All computer stuff. Also use Hardware or Software categories where possible.
I wanted to know what the difference is between VGA cables with 14 pin and 15 “D” connectors. I found the answer on the Instructables site/forum. The info I needed was contained in a reply to a query by onrust circa 2010.
Well I got my answer from “ganzieee” at instructables. It was delivered 5 years ago and it follows here.
Continue reading “14 Pin & 15 Pin D Connectors on VGA Cables”This post describes: My success at cooling fan lubrication on an NVIDIA GeForce GTS240 PC display adapter to silence it when it became noisy.
Continue reading “Cooling Fan Lubrication For An NVIDIA GeForce GTS240”The following post will describe how to turn Windows 10 Fast Startup OFF or ON. I usually turn it off on my PCs because I’ve had startup problems as described in the following sections.
Continue reading “I Found Windows 10 Fast Startup Caused Problems”Since the introduction of Windows 10 version 1709, and acquiring a new backup drive, I have chosen to use Windows 10 File History to backup my PC. So far so good. I have used it to backup my data and to restore some..
I will describe how this tool is used from my point of view, but first I’ll give you my history regarding backing up.
Continue reading “Windows 10 File History Is Used To Backup My PC”I have recently come across an issue where good people wish to convey information about malicious websites to everyone. They’re doing very good work tying to keep us all safe and informed by discussing malicious website URLs (Universal Resource Locators), particularly on Twitter. Unfortunately Twitter creates a link in the text to anything looking like a URL. This means malicious websites that are mentioned by their URLs are given links allowing readers to accidentally go to them.
Continue reading “Discussing Malicious Website URLs On Twitter”The LastPass password phishing exploit could trick users into giving away their password.
If you use LastPass check this exploit out at The Hacker Blog and IT Pro. It involves unscrupulous people phishing for LastPass passwords.
This issue is now fixed for all the latest versions of Lastpass on Chrome & Internet Explorer at least.
This article covers some of the issues involved when using a Digital Signature. Each Digital Signature is generated from a Digital Certificate (otherwise known as a Digital ID) issued by a certifying authority.
All examples given are created using Microsoft Outlook 2010 on a PC using Microsoft Windows 10, but the principles apply to other versions of Outlook and other email clients.
This article has been written to compliment my previous article Make Safe Financial Transactions.
Anyone using an Apple Mac can get appropriate certificate information in this article published by TechRepublic entitled: How to configure digitally signed email in Apple Mail.
Continue reading “Using A Digital Signature With Outlook”After much editing of my WordPress post entitled ‘How A Toilet Silent Fill Valve Works’, since I wrote it in May 2014, (there must have been at least 150 edits, and I changed it from a page to a post too) I suddenly had this ‘Fatal Error Out of Memory’ script on the WordPress White Screen of Death when I tried to edit it:
Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 54001664) (tried to allocate 49253 bytes) in /homepages/22/d382273723/htdocs/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1380
Continue reading “WordPress Fatal Error Out of Memory”In December 2009 the European Union obliged Microsoft to offer a choice of browsers to their European customers when they installed new versions of Windows. This browser choice was also delivered in updates to Windows and so the Browser Choice screen was born and has been with us ever since. See my featured image of Microsoft’s browser choice screen offering Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and the Opera browsers amongst others.
It turns out that this requirement by the EU had a time limit of five years which has now expired. Consequently Microsoft have quietly withdrawn the option to choose other browsers and returned to providing Internet Explorer alone. People can of course continue to use other browsers with Windows as they see fit but Internet Explorer is now what comes out of the box.
Continue reading “Browser Choice In Microsoft Windows Ends”A recently discovered Backdoor Trojan Regin is a computer bug found by the software security company Symantec. Its purpose is to spy on the activities taking place on computers. It can collect passwords, capture screen images and even recover deleted files.
The Backdoor Trojan Regin has been made to operate in five stages the last two being encrypted to make it very difficult to discover and understand. If any stage were to be discovered it would say little about the other stages. Two stages are specifically given over to loading each other and the other stages. You can download a comprehensive PDF file from Broadcom describing Regin in detail at this Broadcom (previously Symantec) site. Selecting this link may automatically download the regin-top-tier-espionage-tool-15-en.pdf file into your download folder and display it in your PDF reader. To get access to this file manually go to:
https://www.broadcom.com/support/security-center/publications/whitepapers
and scroll down the page to the Frequently Visited section where you will find it listed as:
Regin: Top-tier espionage tool enables stealthy surveillance
Select that link on the page to download the file.
Backdoor Trojan Regin appears to have been developed as far back as 2008 and by its sophisticated nature was probably developed by a nation state as opposed to criminals. It appears to have been withdrawn from use by its masters in 2011 and a new version reintroduced in 2013.
The Backdoor Trojan Regin has been made extremely stealthy so that it is very hard to determine what it is up to even after discovery. It could go undetected for years. For those interested it uses RC5 encryption which isn’t commonly used.
