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 Get the DE Computer Tips and Tricks Newsletter Here! |
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| Read the UnCorporate Blog |
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The newest addition to our Super Support Staff was introduced to Dynamic Edge culture early this spring by firing squad and total immersion.
Read this blog to find out how a techno-simpleton thrives in the electronic jungle of DE! |
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| QuickBooks Discontinues Older Software Products |
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On May 31, 2008, Intuit will discontinue support for QuickBooks 2005, Enterprise 5.0, and Point of Sale 4.0. Although the software will continue to function, you will no longer have access to services such as Bill Pay, Merchant Services, Online Billing, or Payroll!
Click the link below for more information. |
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| Computer Security - What you need to know! |
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Have you ever wondered if your data is secure? Most people are aware to watch for the little lock on their computer when they are doing online transactions, but what about the data that is actually on your computer or laptop?
Click below for tips on how to keep the information on your computer safe, secure, and private! |
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| DE's Beard Contest Featured on Crain's Detroit! |
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See what Bruce, Tim & Rebecca had to say to Crain's Detroit about the DE X-Mas Beard Contest!
Click below for the video! |
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| Make Your Own Backups! |
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| If you use computers for long enough, eventually you’ll lose data. It’s only a matter of time. Believe it or not, just copying the files you think are important isn’t enough. Your backups are the key to coming through a meltdown unscathed. Backups are necessary, easy and built into Windows. And I’m going to show you how to do them in a few short steps... |
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| CAREERS @ Dynamic Edge! |
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Are you crazy for technology? We are looking for a select group of people to fill the following positions:
- Web Developer
- Windows Desktop / Server Expert
- Programmer |
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| COMPUTER SECURITY - Using TrueCrypt |
How secure are your personal files? Your bank records? Important legal documents?
Computers are used more and more for sensitive data, and yet more and more people are placing them straight onto a hard drive, where the files can be read by anyone with physical access to the computer. One of the easiest and most common ways to prevent invasion of private data is to use data encryption. Encryption takes your important files and “scrambles” them against a code, making them incredibly difficult to access by hackers and other malicious users.
One of the easiest to use applications to encrypt data is a free application called TrueCrypt (www.truecrypt.org), which takes an encrypted file and allows it to be mounted just like a floppy, CD, or USB drive.
Below I will give a quick walkthrough of the installation of the program under Windows. Please note that these screenshots are taken under Windows Vista Business, but the steps are universal under all Windows operating systems. |
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| Download TrueCrypt from its website (www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php). It is approximately a 2MB download, so it should come down quickly on most high speed connections |
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| Run the setup application, being sure to select “Install” and not “Extract.” The defaults provided in the installation package are fine (read: Just click next!) |
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| Launch TrueCrypt by either double clicking on the icon on your desktop or selecting Start > Programs (or All Programs for Vista users) > TrueCrypt > TrueCrypt |
| Once started, TrueCrypt will put you into a very monolithic and not very helpful window. Don’t worry; the only part that we are concerned with at this point is the button that says “Create volume.” Click that to create your first encrypted volume. The volume is essentially a file that will hold all of the encrypted data and can only be accessed by you! |
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| The TrueCrypt Volume Creation Wizard will appear. We will be selecting “Create a file container”, which is a big file that contains other encrypted files. Click “Next.” |
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| For the purposes of this tutorial (and for ease of use) we will be creating a Standard volume, and not a hidden volume. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard enough time keeping track of my files without having them hidden from me as well. |
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A window will appear asking where we would like to save this volume. Click the “Select File” button and choose a path where you would like this file saved. I would recommend placing this either under your “My Documents” folder or under “C:\” so we can find it easily later. At this point also enter a file name in the dialog box. Feel free to name it anything you want (I use “oldsocks.socks”), but please do not name it MyTrueCryptVolume. That’s just begging for trouble. Once you have chosen a name and location for your file, click “Next.”
(A note about my location: Most people interested in finding your encrypted data will look for large files on your hard drive first. Since our TrueCrypt volume is not going to exactly be a small file, it will show up on a simple file search. No point in making it difficult on ourselves if it’s so easy to find) |
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| The next window allows for finer tuning of our encryption. The defaults are very secure and will work fine, so click “Next”. |
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| Next up is choosing the size of our encrypted partition. We recommend setting it to approximately 600MB, so it can be easily copied to a CD if it needs to be sent somewhere such as a lawyer’s office. |
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The next window is the most important one. It will prompt you for a password for your TrueCrypt volume. If you forget this password, all of the data that is moved into your TrueCrypt volume will be lost. I repeat, this password cannot be recovered easily.
Now that we have that nasty little warning out of the way, pick a password that will be remembered until the end of time, and click Next. No pressure, right? |
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Finally we are at the Volume Format window. The defaults are all fine here as well, as all they are setting is the format of the drive (NTFS is standard), and is setting the encryption key. Select “Format” and your virtual container will be created. Please note that this will take quite a bit of time depending on the size of your partition and the speed of your computer.
Once it is done formatting, feel free to click “Exit” at the next window. |
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Once the partition is done formatting you will be returned to the main TrueCrypt screen. Now that we have a partition created, we need to mount it. Select a drive letter that is not in use (like H), and then click “Select file.” Remember the file that we created earlier? Select that. It will now show up under “Volume”.
Click “Mount.” You will be prompted for the password for the encrypted volume. We haven’t forgotten it, right? |
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| Navigate to My Computer. You should now have an H: drive, which will hold all of your encrypted data! All you need to do is drag files in like you're moving them from one place to another! Once you log off your computer or restart, the encrypted volume will be unmounted and you will need to repeat Step 12 to get to the Volume again... this keeps people from getting to your data without knowing where the encrypted volume file is located or what your password is! |
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Encrypted files are great for security, but I find that entering the path and remembering to mount my encrypted drive every time I start my computer can be a pain. At the expense of some security, we can add some convenience to our encryption by setting our volumes as favorite volumes and having them mount at login.
In order to accomplish this, mount your encrypted volume as explained above. Once this is done, go to the “Volumes” menu in TrueCrypt and select “Save Currently Mounted Volumes as Favorite.” Now instead of always searching for our encrypted volumes, all that needs to be done is open TrueCrypt and select Volumes > Mount Favorite Volumes.
To have these volumes mounted at startup, open up Settings > Preferences in the TrueCrypt window. Select “Start TrueCrypt” and “Mount favorite volumes” underneath the Actions to perform upon log on to Windows header. Now when you log into your computer, it will prompt you for a password and your volumes will mount!
Please feel free to e-mail us if you have any questions, or call Dynamic Edge if you need assistance with all of your encryption needs. |
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