Faraday Cages

Faraday Cages
A Faraday cage is a metallic enclosure that prevents the entry of escape of an electromagnetic field (EM field). An ideal Faraday cage would consist of an unbroken, perfectly conducting shell.

To protect your Wi-Fi network from surrounding buildings. The most obvious way to do this would be to secure the devices on your network using the wireless security protocol of choice. A very effective, but more extreme, way to do this would be to secure the building itself by making it act as a Faraday cage, shielding the radio frequency waves used by Wi-Fi.

Making a large building into a Faraday cage involves encasing the building in a thin layer of conductive material or metal mesh. In physics, a Faraday cage or Faraday shield – named for the British physicist Michael Faraday, who discovered the phenomenon in the 19th century and built the first iteration in 1836 – is an ingenious application of Gauss’ law. Gauss’ Law establishes the relation between electric flux flowing out of a closed surface and the electrical charge enclosed inside the surface. Basically, in a hollow object that can conduct electricity, such as an aluminum sphere, charge will ideally distribute itself evenly over the surface of the sphere, and there won’t be an electric field inside the sphere. This has the effect of blocking EMFs (electromagnetic fields) and shielding radio frequency waves.

Faraday cages are far more common entities that you might realize. For instance, cars and airplanes can act like Faraday cages. That’s why a lightning bolt striking an airplane is unlikely to take the airplane down; the aircraft will distribute the electric charge over its entire surface, protecting what’s inside. If you were in a car, and the car got struck by lighting, it is not in fact the rubber tires that would save your life. What actually happens is by being enclosed by the car’s cabin, the lightning travels around you, though the conductive frame of the car. This is because the car forms a Faraday Cage. You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon in even more mundane circumstances like losing your cell-phone coverage inside an office building, or radio reception as you pass thorugh a tunnel. And you are like to “assemble” a Faraday cage on a regular basis: The metal screen built into the glass of your microwave oven the act as a Faraday cage when the door is closed.

But constructing a functional, building-size Faraday cage might be another matter. Not only would it be costly, but other equipment is likely to be hindered by the effect. For instance, cell phones will get poor reception or most likely not work at all in a building tricked out to be Faraday cage. For a small space, though, such a structure might make perfect sense. Other expensive and goofy techniques to achieve similar ends, such as “Wi-Fi-proof wallpaper” and “Wi-Fi paint” with metallic ingredients, have been rolled out over the past few years, but unless you live in a cave, you’d probably also need to replace your windows with special radio-absorbing glass.

Small installations of RF shielding don’t have to be expensive, and the basic concept of a Faraday cage can be extended to all kinds of small everyday objects. Leather wallets sandwiched with a conductive RF-shielding layer can prevent RFID scanners from reading personal information implanted in everything from RFID-enabled access control cards to some credit cards; they’re widely available for as little as $15.

For those favoring a more DIY route, several websites have information on how to make an RFID-blocking wallet with duct tape and aluminum foil. The US passports are now set to include RFID chips, and future editions of the US currency might be RFID-enabled too. Expect further expansion of the burgeoning market for RFID-blocking wallets, passport holders and other paraphernalia for the paranoid and/or privacy savvy consumer, from companies such as Envelope and DIFRWear, which sports the motto “Faraday caged apparel.”

Model Driven Architecture

Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
Model Driven Architecture is an approach to translating real-world algorithms into computer code; it’s an automatic translation of models into code.

MDA focuses on representing algorithms in a modeling language, followed by automatic translation of models into codes. Doing justice to the definition of MDA’s innovation requires a short, potted history of computers. Without instructions, or code, computers are just expensive heaters. One of the main problems of the Computer Age has been how to give computers instructions to translate human desire into outputs.

For about 50 years, the answer has been to code in text-based languages, all of which try to aid programming. The first of these text-based languages was assembly, which is more human-readable than machine code.

FORTRAN, which stands for “formula translator”, was the next step in divorcing programmers from a required knowledge of hardware. It hides the computer architecture of registers and present a syntax that allows humans to concentrate on creating algorithms. FORTRAN incidentally fortifies the notion of free-floating subroutines and functions.

Other third-generation languages have offered varieties of abstraction from computer hardware, imposing rules and providing new ways for organizing algorithms and data. Type-safe languages have taken a stab at preventing programmers from making certain mistakes. Permissive languages, which allow easy casting of pointers, have enabled programmers to do all kinds of marvelous things, including stringing up their own coding nooses.

Different approaches to managing algorithms have been developed. Programming languages that facilitate these paradigms have been created, and libraries of code have been published.

A culture of best practices, peer reviews and modeling has arisen to help create software that contains fewer errors and that is more efficient.

Model Methodology
Unified Modeling Language (UML) has been promoted by Object Management Group Inc. (OMG). It has become the language for modeling algorithms and has been adopted by the software community a large. Originally, an algorithm was expressed in UML before it was manually translated into a text-based language, which was then automatically compiled into assembly language and machine code. But that raised the question of whether the models themselves could be compiled into machine code, thus improving ways to think about algorithms and to produce software. Efforts to make the process simple and universal were the genesis of the paradigm shift that has led to MDA.

The OMG turned its attention from Common Object Request Broker Architecture to MDA with a white paper in 2000, beginning an effort at classification and standardization and it the process producing a new lexicon, including core notions of the platform-independent model (PIM), platform-specific model (PSM) and Meta-Object Facility (MOF). UML has a role in MDA, but models do not have to be created in UML to conform to the OMG’s MDA. Instead, both text-based and graphical languages must conform to MOF, which could be called a kind of mother language. MOF is general and universal that the disparate companies that make up the OMG do not have to agree to use the same modeling languages. They only have to agree to follow the same principles.

After requirements analysis, modeling in MDA begins with PIMs. These models are meant to capture an algorithm but to ignore the computer hardware and software. The models are intended to be pure expressions of the algorithm, with the best division between design and implementation. PIMs are translated into PSMs in the next stage, “compilation,” in which the algorithms are made more ready to run. PSM have features that correspond to the capabilities of hardware and software. Also, PIMs may have been “marked” to facilitate this transformation. Finally, PSMs are translated into actual code, which will run on actual hardware or on actual middleware on actual hardware.

The vision behind MDA is to automate as much of the process of code generation as possible. Using tools and languages that will make the design as good as possible, the implementation will come later and will have as little of the pesky interference of fallible humans as possible. If the underlying hardware or operating system is changed, the model is simply “recompiled” or “retranslated” to work on the new system. If maintenance is required, the model serves as an accurate document of how the algorithm works, and only the model needs to be maintained. The idea is that implementation and coding errors will be minimized. The OMG lists several projects on its website that have successfully used automated MDA to produce efficient, successful code with fewer resources that would have been used in more traditional projects. These include work done for Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, Postgirot Bank AB, Looking Glass Network Inc., Credit Suisse Group and others.

What Is Preboot Execution Environment (PXE)?

What is PXE?
Preboot execution Environment is an environment to boot computers using a network interface independently of available storage devices or installed operating systems; PXE, as it is widely known was introduced by Intel.

As those thousand of computers were increasingly interconnected via enterprise networks, the designers came up with an answer. During the mid 1990s, researchers at Intel Corp., along with a wide range of hardware and software vendors, began promoting an open-standards specification called Wired for Management (WfM).

Aimed at reducing the total cost of ownership, WfM allowed IT managers to interact remotely with PCs for monitoring, updating and configuring, using standardized communications software and remote management applications. From WfM to Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) implementing WfM called for standardized hardware (including circuitry, BIOS, memory, power supplies and network interface cards) in user PCs. WfM covered a range of PC networking technologies, including the Desktop Management Interface remote wake-up also called wake-on-LAN or service boot and the Preboot Execution Environment PXE.

PXE harkens back to the era before all computers had internal hard disk drives. PXE most commonly involves booting a computer from firmware – i.e., a ROM (Read Only Memory) or programmable ROM chip – rather than from magnetic media. Booting from firmware removes dependence on an electromechanical device the physical disk drive, which enhances reliability, eliminates drive read errors and speeds up the boot process. PXE can also be used to boot a computer over a network.

Although WfM has been superseded by newer management standards, such as Intel’s Active Management Technology, the capabilities that PXE enabled are still valuable tools for network administrators.

PXE is geared toward auto-mated, unattended management of user PCs and workstations. It is based on industry-standard Internet protocols, including TCP/IP and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). A PXE enabled PC typically has a network interface card NIC that remains active and connected to the LAN even when the computer itself is powered down. It listens to LAN traffic for a special data sequence – the PC’s unique media access control address repeated six times. When the NIC receives this “magic packet”, it powers up the PC. For this to occur, wake-on-LAN must be specifically enabled in the PC’s firmware BIOS. Wake-on-LAN cab be problematic for some very old PCs, because it required a power connection between the NIC and the motherboard – definite hardware requirement that can’t be fudged with just a BIOS update. This isn’t a problem for most enterprise PCs, however.

Once the local PC wakes up, it starts up the network card and configures itself. Making use of PXE requires an appropriate server infrastructure. When a PXE client boots, it must do two things. First, it obtains an IP address from a DHCP server. Unfortunately, PXE calls for some options that may not work on all DHCP servers, so most software that supports PXE also includes a proxy DHCP services. This proxy service doesn’t offer IP addresses directly but does allow DHCP operation.

After connecting to the DHCP server, the system locates a PXE boot server that will send it the appropriate files from which to boot. The DHCP server provides a boot file name, and the PC then downloads it from a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server.

Once PXE is enabled – anytime the PC boots up – an on-screen message appears, offering the user the choice of booting to PXE or continuing with the normal boot sequence from the local hard disk or optical media. PXE offers a menu of boot options that can include a variety of maintenance and diagnostic tools that do things like scan for viruses, check the integrity of hard drives, inventory installed software, update drivers or even install an entirely new operating system on the PC. All these actions can be performed remotely and largely in an automated fashion, which little or no hands-on intervention.

Speed Up Internet

1.make sure your logged on as actually “Administrator”. do not log on with any account that just has administrator privileges.2. start - run - type gpedit.msc3. expand the “local computer policy” branch4. expand the “administrative templates” branch5. expand the “network branch”6. Highlight the “QoS Packet Scheduler” in left window7. in right window double click the “limit reservable bandwidth” setting8. on setting tab check the “enabled” item9. where it says “Bandwidth limit %” change it to read 0reboot if you want to but not necessary on some systems your all done. Effect is immediate on some systems. some need re-boot. I have one machine that needs to reboot first, the others didn’t. Don’t know why this is.This is more of a “counter what XP does” thing. In other words, XP seems to want to reserve 20% of the bandwidth for its self. Even with QoS disabled, even when this item is disabled. So why not use it to your advantage. To demonstrate the problem with this on stand alone machines start up a big download from a server with an FTP client. Try to find a server that doesn’t max out your bandwidth. In this case you want a slow to medium speed server to demonstrate this. Let it run for a couple of minutes to get stable. The start up another download from the same server with another instance of your FTP client. You will notice that the available bandwidth is now being fought over and one of the clients download will be very slow or both will slow down when they should both be using the available bandwidth. Using this “tweak” both clients will have a fair share of the bandwidth and will not fight over the bandwidth.

Speed Up Browsing

When you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that TCP/IP really deals with, not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site. Although Windows XP and Windows XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size. You can do this with the registry entries below:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]“CacheHashTableBucketSize”=dword:00000001“CacheHashTableSize”=dword:00000180“MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit”=dword:0000fa00“MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit”=dword:0000012dMake a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. Then copy and paste the above into it and save it. Merge it into the registry.

Multiple Login In Yahoo Messanger At The Same Time

To enable multiple logins in you Yahoo! Messenger, Follow these steps :
Click Start Menu And Click On “RUN”
Type “regedit” and click OK
You will see the REGISTRY EDITOR
Navigate to “ HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Yahoo/Pager/Test “
Here in right side panel, right click to create a new Dword value with name Plural and give it value 1.
Close the registry editor and enjoy multiple yahoo logins.

Increase Browsing Speed In Vista

With windows Vista you have noticed the slow internet speed. The web browsing and downloading speed is very slow as compare to previous versions of windows. You can open the same sites in windows XP and server 2003 with the normal speed. Follow the given steps to increase the Vista browsing speed:
First go to Advance tab in Internet Options and turn off the TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption option. Here to fix problem with some secure pages turn on the SSL 2.0 (Secure Sockets Layer) feature and click Ok button to close it.
In windows Vista, the TCP autotuning feature is enabled by default. Some web servers do not respond properly to this feature, so it appears that some sites open with very slow speed.
To disable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.First click on Start button and type CMD in Run option then press Enter.At Command Prompt, type the following command and press enter.netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel= disabledThis command will disable the TCP autotuning feature. Now close the command Prompt and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.You can easily restore these setting by typing the following command at Command Prompt.netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel= normalNow close the command Prompt and again restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Password Protect Your Excel Files

Password to open the document:
If it is applied then you have to give the correct password to open the workbook. Otherwise you cannot open the workbook.
Password to modify the document:
If it is applied then you have to give the correct password to modify the workbook. Otherwise your workbook is opened but you cannot modify the workbook. It means that your workbook becomes read-only.
To apply a password to MS Excel document, follow the given steps:
1. Open the file
2. Click on Tools menu and select “Options” from the menu.
3. Select the “Security” tab.
4. Enter “Password to Open”
5. Enter “Password to Modify”
6. Click On OK
7. Verify the passwords by re-entering both of them.
8. Save the document and close it
9. Re-open the document and check the passwords.

Change The Default Directory Of Software Installation

You may want to change the location of your system default folder (C:\Program Files) from C drive to another system drives (D or E drive). By default software setup will attempt to install program in C:\Program Files directory. It is good practice to make the backup of the installed programs, if you installed all your programs in other than C drive. If you have little knowledge about editing windows registry then you can configure your computer for this purpose.
Follow the given steps to configure windows registry:
1. Click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option.
2. Here navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
3. In right side panel, double click on ProgramFileDir.
4. Now modify the value to any other drive (for example D:\Program Files).
Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Use Notepad As A Diary

Want to write your diary on your computer? You can do it without using any software.
1. Open Notepad
2. Type “.LOG”
3. Save it
4. Now every time you open this file notepad will automatically insert date and time to the last line of the file. You can type anything after that line and save it. In this way you can use it as a diary.

Prevent Users From Writing To USB

If you have windows XP with SP2, then you can disable the writing option to USB drives. This trick is very useful if you have virus in your computer and want to copy files from a USB Drive but don’t want to transfer virus to the USB. Follow the given steps to disable the USB writing option:
To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.
First click on Start button and type “Regedit” in Run option.
Here locate the location to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
Here in right side panel, click right to create a key with the name “StorageDevicePolicies”.
Now in left side panel, select “StorageDevicePolicies” key, again right click to create new DWORD value then label it “WriteProtect”. Set its value to “1″. But again to enable writing, set its values to “0″.
Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Restore Previously Open Folder After Shutdown

If you need to access lot of folders on your home computer or on the network regularly, then you can set them re-open automatically, when you will login, shutdown or restart your computer next time. There is no need to open regularly used folders manually, just configure the simple sitting, your computer will automatically reload all the previously opened windows.
By default windows XP disables this option to reload automatically all the previously opened windows, when you login on, shutdown or restart your computer.
Follow the given steps to configure your computer to reload previously opened folders automatically after shutdown.
To edit this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.
First click on Start button then go to Control Panel.
Open the “Appearance and Themes” option in control panel then click on Folder Options.
A small windows dialog box will appear with the title “Folder options”, click on View tab.
Under the Advanced setting section, scroll down to bottom and click the “Restore previous folder windows at logon” option and then click Ok button to save sitting.
Now when you log off, restart or shutdown, your computer will automatically open the previously opened folders from the same location as before.

Surf Blocked Sites

Are you frustrated because you are not able to visit your favorite websites in your school or college or any place where some sites are blocked? There are two methods to access these sites:
First Method:
Search the banned website, for example www.pctipsntricks.wordpress.com in Google or Yahoo! search engine. Then open the cached copy of that page to access the website. You can get also cache link of that website, if you search in Google with keyword cache:[URL] and get cache link to access the website.
Second Method:
Below are the list of various sites from which you can surf the blocked websites !
http://kproxy.com
http://backfox.com
http://atunnel.com
http://calculatepie.com
http://www.stupidcensorship.com
http://www.vmathpie.com
http://www.xroxee.com
http://mathtunnel.com
http://www.pagemod.com

Restore Default Desktop Icons

You can restore the all windows default desktop icons, if you accidentally deleted them from your computer desktop.
List of windows default icons.
My Computer
Internet Explorer
My Documents
My Network Places
Recycle Bin
Fellow the given steps to restore the windows default icons:
Go to Start Button and open Run
Type the given command to open windows Desktop items dialog box.Control desk.cpl,,@Web
Click OK
Now Select Items that you want on your Desktop
Click Ok

Disable The Unread Email Notification In XP Welcome Screen

1. Click on Start button and type “Regedit” in Run option.
2. Here locate to :HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail
3. In right side panel, double click on the key MessageExpiryDays and set its value to 0.
4. If MessageExpiryDays key doesn’t exist, then in right side panel, click right to create a key with the nameMessageExpiryDays and then set its value to 0.
Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Speed Up By Closing Idle Services

This trick helps you increase your speed by closing all the idle background services. To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.
1. Click Start button and click on Run option.
2. In the Run box, type the command “Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks” and press Ok buttHere system will take some time to end the background idle tasks.

Reduce the shutdown time of Windows 2000 n XP

You can reduce the shutdown time of windows 2000 and XP using some tricks. Actually windows XP take time to close all running programs and applications before shutdown, but you can minimize this time if you have little knowledge about editing windows registry.
Follow the given steps to reduce the shutdown time:
· First click on Start button then type Regedit in Run option. Here locate the location to:HKEY_Current_User\Control Panel\Desktop
· Here in right side panel, double click on AutoEndTasks and here its default value is 0. Now change it to 1.
· Now in same side panel double click on value name WaitToKillAppTimeout. Its default value data is 20000; now change this value of WaitToKillAppTimeout to 3500.
· Now close the registry editor and restart your computer after any changes to go into effect.

Speed up viewing shared file across a network

Windows 2000 & XP machines delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network because Windows is using the extra time to search the remote computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Here’s how to prevent this remote search for Scheduled Tasks:Open up the Registry and go to :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerRemoteComputerNameSpace
Under that branch, select the key :
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
and delete it.
If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary. This fix is so effective that it doesn’t require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

How To Protect Your Wireless Network

If you have a Wi-Fi network at home or in a small office, intruders may be after you, such as casual "war drivers" who troll city streets, looking for unprotected wireless networks. It may not just be malicious attackers who cause problems. If you don't change the defaults of your wireless network, a neighbor with the same router make and model might accidentally connect to your network, stealing your bandwidth or reconfiguring your router and network without your knowledge. There's plenty you can do to protect yourself.

Change your administrator password: Before you do anything else, change the administrator password on your router. Every model of router comes preconfigured with a standard password, and hackers know this. So it's exceedingly easy for someone to hop onto your network, gain full control over its administrative rights and wreak havoc.

How you change your password varies from router to router, so I'll show the steps for a representative model: the Linksys WRT54GX4.


Log in to the setup screen by opening your browser and going to http://192.168.1.1. When the login screen appears, leave the username blank. In the password section type admin, and then press Enter. Click the Administration link, then click Management. At the top of the page, you'll see the Router Password area. Type a password into the Router Password box, then retype it in the "Re-enter to confirm" box. From now on, when you log in, use that password instead of admin when you log in to your router.

Stop broadcasting your network's SSID -- and change its name: Your service set identifier (SSID) is your network's name, and if people know what your SSID is, it's easier for them to find your network and connect to it. Your router broadcasts its SSID, and that broadcast tells passersby there's a network there. It also gives out the name.

So, if you turn off SSID broadcasting, you'll go partway toward keeping casual users from seeing your network. But doing that, by itself, won't necessarily solve the problem. Even if you stop broadcasting your network's name, people might still be able to connect to your network. That's because manufacturers generally ship their wireless routers with the same generic SSID; for example, Linksys routers all have the SSID Linksys by default. So, even if you stop broadcasting your SSID, intruders can easily guess your router's name and log on. To solve the problem, first change your SSID's name, and then hide it. That way, passersby won't see it, and they won't be able to guess it either. How you do this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even from model to model from the same manufacturer. But for many models of Linksys routers, including the WRT54GX4, here's what to do.


Log in to the setup screen, then click the Wireless tab and look for the Wireless Network Name (SSID) box. Enter the new name of your network.

On the same screen, look for the Wireless SSID Broadcast setting, and choose Disable. Then, click Save Settings.

If you are doing this from a wireless PC, you will immediately lose your connection to your network. So will every other wireless PC on your network. After you change your network name, reconnect each Wi-Fi computer to the network, using the new network name. You're now set.

Use encryption: If you take only one step to protect your home or small office network, it should be this: Use encryption. Wi-Fi networks are incredibly convenient -- and incredibly easy to spy upon. All that data going out over the air among your PCs and between your PCs and the Internet can easily be snooped on by anyone nearby using simple, off-the-shelf software such as packet sniffers.

There are two encryption Wi-Fi standards --- Wireless Equivalent Protocol (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). Don't use WEP -- it's not nearly as safe as WPA. In fact, the biggest security breach in history was caused because a store owned by TJX Companies Inc. that used WEP, which allowed hackers to break in to the network.

Here are the steps for the Linksys WRT54GX4 and many other Linksys models:

Go to the Setup screen and choose Wireless --> Wireless Security. In the Security Mode drop-down box, choose WPA/WPA2 Personal, then choose either WPA Personal or WPA2 Personal.WPA2 is a more secure method, but your hardware and software may not support it. Check your network adapter manufacturer's Web site to see if it supports WPA2 Personal. Windows Vista supports WPA2 Personal, but not all versions of Windows XP do.


To see if your version of XP supports WPA2 Personal, select Control Panel --> Add or Remove Programs. If the Show Updates check box is not selected, check it. Scroll to the Windows XP - Software Updates section and look for Windows XP Hot fix KB893357. If it's not there, your version of Windows XP won't support WPA2 Personal. You can, however, go to the Microsoft updates site, and download KB 893357 to turn on WPA2 functionality.

If you're not sure if your hardware and software supports WPA2 Personal, use WPA Personal.

From the Encryption Algorithms drop-down list, choose TKIP. In the Personal Key box, type a key between 8 and 63 characters in length. The longer it is and the more random the characters, the more secure it will be. Write down the key. You'll need to use this on each wireless PC on your network.

Leave the Group Key Renewal row at 3600. Click Save Settings. That applies the key to your network. Now, only PCs that use WPA encryption and the key you just generated will be able to get onto your network.

Next, configure each wireless computer on your network to use WPA and the key you just generated. (Wired PCs don't need to be configured.)

For each Windows XP PC: Click the wireless connection icon in the system tray, then click Properties, click the Wireless Network tab, highlight your network, click Properties, and then click the Association tab.

In the Network Authentication drop-down box, select WPA-PSK. In the Data Encryption dialog box, choose TKIP.

When you do that, the box that reads "The key is provided for me automatically" is checked. Uncheck this box. Enter your WPA key in the "Network key" box, and type it again in the "Confirm network key" box.


Click OK and then OK again. Now the Windows XP PC can connect to your network using WPA encryption. In Windows Vista:

Select Control Panel --> Network and Internet --> Network and Sharing Center --> View Status.

From the Security type drop-down box, select WPA-Personal or WPA2-Personal, depending on your encryption method.

From the Encryption type drop-down box, select TKIP. In the Network security key box, type in the security key you used on your router.

Click OK. Your Windows Vista PC can now connect using encryption. If you've got a small or medium-size business, and are looking to encrypt your network, you might consider an outsourced solution, such as SecureMyWiFi from WiTopia. Prices for SecureMyWiFi vary according to your network size, and start at $99 per year for one wireless access point with 100 users.

Protect yourself using MAC addresses

There's another way to protect your wireless network: Tell it to allow only certain computers to connect, and ban all others. To do that, you'll filter by Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, which are in essence IDs for wireless adapters. Every piece of networking hardware has a unique MAC address. So you'll be able to tell your router to allow only specific MAC addresses onto the network and keep all others off.

First, you need to find out the MAC address of all of the wireless adapters on your PCs.

Open a command prompt on each computer, type ipconfig /all, and press Enter.

The screen that appears will display a good deal of information. Look for the numbers next to Physical Address, such as 00-08-A1-00-9F-32. That's the MAC address. Write all those MAC addresses on a piece of paper.


Now log back into your router, and configure MAC address filtering. On the Linksys WRT54GX4 router:

Click Wireless, and then click Wireless Network Access to get to the Wireless Network Access screen.

Select "Permit only," and type in the MAC addresses into the text boxes. Click "Save settings." Now, only computers you specify will be allowed onto your network.

Turn off your network when you're not using it

This simple precaution can go a very long way toward keeping you safe: Simply turn off your router when you're not using your network. If you're off at work all day and no one's home, why keep your router running? The same holds true for when you sleep, or are away from your house for another reason. The less time your wireless network is available, the less likely it is to get hacked.

Check for wireless intruders

You can never be too safe, and so even if you've taken all this advice, it's a good idea to check your network to see if intruders have made their way in. And if you haven't taken all this advice, that's all the more reason to check.

BIOS Tips

As you can see there are various ways on bypassing/changing BIOS passwords.
I have successfully used all of the options below on various computers many years ago. These methods will work on computers of today. I have updated the Standard BIOS backdoor passwords for current computers made as of last week. ( big grin ).
READ EVEYTHING BEFORE YOU USE ANY METHOD LISTED BELOW.

Basic BIOS password crack - works 9.9 times out of ten
This is a password hack but it clears the BIOS such that the next time you start the PC, the CMOS does not ask for any password. Now if you are able to bring the DOS prompt up, then you will be able to change the BIOS setting to the default. To clear the CMOS do the following:
Get DOS prompt and type:
DEBUG hit enter
-o 70 2e hit enter
-o 71 ff hit enter
-q hit enter
exit hit enter
Restart the computer. It works on most versions of the AWARD BIOS.





Accessing information on the hard disk

When you turn on the host machine, enter the CMOS setup menu (usually you have to press F2, or DEL, or CTRL+ALT+S during the boot sequence) and go to STANDARD CMOS SETUP, and set the channel to which you have put the hard disk as TYPE=Auto, MODE=AUTO, then SAVE & EXIT SETUP. Now you have access to the hard disk.

Standard BIOS backdoor passwords
The first, less invasive, attempt to bypass a BIOS password is to try on of these standard manufacturer's backdoor passwords:
AWARD BIOS
AWARD SW, AWARD_SW, Award SW, AWARD PW, _award, awkward, J64, j256, j262, j332, j322, 01322222, 589589, 589721, 595595, 598598, HLT, SER, SKY_FOX, aLLy, aLLY, Condo, CONCAT, TTPTHA, aPAf, HLT, KDD, ZBAAACA, ZAAADA, ZJAAADC, djonet, %шесть пpобелов%, %девять пpобелов%
AMI BIOS
AMI, A.M.I., AMI SW, AMI_SW, BIOS, PASSWORD, HEWITT RAND, Oder
Other passwords you may try (for AMI/AWARD or other BIOSes)
LKWPETER, lkwpeter, BIOSTAR, biostar, BIOSSTAR, biosstar, ALFAROME, Syxz, Wodj
Note that the key associated to "_" in the US keyboard corresponds to "?" in some European keyboards (such as Italian and German ones), so -- for example -- you should type AWARD?SW when using those keyboards. Also remember that passwords are Case Sensitive. The last two passwords in the AWARD BIOS list are in Russian.

Flashing BIOS via software
If you have access to the computer when it's turned on, you could try one of those programs that remove the password from the BIOS, by invalidating its memory.
However, it might happen you don't have one of those programs when you have access to the computer, so you'd better learn how to do manually what they do. You can reset the BIOS to its default values using the MS-DOS tool DEBUG (type DEBUG at the command prompt. You'd better do it in pure MS-DOS mode, not from a MS-DOS shell window in Windows). Once you are in the debug environment enter the following commands:
AMI/AWARD BIOS
O 70 17
O 71 17
Q
PHOENIX BIOS
O 70 FF
O 71 17
Q
GENERIC
Invalidates CMOS RAM.
Should work on all AT motherboards
(XT motherboards don't have CMOS)
O 70 2E
O 71 FF
Q
Note that the first letter is a "O" not the number "0". The numbers which follow are two bytes in hex format.

Flashing BIOS via hardware
If you can't access the computer when it's on, and the standard backdoor passwords didn't work, you'll have to flash the BIOS via hardware. Please read the important notes at the end of this section before to try any of these methods.


Using the jumpers
The canonical way to flash the BIOS via hardware is to plug, unplug, or switch a jumper on the motherboard (for "switching a jumper" I mean that you find a jumper that joins the central pin and a side pin of a group of three pins, you should then unplug the jumper and then plug it to the central pin and to the pin on the opposite side, so if the jumper is normally on position 1-2, you have to put it on position 2-3, or vice versa). This jumper is not always located near to the BIOS, but could be anywhere on the motherboard.