I like to do this occasionally and give out some stats that aren’t usually seen by others. Today’s episode is browser usage for accessing this site.

It’s not surprising that as this blog is mostly aimed at technical issues that the top 3 or even 5 browsers are those that are newer ones on the market or recognised as being used by those that are:

• clued up about security or
• nerdy or
• recognise some shortcomings in IE or
• some other reason

Whatever the reason(s) for using the browsers the above chart breaks down this way (%ages rounded up/down):

• Firefox – 40%
• IE8 – 28%
• Chrome – 13%
• Safari 4 – 9%
• iPhone – 5%
• IE6 – 2%
• IE7 – 2%
• Opera 9 – 1%

The only other thing that surprises me is that there aren’t any other browsers used – that or the analytics doesn’t recognise them as separate entities and lumps them under another category. For example, is the iPhone the only mobile browser to have accessed this site? On the face of the figures UI have to say yes but experience says it’s more likely to be a mix.

Not sure how long this has been around, but Nmap (the free and open source utility for network exploration or security auditing) has now gained a graphical frontend.

Zenmap may not look like much, but it does make life easier for those afraid of the command line. It allows for interactive creation of Nmap command lines and saving of scans historically for comparison, etc. The main benefit here is that zenmap now makes Nmap more accessible by both beginners and advanced users alike.

I recall a day, not too long ago, that there used to be a fair number of “rescue” tools out and about on the market.

My preferred go to tool of the day was FProt.

These days I didn’t know of one until AVG (yes, them of the free Anti Virus) released their latest product – the AVG Rescue CD.

But what does a ‘rescue CD’ do? In simple terms it is a stand alone, self-booting CD (or USB stick) that contains Anti Virus, Anti Malware and more besides. AVG have gone a step further though and added a few extra tools into it to make a truly versatile product.

In their words:

The AVG Rescue CD is essentially a portable version of AVG Anti-Virus supplied through Linux distribution. It can be used in the form of a bootable CD or bootable USB flash drive to recover your computer when the system cannot be loaded normally, such as after an extensive or deep-rooted virus infection. In short, the AVG Rescue CD enables you to fully remove infections from an otherwise inoperable PC and render the system bootable again.

Apart from the usual AVG functions (malware detection and removal, updates from internet or external device, etc.), the AVG Rescue CD also contains the following set of administration tools:

• Midnight Commander – a two-panel file manager
• Windows Registry Editor– simple registry editor for more experienced users
• TestDisk – powerful hard drive recovery tool
• Ping – to test the availability of network resources (servers, domains, IP addresses)
• Common Linux programs and services– vi text editor, OpenSSH daemon, ntfsprogs etc

I’ll certainly be adding it to my repertoire of tools to take when I visit friends and relations that have infected machines.

What tools do you use?

If you work with networks in any serious way then you will almost certainly have come across WireShark by now  (or Ethereal as it was formerly known).

Anyway, Laura Chappell who writes a well known blog “Inside Laura’s Lab” has now come out with a book to help us network techy types make the most of WireShark.

In her words:

Laura Chappell’s Wireshark Network Analysis book is filled with tips, tricks and techniques for new and experienced analysts, this will be a must-have book.

Get your book from the usual places or direct from WireSharkU or ChappellU and use this code: 998nws35 to get a 35% discount. The discount is valid until March 29th 2010 and only works on the two listed sites.

This looks awesome and I want one.

However it isn’t available until Q4 2010 according to the makers (22moo) website and although I’m not a huge gamer I can see where and how this could be of benefit even to me.

Some of its features are (will be):

• Styling to compliment iPod/iPhone with optimized design for ergonomics and comfort
• 2000mAh Lithium-ion Battery for additional power for your iPod touch / iPhone
• LED showing charging state and capacity
• 8-way D-Pad with 6 buttons
• Built-in Stereo speakers
• Highly sensitive omni directional Mic
• 3.5mm audio headphone jack

No idea on price yet but I guess it’ll be in the £15 to £35 range and I’ve submitted my name for a review of one – will see what happens there.

Andrew over @Webstudio13 has written a blog post that, in his own words says:

There is something called “Twitter Etiquette.” There are a number of articles that have outlined what not to do with Twitter, and I have read most of them. Consider this post as a summary of all those pointers.

Some of the points are downright obvious “don’t ignore others” – “don’t defame others” – well at least I think they are; whilst others I just totally disagree with “don’t neglect trending topics”. However the one thing that really got my goat about the article was its presentation of points as accepted facts without any explanation.

Take:

#10. Do not tweet way too less (People forget your existence) and
#42. Do not be reluctant to unfollow people who don’t tweet often

Why? (more…)

One of the most annoying aspects of Windows 7 (I find) is that lots of software doesn’t autostart or autorun properly. Let me explain with an example … do you use Piriform’s excellent ccleaner?

Do you use it the same way as I do – by right-clicking on my recycle bin?

If so, are you fed up with Windows 7 asking you for permission to run it?

This is the UAC in action.

Then the answer is that you need to run the item as an administrator and Windows 7 gives us have five options to do that – though not all would necessarily work for all situations and some will still ask you to confirm you are the admin or want to run as admin. (more…)

Security of your PC is down to more than just having an Anti-Virus and/or firewall to protect it.

It’s more than ensuring you follow security best practices – see here or here.

It’s more than not clicking random links sent to you by your mates.

It’s more than running WindowsUpdate on a regular basis – for the record I don’t have it set to auto update.

It also includes ensuring your application software is up to date.

But how do you do that? (more…)