessible in case you look for them, a very useful option, but it’s affecting the performance of the system which is btw already tormented by the operating system.

In order to turn off the indexing you need to do this:

* Press the Start button and then Computer

* Right click on the C: driver

* In General Tab, clear Index this drive for a quicker search

* In the next box, select Include subfolders and files

2. Turning off the Remote Differential Compression

Remote Differential Compression is measuring the changes in the files from a network in order to be able to transfer them more efficiently and with bandwidth savings, instead of just transferring the whole file. Constantly checking for the changes in a file, this service can slow down the system.

In order to turn off this service do this:

* Open up Control Panel

* Switch to Classic View

* Select Program Features

* Choose Turn Windows features on and off

* Uncheck Remote Differential Compression from below

3. Turning off the Automatic Windows Defender Operation

Windows Defender offers real-time protection against malware, and continues to  run even if the Automatic operation has been turned off.

In order to turn off definitively this option do this:

* Open Control Panel

* Select Windows Defender

* Choose Tools from the menu above

* Select Options

* Uncheck Auto Start

4. Turning off Automatic Disk Defragmentation

This option that constantly defragments your disk drives is not really necessary and it can slow down the system. This way, you can turn it off, if you remember to defragment the disk yourself once a week.

To turn off this:

* Press the Start button and then Computer

* Right Click drive C:

* Select Tools

* Uncheck Run on a schedule box