Friday, October 29, 2010

How to increase your download speed.

If the speed of your Internet connection is vital to your online enjoyment, slow downloads may be frustrating. Luckily, there are several ways to increase download speed. Download speeds can be influenced by several factors, including extra programs or processes running on your computer, your ISP, and the traffic of the site that you are downloading from. If you are frequently experiencing slow download speeds, try some of the methods listed below:-

Method 1: Test Your Download Speed

  • Go to start menu.Click of Run.
  • In the open box: type gpedit.msc
  • A new dialog box named Group Policy will be opened.
  • On the left panel of dialog box, Look for (Local Computer Policy).
  • In that, Select Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Network.
  • On the right panel, Double Click on QoS Packet Schedular.
  • In that, Double Click on Limit Reversible Bandwidth.
  • In setting tab, Select enabled.
  • And make Bandwidth limit(%)=0(zero).
  • Restart the computer and see the change.

     

How To Protect Your Computer While Browsing

There are over 1 million computer viruses in circulation to date. It is very important to protect your computer from these viruses to protect your personal information and your files. 

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is make sure your computer's operating system is up to date. That means if you are using Windows XP or Vista, you should do automatic updates. The reason this is important is because Microsoft generally releases security updates every month and these tend to be fixes of holes or flaws in the operating system.

Step 2

The second thing you should do is identify if you have an antivirus. If not, you should consider purchasing one or you can download AVG free. It is 100% free and won't cost you a dime. The only thing I dislike about it is that it updates every day and can get annoying as it might slow down your system. If you are willing to purchase one, I would suggest Norton Antivirus or McAfee. Both are suitable and will protect your computer from viruses.

Step 3

Lastly you should identify if you have an anti-spyware. If you have Windows XP or an older operating system without Norton or McAfee, you probably don't have one. If you have Windows Vista, you are in luck as Vista comes built in with an anti-spyware called Windows Defender. Now don't be confused between viruses and spyware because an anti-spyware helps protect your computer but DOES NOT protect against viruses. Most anti-virus software nowadays has some sort of anti-spyware built in, but you should double-check to make sure. There is a lot of free anti-spyware software out there. If you don't have Windows Vista, you can download Windows Defender or you can download a program called Ad-Aware personal. Both are free and will do the job.

I hope this helped you get a better understanding of how to protect your computer against viruses and spyware. Hopefully, if you were unaware of these potential threats before, I have helped you become aware.

How To Remove a Trojan Horse from Your Computer

Trojan horses are viruses that sometimes reside in your computer.  Computer viruses like these occupy your computer's virtual memory and hard disk space. Trojan horses can be acquired via the Internet without the end user's notice or approval. 
Most of these Trojan viruses are self-installing, and they infect your system anonymously. Some of these types of irritating viruses actually replicate themselves after installation.
And the worst part here is that Trojan horse viruses gather all information available from your computer and send the collected data to a remote server (a computer located in an untraceable area and possibly the owner or the creator of the virus).
If you are one of the victims of these "nasty horses", likely you cannot maximize your system's performance, especially when the programs you operate frequently access the Internet. 
Here are some of the methods that you can use in detecting and eliminating these annoying computer viruses, which could eventually damage your computer or worse lead to identity theft:
First, you have to detect if your acquired computer virus is always active or not. You can try detecting the virus by pressing the (ctrl + alt + delete) keys on your keyboard to access the task manager window on your desktop screen. Then click on the processes tab to see if there are any suspicious processes that your computer is running. Compare the processes present on the list against those provided by websites that focus on eliminating viruses.
  • If those suspicious processes are proven as positive viral operations, or if you still cannot determine if the processes are run by viruses, then it is time for you to purchase registered anti-virus software. Anti-virus software is mainly sold for scanning for viruses and spyware, and eliminating malicious software. These also protect your computer from future infections caused by downloadable computer viruses.
  • After installing the anti-virus software, you may set the specified configurations from the manual and thoroughly scan the system's storage and virtual memory for possible viral infection.
  • After detecting a Trojan horse virus, delete the file using the anti-virus program. If the infected file is a system file, which is being used by your computer's operating system, you can quarantine the infected file so that the virus will not affect other programs or data in the system.
  • Restart your computer to refresh the system, and check if the system's performance increased. It would be best if you run the anti-virus scan again just to be sure that there are no traces of the existing Trojan horse virus.
  • Note that anti-viral programs need to be updated so that your computer is always protected from Trojan horse viruses.

How To Fix a Computer Virus

A computer virus is a program that can easily reproduce itself to harm your computer and its program. If your computer is infected, it can be a really nasty experience! It can make your computer totally shut down, delete all your files and literally break your machine into oblivion. This can be really a hassle especially when there are lot of important files and documents that are stored in your computer. This often occurs when your machine is not protected or if you have a really weak security system. Not having a firewall and anti-virus software is open to a lot of viruses especially when you are always online. However, there are ways that you can successfully fix this dreadful situation. Here’s how.
  1. Boot up your computer into safe mode. A safe mode is a diagnostic mode of your computer wherein it will only launch all the default programs. To avoid further damage to your system, it is important that you do all the repair and fixes in safe mode. You can easily do this by restarting your computer. You then press F8 key repeatedly until you see a black screen with white fonts. Choose Safe Mode with networking and push Enter on your keyboard.
  2. When your computer is fully booted up, you need to clean and optimize your browser/s. If you have Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, make sure that you do this step to both of them. Open your browser and click on tools. Completely delete all browsing and download history, cache, cookies and active logins. Do not erase the saved passwords so make sure it is unchecked.
  3. Close all windows and look for the My Computer icon on your desktop. Right click on it and select “Properties” on the drop down menu that will appear. Select the “System Restore” tab. Make sure that you check the feature that says “Turnoff System Restore.”  Almost all virus lay their eggs in the system restore folder so it would be best that you have that turned off to avoid it from multiplying.
  4. Close all windows again and click on the “Start” menu. Go to “Search” or “Run.”  Type in “winmsd” on the field box and click on Enter. Go to the “Software Environment” category and click on “Startup Programs.”   Scan through the list and delete all programs that you don’t know about or does not belong there.
  5. Open a browser and run an online anti-virus scan. You can use these sites www.housecall.trendmicro.com or www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan. All viruses that they will detect will automatically be quarantined or deleted.
These are the things that you have to do when your computer becomes infected with an annoying virus that can lead to fatal results. Just remember, prevention is the number one solution to every problem that you might encounter. This includes computer viruses. Make sure that your system is fully protected and when you are online at all times, it is important that do not download any suspicious looking file. Always visit websites that you trust and that you can truly rely on. It is crucial that you are comfortable doing these steps before you actually start doing it. If not, immediately contact a professional technician to avoid further damage to your system. Good luck!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

How To Create a Proxy Server in Java

If you want to make a proxy server using Java, here's how you can do it:
  • Install the application. If your computer does not have the latest Sun Microsystems' Java standard kit, download and install it into the computer system.
  • Open the text editor of your choice. This can also be your preferred integrated development environment. Keep in mind that in order for the Java proxy server to perform its duties of cross-compatibility, it must fulfill an interface. In accordance with this, import the Net libraries and Java IO and define the proxy server. The implementation must appear as follows:
                import java.io.*;
                import java.net.*;
                interface mySockets
                {
                String readLine();
                void wrtieLine(String myString);
                void dispose();
                }
  • Check for the validity of different parameters. When the server is initiated, the legality or validity of different parameters will be displayed. The parameters that are included are the local port, name of the remote host, remote port address, and the like. If there are invalid parameters, it will be reported as an error.
  • Implement SocketInterface. This is necessary so the Proxy class can be defined. This includes the host port address, the port, and command to wait or not for connection. The text editor command must appear like the following:
                public class SocketProxy implements mySockets
                {
                private Socket mySocket;
                private BufferedReader myIn;
                private PrintWriter myOut;
                public SocketProxy( String myHost, int myPort, boolean myWait )
                {
  • Wait for the establishment of a new connection. When the connection is activated, there will be an input stream of BufferedReader that will be opened. This will then be passed to the PrintWriter class’ output stream. This is the one to be used by the server to forward any kind of information. Take the commands below as a guide:
                {
                if (myWait) {
                ServerSocket myServer = new ServerSocket( myPort );
                mySocket = myServer.accept();
                }
                else
                mySocket = new Socket( myHost, myPort );
                myIn = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(
                mySocket.getInputStream()));
                myOut = new PrintWriter( mySocket.getOutputStream(), true );
                } catch( IOException e ) { e.printStackTrace(); }
                }       
Read the server's input stream. Using the readLine method, read the input and then return to writeLine method. This must read as follows:   public String readLine() {
                String myString = null;
                try { myString = myIn.readLine();
                } catch( IOException e ) { e.printStackTrace(); }
                return myString;
                }
                public void writeLine( String myString ) {
                myOut.println( myString );
                }
  • Close the socket. After the server has finished passing information in between the connections of the main server and the client computer, close or end the network socket. To do this, this command must be followed:
                public void dispose() {
                try {
                mySocket.close();
                } catch( IOException e ) { e.printStackTrace(); }
                } }

Once this process is finished, you have successfully created a proxy server using Java. Now, you can freely and successfully use the server. Even if you can’t see the success physically, the communication between the server and a computer is enough proof of the success of this task.

How To Connect to Wifi Hot Spots

Connecting  to a WiFi hotspot is easy, and will only take a little effort, assuming you already know how to connect to a wireless network.
  • First, turn on your notebook or netbook computer’s wireless radio. In some cases, you might have a hardware switch. In other cases, you might have to press a combination of Fn keys on your keyboard.
  • Then, look for the wireless icon on your system tray. The computer will notify you if there are new networks found.
  • Click on the wireless icon and choose a network. The list will usually indicate the signal strength of each available WiFi hotspot. The list will also indicate if the hotspot is encrypted.
  • Select the name of the hotspot that corresponds to the establishment you are in, or the one that has the strongest signal.
  • If the hotspot requires a passcode, you have to ask the waiter or staff for their establishment’s notebook. Ask if they charge for this, or if it’s free with a purchase.
  • Enter the pass phrase. You should be connected by this time.
  • Open a web browser and try logging in to your favorite websites. If it’s working, then congratulations: you have connected to a WiFi hotspot. If it’s not working, try entering the pass phrase again.