Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category

Saturday
Apr 5,2008

Picture by: destinetics
Here’s a collection of 115 social bookmark and news sites ranked by PageRank, number of links and value of each site.

We used dnScoop to gather the data for all these sites. This is what the dnScoop data is based on:

Page Rank- Google PageRank

Inbound Links- The total number of pages that contain links to www.sitename.com

Site Value Report - This value is calculated based on several factors shown above, including: Links, Traffic (Alexa), age of the domain, site category, domain keyword popularity, and overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.

The list was based on this social bookmarking list . We added a few more sites, such as, Shoutwire.com, Plime.com and PixelGroovy.com.

The dollar value of the sites are a bit misleading (is Simpy.com really worth $302,332,960 more than Digg?), but this list should hopefully provide you with some data on social news and bookmark that you haven’t seen before. If anybody knows of any better online tools to roughly estimate the value a site then leave a link in the comments section and we’ll update this list over the next few weeks and compare the data.

Site

PR

Inbound Links

$ Value

www.slashdot.org

9

28,018,962

$25,787,200

del.icio.us

8

370,943,962

$521,172,000

www.technorati.com

8

148,233,993

$276,243,000

www.digg.com

8

137,000,000

$215,992,000

www.reddit.com

8

132,924,191

$178,934,400

www.stumbleupon.com

8

59,888,074

$39,723,400

www.connotea.org

8

3,272,642

$11,241,440

www.furl.net

7

99,028,154

$188,853,100

www.newsvine.com

7

49,881,588

$35,890,400

www.blinklist.com

7

47,039,214

N/A

www.folkd.com

7

13,766,114

N/A

www.squidoo.com

7

7,171,958

$13,336,150

www.citeulike.org

7

3,694,298

$11,226,880

www.kinja.com

7

2,593,905

$9,965,880

www.propeller.com

7

2,503,342

$13,613,600

www.spurl.net

6

34,419,253

$32,200,000

www.simpy.com

6

23,405,771

$518,324,960

www.mister-wong.com

6

9,672,510

$10,667,840

www.rawsugar.com

6

7,481,362

$14,925,880

www.diigo.com

6

6,095,828

$11,243,680

www.linkagogo.com

6

3,987,085

N/A

www.corank.com

6

1,536,589

$4,281,340

www.care2.com/news

6

808,351

$2,237,900

www.backflip.com

6

733,144

$2,463,550

www.spotback.com

6

315,219

$459,980

www.kaboodle.com

6

309,115

$3,691,950

www.shoutwire.com

6

284,654

$216,910

www.sphinn.com

6

270,738

$100,000

www.searchles.com

6

261,216

$197,160

www.bibsonomy.org

6

141,521

$2,305,350

www.clipclip.org

6

59,146

$75,210

www.sitebar.org

6

15,661

$245,204

www.taggly.com

5

998,006

N/A

www.buddymarks.com

5

890,014

$3,090,150

www.mylinkvault.com

5

559,084

N/A

www.stylehive.com

5

547,675

$1,377,760

www.hyperlinkomatic.com

5

505,338

$1,457,890

www.plime.com

5

448,091

$474,360,000

www.lilisto.com

5

363,661

$529,000

www.sk-rt.com

5

322,076

$442,900

www.markaboo.com

5

238,271

$227,900

www.xilinus.com

5

57,701

$38,160

www.startaid.com

5

49,341

N/A

www.uvouch.com

5

34,057

$424,020,140

www.thoof.com

5

30,719

$20,600

www.myhq.com

5

27,015

$29,536

www.mybookmarks.com

5

25,443

$29,468

www.hanzoweb.com

5

12,618

$17,222

www.favoor.com

5

11,756

$6,322

www.socialdanger.com

5

7,095

$1,600

www.murl.com

5

6,017

$8,236

www.mobleo.net

5

739

$1,039

www.plugim.com

4

588,860

$1,313,340

www.zurpy.com

4

192,408

$111,180

www.tagfacts.com

4

169,135

$120,772

www.oyax.com

4

112,111

$115,000

www.lifelogger.com

4

99,808

$107,744

www.complore.com

4

93,751

$74,200

www.connectedy.com

4

59,588

N/A

www.sitejot.com

4

55,414

N/A

www.pixelgroovy.com

4

41,778

$19,080

www.cloudytags.com

4

41,654

$29,664

www.blurpalicious.com

4

27,567

$12,900

www.dropjack.com

4

27,251

$13,100

www.bookmark-manager.com

4

18,872

$7,434

www.myvmarks.com

4

17,084

$6,650

www.contentpop.com

4

13,188

$16,274

www.bmaccess.net

4

11,959

$5,600

www.memfrag.com

4

10,564

$5,668

www.bookmarktracker.com

4

10,518

$8,618

www.mysitevote.com

4

9,218

$6,500

www.freelink.org

4

8,427

N/A

www.urlex.info

4

3,962

$2,507

www.rambhai.com

4

2,926

N/A

www.easybm.com

4

2,236

N/A

www.zlitt.com

4

2,236

$3,193

www.chipmark.com

4

2,196

$1,792

www.thinkpocket.com

4

1,914

$848

www.mywebdesktop.net

4

1,329

$368

www.philoi.com

4

1,097

$1,397

www.bookkit.com

4

1,049

N/A

www.bookmax.net

4

874

N/A

www.votelists.com

4

399

$339

www.whitelinks.com

4

269

N/A

www.tedigo.net

4

135

$458

www.mixx.com

3

559,683

$1,854,160

www.marktd.com

3

43,855

$56,180

www.tagza.com

3

35,627

$7,500

www.wirefan.com

3

17,204

$27,772

www.blogbookmark.com

3

11,934

$11,124

www.bukmark.net

3

8,545

$1,620

www.getboo.com

3

7,742

$42,728

www.fungow.com

3

4,553

N/A

www.syncone.net

3

4,026

$25,070

www.linksnarf.com

3

3,893

$1,120

www.ez4u.net

3

1,030

N/A

www.listerlister.com

3

633

$5,702

www.xlmark.com

2

15,012

$5,974

www.totalpad.com

2

4,693

$510

www.barksbookmarks.com

2

2,786

$11,766

www.memotoo.com

2

2,382

N/A

www.blipoo.com

2

598

$100

www.bookmarkall.com

2

371

$694

www.yattle.com

2

127

$1,081

www.wetogether.info

1

911

$515

www.vuju.com

1

284

$145

www.newsweight.com

1

67

$42

www.voteboat.com

1

41

$10

www.freezilla.co.uk

1

38

$21

www.faves.com

0

50,781

$38,720

www.socialogs.com

0

50,090

$18,500

www.i89.us

0

28,192

$11,872

www.crowdfound.com

0

1,516

$3,050

www.quickieclick.com

0

9

$650

ma.gnolia.com

N/A

N/A

N/A

Saturday
Apr 5,2008

Airport Security Hacked

Most of us never consider that a customs official could confiscate our laptops as we travel across borders, copy information from it and return it to us hours (or days or weeks) later - but it happens. C|net has created a handy guide for frequent travelers who are concerned about this issue and wish to protect their personal or professional data from prying eyes.

OK, so we’ve all probably considered what it would be like to be one of those poor saps who falls victim to online con artists - but how many of us have thought about what it would be like to think like one of these con artists? This ‘guide’ takes you on a brief and somewhat disturbing tour of how to approach cons and respond as a con artist would on the internet. Strange but interesting.

In most cases people would like to think they would at least know if they had been hacked even if they were unable to prevent it in the first place. However, many people remain completely oblivious to the fact that things as private and important as their email have become compromised. MakeUseOf has created a guide to making digital ‘tripwires’ so you’ll know if you have been hacked.

Wednesday
Apr 2,2008

Posted by Sigurd

Romain has just released an updated version of the Gallery Module (v0.2.1; 400kb download). Its looking fantastic, and is full of features. Like our new blog module with drag-n-drop widgets, it requires SilverStripe 2.1.0rc2 or later.

The update offers a huge amount of extra configuration within the CMS, and as always, you can use the SilverStripe developer framework to easily customise and configure it much further. The installation instructions are very simple, and you can quickly begin configuring your gallery:

The above settings allow you to choose the size and number of images, which by default look like:

 

Romain has made use of the Lightwindow 2.0 pop up library to provide a very professional, intuitive and usable browsing process… I especially appreciate having previous and next links while in pop-up mode…

 

More than just a photo gallery, you can specify the file types to list. Now you can create professional lists of videos and office documents…

 

In fact, you can configure your own file types, such as adding support for showing Excel Files…

This results in a “gallery” of office documents. You can upload and specify your own icons for the file types, too.

 

So, demo or download out the gallery module, and let us of know of suggestions and any issues for Romain to work on!

 Taken from http://www.silverstripe.com

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: Sonia Sood .

Spyware and adware is advertising supported software that allows its publishers to snoop on a computer user’s internet activity.

It is designed to obtain information about computer users and their surfing behavior usually without their knowledge or consent. Spyware is potentially more harmful than Adware because it can record your keystrokes, history, passwords, credit card number and other confidential and private information. Besides spyware and adware, computers can also be infected with my other internet parasites such as Winfixer 2005, viruses, Trojans, dialers, etc.

Spyware and adware are installed quite easily on most computers. Many spyware programs often enter computers hidden in programs such as freeware, shareware or demos. Some programs like Win fixer 2005 will often load on boot up, take up your computer memory, cause a computer to display system errors, spawn multiple pop-up windows and even shut down it.

Why is it important to detect and remove spyware, adware and other internet parasites?

- Loss of privacy

- Reduced and slows PC performance

- Annoying pop-ups that do not go away.

- A computer’s homepage can be changed.

- In severe cases, a person’s sensitive and confidential information can be recorded and then subsequently misused…exposing that person to identity theft, unauthorized use of their bank account or credit card and many other problems.

How to protect against spyware:

- Download and install a spyware remover. Every week you should check for updates to install for the scanner.
This will help protect you against the latest threats.

- Use a firewall and an Anti-virus program. Many people have a direct connection the Internet and do not setup and run a firewall. This can potentially be very dangerous. Firewalls should be running to protect against many potential problems including hackers and spyware.

- Be careful about installing freeware software and downloading music online. Some spyware programs display messages asking for your permission to install the application. Read their agreements carefully as well.

- Be careful as to what sites you visit…sometimes spyware and adware can be installed on a computer simply by visiting a website.

- Use the Mozilla Firefox browser as it is less vulnerable to spyware and adware than Internet Explorer.

About the Author:
I AM WEBSITE PROMOTER.

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: gurpreet singh.

It seems that the time that it takes for computers to become obsolete is shortening more than ever. If you go out and purchase a top-of-the-line computer, it is very likely that in less than six months it will no longer be considered top-of-the-line. If you currently have a computer and you want it to be able to perform more functions, you don’t have to get rid of it and spend a lot of money on a new system. You can simply purchase components to upgrade your computer. If you seriously consider upgrading your computer, now is a perfect time to do so. As with computers, prices of computer components are at an all-time low. Depending on the type of specifications you’re after, you can spend as little as three hundred dollars to update your desktop or laptop computer.

Finding all the components you need to upgrade your own computer system is as easy as visiting findcheapcomputers.com. This website features detailed information about parts and includes a buyer’s guide to make buying your components a snap. The first task that you need to perform to upgrade your computer system is to make a list of the computer’s specifications. If you’re not sure what specs you want the system to have, you can consider what you will do most with the computer and then generate a list of specifications. People typically choose to upgrade their existing computer systems because it does not include a particular component to enable them to perform a particular task.

A processor is an important component in your computer. Whether or not you should upgrade your processor depends on the tasks you will perform with the computer and the type of processor that currently exists in your computer. If the system you are planning to upgrade does not use one of the fast processors on the market, you may want to invest in a motherboard bundle that includes a motherboard, CPU, and fan. These bundles generally cost less than if you were to buy the parts separately. Of course, you could purchase an Intel Celeron with a speed of 2.6 gigahertz or an AMD Athlon 2700+. Both of these processors are sufficient for general computer use as well as browsing the Internet and gaming.

In addition to the processor, you will probably want to upgrade your system with memory, a graphics card or video card, a monitor, and keyboard and pointing device. Finding cheap computer deals of these components should be easy since activities that require high-quality video such as gaming are very popular. The important thing to remember when shopping for these components is that you need to make sure they are compatible with your system. For example, an AGP graphics card is an excellent choice if you plan to do a significant amount of gaming because it processes graphics faster. However, your motherboard will need to have an AGP slot. If you’re not sure which components are most compatible, the website findcheapcomputers.com features information about computer components that are not only compatible with most systems, but that are also cheap.

About the Author:
hi this gurpreet before you . i am 22 years old and working for private company. technoflickers.

Ever Used a Computer Mouse Before?

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: DEV DAAS.

This is a lesson for beginning computer mouse users.

Learn how to hold the computer mouse:
Hold the sides of the mouse with your thumb on one side and ring finger or pinkie, which ever feels more comfortable to you, on the other side. Your index finger goes on the left button and your middle finger on the right button. (Some computer mice only have one button, some have several, and some have a wheel which you can use your middle finger to depress the wheel then turn it up or down to scroll pages very quickly or slow depending on how quickly you turn the wheel. Personally I love the wheel and would not have a mouse without it!) When you are told to ‘click’ use the button under your index finger, or the left button.

Learn how to move the computer mouse:
Slowly slide the mouse around on the mouse pad. See what happens to the arrow on the screen as you slide it around.

Do you need a mouse pad:
You should have a mouse pad under your mouse, (although the new optic mice do not require one). You will have an array of choices when purchasing a mouse pad; find the one that is comfortable for you. Rest you hand on the mouse pad or desk and move it slowly there is no need to lift the mouse off the mouse pad unless you run out of room, then you just lift it up and reposition where needed. You don’t need to move the mouse to the left or right, simply slide it left or right with the buttons still facing away from you.

What does clicking do:
Clicking sends a command to the computer. To click, gently press and release the left computer mouse button. Be careful not to move the mouse while you are clicking, if you accidentally do simply slide the mouse back to where you want to click and try again. Try to keep you hand relaxed on the mouse as you press and release without lifting your finger completely off the button.

You’re Done - Great job! That is all you need to know to start using your computer and that mouse. Keep working on it and before you know it, it will feel like second nature to you and you will not even have to think about what you are doing.

Note: Most libraries have free computer classes for the beginner, if you feel you need hands on help this would be the perfect place to start!

About the Author:
This is pankaj. Who are submiting this article. I am student of sd. collage. I M 20 years old.

Eliminate Computer Viruses Forever!

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: Gaurav Walia.

ATTENTION!!! New Virus Epidemic! I-Worm.Mydoom.a and GaoBot.DQ have now infected more than a million computers since they were first detected, causing losses of more than 38,500 million dollars.

Does your computer seem to be running slower than usual? If you’ve using the Internet over the past month, your computer may be infected with a computer Virus that your current Anti-virus software may have failed to detect and remove.

Some of these computer viruses disable many Antivirus programs so that they remain undetected! PAL Emergency Response is an Anti-virus program that works separate from any other program on your PC and will remove all the latest computer threats.

Completely wipes out all the latest viruses from your PC
Automatic updates saves you time
Works together with most other antiviral programs for extra protection!
Improves your system performance by removing previously undetected Viruses.

All versions of Windows supported

Award Winning Technology

As seen in magazines such as PC Format and Personal Computer World Regular
Price $39.95
Only $19.99 Download Now!
30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Protects your computer automatically Allows you to completely wipe viruses from your PC beyond recovery Compatible with all other Virus program for added extra security! Runs safely in background protecting you from viruses, worms, hackers and anyone invading your privacy

Updates itself automatically
Scanner finds out the latest virus threats

Disables any computer Worms and Hacking tools from entering your computer

Your PC might appear clean… but it could still be full of ‘Virus threats’ that most antivirus programs fail to detect and it might very well be a Serious threat to your privacy as many viruses now record everything you type on your PC and broadcast it to the internet. This may include credit card numbers, passwords and sensitive information. Most Anti-virus programs fail to detect all viruses and users need an independent virus scanner in order to detect all viruses in your PC.

Regular Price $39.95 Only $19.99 Download Now! 30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Is PAL Emergency Response easy to use?

Just set and forget! Single click features cleans your PC immediately. Emergency Response runs conveniently in the background automatically removing the latest Virus threats.

PAL Emergency Response is Perfect for both Novice and Advanced Users.

Novice Users. Just set Emergency Response and forget it. Upon loading the program you simply check boxes for which the program will scan for added protection.

System Requirements:
Microsoft Windows™ 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
2 MB hard disk space
32 MB of memory

About the Author:
i m Gaurav Walia. i m good author

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: Michael Small.

Domain Registration giants are making a fortune from your parked domain names and their AdSense accounts. It was happening to me until a few months ago. Now I earn over $100 per month per domain name! Best of all, it’s all on auto pilot.

It’s easy to do and takes very little time or effort. Basically it involves using your spare domain names to let AdSense generate extra paychecks for you. I’ll walk you through it step by step.

The most important part will be getting great content. But don’t worry, we have that covered too. After some digging, I went with an inexpensive service called “Why Park?” that automatically builds fully search engine optimized sites in minutes with a few lines of really simple input. They even host the sites for you. Of course I admit I became a little biased toward their service after my first auto generated site got ranked #5 on Google just one week after it went live.

All you need is a free AdSense account. If you still need to get your account just visit http://www.google.com/adsense.

Step1: Get the Best Keywords; Straight from Google!

It’s easier than ever to find the best keywords. I use Google’s own keyword database to figure out which get the most search volume with the least competition. Give it a try at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Step 2: Hook Google with a Great Title!

Let’s do a real project. Let’s say we have a domain name to do with custom cakes. If we enter the word “cake” into Google’s free keyword tool, we’ll get plenty of great ideas for what’s hot. “Cake” might be too general to want to compete against but “wedding cake” and “birthday cake” are both great niches.

Take your most important specific and general keyword phrases and put them together, specific first; general second. Let’s use “wedding cake” and “cake”. Now separate the keywords or phrases by a pipe (that vertical key over the Enter/Return key). We now have “wedding cake | cake”. Now go back and grab one or two more relevant keywords like “birthday cake” and “baby shower cake” and combine them like this “wedding cake | cakes for birthdays, baby showers and more”.

Now you’ve covered all your bases and build a fantastic keyword rich title that won’t look like keyword spamming. More importantly it’s one that people will actually read. You have singular and plural versions of “cake(s)”, which will also help a lot.

Step 3: Get Noticed!

Now we will write a META description that will really get you noticed. This is important. Not only can this tip alone get you ahead of most competitors, but it’s also what readers see of your site before they decide to visit. You need to write something for people, but that search engines will like. Don’t worry. It’s a lot easier than it sounds.

Take all of your keywords and line them up in order of importance. Since “wedding cake” gets more searches than any other, let’s start there and use the same logic for the rest. Now we have, in order, “wedding cake”, “cake”, “birthday cake”, and “baby shower cake.” Be sure to improve your keyword prominence (relevance based on position) by using your best keyword within the first few words of the description, like this: “Wedding cakes made easy! Get great articles, recipes and decorating tips to make cakes for your special occasion. From triple-layer double chocolate birthday cakes to baby shower cup cake buffets; we have tips to make your special occasion delicious.”

As you can see, we used all of our keywords without overloading the text and broke it up a little by adding some detail. It works great! Just try to keep the description at or under 250 characters (including spaces).

Step 4: Add Content That Google Loves!

Why Park (http://www.WhyParkWeb.com) does 99.9% of the work for you. All you have to do is enter your keywords into the article finder provided by the “Research Your Keywords” link located beside the keywords box.

Without using any imagination at all, I found 121 articles in a few seconds… “cake has 98 articles, “wedding cake” has 11 while “birthday cake” has 9 articles and “baby shower cake” has 3.

That’s 121 articles total. This might not sound like a lot but at an average of about 1,000 words per article that’s the size of an average Harry Potter book.

Add “wedding” and get another 788! That’s 909 articles in 10 seconds. You get the idea - more general related keywords can take you over the top and give you a huge, content-rich search engine friendly site, in seconds!

Step 5: Triple Your AdSense Earnings

My click-through rate (CTR) tripled when I switched to this format.

Select ad size 336 x 280. If that’s too big, try 300 x 250. And try to make your ad border and ad background colors the same as your Website’s background color. It helps it blend in and take away some of the “advertisement” feel. It’s also usually best to go with the standard blue hyperlink color for the actual links.

But with all that said, don’t be afraid to experiment. This might be the cheapest controlled research you ever come across, so enjoy it. I change my ad colors (but not size) every so often to see what works best but the above method has worked best to date.

Now you’re ready! You can do this with no problem. Take back control of your domain names and pocket your own profits. Good luck!

About the Author:
Mike Small is the author of seven SEO books and host of popular SEO blog http://www.SEOpartner.com .

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: Paul Fleming.

As an Oracle DBA, you probably have heard a lot about the new security features in Oracle 11G such as database vault, audit vault, strong verifier, enhanced ASO, etc. But with a busy schedule, how do you find the time to study all the topics in depth? Are all of them going to affect your daily DBA operations? What should you know first and foremost? Of course, depending on the particular database you are administering, you will have your unique need. But as a rule of thumb, what tends to affect you the most is almost never those cool new features. The reason is simple: if you don’t use them, they won’t affect you. What tends to affect you is the change in the existing features that might lead to compatibility or interoperability issues. When that script you have used for years suddenly stops working, you will be disappointed. When your boss or above calls to ask what happened, you could feel terrible.

In this article, we discuss the new password case sensitivity feature in 11G. Every Oracle session starts with authentication. If the authentication fails at the beginning of your script, everything that follows will almost certainly be broken. So what was changed, why, and what should you know?

A Primer on Verifier

I’ll start with a primer on password verifier. As you probably know, for security reasons, Oracle user’s passwords are never stored as clear text. Instead, they are stored as a “verifier”, a one-way hash value calculated from the clear text password. Hash verifier has a few unique features. One, it is “one-way”: It is easy to calculate the hash value from a clear text password, but it is nearly impossible to figure out the clear text password from a hash value. Two, different clear texts almost never yield the same hash value (called collision). These features allow Oracle database to store the hash value of a user’s password as a surrogate for the clear text password. When a user provides a password to logon, Oracle calculates the hash value from that password, and allows the user to logon if it matches the hash value that is stored in the database. To get a feel what an Oracle verifier looks like, take a look at the PASSWORD column in the user$ table in SYS schema (of course, you will need SYSDBA privilege to do that).
SELECT NAME,PASSWORD FROM SYS.USER$ ORDER BY NAME;

What Was Changed

Prior to 11G, Oracle passwords were case insensitive. “foobar”, “FOOBAR”, and “FoOBaR” are identical when used as an Oracle password. They yield the same hash value. If a user could log in with password “foobar”, he could log in with “FOOBAR” as well. In 11G, however, when you create or modify user accounts, by default passwords are case sensitive. 11G also introduces a “salt” in the hash value generation so that even two users have identical passwords, their verifiers would still be different.

Oracle allows to you to control password case sensitivity for backward compatibility by setting the SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON initialization parameter. Only users who have the ALTER SYSTEM privilege can set the SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON parameter. Set it to TRUE to enable case sensitivity or FALSE to disable case sensitivity.

ALTER SYSTEM SET SEC_CASE_SENSITIVE_LOGON = TRUE | FALSE;

How Case Sensitivity Affects Password Files

As you may remember, Oracle stores the passwords (again in the form of verifiers) of users with SYSDBA and SYSOPER privileges in a “password file” on the server, rather than in the database. You can enable or disable case sensitivity for password files by using the ignorecase argument in the ORAPWD command line utility. The default value for ignorecase is n (no), which enforces case sensitivity.

Here is an example of how to enable password case sensitivity for SYSDBA and SYSOPER users

orapwd file=orapw entries=100 ignorecase=n
Enter password for SYS: password

This creates a password file called orapwd. Since ignorecase is set to n (no), the password entered for the password parameter will be case sensitive. Afterwards, if you connect using this password, it succeeds(as long as you enter the password using the exact same characters with the exact same case as created). If you enter the same password with different case, it will fail
If you, the DBA, sets the system to ignorecase to y, then the passwords in the password file are case insensitive, and this means that you can enter the password using any capitalization that you want.

It is important to note that given the way it is controlled, within one Oracle system, the password’s case sensitivity of a regular user and a SYSDBA/SYSOPER user can be independent.

How Password Case Sensitivity Affects Import and Upgrade

What happens when you export some users from a previous database where the password is case insensitive into 11G? The case-insensitive passwords in these accounts remain case insensitive, even if the 11G system has turned on password case sensitivity. This makes sense because otherwise old users may not be able to log on from a previously working script or client program. This, however, will change when the user changes his or her password.

You can find users who have case sensitive or case insensitive passwords by querying the DBA_USERS view. The PASSWORD_VERSIONS column in this view indicates the release in which the password was created. For example:

SELECT USERNAME, PASSWORD_VERSIONS FROM DBA_USERS;

USERNAME PASSWORD_VERSIONS
—————————— —————–
JONES 10G 11G
ADAMS 10G 11G
CLARK 10G 11G
PRESTON 11G
BLAKE 10G

The passwords for accounts jones, adams, and clark were originally created in Release 10g and then reset in Release 11g. Their passwords, assuming case sensitivity has been enabled, are now case sensitive, as is the password for preston. However, the account for blake is still using the Release 10g standard, so it is case insensitive. Once he changes his password, it will become case sensitive and more secure.

Conclusion

Users’ passwords in Oracle 11G database become case sensitive by default. Regular user and SYSDBA/SYSOPER user’s password case sensitivity can be controlled independently. If you have a script with inconsistent password cases, the script may stop working with 11G even though it works fine with previous releases. To learn more about this topic, read “Security Guide” (Oracle Part Number B28531-03).

About the Author:
Peter Dwyer is an internationally known System and Database Architect for Oracle environments. He is founding principal of The Certainty Group, a Boston-based Oracle database consultation company specializing in quickly assessing and correcting complex problems in multi-vendor, mission-critical systems that demand high performance and reliability.

Computers and Your Eyes

Tuesday
Mar 25,2008

Author: Patricia Woloch.

According to the 2003 U.S. Census, 64% of adults and 86% of children use computers at school, at work, or at home. Computers can make life easier and save time, but they can be very hard on your eyes. About 88% of people who use computers everyday suffer from eyestrain. There are some things that you can do to make your computer easier on your eyes.

Try these tricks to protect your eyes when using your computer:

• Adjust your screen settings so that the light from your screen is about equal to the lighting in the room, not bright or dim, and turn up the contrast for a crisper image

• Every fifteen to twenty minutes, get up and walk around, and shift your vision to something far away

• Position the monitor about 10 to 15 degrees below eye level, with the top of the monitor tilted slightly away from you

• Reduce the lighting in the room where you use your computer to about half of the normal level of lighting

• Use curtains and low wattage bulbs to reduce glare

• Wear glasses with a special coating that prevents glare

• If you wear