Continue reading »]]> As you may have noticed, I’ve recently moved GEEK! to a brand new VPS – which, hopefully, will massively improve the uptime and performance of the site in the long run. It’s a little too early to tell, but now most of the trial bugs are ironed out, improvements should start to be seen soon.

However, by moving my site (and all other sites I run) to a VPS, I have had to make some sacrifices. The key sacrifice on my end has been cPanel – which I’ve used ever since I started working with web servers. I love cPanel – it’s generally very reliable and controls most of the functions I would ever want. But now, as I’m slowly getting more experienced with the way web servers work, I thought it would be a good time to move on to something a little more advanced (and, as a result, cheaper). I was recommended to ISPConfig – a free and open source control panel for web servers running on Linux. And after a slow start, I seem to be getting the hang of it.

The one thing that really did get to me for a while was the poor performance of the spam filter built into ISPConfig. ISPConfig relies on SpamAssassin – which is, when configured correctly, a very powerful spam filter. But for some reason, it just wasn’t working on my installation of ISPConfig. Spam would get through and it can get seriously frustrating!

Thankfully I now have it cracked – and wanted to share the configuration I chose for ISPConfig and SpamAssassin. I think the correct settings vary from person to person – but if you want general spam filtering, this should show you how to get it.

Instructions

First of all, make sure a ‘spamfilter’ policy is active both for the email domain you’re using and for each email mailbox. I chose the Uncensored policy in my case – but different rules apply to each setting. I found Uncensored to be most effective, but simply choosing this won’t make it work properly.

Once you’re happy that it’s supposedly on, you need to modify the rules for the policy you chose. Head to the ‘Email’ tab, and then from the left menu select ‘Policy’ under the ‘Spamfilter’ section (see screenshot that follows).

Select the policy you’re working with by simply clicking on it. Then select the ‘Tag-Level’ tab. This is where you set how sensitive SpamAssassin actually is. I found that the first three settings needed to be set as the following:

SPAM tag level: 3
SPAM tag2 level: 3.4
SPAM kill level: 5

The other settings requiring a number can be left alone. However, to make SPAM easier to separate, I’d suggest you turn on ‘SPAM modifies subject’ and choose a tag you’d like to add to SPAM emails. Here’s what the page might look like when you’re done (see screenshot that follows). 

Hit ‘Save’ and it’s a good’en. If you also want to move SPAM email to a seperate Junk folder, you can do so by going to the ‘Email Mailbox’ page from the left menu, then selecting your email account and clicking the ‘Mail Filter’ tab. Simply tick the ‘Move Spam Emails to Junk directory’ checkbox and dodgy email will be moved.

Hopefully that should get you going and stop infuriating SPAM emails reaching your inbox.

Continue reading »]]> Well, GEEK! is just over three years old now; and during that time I’ve written over 400 posts. So, while I don’t really want to add anything too new to GEEK! while I get my backup system finalised, I thought now would be a good time to run over some of the posts have brought the most traffic to GEEK!.

By far and away, the most popular post on GEEK! is the “Get the old Windows Live Essentials back“. So many of you were fed up with the poor functionality of Essentials 2011 (including me), so I linked you up with a download and instructions to get the old 2009 version back.

Next up, it’s the tool I found that allowed you to find the biggest files on your hard drive. The tiny tool quickly locates the files that are occupying the most space on your drive, allowing you to delete anything you see as unnecessary.

My review of the Samsung N145P netbook brought the next largest amount of attention to GEEK!. A fully comprehensive review that details everything you needed to know.

Not too far behind, my finding of TVCatchup back in mid 2009 provided Freeview TV access over the internet (in the UK). I still use the site regularly when I’m on the go, as it provides live TV without a bombardment of adverts.

Last in the top five, it’s my iPod touch 4G review. Simple and sweet – it explains all the new features that were (and still are) great additions to the iPod range.

And that’s it – a round-up of the top five biggest posts on GEEK!. Normal service on GEEK! will resume soon, but I’m just optimising the backup process on my new VPS!

Continue reading »]]> Right – I literally just upgraded the motherboard on my computer and then reinstalled Windows. Rather stupidly, I didn’t think to check I had all the driver disks for my USB devices – and nonetheless I since haven’t been able to get a driver for my USB TV Tuner.

It’s a PEAK USB Dual Tuner DVB-T, and I had it running perfectly on my original 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. However, I’ve now moved over to 64-bit Windows – which is great, but I can’t for the life of me find the stupid mini-CD that came with the device to install the driver.

Even more annoyingly – the company’s website (PEAK) is no longer working (www.peakhardware.com), and there aren’t any drivers on any public driver site – so I was absolutely stuck there.

Thankfully, I had a eureka moment and realised that I’d, in the past, also installed the tuner on my netbook. Whilst I couldn’t use the driver on that (because it is 32-bit), I was able to identify the name of the driver used and get a copy online (much more readily available).

Anyway – if you’re having the same problem as me – it uses a driver called the AF9015 BDA Device - and luckily enough, I have a driver for you!

DOWNLOAD NOW (direct from GEEK!) – please read instructions below! (file size: 600KB approx)
Please note: GEEK! accepts NO liability for any damage this driver may do to you or your computer. Every effort is made to make sure the drivers are safe and fully functional – but no guarantees can be made whatsoever. Please use this at your own risk. 

INSTRUCTIONS TO INSTALL:

1. Right, take a good look at the files in the ZIP folder. Fully extract it with whatever program you want to use. Navigate to the relevant folder for your Windows installation (either 32-bit or 64-bit). Don’t try and run the EXE files in either folders. They are included for reference, but probably will not work. This is because the applications won’t be able to detect the device and therefore will fail.
2. Plug in your device. Windows will tell you it’s detected it and try to install it (or prompt you to find the driver if you’re using Windows XP).
3. If you’re using Windows Vista or 7, the device should be identified as “DVB T-2″ or “DVB-T2″ but will not install because Windows won’t be able to find a driver. Cancel any installations dialogs if you’re using Windows XP, and if you’re on Vista/7 ignore any failure messages.
4. Copy the driver folders that you’ve downloaded to a place you’ll find them later – I’d suggest a folder on the root of your hard drive. Name the folder something you’ll remember and dump all the files from the download in it.
5. Now go to Device Manager on your computer. In Vista/7, you’ll find it from Control Panel. In XP, you’ll need to go to System in Control Panel and then click the Hardware tab, followed by Device Manager.
6. The device should be flagged up immediately with a yellow exclamation mark next to it. Double click the listing. Click the Driver tab and click Update Driver…
7. You now need to select the options which indicate manually finding a driver (in Windows Vista/7, click the Browse my computer for driver software button). Select the option to manually locate a driver from a disk (Windows Vista/7 – Let me pick from a list of device drivers), click Have Disk…and browse to the folder you dumped the driver files for your type of operating system. Select the only file that Windows flags up – which should be an INF file. Then select the driver that comes up in the list (AF9015 BDA Device).
8. Windows will warn you that this driver may not be suitable for the device. Ignore this warning, and proceed with installation.
9. Windows will now attempt installation, and it should then successfully install within a couple of minutes. With any luck, that’s it – you can now use the device.

You now need to find a piece of software for watching TV with. If you have Windows Vista Home Premium (or above) or Windows 7 Home Premium (or above), you can simply use Windows Media Center (which I prefer using anyway). You should also be able to use Windows Media Center if you have XP Media Center Edition 2005. Otherwise, you’ll need to find some third party – can’t help there myself, sorry.

Hopefully, that should solve the problem!

Continue reading »]]> To coincide with the release of iOS5 on October 12th, Apple released several new optional apps for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. One of these apps is Find My Friends, which claims to be a handy tool for locating friends and family by making use of their GPS and A-GPS functionality.

The new app has been met with mixed reviews – with many claiming the app could simply be used as a stalker’s tool in the wrong hands.

However, I happen to think that the app is a very clever idea – with many not-seen-before features that make the app a safe, unobtrusive yet helpful way of keeping track of friends and family.

First of all, the app is completely opt-in only. This means that people can only track you with full permission granted by you – meaning nobody can publicly see where you are.

You can either invite people to permanent access to your location, or temporary “event” access which gives people access to your location for a set date and time. This means, for example, that if you’re meeting somebody at a festival, you can give them temporary access which terminates when the festival is over.

Also, you can quite easily turn off the app’s location tracking if you’re going somewhere you’d rather other people didn’t know about – simply by switching on ‘Hide from Followers” in the Me tab – making it easy to hide personal places. Whilst I’d quite like it to have a function where you could tell it not to report specific places, I’m sure this could eventually be possible.

Overall, I think this is an improvement on many previous tracking apps that have been released – and could seen as very useful to many.

Continue reading »]]> For many months now I’ve been looking for some good value tracking software to install on my netbook and (potentially) my portable devices. As much as I hope my netbook never gets stolen – you can never be sure what might happen and it’s better to be prepared.

It was only today that I’ve finally found the answer. It’s called Prey. It’s an open-source piece of kit that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed it, that’s the last you’ll see of it. Make sure when you install it to select the option not to install start menu shorcuts as it will make the software harder to find by an thief.

From here onwards, all of your settings for the program will be managed online. Log onto your account at the program’s website, and you’ll be presented with a handful of useful properties.

For example, you can get the program to take logs of any wi-fi networks it’s connected to, together with pictures from any connected webcam and screenshots of your display. These are then summarised in reports that are emailed direct to your inbox for your viewing pleasure. Believe me – you’ll be astonished at what it’ll pick up.

I happen to think this is an essential for anybody with a laptop that they care about – the software is totally FREE and could help you (and the police) in what would otherwise be a relatively hopeless situation. The program won’t hamper your computer’s performance at all (using just 5MB of RAM in Windows) and you’ll forget you’ve even installed it.

Continue reading »]]> Nokia Ovi Suite has never been my favourite piece of software, but unfortunately I have to use it for my trusty mobile (Nokia 5230) which I still love after nearly 18 months of owning it.

If you’re running Ovi Suite on a netbook running a resolution of 1024×600, you may notice that Ovi Suite never opens properly. You have to manually tell it to maximize by doing ALT+SPACE and clicking maximize – otherwise you don’t see all options.

You can easily force Ovi Suite to maximize on launch if you’d prefer it to do so.

Simply find your Nokia Ovi Suite shortcut (probably on the Desktop or in the Start Menu), right-click it and click Properties. On the Shortcut tab, change the ‘Run:’ setting to Maximized (as shown above) and click OK. From now on, whenever you run Ovi Suite from that shortcut, it will automatically start maximized.

Continue reading »]]> Spotify have just sent me an email which did get me rather overexcited. Check this one out!

I really would love to believe that you could buy 100 tracks for £1.15 – I guarantee you it would be a bestseller! Sadly, when you actually go Spotify’s site, the actual price of the package is £50. Slightly disappointed, I have to admit.

On a more general thought though, it does make me think of the amount of poorly written emails we get these days. You’d think, for a company of that size, they’d at least have someone to check over emails before they send them.

Rant over!

Continue reading »]]> Article first published as Encrypt Your Hard Drive for Free with Truecrypt on Technorati.

It’s worrying to think that the computer you’re using right now could be holding all of your personal documents, photos and videos. If your computer was stolen tomorrow, would any of the data on your hard drive be safe?

Backing up all of your data is one thing – and thankfully more and more of us are getting into the habit of doing so. However, have you ever thought about the personal data on your machine that someone else might find?

This is where Truecrypt comes in. It’s a free, open source utility designed to help protect you and your data in the event of someone getting hold of your hard drive. It works by encrypting your entire hard drive and then requiring a password (or encryption key) on boot up to access the data. As soon as the correct password is entered, your machine is fully functional. Without the correct password, the data is meaningless to anyone – even the most intelligent of hackers.

Getting hold of Truecrypt is very easy. Simply head to the download page on their website (here) and grab your copy.

Once you’ve got it up and running, simply follow the clear on screen instructions for getting your drive encrypted. The program will need about 20 minutes of your time to configure all of the relevant options, and then it will do the rest in 1-10 hours (depending on the hard disk size and computer speed).

There are many other paid solutions available, but if you’d rather not spend money this should be more than sufficient. Whilst expensive versions of Windows do include encryption as standard, you do have have a hard drive that supports it. If you don’t have a supported drive, you have to use a memory stick to boot your computer – which certainly isn’t ideal.

However, if you’re using a low powered machine such as a netbook,you might want to think twice before encrypting your drive. Bear in mind that your computer will have to decrypt your data constantly when it is in use – and this may have adverse effects on your computer’s performance and battery life. If you still want to encrypt data with a low powered machine, you might want to consider placing it on a memory stick and encrypting that instead (Truecrypt can encrypt portable storage too).

On the other hand, if you store vast amounts of data on your machine and need to keep it safe from unauthorized access – this is the ideal solution.