Know the specs: Graphic cards.

If you are into playing video games, rendering 3d animation, or editing large video files, a high end graphics card is a must. Graphic cards are responsible to draw what you see on your screen at around 60 times a second. Due to their power, a lot of programs are using the GPU (graphics processing unit) in collaboration with the CPU to crunch numbers.

Know the Specs: RAM

Cool, so you need to buy 8 gigs of ram. well, obviously 8 gigs is better than 4 gigs, but what about if one type of ram has 10-10-10-30 timings and the other has 9-9-9-27? what do all the numbers mean? well... they are rarely explained and unless you try to hard to find them, no one seems to tell you.

Know the Specs: CPU

Do you know all there is about the cpu?

a good network monitoring solution, and how this mess happened.

ok... so as you know, i do a lot of tech based stuff. i set up servers for the net admin at my school, i configure a lot of computers, and most of the time it all goes swell and dandy. but sometimes stuff breaks, and when it breaks... it's usually is something big. for example, a server going down that controls your DNS / Wins server... or a switch going bad and 1/2 of a building looses all connectivity.

how to prevent all this? enter Nagios!

The Hard Drive Speaker

ok, so what happens when a nerd has a dead hard drive and too much free time in school? simple -- he makes a speaker out of it!

Expect a break in posts.

on Friday, me and my friend decided to ride our bikes down to McDonalds... we stopped at a crosswalk, but the light was not changing fast enough, so he rode across to the median. there was heavy traffic in the other two lains, so he decided to ride back, but a van parked in the tun lain, blocking his view of traffic (and the traffics view of him)
he puched off to come back over to where i was without checking for oncoming traffic, and rode right out in front of a van. the van had no time to break, and hit him going full speed (about 45 mph). he was not wearing a helmet.

that's that a skull does to a windshield in a 45 MPH collision.

New keyboard.

Hello everyone, just wanted to give an update....
before, i was using a razer lychosa keyboard.... if u dont know what they look like, they are quite shiny and nice too look at.

wifi anyone?

when people look at wireless routers they sometimes ask linksys or d-link, wireless b, g or n... but have you ever asked yourself what the TX output wattage is? how many external antennas you can hook up, or how far you can send a 2.4ghz signal without an external amplifier?

well, thats what i think of every day..... i need rage, range is the name of the game, and im here to win it.
when you boil it all down, most routers are the same..... other than the number of antennas, however... most routers now have internal antennas (ill cover that later)... so usually u can only find routers with 2 external antennas. thus, its all about the antennas!

18 dBi tx antenna (top) and a 13dBi rx antenna (bottom)

SSH and you #2 - doing it right.

ok, so if you followed my previous tutorial with freeSSHd, you might have noticed some pesky errors....
when i wrote that, i was testing everything on a LAN network, and it all seemed to go well.... but i recently started using it at college and i was baffled to see an error every 2 minutes or so.

in this tutorial, we will talk about how to set up winSSHd.... as the name implies, it is win (well, its for windows).  some of this tutorial will be the same as the last, however the majority of it involving hosting has changed.

battlefield 3

i know i usually do tech tutorials....but....

linux and the pen drive boot.

alright, so in this article, i will be walking you through how to get a linux distro on a flash drive. this is perfect if you like to take your operating system with you, or if your new to linux and just want to try it out before installing it.

a few things to keep in mind:

• you will be limited to 4 gb of saved data, as your drive will be formatted in fat32 (im assuming you still want to be able to use the drive to store file in windows)
• unless you run the installer, nothing touches the hard drive... the whole opperating system is ran from the flash drive.
• you can still 'mount' your hard drive and use the files on the computer.

2 ideas... what would you rather hear?

well... i was going to do a tutorial on how to make a bootable flash drive with linux, but i know most people prefer windows... so i decided to cover windows as well...
the only issue is, windows is VERY hard to get portable... and i found that if you make windows 7 portable, you cant boot it if you have windows xp, and if you have xp you cant portable boot 7. another main problem is that if you want large files like games, you have to use ntfs, not FAT32.... and you cant boot from the ntfs device, so you have to have a flash drive with the boot info that is formatted with fat32, that then boots the ntfs drive...

im still working on the tutorial, but i know if i finish it it will be long and verbose... probably taking up 3 blog entry.... im still going to do a single blog on booting linux, but i want to know if its worth writing all that stuff down about windows.

the other idea that i have is also going to be long and verbose, but in my oppinion more interesting then a moble version of windows.... how to flash routers with a firmware know as DD-WRT. it takes a 40 dollar router and turns it into an enterprise level router (firmware wise). the firmware is linux based, and really  unlocks the potential of the router.  so tell me, what would you rather read?

firmware modification on routers?
or
portable windows?

Network Anonymity.

i recently talked about encryption, this is great for keeping files secure.... now im going to cover network anonymity... there are tons of reasons you might want to stay anonymous on the web, possibly to view pages out of your region, you might want better privacy, or you might be bypassing a web ban. if you have heard of a VPN, a proxy, TOR, or even an ssh.... these are all ways to mask your identity.

Encryption.

today, it seems that technology is becoming more and more important in out lives. this is great, but it seems that everything is switching over to online. so what if we don't want to store sensitive data on our computer due to security, yet we have to? well.... we can encrypt the data, so if anyone gets access to our computer, they cant view our data.

another use of encryption is to transmit your data across the internet safely. in this tutorial, we will talk about how to encrypt our personal data, as well as making sure our data is being encrypted safely.

ideas for future tutorials?

i have a few plans on tutorials for the future.... however, i want to know what my viewer base wants to learn about.
im thinking of doing the following this month:

• network anonymity
• file encryption
• part 2 of the SSH and you tutorial (using your computers shell remotely)
• how to bypass white listed / black listed program filters.

im also thinking of starting to do some stuff on hardware, not just software... starting with simple things like how to shield RFID credit cards to prevent id theft, and possibly go into hobbyist level integrated circuit programming, like with pic micro controllers.

i want to hear about what YOU want to hear about.... so leave a comment below, say if you like the directions im looking to go in, as well as any suggestions you have. (or even request a tutorial!)

my car went full retard.

yea... random jolt, car went out of control.... and i managed to steer it into the grass..... hopefully ill have more blog posts up in a few days.... or when i get bored.
because this is the internet, and i know everyone likes carnage (even though this isn't that bad) here you all go.

car started to swerve, i tried to counter steer, which didn't go well. the car then fish tailed, and went into the dirt. the back wheel hit a concrete block with a water cover on it. and then the front tire hit the side walk.... the car tipped about 50 degrees and i swear, my mirror almost touched the ground.

How to remove viruses.

First off, im back from my mini vacation. so sorry about the lack of content. im back now... and boy is this a good tutorial.

alright, so first off, virus scan's SUCK! let me explain how... a virus scan tries to identify a virus based on the binary data. i don't want to get in depth with how it does this, but just know that it uses the binary data to compare the file to the signature in the virus data base. so all the hackers out there said to themselves... "wait, if i just modify the virus, then the virus scan will be useless"... and they were right!
there is a tool known as a cryptor that will encrypt the virus and hide it inside of an exe... this will look clean to the virus scan, but when ran, it will put the encrypted virus into your ram, decrypt it, and then run it from the ram its self. because it never touches the hard drive, it will never be checked by the virus scan. then you end up with a virus... which sucks for you.

so, in this tutorial, you will learn two things:

• how to avoid viruses.
• how to remove them if you already have one.

custom windows themes.

To be honest, linux has to be my favorite operating system. i get asked why a lot, and the answer is simple, i want my computer to look and behave how i want! the only problem is, due to my gaming addiction, and my work.... i cant always use linux. well, i have a windows 7 boot as well due to this, and i HATE how it looks so cookie cutter. they only give you a few themes, and the only difference is some colors.

well, there is a solution, and its to say good bye to your stock windows files and take a step into the realm of operating system modifying.

in this post, i will show you how to get your pc to look like this: click me.

How to make a bit of money using bitcoin.

Alright, well chances are if you go to any tech forum or blog, you have heard something about bitcoins. if you haven't, that's fine too.
Basically, a 'bitcoin' is an online currency. for all you economic buffs out there, its a fiat currency, which means it fluctuates with demand. This is great if your into making micro transactions... which if done correctly can lead to some good profit. (i made over $300 in a month!)