Is Your Password Secure?

Is your password complex enough to prevent un-autorized access?

Here are a few guidlines to consider before selecting any password.

You should never use the same password for all of your accounts. Ideally you should not use the same user name or password for any account. If a hacker acquires your password for one account this password will be the first thing tried by the hacker for any other accounts they detect.

Use long passwords which employ at least eight characters with a combination of numbers as well as lower and uppercase letters.

Often hackers use utilities designed to randomly generate letters and numbers. These utilities try different combinations of letters and numbers and will attempt to randomly guess passwords in multiple attempts over a selected time period until the password and user name are found.

Do not use common names such as titles, well known names or nicknames. This includes the names of your children, pets or the model of your vehicle.

The biggest mistake I see is people using default passwords such as “password”. If your account has a default password  you should change it immediately.

When selecting numbers to use do not select birthdays, social security numbers or any easy to remember number that may be associated to you.

The best practice is to randomly generate unique user name and passwords for each account. There are many programs available which will generate and store user names and passwords, and then store this information in a password protected database. This can be very helpful in remembering passwords. Not only do these types of software store user names and passwords, but as well will input the required data when an account or web page is visited.

Weather Causes Support Problems

The latest in the state I live in is that we have experienced freezing rain. This has caused many power outages which according to our power provider the total number of people without power initially was over 500,000.

This has generated many support calls, many of which nothing can be done without power. Of course this is good for business, but businesses need to listen better to their support contractors.

Many times it has been suggested for these businesses to implement battery backups and if they require offline operation a generator to maintain at-least internal operations.

I understand the cost of implementing such backup power hardware, but if as a company they wish to maintain operations and prevent data loss from automatic shutdowns the only solution would be to implement these plans.

It’s nice to know at-least when power loss does occur I can always think to myself “If they had listened to me the first thirty times I told them they need this we wouldn’t be here recovering data”.

You would think that experiencing situations they have been told to plan for still is not a good enough reason for implementation of such technology.

If anyone else who supports server or network hardware has a similar experience the best thing to do in such situations is to develop a cost analysis comparison showing the cost of implementing these technologies against the cost of support generated from the lack of having them.

With this comparison generally they can see its cheaper to implement backup power plans as opposed to not.

Vista Memory Utility

Vista has a built in utility to check for memory problems. Issues with RAM memory can cause your system to be unstable, lose data and fail randomly. Checking the memory should be the first step in any diagnostic process.

To access the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, you can go to desktop search box and type memory. You may also access them by using the Admin Tools area of the control panel or by booting off of the Vista DVD and using the Recovery Environment. 

If using the utility from inside Windows you will be prompted with the option to restart your computer to begin the test or begin the test the next time you boot your PC. When your PC restarts, the diagnostic tool will begin and present you with a few test options: Basic, Standard and Extended. The Standard test is selected by default. Simply designate which option you wish to run.

After the test completes you can restart your computer and view the results. If you have bad memory you should replace or remove the faulty module immediately.