How Do Noise Reducing Headphones Work?

Quick Links Passive noise reduction, active noise cancellation, sound isolation… The world of headphones has become quite advanced in giving you your own private sound bubble. Here’s how these different technologies work. Supra-aural These are your run-of-the-mill headphones that are padded and sit on your ear. It’s like having a small speaker right next to you, and they’re not too large. (Photo:Sennheiser PX100-II) Earbuds These are the normal earphones that come with your iPod....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 310 words · Jessica Stevens

How Hackers Take Over Web Sites with SQL Injection and DDoS

Have you ever wondered how they do it? Heres how they work. Image byxkcd Denial of Service Attack What is it? How does it work? The logistics of a DDoS attack may be best explained by an example. The attackers coordinate so that on Tuesday at 9 AM they will all call Company X’s phone number. The result is that legitimate customer calls (i.e. So in essence Company X is potentially losing business due to the legitimate requests being unable to get through....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 234 words · Jennifer Williams

How to Use System Restore on Windows 10 and Windows 11

Ensure that Restore Points are enabled for C: drive, then create a restore point. System Restore is a Windows feature that can help fix some crashes and other computer problems. What Is System Restore? Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek System Restore lets you restore your Windows installation back to its last working state. It does this by creating “restore points” every so often. This can be really useful when troubleshooting certain types of problems....

September 28, 2016 · 4 min · 714 words · Laurie Sullivan

Is UPnP a Security Risk?

Quick Links UPnP comes enabled by default on many new routers. At one point, the FBI and other security experts recommended disabling UPnP for security reasons. But how secure is UPnP today? Are we trading security for convenience when using UPnP? UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play. If malware not being able to forward ports is important to you, youll want to disable UPnP. This bug was fixed by a security patch....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 231 words · Edwin Thompson

The Best and Worst Ways to Send a Resume

But not all filetypes or methods are created equalread on to see the potential pitfalls your resume faces. What Sets Your Resume Apart? Maybe your filetype doesnt open. On the other hand, the majority of resumes submitted fall into this category. What can you do to stand apart from the dross and land that new job? What Are Employers Looking For? Your aim is to be as close to this person as you’ve got the option to....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 332 words · Diana Hernandez

What Are Computer Algorithms, and How Do They Work?

Here’s a quick explanation of what they are, and how they work. Image byIan Ruotsala What’s an Algorithm? Algorithms have a wide variety of applications. Algorithms work like that. Flowcharts are visual tools which can more understandably represent a set of instructions used by computers. Similarly, algorithms help do the same with more math-based models. Graphs Let’s use a graph to illustrate the various ways we can give directions. We can express this graph as a connection between all of its points....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 320 words · Craig Sanchez

What Is a "Zombie Process" on Linux?

Zombies are basically the leftover bits of dead processes that haven’t been cleaned up properly. What’s a Zombie Process? This allows the parent process to get information from the dead process. After wait() is called, the zombie process is completely removed from memory. This normally happens very quickly, so you won’t see zombie processes accumulating on your system. Utilities like GNOME System Monitor, thetopcommand, and thepscommand display zombie processes. Dangers of Zombie Processes Zombie processes don’t use up any system resources....

September 28, 2016 · 1 min · 212 words · Louis Sanchez

What Is a Browser's User Agent?

Quick Links Your web client sends its user agent to every website you connect to. Weve written aboutchanging your browsers user agentbefore but what exactly is a user agent, anyway? This sounds simple, but user agents have become a mess over time. The contents of the user agent field vary from surfing app to surfing app. Each web client has its own, distinctive user agent. However, you might spot something confusing IE identifies itself as Mozilla....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 251 words · Timothy Collins

What Is the Linux fstab File, and How Does It Work?

What Is Fstab? Fstab is your operating system’s file system table. This held true for DVDs, CDs, and even floppies (remember those?). This is where fstab came in, and it was awesome. Suppose you swapped hard disks on your IDE or SCSI controller. The computer could load the file systems in a different order, potentially messing things up. The Obvious Options You’ll notice all of the entries begin with UUIDs....

September 28, 2016 · 2 min · 217 words · Danielle Castillo

How to Create a System Restore Point in Windows 7

press the Start menu, throw in “restore”, and click “Create a Restore Point”. The System Properties dialog screen opens up. hit the Create button.

September 27, 2016 · 1 min · 24 words · Allen Guzman

How to Disable System Restore in Windows 7, 8, or 10

The only price to this feature is some disk usage. If you want to disable System Restore, which is a bad idea, it’s really pretty simple. Just to verify you understand: Software has bugs. Disabling System Restore will keep you from rolling back changes. It is not a good idea to disable it. (Note again that this is probably a bad idea). That should be all you should probably do....

September 27, 2016 · 1 min · 81 words · Taylor Henry

How Antivirus Software Works

Quick Links Antivirus programs are powerful pieces of software that are essential on Windows computers. Related:What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10 and 11? (Is Microsoft Defender Good Enough?) On-Access Scanning Antivirus software runs in the background on your gear, checking every file you open. Antivirus programs also scan other types of files that can contain viruses. For example,a .zip archive filemay contain compressed viruses, ora Word documentcan contain a malicious macro....

September 26, 2016 · 2 min · 244 words · Logan Anthony

How to Manage Saved Passwords in Internet Explorer

Read on to find out what goes on behind the scenes. When it comes to web applications, there are many different types of authentication. This also happens to be the authentication mechanism defined in the RFC for HTTP. You might also ask yourself what happens if you are not using Basic authentication. This allows the Developer to control the look and feel of the form that we use to jump in....

September 26, 2016 · 1 min · 143 words · Keith Blevins