Speed, reliability, features. Those are the three main factors I look for in a browser. A couple months ago, I had been curious to see what other browsers were out there. I was primarily a Chrome user for 4 years, with a random blip of Firefox in my history. After going through the gauntlet of browsers, Vivaldi stuck out as a great Chrome alternative, so much so that it is my main browser. Let’s take a look at what makes this feature heavy browser so special. Continue reading Vivaldi – The Best Fork Of Chromium→
2017 was a surprisingly great for gaming on the PC. There were a bunch of great titles, some of which I didn’t even get a chance to try out. Thankfully, I was kept busy with the great titles below. Look forward to our post on top 5 Nintendo Switch titles in the upcoming week! Let’s dive in, shall we? Continue reading Top 5 PC Games of 2017→
A good mouse can really change the way a game is played. Two button mice with a scroll wheel have been replaced with 13 button monstrosities where every button can be programmed to your liking. Multiple profiles and fast DPI switching are at the palm of your hand with the 1byone USB Gaming Mouse. The packaging was slick, and the presentation of the mouse was much better than expected. Inside the box was the mouse along with an instruction manual and a CD for the software. Continue reading 1byone 4000DPI Programmable Wired USB Gaming Mouse Review→
For the longest time, I have always wanted a portable Bluetooth keyboard. One that you can quickly setup and just start working. Whether it’s syncing to your phone for those afternoon writing sessions at Starbucks, or intense note-taking in class on a small desk with your tablet, the 1byone foldable Bluetooth keyboard will help you every step of the way. Continue reading 1byone foldable Bluetooth Keyboard→
Windows 10 has become notoriously well-known for its attempts to sneak itself past its user on older versions of the Windows OS in the form of Windows Updates, so much so that it has become a widespread joke among social media platforms like Reddit and Facebook. Here’s how you can disable in in 60 seconds or less using one of these easy, safe utilities. Continue reading Disable Windows 10 Update in 60 Seconds→
Yesterday at around 10:00 AM EST, TeamViewer’s website and log on servers had gone down due to Denial of Service attacks, causing users of the popular remote-desktop application to be locked out of their accounts. Some users, thinking they were secure, were still compromised. Continue reading TeamViewer Users Hacked, Company Denies Responsibility→
Browsing the internet isn’t as safe as it used to be, and even then probably was not as safe as we’d all thought it was. Hackers are constantly crawling the web for vulnerabilities in website code to expose the privacy of individual users, and chances are if you have ever connected to a public WiFi hotspot you have been on the same network of somebody that was trying to attack it. Protecting your privacy with a VPN is one great way to prevent accidental leakage of your sensitive information.
Taking screenshots on my computer happens quite frequently, especially if I’m sending them to friends troubleshooting program code or issues with their computers. Cloud.ly was a great service for this before official support, but they have since limited the amount of screenshots you can upload to their servers. Dropbox has also offered a built-in screenshot utility, but it lacks many features that are important to me such as the ability to change hotkeys. Thankfully I’ve found a way to easily share my screenshots with Dropbox, but also customize my screenshotting experience using a nifty, open-source tool called ShareX.
Windows 10 (or should I say Windows 9?) has made progression way further than any version of Windows I have seen thus far. Microsoft’s intention when creating Windows 8 was to break the barrier between tablets and computers, creating a booming market of laptops and tablets that include touchscreens. Now with the creation of Windows 10, it has solidified itself as an operating system appeasing to both the PC enthusiast as well as the everyday tablet or PC user. Continue reading Windows 10 Isn’t Just for Your ‘PC’ Anymore→
This is technically my second mechanical keyboard, my first being a CM Storm Quickfire Pro with Cherry MX Browns. I say technically because this is my fathers, I traded my Quickfire Pro for his CM Storm QuickfireXT, also with Browns. There are very few changes between the keyboards, but I wanted to bring to light my thoughts on this keyboard. I bought the Quickfire Pro back in 2013 as a birthday present for myself because I wanted a reliable keyboard for college and gaming use. I was not well versed in mechanical keyboards at the time, so I looked for the quietest mechanical keyboard I could find. I decided on Browns after listening to sound samples, and bought this keyboard as a result of some research on Amazon and some forums. I eventually switched with my father because I felt this keyboard was quieter, and he wanted a slightly louder keyboard that had more weight to it. I have been using this keyboard for 5 months now.
Look
This keyboard is low to the ground and has four rubber strips on the four corners of the keyboard. It hardly if ever slides on my desk and that is a great plus. I do like the kickstand legs from other keyboards, but I like the consistency and reliability of the rubber strips. I’ve seen other mechanical keyboards that have the firm’s logo tossed on it four or five times, but this keyboard only has it on the back and bottom, the latter of which no one will most likely see. The keyboard has no backlight, which I personally prefer due to the fact that I find LED distracting and unnecessary. The keys look nice, standard CM Storm font (which is a derivative of the font of the Nintendo GameCube, fun fact!), but the keys are laser etched.
Keyboard in all of its glory
A keycap can either be laser etched or laser engraved. Laser etched means that the character on the key on the key filled out. They stand out, but they are also wear away with moderate to heavy use. A laser engraved key is generally an outline of the character, but the key will never wear away. My Quickfire Pro never wore away in the 2 years of heavy use, and my XT hasn’t worn away yet, but I am sure it will in due time.
The keyboard itself is really relaxed looked and not flashy. The only “LED’s” on the keyboard are the three lights for Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Screen lock as well as the Windows Lock LED. Otherwise, the keyboard is completely bare, which I like. The cable that comes with the keyboard is braided, and it is quite nice to hold and use. I know it will not tangle up and that it is of a good quality.
Feel
This aspect is the most important part of the keyboard, the feel. As I stated before, my first keyboard was the Quickfire Pro with Cherry MX Browns, so I will be frequently comparing this keyboard to that. It is also worth noting that both keyboards are great, and they both serve the same purpose.
When I type a sentence on this keyboard, I find that it is a lot quieter than the Quickfire Pro. This may be due in part that the XT is thinner in build, so less reverberates within the keyboard, whereas there is more space inside the board the Quickfire Pro, so it is inherently louder. I will supply two sound samples below to present my point, and you can decide. I do not efficiently type at all, and cannot touch type yet, so I still bottom out on my keys all the time. There is only a 5% chance that I do not bottom out, and that is still not saying much. Because of this, I just click the keys at a force that I find comfortable without exerting myself. The Browns overall are definitely quiet keys in comparison to their Blue brethren. I have tried Blues, Blacks, Reds, and Clears once and I prefer the feel and bump of the Browns.
The keys are nice and clean. I barely feel the letters
The keycap themselves are quite nice and I love the fact that they mimic the curve of my finger. The Quickfire Pro has the same keycap concept, and I just love it. I barely feel the laser etched keys on my fingers as I type, so you can rest assured that they will not interfere with the experience of the keyboard. The Spacebar has a really nice sound to it and I like that I can click it with my thumb effectively when I type.
This is a sound clip of my roommate typing on this keyboard followed by him clicking the backspace than the spacebar
Build Quality
This will be a much shorter section, but I felt it was worth mentioning nonetheless. The build quality is stellar. It is a very comfortable weight and everything feels extremely solid. I can tell they did not skimp out anywhere on this keyboard. Even the USB port on the back of the keyboard feels of good quality even after I unplugged the cable numerous times. The braided USB cable is also another great feature. It not only reassures me that I bought a premium product, but it also extends the life time of the USB cable.
Braided cable to prevent bends
Overall
This keyboard is great. It is quiet enough where I can use it without my roommates or my family hating me, but it still is loud enough for me to satisfyingly use. They keyboard is not fancy by any means, there are no fancy LED’s or RGB lights or even other profiles that are programmable. It is barebones mechanical keyboard with a couple extra features such as Windows Lock, MS delay for typing and gaming, and multimedia shortcuts when the user presses the function key and the respective “f” key, but otherwise it is scant. They offer other keyboards for a full LED keyboard such as the CM Storm TK with a full or the CM Storm Quickfire Ultimate. The XT does do what it has to do, and a damn good job at that, I recommend it for people that want a mechanical keyboard from a trusted company at a good price with no frills.
Everyone knows that the internet is an awesome place. We share photos on social networks, make conversation with friends, and play games with random strangers on the internet. While it may seem like we’re always in our private little bubble on the internet, sometimes we’re not always secure as we may think we are. Although using a special encryption algorithm known as GPG (similar to PGP), there is a way to communicate between you and others via email without compromising your information.
Whether you’re just an everyday person or an individual trying to ensure sensitive data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, due to the nature and general insecurity of the internet something as potentially important as e-mails should be encrypted, especially now that governments are illegally accessing our information. It is quite easy to encrypt information sent through an email, although the concept of the way that it is encrypted is a little harder to understand, but I’m going to try and make it easy for you.
How does GPG encryption actually work?
GPG encryption works using two things: a public key, also known as a certificate meant to be distributed those you would like to contact, and a private key, used to decrypt the messages created using your public key. So let’s say that I have a guy named Jimmy, and I want to send him my social security number because I forgot to put it on the job application I handed him. I’d rather not just send it through a regular email, because I run the risk of someone potentially finding the email and copying down the information. Instead, me and Jimmy have our own public keys (certificates) created using special software, which we safely exchange through regular email. Even if someone had these certificates, it wouldn’t matter since they’re not signed on both sides by whoever is trying to read them. Now that we exchanged certificates and signed each others keys, essentially confirming each others identities, I enter my social security number into the email and encrypt it using my public key. It’s ready for whoever is on the other side, waiting to decrypt it using their very own private key.
Setting up E-Mail Encryption using Thunderbird
If you want to set up this encryption through your email account, there are a few steps that must be taken to do so. If you’re not the kind of person that’s big on internet security or anything computer related, it’s all good because I will make this as simple as possible.
Start by installing GPG4Win, which will allow you to create a unique certificate to encrypt whatever you want, in this case it is emails. This package includes the encryption algorithms and the user interface that controls it. When installing, make sure only the following are checked off:
Awesome! If you’re wondering why we don’t use Claws-Mail, it’s because it was poorly ported to Windows. I’ve had numerous crashing issues doing the simplest of things with it, like sending an email. Instead, we’ll just use Mozilla Thunderbird, because not only is it easier to setup, it’s a better program. Before we install Thunderbird, let’s setup our magical certificate.
While there is a way to do it within Thunderbird, I’m going to do it this way. Open up Kleopatra, the graphical user interface used to create GPG certificates. It looks a little funny, but it’s really easy to set one up. Go to File > New Certificate, or hit Ctrl+N.
You’ll now be presented with two options: “Create a personal OpenPGP key pair”, or “Create a personal X.509 key pair and certification request. Click the first option. Now put in a name and email, and if you want you can even put in a comment. These parameters are not encrypted and are publically visible to those that have your public certificate. Make sure you put in your real name, and the email address you will associate this with. Hit “Next”, and then “Create Key”. That’s it! You now have a unique GPG certificate. The best part about GPG4Win is that it works hand in hand with the plugin we install into Thunderbird, you don’t have to configure any settings whatsoever.
Download Mozilla Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
To set up Thunderbird, it’s pretty straightforward: just type in your email and it will automatically grab the server addresses associated with your account. Once your account is setup, we’re going to go ahead and download Enigmail.
Choose the plugin accordingly with whichever OS you have, in my case it is Windows 7. If you have a 64-bit OS don’t worry about it. It will still work since the Thunderbird client is a 32-bit application anyway. You’re probably wondering “what the heck is an .xpi file”? The first time I saw one I had no idea either, because it isn’t associated with any program. This file extension is used in accordance with Mozilla plugins, for both Firefox and Thunderbird. This plugin will obviously only work on Thunderbird though.
Now that you have the plugin downloaded, here’s what you do with it. Make sure you have Thunderbird open, and start by clicking the options button on the top right. Then choose “Add-ons”.
It will bring up a menu, and you’re just going to want to click the “Extensions” option on the left side of this menu. Now go to the folder where you downloaded this .xpi file, and drag it right into the extensions menu you opened in Thunderbird. It should prompt you asking to install the plugin, just wait the few seconds and accept. You’ve installed the plugin successfully!
By now you should have done four things: installed GPG4Win, set up a unique GPG certificate, installed Thunderbird, and installed the Enigmail plugin. We’re almost done! I’m just going to teach you how to send and receive encrypted emails.
Go ahead and open Thunderbird, and create a new email. Take note of the OpenPGP option at the top of the email composition window (there is also the S/MIME encryption next to it, but don’t worry about that). If you click the drop-down menu for OpenPGP, you will see two options: “Sign Message” and “Encrypt Message”. The option that matters the most is the “Encrypt Message” option to obfuscate the message that you’re sending, making it a jumbled mess of characters. Although if you are curious, when you sign an email what this does is just literally attach a digital signature (A.K.A. your certificate) to your email proving that you were the one that actually sent it. It’s made for security reasons on the receiving side, and it wouldn’t hurt to activate this option. Also, if this is the first time sending an encrypted email to a specific person, make sure they have your public key. You can go to OpenPGP in the top most bar, and select “Attach My Public Key”, this way it will be added to their keyring.
Now let’s say they send you a message back, which is encrypted but has their certificate attached. Thunderbird should prompt you to import their certificate, and you should proceed by accessing the “Key Management” in OpenPGP settings, right clicking their imported key (if you can’t see it, make sure “Display All Keys by Default is checked off), and signing it using your own key. So long as both parties have done it to each others keys, you should be able to decrypt each others messages.
Now you’re finally done! Feel free to send all the emails you want, because nobody will ever get a hold of them without your permission.
