Bits, Bytes, Mega, Giga, Tera (explained)

• 1 bit = a 1 or 0 (b)
• 4 bits = 1 nybble (?)
• 8 bits = 1 byte (B)
• 1024 bytes = 1 Kilobyte (KB)
• 1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte (MB)
• 1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte (GB)
• 1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte (TB)

Common prefixes:

• - kilo, meaning 1,000. (one thousand) 10^3 (Kilometer, 1,000 meters)
• - mega, meaning 1,000,000. (one million) 10^6 (Megawatt, 1,000,000 watts)
• - giga, meaning 1,000,000,000 (one billion) 10^9 (Gigawatt, 1,000,000,000 watts)
• - tera, meaning 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) 10^12

The smallest amount of transfer is one bit. It holds the value of a 1, or a 0. (Binary coding). Eight of these 1's and zero's are called a byte.

Why eight? The earliest computers could only send 8 bits at a time, it was only natural to start writing code in sets of 8 bits. This came to be called a byte.

A bit is represented with a lowercase "b," whereas a byte is represented with an uppercase "b" (B). So Kb is kilobits, and KB is kilobytes. A kilobyte is eight times larger than a kilobit.

A simple 1 or 0, times eight of these 1's and 0's put together is a byte. The string of code: 10010101 is exactly one byte. So a small gif image, about 4 KB has about 4000 lines of 8 1's and 0's. Since there are 8 per line, that's over (4000 x 8) 32,000 1's and 0's just for a single gif image.

How many bytes are in a kilobyte (KB)? One may think it's 1000 bytes, but its really 1024. Why is this so? It turns out that our early computer engineers, who dealt with the tiniest amounts of storage, noticed that 2^10 (1024) was very close to 10^3 (1000); so based on the prefix kilo, for 1000, they created the KB. (You may have heard of kilometers (Km) which is 1000 meters). So in actuality, one KB is really 1024 bytes, not 1000. It's a small difference, but it adds up over a while.

The MB, or megabyte, mega meaning one million. Seems logical that one mega (million) byte would be 1,000,000 (one million) bytes. It's not however. One megabyte is 1024 x 1024 bytes. 1024 kilobytes is called one Megabyte. So one kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes, and 1024 of those is (1024 x 1024) 1048576 bytes. In short, one Megabyte is really 1,048,576 bytes.

There is a difference of about 48 KB, which is a decent amount. If you have a calculator, you will notice that there is actually a 47KB difference. There is a difference of 48,576 bytes, divided by 1024, and you get the amount of real kilobytes... 47.4375

All of this really comes into play when you deal with Gigabytes, or roughly one billion bytes. One real Gigabyte is actually 1024 bytes x 1024 bytes x 1024 bytes...1,073,741,824. However, most people like to simplify this by simply saying that one Gigabyte is only 1,000,000,000 (one billion) bytes; which makes sense because the prefix Giga means one billion.

References

• http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

I love the new search features in Outlook 2010. They have already saved me quite a bit of time.

How often do you ask yourself, “Where’s that message?” Whether you are a filer (you keep messages carefully organized in folders) or a piler (you keep all of your messages in your Inbox), these three tips can help you find that elusive message.

Personally, I am more of a piler — I have created folders and use Outlook rules to direct some messages automatically to those folders. But most of my work messages stay in my Inbox. Leave a comment below and let us know if you are a filer or piler.

Now let’s talk about the main topic of this blog — search. We made great improvements to search performance in Outlook 2010. Here are three scenarios and strategies to find the email you are searching for.

Can’t find that email message? These three tips can help

1. Use Instant Search

Instant Search is always a great place to start. If you’re looking for a message from Dan Wilson about some TPS Reports, just type “Dan Wilson TPS Reports” into the Instant Search box. The message from Dan appears.

2. Use the Search Tools ribbon to refine your search

Sometimes, there might be too many results matching your Instant Search criteria. For example, you’re looking for a message from your manager, and you have 200 messages from him or her in your Inbox (or 2000, if you’re a piler like me and your manager sends as many messages as mine does). In this case, the Search Tools ribbon comes to the rescue. As soon as you click in the Instant Search box, the Search Tools ribbon automatically appears.

Fine tune the search with any additional information you have about the message you’re looking for. If you know part of the subject, click Subject, and type the subject. If you know the message had an attachment, click Has Attachments. There are many ways to refine your search by clicking More in the Refine group.

If you are a filer and can’t remember which folder a message is in, don’t forget to select a folder scope in the Scope group on the ribbon. Click All Outlook Items to expand your search to more mail folders or to include all folders including your calendar, contacts, and tasks.

3. Create a Search Folder for repeated searches

If you find yourself repeating the same search over and over, you might want to create a Search Folder. A Search Folder is a virtual folder that provides a view of all email items that match specific search criteria. For example, if you regularly search for emails that are more than 1 MB, you can create a Search Folder. Then, the next time you want to find those large messages, just open the Search Folder you created. It’s always up-to-date with the items that match that Search Folder’s criteria.

Using Online Archive folders: There are few complaints about Outlook locking up when trying to search from a very slow connection.

In most cases, Outlook searches your folders using Windows Search and a local index of your mail. Since the Online Archive is never downloaded to your computer, searches for the Online Archive are run by sending your search query to the Microsoft Exchange Server. This can take longer than a local search, especially on a slow connection. Searches in the “current folder” or “subfolder” scope in your mailbox should not be affected by this. If you want to disable searching your Online Archive during All Mail Item searches, on the search contextual ribbon tab go to “Search Tools” and under “Locations To Search” uncheck your archive.

You can learn more about Search Folders at Office.com.

If you’re using Outlook 2010, leave a comment about your experience with search compared to previous versions of Outlook.

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

The threat Landscape has changed and cybercrime is rampant. Companies cannot depend solely on desktop antivirus technology to protect themselves. Following the steps below will improve the protection of desktops and stop malware.

Use IPS (Network Threat Protection)

Threats today are web –based. The Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) in Symantec Endpoint Protection stops threats before they can infiltrate a machine. IPS stops vulnerability exploits, Drive-by-Downloads and Fake AV installation.

Improve default Symantec Endpoint Protection settings

Get the most out of your Symantec Endpoint Protection product by improving its default settings. Only a few setting changes can make a big improvement to your security. Learn more about our recommended policies

Keep browser plugins patched

Attacks have moved to the browser . It’s critical that attackers not be able to use Microsoft® Internet Explorer, or Adobe® Reader/Acrobat/Flash vulnerabilities to get on a system. Use each vendor’s auto update or software distribution tools to install patches as soon as they become available.

Block P2P usage

The simplest method for distributing malware is hidden inside files be shared on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Create and enforce a no-P2P policy, including home usage of a company machine. Enforce the policy at the gateway and/or desktop. Learn more about using Symantec Endpoint Protection’s Application Control to block P2P at the desktop

Turn off AutoRun:

Stop Conficker/Downadup and other network based worms from jumping from USB keys and network drives without changing company polices on Open Shares. Learn more

Turn on enhanced security in Adobe® Reader:

Protect your machines from attacks hidden in PDF files by hardening Adobe Reader. Learn more about using the enhanced security settings available in Reader.

Limit the use of network shares (mapped drives):

Worms love to spread via networked drives. Unless there is a strong business requirement, close mapped drives. If possible limit permissions to read-only rather than read-write.

Review mail security and gateway blocking effectiveness:

Catching threats before they get to the desktop can be done with effective mail and web security scanning. Check that you have a mail security solution which updates frequently to detect the latest bad sender IPs, spam and malware threats at the mail gateway. Consider implementing a web security solution that will protect your organization against Web 2.0 threats, including malicious URLs and malware.

Review your security content distribution schedule:

Antivirus signatures are released multiple times a day and IPS content roughly on a weekly basis or as needed. If possible, take advantage of these updates or at least update machines that are frequently infected.

And you can also try the following security measures.

Implement application control rules to block specific threats:

Symantec Endpoint Protection’s application and device control is a power tool that can be used to stop a specific file, block peer-to-peer (P2P) network use or protect critical files and registry entries.

Educate users:

Most malware attacks use social engineering. Education can be highly effective in stopping them. Your users don’t need to be security experts. Today, just remembering four things can keep them protected.

• Only click through to trusted sources when conducting searches, especially on topics with high attention

• Never update "media player," “codec," or “Flash” when promoted by a site hosting videos or not affiliated with that application

• Do not use P2P applications on business machines and be cautious on home machines as well

• Do not click on links or attachments in spam email

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

If searches in Microsoft Office Outlook don't locate the items you're looking for, the most common reason is that the indexing of your Outlook data files is incomplete. Also, if you or your organization are using encryption for message security, this can prevent some of your e-mail messages from being found during a search.

Instant Search is enabled, but when you search for items in Outlook, no search results appear, or the ones that do appear don't match your search criteria. If you are not sure if Search is enabled, find out more about enabling Instant Search.

The indexing of your data files might not be complete. Indexing is what enables the Instant Search feature to quickly locate items. When you first start using Instant Search, Outlook needs to index your data files to provide fast and complete search results. This process might take several minutes.

See Resolving indexing issues below.

You are searching for messages that are clear-signed (a method of encryption) and you are searching in either a Personal Folders file (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.) or Offline Folder files (.ost) (Offline Folder file: The file on your hard disk that contains offline folders. The offline folder file has an .ost extension. You can create it automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline.) file for these items.

This might occur if you are using either Windows Desktop Search (WDS) or Outlook (Instant Search or Advanced Find) to search for the messages.

Resolving indexing issues

Verify that your Outlook data files can be indexed

Outlook indexes the following data files:

• Personal Folders files (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.)
• Offline Folder files (.ost) (Offline Folder file: The file on your hard disk that contains offline folders. The offline folder file has an .ost extension. You can create it automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline.)

This includes Microsoft Windows Live Mail, IMAP, and POP e-mail accounts. If you use a Microsoft Exchange account (much more common in business e-mail systems than in a home or personal account), you must be connected to the server running Exchange and use Cached Exchange Mode for Instant Search to index your messages. Cached Exchange Mode uses an Offline Folders file (.ost) to save your information on your computer. To verify which data files are being indexed, do the following:

• On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Search Options.

Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Search Options on the menu.

• Under Indexing, verify that the data files that you want to include in your search are selected in the Index messages in these data files list.

Verify that indexing is complete

To verify the indexing status, do the following:

• On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Indexing Status.

Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Indexing Status on the menu.

• Verify that the dialog box reports 0 items remaining. If not, indexing is not complete and needs to finish before all of your Outlook items can be searched.

Indexing Status reports "0 items remaining," however, search results are not correct

If the Indexing Status reports 0 items remaining and Instant Search is still not returning the correct search results, exit Outlook and restart your computer. When you start Outlook again, verify that Outlook is indexing your items properly by doing the following:

• On the Tools menu, point to Instant Search, and then click Indexing Status.

Alternatively, click the arrow in the Instant Search pane, and then click Indexing Status on the menu.

• Verify that the number of items in the Indexing Status dialog box has increased. If the number has not increased, you must wait until indexing is complete for the results.

I restarted my computer, and Instant Search still doesn't return the correct results

If you aren't getting results after restarting, the next step is to rebuild your search catalog. The search catalog is a file where all of your Outlook and Microsoft Windows items are indexed.

Rebuild The Entire Search Catalog:

To rebuild your search catalog, do the following:

• Exit Outlook.
• In Microsoft Windows, click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.

Do one of the following:

• Windows Vista:    

Click System Maintenance, and then click Indexing Options. Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.

• Microsoft Windows XP

Under See Also, click Other Control Panel Options, and then click Indexing Options.

Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.

• Click Advanced.
• Click Rebuild.
• Restart Outlook.

Resolving clear-signed message issues

If a clear-signed message is stored in a Personal Folders files (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.) or an Offline Folder files (.ost) (Offline Folder file: The file on your hard disk that contains offline folders. The offline folder file has an .ost extension. You can create it automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline.), Outlook Instant Search (and Windows Desktop Search) will not be able to find it. The way that Outlook encrypts, or "packages," the body text of a message when signed using clear-sign encryption technology renders the message text unsearchable.

You can use the following steps however, to find out if the file location is part of the problem.

Determine if you are searching a .pst or .ost.

• In your Inbox, click the single arrow next to the Search All Mail Items box.
• Click Search Options.
• In the Indexing section, see if the following check boxes are selected:

Personal Folders

Mailbox - <your name>

• If you think that the messages are stored in other data files besides a .pst or the .ost, clear the check boxes (if necessary) and then try your search again.

If you are searching a data file other than a .pst or an .ost, and Instant Search still isn't finding the messages, see if you have your Outlook e-mail account set to use Cached Exchange Mode. If so, turn off Cached Exchanged Mode and then try your search again.

• On the Tools menu, click Account Settings.
• On the E-mail tab, click the Exchange account, and then click Change.
• Under Microsoft Exchange server, clear the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box.
• Exit and restart Outlook.

Once Cached Exchange Mode is turned off, if you still aren't getting the search results you expect, try using a different Outlook profile. If you don't have another profile set up, you can create one. In each case, you must turn off Cached Exchange Mode as described in the procedure above.

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

Unable to Write/Delete data on External USB disk in Windows 7

When i connect my External USB WD hdd to a Windows  PC it is successfuly able to connect, it is able to read copy the data but i am not able to delte/write any data to it. I Connect the same HDD to Windows XP sp2 system and it works fine there. Seems like the HDD got only read only access in windows 7. How will be able to write/delete data from it ?

Solution:

First of all, have you install the following hotfix for USB issue? Most USB issue can be fixed by it.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976972

if the issue persists after installing the hotfix, please follow the steps mentioned below…

Regarding the hotfix, I think you can install it directly. The hotfix will replace/update some USB related system files which would be helpful for USB related issues.  Additional, you can also backup your files on the HDD and format it under Windows 7 as a quick fix, do you still have the same issue now?

Actually, I have had this type of issue even before for my other Device. And format is a quick fix to me (please remember to formant it under Windows 7). If you do not have other free space, you can consider copy those data to another PC (of your friends or the PC in your office).

Meanwhile, what would happen when you try to save file to this USB HDD? If you receive error message stating "The disk is write-protected.  Remove the write-protection or use another disk”, please remove write protection from your USB flash drive using the below method:

• 1. Open start menu, in the search bar type REGEDIT and press enter. This will open the registry editor.
• 2. Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Note: If the registry key StorageDevicePolicies does not exist, you will need to create it manually.

• 3. Highlight StorageDevicePolicies, and then create a New DWORD (32-bit) Value named as WriteProtect.
• 4. Double click the key WriteProtect in the right window and set the value to 0 in the Value Data Box and press OK button
• 5. Restart your computer and try copying files into your USB drives.

If the issue persists, you may have to run the following command as a fix:

• 1. Start > search bar -> CMD and press enter
• 2. type< diskpart
• 3. type< list disk
• 4. type< select disk # (# is the number of the USB HDD you’ve pluged in)
• 5. type< attributes disk clear readonly

Do you still have the same issue after reboot? If so, backup your files on the HDD and format it under Windows 7 as a quick fix.

Addtionally, I would like to suggest you checking the permissions of the disk. If it is read-only, try to take ownership of the disk and edit the permissions to have write/delete privilege. How to take ownership of a file or folder

Edit the permissions:

• 1) Right click the drive.
• 2) Hightlight Security tab.
• 3) Select the current user.
• 4) Click Edit and check the Allow box of Full control.
• 5) Click Apply and OK.

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com

Windows 7 Image Maker Failed: Tried to make image using windows 7 ultimate, 64 bit.

http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq348/sgtreasure/2.jpg

http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq348/sgtreasure/1.jpg

There is a problem with the backup included with Windows. I have tested it with USB disks and servers, both scenarios are broken. The destination storage for the Windows backup needs to be 1.5x larger than the system disk.  I am using Acronis for backup And I also heard from my friends that they use 7-zip which is free and use that to backup folders as at least it works.  It can run over night for a large job or in the background. There are other choices, but 7-zip is free.

Microsoft sadly has to offer such software as political pressure over included software has attracted a lot of criticism.

Haja is currently working in a multi-disciplinary role that combines programming including, SAP Administration, Network Management, and System Administration. He is passionate about Technology and this blog is his platform for sharing his ideas. If you like this post, Please leave a comment. And if you have any queries, mail to help @ bench3 . com