OpenDNS offers a service to all Internet users that goes to the core of networking to improve security, privacy, and performance. As a home user, you typically just use the DNS service that your ISP provides. The DNS (Domain Name System) server that your computer connects to has the responsibility to translate URLs that you want to visit into the IP Network Addresses of the … [Read more...]
ICSI Netalyzr – Know your Connection
I have another guest post over at Freewaregenius, this time on ICSI Netalyzr. It's a free service that helps you know the ins-and-outs of your connection to the Internet. It can help troubleshoot network problems, issues with your router, and capabilities of your ISP. Check out the details in my article at Freewaregenius: ICSI Netalyzr - Know your Connection. … [Read more...]
Post Virus Clean Up – .EXE Files Stop Working
After cleaning up a virus today for one of my users, I noticed an odd remaining side effect: No executables would successfully launch. This included Explorer.exe under the user's account that got infected, so after they would login it would just sit there at a blank screen. You could press Ctrl+Alt+Del to launch the Task Manager, but trying to run any executable would result in … [Read more...]
Seesmic Look – A Polished, Functional Twitter Client
I'm in no way a die-hard Twittard, but I do use it to promote new articles and spout off random comments (140 characters or less) every once in a while. That being said, I did find the free application Seesmic Look to be very helpful in understanding and organizing all the information in Twitter to be a bit more functional and informative. I have a guest article over at … [Read more...]
Best Way to Recover from Hanging Group Policy Deployed Software
Deploying software through group policy is a great way to ensure all computers are up-to-date and running the same version but unfortunately, not everything runs as smoothly as we would like. I ran into a problem last Friday trying to deploy the updated Java RE 6 Update 18 where the antivirus would tie up the installer until the install process timed out. This only happened on … [Read more...]