Tony Bradley

If you remove a piece of hardware, particularly USB devices that may be frequently swapped out, without first Uninstalling it in Device Manager, the drivers remain behind, but the device no longer shows up in Device Manager by default.

Windows XP includes a handy tool called Network Diagnostics which can be used to gather a variety of information which can be helpful for troubleshooting.

Many spam offers and phishing scams trick users into going to a web site that has nothing to do with what the URL appears to link to. Before you click, take a look at the true URL behind the link.

Hard drives are cheap and people typically have more space than they know what to do with these days. But, that is no reason to just waste it. When you install Windows patches, hidden folders are created which contain the uninstall data. Viewing the hidden data on my computer, I found 50 or so patch uninstall folders taking up over 500 Mb of space on my drive.

Windows Explorer is a fairly functional tool for browsing files and folders and finding what you are looking for. But, depending on how large and how organized your hard drive is, it may take some time to sift through to the folder you really want. Using command line parameters, you can create desktop shortcuts that take you quickly to your most-used folders.

It is difficult to protect devices that you don't even know exist. In larger enterprises it is very easy to lose track of the asset inventory which leads to complacency about rogue devices. In order to effectively protect the network and to respond to incidents efficiently, an updated asset inventory and network map should always be handy.

Wireless networks add a significant level of convenience for many users. The ability to roam at will and access the network without adding wires is quite useful. But, you need to do so securely. There are a number of basic steps you should take to protect your wireless network and filtering MAC addresses is one more way to secure it.