For our complete review of the Apple iPad, see “Apple iPad: An Honest Review“.  Remember, you will need a monthly data plan from AT&T to enjoy the 3G functionality.  No contract pricing for the data plan:

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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If you want a secure password without having to remember anything complex, try shifting your fingers one set of keys to the right. It will make your password look like gibberish, will often add in punctuation marks, and is quick and simple.

This way, you can remember the simple passwords, however, the bad guys cannot!  Some very similar passwords using this trick:

• password => [sddeptf
• letmein => ;ry,rom
• money => .pmru
• love => ;pbr
• jeremyisawesome => krtr,yodserdp,e

It’s so crazy, it just may work!

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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The Good News – What we WILL get from OS 4:

Multitasking

Everyone saw this one coming.  Apple has taken alot of slack lately as this feature is not currently available on the iPhone.  Although not an “expose” type of multitasking, at least its something.  Per Apple:

Developers will have access to seven multitasking services, which will allow tasks to be performed in the background while preserving performance and battery life. So you’ll be able to make a Voice over IP call while playing a game or checking email, find a restaurant on Urbanspoon while listening to Pandora, and more.

Folders

When I had the iPhone, I had it jailbroken for most of it’s life.  It isn’t until the App Store came around that I stopped jail breaking as “most” of the features were now available.  One of the features I would always use is “folders”.  It’s easy to have a TON of apps flooding your iPhone, however, with folders you are able to keep the organized nicely.  Per Apple:

Organize apps into folders with drag-and-drop simplicity. Get faster access to your favorites and browse and manage up to 2160 apps at once — many more than the current limit of 180 apps.

Upgraded Mail

Basically, you can have multiple email addresses show up in one inbox.  Other sorting features will be available as well as the ability to open attachments in third-party apps.

iBooks

Much like its big sister, the iPad, OS 4 will be getting a version of iBooks.  The nice feature is that you only have to purchase your book once, the devices will stay synced including notes, bookmarks, etc.  Per Apple:

The best way to browse, buy, and read books on a mobile device. Easily flip through the pages of a book you’ve downloaded from the iBookstore while listening to your music collection. Browse tens of thousands of books — many of them free — by title, author, or genre. You can even check out reviews and read sample pages before you buy.

iAd

Just what you always wanted, a new way to receive ads on your mobile device!  Your prayers have been answered, per Apple:

iAd is a breakthrough mobile advertising platform from Apple. With it, apps can feature rich media ads that combine the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web. For developers, it means a new, easy-to-implement source of revenue. For advertisers, it creates a new media outlet that offers consumers highly targeted information.

Other items
Smaller, notable items include: 5x digital camera zoom, Bluetooth keyboard support, local notifications and fast app switching.

The Bad News – What we WON’T get from OS 4:

Sorry, Old Guys
So here is something that will effect MOST iPhone users, ONLY the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch (3rd-gen) devices will get all of the new features.

The iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G will get “many things“, not including multitasking.

The old iPhone 2Gs will be left in the dark, no update, nothing…according to Apple, just let it go, man.

An Updated UI/Homescreen
This will never happen.

Flash Support for Safari
Anyone that knows Apple has come to the realization that Flash will never find a home on an Apple mobile device.  Some say Steveo has a grudge, but most think its because Flash is a battery sucker and Apple doesn’t agree that people need it.

Mass Storage Mode
Some were hoping that the iPhone would be able to be plugged into a computer and used as a USB flash drive…a mode to transfer files from place A to B.  Yeah, not going to happen.

Tethering with AT&T
This may be more of an AT&T restriction that Apple, nevertheless, its still a no go.

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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Per Wikipedia, here are some of the most common virus infection definitions:

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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Please note that this article shouldn’t be used for hacking your boyfriends email account, but for a heads up on your weak passwords:

If you invited me to try and crack your password, you know the one that you use over and over for like every web page you visit, how many guesses would it take before I got it?

Let’s see… here is my top 10 list. I can obtain most of this information much easier than you think, then I might just be able to get into your e-mail, computer, or online banking. After all, if I get into one I’ll probably get into all of them.

1. Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number.
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456.
4. “password”
5. Your city, or college, football team name.
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
7. “god”
8. “letmein”
9. “money”
10. “love”

Statistically speaking that should probably cover about 20% of you. But don’t worry. If I didn’t get it yet it will probably only take a few more minutes before I do…

Hackers, and I’m not talking about the ethical kind, have developed a whole range of tools to get at your personal data. And the main impediment standing between your information remaining safe, or leaking out, is the password you choose. (Ironically, the best protection people have is usually the one they take least seriously.)

One of the simplest ways to gain access to your information is through the use of aBrute Force Attack. This is accomplished when a hacker uses a specially written piece of software to attempt to log into a site using your credentials. Insecure.orghas a list of the Top 10 FREE Password Crackers right here.

So, how would one use this process to actually breach your personal security? Simple. Follow my logic:

• You probably use the same password for lots of stuff right?
• Some sites you access such as your Bank or work VPN probably have pretty decent security, so I’m not going to attack them.
• However, other sites like the Hallmark e-mail greeting cards site, an online forum you frequent, or an e-commerce site you’ve shopped at might not be as well prepared. So those are the ones I’d work on.
• So, all we have to do now is unleash Brutus, wwwhack, or THC Hydra on their server with instructions to try say 10,000 (or 100,000 – whatever makes you happy) different usernames and passwords as fast as possible.
• Once we’ve got several login+password pairings we can then go back and test them on targeted sites.
• But wait… How do I know which bank you use and what your login ID is for the sites you frequent? All those cookies are simply stored, unencrypted and nicely named, in your Web browser’s cache. (Read this post to remedy that problem.)

And how fast could this be done? Well, that depends on three main things, the length and complexity of your password, the speed of the hacker’s computer, and the speed of the hacker’s Internet connection.

Assuming the hacker has a reasonably fast connection and PC here is an estimate of the amount of time it would take to generate every possible combination of passwords for a given number of characters. After generating the list it’s just a matter of time before the computer runs through all the possibilities – or gets shut down trying.

Pay particular attention to the difference between using only lowercase characters and using all possible characters (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters – like @#$%^&*). Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.

Password Length	All Characters	Only Lowercase
3 characters 4 characters 5 characters 6 characters 7 characters 8 characters 9 characters 10 characters 11 characters 12 characters 13 characters 14 characters	0.86 seconds 1.36 minutes 2.15 hours 8.51 days 2.21 years 2.10 centuries 20 millennia 1,899 millennia 180,365 millennia 17,184,705 millennia 1,627,797,068 millennia 154,640,721,434 millennia	0.02 seconds .046 seconds 11.9 seconds 5.15 minutes 2.23 hours 2.42 days 2.07 months 4.48 years 1.16 centuries 3.03 millennia 78.7 millennia 2,046 millennia

Remember, these are just for an average computer, and these assume you aren’t using any word in the dictionary. If Google put their computer to work on it they’d finish about 1,000 times faster.

Now, I could go on for hours and hours more about all sorts of ways to compromise your security and generally make your life miserable – but 95% of those methods begin with compromising your weak password. So, why not just protect yourself from the start and sleep better at night?

Believe me, I understand the need to choose passwords that are memorable. But if you’re going to do that how about using something that no one is ever going to guess AND doesn’t contain any common word or phrase in it.

Here are some password tips:

1. Randomly substitute numbers for letters that look similar. The letter ‘o’ becomes the number ‘0?, or even better an ‘@’ or ‘*’. (i.e. – m0d3ltf0rd… like modelTford)
2. Randomly throw in capital letters (i.e. – Mod3lTF0rd)
3. Think of something you were attached to when you were younger, but DON’T CHOOSE A PERSON’S NAME! Every name plus every word in the dictionary will fail under a simple brute force attack.
4. Maybe a place you loved, or a specific car, an attraction from a vacation, or a favorite restaurant?
5. You really need to have different username / password combinations for everything. Remember, the technique is to break into anything you access just to figure out your standard password, then compromise everything else. This doesn’t work if you don’t use the same password everywhere.
6. Since it can be difficult to remember a ton of passwords, I recommend usingRoboform for Windows users. It will store all of your passwords in an encrypted format and allow you to use just one master password to access all of them. It will also automatically fill in forms on Web pages, and you can even get versions that allow you to take your password list with you on your PDA, phone or a USB key. If you’d like to download it without having to navigate their web site here is the direct download link.
7. Mac users can use 1Password“>1Password. It is essentially the same thing as Roboform, except for Mac, and they even have an iPhone application so you can take them with you too.
8. Once you’ve thought of a password, try Microsoft’s password strength testerto find out how secure it is.

By request I also created a short RoboForm Demonstration video. Hope it helps…

Another thing to keep in mind is that some of the passwords you think matter leastactually matter most. For example, some people think that the password to their e-mail box isn’t important because “I don’t get anything sensitive there.” Well, that e-mail box is probably connected to your online banking account. If I can compromise it then I can log into the Bank’s Web site and tell it I’ve forgotten my password to have it e-mailed to me. Now, what were you saying about it not being important?

Often times people also reason that all of their passwords and logins are stored on their computer at home, which is save behind a router or firewall device. Of course, they’ve never bothered to change the default password on that device, so someone could drive up and park near the house, use a laptop to breach the wireless network and then try passwords from this list until they gain control of your network – after which time they will own you!

Now I realize that every day we encounter people who over-exaggerate points in order to move us to action, but trust me this is not one of those times. There are 50 other ways you can be compromised and punished for using weak passwords that I haven’t even mentioned.

I also realize that most people just don’t care about all this until it’s too late and they’ve learned a very hard lesson. But why don’t you do me, and yourself, a favor and take a little action to strengthen your passwords and let me know that all the time I spent on this article wasn’t completely in vain.

Please, be safe. It’s a jungle out there.

_____________________________________________________________

Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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Where do companies get their names?  Whether it is a favorite fruit or a silly acronym, it’s had to see these companies as any other name but their current:

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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Chances are when you die, Facebook will be the first place people whom knew you will look.  If you’re someone special, the press might even check it out as well.  Other than leaving your login credentials in your will, what is the best option available to friends and family via Facebook?

Memorializing Accounts

When a user passes away, we memorialize their account to protect their privacy. Memorializing an account removes certain sensitive information (e.g., status updates and contact information) and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance. Memorializing an account also prevents all login access to it.

Please report this information here so that we can memorialize this person’s account. Memorializing the account removes certain more sensitive information like status updates and restricts profile access to confirmed friends only. Please note that in order to protect the privacy of the deceased user, we cannot provide login information for the account to anyone. We do honor requests from close family members to close the account completely.

If someone in your famiy has passed on and you wish to have that account closed permanently, you can do that as well.  Facebook has stated that they will honor requests from close family members to close the account completely.

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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This increase in performance is only truly realized when used in 64 bit environment.  The general public is commonly accustomed to using computers with 32 operating systems.  These systems can only recognize only so much ram and will use multiple processors or cores but only one at a time, never simultaneously.  One CPU core would do calculations while the other CPU core does others.   In a 64 bit environment the multiple CPU cores will simultaneously calculate the same jobs exponentially processing the jobs faster.  It’s like having four people finish a single job much faster  consistently and going from job to job instead of having four people work on multiple jobs to their maximum ability will all the job calculated at different speeds based on the type of task.  The instruction sets of the CPU are usually managed based on the configuration of the hardware on the motherboard.

The speed of computers is so fast these days that the true limit of some of these processors is not noticed unless your computer is for high end media production or serious gaming.  And some of the performance is marginal because of the advancing requirements of the new operating systems.  If Windows 2000 professional was able to utilized a quad-core  processor and eight or more gigs of ram is loading and processing ability would be blinding fast because the basic requirements to run the OS are far lower than today’s Windows 7 OS.

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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Stay tuned, and please send us your ideas and feedback.

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Jeremy Gibson | PCQuikFix

Computer & Electronic Repair Solutions
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