Author: Dave Farquhar

Why is collaboration important?

Dave Farquhar security
Why is collaboration important?

Why is collaboration important? I once worked someplace that had collaboration as a core value, but not all of its employees collaborated. So I learned first hand why collaboration is important. It’s one of the best ways to be successful without making enemies.

I’m a security professional by trade. Security professionals are notoriously bad at collaborating. Collaboration may be the only thing I do better than other security professionals I’ve met, so I see the importance of it. And not just in security, and not just in IT.

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Best time to buy computer parts

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money
Best time to buy computer parts

Figuring out the best time to buy computer parts is tricky. It’s not quite like saying the best time to buy a TV is right around the Super Bowl. But there are some tips you can follow to help you find the best deals.

Good timing won’t make building a PC cheaper than buying one, but it can at least narrow the gap, if you have the patience to buy when you find a deal rather than buying all your parts in one shot.

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What is a Zip drive?

Dave Farquhar Hardware
What is a Zip drive?

What is a Zip drive? It’s a relic of late 1990s computing, rendered obsolete by USB flash drives, and anyone who remembers them will say good riddance. Not that I have strong opinions about it. But even though I don’t remember Iomega Zip drives fondly, they served a real, legitimate purpose in the 1990s. Like them or not, we needed them.

I’m not alone in this. In 2006, PC World ranked the Iomega Zip drive as the 15th worst technology product of all time. The next year, it ranked it the 23rd best technology product of all time. How can it be so good and so bad at the same time? We needed it really badly, but it didn’t work well.

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Lease vs own: Which makes more sense?

Dave Farquhar Saving money
Lease vs own: Which makes more sense?

An important financial decision we all make, especially when it comes to cars, is lease vs own. I received some poor advice on this when I was young. Since I don’t want people to repeat the same mistakes I made, let’s go over the two options and what makes more sense.

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Brute force hacking

Dave Farquhar security
Brute force hacking

Brute force hacking is a crude form of hacking by guessing passwords over and over again until you guess right. As you may guess, it can be rather time consuming. But there are more than 40 gigabytes’ worth of stolen usernames and passwords in circulation that we know about, so obviously, it works.

In computing in general, brute force refers to getting something done inelegantly, relying on persistence and the computer’s ability to repeat things over and over quickly until it’s successful. Here’s how brute force hacking works, and some ways to prevent it.

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What is geolocation? And is it good or bad?

Dave Farquhar security
What is geolocation? And is it good or bad?

What is geolocation? It’s the practice, or some would say black magic, of inferring your geographic location from your computer, phone, or another device. It has legitimate uses, but also can arguably be an invasion of privacy. Here’s how it works, and how to defeat it.

In a nutshell, it works like algebra, where you solve something you don’t know based on two or more things you do know.

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Uses of Microsoft Excel

Dave Farquhar Careers, Office
Uses of Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is one of the most popular pieces of software ever. Many job descriptions cite familiarity with Excel as a requirement, or at least desirable. But no one was born knowing it. So let’s take a look at some uses of Microsoft Excel.

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What is a managed service provider?

Dave Farquhar security
What is a managed service provider?

Managed service providers have really taken off in recent years, partly due to the boom in cloud computing. But what is a managed service provider, and what are the advantages of using one?

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What does No Internet Secured mean?

Dave Farquhar Troubleshooting
What does No Internet Secured mean?

What does No Internet Secured mean? It’s potentially the least helpful error message in all of Windows 10. And it doesn’t help that it doesn’t look at all like an error message either. So let’s talk about what it means when Windows 10 says No Internet, Secured, and more importantly, how to fix it.

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What is a runbook?

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking
What is a runbook?

What is a runbook? It’s an IT phrase you hear thrown around a lot these days and everyone assumes you know what one is. I actually wrote runbooks at a couple of different points in my career without knowing that’s what I was doing. So it’s OK if you don’t know what one is. I’ll explain it.

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