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.

 Cup Holder Optional:

Is that an Expresso machine inside you or are you just too hyper to see me?

The Coffee Mate PC – All a programmer needs…  

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

Now the real problem isn’t the fact a young girl got a box of Rocks.  That is just a little funny, and ironic and shows you that there is a major lack of security with Targets or its distributer shipping depatrment. But the problem is the policies and the fact that they wouldn’t give the family their money back so they could go else where and let the girl get her iPod for her birthday.  Since policy is policy and Target is Target, I mean they have those red circles everywhere so I’m sure the emploeyes know not to mess with policies. So, the first store was sold out and the mother drove the daughter to another store where they bought with store credit the second iPod where the insisted of opening the iPod in front of the clerk, and the clerk said they needed to buy it first, which they did, and that one was full of rocks too.  So, they were now told since they used a store credit card they could be given anything but store credit and they did this to get that extra 10% discount.  So, since they had the store credit and it was the girls birthday the mother asked the girl to buy something else, even though she really wanted the iPod.

The issue here is why can’t a 14 year old girl who has the money to buy the product that she wants for her birthday can’t get it from one of the largest retails chains.  Target replies with the usual legal jargon but the lacks the respect it should have its customers and the rest of the market.  I enter the stores and as I walk out they treat me the customer like a criminal by checking my receipt, or by inisting in some places that I have to check my bags.  However, they make a mistake in there shipping and they will not honor and give back someone the money for something they have just purchased.  If you want an iPod then goto an apple store or buy from Apple. Atleast they will do the right thing and treat you with respect, and not wait two weeks to get back to you with a form letter.

So I could probably cut a hole in my button down shirt and duck tape a computer fan. Anyway it is one of those things that redefines the meaning of being wired.

As his mother board fried due to an accidental close encounter with Mr. Starbucks I lay back in my swirly chair and wonder if computers have souls. I mean we have souls. I believe we have a spirit inside us, a unique and powerful energy that if you put your two pointer fingers slightly together but not touching and focus on the empty part you will see your own unique energy. Whatever you call it, a spirit, soul, aura it is there and its still somewhat of a mystery. Animals have souls, you can sense there energy when they are near you.

Death in all cultures is the time when that spirit leaves its vestal and journeys to some far away world. Will we see our electronic devices in heaven in some big shopping mall? Do they meet there maker? And who would that be the guy who made the designs or the union worker who screwed the motherboard to the casing. It won’t be Bill Gates since he most likely won’t be joining P4 in heaven. I believe P4 has a soul and is in computer heaven soaking up a futuristic virus free OS, and has a full upgrade with 24TB of ram and Petabyte hard drive. I can dream that he is having a good life making someone happy as they fight a battles in WOW with Einstein, Edison and Tesla.

With the passing of P4 I have learned that true lessons of technology; Moore’s law. A dual-core processor blows the slow poke out of the water! I salute P4 and all the processing he has done for me, I raise Mr. Starbucks, lay back in my swirly chair and listen to Pandora.com. Rest in peace my old friend, thanks for the memories, you won’t be missed since Dual-Core got a sister I’ve been eying and she’s called Quad-Core.

Now what does this have to do with google? Well today the word google can be used as diverse as the F word. It took hundreds of years for this simple and yet fun word to become a medifore for almost anything. Let’s face it the F word can be used in almost any conversation. Today I have heard googling, googled, googlish, googler with many different meanings. A googler isn’t only someone who uses google but rather someone who just knows a F’n lot. Googling isn’t just that term for searching on google but the process of finding things quickly. Plus everyone is googling each other that it is also the term of background checking dates, employees, employers, friends and everyone in between. I’ve been googled is the term meaning that someone has found me. The word is a very common term today.

The complication of this meaning is that google is not a term, a verb but it is a company. The overall ease of use and culture that the company created shows us that maybe this fun word (say it ten time really fast with out laughing) on the tips of our tongue is the real reason why the search engine is popular. Just like the F word google has that vibe even though the meanings are completely different.

In two hundred or three hundred years from know maybe the word will be a illegal, a slang of sorts. Something that isn’t appropriate to say at the dinner table or to the elders. By then we might not even be communicating by our mouths anyway. However for now we can all keep F’n googling.

Whatever the future has in store for us, I’m glad that bio-fuel has started to take off but I wonder what this may have in store for my alcoholic preference in the future. Will the switch over to bio-fuel sky rocket the price of my Irish Whiskey or Japanese Sake? Or do I choose to have another shot instead of filling her up!

Sites: Cnet News – Sake May Power Japan Cars

“Verbarius answers the question “What time is it?” writing a different reply every time it’s asked: it’s either forty-five minutes past four, or fifteen minutes to five, or four forty-five, or a quarter to five.” -Verbarius Website

Visit: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/verbarius/ for more info…