Realize that all routers can be broken into if someone really really wanted too.  This is like someone can break into your home if they really really wanted to even if you had the latest alarm system. However we still lock our doors and put an alarm on, we take precautions and make it  hard as possible for people to break into our house without getting caught.  Wireless networking should be taken in the same respect. Also most people do not need to go for the extra security features.  I will list them at the end of the article, but you will be safe enough with the basic precautions.

The first thing you need to do with wireless networking is put a password on your wireless network.  This is making it secure.  Since your computer saves the password most people create the password then forget it.

Tip #1 – Use your phone number.  Ten digit phone numbers including the area code make the perfect password for a wireless network.  That is only if the next steps are taken.  If you use your phone number and no one in the area can link your Network Name with you, then it is easy to remember and secure.

Tip # 2 – Do not use anything personal or the name of your router.  The two most secure things you can do is in naming your router.  Do not keep the defualt name.  You are telling people how to break into your router.  If you just do a google search with your router name and ‘hack’, you will see the tools needed to break into your router.  Also if you use your name, first or last, address or anything that your neighbors can realizie its your router then a bad neigbor can try to break into your router.  Use names that don’t draw attention or look like they aren’t working.  AN example is ‘no-connection’ or ‘none’ or ‘unavailable’.  Most people scanning the network will stay away from these and will not be able to connect the network to you.

Doing the above two will also allow you to give this out easily to friends and guest who come over.  It is also a conversation piece on why you choose that name.  Giving your number and not a personal password allows you to securely give that info to people you wish to use your network.

Tip # 3 – Wireless Router Admin password.  You should change this admin password.  Some adapters force you to change it.  You should keep this password in a safe place. This password you should never give out to anyone.

Just with the above tips your wireless router is more secure.  If someone else is on your wirless router they aren’t only getting free internet from you but with many free tools out on the internet they can see what you are doing online.  They also maybe able to steal information that you are sending through the internet and if you have any shared folders on your network, they might be able to access them.

The above tips should be fine for the average user.  I have heard many people take the wireless secuirty to extrems.  There are not nessarry for most people.

• Turning off SSID Broadcast.  This is turning off your routers name on the drop down list on your computer.  Equivalent to an unlisted phone number.  The problem is its hard to find your router and connect to it from your computer or other devices. It’s not recommended and your wireless should be secure enough with the above tips.
• MAC Address Filtering.  If you don’t know what a MAC Address is (it has nothing to do with an apple Macintosh) then you shouldn’t be filtering for it.  This will limit your computers and devices and is extremely secure but adding a new computer to your network is very time consuming and friends will not be able to connect at all.
• WPA and WEP Differences.  For the average user the difference doesn’t matter.  Many IT people will disagree with me on this one.  As long as your network is locked up 99% of possible break-ins are avoided. Use the one that will work with your password.  Some of the encryption need very long passwords.  However WPA is better and should be used if possible.  Some devices may have an issue.  Using a 10 digit WPA password like your phone number will still take a very long time for someone to crack.  (we are talking years here!)
• Realize that most people will not bother trying to hack or enter your secure network if it is secure and they don’t know who it belongs too.  Why waste the time (it still takes hours and hours to break into a wireless network) when you can still find someone who keeps the network completely open.

Now a computer isn’t like the steak that wasn’t cooked enough, you don’t just send it back to the kitchen.  There is always a learning curve and what is very frustrating out there is not enough people know or want to know how things work.  The problem I see is that the world is convinced that Windows is the only way to go, but that isn’t true.  Like going out to eat, you have your choices.  Windows is more like Sushi, its expensive, a little dangerous and you walk away still a little hungry. While Mac is more like a steak house, you pay a lot for a lot and sometimes its just too much.  While Linux is more like the hot dog stand, you order your beef frank but have to put the mustard and relish on your self and then you might want to buy a side of fries.

There is a lot of places out there for peole to learn how to use linux and openoffice.  There are wonderful open source proudcts out in the world that will not break your bank.  However, when its free, there is usually no hands on support.  No one to call.  This is what makes it harder for people.  We all want someone to hold our hand.

Walk of NO Shame – Watch more free videos

As I stumbled away this morning that magic button took me to something that surprised me. A girl geeks website, well actually a girl gamers site called Game Girl. I have nothing against the increase amount of Girl Geeks and hope more Girl-Hackers, Girl-Gamers and Girl-Technologist geeks are morphed. However this post is about the lack of girl geek apparel…

So the article in mind is Top 7 Geek Panties (for girls). This is what Technically Foreign is about, finding the details of a society that aren’t yet inside the mainstream making them foreign to the general public. I hope after reading this article we all fight for the equal rights of Geek Clothing for girls. Maybe a Geek Girl should make a Web Petition. But I believe they’ve got a good start from those top 7 and above is only a peak.

{{Photo from: http://www.gamegirl.com/article/55313/top-7-geek-panties-for-girls/ photo and all rights belong to them }}

After a long day and many crashing Windows machines I’ve decided to lean inward and grab good old curiosity and let her scream. I’ve done it, apparently Chavez got the wrong guy. According to popular weblore Bill Gates might be the devil, not President George W. Bush. However what makes people think that Gate’s is so Devilish? What makes so many people hate this geek? I for one can’t say I hate the guy, I may hate some of his products but lets face it when was the last time the guy coded an entire operating system himself? Never, only one man in the history of computers has done such a thing and that was Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Anyway back to the random Google experiment here, I typed in ‘Bill Gates the Devil’ into google and came up with about 448,000 results. Not bad, but how many on the first page are relevant?

Top link: The Bill Gates is Satan conspiracy theory . The site isn’t hosted in the US, so this is apparently an international belief. The Theory is quiet interesting in stating that if you add Bill Gates birth name (William Gates III) in ASCII then you get 666. Interesting theory. I wonder what mine is?

2nd Link: Bill Gates is the Devil, Hitler implicated – Which is an interesting article from the register dating back to 2001. It takes a humorous look at a German article which states the unpopularity of Gates and has a picture of Hitler on the opposing page. Someone must of had fun putting that order in.

3rd and finally: Since I don’t want to take you away from updating your Windows with the latest security patch. This was not third on the list however, it is a well written article on a statement which Gates said. Devil’s Advocate: Should Microsoft be paying you to use Windows?This article from silicon.com really shows the Devil at work as he suggests Google should pay users back for using Google.  Now after reading the article and realizing that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world from the investment of one company – Microsoft – I wonder at which point he was willing to give consumers money for just using a product?

All the above may not prove that Bill Gates is the Devil, hell, it doesn’t make sense for the devil to be wearing geek clothing.  To make things fair ‘Steve Jobs The Devil’ gets  312,000 but some of those might reflect on the ‘Fake Steve Jobs’ as well.  In the end we love to symbolize anyone as good old Satan, hell, I’ve called some of my best friends the devil and sometimes a little worst. But until Bill Gates wears Prada I’d just say he’s just a geek who knew how to sweet talk and delegate.

/// PHOTO – William Henry Gates the Third Arrested for Speeding at the age of 19!  Not your average Geek!

Reading through the daily grind I came across a less then noted article on New Scientist blog about how the Library of Congress has a project that will be archiving and preserving early computer games, online novels and Virtual Worlds. This to me is an interesting task since I’ve worked with the delima of preserving digital media. Ten years ago a lot of things were on media like Zip drives that don’t exist anymore. At the same time books and news articles have been around for hundreds of years in the form of paper.

So, how would the future look back on our virtual worlds like Second Life and World of War Craft? Would it be possible for someone thirty or fifty years in the future to login and see what they looked like the same way I can read the New York Times online from 1958? As we build our computer systems and new technologies we forget the importance of writing about it, and keeping that writing available for generations to come. The only way the future will know how we lived fifty, a hundred or five hundred years is by what we did with our time. As the TV guys archive and preserve the latest episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and CSI we should keep in mind of preserving our virtual worlds and online addictions for the generations to come.

Microsoft, most notably the number one reason for increase spending on System Administrators and Help Desk staff is entering your supper market. They will be providing software that will have a Smart Shopping Cart with ads that will ‘help’ a consumer to ‘buy’ more things. This technology will use up-links from home PC, RFID technology and coupons. While this is an interesting concept, it is a prototype and just the tip of the ice-berg of things to come. As we get more wireless and screens get smaller the computer will invade every square inch of our everyday mundane life.

“Blue Screen of Death in Isle 5,” I can here over the loudspeaker as a service technician is called out from behind the freezers.

About ten years ago there was a company giving scanners to people to do self check-out, they were attached to carts and as the customer put the item in the cart they would scan it. Today we have self-check out in many stores fixed at the exit. These first prototypes help our direction towards the future where, ads are displayed on carts and a customer can easily access information about the store, a product and maybe one day have Britney Spears tell them how much she loves Eggo’s and don’t fogert to buy her new Album so she can pay alimony.

However we are stuck in the year 2008 where these silly things of computerized shopping carts are the wave of the future, we’ll have to stick with our talking GPS’s and wireless digital cameras. Who knows, by the time Microsoft gets out of the Beta for the product we will have an Apple Driod doing our grocery shopping for us.

Microsoft Smart Shopping Carts – VIA: Information Week