Not because I don’t want to see their tweets but because I’m seeing them twice and sometimes three times.

You see, I use lists – probably not as extensively as some do but then TweetDeck does recommend you restrict the maximum number of open columns. So in an effort to improve the flow of my twitter world I’ve taken to trying to be more organised.

Some lists I’ve created myself:

ChurchIT – this one covers far more than just IT. The basic criteria is do you go to a church (I don’t care what denomination or faith) and are you involved in IT, Tech, Media, AV, or similar in some way. If so, and I’ve seen your name then you are likely on this list. Currently it has 197 members and 17 followers.

CCNA – this one loosely covers anyone that tweets about the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification. It’s work related so I feel duty bound but it only has 19 members and one follower.

Welsh Rugby – I think this one is fairly self explanatory but it is a list of folks that play or have played rugby for or in Wales. A passion of mine and has 32 members but no followers.

I also have a couple of private lists that include folks I know IRL (in real life) and the folks I’ve interacted with on the 31DBBB project. I’m open to bribes for making my 31DBBB one public though. Equally I have a few lists I follow that I didn’t create.

The trouble with my recent actions is that it could cause some folks to unfollow me – and I accept this as it is too much effort to tell them individually that I’m following them via a list so please don’t drop me. Instead I’ll accept that my sphere of influence will likely decrease.

That’s no bad thing – after all it’s not about me.

Anyway, to utilise lists requires that you have a twitter app that allows you to easily view them.

My software of choice is TweetDeck because for me and the way I use Twitter it just works – and there’s an iPhone app for it as well.

• Do you use lists – if so tell me a list or lists you follow?
• What software do you use to manage your lists?
• How do you find your lists?
• Would you find a lists 101 helpful?
• Are you on any lists?
• Do you have a twitter plan of action?

Twitter Lists is a post from: Church Techy

They aren’t just blocking the unsuitable content but entire sites.

The worrying thing is the lack of choice offered and no prior warnings – just blocked unceremoniously. Additionally there is no burden of proof required – so malicious reports could easily see someone barred from the internet. When you consider that most schools in the UK expect children to have access to the web at home for school purposes – then we once again enter into the realm of a two tier society. The have and have nots.

But, I don’t want to get into the politics of these decisions here, but show how (in the case of the site blocking) it can be overcome with some simple changes. Equally, making these changes could improve your surf speeds even if you don’t get blocked.

The approach is to utilise a third party DNS service such as OpenDNS or Google.

If you’re not a fan of either or find they aren’t perhaps as good as your current ISP then try using namebench – which is a simple utility that has code for Windows, Macs and *nix. In their own words they state that namebench “hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use“.

So why is this a 201?

Mostly because it’s a step above an intro lesson to DNS (covered here) as you’ll need to know how to access yoru router and change it’s settings – that I won’t cover here, but OpenDNS cover a ‘how to‘ for most major manufacturers.

And another way around this is to utilise one of the methods discussed here recently.

• Should ISP’s play judge & jury?
• What about other un-regulated setups such as the IWF?
• Ignoring for now, the dangers to minors are you for or against ineternet censorship by organisations?

DNS 201 is a post from: Church Techy

But it’s not me but Pandora Corp. that are giving something away.

Starting June 26th at 00:01 Pacific Standard Time (time conversion) which is equivalent to GMT / UTC 07:01 and finishing at midnight (PST) Wednesday, June 30th  they are giving away its signature computer monitoring software, PC Pandora 6.0, absolutely free!

Me, I’m against monitoring without first having discussion but if you’ve already reached that stage or you have another need for it, then I say grab it while you can.

Here’s how to get it:

Vist PC Pandora and use the code FREESUMMER2010. As I say – the giveaway will last until midnight on the 30th or until 50,000 units have been given away.

ChurchTechy Giveaway is a post from: Church Techy

Of course I said yes and made it abundantly clear that to do it justice I would need an unrestricted version and that it would be totally unbiased without fear of favour. The only pre-deal I agreed to is that I’d let the company see this review first so that they could “respond to it as necessary” – you can see their response at the end in red.

So…

Who are Brightfilter?

They are a Bath (UK) based company that is fairly new (since 2004) to the world of filtering but appear to have made quite an impact already. They provide internet security solutions that “protect children online both at school and at home”.

From information found on their website they only “provide solutions” that meet standards or guidelines published by groups such as: CIPA; IIA; ISPA and IWF. They are also now a McAfee Premier partner.

What do they offer?

The easy answer is to say see the web but in short they offer:

• Family surfing protection and
• Educational surfing protection

Though these two broad sweep categories are far from the complete picture. The first is via a windows application and the second is typically via an appliance such as the McAfee Web Gateway unit.

Reviewing Brightfilter is a post from: Church Techy

OK if you’re going somewhere interesting and tweeting / sharing something of interest at the same time …

Or maybe you’re using it as a sort of diary tracking your life movements but are keeping it to yourself.

Then I get that.

But I don’t see it that way.

What I see are lots of stuff like this:

John Doe checked in at Some Restaraunt
Yum, breakfast.

Maybe it’s my age but I don’t think so – as a lot of the folks I ‘see’ using this are my age.

• So why?
• Go on, can you sell it to me?
• Do you use it for sensible purposes?

Sell This to Me is a post from: Church Techy

Yesterday I blogged about how to hide your IP address and today I caught up with one of the many blogs (EFF in this case) I follow who posted about “encrypting the web”.

In short, it’s a plugin for Firefox released by the Tor Project and EFF that encrypts all your search requests and attempts to encrypt all standard web browsing. Read all about it here.

It’s still in beta but it’s a start.

I say grab it now.

N.B. it doesn’t hide your IP or stop search engines from logging but it does stop ‘in the open‘ intercepts.

HTTPS Everywhere. is a post from: Church Techy

So here I present to you an introduction to how you can hide your IP.

But before I start I will say that one of these methods will require you to be comfortable with adjusting your computer settings with the other just requiring you to install a piece of software.

Just before we dive in though a quick walk through on IP’s. An IP address is akin to your post or zip code and applies to one single machine at a time. When we surf the internet we utilise two IP Addresses – a public and a private one. It is the public address we are talking about hiding in this case.

Method 1:

Proxy Servers

These fall into two categories:

1. Browser based such as: Proxify, Anonymouse and The Cloak and

2. Server based – also known as: anonymous proxy, high anonymity proxy, transparent proxy and distorting proxy.

Using a server based proxy is simplicity itself though. It’s a matter of editing your browser settings to reflect which server and port they require and then browse as normal. Some browsers even have plugins that make switching between anonymous and open an even easier process.

Method 2:

VPNs

VPN or Virtual Private Network are almost always a ‘pay to use’ service but can be found from around $5pm upwards for home use. VPNs typically work by installing software (but not always) on your PC that “wraps up” your PC such that your PC is seen as a part of the remote network – in this case the supplier of the VPN service.

Typically VPN traffic is also encrypted which makes the logs that your ISP keeps unusable.

If you pay for a VPN service then one huge benefit is that it will typically ‘secure’ your browsing when you use public wi-fi hotspots which are notoriously open allowing all sorts of problems.

Some aspects to conisder when researching a VPN supplier are:

• Security
• Reliability
• Scalability/ Speed / Low Latency
• What O/S does it work with?
• Do they offer mobile (aka wi-fi hotspot) access as a default?
• Do they cover all protocols or just HTTP and HTTPS?

Personally I can recommend the products from WiTopia – I am a previously happy customer of theirs and they had excellent tech support when I used them. I also like the look of, if only for the name, Banana VPN and of course there is IPREDator from the powers behind The Pirate Bay.

Alternatively just search for “personal VPN” via your favourite search engine.

Method 3:

Tor

Tor is best described in their words: “Tor distributes your transactions over several places on the Internet, so no single point can link you to your destination. The idea is similar to using a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you — and then periodically erasing your footprints. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several relays that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it’s going.”

The trouble with Tor is that you need to be fairly computer literate to use it fully and it doesn’t, by its own admission “magically anonymize all your traffic“.

Tor will only protect applications that have bene pre-configured to use it.

Tor recommend you use a Firefox plugin called Torbutton – but this automatically blocks other plugins that could potentially reveal your IP Address and thus rendering the reason(s) to use Tor. These include Java, Flash, QuickTime, ActiveX, PDF plugins, RealPlayer and so on. In real life this means that Youtube use will be useless.

When using Tor you have to be very aware of browsing in a non-Tor mode as any cookie left behind will get re-used during a Tor session again opening you up to being identified.

My final warning on the use of Tor is that it’s anonymity and encryption really depend on you using it correctly. You also need to be aware that the encryption only takes place whilst in the Tor network – not from you to the Tor setup (via your ISP) and not from the last hop in the Tor network to your destination.

–

So there you have it.

Three methods of hiding your IP.

Some more simple to action, some free and some complicated if not of a technical mindset.

• Is my 101 to involved – should it have been split into a multi-part post?
• Have I missed any obvious methods to hide your IP?
• Do you plan (or do you already?) to hide your IP?

Hiding Your IP Address 101 is a post from: Church Techy

And you’ll likely find that like most folks, your wireless surfing has slowed of recent especially if you’ve had it running a while.

The likelihood is that if you live in a densely populated area or you’ve made internal changes to your living space then either or both these (and more) could impact on your wireless surfing speed.

So what can you do?

• First off you can try changing your wi-fi channel. Most modern routers allow you to do this. It could simply be that your selected channel is now over-lapping or even on the same channel as a nearby neighbour. You could go for the trial and error approach or you could download Netstumbler (a free Windows tool) and allow it to show you all WLANs within reach, their SSIDs, channels and other information. Simply pick the least populated channel of the strongest ones near you.
• Secondly you could try moving the router. Sometimes we add new kit or other equipment degrades and leaks signals that can interfere or we even re-model our living spaces and that can cause problems with signal degradation.
• Another option would be to buy an add-on aerial – these range from simple rubber stick like items to omni or mono-dirctional to homemade “cantennas“. Whatever option you pick will boost the distance / receptivity of your wlan.
• A more involved option would be to install a wireless bridge. This is effectively a second router that can be added in an appropriate location to extend your wlan.

Two other less obvious options you could employ but could well be valid in your situation are:

• Ensure all your wifi kit is using the same standard. Most wifi routers will happily adapt to the lowest common denominator buy why restrict your 802.11n network to the speeds of an 802.11b? It’s akin to buying a Bugatti Veyron and putting a Mini’s engine in it.
• Lastly why not change your passphrase / password whilst you’re in the router control panel. If you use a simplistic one there’s no telling who might have ‘cracked’ it and be using you bandwidth for whatever.

So there you have it.

Six ways you could potentially boost your wireless surfing speed.

• Have I missed any options?
• Is this something you’ve experienced and tried to remedy?

WiFi Speed Boost is a post from: Church Techy