This will probably resonate with any PC support technician and was voted by our panel of 1 grumpy old PC tech as being the best PC joke ever. It’s usually told as a long joke, so I have summarised it into a few lines. If you’re a tech, then I think you’ll appreciate the brevity as well as the levity.
The wife texts her husband on a cold winters morning:
“Windows frozen.”
Husband texts back:
“Pour some lukewarm water over it.”
Wife texts back:
“Computer is completely messed up now.”
By far the biggest market leaders in hardware wallets are Trezor and Ledger. Most people are lazy and won’t do anything about security until the proverbial poop hits the fan. And wow, it certainly has done this for a lot of cryptocurrency owners. It seems like most days we hear about crypto hacks and scams, so wouldn’t it be nice to have just one device that you can treat like a bank vault? Well that’s a hardware wallet.
You’re probably here because you want to own (or already own) cryptocurrency and you probably know that the right thing to do is to get it off the exchange or your computer where it is extremely vulnerable to attacks, so you’re already on the path to securing your data.
Without a doubt, Trezor and Ledger offer the most popular and reliable products currently available. If you buy either device, make sure you get it from the manufacturer’s website or from an authorised reseller. Amazon sell these items, often cheaper than Trezor themselves, but again make sure you buy from a reputable source and not used or from unknown or auction sites.
The links below take you to Trezor and Ledger’s official Amazon outlet:
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If you are looking to support more cryptos than just BTC and ETH then go for the more expensive models. There’s no Solana (SOL) support on the Trezor Model One for example, but there are over 9000 other cryptos supported on it.
Make sure when you receive it that the holographic sticker on the box shows no sign of tampering. It’s unlikely to happen but it’s there for a reason.
Well, they are small USB devices that store your private keys, heavily encrypted. These keys are kept offline as opposed to online such as on an exchange or on a computer. This eliminates the risk of your funds being stolen. By using them, you’ll have extremely strong protection against malware and viruses.
Importantly, any transactions that you do are verified on the USB device itself, not the computer. As mentioned, computers are prone to all sorts of manipulation and software attacks. In the case of the Trezor and Ledger devices, these hardware wallets are encrypted with a pin code that you create which protects you against loss or theft.
Honestly, if you asked me to do this to demonstrate this then I wouldn’t use my own cryptocurrency! Hardware wallets are as secure a solution as we have at the moment, but I have been around computers for a long time and know that where there’s a potential of financial reward the hackers will attempt to circumvent any security method if possible.
Combine your hardware wallet with a nice, clean computer and you effectively become your own bank. Better still, keep a dedicated PC or laptop offline and just use it for your crypto transactions on known websites.
When you transact using a hardware wallet, your private keys stay on the hardware. In short, your private keys are never actually required to be stored on your computer, your cloud storage or anywhere else (such as a website) that would be open to attack.
You recover the hardware wallets through the use of a recovery phrase, also known as your seed phrase or private key. This is usually a string of words that you would write down on a piece of paper at the time of setting up your hardware device. Lose these and it is ‘Game Over’ for ever retrieving your crypto. That said, there are methods of storing your seed phrase better than on a piece of paper, and I’ll go on to talk about that in another article.
You simply buy another one and restore your ‘account’ by entering your seed phrase.
Cryptocurrencies can be stored on a number of mediums such as on an exchange or in a digital wallet on your computer, tablet or phone. Without a doubt, I would endorse the use of a dedicated hardware wallet as it is currently offers the highest levels of security against theft or loss.
As an Amazon Associate, plus Trezor and Ledger affilliate, I earn from qualifying purchases read more
Accuranker is a very impressive tool that helps you to accurately monitor keywords for your websites. We were that impressed that we now run this tool daily and wanted to put together a mini Accuranker review.
This tool is aimed at users with single websites, right up to agencies with hundreds of sites. You can see at a quick glance how your keywords are performing daily, and you don’t even need to run a report, you can see live data on the website or get scheduled reports sent through to you by email.
Initial setup is simple, just choose Google or Bing (or both) and select desktop or mobile (or both) to see how your keywords perform on these devices. Your package will include a limited number of keywords and this is different for each subscription level. Note that if you have, for example, a site with 10 keywords tracked, then checking results for Google Desktop counts as 10 keywords. If you add Google mobile too, this would then count as 20 keywords. Add Bing desktop and mobile into the mix and you’ll be up to 40 keywords. It’s easy to forget this when ordering a package, so make sure you get the right one for you. Their keyword allowance is quite generous though, especially given that Accuranker check them daily by default.
Impressively, this tool links into your Google Analytics account to pull even more data for you. As you can see from their image below, you can integrate with many more services such as DataStudio, Sheets and more:
So with this tool you can now see your ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The graphing software on the site is impressive, allowing you to drill down into each keyword’s ranking history with a few clicks.
AccuRanker is maintained by some clever people and updates come through quite regularly adding new functionality. All the updates we have seen have been useful and have added more value to the tool. You can also take advantage of their 14-day free trial to see if it is the right SEO tool for your needs.
Agencies will love the automatic monitoring and reporting features. You can even send a scheduled report out to your clients, a great bonus. Different data export formats will suit most agencies (and beginners too). If you’re still using Excel and CSV for your reporting or metrics then this is easily available for export.
One great SEO trick is checking how your keywords stack up against the same ones for other websites. Accuranker monitors keyword competition and lets you know who ranks higher than you, which is great for beating your competitors. Accuranker also uses “Share of Voice” which is a cool name for their trickest feature. This allows you to view who has more share of the search engine results for given keywords. It’s a great metric to quickly see if you are pushing your competitors further away or if they’re catching you up.
All in all, the clear layout, the impressive charting and reporting make this package the best we have seen for SEO reporting. We now use it daily to monitor and track our keywords too.
With a 14-day free trial, clear navigation and simple yet effective reporting, AccuRanker is now the keyword tracking SEO tool to beat.
These are the instructions to follow when renewing the licence on Kaspersky Internet Security. I’ll presume that you have a new licence key to hand from a recent version and that the product is the same (eg not Kaspersky Pure etc). If you don’t have a new licence yet, you’ll find them for sale at discounted prices here [Hint: search for ‘kaspersky internet security 3 user’ or however many computers you need to protect]
You can buy the new licence in advance of your current product expiring, but you don’t need to wait until the existing licence has expired to install it any more. Kaspersky now seems to add on the remaining days from your current licence to your new licence, providing the product is the same.
First, open Kaspersky. The quickest way is to double click the icon in your system tray (bottom right of your desktop screen). If you can’t see it there, use the little arrow on the left to expand the icons and find it. It’s a red letter K like this one below:
Now, look in the bottom right of the Kaspersky window and click on ‘License: xx days remaining’ (where xx is your actual days remaining).
Now click on the ‘Enter activation code’ button.
Finally, type in your activation code, or copy and paste it if you received it by email. Be careful to get EXACTLY the right code as some letters do look similar! You can copy and paste the whole of the new licence key into the first entry field, it will separate them for you.
Press the ‘Save activation code’ button and you’re done. Give the PC a restart, open Kaspersky again and you should be able to see your licence has the correct amount of days remaining.
I sell full versions in my shop here at discounted prices that are often much cheaper than renewal. Grab the code from those and you won’t need to install anything, just follow the method above.
I had a laptop PC in today, a Toshiba Tecra A8 running Windows XP with a Centrino Duo sticker on it. The customer wanted to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit but wasn’t sure if it would be supported. Even running the Windows upgrade advisor made him none the wiser.
I explained that the Centrino Duo name doesn’t necessarily mean that the processor has a true dual core, only the core 2 duos would have this. Centrino is only a sticker branding, really only relating to usage of the Intel Wifi and WiMax brands. To run Win 7 64 Bit he would need a processor of this ilk:
Luckily, on further investigation, his Tecra A8 shipped with a T5500 which is a true Core 2 Duo processor. Only the Core 2 Duos incorporate the 64 bit extensions that allow them to run 64 bit software, not the Core Duos. He had previously had an upgrade from us that upped his RAM to 4 GB so this laptop was a suitable candidate for the upgrade to Win 7.
An hour later he left the shop with a newly installed Windows 7 system on his Toshiba Tecra A8 which ran nice and smooth.
I came across a recent bug today on a client site where the excellent ‘Search Everything’ plugin was updated to the latest version (currently 8.1.3) and the search suddenly returned no results on the website.
I narrowed it down to the ‘category exclude’ option as unchecking this box in the admin area made the plugin work as it should again. As you can see below, I had just one category in there for exclusion:
Unfortunately, unchecking this also broke my client’s search functionality as they had over 2000 posts we had to exclude from their search results, all in that one category.
Examining the code a bit further, it seemed something was probably amiss in wp-content/plugins/search-everything/search-everything.php around line 735:
// create the Categories exclusion query
function se_build_exclude_categories() {
global $wpdb;
$excludeQuery = '';
if ( !empty( $this->query_instance->query_vars['s'] ) ) {
$excludedCatList = trim( $this->options['se_exclude_categories_list'] );
if ( $excludedCatList != '' ) {
$excluded_cat_list = array();
foreach(explode( ',', $excludedCatList ) as $cat_id) {
$excluded_cat_list[] = (int)$cat_id;
}
$excl_list = implode( ',', $excluded_cat_list);
if ( $this->wp_ver23 ) {
$excludeQuery = " AND ( ctax.term_id NOT IN ( ".$excl_list." ) OR (wp_posts.post_type IN ( 'page' )))";
}
else {
$excludeQuery = ' AND (c.category_id NOT IN ( '.$excl_list.' ) OR (wp_posts.post_type IN ( \'page\' )))';
}
}
$this->se_log( "ex category where: ".$excludeQuery );
}
return $excludeQuery;
}
Glad to see that the developers have neatly laid out and commented the code, usually the sign of a decent plugin. I initially thought that escaping the apostrophes in the first reference to ‘page’ may work but it didn’t seem to. Here’s my temporary fix that works for my client until the developer can take a look:
// create the Categories exclusion query
function se_build_exclude_categories() {
global $wpdb;
$excludeQuery = '';
if ( !empty( $this->query_instance->query_vars['s'] ) ) {
$excludedCatList = trim( $this->options['se_exclude_categories_list'] );
if ( $excludedCatList != '' ) {
$excluded_cat_list = array();
foreach(explode( ',', $excludedCatList ) as $cat_id) {
$excluded_cat_list[] = (int)$cat_id;
}
$excl_list = implode( ',', $excluded_cat_list);
if ( $this->wp_ver23 ) {
$excludeQuery = " AND ( ctax.term_id NOT IN ( ".$excl_list." ))";
}
else {
$excludeQuery = ' AND (c.category_id NOT IN ( '.$excl_list.' ))';
}
}
$this->se_log( "ex category where: ".$excludeQuery );
}
return $excludeQuery;
}
If you are a bit unsure of messing with php files, do this:
If you do apply this, don’t forget to keep an eye out for the bugfix from the plugin developers.
Hope it works for you!
The owners of the Norton software brand, Symantec, have embarked on a strange rebranding exercise. Let’s face it, the antivirus company that doesn’t move with the times is going to get left behind. So what is this replacement for the products “Norton 360”, “Norton Internet Security” and “Norton Antivirus” going to be called? Something cute like “Poppy” or brutal like “JackHammer” perhaps? Maybe a more purposeful name like “Virus Obliterator”? Err no… meet… wait for it…
Norton Security
There’s a new Sheriff in town (and his name sounds very much like the old one). For me, Norton needed to move away from that name. The early versions were absolute resource hogs (I’m going back to pre 2009 or thereabouts) but they tidied their act up and started to present versions that were slick, had low CPU/RAM usage and made use of a pretty decent user interface. All in, it became a well rounded product. It was then that they should have rebranded in my eyes. Ask most people who used the old security suites if they recommend Norton now and they’ll say “Nah, bloated rubbish”. Bad reputations are harder to shake if you keep the same name. Shit sticks it seems…
Well let’s see what the new business model is then. According to Symantec:
As a current customer of a Norton AntiVirus, Norton Internet Security or Norton 360 product, you can continue to renew your subscription at this time, receive protection updates, and support for the product you have been using. If you are currently enrolled in Automatic Renewal Service, renewal of your enrolled product will be processed until further notice. During the renewal process, you may also have the option to upgrade to a different product. Choose the renewal or new product with the features that best meet your needs and you will continue to receive the latest in security updates during your subscription.
So, basically yes, they will offer support and updates for old products but will be pushing users to upgrade to the new family of products.
This is the alternative to the plain Internet Security version. Cloud backup is something they have offered since Norton 360 came along, but now there is a move towards the ever-increasing synchronising of mobile and tablet data, Norton are unsurprisingly jumping on this.
If I was to be totally cynical, I’d say that it is a great business plan to offer cloud backup, even at cost price. Why? Well if the Internet Security software subscription is due and the user doesn’t renew, then they lose their online data. Who would want this? Guaranteed renewals makes sense for vendors and reduces the risk of jumping ship to sail with another vendor like Kaspersky, AVG or McAfee to name but a few.
We shall be reviewing the new software suites and doing comparative real-world tests but, until then, rest assured that the old Symantec Norton products are supported and will continue to receive updates.
I am certainly impressed by the way that Tresorit seems to be handling security and also the openness of their company about methods they use and reject.
Their recent blog post shows that they are really trying to excel in the online backup industry by pushing current protocols beyond the standard ‘accepted’ limits.
When we designed Tresorit, we were faced with two contrary options: using widespread, well-tested, standardized, industry standard protocols and creating (or implementing) new, stronger protocols. We decided to combine the best of these approaches: we use the strongest standard one, and extend it with our protocol on a way that if our protocol fails, it fallback to the standard one.
I worked for many years in the computer security and penetration testing arena and most encryption methods I previously struggled to get past are now easily cracked by anyone with a laptop, some free software and some common sense. Times move on and you can’t presume something is safe because there are no current published exploits for it.
Tresorit is a relatively new but forward-thinking company that seem to have got their security levels right rather than waiting on the day they are compromised to address this. Keep up the good work Tresorit and keep pushing the boundaries of encryption.
https://tresorit.com
There’s a very good coupon code deal on Photo albums and online printing via Photobox. Photobox make high quality canvasses, aluminium prints, Photo books, Photo mugs and jigsaw puzzles.
Here’s a coupon code you can use to get even better savings.
Just use the link below, create your album or prints and type in FIFTYOFF at the checkout. Any order over £40 gets a whopping 50% off!
If you’re spending less, don’t worry. Try the coupon code 5OFF20 and get £5 off all orders over £20
There are lots of tasty new features in the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware version 1.7 update, not least of which is the dropping of that crusty old ‘M’ logo. Always looked a bit cheap and nasty to me, nice to see it changed at last. Under the hood there are some important changes so I’ll list them here:
Major changes:
• New program logo and icons (adding a much-needed slickness!)
• Heuristics for zero day exploit detection now implemented in protection module for PRO version
• Threats detected by the protection module are now quarantined automatically by default
• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware now shows Windows 8 START screen notifications
• More Tools tab enhanced with tons of new content and more to come in the future
• Option to allow a threat to run temporarily (Allow Temporarily) added to filesystem protection prompts
• Option to add a detected item to the Ignore List (Allow Always) added to filesystem protection prompts
Some nice improvements:
• Heuristics for detecting new and unknown threats improved
• Scanner efficiency improved
• Microsoft Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 now identified correctly in scan logs
• Help file updated to include information on new features
• Better compatibility with many other security products in realtime (this is much needed, thanks guys)
Issues Fixed:
• Minor issue with password creation from CLI fixed
Here is a screenshot of the improved tools area:
All in all, a decent update from what is still the best anti-malware out there. Buy the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware Pro version at the best price here