Windows Long Shutdown Time You may have noticed that when you restart or shut-down your windows computer (windows xp, windows vista, windows 7) or (windows 2003, 2008) it takes a lot of time for your computer to close all the current processes and perform the shut down. It may be needed to reduce shutdown time in windows especially for computers which are monitored remotely. This may be due to couple of registry settings that keeps the computer from forcing the idle applications from being forcefully closed. Forcing apps to be closed without giving them proper time may cause loss of data and failure of the functions.   However many of the current apps are more resilient and you can force them to be close. The following registry tweaks will help your computer to close the apps within a short time and result in shorter time to shutdown your computer. However, be advised that altering windows registry should be done by your computer administrator as it may cause serious damage to your windows. Make sure you have a full backup of your registry or operating system before doing so. (Perform this at your own risk!) Add the following settings to your registry.   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control] “WaitToKillServiceTimeout”=”1000” [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] “AutoEndTasks”=”1” “HungAppTimeout”=”1000” “WaitToKillAppTimeout”=”1000”   You may also simply download the registry file I have created and double click on that. Again, perform this task at your own risk.   Basically these settings reduces the default waiting time to close an app (kill). In addition, it will automatically force the app to close. If you use these settings you may notice that your computer restart or shutdown time is shortened drastically. This may be very valuable for network admins specifically if you need to remotely manage your computers. If you need more information about these you can contact my website (Azadeh Khorram).    ...

Digital medical recording is becoming a mandatory process in the coming years and the issue of protecting and storage of these data has been raising concern among internet security experts. On one hand the electronic access to the medical record has made the life much easier for managing the vital information about the patients, on the other hand the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) enforces some provisions to ensure the security of the data which eventually increases the cost of storing the information. It has been in the news that in one case hackers took control of Lake County, northern Illinois servers and stole emails and electronic medical records. However in this case the hackers did not simply disappear but they demanded ransom to return the information back to the servers!  The irony of this case is that they “demanded” payments! It is very well predicted that many of the stolen medical records which may include very personal information could be abused. Many of these records include social security numbers, address, data of birth, and even some has driving licence information. The case of identity theft can also be made in these situations as the aforementioned data can simply provide back-doors to hackers to to abuse the information for financial reasons. Similar issues apply to dental offices as these practices also gather personal information about patients. These information are generally stored in a server or even a simple computer in the office without any contingency or back plan making the records more vulnerable. A simple vulnerability assessment can help these offices to further protect their patients against medical record loss. It is important then to use HIPAA compliant backups of the information to at least provide the opportunity to recover the vital information if needed. You may read more about the information related to online backup and data encryption at my blog and contact Azadeh Khorram for more information. You may also follow the twitter account....

GO SMS PRO provides a great text, SMS, and MMS app that provides a much better system comparing the factory sms clients. We have been using this app since early 2011 and have observed the huge improvements. Some of the key features are so necessary that we are amazed they are not embedded in the factory version of the sms clients. 1- Sending Confirmation: How many times you have sent a text randomly or before completion and you told yourself! “F…” Well, we love this feature in the GO SMS PRO. As you see in the advanced settings they have a “Send Settings” which provides you the option to “Confirm before sending a message”. This may prevent a lot of headache and embarrassments!      ...