Passwords are valuable bits of data and with headline news announcing the Heartbleed bug during the first week of April, now is the time to consider managing your passwords more efficiently.
What is the Heartbleed bug?
The Heartbleed bug is a security vulnerability found within the open-source OpenSSL cryptography library used by two-thirds of all websites on the internet. OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS connections. The bug was introduced through an update issued two years ago, it was then identified by a security company called Codenomicon who accidentally stumbled upon the bug during the first week of April whilst improving their own software.
The vulnerability allows anyone to exploit the bug and steal up to 64kb of an applications memory content which includes passwords, online chat messages and emails. This severe memory handling vulnerability only affected websites and applications which were using the OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 through to and including 1.0.1f. OpenSSL have since released 1.0.1g patch, in order to close and resolve the vulnerability.
The 64kb limitation however can be broken by reconnecting to the TLS connection or requesting a new set of random 64kb memory content, both of which can be setup using a piece of software to automatically request the memory content until all the necessary secrets have been gathered.
What you can do to manage your passwords efficiently?
There are a number of ways to manage your passwords efficiently including using a new password for each service/site you use, however you are more than likely to forget the majority of these passwords or even your username.
You could use the old fashioned notepad to store your passwords however one day you may lose or misplace the notepad. An alternative way is to use the notepad software built into any computer. The downside to using both of these methods is that they are not protected by unauthorised access.
There are a number of downloadable password management software which you can use to create unique passwords and store them in a small database which is stored locally on your computer or on a USB stick. The database created via any password management software can be password protected, the database which stores your password will only be accessed by yourself.
My personal favourite piece of software is KeyPass, I literally have this open all the time now and just simply copy and paste the passwords into the password field. You can check out KeePass by following the link here.
Are you using alternative methods of managing your passwords or are you still using the notepad and pen method? Let me know in the comments below.]]>
For example yesterday I supposed to write-up this article but instead recorded some footage of the Day 1 DLC for Mass Effect 3, which I might add should have been part of the main game considering how you go back to Eden Prime(from the first planet in ME1) and you see the same flashbacks but this time also showing real-time flashbacks of the Protheans fighting the reapers and you learn a lot about their history and how they lived, I’m getting a little off topic here so moving on.
Anyway video editing is something I’ve been doing back when I was in my second or third year at secondary school and whilst I have never been good at it I’ve always really enjoyed experimenting and rendering videos, my first ones I ever made were back in using Windows Movie Maker just pasting in images and music of cartoons like Pokemon and Dragon ball Z, over the years I moved over to pasting in clips from various Anime and syncing with music and this was back when YouTube was very young and the community was friendly this was also the same time I began uploading the anime music videos to YouTube and due to it being very young, unheard of and a friendly community the videos got many ratings, views and comments(Sadly these are no longer on my channel as I removed them to transition to better quality videos).
Once I got into college I started watching some Call of Duty montages and was really intrigued with them and so wanted to experiment this myself and I stumbled upon Sony Vegas and immediately imported my low quality recordings into the program and began testing.
As time went by I became more discouraged in video editing as I didn’t have the hardware to make better quality videos and so for a good portion I stopped and focused more on college.
A few years later and I got my PC upgraded(July last year) and I thought “I wonder if this new upgrade will be able to record high quality gaming footage and render them properly”.
So I tested this out, at first it wasn’t so great but I searched around for some proper settings and lo and behold I found the correct settings both in Fraps and Sony Vegas to record and render in full 720p.
So after that little enlightenment I set about primarily doing a lot of recording and video editing during my time out of work for 6 months.
Due to this being a hobby of mine along with my blog I decided it would be a good idea to also post them here so I will be able to provide more content and at a faster rate during the times the blog is lacking in new articles.
Anyway thank you for reading, over the coming weeks I’m going to make the YouTube posts look more interesting on the front page and may do a full review of either Mass Effect 3, the DLC or both aswell as at some point redesigning my portfolio and see about getting it implemented again.
Any suggestions, advice or criticism whether that is for a new article, video or advice to make the blog better, let me know in the comments, thanks.]]>
Thank you for your patience.]]>
I would just like to say that I have been doing a lot of YouTube videos of PC games I play, for example Call of Duty 4, Dota 2, Mass Effect 2, Sonic Generations, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and many more, this is one of many reasons why I haven’t updated the blog for a very long time. Anyway first I’m going to talk about a few changes I have made to the blog.
Changes to the blog:
To start with I have now added the “Display Recent From Categories Posts” Feature of my blog which pretty much shows you recent posts and allows my readers to know whether a non gaming or graphics related article has been posted for example news or reviews for smartphones.
The other thing is I have also disabled comments on any future articles I publish(all other posts should have disabled the comments after a few months of being published) the reason behind this is due to the lack of readers I have and how this will look bad for new readers as they would normally look at the comments to see if it’s worth getting involved(or so I’ve read anyway) and so I won’t be enabling the comments until my blog reaches a fairly decent amount of views per post or per month, I know this might be down to the lack of updated articles and mostly boring topics/popular topics but I am trying my best and still waiting on that next niche topic similar to the Vodafone scandal and the HTC Force close error during one of its updates.
Moving on, since the last time I posted graphics work I was working on a project a long with a work colleague which was basically for the people we were working for and the project was to design a website for a non-profit charity called North West Veterans, I currently can’t find the psd file or the image of it on the PC and I can’t really link you to the website as we literally got ripped off and found out the people we were designing it for went off and used(back then) a crappy version, it does however now use a nicer looking design, the web layout was initially designed for ourself again for a non-profit charity called Pathways Veterans or something along those lines and it was before North West Veterans was even created/announced.
Along with that I also got in contact with a college friend who wanted me to design a website for him and then he would code it I can’t really give too much away as I was told not to tell anyone about it but it never really got far so I will show a couple of concept designs I came up with.
There have been a couple of other graphics work I have been doing too, one is some random abstract graphics work and the other is my new Twitter and YouTube background due to the new Twitter layout breaking my old background. Anyway here are the follow pieces of graphics work I’ve been doing since March 2011.
[tabs tab1="Web Design" tab2="Abstract Wallpaper" tab3="Youtube Background" tab4="Twitter Background"]
If you have any suggetions or questions feel free to email me or tweet me on twitter.]]>
You heard me right, after being cancelled for a PC release back in 2009; Alan Wake will now be released for the PC February 16 2012 via Steam and then as a boxed retail version later on, it will include all the game’s DLC packs which were released for the Xbox after its own release over the years and will feature high-resolution graphics and enhanced PC features, with support for stereoscopic 3D technology.
Remedy Entertainment quotes:
We’ve done our best to do justice to the PC version and do things the way they should be done for PC. The PC version looks absolutely beautiful. We’re bringing the game to life in a whole new way,
The key PC enhancements and features include:
Experience Alan Wake’s Pacific Northwest in higher resolutions and higher fidelity than ever before.
Refined and fully configurable mouse and keyboard support (or if you prefer to play with the Microsoft gamepad connected to your PC, you can do that too!)
A wide selection of customizable graphics settings and support for 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios.
Multithreaded engine that takes advantage of quad core CPUs.
Additional options our fans have sought after, such as field of view adjustment as well as “hide HUD”.
Works with AMD Eyefinity 3D 3-screen mode.
Works with NVIDIA NVISION2 Stereoscopic 3D.
Alan Wake is a story-driven action game where players assume the role of a best-selling author who escapes to a small town only to find out that his wife is missing. It’s a suspenseful, engaging title filled with twists and turns at every corner.]]>