VirginTech » Tools & Extras

Prevent PC Data Theft, Unauthorized USB Data Transfer By Blocking USB Ports

Shahab — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:30:22 +0000

There are times when you don’t not want to allow your PC USB ports to be used by other people around you either because you have highly confidential data in your PC or because you’re afraid of the viruses that spread through infected pen drives.

So in order to prevent your PC from USB viruses and unauthorized USB data transfer (data theft) you need to get your hands on a very easy to use freeware called USB Port Locked. It is a lightweight ( just a few Kb ) application that can block all the USB Ports of your PC with just a one click.

USB Port Locked Features:

1: Lock the USB port quickly and all USB ports are locked in a flash

2: Very Lightweight application with a size of 200 KB in compressed form or 1.2 MB in uncompressed form.

3: USB Port Locked is a portable application, so you do not need to install this application if you want to use it on another computer.

4: Extremely simple to use.

You can download this freeware from this link.

Prevent PC Data Theft, Unauthorized USB Data Transfer By Blocking USB Ports
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How To Encrypt, Protect Pen Drive Data With USB Flash Security: Pen Drive Data Security

Convert PowerPoint Presentations To Various Video Formats With Wondershare PPT2Video Pro

Shahab — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 21:06:33 +0000

PPT2Video Pro is a Wondershare’s all in one PowerPoint to video converter that neatly converts PowerPoint presentations to number of different popular video formats such as AVI, WMV, MP4, MPEG1, MPEG2, MOV, FLV, 3GP and multiple HD video formats.

Wondershare’s presentation to video converters, with different functionalities and prices, are available in three versions: PPT2Video Free, PPT2Video Pro and PPT2DVD Pro. You can get a complete feature comparison chart on this link.

Wondershare PPT2Video Pro Features:

1] PPT2Video Pro has got 130 video output formats to choose from ( AVI, WMV, MP4, MPEG1, MPEG2, MOV, FLV, 3GP and multiple HD video formats ). This enables users to convert the PPT to desired video format and to play presentation video on most video players and portable devices like iPod, iPhone and iPad.

2] Supports PPT to Video conversion for 12 PPT files at a time.

3] Adjust the output video settings like resolution, frame rate, and audio fidelity for playing it in higher quality.

4] Video obtained after PPT conversion enables you to share your PPT content on the video sites like YouTube and Hulu.

5] PPT to Video conversions retains all animations, transitions, sounds, video clips and narrations.

You can download the trial version of this converter from this link.

NOTE: We will be giving away three licenses (each worth $49.95) of PPT2Video Converter toVirginTech Readers. We will come up with a giveaway with in 2-3 days from now. To stay updated regarding this upcoming Giveaway we recommend you do one of three things mentioned below:

1: Subscribe VirginTech Updates Via Email or RSS

2: Follow VirginTech on Facebook.

3: Follow VirginTech on Twitter

Convert PowerPoint Presentations To Various Video Formats With Wondershare PPT2Video Pro
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How to Preview Short URL’s To Avoid Short URL Phishing, Malwares and Viruses

Shahab — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 11:28:11 +0000

There are many URL Shortening services on the web like tinyURL.com, bit.ly etc and all of them are for converting the lengthy URL’s into the shorter ones. Shortened URLs not just make the sharing of links easy in fact they come in very handy when it comes to sharing links on sites which are message length limited like Twitter.

The only problem with shortened URLs is that before visiting the link you can’t predict at all what the shortened link is all about because shortened URL simply looks like this: http://bit.ly/dgAayN.

These links may contain viruses, malwares or they may even lead you to spam or phishing sites. So its always better to examine or preview such kind of links if they are not from genuine source.

How to Preview/Examine Short URL’s to avoid Phishing, Malwares and viruses:

There are many online services that allows you to preview a shortened link. Among all of them the one we liked the most is longURL.org as it provides provides the screenshot of the webpage too along with the Webpage title, Meta description and Meta keyword information of the webpage. Depending on how frequently you encounter the shortened links there are two methods to choose from:

Method 1:

If you rarely find shortened URLs and don’t want to install any script or add-on to preview them then this method is for you. To preview any shortened URL, go to longURL.org , enter the shortened URL in the given space and then hit the expand button.

It will show you the expanded URL (the actual URL), the thumbnail of the webpage that you’re about to visit, Meta description, meta keywords information and the title of the webpage.

Method 2:

This method will suit you if you are a heavy internet user (especially for bloggers) and you come across the shortened links quite frequently. In this case we recommend you to install a longURL tool as either a Firefox extension or Greasemonkey script. Doing this will allow you to preview or examine a short URL without visiting the longURL website.

Once you’re done with the installation you can examine or preview any shortened link by simply hovering the mouse over it.

You can see in the screenshot above that by simply hovering the mouse on the shortened link the title of the webpage and its actual URL can be previewed.

How to Preview Short URL’s To Avoid Short URL Phishing, Malwares and Viruses
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How To Avoid Facebook Fan Page, Group Wall Spamming

Shahab — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:28:32 +0000

If you’re a blogger or you have some online business then you might be aware of the importance of having a facebook fanpage or group for your blog or business. Keeping in mind that today Facebook is having more than 500 million active users, it really makes sense to think of facebook as an important traffic source for a site. So if you still don’t have it then a million dollar advice for you would be Go and get it now!

Once you get a Facebook fan page and its fan count increases beyond 100 or so, spammers starts having a close eye on it. They get into the fan page or groups and start spamming walls by posting dozens of links on it to their site. This in turn harms the reputation of your brand and you may end up losing lots of your fans for this. So you must avoid or stop Facebook fan page wall spamming.

How to Avoid/Stop Facebook Fan Page Wall Spamming?

Depending on the number of fans you have on your fan page, you may choose any one of the following methods to avoid facebook fan page and group wall spamming.

1] Method#1 [For Facebook Fan pages and Groups] – Blocking User Permanently

For small facebook pages and groups it’s better you permanently block a particular user who’s spamming on your wall. Here’s how to do it. On the fan page click on the “See All” link. (See the screenshot below)

This will show up name of all the fans. Click on the cross mark (X) in front of the name user to be blocked.

Once you click “X” mark, you will see a pop-up window shown below . Check the box “Ban Permanently” and then hit the “Remove” button. This way a particular user is blocked permanently.

2] Method#2 [For Fan pages only] – Editing Wall Posting Permissions

For fan pages with large following blocking individual users wouldn’t be a solution. So in this case a possible solution is to prevent users from posting a link on the wall by editing wall posting permissions. They will be able to post photos and videos but they wouldn’t be allowed to post a link on the wall.

To prevent users from posting link on the wall click on the “Options” link just below the “Share” button.

Now you will see “Settings” tab. Click on it and it will show you the Wall posting permissions. Uncheck the box saying “People who likes this page can Post the links”.

Doing this will prevent any member of the fan page from posting links on the wall while they are free to post photos and videos on the wall.

If you have any other way for dealing with Facebook fan page wall spamming then please do let us know in comments. We would love to hear from you.

How To Avoid Facebook Fan Page, Group Wall Spamming
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How To Hide Facebook Online Status From Certain Contacts: Facebook Chat Stealth Settings

Shahab — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:53:07 +0000

Everyone would agree to the point that the Facebook offers a great platform for everyone to stay connected with friends, family etc with highly customizable privacy. Though Facebook chat needs certain improvements, it is quite good when it comes to user privacy. You can make yourself appear as offline to certain contacts while maintaining your online presence for others.

You can make list(s) of the people present in your friend list and then you can independently decide to which list (group of contacts) or lists you want to appear as offline. This technique comes in very handy when you have lots of talkative people in your friend list who are not important to you at all and you want to ignore them.

How To Hide Facebook Online Status From Certain Contacts:

Hiding your facebook online status from certain contacts is all about creating list of people you want to avoid in your Facebook chat and then setting your status as Offline for that particular list.

Anyway lets take a closer look now on how this is actually done.

Click on the Facebook chat box available in the bottom right corner of any Facebook page. Once it opens up, you will see two tabs Friend Lists and Options. Click on the Friend Lists tab and you will see a Create a new List Option as shown in the screenshot below.

Give a name to your list whatever you want (say block list) and press Enter. Once the list is created it will show up in your Facebook chat box.

Now to add any of your contact to this list, hover the mouse just in front of the name of the list. You will see an Edit button as shown in above screenshot. Click on it and add as many contacts as you want. Now to hide your online status from these people simply click on the small icon in front of the list you created.

Following the same process as above you can create as many lists you want. Online status for all the created lists can then be independently set. So this is how you can control your online visibility to your Facebook friends depending on your needs.

Make sure you drop in your comments if you liked this. We are always willing to hear from you.

How To Hide Facebook Online Status From Certain Contacts: Facebook Chat Stealth Settings
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How To Remove Tango Toolbar Malware From Your PC

Shahab — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:40:06 +0000

Frankly speaking, I don’t like Internet explorer browser at all, for all my browsing needs I prefer working either with Chrome or Firefox. But yesterday I opened the Internet Explorer just to check out some browser incompatibility for a site , and I noticed a mysterious, spammy looking toolbar in my Internet Explorer browser. That was actually the Tango Toolbar, which is a typical malware whose removal from the PC is quite difficult.

What is Tango Toolbar ?

Tango Toolbar is a malignant adware that can cause many problems for computer users. TangoToolbar may redirect unwary computer users to malicious websites promoting annoying adware. It’s advised that you remove Tango Toolbar from your PC immediately or use an advanced spyware cleaner to check its existence.

How Tango Toolbar gets installed on a PC ?

Well majority of the people affected by this toolbar are unaware of the fact how this toolbar gets installed on their computer. Here come’s the answer for their troubled mind. Tango toolbar gets on to your PC via P2P networks and other potentially malicious sites. A cracked Limewire version is just one of the possibilities to get the Tango Toolbar.

How To Remove Tango Toolbar From PC ?

When I first noticed this toolbar in my IE browser, I was sure that I never installed any toolbar like this before, so I immediately went to my Windows control panel to remove this crappy toolbar. To my surprise, I found that Tango toolbar can’t be removed from a computer through Windows control panel. Unlike other normal toolbars, you can’t even hide tango toolbar and that’s really irritating.

After googling a bit for about this toolbar I got a solution for its removal and here is what you need to do in order to remove this crappy malware.

Download an anti-malware program from this link: SUPERAntispyware and rename it as winlogon.exe or iexplore.exe. Run this program as Administrator and update the installed program to the latest version and then perform the whole PC scan.

Once the whole system scan is complete it will show you up all the system infected files and accordingly you can take the action against them. After the performing the whole system scan and restarting my PC, tango toolbar was no more there in my PC. So give this tool a try, I am sure you will get rid of tango toolbar.

Do let us know in comments how it worked for you. We’ll be happy to hear from you!

How To Remove Tango Toolbar Malware From Your PC
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

How To Add or Remove Your Facebook Profile In Google: Facebook Privacy Tips

F.Lux: A Solution To Eye Strain Problem Due To Bright Computer Screens

Shahab — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:15:29 +0000

The problems of eye strain and insomnia are often reported by serious PC users who used to spend large amount of time on their computers staring at the bright screens. The situation gets more problematic when user spends a lot of time in front of a bright computer screen in the night time. If you are experiencing the same kind of problem then you should give a try to F.lux, it will surely help you overcome these problems.

F.lux is a smart little app that, depending on your location, predicts the sunset and sunrise time in your location and by making use of this data it makes the color temperature of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.

Once F.lux is installed (in Windows), it will appear in the taskbar. Click on its icon and this is what you will see.

To add your location to F.lux settings click on Change Settings tab. Now click on the Change tab (see screenshot below) and a pop up will appear that will prompt you to add your location.

You can also adjust the the lighting for daytime and night time both by scrolling the two sliders shown in the screenshot below. Also, whenever you want to do any color-sensitive work, you can disable f.lux for an hour. For that you just need to check the box saying ”Disable for one hour”.

The design of this app is backed by results of some good research work. If you want, you can get to know this app more deeply by visiting link: Sleep Research

I’ve just started to use this app, so I can’t say much about how it would be in the long run but here are few reactions on this app from the people who have been using this app and are pretty much familiar with it.

1: I have had major issues with a way-too-bright flat panel that was a retina-burner on the very lowest setting. This helps a lot. The disable feature will let me work on graphics as needed. And yeah, it’s way pink. But pink is supposed to be calming which is what hyper people like me need to combat insomnia…

2: F.lux is amazing! I spend a lot of time on my computer in the evening and and my screen is too bright no matter how I adjust my monitor settings. The yellow filter really does the trick: I can already tell that it is easier on my eyes

To read more feedbacks of people about this app, go to this link.

If you prefer to work in night time then this app suits you the best. Don’t forget to drop in your comments after trying it up.

This tool works on Win 7, Vista, XP and Mac OS X. Download this tool from this link

Ref [DSL]

F.Lux: A Solution To Eye Strain Problem Due To Bright Computer Screens
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts:

3 Sites To Find Free & Paid Wi-Fi HotSpots Anywhere Around The World

Shahab — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:31:53 +0000

Internet is something that has become everyone’s need today. People use internet for networking purpose, for finding information over the web, for entertainment purpose etc. For many people internet serves as a working medium also.

The beauty of internet is that you can access it from where ever you want with WLAN or Wi-Fi, the fastest growing wireless connectivity technology in the world.

Around 3 lakhs of free and paid Wi-Fi locations are present all over the world. If you’re interested in finding free or paid hotspots in your location/region then here are the three sites that definitely worths a visit and a bookmark too.

Sites for finding free Wi-Fi HotSpots:

1] JiWire – WiFi Finder:

This is the best Wi-Fi HotSpot finder among many others that i have found. In JiWire’s registry, there are 297,008 free and paid Wi-Fi locations in 145 countries. To locate a Wi-Fi hotspot in your region or area, go to this link JiWire. There you will see a world map.

Click on the region in that world map where you want to locate a Wi-Fi hotspot OR for searching with advanced search options click on the link “Click here for more search options” (see the above screenshot)

This is how JiWire advanced search looks like:

You can filter Wi-Fi locations on the basis of country , state , city, access fee, proximity, Provider, Location name, Location type etc. Finally the search results can be obtained on the map or in the form of list.

JiWire also offers a free Wi-Fi finder app for iPhone and iPod Touch. If have any of these device you may headover to this link for getting a free JiWire app for it.

2: HotSpot Locations – The Wireless Directory:

This directory contains around 33913 Wi-Fi locations. You can filter out the locations on the basis of country, state, city or zip etc. You can also specify the operator type and location type (like Airport, hotel, restaurant etc).

For getting only free Wi-Fi locations make sure you check “Only free hotspots“. (see screenshot below)

After selecting any particular hotspot, you can view it’s location on map also. To access this HotSpot location fiinder go to this link

3: Free-HotSpot

Free-HotSpot has got very easy to use interface and shows only free Wi-Fi hotspots. One unique thing about this Hotspot finder is that it will show you the current status of HotSpot also. For instance if a HotSpot is currently active then it will be shown by a green flag and for inactive one’s the red flag is used. For hotspots with unknown status, a yellow flag is used.

Enter the name of the location where you want to search for the Hotspots in the search field (see screenshot above) and press enter. This will return all the available HotSpots in that region. Click any of them and it will be shown on the map with its status.

On hovering the mouse over Filters>> (see screenshot above) a drop down menu appears which enables you to filter the HotSpots on the basis of their of Current status and Location type. You may access free-hotspots at this link

We hope this article will help you in finding out a Wi-Fi locations around you. Do let us know in comments if you know any other good HotSpot finder. We would be glad to hear from you.

3 Sites To Find Free & Paid Wi-Fi HotSpots Anywhere Around The World
Originally Published at VirginTech

Some Similar Interesting Posts: