Window's Startup Modes for TroubleshootingWritten by Stephen Bucaro
---------------------------------------------------------- Permission is granted for article below to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and byline, copyright, and resource box below is included. ---------------------------------------------------------- Window's Startup Modes for Troubleshooting By Stephen Bucaro Troubleshooting a Windows problem is a bit difficult when system freezes up or display becomes unintelligible. You need a way to get Windows to bypass some of its complexity and bloat so system can start, allowing you to perform troubleshooting. Windows provides several alternate startup modes just for that purpose. To access these alternate startup modes, start your computer and immediately after startup beep, press [F8] key. The startup menu will display as shown below. 1. Normal 2. Logged (BOOTLOG.TXT) 3. Safe mode 4. Step-by-step confirmation Enter a choice: 1 Press number key for your choice and then press [Enter] key. 1. Normal allows you to get out of startup menu and resume starting Windows normally if you pressed [F8] key accidentally. 2. Logged causes Windows to log its startup activity in a file named bootlog.txt in drives root directory. Bootlog.txt will be a very long file. Open bootlog.txt with Windows Notepad or DOS Edit and search for a line that contains word "failure". If Windows freezes before completing startup, last line in bootlog.txt might give you a clue to cause of problem. You may find that one or more steps fail during startup process. Don't assume those are cause of your current problem. Those steps may have been failing all along and you didn't know it. 3. Safe mode. This mode bypasses most startup configuration files, including most of registry. It starts windows without most of drivers. It loads only generic mouse and keyboard drivers and a standard VGA video driver.
| | Password Security - How Secure are You?Written by Pencil Dude
Passwords - we use them every day, here in cyberland. They're used as first step in identifying ourselves. Yes, we're allowed to logon to this network, because we have pre-approved password. They're necessary for our online banking transactions and our online bill payments. Or yes, we're allowed to read this ebook, because we've purchased it and here's our authentication.There's almost a gazillion instances where we use passwords but most of us don't think about how easy it is for our lives to be broken into because we chose such an easy password. A recent survey reported by BBC suggests that more than half of computer users never change their passwords, and many use words that can be easily guessed. Common Passwords: 23% child's name 19% partner's name 12% birthdays 9% football team 9% celebrities and bands 9% favorite places 8% own name 8% pet's name In my experience, other passwords that are common in North America include: - Mother's Maiden Name - Social Insurance Number or Social Security Number (SIN, SSN)* - Favorite Colour/Color - The person's name and current year * Before I go any further, I should stress that using ANY of those ideas as a password is an extremely bad security risk. Furthermore, use of your SIN or SSN is particularly foolish as that can lead to identity theft. In U.S. alone, this problem is estimated to be somewhere around 700,000 to 750,000 victims a year. The problem with using such easy common names for passwords is that hackers, and identity thieves have special programs, much like dictionaries that go through all of obvious common names, phrases and variations; they also go through dictionary itself, including "foreign" language dictionaries. Sooner or later, they'll get a hit - and BINGO they're in and can do whatever it is that they want to do.
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