Kent J. Chen's WebLog

Encryption is complicated so it’s nice that someone out there already make some cool apps that can do all these complex work for us. Thanks to Technical Personal for compiling a nice list of web apps that does this dirty work. Very useful and handy when you need it.

1. Crypo – Crypo has a huge collection of online tools like Hash generator, one pass generator, pass phrase generator etc. For encrypting email messages, you can use AER-256+ or other related tool.

2. Encrypt Easy – Encrypt

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Email isn’t a tool that’s designed for file-sharing, but probably is the one that gets used the most. Even though when an email with large attachment gets bounced back with the reason that the attachment is too big, people are still thinking of ways like compress, split, etc to get around it.

Drop.io is one of those web services out there that offers a platform for file-sharing and collaboration. What makes it quite unique is that it provides an Outlook plugin that allows you to attach large files and send them out right from your Outlook. That exactly overcomes…

After the deadline is a neat web app that helps you write better by checking your spellings, detecting misused words, checking styles and grammars using its own artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology. It has helped me quite a lot.

Now they released a Firefox add-on that makes life a lot easier to those who use Firefox. Check the demo video below to get an idea how it works.

Basically, this little addon hides itself in the background on Firefox until you are ready to use it. You will see…

It should work but doesn’t always. Sometimes you just scratch your head wondering why this computer didn’t get update automatically from the WSUS server as you configured. Now, there is a tool set from Microsoft TechNet that makes you troubleshoot the WSUS weirdness a bit easier.

There are 6 tools for 6 purposes in this tool set but mostly you will just need 2 to troubleshoot your problem.

Server Diagnostic Tool

The tool is designed to help administrators gather WSUS server debugging logs and configuration information for further troubleshooting.

Client Diagnostics Tool

This tool is…

ManagePC is an open source .Net application that makes easy for you to manage your PC in your Windows environment. The tool inventories all aspects of PCs on your domain including:

• hardware
• services
• software
• hot-fixes
• processes
• local users and groups
• group policies
• etc.

What’s nice is that the tool also allows you to take control of PCs through familiar interfaces. Use remote desktop, VNC, reboot, start/stop service, uninstall software and more directly from the tool.

It’s definitely worth checking out.

[via 4sysops]

One of the areas in Windows Server 2008 R2 that has been improved quite dramatically is Remote Desktop Services, formally called Terminal Services. It’s playing a new role in Server 2008 to provide an extensible platform for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

In order to fully utilize all features existing in this new Remote Desktop Services, you will need an updated version of RDP client. Windows 7 already has the latest version built in and Microsoft has just released version 7 of RDP client for both Vista and XP.

So what the new features were added to…

Whether you want to be a good guy who just wants to protect yourself or a bad guy who wants to insult others, you need to cover your own ass, no matter what, especially when doing things online. That’s how hidemyass.com comes in play.

Hide My Ass! helps hundreds of thousands of people daily by protecting their privacy and identity online. They offer a range of unique services, from our web proxy enabling you to surf the web anonymously to our free file hosting with advanced privacy features. Best of all, most of them are free of charge. Here are…

As an IT pro, I feel always comfortable walking to a computer with a handful tools in my hands. Hunting for good tools in portable format is always on my top 10 list that I need to keep my eyes on it pretty much all the time. Why is portable applications so useful?

With portable applications, you can leave your laptop behind; plug in the thumb drive in any client machine, run the application without worrying about leaving anything behind. In this post, we attempt to show a collection of useful and free applications you can run independently

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I believe most of people who have been using computer for a certain amount of time have encountered or even suffered this damned never end computer malware, either being a direct victim or being asked to fix it. Finding the better way and the better tool to fight with it seems to have become an inevitable mission to everyone who uses the computer, me included. And for that reason, here are 10 ways to detect computer malware from 10 things that came in quite handy, listed in 3 main…

If you have ISA server running as security firewall in your office you might want to give this freeware from GFI a try. More specifically, if you want to monitor who is browsing the internet and downloading files in your organization in real time.

GFI WebMonitor™ for ISA Server boosts employee productivity by giving you control over what users are browsing and downloading in real-time. Research by IDC shows that up to 40% of employee internet access is non-work related. As a network administrator, you need the tools that enable you to have complete web monitoring and internet

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