Tip Archive

Ever go to the dealership to buy a new car and you get that 4 square “worksheet”?

There is a method to all the number writing madness and here is how to beat it.

How to Beat the Four-Square Worksheet

Great guide and I know the game quite well as I’ve played it many times. When we bought our last car it took 6 hours but I shaved over $100 off the lease payment while upgrading the vehicle!

Technorati Tags: four-square, car, sale, dealer, dealership

SANS has created the new Software Security Institute (SSI) (link) which is an exam program designed to ensure that software programmers demonstrate proper security techniques when writing code.

Here are the project goals:

• Allowemployers to rate their programmers on security skills so they can beconfident that every project has at least one “security master” and all of their programmers understand the common errors and how to avoid them.
• Provide a means for buyers of software and systems vendors to measure the secure programming skills of the people who workfor the supplier.
• Allow programmers to identify their gaps in secure programming knowledge in the language they use and target education to fill those gaps.
• Allow employers to evaluate job candidates and potential consultants on their secure programming skills and knowledge.
• Provide incentive for universities to include secure coding in required computer science, engineering, and programming courses.
• Provide reporting to allow individuals and organizations to compare their skills against others in their industry, with similar education or
  experience or in similar regions around the world.

Credit

Technorati Tags: SANS, security, development, applications, software, code, programming

Have you been running Microsoft Vista for a few weeks/months and all of a sudden find out that a lot of your hard drive space is taken up for no apparent reason?

The culprit is most likely system restore.

To remove the old restore points and regain your drive space follow along:

Step 1: Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup.

Step 2: Choose “Files from all users on this computer”

Step 3: Click “Continue” to the Vista UAC prompt

Step 4: Click the “More Options” tab

Step 5: Click the “Cleanup” button in the “System Restore and Shadow Copies” area

Step 6: Click “Delete” to the prompt that asks if you want to delete all but the last restore point.

Step 7: Then click “OK” on the previous window.

Step 8: Click “Delete Files” to the prompt below and the Disk Cleanup tool will go to work freeing your hard drive of old backup files.

That’s it. Once it finishes you will regain back a good chunk of missing hard drive space. In my case it was almost 15 GB!

Technorati Tags: Windows, Vista, System Restore, hard drive, space, recover

Gmail Beta: First Impressions
How I ‘Imported’ archived email into Gmail
Gmail Tip #1: All About Labels
Gmail Tip #2: ‘Check’ Your Messages
Gmail Tip #3: How to Maintain ‘Notes’
Gmail Tip #4: Formatting Your Name
Gmail Tip #5: The ‘Plus’ Side of Gmail
Gmail Tip #6: Define a Signature!
Gmail Tip #7: Quickly Addressing a Message

Get the Rest

Technorati Tags: GMail, Google, email, tips

This tutorial shows how to set up a PXE (short for preboot execution environment) install server with Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). A PXE install server allows your client computers to boot and install a Linux distribution over the network, without the need of burning Linux iso images onto a CD/DVD, boot floppy images, etc. This is handy if your client computers don’t have CD or floppy drives, or if you want to set up multiple computers at the same time (e.g. in a large enterprise), or simply because you want to save the money for the CDs/DVDs. In this article I show how to configure a PXE server that allows you to boot multiple distributions: Ubuntu Edgy/Dapper, Debian Etch/Sarge, Fedora Core 6, CentOS 4.4, OpenSuSE 10.2, and Mandriva 2007.

Full Instructions

Technorati Tags: PXE, install, network, LAN, Ubuntu, Linux, Fedora

Have your eye on a domain? Want to find a domain that is currently in use but expiring soon? Then this site will help you on your quest.

Technorati Tags: domains, expired, internet

PermaTabs is an
interesting extension which adds the ability to turn tabs of your
choice into permanent tabs (”permaTabs”) that can’t be closed, and
stick around between sessions. Useful for keeping URLs you use often,
always one tab away. Also, useful for picking up articles where you
left off, between sessions. I was looking for this extension since long
time, since I always keep some tabs always open to check email, post to
my blogs … Something I didn’t like even that the author add it for
fun, that it installs three default sticky tabs. I just didn’t like
because before restarting firefox I have about 20 open tabs and after
it I lost all urls ! So be sure that you bookmark your link before
restarting firefox.

Credit

Technorati Tags: tabs, firefox, permanent, add-on, extension

This site points us to a list of common and not-too-common Windows keyboard command shortcuts. A comprehensive list if nothing else.

Technorati Tags: list, Windows, command, shortcuts, keyboard

Ubuntu Geek has a great article on bandwidth tools available for Ubuntu Linux. Screen shots and descriptions included.

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu, bandwidth, monitor, tools

This is a trick known at Vegas hotels, but probably will work anywhere.

Next time you are about to stay at a hotel, try the following to be upgraded to a better room or even a suite with a $20 tip to the hotel clerk.

Note : People have a success rate of 76.51% by doing this. See the success people are having with this here!

1. Call ahead and know the availability of the hotel during your stay.
2. Have a folded $20.
3. Go to your hotel check-in desk clerk. (be friendly)
4. When they ask for a credit card, have the folded $20 underneath the credit card and ask if they have ‘any complimentary upgrade’