Hak5 - Technolust since 2005 » Hard Drive

Haktip 22 – HOW TO: Unsluggify Your PC

Jason — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:31:11 +0000

This time on the show we are making my PC less sluggish with some simple upgrades.

There are plenty of programs you can download and tools that can help you make your computer faster, but I wanted to go through a refresher of some of the steps we sometimes forget to use.

1. Reboot it! All those background programs you forgot you had open or even some that you closed still may be using a bit of memory. Ever see a computer say it’s ran out of Virtual memory? A reboot can help that.

2. TSR’s – Terminate and Stay Resident programs are little software packages that launch at startup and stay launched. They make you think that the actual program boots up really fast when you really click on it, but- as much as I like vampires- TSR’s sucking up valuable amounts of RAM is just plain unnecessary.

3. Get into the habit of running a disk cleanup tool and defrag your hard disk. I use a program called Defraggler that my friend Dave turned me on to. It’s much cleaner than the built in Windows Defragging tool, and gives you a bit more customization.

4. Watch out for beta tests and brand spankin new software upgrades. Sometimes software upgrades can make your computer not work so well. For example, I had to downgrade my version of Virtual Box so that I could boot off a USB. Though this didn’t really slow down my computer, it did give me a headache.

5. Erase, start over! Maybe you just want to clean up your browser or clean up your whole computer, but sometimes just a bit of Spring Cleaning can go a long way. Uninstall the programs you never use or the ones that have way too many addons and start with a new install. MMM, so fresh n so clean clean.

6. I do this on my mom’s computer every time I visit her- along with defragging and running a registry cleaner, scan for adware/spyware and viruses. You may be the best out there at downloading the safest software, but little things do make it past from time to time.

7. Visual effects like 3D animations or moving backgrounds can really hog memory. Keep it simple and save.

8. One of my favs are all those handy windows optimization tools that you can find for free online. Check out earlier episodes of HakTip for ideas on which ones to use or try the website alternative.to if you want to try something else.

All this and a bag of chips. After the break, I have a few simple hardware upgrades that can really help that old computer if you need a cheap fix.

We’re back! Two hardware upgrades that can deslug your computer are purchasing new RAM and a new harddrive. Now, you don’t have to go as crazy as I did on my most recent computer build and buy 12 GBs of RAM, but upgrading from 512 MB or 2 GB to 4GB can REALLY make a difference.

Second, update that old hard drive. I upgraded my old 500 GB hard drive with a new 2 TB 7200-RPM drive that gave me more rotations per minute as well as more space. For the price of hard drives these days, it’s your call whether you want a solid state or a rotating disk. I like getting 2 TB for less than $100 because I don’t move my computer around much and I can get several years out of my hard drives. But hey, whatever floats your boat!

What does float your boat? Like these tips? Want to add more? Email me: tips@hak5.org or send me a note in the comments below.

And be sure to check out our sister show, Hak5 for more great stuff just like this.

Episode 712 – Disk Cloning and Offline Maps

Darren Kitchen — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:59:03 +0000

Week 1 of the Hack Across America series begins with a look at a bare metal disaster recovery plan. Darren talks Hard Disk cloning the free and open source way, while Shannon investigates a number of tools for offline Google Maps usage.

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The latest from the road

Not much to report on the Hack Across America trip so far. By day 2 the only minor emergency has been a broken GPS. But to answer the question we keep getting: No, Hak5 isn’t going away. Don’t be silly. And trust your technolust, fools.

Trivia

Based on Hak5′s 26 week-per-season calendar, when will the third, fourth and fifth binary episodes occur?

Enter for your chance to win an autographed chunk of the HakHouse set by submitting your answer at hak5.org/trivia

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Snubs Report: Offline Google Maps

With Darren beginning his Hack Across America this week I figured it would be apt to point out a few tools that every geek may come to rely on at one point in time or another — offline use of Google Maps

In this Snubs Report I review the following paid, free and open source apps for offline Google Maps usage:

Google Maps Downloader
Offline Maps
Google Maps Saver
Google Map Buddy
Gmap Catcher

What do you think? Drop me a line at feedback@hak5.org

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Hard Disk Cloning the free and open source way

While I love using online “cloud” backup, fast reliable Internet access is difficult to come by on this trip. And losing data would be catastrophic. While I overnight myself a replacement laptop, the data is what is of true value

And what’s more, I don’t have time to sit around installing windows, a dozen programs and my data. So thats why on this trip I’m using disk cloning as my backup and recovery strategy.

This basically allows me to make a bit for bit copy of my laptop hard drive to a near identical external disk. If anything should fail it’s merely a matter of swapzies and I’m good to go.

In this segment I discuss disk cloning uses, commercial applications, DD, and free and open source distributions that make this bare metal backup a breeze.

I also demonstrate my favorite tool, Easus Disk Copy

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Also, now is also a great time to grab some swag from the HakShop – including the new airport friendly WiFi Pineapple with free world-wide shipping.

Details on Darren’s journey across North America can be found at HackAcrossAmerica.com.

And finally if you’d like to suggest a topic for a future show feel free to hit up feedback@hak5.org

Episode 410 — Phreaknic 2008

Darren Kitchen — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:08:11 +0000

The gang heads to Phreaknic in Nashville Tennessee and in Hak5 tradition brings you a sampling including interviews with Russell Butturini about his U3 Incident Response Tool, Adrian Crenshaw, aka Irongeek, about Keyloggers and other embedded hacking, Daniel Hooper about Software Defined Radio and GNU Radio, Eighty of Dual Core, Droops from Hacker Media, and more. Yeehaw!
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Show Notes

Russell Butturini shows us the U3 Incident Response Payload for the USB switchblade. Code and tutorial on the forums.

Adrian Crenshaw, aka Irongeek talks about Hardware Keyloggers and other geeky bits.

Daniel Hooper explains Software Defined Radio, GNU Radio, and the universal software radio peripheral.

Plus talks with Nerdcore star Eighty of Dual Core and Droops from Hacker Media and Hacker Public Radio.

Season 3 Episode 8 — Shmoocon 2008

Darren Kitchen — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:28:45 +0000

In this episode we head to Washington DC for Shmoocon, the only security conference with foam projectiles. We converse with Renderman about hacking and con-going. Scott Moulton provides insight on recovery and forensics with solid state disks. Mati Aharoni aka Muts tells us all about Backtrack and offensive-security. Dan Griffin debuts some new security tools for Vista. David Hulton aka H1kari talks about his research intercepting and cracking GSM traffic. And Chris Compton & Co bring us the latest from Hack or Halo

Plus this month’s trivia and a contest sure to get your lolz on.

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Season 2 Episode 9 — Shmoocon 2007

Darren Kitchen — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 02:02:54 +0000

In this special episode of Hak5 the crew heads to Washington DC for ShmooCon, the only annual security conference with complementary foam balls. We start by talk to Bruce Potter, one of the conferences organizers, about all things Shmoo. We also speak to Billy Hoffman about Jikto, JavaScript and XSS. Eoin Miller and Adair Collins tell us all about Cachedump and the dangers of cached domain credentials. Ken Caruso gives us a tour of the Shmoocon NOC and we see how network security is done at a hacker con. Jordan and Wes give us the details on the Hack or Halo competition while Paul tries his luck with the sniper rifle. Scott Moulton talks to us about recovering dead hard drives and Babak tells us about lock picking and the TOOOL organization. We even run into some Hak5 fans, Ryan and David, who built a rockin� Wii duck hunt box at the Hacker Arcade. Plus all of the usual fixings including the details on this months trivia, poll, LAN party, and a special web 1.0 contest sure to bring back the blink tag.

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Season 1 Episode 10

Darren Kitchen — Fri, 05 May 2006 19:06:23 +0000

In this experimental season finale episode of Hak.5 Darren & Wess wrap up ton of viewer questions covering gmail to SMS, recovering dead hard drives, email from the command prompt, and streaming video in flash. A special guest drops by to cover cracking windows passwords & securing windows. Plus Rob Fuller of mubix.com joins us to talk a bit about Tor and Anonym.OS and an Interview with Travis from RainbowCrack-Online.com.

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Hak5 - Technolust since 2005 » Hard Drive

Haktip 22 – HOW TO: Unsluggify Your PC

Episode 712 – Disk Cloning and Offline Maps

Episode 410 — Phreaknic 2008

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Show Notes

Season 3 Episode 8 — Shmoocon 2008

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Season 2 Episode 9 — Shmoocon 2007

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Season 1 Episode 10

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