Microsoft releases PowerShell script for purpose of testing of Meltdown and Spectre

Computer PC Tips - bits and bytes, News Items
Microsoft releases PowerShell script for purpose of testing of Meltdown and Spectre With the latest news concerning the possible attacks within your computer hardware Microsoft has jumped on providing a PowerShell Script to give a user basic knowledge whether they are vulnerable.  Baron Software followed the guidelines and can attest that it does work providing the end user with information but it doesn't really tell the end user what to do.  This is almost like being in a bomb shelter waiting for the explosion to happen. Commendable for Microsoft Microsoft, at least gave something to work on while hardware manufacturers have to come up with a plan on protecting the end user.  That should be happening in the next few weeks to months but also be aware that countless folks…
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How to Protect Your Home Router from Attacks

Computer PC Tips - bits and bytes, News Items
How to Protect Your Home Router from Attacks Protecting everything at your home is essential to your daily life at this point.  You are now using a router in your home for everything from smart devices (ipads, iphones, android devices), printers and workstations. Now is the time to follow these simple instructions. Choosing a router You get what you paid for.  Simple term for simple things, you go cheap and you can expect anybody on the outside to attack your internal structure.  Keep in mind you want a solid piece of equipment that provides you with the utmost security and closing down users from the outside. Change the default admin password Everybody makes the mistake of not changing a default password when installing a new router.  Big mistake.  Keeping the…
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Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities

Computer PC Tips - bits and bytes, News Items
Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities Recently, two critical vulnerabilities were discovered in modern processors. Dubbed "Meltdown and Spectre", these processor chip vulnerabilities are found on personal computers, mobile devices, and in the cloud. What is Meltdown Meltdown exploits a flaw in out-of-order execution, a performance feature found in many modern processor chips. The researchers who discovered it have confirmed that it affects every Intel processor since 1995 (with the exception of pre-2013 Intel Itanium and Intel Atom processors). However, they added that it remains unclear whether ARM and AMD processors are also affected by the vulnerability. If successfully exploited, an attacker can obtain a copy of the entire kernel address space, including any mapped physical memory, in other words, any data stored in memory at the time of the attack. What is…
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ZDNet predicts will 2018 see the death of printers and email in the workplace?

News Items
ZDNet predicts will 2018 see the death of printers and email in the workplace? Well as it is expected to come the latest predictions are coming out of the wood work.  ZDNet has predicted that the end of email and the printer in the work place is a thing that will occur within the near future.  Baron Software predicts that neither will be gone at least for another 10 to 15 years.  This theory is solely based on government agencies that still have to provide letters as well as documents for the people. Sure people can open PDFs on their terminals for review a document but still the old hard copy has to be provided during internal meetings, letters, manuals, etc.  People tend to use their smart devices a lot…
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What to do if your database seems slow

Software development Concepts, SQL Tips
What to do if your database seems slow Quite a few times during a business day or even after hours, you have noticed that your database requests or queries tend to be slow with the results.  This could be that your database has become bloated with constant usage.  There are a few things that the IT / DBA or you, can do to resolve these possible serious issues. Databases work almost like people, they tend to keep inactive data that uses disk space, poor design and even the over-indexing of tables which could be some of the reasons for poor performance to outright collapse. Step one - inactive data to archives. The first step is to research whether there is too much inactive data.  This is data that is no…
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