Spammers commonly find email recipients by using a spambot by searching for addresses on websites, forums, or Usenet groups, for example. Another way is to use a name generating type of software which produces likely common words, names, or numerical combinations of email addresses for the sole purpose of sending spam. The more popular an ISP, the more spam is mailed to its members.
If you currently receive unsolicited email on your desktop, you can get it filtered out through settings at your Internet Service Provider’s gateway, the network email server or email gateway, or through your own antispam software or filter on your computer. You have the option of purchasing a wide variety of spam blocking or filtering software---or you can download freeware or shareware as your solution to the spam problem. The problem is that with some of these software options the quality can be quite low and the filtering not really effective. You will find that a combination of strategies, such as using a separate email address, adding some recommended antispam software by experts to your computer, for example, will go a long way toward reducing levels of spam in your mailbox.
For example, the use of content based filtering based on the header of the email is somewhat helpful, but spammers are now changing spelling or some phrases in order to escape the phrase detecting spam filters. Content filtering can be put into action by analyzing the spamming URLs in the body of the email. The URL cannot be concealed as it must have a domain name. The list of these links and reporting them to a list of spamming websites is a good way to stop the much of the spam.
Sometimes many email users use a disposable email address, which is a temporary address that forward mail to your real account. A few services do offer disposable address forwarding. Addresses can be eliminated, or have an expiration date after a certain time period, or can expire after a certain number of messages are forwarded to the address. Or you can use that address to receive email and that you can close or abandon the email address whenever you want.
Another tip is to steer clear of responding to spam, even by responding negatively or complaining about the spamming email. By responding, you are informing the spammer that you have a valid email address. This is probably one of the worst things you can do as it could lead to even more spam as a result. So the last tip is don’t ever respond to spamming emails.
How to Stop Spam in your Email
Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Password Recovery Procedures
by: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
It might happen on your CCNA exam, it might happen on your production network - but sooner or later, you're going to have to perform password recovery on a Cisco router or switch. This involves manipulating the router's configuration register, and that is enough to make some CCNA candidates and network administrators really nervous!
It's true that setting the configuration register to the wrong value can damage the router, but if you do the proper research before starting the password recovery process, you'll be fine.
Despite what some books say, there is no "one size fits all" approach to Cisco password recovery. What works on a 2500 router may not work on other routers and switches. There is a great master Cisco document out on the Web that you should bookmark today. Just put "cisco password recovery" in your favorite search engine and you should find it quickly.
The following procedure describes the process in recovering from a lost password on a Cisco 2500 router. As always, don't practice this at home. It is a good idea to get some practice with this technique in your CCNA / CCNP home lab, though!
The password recovery method examined here is for 2500 routers.
An engineer who finds themselves locked out of a router can view and change the password by changing the configuration register.
The router must first be rebooted and a “break” performed within the first 60 seconds of the boot process. This break sequence can also vary depending on what program is used to access the router, but is the usual key combination.
The router will now be in ROM Monitor mode. From the rom monitor prompt, change the default configuration register of 0x2102 to 0x2142 with the o/r 0x2142 command. Reload the router with the letter i. (As you can see, ROM Monitor mode is a lot different than working with the IOS!)
This particular config register setting will cause the router to ignore the contents of NVRAM. Your startup configuration is still there, but it will be ignored on reload.
When the router reloads, you’ll be prompted to enter Setup mode. Answer “N”, and type enable at the router> prompt.
Be careful here. Type configure memory or copy start run. Do NOT type write memory or copy run start!
Enter the command show running-config. You’ll see the passwords in either their encrypted or unencrypted format.
Type config t, then use the appropriate command to set a new enable secret or enable password.
Don’t forget to change the configuration register setting back to the original value! The command config-register 0x2102 will do the job. Save this change with write memory or copy run start, and then run reload one more time to restart the router.
This process sounds hard, but it's really not. You just have to be careful, particularly when you're copying the startup config over the running config. You don't want to get that backwards! So take your time, check the online Cisco documentation before starting, get some practice with this procedure with lab equipment, and you'll be ready for success on the CCNA exam and in your production network!
Laptop Batteries and Laptop Battery Care
Laptop Batteries are essential for keeping a laptop running properly. In many cases, businesses, whether personal or corporate, depend on laptops for business dealings day to day. There are a number of ways to properly care and maintain a laptops main power source, the battery. Battery construction of laptop batteries is very different from other traditional electronic device batteries. A brief overview of the construction of laptop batteries will help provide insight into factors that affect the life and care of laptop batteries.
Laptop batteries are constructed with a number of crucial components to regulate charge and power supply to the laptop. A thermistor measures the charge of the battery and regulates how much charge the laptop sends to the battery. When the battery is fully charged, the thermistor tells the laptop to stop charging. Safety fuses and breakers in the laptop battery also help prevent overcharging and aid in overall functionality of the laptop battery. So there is an essential communication that must occur between the components of the laptop battery and the laptop itself to ensure proper function of both the computer and the power supply.
Laptop batteries are becoming more advanced that other types of batteries. In the past they were constructed of NiCd or NiMH which provided less power and did not recharge well. Lithium polymer batteries are the newest revelation in battery technology and they are leaps and bounds beyond old metal batteries. They provide the right amount of power and charge in a fraction of the time of metal batteries. The advantages of lithium batteries make new laptop batteries more practical. Lithium batteries therefore help improve the life of laptop batteries and also make them a more valuable battery for the money.
There are a number of precautions to take to ensure safe and practical function of the laptop battery. Some laptop batteries can become overheated from charging which can create a fire hazard. It is important to place the laptop battery in a location that is free of flammable objects such as paper or furnishings. In general, it is good to avoid extreme temperatures for proper optimal function of a laptop battery. Battery life of a laptop battery depends greatly on how the laptop is used. A laptop battery will not last very long without being charged. A useful method to extend battery life is to close as many unnecessary programs as possible. By closing programs that will not be needed will save useful battery life.
These are just a few pieces of information about laptop batteries that will help the user understand how to care for laptop batteries and how to manage laptop battery life. There is much more information about laptop batteries, including battery construction, battery charging and much more.
How To Choose Voice Recognition Software?
by: Gray Rollins
Voice recognition software allows the user to use their voice as an input device so they can dictate text directly into the computer as well as give the computer commands such as open, save or close. Current software has come a long way from the first voice recognition software that was available.
The older software used discrete speech which meant distinct pauses had to occur between words. Current software uses continuous speech voice recognition and is capable of recognizing speech up to 160 wpm. It uses what is called a neutral net to learn to recognize voices. Accuracy has improved a great deal in the past few years.
When shopping for voice recognition software be sure to have the answers to these questions:
1. What operating system is the software compatible with?
2. What amount of memory is required?
3. What speed of processor is required?
4. What type of learning curve does the software have?
5. Will it work with existing word processing software?
6. Does it come with a microphone?
7. How fast is it?
8. Will you need a USB microphone?
9. Is it macro capable?
There is quite a variety of Voice Recognition Software packages currently on the market. Here are just a few to check out.
1. Conversa Messenger – A desktop messaging system for small businesses that allows you to access your voicemail, e-mail, and faxes by voice. It’s easy to use and has continuous speech recognition.
2. Dragon Naturally Speaking Essentials – For ages 9 and up; it provides an introduction to continuous speech recognition with a vocabulary of more than 250,000 terms and 160,000 active words.
3. Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional – Allows you to dictate up to 160 words per minute, launch applications, complete forms, and do other complex tasks. Dragon also has specialty programs such as Medical Suite and Legal Suite.
4. Eloquently Started – Designed for physicians for producing medical records. It comes complete with a sophisticated database and is designed for producing detailed medical reports quickly.
5. Realize Voice – Uses the Whisper speech recognition engine that requires no training, although you can train it to improve its vocabulary. It can open and close windows and carry out basic task functions.
6. Interactive Voice Assistant IVA – This assistant will not only let you talk to it, it will talk to you; and you can tell your assistant what to do in English. It is capable of dictating email, sending, replying, searching the Internet and carrying out other basic computer tasks.
7. Micro Intro Voice II – A complete voice input and output system with an accuracy rate of more than 98%. This is a powerful piece of software and it’s available for large or small networks.
8. ViaVoice Millennium Pro – It uses continuous speech and is capable of desktop navigation; inputting, editing, and formatting text; proofreading; and direct dictation. There are also legal and medical dictionaries available.
These are eight of the voice recognition software choices, but there are many other excellent programs. Do a quick search online and you’ll have lots to choose from. Do your research and ensure the voice recognition software you choose will meet your needs.
5 Tips For New Internet Surfers
by: Franck Silvestre
When you are new to the web, trying to start a new business to make a living online, you need advices to make your surffing life easier...
Everyday, thousands of new surfers open their browsers for the first time, it is confusing in the beginning, but if you have some good advices in the early beginning, you can surf easier and faster with a friendly browser...
Tip 1: Surf in security.
The first action that you will do if you are new to the net is to open your browser to surf. If you have a PC, like most of the Internet population. You will have Internet explorer installed in your computer, but it is not the best browser available on the net, and it is in fact limited. You may think that it is hard to surf on Internet.
When you will discover Mozilla Firefox, you will be even more happy to surf on Internet, for sure.
One of the first reason you should use Firefox is the integrated Firewall, which protect you against spyware and other adawares.
Tip 2: No need to tape http://www.---.com all the time.
The second reason to choose Firefox is that you save time; for instance, when you went on ebay.com yesterday, you wrote: http://www.ebay.com with Firefox, you just tape “e” in the address bar of your browser, then http://www.ebay.com will appear in the drop down menu, it's like magic, and it's fun too.
Tip 3: See all your pages in only one window.
I really love this one; you can surf in tab. That is really powerful.
For instance, with Internet Explorer, whenever you click on a link, you have 2 choice: open the page in the same window, or open it in a new window. Firefox enable you to open several pages in one window.
Let's explain: you are now looking yahoo.com, and you want to see the news, you just right click on the link, select open in a new tab, and you have now two pages in only one window. To switch between your pages, you just need to click on anyone of the page you want to look in, all that in the same window. You can open fifteen windows in one time if you want.
Better, you can bookmark(in Internet explorer, bookmark is favorites) a tab, and open it later. It is a very intelligent way of surfing. It is very efficient when you are doing some researches on a subject, on google for example.
Tip 4: All your downloads at the same place.
The fourth reason to choose Firefox is that when you download a file on your computer, sometimes, you want to open it, but you face a problem: Where did you save that file? With Firefox, just click on tools, and then you select download, and a pop up window appear. You just scroll to find your program. It will save you time and a lot of headaches.
However, it is recommended, for the first time, to save your download on your desktop, then after save your file in the folder you choose. You can download firefox for Free. You just type firefox in google.com and you're done.
Tip 5: Don't forget a good anti virus,
While you surf on Internet, some hijackers will attempt to damage your computer, by introducing a virus in it. If you don't take your precaution, you may loose all that is stored in your hard disk. You can download AVG, which is excellent at download.com.
There is a lot to learn when you start on Internet, but take your time. And everything will go smoothly.
Getting Started With Your New Printer
by: John Sollars
If you have recently bought yourself a new printer, follow the directions in the manual for setting up cables. Put the installation CD into the CD drive and follow the set up instructions.
If you are using Windows 95/98, select Start Menu, then select Printers. Now select Add Printer, select Local Printer. Choose your printer (If your printer is not listed, choose the one closest to yours and select OK).
For the Mac, select go to server, (or chooser) and then select printer. Then choose your printer. (If your printer is not listed, then select the closest one.) Then select install.
If you are using Windows XP, then the PC will prompt you for the drivers and install the relevant one from the CD itself (if the appropriate driver is not in the database already).
If you have any problems printing, first check your cable connections. If you get repeated error messages, then reboot your computer and redo the steps above.
If you would like to upgrade the driver of your currently installed printed, then follow the steps given in the next sub-topic.
Installing Printer Drivers
A printer driver is a piece of software that allows the computer to communicate with the printer. Without this software, the printer would be hopelessly lost since it does not speak the same language! Printer manufacturers often update the drivers and these they can be easily downloaded form the company’s website for free. It is a good idea to keep a check on your printer driver version and upgrade if it is too far out of date.
Here is how you can check your print driver version number:
Windows XP
1. Click the Windows Start button, choose Control Panel, and then choose ‘Printers and Faxes.’
2. Right-click your default printer and choose Properties. (Your default printer will have a checkmark within a black circle above the printer icon.)
3. Click the General tab, click the ‘Print Test Page’ button, and then click OK to print the test page.
Windows 95/98
1. Click the Windows Start button, choose Settings, and then Printers.
2. Right-click your default printer and choose Properties. (Your default printer will have a checkmark within a black circle above the printer icon.)
3. Click the General tab, click the ‘Print Test Page’ button, and then click OK to print the test page.
Look on the test page for Driver Version.
All major printer manufactures have web sites that allow you to freely download their printer drivers. To do so, you will need your printer’s manufacturer and model number. When you go to the web site, look for words such as ‘Downloads’, ‘Drivers’, ‘Software’, or ‘Support’ and shortlist your model.
Given below are the website URLs for the popular brands:
Hewlett Packard — http://welcome.hp.com/country/uk/en/support.html?pageDisplay=drivers
Canon — http://software.canon-europe.com/
Epson — http://emeasupport.epson-europe.com/downloads.aspx?LNG=en-EU
Lexmark — http://support.lexmark.com/cgi-perl/selections.cgi?ccs=227:5:0:0:0:0&target=http://downloads.lexmark.com/cgi-perl/downloads.cgi&&req=:::::
Xerox — http://www.support.xerox.com/go/prodselect.asp?Xlang=en_GB&metrics=HDR
Brother — http://www.brother.com/E-ftp/info/index_eu.html
Troubleshooting Printer Problems
In this section, you’ll find some of the more common problems that cause 45 percent of the help centre phone calls.
If nothing has occurred since the last time you used your printer, chances are the problem is quite straightforward. As obvious as it sounds, check to ensure that the printer is turned on. It is quite possible that somebody might have turned it off while you were away from your desk or computer. Make sure the printed is connected properly and there is power to the printer. All printers have some kind of LED that lets you know if it is powered up.
If the printer is turned on but has some flashing lights, then check with your owner’s manual to see what the lights mean. Most of these indicators will be related either to paper, ink, or toner.
Make sure there is enough paper in the printer. Refill the paper tray if it’s empty. Make sure you ‘fan’ the paper stack before putting it in the printer. When the paper stack is cut and packed at the factory, it sometimes causes the pages to stick together. Fanning the paper simply involves flipping through the paper stack with your thumb. This ruffling separates the paper, thereby reducing paper jams.
If the paper is stacked well, then check for a mis-feed or paper jam. Remove the paper stack and check the feed area for jammed paper. You may have to open several panels to make a thorough examination. Even a small piece of paper stuck inside the printer can cause problems. You might have to use tweezers to remove small pieces. Be careful of any contact of the tweezers with printer parts to avoid any damage.
If everything listed above is in place, then check the wire that connects the printer to the computer. You may be using a parallel or a USB connection. Make sure the cable is connected properly. Turn the equipment off and remove and re-insert the connection on both the printer and the computer to ensure a solid connection. If you are at work and your printer is connected to what appears to be a telephone wire, then you should call your resident network expert.
If the printer is functioning but only seems to print illegible garbage, then that is a good indication of a printer driver problem. Try re-booting the computer and turning the printer off and on before making any changes to the driver. If after re-booting you still have the problem, it's probably time to replace the printer driver. You can download the driver from the website URLs listed earlier in this articles. Follow the instructions given by the manufacturer to install your driver.
Scanner can also sometimes interfere with printers. Try re-installing the software for both but install the printer driver first, and the scanner driver afterwards.
If nothing listed above results in a solution, then perhaps it might be time to call the printer manufacturer. Make sure that you are near the printer when you call and have all your warranty information available at hand.
4 Ways To Make Your Word File "Slim"
by: Isaac Chu
This time we will talk about some related to your office daily work. Did you encounter the following situation? You want to send an email with a Word file attachment, but the email cannot be send out cause the Word file is too large. And you waste many efforts in making the file slim. You can try the following methods, which can reduce the size a lot.
1. Save as
In Menu, choose "File > Save As", and save the file with a new name. You can compare the new file with original one; you will find that the file size of new one is much smaller.
You can also work in this way. Select the whole content of the document, copy and paste it to a new blank document and save it. Again, you will that file size of two documents is different.
2. Delete old versions
If there are many old versions kept in the file, the file size will be larger. In Menu, choose "File > Version", check to see if there is any old version saved. You can delete those versions with no value to make the file slim.
3. Insert picture wisely
"Insert Picture" is one of the main reasons for the word file get fat. Try to insert a smaller picture. You can use graphic editor to reduce the size of picture before insert into the file. The file format should use GIF or JPG and do not use those high-resolution graphic, like BMP.
4. Don't "Embed True Type Font"
"Embed True Type Font" will increase the size of word file. In Menu, choose "Tools > Options", switch to "Save" tab page. Confirm that your word file have no true type font, and cancel the "Embed True Type Font" option. If you embed true type font, then choose "Embed characters in use only".
Try the above four methods, you will see your word file getting slim.
