Category: Tech & Tools

Hand-picked software for work & office

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

I’ve been building my personal Windows-toolchain for more than 20 years, and that is why people approach me frequently to ask for tools for this and tools for that. Find here my toolchain, which should make things easier for everyone.

In general, I will prefer open source or freeware tools, unless a commercial solution is clearly superior in my eyes. For most of my recommendations, there are also versions for Mac, and Linux.

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Has my email address been hacked?

Update 16 Jan 2019

Security researcher Troy Hunt reports a huge leak of 773m leaked email addresses, including 21m unique email/password combos. This will be one of the biggest bubbles in the data-leak-top-list right away.

What to do now?

  1. Check your email addresses in the HIBP database (“Have I Been Pawned”) if they appear in any so-far discovered leak, including this one.
  2. Put your email address in the free HIBP notification service which will inform you in case your email address will be affected from future leaks.
  3. If in doubt about any specific password, check your passwords if they appear in any discovered leak. (Normally, you should NEVER, NEVER EVER post any password anywhere on the net, but Troy Hunt employs the concept of k-anonymity which makes sure that no clear-text will ever be revealed to any third party -not even the HIBP service itself. In the end, it is a matter of trust.)
  4. If not already in place, go ahead and use a password manager like BitWarden, LastPass, or 1Password.

Beyond that, you should consider using unique yet easy to remember passwords for every single service you use. This will save you hours of work and some sleepless nights easily, just in case 🙂

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Unsplash

Unsplash is a dream for webdesigners, a nightmare for stock photo providers. High quality photographs under Creative Commons Zero license, which basically means “do whatever you want“.

First impression: Very good image quality, professional content structure, appealing presentation, and a considerable number of images actually being available. That makes it a much better choice compared to offers with a similar approach.

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Generate and remember secure passwords easily

Security in the internet age has long been neglected by the majority of users, even though their data has been at risk or even exposed not only recently. Nevertheless, many users struggle to use password managers in order to use strong and unique passwords for all services they use. You recognize yourself? Then there is good news for you: Even without using a password manager, it is quite easy to generate and remember secure and unique passwords for everyday use. Just follow the steps below and instantly use passwords complying with all standards which experts recommend for strong passwords.

    • At least 12 characters long
    • No words which can be found from a dictionary
    • No personal information
    • Should contain lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, plus special characters
    • Unique for every website/service used

You can easily create and memorize passwords complying with these requirements by creating an individual rule.

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Protect your privacy (WOT edition)

The browser plugin Web of Trust (WOT) claimed to protect your privacy. Instead, WOT recorded your internet usage from your browser, performed poor anonymization of this data and then sold it. Consequently, the private lives of millions of users have been compromised. Their account balances, their travel, their families, many things have been exposed.

Problem is: most browser add-ons are capable of monitoring your activities and noone knows what happens to the data they record. This is a wide field, but focusing on the WOT scandal and browser extensions, you can protect yourself.

  • Delete any blocker/tracking add-on with commercial background, e.g. AdBlock (Plus), Ghostery, WOT etc.
  • Instead, use open source or trusted-source add-ons like uBlock Origin (open source, Chrome, Firefox), Privacy Badger (by Electronic Frontier Foundation, Chrome, Firefox) and HTTPS everywhere (by Electronic Frontier Foundation, Chrome, Firefox).

Besides, you should use a password manager like KeePass (open source) or LastPass in order to use secure and different passwords for all websites / services you use!

If you think you’re safe, think again.

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