TechRejects - Helpful Tech Tips

A Firewall is a barrier that is designed to prevent unauthorized access to a computer as well as unauthorized outflow of data from a computer. Firewalls protect your computer or network from the activities of hackers and malicious software or websites that may try to infiltrate or damage your computer. A firewall could be a piece of equipment ( Hardware firewall ) or a program that is installed on a computer ( Software firewall ). These two types of firewalls have advantages to their use but they each also have disadvantages. These pros and cons are discussed below. Hardware Firewalls These are known as  Network  firewalls because they are used to protect several connected computers on a network. Advantages of Hardware Firewalls -  Single Central Solution, Easier to Maintain and Ideal for Large Organizations:  A hardware firewall allows a large organization to have a central solution for its firewall needs. This would be better than having to install and ...

A  Solid State Drive (SSD)  is a type of computer storage drive which makes use of flash memory chips such as is found in smartphones, memory cards and  USB  drives. In contrast, a  mechanical Hard Disk Drive (HDD)  possesses a platter on which data is stored, a motor which spins the platter (to speeds up to 7200 revolutions per minute), and an actuator arm which physically moves "read" and "write" heads which seek for and add data to the spinning platter. All these moving parts are the reasons why solid state drives perform better than hard disk drives. However, SSDs in spite of their advantages over HDDs still have notable disadvantages. The pros and cons of solid states drives are discussed below: Pros 1.  More Durable:  Subjecting a mechanical hard disk drive to shock such as by dropping it can cause considerable damage. For example, the actuator arm may break off or scratch the platter (leading to the loss of data located in the ...

Daylight Savings Time (DST) involves adjusting clocks forward in spring and adjusting them backward in autumn. This is done so that there is less daylight in the mornings and more in the evenings. It is only viable in spring and summer when the sun appears in the sky for a longer portion of the entire day and nights are consequently shorter. The debate over whether Daylight Savings Time is advantageous or constitutes a negative has raged on ever since Daylight Savings Time was first suggested back in 1895. It took the First World War to get some countries like the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom to adopt it and even that was not enough as many of them abolished DST soon after the war. Over time though and after a lot of changes, DST is finally being used in a number countries around the world but it still has its opponents to this day. For what reasons have some nations decided to adopt Daylight Savings Time and why are there people who are oppose...

Methods of encrypting messages include the: - Symmetric Key Encryption and - Asymmetric or Public Key Encryption methods. While each system has its proponents and opponents, both methods have pros and cons which are outlined below: Symmetric Key Encryption Symmetric key encryption is also known as shared-key, single-key, secret-key, and private-key or one-key encryption. In this type of message encryption, both sender and receiver share the same key which is used to both encrypt and decrypt messages. Sender and receiver only have to specify the shared key in the beginning and then they can begin to encrypt and decrypt messages between them using that key. Examples include AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and TripleDES (Data Encryption Standard). Advantages -  Simple:  This type of encryption is easy to carry out. All users have to do is specify and share the secret key and then begin to encrypt and decrypt messages. -  Encrypt and decrypt your own fi...

The introduction of  Google  Chrome has changed the browser landscape and has compelled other developers like Mozilla and  Microsoft  to devote even more resources to their own web browsers. With its new V8  engine which loads web pages fastest, innovative browser security and a totally revamped user interface, Chrome is the fastest growing browser in terms of usage statistics. While Google Chrome is highly impressive and efficient in plenty of ways, it has a number of shortcomings These include: Memory Usage Google implemented a novel method of rendering tabs in Chrome in which a separate process is created for every tab that is opened. This differs from other browsers which handle all tabs as one process. The advantage of Google Chrome's method is that it prevents a problem in one tab from affecting other tabs, therefore, preventing the entire browser from crashing. However, the creation of separate processes causes Chrome to use up a lot of memory a...

Bitcoin logo Bitcoin has been in the news a lot recently for good and bad reasons. There have been stories like the one of the man who bought  $27 worth of Bitcoin in 2009 which are now worth almost $900,000 . How about the  shutdown of the infamous Silk Road website  which was an online black market where people sold and bought illegal drugs and weapons and even paid to have people killed using Bitcoins as currency? Even most recently, a company started installing  physical ATMs for Bitcoin transactions . Having had my interest in Bitcoin piqued high enough, I decided I wanted to own Bitcoins. However, I had to know what advantages and disadvantages using Bitcoin presented. I carried out a bit of research and this is what I found. What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin, according to Bitcoin.org is a new kind of money which uses peer-to-peer technology to conduct transactions. It is an open source, decentralized payment system which means that it has no central regulati...

Heartbleed For a couple of months I did not use my computer to access the internet and so when I returned to using it, my antivirus software was out-of-date. I tried to update it but the antivirus database download stopped at a certain point each time. I downloaded a newer version of the same software but the same antivirus database download issue accompanied it. In addition, it knocked off my internet connection immediately after installation. After the antivirus software used up about 2 gigabytes of data trying and failing to update itself, I decided to install a different antivirus. The newer antivirus program did not have any problems updating itself. Rather, it overdid it. After updating the antivirus database, it began to update what it called a "web shield" and a "mail shield" using up an additional 300 - 400 megabytes of data. In addition to preventing some programs from working after I installed it, upon scanning, the only threats found were three ha...