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Don’t use software firewalls: Good advice or bad?

Dave Farquhar security October 10, 2011October 9, 2011amd, extra money, firewall, intel, linksys, malware, netgear, prison, vista, vulnerability, Windows XP, x86

A common piece of good-meaning advice you’ll hear is that you should never use software firewalls. But is that good advice, or bad?

On the surface, it’s good advice. It’s much better to use the firewall built into a cable/DSL router. But the software firewall built into Windows XP, Vista, 7, and (presumably) 8 makes for a good second line of defense, so I don’t recommend disabling it.

I’ll explain further.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Giving Windows 7’s power management more options

Dave Farquhar Windows October 2, 2011October 1, 2011amd, asus, intel, windows 7

I installed Asus’ CPU/fan monitor on my new AMD64 system, and I discovered that the system frequently changed speeds from 3.3 GHz down to 2.2 GHz. Very frequently. In fact, it spent most of its time running at 2.2 GHz. I decided to investigate, and found the setting was in Windows 7’s power management settings.

If you have a newer AMD or Intel CPU and Windows 7, you may find its power management settings aren’t quite as aggressive as they could be.

Dave Farquhar

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Bargain SSD? Maybe more like hard bargain SSD

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 21, 2011November 22, 2018intel, kingston, ocz

Dealnews had a shocking deal today: An OCZ Vertex Plus 60 GB drive for $45. That’s an after-rebate price, but even writing off the $10 rebate, at $55 the drive is still priced historically low.

I didn’t buy one. And I didn’t buy three. Here’s why.
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Dave Farquhar

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Microsoft: No x86 apps for ARM

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 19, 2011April 2, 20251990s, acer, amd, ancestor, android, apple, DEC, IBM, intel, Intel Atom, IOS, power savings, Token Ring, unix, vista, windows 2000, windows 7, windows 8, windows me, windows nt, x86

So, The Register reports that Windows on ARM will not have compatibility with apps compiled for x86. Intel has been saying this for a while, while Microsoft has been mum. So now we know.

There are arguments both for and against having an x86 emulation layer.
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Dave Farquhar

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Intel isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 15, 2011amd, asus, hp, intel

This week, Paul Otellini told journalists he isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business, elaborating by saying he doesn’t want to compete with his customers.

It makes sense.
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Dave Farquhar

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PC Magazine’s sub-$200 PC

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 5, 2011January 31, 20221990s, amd, asus, firefox, intel, kingston, Micro Center, Open Office, pc magazine, phenom, recycling, ubuntu, Ubuntu Linux, Western Digital

PC Magazine has reprised its sub-$200 PC. I think it’s a good guide, and a savvy shopper can potentially do a little bit better with some care and some luck. At that price, it’s running Linux, but it also serves as a good guide for upgraders looking to upgrade an existing PC inexpensively. If you have a case and hard drive you can reuse, you can either buy better parts, or just pocket the savings.

Here’s my take on their selections.

Dave Farquhar

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And now it’s Apple’s turn

Dave Farquhar Macintosh August 25, 2011January 3, 20251980s, 1990s, Andy Grove, apple, Bill Gates, erector, intel, mac os x, macintosh, os x, pixar, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney

It’s been a weird month for technology. And as always, Apple had a way to get people to stop talking about anything else, though it’s not the news Apple wanted do deliver this week. I can only think of one bit of news Apple would want to deliver less.

Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO. He’s becoming chairman, but perception is everything. Especially with Apple. I don’t think any company in recent memory has leveraged perception the way Apple has.

Dave Farquhar

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Intel fixes a major issue with its 320-series SSDs

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 20, 2011April 17, 2017intel

Intel 320-series SSDs have an obscure bug in their firmware that can cause them to change from a multi-gigabyte SSD to an 8 MB pumpkin. Intel finally found the issue and posted a fix.

This might explain why supplies of Intel 320s have been a bit sporadic lately. If you have an Intel 320, get ready to download and install the update. You may want to wait just a few days to make sure there are no issues with it, as SSD updates in general tend to be, shall I say, rushed.

Dave Farquhar

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Bombshell: HP pulls out. Of tablets and desktop PCs.

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 18, 2011November 3, 2025amiga, android, apple, Ars Technica, best buy, Dave Haynie, hp, IBM, intel, Intel Core, ipad, netbooks, web os

And speaking of duds, it looks like HP has one on their hands in their Web OS-based tablets.

Best Buy has about a quarter-million unsold tablets in their warehouse and has only managed to sell 25,000 of them. And when Woot ran a special on them, selling them for $120 off, they sold a whopping 612 of them.

And now it looks like HP is just going to discontinue Web OS altogether.
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Dave Farquhar

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DOS war stories

Dave Farquhar DOS, War Stories August 13, 2011February 3, 20223com, boot disk, compaq, hp, IBM, intel, ramdisk, windows 98

In honor of the IBM PC turning 30, I thought I’d tell some stories about my experiences with the operating system introduced with it, PC DOS (aka MS-DOS).
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Dave Farquhar

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