0 Network Monitoring For Home Users

Network monitoring is the technique which is used to see what's happening in a computer network. In business, a network monitoring system monitors many things such as incoming threats to the network, components which slow the network down, data transfer, crashed servers and many things.

For a home user though, network monitoring simply means monitoring the download and upload rates of the computers in a network, usually in order to see what's taking up too much bandwidth. Today, I will be talking about network monitoring for home users.

It's rather easy to monitor your network lately, thanks to the variety of network monitoring software around the internet. With the help of a software, you can dynamically see the data transfer in your network, you can prioritize or limit the things you want to, you can balance the traffic for different computers in the network if you are sharing the connection, (You can split the connection equally between two computers for instance in order to prevent one person's downloads interfering with the other's internet experience) you can set rules such as assigning different volumes of traffic to different applications for different times of a day, week, or month. It's totally up to you how you want to customize your network.

If you are interested in this, I would recommend using NetBalancer, since it's a fairly easy and effective network monitoring software to use. You can find more information about NetBalancer here. Note that there are many alternatives to NetBalancer, but you can trust me on this one! After downloading and setting the software up, you will see a screen similar to this.

This is the main window, which you will be spending most of your time in. You can see all the processes which are running on your computer in this window. It shows you the download & upload rates for the specific processes here. You can simply right click a process, and change priority, block, or limit the download/upload speed of this particular process. As a real life example, let's assume I'm playing an online game and downloading something at the time. Apparently, it makes my game lag so that I can't play. In this scenario, I can just push my game's priority to high, and the software will make sure that the download isn't interfering with my gameplay.

There are also two graphs at left and right bottom, total internet usage and connections of the process you selected respectively. You can see which IPs a process is connected to, which can sometimes help you see if something dodgy is happening.

On the picture above, I just pushed Heroes of Newerth to high, and let BitComet at normal, so I can play my game without any problems! Let's take a quick look at the traffic rule setting as well.

I right clicked BitComet on the main window and added a rule for it. You can see on the picture that I chose the days Saturday and Sunday, and changed the Upload setting to Blocked. With this rule, BitComet won't be able to do any uploading at weekends. I'm sure many people will find use for this great feature, since if some time is put into it, it can make it a lot easier to use your internet connection effectively. Next up is the level severity option.

Remember the priorities we set earlier for our processes? This is the tool where you can choose how low your "low"s, and how high your "high"s will be. You can optimize this according to how fast your download and update rates are.

This would be network monitoring for home users in a nutshell. It's simple, isn't it? No more fighting with your girlfriend cause she's downloading and slowing your game down, no more problems with loading pictures while downloading and many more examples you can think of!

0 File Management Software

File management software are surely the biggest part of our computer lives. I'm sure everyone is familiar with Windows Explorer, the implemented file manager of Windows OS. Whenever you open a folder on your computer, it is Windows Explorer which makes you able to see your files and such.

That being said, Windows Explorer isn't the only one which you can use on your computer. Infact, there are many file management software which are far more advanced than Windows Explorer, or perhaps, more suitable for different users. Today, I will be talking about different types of these software and recommend you my personal favorites.

If we are to categorize, the categories would be:

• Orthodox
• Navigational
• Spatial

Let's start with Orthodox!

Orthodox file managers are the oldest ones between these three categories. They were used to make it easier to manage files back in the DOS days when there was no Windows where you can assign your files easily. An orthodox file manager consists of three panels. One of the panels is called the active panel, where you can navigate through your folders and files in the current working directory. The second panel is the passive panel, and it is used to see the content of an another directory at will. Lastly the third panel is a shell/command line where you can input commands as if you are in DOS. In the time of DOS, these were really popular since it made everything so much easier. Instead of inputting hours of commands, you could copy,paste,read,modify files and many more things with the help of shortcuts. The most famous orthodox file management software is surely Norton Commander. Even though these aren't used anymore (for obvious reasons), if you want to take a look at it, I'd suggest using Norton Commander.

The second type is, which everyone must be familiar with, is Navigational.

Navigational file managers are the ones we use every day. The greatest example to these would be Windows Explorer for Windows and Finder(has spatial mode too) for Mac. A navigational file manager consists of two panes, where one pane shows the system tree, and the other pane shows the active working directory. What seperates navigational from orthodox is the fact that navigational file managers have a graphical user interface, and orthodox file managers don't.  That being said, the GUI brings lots of advantages such as being able to go back & forward with a click of a mouse, and expanding folders without going into them (The arrows to the left of folders in Windows Explorer), drag & drop, and clipboard. WinSCP is a great alternative to Windows Explorer if you are willing to try something different.

Our last type file managers is Spatial.

Spatial file managers are completely different from the ones I have listed above. In a spatial file manager, every window represents a different folder. Basically, every time you double click a folder, a new window will be opened to show the contents of it. It's totally a different concept compared to the other two, and in my opinion, it's really hard and time consuming to use. That being said, some people prefer spatial over navigational because they like to know what is where instead of going around folders all the time. It's totally a matter of choice, but navigational is a lot more popular compared to spatial. Konqueror is a good spatial file management software (it has a navigational mode too) which you can try and see.

These three would be all the file management software types, all with their advantages and disadvantages.. Choose the one you feel comfortable with and stick to that one. You don't have to be forced to using Windows Explorer / Finder if you don't like it. We are living in a world of alternatives and technology :) If you asked my opinion though, I would say get used to navigational as it will make your life a lot easier.

I hope you enjoyed this, see you next time!

1 Virtual Machines & How to set one up with Virtualbox

Virtual Machines are guest operating systems which are installed in a host operating system. Think of it as a secondary operating system in your computer, and you can run it at the same time with your operating system. The biggest function of virtual machines is the fact that they're isolated from the host (primary OS), which means they are in no means related.

The reason why everyone uses virtual machines is simply because you can have different operating systems on your computer without changing your preferred operating system. This comes handy for people who have programs which aren't compatible with Windows 7, people who need to use Linux for programming, people who want to test software/settings without altering their original operating system and many more things that I can't think of right now.

The only disadvantage of using virtual machines is that it runs slower compared to a host operating system. Since it accesses the hardware indirectly, the performance will be poorer compared to the main system. It might also end up slowing down your host operating system if you don't have enough resources to run them.

Setting virtual machines up are fairly easy. First things first, let's list the things you need to set your own virtual machine.

- VirtualBox for Windows (Note that there are alternatives to VirtualBox, but in all honesty, it's the easiest one to use and it covers everything you need.)
- ISO file of the Operating System you wish to use (Backtrack 5 in my example)

That's pretty much all we need! Start with downloading and installing VirtualBox. After that, we'll see the main window of VirtualBox. To create our Virtual Machine, we simply click the "New" button, give it a name, and select its version.

When we are done with that, the software will ask how much memory we want to allocate to our Virtual Machine. (this can be changed later, so don't worry about misconfiguring it) I have 6 gigabytes of RAM installed in my computer, so I will just give 2 gigabytes of RAM to it. This is totally optional and you should configure it according to your needs.

The next step is making a "hard disk". Select the Create new hard disk option, and check the Start-up Disk option to proceed. Leave the file type at default. (VDI - VirtualBox Disk Image)

It's going to ask you if you want to have a fixed or dynamic hard drive. Dynamically allocated is usually a better choice since it will save you from using unneeded space on your hard drive. I'll select dynamically allocated for this example. After that's done, we are supposed to allocate a starting space for our hard drive (it ll expand after you fill this space up, that's how dynamic works)

Now, we have an empty Virtual Machine in our hands. It's time to load our Operating System in it! But first things first, click Settings in the main window, and assign more Video Memory and Cores to it, so it runs optimally. (You can do this by going to System-> Processor / Display -> Video)

To install the OS, we need to import the ISO file we wish to use into Virtualbox. This can by starting the VM up, going to Devices -> CD/DVD -> IDE/SATA (doesn't really matter) -> Choose a Virtual CD/DVD file. After the DVD is loaded, you will see the installation screen of your Operating System. (In a Windows 7 example, you will see the screen as if you re installing a fresh Windows 7 copy on your computer.)

After the installing part is done, your virtual machine will restart, and you will be seeing a fresh installed operating system of your choice! You might want to install Guest Additions as it's needed to fix some driver issues. (This can be done in the Devices menu again) Congratulations! You just successfully created your own virtual machine.

Now you can tweak it the way you want to and make use of it. You can also share things like your folders, your network, or your clipboard between your host and guest system, which makes it quite versatile to use.

I hope you liked this tutorial! I'm glad if I could have been any help :)

1 Spyware Protection

I guess everyone knows what a spyware is more or less, but for those who don't; spywares are malicious software which monitor your computer without your will. This monitoring process can be something simple such as checking which websites you've been surfing, or something critical such as your personal or bank information. Spywares can also slow your computer down, change your computer settings, create unwanted pop-ups to appear and such things which will harm your computer experience. Spywares, unlike viruses are a lot more likely to infect your computer due to their nature, and they are a lot more common than viruses. Therefore, even though virus protection isn't crucial in my eyes, spyware protection surely is.

Nowadays, spyware protection is fairly easy. There are many software from different companies which offer spyware protection. All you have to do is to download one of the software, let it scan your computer, and it will most likely remove every piece of spyware it can find. I will now, share the software that I've been using for spyware protection.

I use two different spyware protection software to keep my computer clean from spyware. You can safely use both of them at the same time as they won't cause any conflicts in your operating system.

First software is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which you can get more information about (and download a free trial) here. It's fairly easy to use and user friendly as all the other spyware protection software. All you have to do is install it, let it update, and then run it.

The software lets you choose one of the three options to scan your computer. I recommend using full scan once in a while (a monthly-two monthly basis would be fine), and quick scan every week or two weeks depending how cautious you want to be about spyware protection.

The software also offers a real-time protection (which will delete spyware as soon as you're infected with it while you're wandering around the internet) if you wish to use. I've never been a big fan of real-time protection, (anti-viruses/firewalls use this) so personally I just keep it off.

Our second recommended software for today is SUPERAntiSpyware, which can be found here. It works the same way with MBAM pretty much. All you need to do is install it and update, and then you're ready to roll.

SuperAntiSpyware offers a more extended variety tools compared to MBAM as you can see. I suggest quick scanning every one or two weeks with this one as well, and complete scan once in a while like we talked before. Critical Point Scan, for those who wonder, is a faster Quick Scan, (it's not so thorough - not recommended) and Rescue Scan is an option which you should use when you can't run a normal scan because of infections. SuperAntiSpyware also offers custom scan, where you can tweak everything about the scan you will be running. This is only recommended for advanced users, so if you don't know what you are doing, stay away from it!

The software also offers real-time protection similar to MBAM, and you can use both of them at the same time if you want to without any problems.

The reason I use two different spyware protection software at once is because that they both have different databases and one of them might catch something the other didn't. With two of them, we simply increase the chance to find the spyware and successfully remove it.

All being said, even though we have powerful  tools in our computers to protect us from spywares, it doesn't hurt to be cautious. Stay away from dodgy links and don't go into websites that you don't trust without researching them.

Stay on the safe side folks, I'm out!

1 Dropbox - For all your online storage needs

Online storage plays a big role in our daily lives nowadays. We all have files that we have to carry around, we have files that we want to share with our friends and family, we have many things that we need instant access to when we need it. For all your online storage needs, I present you Dropbox.

Dropbox, in simple words, is an online storage service which allows you to upload files on a server which you can access on any computer you like later on. There are many services which provide online storage, but the reason I chose Dropbox is the fact that it outperforms other services in every single way.

First things first, we all love free stuff, don't we? (at least I do!) Well, good news for all the free stuff lovers, because Dropbox offers 2 gigabytes of online storage space for every single person who makes an account. 

If you are interested in a bigger storage place, Dropbox also offers 100, 250, and 500 gigabytes of spaces with the price of 10$, 20$, and 50$ a month respectively. They also offer online storage services up to 5 terabytes for businesses.

Now that we got the price part straight, it's time to learn to use Dropbox! It's probably the simplest piece of software you will ever stumble upon. All you need to do is installing the software, and making an account. (just follow the steps) After that, you will have a Dropbox folder in a place of your choice, where everything you put in the Dropbox folder will be uploaded to Dropbox online storage servers. When the upload is complete, the file will have a small green check mark instead of the arrows. 

To access your files, you are simply supposed to go to Dropbox website, and sign in! You can view photos directly if you wish, or download them to your computer. You can also make different folders to organize your stuff, and you don't even have to be on your main computer to delete or change stuff. You have access to everything via the web panel which you can access on any computer.

You can also share folders with your other friends who also have Dropbox by right clicking a folder and "inviting them" to your folder by typing their name or e-mail address. This way, they will have access to all the contents in the folder. It's a great way of sharing your pictures with your friends!

Dropbox also gives you the option of sharing files with people who don't have a Dropbox account. All you have to do is to move the file you wish to share in your Public folder, and then generate a public link by right clicking the file you wish to share in your Public folder.

That would be all features of Dropbox. It provides all you expect from an online storage and more. The best part is the fact that not all of the files are publicly accessible even if the link is leaked out, unless many other free online storage services. It also saves you from the trouble of going to a website to upload things to the storage.

I think Dropbox is one of the best software I've ever used and I can't see myself living without it! Hope you enjoyed the read, see you next time!

1 Windows 8 tablets to be 600-800$

I must say I'm quite shocked about the price range of Windows 8 tablets! 600$-800$ for a Windows 8 tablet with an Atom processor, a processor which is used in netbooks, which will cost you hundreds less to have one if you decide to buy a netbook instead of a Windows 8 tablet, and use Windows 8 on the netbook.

Fun fact, these tablets also come with keyboards which actually, in my eyes, make them no different than a usual laptop/netbook with the exception of having a worse processor, limited things you can do compared to an usual laptop, and high price. Of course we can't just say netbooks are the same as tablets just because they share the same processor, but the price difference is too great to choose a tablet just for the sake of mobility.

The only good side of having a Windows 8 tablet is the fact that it has Windows as an operating system, which makes your life easier compared to the other tablets if you are using Windows in general. Then again, you can remotely access your home computer on a cheaper Android tablet and get your work done. If this isn't an alternative for you, you can always use cloud services such as Google Docs to get your work done.

Now that we are done comparing the Windows 8 tablets to netbooks which have similar processors with the fact netbooks costing less, let's make a quick comparison between different tablets this time and see if it's worth it this way. (prices are without keyboard, extra ~200$ for keyboard)

Asus Vivo Tab - 600$ (Windows 8)

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 - 600$ (Windows 8)

Microsoft Surface - 800$ (Windows 8)

Acer Iconia - 700$ (Windows 8)

iPad 64GB Wifi & Cellular - 830$ (iOS)

I didn't mention any Android tablets since they are in a lower price range (Nexus 7 for instance, around 300$~), but I think I made my point. In a world where everyone either buys iOS or Android based products for their mobile needs, it will be impossible for Windows 8 tablets to enter the scene with such high prices.

I'm definitely not the biggest fan of Apple, but Apple has a really big community, and given that Windows 8 tablets have nearly the same price as the iPads, there's no chance for Windows 8 tablets to get attention from the Apple base.

As an Android user, I would really love to have a Windows 8 tablet since I believe that it's the most complete operating system for a tablet so far. It's really superior compared to the iOS and Android operating systems, but it's just not worth to spend that money when it's the same price as an iPad.

All in all, I'm not saying that Windows 8 is a bad operating system, but the things it offers for its price just doesn't cut the mustard. Guess I will have to stick to my Nexus 7 for a longer time!

0 What is a FTP Server & How to make one

A File Transfer Protocol server, or FTP server is a protocol which allows you to transfer files between computers over the internet. In order to do this, the server administrator should upload/enable files to his FTP server, and other users can connect this server in order to download files. It's a really good way to keep your files in your hand wherever you go, since as long as your computer is open and connected to the internet, you will be able to access your server. It's also a great way of sharing files with your friends, your family, and your co-workers at will.

There are many ways to access a FTP server, and accessing one can be as easy as typing its URL to your browser. (for example ftp.computerrepository.com) Even though it's easy to connect to a FTP server with a browser, the recommended way is to use a software such as WinSCP (assuming that you're running Windows). The more uncommon/outdated way would be using the ftp command at the command line prompt.

Now we know what a FTP server is, and we know how to access one, let's learn how to make our own FTP server!

With Serv-U

First of all, we will need a software which is called Serv-U FTP Server. You can download the software here. After you download and install the software, you will see this screen.

Simply click yes to proceed. It will ask you to name your domain and put a description for it. Fill the boxes in and click next. Note that the domain box should be either filled with your IP address or an IP redirect. In the next menu you will see ports in boxes. You can leave this as it is since they're default and proceed. In the next window, the software will ask you for your IP, which will later be used to access the server. Just keep the IPv4 one checked and leave it blank.

After we are done with this setup, it's time to configure how secure our server will be. The default setting is just fine for simple purposes, so we can leave it at that. When that's done, we are done with setting our domain up.

Now it's time to create users!. The software will ask you to fill in a Login ID, which will be the username for logging on the server, and a password afterwards. Next up, you're supposed to set where that specific user will be redirected to when he/she accesses the FTP server. For this example, I used "/C:" which is root.

Finally, we are going to decide if this user is going to have Read Only Access, or Full Access. A Full Access user can delete/move/rename/access files while a Read Only Access user can only access the files. 

Afterwards, you will see the user screen. Click the user you made and click Edit. Go to the Directory Access tab and add the locations where the user is permitted to access. You can see my example right below.

All done! You can simply type ftp://youripaddress to your browser (or use your preferred FTP client) and try to login with your username and password. You can create more users with different permissions and access to different paths according to who you will be sharing the user with. If you want to share the FTP server with lots of people, you can make groups with certain permissions and put the users in the groups. The customization part is totally up to you!

Note that the Serv-U software should be up and running in your tray in order to keep your server up. Your server won't be running if the service is stopped or closed.

This is the simplest and most straight forward way to make your own home FTP server. I hope you enjoyed the read!