12 Tips in Using Screencast Software

1. I've learned a lesson for today, 08 September 2017 5:32 AM. Never USE VLC Player to screencast or save your desktop activities. It took around 435GB of hard drive or hard disk space from the laptop that I am using.
2. Use other software in capturing or grabbing desktop activities especially videos.
3. Check your hard drive or hard disk space before capturing your desktop activities in order to avoid hassles when you are converting your raw video file into a movie file already.
4. Enable Storage Sense by turning it ON under the Settings - System - Storage module of your Windows 10 PC or Laptop.
5. You can use YouTube
6. You can use Screencast-O-Matic
7. You can use the Built-In Screencast Recording Tool of Windows 10 by pressing Win + G and then press Win + Alt + R which is part of Xbox integration known as Game Bar
8. You can use Ezvid
9. You can use CamStudio
10. BUT  I've used BB FlashBack Recorder which is my personal preference
11. A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration.
12. The term screencast compares with the related term screenshot; whereas screenshot generates a single picture of a computer screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of the changes over time that a user sees on a computer screen, enhanced with audio narration.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ok_9Ek7Xo
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-storage-sense-free-space-automatically-windows-10-creators-update
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencast
https://www.nextofwindows.com/6-best-free-screencast-recording-tools-for-windows
http://www.nextofwindows.com/windows-10-screen-recorder
http://www.jihosoft.com/free-utilities/free-screen-recorder.html

12 Website Traffic Detection and Predicting Tools

1. SimilarWeb – monthly visits
2. Compete.com – total monthly visits
3. SEMRush – monthly search visits
4. Quantcast – monthly visits
5. SimilarWeb – global rank
6. Alexa – Alexa Rank
7. Moz – Domain Authority
8. Facebook – Likes
9. Google AdWords – # of monthly searches for brand name
10. Moz – Linking Root Domains
11. Twitter – Followers
12. SEMRush – Ads

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKzUtjoBv-c
https://moz.com/rand/traffic-prediction-accuracy-12-metrics-compete-alexa-similarweb/

12 Differences Between EPUB and MOBI Ebook Formats

1. The full name of EPUB is Electronic Publication while the full name of MOBI is Mobipocket.
2. EPUB is an open standard format developed by International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) which is a global trade and standards organization while MOBI was developed originally by Mobipocket SA which is a French company incorporated in March 2000 for MobiPocket Reader which was later purchased by Amazon in 2005.
3. EPUB supports inline raster and vector images, metadata, and CSS styling.
4. EPUB can adjusts its size to suit different screens while MOBI is suitable for smaller screens because of an image file limit of 64K.
5. EPUB has a small file size while a MOBI is twice the size of an EPUB file.
6. EPUB has a file extension of .epub while a MOBI either has a .prc or .mobi file extensions.
7. MOBI and EPUB can display reflowable file content and fixed width layout.
8. MOBI has digital rights management (DRM) protection embedded on its file preventing it to be shared easily due to plagiarism issues while EPUB does not have digital rights management (DRM) so that it can be easily shared.
9. MOBI is a proprietary Ebook software of Amazon limiting its usage for Kindle books while EPUB is an open source software created by the International Digital Publishing Forum which can be read on almost all devices.
10. MOBI is created by taking an EPUB file, renaming, zipping, and extracting and using kindlegen.exe which is a proprietary Amazon program while an EPUB is created by placing all these files in a directory, namely a package .xml file, an OPF file, and XHTML content files, and then zipping all of it and using the .epub. filename extension.
11. You can use this link http://mobi2epub.com/ if you want to convert your MOBI ebooks to EPUB ebook format.
12. You can use this link http://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub to convert you files to EPUB format as well as several other ebook format.

References:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDf9XM1B0L8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tliqZYGPUik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEcKYo32uM0
https://www.epubor.com/epub-vs-mobi-which-is-the-best-ebook-format-for-ereader.html
http://www.guidingtech.com/9661/difference-between-epub-mobi-azw-pdf-ebook-formats/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-MOBI-and-ePub-Which-one-is-considered-best
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-ePub-and-Mobi-eBooks
https://www.cisdem.com/resource/convert-pdf-to-mobi-mac.html#EPUB vs MOBI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobipocket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB

How I Removed Mcafee Security Center in Windows 10

Uninstallation of McAfee Security Center from my Windows 10 as of 12 July 2017 which I do not need anymore since I already have another licensed anti-virus.

1. Click Settings button.
2. Select Apps.
3. Scroll down until you see McAfee Security Center.
4. Click McAfee Security Center and click Uninstall button. 
   
5. This app and its related info will be uninstalled will appear.
6. After clicking Uninstall button, an error will occur. 
   
7. Download the MCPR tool.
8. Double-click MCPR.exe.
9. McAfee Software Removal window will appear.
10. Click Next and click Agree on the End User License Agreement.
11. A security validation requiring input of characters is needed. 
    
12. Wait until uninstallation process is finished. 
    

References:

How to remove McAfee products from a PC running Windows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOizmLBBnI
http://us.mcafee.com/apps/supporttools/mcpr/mcpr.asp

12 Free Cloud Storage Offering More Than 5 GB

These are the Top 12 Cloud Storage offering more than 5 GB of free space as of 12 July 2017 in no particular order.

1. Google Drive - 15 GB
2. Degoo - 100 GB
3. hubiC - 25 GB
4. MEGA - 50 GB
5. pCloud - 10 GB
6. Symform - 10 GB
7. Yandex.Disk - 10 GB
8. MiMedia - 10 GB
9. MediaFire - 10 GB
10. Syncplicity - 10 GB
11. ASUS WebStorage - 8 GB
12. Box - 10 GB

References:

http://www.backupreview.com/best-free-cloud-storage/
https://www.thebalance.com/free-cloud-storage-1356638
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsKIpLKo8AE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzl4Wud_Bp0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCF7Q1eArxU&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utDgoT9P1Tw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ-2gYd1Ces

12 Tips For Improving OSCommerce Security

This is a post that caught my attention when I was browsing for security-related information for the OSCommerce platform. This is from the website Codemehappy

1. Rename your Admin folder 
   – Edit the admin/includes/configure.php file. Find and replace all instances of /admin/ with /’your new admin name’/
   – Rename the Admin folder with ‘your new admin name’
2. Delete the files ‘admin’/file_manager.php and ‘admin’/define_language.php
3. Don’t reveal the new name of your ‘Admin’ folder
   – Remove any reference to the ‘Admin’ folder name from catalog/robots.txt.
   This file is readable by anyone at anytime. So anything entered here can be used to map your Store.
4. Limit access to ‘Admin’ and remove old or unused ‘Admin’ accounts
   – htaccess rules can be used here. If your Apache server allows local htaccess files to ‘override’ its default settings (check with your host) then you can create an .htaccess file in the ‘admin’ folder and add the following: 

   01	# deny *everything*

   02	<FilesMatch ".*\..*">

   03	Order Allow,Deny

   04	Deny from all

   05	</FilesMatch>

   06

   07	# but now allow just *certain* necessary files:

   08	<FilesMatch "(^$|^favicon.ico$|.*.(php|js|css|jpg|gif|png)$)">

   09	Order Allow,Deny

   10	Allow from all

   11	</FilesMatch>

   
   This snippet above will only allow certain file types to be run (as specified in the list php|js|css|jpg|gif|png.) Simply add more extensions with a pipe | to broaden. If you want to lock access to the ‘admin’ area to a range of Ip addresses you use, try:

   1	# allow only your IP addresses

   2	<FilesMatch ".*\..*">

   3	Order Deny,Allow

   4	Deny from all

   5	Allow from 123.123

   6	Allow from 456.456

   7	</FilesMatch>

   
   Note the above rule uses only the first two groups of numbers from two Ip addresses. This is because many people are on dynamically assigned IPs which although they do change (infrequently), they often don’t vary that much. If you have a static or dedicated IP address when you connect to the Net, you won’t have this problem.
   – set permissions on all folders to 755, all files to 644 (or 444 read only if configure.php). There are some exceptions here: ‘admin’/backups and ‘admin’/images will require write permissions of 757. These may be able to be protected using htaccess rules however.
   – delete old ‘admin’ accounts, especially ‘demo’ or ‘guest’ accounts or those created for temporary users.
5. Change ‘Admin’ passwords regularly and password protect your ‘admin’ folder
   – to make a tough password, use a password generator like the PCTools Security Password Generator and store them in a password vault like KeePass
   – many control panels (like cPanel and Plesk) offer a simple ‘Password Protect Folder’ utility. This is a good idea, although it does mean you will have to log in twice to the ‘admin’ the first time (once in the popup, then again in the actual login.) However if you have cookies enabled for the session, you only have to do this once while the browser is open. If you don’t have access to such a utility, here are the steps to create your own password protected folder:
   Add your version of this to your ‘admin/.htaccess file (making sure you change the values in lines 2 & 3 after AuthName and AuthUserFile):
   

   1	AuthType Basic

   2	AuthName "whatever you would like it to ask you"

   3	AuthUserFile /absolute/path/to/your/new/.htpasswd

   4	Require valid-user

   
   (I’d recommend putting the .htpasswd file in a folder inaccessible from the web, with its own .htaccess file containing:)
   

   1	<Files *.*>

   2	order allow,deny

   3	deny from all

   4

   </Files>

   
   Use an htpasswd generator to create and encrypt your password – like this one at dynamicdrive.com
   Copy and upload/save the .htpasswd file in its ‘hidden from the web’ location. Done!
6. Don’t reveal the name of your ‘Admin’ folder on printed invoices, packing slips
   – If you print invoices or packing slips, switch off printing the url path on the page.
   For Internet Explorer: File >> Page Setup >> remove this two character combination: “&u” from the header or footer text box.
   For Firefox: File >> Page Setup >> Margins & Header/Footer >> set all of the drop downs to –blank–.
7. Set up ‘Admin’ under another domain or subdomain
8. Use secure Usernames and Passwords
   – If you have work done by a developer or coder who needs access to your admin, use a temporary username and password that you delete afterwards. Use a password generator (like the PCTools Generator mentioned above) and store them in a password vault (like KeePass)
9. Check access dates in the database
   – If you do have developers etc access your ‘Admin’, use phpMyAdmin and browse the admin table for the admin id row of the account, looking at date_modified. This will show the last access date of that account. Ideally though issue temporary admin access to developers. Many versions of oscommerce-based carts (including zen-cart and oscommerce 2.3.x) now have admin logs so you can see a record of logins (and login attempts.)
10. Be security conscious when accessing your ‘Admin’ account
    Not best practice to :
    – access the Admin from a public use computer or public wireless hotspot
    – write login details on a piece of paper stuck to the computer or wall in front of you
    – use ‘password’ as your password (lol)
11. Don’t advertise the version of the Store software you’re running via the ‘admin’
    – Even if you’ve renamed your ‘admin’ folder (as mentioned back at the top of this post eh), there’s not a lot to be gained from advertising which version of the software you’re patched to:
    
    If a security fault was discovered in this version, why advertise you may not have patched? In this example using Cre Loaded, remove around line 135 -137 from ‘admin’/login.php:
    

    1

    <tr>

    2

    <td></td>

    3	<td align="left" style="font-size: 11px; color: #444;"><a href="http://www.creloaded.com"target="_blank"><?php echo PROJECT_VERSION;?></a></td>

    4

    <td></td>

    5

    </tr>

     
12. When using the ‘admin’ panel …
    – use only one browser tab to access your admin area
    – avoid visiting other sites when your browser has an active admin login session enabled, even in another tab
    – always log out of your admin when not using it

References:

https://www.codemehappy.com/2010/10/12-things-improve-oscommerce-based-admin-security/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb2sWFWMQZk