Basics

• Use at least eight characters, the more characters the better really, but most people will find anything more than about 15 characters difficult to remember.
• Use a random mixture of characters, upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation, spaces and symbols.
• Don’t use a word found in a dictionary, English or foreign.
• Never use the same password twice.

Things to avoid

• Don’t just add a single digit or symbol before or after a word. e.g. “flower1″
• Don’t double up a single word. e.g. “flowerflower”
• Don’t simply reverse a word. e.g. “rewolf”
• Don’t just remove the vowels. e.g. “flwr”
• Key sequences that can easily be repeated. e.g. “qwerty”,”asdf” etc.
• Don’t just garble letters, e.g. converting e to 3, L or i to 1, o to 0. as in “z3r0-10v3″

Tips

• Choose a password that you can remember so that you don’t need to keep looking it up, this reduces the chance of somebody discovering where you have written it down.
• Choose a password that you can type quickly, this reduces the chance of somebody discovering your password by looking over your shoulder.

Bad Passwords

• Don’t use passwords based on personal information such as: name, nickname, birthdate, wife’s name, pet’s name, friends name, home town, phone number, social security number, car registration number, address etc. This includes using just part of your name, or part of your birthdate.
• Don’t use passwords based on things located near you. Passwords such as “computer”, “monitor”, “keyboard”, “telephone”, “printer”, etc. are useless.
• Don’t ever be tempted to use one of those oh so common passwords that are easy to remember but offer no security at all. e.g. “password”, “letmein”.
• Never use a password based on your username, account name, computer name or email address.

Choosing a password

• Use good password generator software.
• Use the first letter of each word from a line of a song or poem.
• Alternate between one consonant and one or two vowels to produce nonsense words. eg. “taupouti”.
• Choose two short words and concatenate them together with a punctuation or symbol character between the words. eg. “seat%tree”

Changing your password

• You should change your password regularly, I suggest once a month is reasonable for most purposes.
• You should also change your password whenever you suspect that somebody knows it, or even that they may guess it, perhaps they stood behind you while you typed it in.
• Remember, don’t re-use a password.

Protecting your password

• Never store your password on your computer except in an encrypted form. Note that the password cache that comes with windows (.pwl files) is NOT secure, so whenever windows prompts you to “Save password” don’t.
• Don’t tell anyone your password, not even your system administrator
• Never send your password via email or other unsecured channel
• Yes, write your password down but don’t leave the paper lying around, lock the paper away somewhere, preferably off-site and definitely under lock and key.
• Be very careful when entering your password with somebody else in the same room.

Remembering your password

Remembering passwords is always difficult and because of this many people are tempted to write them down on bits of paper. As mentioned above this is a very bad idea. So what can you do?

• Use a secure password manager, see the downloads page for a list of a few that won’t cost you anything.
• Use a text file encrypted with a strong encryption utility.
• Choose passwords that you find easier to remember.

Bad Examples

• “fred8″ – Based on the users name, also too short.
• “christine” – The name of the users girlfriend, easy to guess
• “kciredref” – The users name backwords
• “indescribable” – Listed in a dictionary
• “iNdesCribaBle” – Just adding random capitalisation doesn’t make it safe.
• “gandalf” – Listed in word lists
• “zeolite” – Listed in a geological dictionary
• “qwertyuiop” – Listed in word lists
• “merde!” – Listed in a foreign language dictionary

Good Examples

None of these good examples are actually good passwords, that’s because they’ve been published here and everybody knows them now, always choose your own password don’t just use somebody elses.

• “mItWdOtW4Me” – Monday is the worst day of the week for me.

How would a potential hacker get hold of my password anyway?

There are four main techniques hackers can use to get hold of your password:

1. Steal it. That means looking over your should when you type it, or finding the paper where you wrote it down. This is probably the most common way passwords are compromised, thus it’s very important that if you do write your password down you keep the paper extremely safe. Also remember not to type in your password when somebody could be watching.
2. Guess it. It’s amazing how many people use a password based on information that can easily be guessed. Psychologists say that most men use 4 letter obscenities as passwords and most women use the names of their boyfriends, husbands or children.
3. A brute force attack. This is where every possible combination of letters, numbers and symbols in an attempt to guess the password. While this is an extremely labour intensive task, with modern fast processors and software tools this method is not to be underestimated. A Pentium 100 PC might typically be able to try 200,000 combinations every second this would mean that a 6 character password containing just upper and lower case characters could be guessed in only 27½ hours.
4. A dictionary attack. A more intelligent method than the brute force attack described above is the dictionary attack. This is where the combinations tried are first chosen from words available in a dictionary. Software tools are readily available that can try every word in a dictionary or word list or both until your password is found. Dictionaries with hundreds of thousands of words, as well as specialist, technical and foreign language dictionaries are available, as are lists of thousands of words that are often used as passwords such as “qwerty”, “abcdef” etc.

Important: Since Windows Vista Home Basic and Windows Vista Home Premium do not have the Group Policy Object Editor, you will not be able to send CTRL-ALT-DEL to machines running those versions of Windows Vista.

There are two ways of setting the needed group policy setting, depending on whether the remote computer is connected to a domain or is a member of a workgroup. Please follow the appropriate section depending on your setup.

Domain procedure (change domain group policy setting)

If the remote computer is connected to a domain, the domain administrator can enable this group policy setting for subdomains or for the entire domain. Please follow these steps:

Important: Only a domain administrator can modify the domain group policy
Important: The domain group policy overrides the local group policy. If the domain group policy is not set, you can use local group policy setting mentioned in the next section.

1. Login to the remote computer as the domain administrator.
2. Click the Start Windows button, select Run, type gpmc.msc and press enter.
3. In the left section, select the desired domain, then right-click and choose Create a GPO in this domain, and link it here.
4. Right-click the new GPO and select Edit.
5. In the left section, please navigate to: Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Windows Logon Options
6. In the right section, please double-click on the Disable or enable software Secure Attention Sequence policy and click on Enabled.
7. Set the policy option to Services.
8. Click OK and close the Group Policy Object Editor.

You have now enabled the sending of Ctrl-Alt-Del on all computers that are connected to the domain you selected in step 3.

Workgroup procedure (change local group policy setting)

If the remote computer is a member of a workgroup or is connected to a domain with no domain group policy set, you should follow these steps:

1. Login to the remote computer as a local or domain administrator.
2. Click the Start Windows button, select Run, type gpedit.msc and press enter.
3. In the left section, please navigate to: Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Windows Logon Options
4. In the right section, please double-click on the Disable or enable software Secure Attention Sequence policy and click on Enabled.
5. Set the policy option to either Services or Services and Ease of Access applications.
6. Click OK and close the Group Policy Object Editor.

You have now enabled the sending of Ctrl-Alt-Del on the remote computer.

I only met my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s family once — the year they invited our family over to share Thanksgiving dinner. Since we were basically a group of strangers looking to make a good first impression, the table conversation was nothing more than friendly idle chitchat.

When I asked our hostess for more mashed potatoes, she took the opportunity to ask me about myself while dishing out my second helping — “So Shaun, what do you do for a living?”

Hesitantly, I responded: “I work in computer support.”

The transition to silence was immediate. All eyes suddenly turned to me, raised eyebrows all around. If you hadn’t heard my response, judging from everyone’s reaction you might think I said something outrageous like I was a male stripper or a gynecologist — but I knew the awkward silence would soon be broken by an overwhelming outpouring of computer questions.

“Oh wow, a computer guy!” — “So you know how to remove spyware and viruses and stuff, right?” — “Our family computer is really slow, I think it has a virus.” — “Do you have a business card, or can I get your number?”

I politely and patiently answered their questions, hoping that we’d exhaust the subject in a matter of minutes and then move on to something else. As it would turn out, my hopeful prediction was very wrong — the gentleman sitting next to me scooted his seat closer to me to begin an interrogation.

This man I was meeting for the first time must’ve truly believed that I was going to help him with his problem at that very moment. It didn’t matter how uninterested I looked or sounded, he was convinced that I must know the answer he’s looking for and he was determined he would get it.

Situations like this one were common for me. I’ve had eavesdropping strangers approach me with questions about their computer while I was eating in a restaurant. I’ve had oblivious coworkers step in front of me in a buffet line to tell me about their computer problems while I was serving myself food. I’ve had neighbors who spotted me from their window rush outside to coax me into working on their home computer while I was walking to the corner market. My knack for solving people’s computer problems had become so well-known among my neighborhood that these circumstances were near impossible to avoid.

You might be thinking, “So why complain? If your help is in high demand, why not embrace your talents and charge people for your time?”

I tried to for seven years. I’ve worked in the computer industry in various ways — help desk support, web design, consulting and sales, field technician, freelance computer specialist, and whatever other fancy name you want to give “the computer guy.”

I stopped enjoying it. There were certainly times when I enjoyed myself, but most of those times were when my computer talents were still developing. Once I stopped learning new things on the job, I would become fidgety and want to move on to something else.

From my career-hopping experiences in the computer industry, I’ve become acquainted with the Top Ten Reasons it doesn’t pay to be the computer guy:

Reason #10 – Most Of Your Accomplishments Are Invisible

The computer guy never hears anyone tell him, “I just want to let you know … everything is working fine!”

The reality is that people call the computer guy when something is wrong.

As a computer guy, if you work really hard to make everything work the way that it should, and things work fine, then people believe you don’t do anything. Everything you manage to get working correctly or do perfectly will forever remain unnoticed by computer users. They’ll only ever notice that you do anything when something isn’t working correctly, and you are called upon to fix it.

Reason #9 – Every Conversation You Have Is Roughly The Same

When the computer guy dares to mention what he does for a living, the typical response is, “I have a question about my home computer…”

Or when the computer guy first hears about a widespread problem within the computer network he’s responsible for, he can barely begin to assess the problem before a dozen other people call to report the same problem.

Or when the computer guy explains a certain process on a computer to a user who is incapable of retaining the process, he will inevitably need to reinstruct the user of this same process — indefinitely.

Reason #8 – You’re An Expert Of Bleeding-Edge Technology Products, Aren’t You?

The computer guy often finds himself in situations where someone is asking him for advice on a pending investment of the technological variety.

“I heard about (some hardware or software product) that can do (something desirable) for me. I brought you these (advertisements/reviews/printouts) because I wanted your recommendation. Which would you buy?”

Although the inquiring person sincerely trusts the computer guy’s judgment over their own, in almost every instance the real objective of these meetings is to ensure their own immunity from making a risky purchase.

If it turns out to be a bad investment, and they cannot get (the hardware or software product) to do (anything desirable), then you will be their personal scapegoat — “But honey, the computer guy said I should buy it!”

Reason #7 – Your Talents Are Forcibly Undervalued

Thanks to the constantly declining price of new computers, the computer guy cannot charge labor sums without a dispute. If he asks to be paid what he is worth, he will likely be met with the “why not buy new?” argument.

That is, desktop computers are always getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. It’s possible to purchase a new desktop computer for under $400. If the computer guy spends five hours fixing a computer and wants $100/hour for his time, his customer will be outraged, exclaiming “I didn’t even spend this much to BUY the computer, why should I pay this much just to FIX it?”

Reason #6 – You’re Never Allowed A Moment’s Peace

The computer guy is so prone to interruption that he rarely finds an opportunity to work on his own problems. This is because:

1. Computers never sleep.
2. Computer problems aren’t scheduled.
3. Every problem takes time to diagnose.
4. The computer guy can only give one problem his full attention.
5. Each user believes their problem deserves attention now.

Consequently, the computer guy has a 24/7 obligation to keep critical computer systems running, while simultaneously juggling everyone’s problems. He’ll often need to forfeit any opportunities to tend to his own needs for the sake of others — because at any moment, of any day, he can be interrupted by someone who wants to make their problem his problem.

Reason #5 – People Ask You To Perform Miracles

The computer guy is often mistaken for someone who possesses the combined skills of an old priest and a young priest. I’ll sum this up easily by example:

“No, I really can’t recover any files from your thumb drive, even if you did find it after it passed through your dog.”

Reason #4 – Your Assumed “All-Knowing” Status Sets You Up To Let People Down

There is no common understanding that there are smaller divisions within the computer industry, and that the computer guy cannot be an expert in all areas. What makes things worse, is when the computer guy attempts to explain this to someone asking for help, the person will often believe that the computer guy is withholding the desired knowledge to avoid having to help.

This is somewhat related to the next reason:

Reason #3 – You Possess Unlimited Responsibility

The computer guy is expected to solve problems. It is difficult to determine the boundaries of that expectation.

Some of the oddest things that I’ve been asked to do include:

1. Use pirated software to undelete important company files.
2. Create an Intranet, after explaining I didn’t know how to.
3. Teach someone how to hide their pornography collection.

Solving problems can range from replacing batteries in a wireless keyboard to investigating why the entire building loses power at the same time every morning. Resolutions can necessitate weaving a 50-foot cable through a drop ceiling, or wriggling under a house on your belly to add an electrical outlet.

Reasons #4 and #3 boil down to this: no matter how often you want to play the role of a hero, there will always be circumstances that test the limits of your ability to be one. It’s difficult to judge when helping someone means doing something immoral, and it’s even harder to admit you are unable to solve someone’s problem — and chances are, that someone will view you as incompetent because you were unable to help them.

Reason #2 – A Life Of Alienation

People only talk to the computer guy when they need him to fix something. Also, when the computer guy approaches a user, they’ll hop up out of their chair under the presumption that he’s there to fix something — as if it would never be expected that he only wants to strike up a conversation.

The fact that the computer guy never gets a moment’s peace can also practically force him to withdraw into solitude. His co-workers don’t understand that he doesn’t want to hear about their computer problems during his lunch hour — he does that every other hour of the day. That’s why the computer guy eats lunch alone with his door closed, or goes out to eat every day — not because he’s unfriendly, but because he needs to escape the incessant interruptions.

Reason #1 – You Have No Identity

It’s an awful experience when the computer guy shows up at a neighbor’s doorstep with a plate of Christmas cookies, only to have the child who answered the door call out, “Mom, the computer guy is here!” He begs for an identity that is not directly associated with computers, but “the computer guy” label walks ahead of him — it simply cannot be avoided. I was given a name and I’d love to be addressed by it.

Having read these reasons, you may believe that I’m complaining. It’s true that I was upset with many aspects of my life as the computer guy, but I’m past the point of complaining.

I took a good hard look at my existence and realized that things were not likely to change in the line of work I had chosen. Instead of just complaining, I took action and began making positive changes in my life.

Working in the computer industry isn’t for everybody. It wasn’t for me. I’ve compiled my reasons for putting it behind me and placed them here, so that anyone who is unsatisfied with their life working in computers might recognize it’s not for them either.

• Make a network connection to the remote computer to ensure that you have administrative access to the machine (i.e. \\computer\c$). This will prompt for a username and password of the administrator. Enter the correct details.(Note: You cannot use the administrator account it a password has NOT been set)
• Start the registry editor regedit.exe (and not the older application regedt32.exe if it exists – it does not in later releases of Windows)
• Choose File, Connect Network Registry
• Enter the computer name as above.
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Terminal Server for the registry settings for the remote computer (take care not to select your own desktop)
• Double-click “fDenyTSConnections”
• Change the value of this setting to 0 to enable Remote Desktop or 1 to disable it, and click OK.
• If your remote computer has multiple network cards and you want to ensure that Remote Desktop is operating only on a selected card then navigate to the following registry location: (as above)\\WinStations\\RDP-TCP and note the LanAdapter value.  If this is 0 Remote Desktop operates on all networks, and if this is another number then it operates only on the network as identified in the (as first)\\lanatable registry key
• Disconnect the remote computer from the registry editor using File, Disconnect Network Registry, and selecting the correct remote computer in the list.

To add these such handy icons back onto your desktop, or I guess remove them also, follow these easy steps below:

• right click anywhere on the desktop, but not in an area that is occupied by the icons already there or the taskbar, then select “Properties”
• once inside your display properties click on the “desktop” tab at the top
• then click on the button near the bottom of that dialog window that says “customize desktop”
• once you have selected the icons that you want shown on your desktop click “Ok” to all menus till you return back to your desktop.that’s all you have to do.

Preface:

Verify that the machines that you would like to have file sharing between can browse the internet, this will be a sure sign that your network is operating properly. (Note: this isn’t a 100% guarantee that file sharing will work, but it’s a definite sign it will.)
If you want to configure the file sharing so that you could sit down at computer A and access the files on computer B and then vice versa, you will also need to have the computers you want to share files between configured with the same username and password.  For instance, Computer A has a username of jsmith password apples.  You will need to have the same username and password on every computer that you would want to have the ability to access the files stored on that machine.   If you just want to have access to a desktop computer from your laptop then make sure the username on your desktop computer has a password set.  (TIP:  If you attempt to connect to a machine that doesn’t have a user account with a password, it will show the logon dialog box with “guest” as a username and it will be grayed out and not changeable)

Step 1:

Verify that file and print sharing is enabled on your network adapter.  To do this go into the control panel and open Network Connections.

You may see multiple icons on here depending on what other devices are installed.  But the one you are concerned with is the one labeled “Local Area Connection” (NOTE: this could have been renamed to something else if you do not see one labeled as Local Area Connection, you will want to look for an icon that has two monitor screens staggered down from each other with a line that connects them to a “pipe”) If you right click the icon and click properties, this will bring up a dialog box displaying the current information related to the Local Area Connection.

[insert image]

Here you will see a couple items listed in the middle of the dialog box, at a minimum to make file sharing work you need “Client for Microsoft Networks, “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” and “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)”  If File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks is not listed you will need to install this component before you continue.  (To install the file and printer sharing component click the install button, then double click service (or click once to highlight service and click “Add”)  once the list of available services appears double click on “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” which will install the component after that.  After a minute the services and “select network component” dialog box will disappear)
Once you have verified that all those components are installed, you can close the network properties dialog box and continue to step 2.

Step 2:

There are multiple ways to share your data across the network, one way is to just share the entire hard drive this is the easiest and most simplest way but if you have multiple users on your network and are concerned with them gaining access to everything this isn’t recommended.  The other way is to just share the folders you want to share for access.

To share the whole hard drive:
Open “My Computer” and right click on the hard drive.  You should see as one of the options “Sharing”  or “Sharing and Security” (it will vary between Windows XP Home and Professional, and what service pack you have installed)  Click on “Sharing” or “Sharing and Security”.  This menu is also accessible through the “Properties” dialog box also.  (NOTE:  If you are using Windows XP Home edition the dialog box related to sharing will appear different)

Windows XP Pro Sharing Dialog Box (Example)	Windows XP Home Dialog Box (Example)

For Windows XP Pro users you might see a screen as shown above and might think that the drive is already shared, well it is but that is considered an “Administrative” share and requires an administrator username and password to connect plus it’s not visible when browsing the network.  To create a new share click “New Share”  In the new share dialog box you can create a “Share Name” (This is how the folder will appear to other users browsing the file and folders on your computer will see it) and then a “Comment”  The Share Name should be something that will remind you what is contained in that folder, since this example is done at the drive level you might put “C-Drive”  or something to that effect.
The next option is a crucial one,  if you are just wanting to retrieve files from that share and not put any files into that folder then you can just click ok and continue on with this guide otherwise you will want to click the “Permissions” button to the right of the Share Name.  By default everyone would have only the ability to read files from that share.  (WARNING:  This example is for sharing the entire drive and enabling write abilities here is NOT suggested, unless you are the only user that has access to your network.)  You will need to put a check in the “Change” box to allow the ability to put files onto your drive from a remote computer.  Click “Ok” once you have checked that and click “Ok” again to close the New Share dialog box. You will then return back to the “Sharing” properties and you will see that the share name you just entered on the previous dialog box is now listed in the “Share name” drop down box.

That’s it!  Just click “OK” and the dialog box will close.  You have just created a share that is accessable by any other computer on your network. You might want to make note of the computer name it can be found in the system properties under “Computer name” also look at what the “Domain or Workgroup” name is also.  (NOTE: If you attempt to browse the network for your computer and are having difficulties finding it in “My Network Places” after creating the share it could be possible that the “Workgroup” name might be different from the machine you are browsing from.  This guide here explains on how to change the name.  The name being different will not prevent you from accessing your files over the network you just need to know the name of the computer and you can type it in the address bar to gain access to your files)

Step 3:

Now to access the share from another computer you will open “My Network Places”  (If this icon is not on your desktop and you would like to add it follow this guide here).  There are many variables as to how everything is displayed on this screen here, but if you made note of the computer name from the previous step you can type it in to the address bar.  In the address bar type ” \\(computername) ” and press enter or click “Go”.  Shortly you will see the screen refresh and you should see the share name you created earlier.