Tag: windows

Too old for technology… NOT!

You are never too old to learn a new skill or hobby.

by Sherri Meinke

This winter, I had one of my computer students attempt to teach me to knit. Needless to say, I was dropping stitches, pulling the yarn too tight… it windows was an absolute nightmare. I was frustrated that I could not master the simple skill of a basic knitting stitch. It definitely humbled me and made me think of how many of my students get frustrated in class with computers. Do I left click or right click? How many times do I click? It enlightened me to be more patient when the same student asks the same question over and over and over. The statement “I’m too old to learn” is hogwash!! Help is out there! I can attest, I love working with my senior citizen students more than any other demographic.

Click the link below to read the full article.

via Too old for technology… NOT!.

Create a Secret Hiding Space in Windows

How to create a secret hiding space for your data within Windows.
by The Windows Club

The Windows operating system offers many tweaks and tricks. If you are aware of these, then you can complete your tasks quickly and in a simple way. You may never need to use any third-party software, if you are good at using those tricks. Among those many tweaks available, I will let you know, how to hide data in a secret text file compartment, created using a Notepad in Windows 8 / 7.

We normally save our bank account numbers, credit card numbers, important passwords and so on, in text files and place them on our desktop to access them easily. But, if your system is being shared with others, then there is chance of this information being compromised.

What I suggest is, follow this method of hiding data whenever necessary and remove those text files immediately once you are done with your work, as once anything is made, there are many ways to break it. This method makes use of the Alternate Data Streams of the NTFS file system, which Windows supports.

Article Continued Here

Error deleting – File name is too long

I am almost positive you have run into this error before. Recently I have had 1000s of files like this.

long_file_path

Where did they come from? Both times it was a hidden cache folder for DropBox and AeroFS. I had been playing with both to see if I wanted to use them to sync my files.

Well, I found a simple way to blow these away in one shot, and you can use a tool within windows to do it.

It seems that robocopy can handle these long file names. What you do is you create an empty folder, and then use it to synchronize the copy while telling it to delete all the files that do not exist in the source (Your empty folder)

So if you are running into this, and just want the whole folder gone, get to a command line and create an empty folder.

I created one at c:empty

And lets say for our example here the offending folder is c:BadFolder

You would call robocopy like this:

robocopy c:empty c:badfolder /e /mir

robocopy_commandprompt

The /e tells it to visit all sub folders even if they are empty, the /mir will tell it to delete any file or folder that does not exist in c:empty – which is everything.

So there it is. A simple trick to get around those pesky files that windows says are too long – no special tools needed.

Two-Factor Authentication

I am a strong proponent of two-factor authentication but the worrying thing is the way it’s being advertised or pushed as a holy grail of security. The weakest link is still the person using the service/device and if they continued to use weak passwords then it just become the matter of loosing your token device or mobile.

When enabling two-factor authentication users still must advised to setup secure passwords with at-least 10 digit length containing Alphabets, Numerals and Special Characters.

It’s a good thing that Microsoft is building two-factor authentication directly in the OS and it will help the IT administrators to better manage and protect the device in their network.

See the link below for more detail about the implementation of two-factor authentication in Windows 10.

Windows 10 to get two-factor authentication built-in