Safe in our use and safe from intruders accessing our data or utilising our bandwidth to do untold things. Restricting physical access is now old hat, we need to be aware that anyone sat in a car outside our house, our church or our business could be leeching off of our wifi.

So what to do?

First off, you need to ensure that your equipment is reasonably new. At least new enough to be running the latest standards even if not the fastest speeds.

Secondly you must, let me say that again, must use encryption and here you need to go as new as you can. Whatever you do (unless it is the only option) don’t choose WEP – as this has long since been shown to be weak and vulnerable to any semi-determined leecher. If you do have to use WEP then my suggestion is twofold – either replace the hardware or change the password weekly.

Third; don’t bother disabling SSID broadcasting. It makes no difference. Those who promote this as a part of wifi security either don’t understand wifi or are being wilfully ignorant or are promoting security by obscurity. I’ve discussed not disabling SSID before and in response to other blog posts and the usual pat answer I get goes something like: “well every step helps”.

Well shutting your front door helps, but it won’t stop a burglar checking to see if it’s open. In short, for your wifi card to be able to talk to your wifi router, then the router HAS (let me repeat that … has) to send the SSID. In fact the router will broadcast your SSID in 1 of 5 ways and your “disabling its broadcast” merely turns off one way. Even my maths tells me that’s still 4 ways to discover your SSID. Sure, when I turn on wifi search on my smartphone it won’t show your SSID but give me a few seconds more (and I’m the good guy here) and I will know what it is.

That’s it, simple steps really.

1. Newest or reasonably new hardware with up to date firmware.
2. Use the strongest encryption possible.

Now, go do it and protect that network of yours.

Protect That WiFi is a post from: Church Techy

It is basically an electronic bracelet similar in size to a Livestrong band that is linked with an app on a smartphone or similar.

So why call it lifestyle jewellery then? Simply because this offers a way to track ones lifestyle. Using sophisticated sensors it will track movement, sleep patterns, etc and then transfer this data to the app. In the app one then enters your dietary intake and in linking this to your habits it becomes like a lifestyle coach that can advise on exercise, food intake and sleep.

Admittedly this isn’t the first wearable, functional jewellery (cf. the Fitbit for example) but Jawbone’s VP of Product Management, Travis Bogard says “There are other devices but they are bulky and unattractive and people aren’t comfortable wearing them. So we made one that you don’t really notice. We’ve gotten used to people wearing things that blend in. It’s one of the biggest breakthroughs. It’s much smaller than most of the existing devices and truly the intersection between wearability and design and solves a technical problem.”

The Jawbone UP is due to be released later this year.

And I for one am keen to see at what price it comes in at.

Lifestyle Jewellery is a post from: Church Techy

Get rid of the trailing cables that Apple are so fond of and instead use  Bluelounge’s MiniDock. Recently launched, the dock adapter eliminates the awkward slack of charger cords, conveniently lifting your handheld device out of harm’s way.

The sleek accessory, specifically designed to replace existing iPhone or iPod cables, plugs in to a USB power adapter and props gadgets upright in an optimized position as they charge. To ensure a perfect fit regardless of whether you use a case on your device foam spacer stickers (offered in three sizes) are included in the kit.

Available in U.S., U.K. and E.U. versions, the MiniDock costs £15/$20, not a bad price for apractical solution to recharging your digital devices that will see you through many versions of the device itself.

I could have done with one last week!

iPhone MiniDock is a post from: Church Techy

I’ve always presumed that folks knew about using more than one monitor on their deskop, or indeed laptop setup.

I’ve used a dual monitor setup at work for years and for even longer at home. The why is fairly simple. I can have multiple programs in view at once for comparison, cut and paste, copying, etc, etc. However, I realised that when the nth person came into my personal domain (aka study) and asked why I’ve got two monitors that perhaps some folks don’t know how to go about this.

I’ll leave any why arguments to yourselves – but consider also that widescreen monitors are rapidly dropping in price so you could achieve the same ends with a single unit.

Anyway, in simple terms there are 3 ways that I can think of to create a dual monitor setup:

1. Install a 2nd video card into your PC.
2. Install a dual headed video card into your PC or
3. Purchase an adapter [more on this later].

In order of ease and preference I would argue for installing a dual head card, then the adapter and finally adding an additional single headed monitor card. Of course if you are adding a second or external screen to a laptop setup then depending on your model of laptop / netbook you’ll either not need anything or you’ll want an adapter.

Replacing your current video card is simply a matter of a direct swap for what is already there. Do bear in mind that if you try the route of adding an additional single headed video card to compliment an “on board” video card then it is almost certain that the act of installing the new card will disable the on board one. In this case check your BIOS for an option to run it as well.

Another caveat when using this method (or indeed using 2 stand alone video cards) is that you will want to match their capabilities so that each screen can run at the same resolution, etc.

Next you need to be careful to purchase a card with the right physical inputs. So if you have 2 VGA monitors make sure to buy a dual headed VGA card or get the relevant adapters.

My final warning is about the external adapters. These typically come as a USB to video connector and typically require an extra driver to be installed – this naturally adds a layer of complexity or hassle and in some of the setups I’ve seen the software cause untold oddities. Such as popup message boxes appearing across the middle of the two screens and no way to “move” them.

The bottom line reality is that for less than £50 or its $ equivalent you can get the hardware necessary to add a second monitor (the monitor being whatever it costs).

So why not?

Dual Monitors is a post from: Church Techy

I’ll give you the one argument I like …. in one word.

• Manageability

Forget the old arguments about security or sector sizes or … instead I recommend partitioning purely for ease of managing your data.

Here’s my1, 2, 3:

1. Make your primary (boot) partition large enough for the OS and any programs you want to install (now or in the future).
2. Ensure all your data files are migrated to a non OS partition
3. Then ensure you back the data partition up.

That’s it.

Short and sweet – do you agree?

To Partition or Not is a post from: Church Techy

Or is that fanatic?

I’m almost as bad with tools as I am with books and the easy answer is do not leave me alone in a book or tool shop. I’m bound to buy something.

However in this case I’m referring to computing and wondering what one tool – hardware or software you couldn’t do without?

What’s the go to download or purchase?

Me? Well I have many but amongst the few I always grab and put on any new PC are:

• ccleaner
• K9 from Bluecoat
• AVG Rescue CD
• Steve Gibson’s Spinrite

There are many, many more but the first two are free and fabulous utilities that do what they claim, do it well and consistently and they are free.

The next, AVG Rescue CD (read about it here)is one of those tools you want in readiness or are at least aware of what it can do for when trouble strikes. The same can be said for Steve Gibson’s spinrite – yes it costs money but just in terms of my own hard drives down the years it has paid for itself.

On the hardware side I love my socket set that has all the weird and wonderful security bits with tri-wing, hollow centre torx, etc bits in it.

What’s your favourite tool?

Do drop me a note in the comments as I’d love to hear them.

Vital Tools is a post from: Church Techy

Or more precisely what it refers to when linked to a project or a request for something to be done?

Well the other day I certainly undertook a Heath Robinson setup – my main contact on the church staff sent me an eMail asking if I could organise an internet connection to the main auditorium by that evening. Now for those that don’t know I’ve been trying to get the church to sort the cabling out for quite some time.

Plans have been submitted. Costs have been worked out and quotes received.

But as of now still no forward movement on spending.

I’m hoping my 9th hour jury rigged Heath Robinson WiFi connection will be the final boot that gets the ball rolling.

So my answer to the church, remembering my own inner mantra for 2011 being to “try to always give a positive response” (even if it’s a negative…) was to say “let me see what I can do”. I grabbed one of my spare WiFi based routers and got the church to buy enough telephone extension cable to reach from our incoming ADSL across the upper open area and through into the pastors lounge which has windows that overlook the auditorium.

One hour later, judicious use of duct tape, some config work and the help of WiFi Analyser on my HTC the church had a working WiFi setup that was every bit a Heath Robinson affair.

The crunch was … it worked and I got publicly thanked in the vision meeting the following Wednesday.

• Have you ever had to jury rig something?
• Please do share as I’d love to hear your stories.

Jury Rigging is a post from: Church Techy

Strictly speaking you could say I was the victim as it was my debit cards that were taken.

The short version of the story is that a thief took 2 x debit cards, my photo drivers ID and my gym membership card. These were very specifically targeted and my other cards (including credit) along with physical cash were left alone. The thief (possibly more than one) then set about bold as brass walking into the two banks and withdrawing £4,100 (approx $5000) in one afternoon. Fortunately the banks saw it as fraud and quickly re-instated our accounts and credit levels, etc …

The reason for the re-telling of this(on a technical blog) is that the only place the thief could have got the cards was from my wallet which was sat inside a locked locker and the key for that padlock was hanging round my neck.

And for those of you questioning how, let me just say that several people I know that work  for the local police have said it isn’t the first time they’ve heard a similar story to mine. And since telling my friends on facebook a number have said they also know of others this has happened to.

What this does do is remind me that in the connected world in which we live then the only good security is one where the attacker can’t get anywhere near your data.

Even then you need to take additional precautions.

For my part the gym coffee shop will never get any more of my cash because I no longer take my wallet.

Physical Security is a post from: Church Techy