Ed's Tech Tips

I have recently implemented a stricter password policy at the Alumnae Association which requires staff to use more complex and longer passwords that will need to be changed on a regular rotation and they will not be able to use the same one. Although you may consider password policies to be inconvenient and a hassle, however, without them you could experience even bigger hassles, such as:

• Loss of data, either by it being deleted, corrupted or stolen.
• Personal information being stolen: passwords, credit card numbers, bank accounts, addresses, etc.
• Your computer can be used as a "zombie", meaning that it could be used without your knowledge to deliver spam, commit click fraud, host phishing web sites, deliver denial of service attacks, host pornography, etc. Learn more at Wikipedia.

Passwords can be the weakest link in a computer security scheme. Strong, hard-to-guess passwords are important because the tools and computers that people use to guess passwords continue to improve. Network passwords that once took weeks to guess can now be guessed in hours.

Password-guessing software uses one of three approaches: intelligent guessing, dictionary attacks, and automation that tries every possible combination of characters. Given enough time, the automated method can guess any password. However, it can still take months to guess a strong password. 

To help keep your computer more secure, you should use a strong password. While this is a good practice in general for all of your computer accounts, it is especially important for your network logon and for the Administrator account on your computer.

For a password to be strong, it should:

• Be at least seven characters long. Because of the way passwords are encrypted, the most secure passwords are seven or 14 characters long.
• Passwords should contain characters from each of the following three groups:
  • Letters (uppercase and lowercase) A, B, C... (and a, b, c...)
  • Numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
  • Symbols (all characters not defined as letters or numerals) ` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + - = { } | [ ] \ : " ; ' < > ? , . /

• Have at least one symbol character in the second through sixth positions.
• Be significantly different from prior passwords.
• Not contain your name or user name.
• Not be a common word or name.

• If passwords must be written down on a piece of paper, store the paper in a secure place and destroy it when it is no longer needed.
• Never share passwords with anyone.
• Use different passwords for all user accounts.
• Change passwords immediately if they may have been compromised.
• Be careful about where passwords are saved on computers. Some dialog boxes, such as those for remote access and other telephone connections, present an option to save or remember a password. Selecting this option poses a potential security threat.

Do you need some help coming up with a strong password? Then checkout Goodpassword.com. They have two options: a totally random password or a leet password. Leet passwords are easy to remember acronym passwords generated by combining the first letter of each word, randomly changing the case, and replacing alphanumeric characters with their Leet (1337) equivalents, that is characters that look and/or sound the same.

To see how strong your password is visit Securitystats.com and enter it to be graded on a scale with explanations of what you need to improve your password if it is lacking.

Passwordbuilder.com provides you with some optional memory aids.

Ideally you should have multiple passwords that you can change often, but that can be difficult to keep track of. Check out PasswordVaulttoGo. There are versions for Windows, Linux and Macs. It fits on a USB key and can generate, store and manage your passwords. It features very (almost insanely) strong 896-bit encryption. There is a free version that supports up to 15 accounts.

Remember not to take your passwords for granted! 

Techsoup is a web site that offers nonprofits a one-stop resource for technology needs by providing free information, resources, and support. They also offer a product philanthropy service called TechSoup Stock. Here, nonprofits can access donated and discounted technology products, generously provided by corporate and nonprofit technology partners.

They have a enewsletter and rss feed. I have used them for helping to plan the technology budget for the Association and a tool called TechAtlas  to help inventory the Association's hardware.

Tabloid or Ledger refers to 11" x 17" size paper. A tabloid color laser printer is capable, at minimum, of printing on paper of those dimensions or larger. Some support 12" x 18" format, as well as, 12" x 48" banners. The Alumnae Assoication had a four year old HP Laserjet 8550dtn printer that was capable of printing on 11x17 until recently.

It was housed in a large storage closet on the 3rd floor of Mary Woolley Hall because it was large and noisy. No one liked it in their office. Unfortunately, a printer size chunk of thick plaster ceiling fell on it a few months ago and it has not worked right since then. We have nursed it along until it finally refused to feed any paper and chronically complained of a phantom paper jam. Due to the high cost of repairs, it was deemed not worth investing any more moeny into it and I started researching a replacement.

I guess that due to the size and cost of such printers, current reviews and comparisons are difficult to find online. I search Google extensively and could not fins much in the way of a recent comparison of tabloid color laser printers. An excellent place to start is ConsumerSearch.com . I have written about the site before. They compile and compare reviews from other publications like PC Magazine, Consumer Reports and MacWorld magazine. They combine and summarize the results for you. THe site has an excelent on what to look for in a color printer and compares the pros and cons of inkjets and color lasers.

Why would the Association need such as large expensive printer? To save money and time in the long run. By printing posters, postcards, banners, signs and such in-house we do not have to pay an outside printer to do the same. It is also great for those last minute projects and tight deadlines. Our graphic designer estimates that within a year the printer should pay for itself. Why not an inkjet? Costs per page is higher with an inkjet than with a Laser printer as those of you who have an inkjet printer know. Plus, injet printers are not designed to handle large print quantities, whereas the laser printers I reviewed can handle over 100,000 pages per month.

I compared comparable models from HP, Lexmark, Okidata, Xerox and Ricoh - all major laser printer manufacturers. Going with a lesser known brand may result in expensive and hard to find parts and supplies. The Okidata 9600hdn and the Xerox Phaser 7400n come out on top in features and performance. For the full details, please refer to the comparison chart which is available in Excel (CLPrinterComparison.xls) and PDF (CLPrinterComparison.pdf) file formats. I highlighted in red the top numbers in each category and made bold the runner up numbers. Some categories were very close. Maximum paper weight was an important category for us because of the different types of card stock we want to print on. Dor an indepth look at paper weights and the difference between bond, card and index check out paper.com.

I included current prices of toners and drums where I could from Staples which offers free next day delivery and is where we get our office supplies from.

We are leaning toward the Okidata printer because there is no local service representative for Xerox in the Massachusetts Pioneer Valley area which is surprising since it is such a large company and is based out of Stamford, CT. The nearest dealers where in Connecticut. A local repairman will save time and money if the printer ever needs serious service.

UPDATE as of March 2007:  We ended up purchasing the Xerox Phaser 7400 from CDW. The price was lower than the Okidata and CDW had a two year extended on-site service warranty for only $184 more. In addition to the price, I was impressed with the Xerox software. It is more polished and feature rich than the Okidata software, meaning the printer drivers and printer web server interface which is very thorough and detailed. The printer driver is very easy to install and the auto discovery feature is a nice touch. The printer is considerably faster and quieter than the HP 8550dtn that it replaces. The print outs are very nice. The color is brillant and even. I am very happy with it. 

I do not know how I managed to go this long on this blog without writing about coffee. It's my favorite beverage. I cannot (easily) start the day without a couple cups of coffee. I've gone so far as to roast coffee beans in a hot air popcorn popper. I have a drip coffee maker, a French press, a Starbucks Barista expresso machine and a burr coffee grinder. I have to thank my sister for the last two items who is even more of a coffee nut than me. I also overhauled the office coffee when I started working at the Alumnae Association. It had consisted of large cans of ground Folgers or Maxwell House which I cannot stand. I brought in some of my home roasted coffee and a grinder to introduce the staff to fresh ground coffee. I then educated them about organic and fair trade coffee. We now order coffee from Dean's Beans and a have a large Bodum grinder to ground the beans for each pot of coffee. Everyone in the office are now coffee snobs.

Getting back to the title of this article, cold brewed coffee. I cannot stand room temperature coffee. I drink coffee black, but it has to be hot. I like iced coffee, but has to be sweetened. Cold brewed coffee is a method of brewing a concentrated form of coffee that you add to hot water or milk. Seattle's Best used the method for it's cold coffee drinks. Also, the coffee is low in acid and convenient to make. It is ideal for coffee martini's, which I have yet to try. Brew your once a week and keep a pitcher in the refrigerator. easy to make. No special equipment is necessary, but there are companies that will sell you some if you want.

Toddy Coffee is a company built around cold brewed coffee. They sell a $35 pitcher and filter system, as well as, already brewed coffee and ground coffee. There is another company called Filtron, which sells consumer and commercial models. Deans Bean's uses the commercial model to make a concentrate used by Berkshire Brewing Company for their coffee porter beer. However, like I said, no special equipment is necessary. You probably already have the equipment needed to cold brew. I have not tried it yet, because it takes a pound of coffee, but as the weather warms up, I might try it out since it sounds like a better method for cold coffee drinks. Check out INeedCoffee.com for some cheap cold coffee brewing methods.

Cranky Geeks is a weekly show sponsored by Ziff Davis, a computer magazine and book publisher. The show is hosted by long time tech columnist and PC Magazine contributing editor John C. Dvorak who is often characterized as a curmudgeon and rightly so. He is usually cynical and often questions the "benefits" and motives behind technology. The show is aired Thursdays at 2 PM Eastern and can be downloaded at from the web site in video format or you can subscribe to the audio podcast on iTunes. The show is not as comprehensive as "This Week in Tech", another podcast I subscribe and listen to while I works. Unfortunately, because the show is being produced for video, they forget that some of the audience is listening to the show and not watching it and they forget to describe certain products that they are reviewing or talking about.