Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – October 26, 2009

Migrate to Windows 7–Slowly, Part 2: Partitioning Your Drive – As I wrote the other day, I’m making my way to Windows 7 a little bit at a time. It’s getting a fresh install on a new hard-drive partition, then a gradual load of software, settings, and data. If you’re interested in taking the same approach, your first step needs to be partitioning your hard drive. Vista has a built-in partitioning tool, but you may need third-party software to take full advantage of it. (Windows XP users should check out Easeus Partition Manager, a free utility.)

Taking the Official Google Chrome Tour – The browser, which has undergone quite the evolution since its launch last year, already has more than 3 percent market share. To endear itself to new users, Google recently began offering a tour of the browser’s features. Rather than making you point and click all over the Web site, eWEEK takes you through the ins and outs of Chrome.

Gift Cards Convenient And Easy To Hack – Researchers at UK-based Corsaire say the magnetic-stripe technology used for gift cards and customer loyalty cards — as well as their easy accessibility — make them attractive targets for the bad guys. Gift cards can easily be “sniffed” off the shelf in the checkout line with a scanner and then cloned; the card number on the back of the card stolen; and the retailers’ Web-based gift card applications hacked.

Nigeria Actually Arrests, Shuts Down Online Scammers – Nigerian law enforcement has shut down nearly a thousand Websites and made 18 arrests as part of a new initiative to save the nation’s reputation and crack down on Internet scammers.

Avalanche Crimeware Kit Fuels Phishing Attacks – A cybergang called “Avalanche” executed nearly one-quarter of all identity theft-related phishing attacks in the first half of 2009, according to a new report by the Anti-Phishing Work Group.

Hard Drive Cloning is Easy with Free Easeus Disk Copy – Upgrading your hard drive can be a rewarding and simple procedure for the everyday computer user. Cloning your hard drive, or making an exact copy, is the easiest way to get your new hard drive up and running quickly.

Go Incognito with Firefox – If you are a Firefox user and you are using Firefox version 3.5 or higher you can easily switch from normal browsing mode to private browsing mode. Many of the other popular browsers also have a private (incognito) browsing mode that you can explore.

Off Topic:

Capture the Spirit of Halloween in Pictures – Create spooky special effects with your digital camera, a photo editor, a flashlight–and a lot of imagination.

Why positive thinking may be overrated – Try smiling while being laid-off. Or conjuring positive thoughts after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Or finding the bright side of a Wall Street meltdown. Do you consider such scenarios not only perverse but also unmoored from the human experience of life’s disappointments and tragedies?

Abusive Tube worker resigns after Twitter campaign – Twitter protests force an abusive London Underground worker to quit his job.

Today’s Quote:

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome”.

– Booker T. Washington

Today’s Free Downloads:

LastPass – LastPass is an online password manager that automatically fills in saved logins and forms with the click of a button. This handy little Web freebie and browser plug-in also syncs your data to any computer you use regularly.

Password Safe – Password Safe stores your Web login data in a password-protected, encrypted file. At the very least, Password Safe lets you manually cut and paste user names and passwords from its database into Web pages and applications, and it’s a great place to store any sensitive information.

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