@brianwinkelmann said in An Overview of Windows 8 and 8.1 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer:

Interesting, I didn't know Windows 8 has many features, but I don't think I can consider install Windows 8 in a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with 3 GB RAM.

You should not consider ANY old OS, really ever. Outside of learning what support used to look like, which is effectively worthless, conceptually using an old OS is a bad idea. Windows 8, especially, is only one generation newer than Windows 7 which is already crazy old. Windows 8 is something like eleven versions old already!

@brianwinkelmann said in An Overview of Windows 7 - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer:

@scottalanmiller Ohh I see it is a good Idea to try LINUX!

Yes, very good time. Something light. Because there are so few resources.

Try this..

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-10.5.0-i386-netinst.iso

@brianwinkelmann said in Operating Systems Overview - CompTIA A+ 220-1002 Prof Messer:

So the disadvantage to choose LINUX is based on the drivers for different devices that you will use

That's incorrect. Linux has much broader driver support than Windows, and both have much broader support than MacOS. Support for more hardware is actually a huge benefit to Linux. That's why Linux and BSD are available on more platforms than any other OS.

@brianwinkelmann said in Troubleshooting Hard Drives - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

Very interesting, I remember I've heard that sometimes to fix a hard drive that is damaged you can put it inside of a freezer with bags of course and it can be fixed, is that true or is a myth or a lie? Sorry about foolish question. xD

Not a foolish question Brian. We have some customers who have done it. The drives (other than the brand new high capacity helium drives) are not air tight. They have a filter. So moisture can get it and start to corrode the platters.

If it has been in the freezer, we have to charge extra as it has to be cleaned with a special cleaning solvent that is about $400-500 per gallon.

Also it can cause a drive that may have been a logical or a physical non invasive recovery instantly into a clean room job (the most expensive option). So it's best to do nothing to fix it. Bring it to a quality data recovery company (like mine!) and they will have the best chance of recovering the data.

@brianwinkelmann said in Troubleshooting Common Hardware Problems - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@scottalanmiller but that was the red light that indicates that the CPU is not working.

I suspect that there is a speaker there, too. Just no beep codes from that machine. Look up the specific motherboard to see if it has beep codes.

@scottalanmiller You can also use a website for this. I have some private pages on my website where i list things I need to look up occasionally. They aren't secret details or anything but just key things I did for this software or how I helped this user. That kind of stuff.

Very Interesting!

Very interesting to know that there are many services in the cloud.

@jmoore said in Cloud Models - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@mary said in Cloud Models - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@scottalanmiller so cloud is a buzzword?

Oh yes I used to see commercials with a kid talking about the "Almighty Cloud". This was several years ago but not much has changed in the marketing.

It's absolutely used wrong all the time, but that doesn't make cloud a buzz work, cloud is a real specific thing, but almost no one uses it correctly.

Interesting but also I get confused with all the comments XD

@brianwinkelmann said in Storage Devices - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

I am seriously thinking about buy a SSD drive to install on my old computer that is Pentium 4 - 3.0 GHz, 3 GB RAM, with Windows XP and install there the Windows 10 so it can run faster, Do you think that is a crazy idea?

Yes, it's crazy. Even if you can get a $30 SSD like we can from Amazon here in the US (small WD Green drive), it's not worth putting $30 into a computer worth at best $5.

Pentium 4 wasn't just a 32bit processor, it was a really, really slow 32bit processor. It was so bad that they had to bring the Pentium 3 back with a new name to keep their products alive while they figured out what to do. It's considered the worst processor ever made (that got actually sold.) And with only 3GB of RAM, it doesn't have anything there going for it, either.

It's only $55 if you shop around to get a quad core, 64bit, 8GB RAM Raspberry Pi. If you are going to talk about adding an SSD to something, start with at least that.

@JaredBusch said in Network Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@scottalanmiller said in Network Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@JaredBusch said in Network Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@scottalanmiller said in Network Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@connorsoliver said in Network Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

How common is MAN?

It's just a term. One that they thought would be common, but isn't. Really no one used it and it's just silly. LAN and WAN still describe all of the real types that matter. The idea of a MAN is kind of meaningless. So while they kind of exist regularly, no one talks about them.

It is also implied that it is something managed by the ISP (aka telcos back when it was a term actually used).

Used to imply, yeah. Today it is often down by owned wireless. But the first MAN I worked on was one we built privately in DC. No telecoms involved. That was early 2000.

First one I worked with was in some Citibank offices in the mid-late 90's in St. Louis. Telecoms involved only as far as providing the clean pairs of copper. Otherwise, Citi did it all themselves also.

I was similar. AT&T provided the fiber in case, but we managed everything else.

I remember when sometimes I used some of the network tools mentioned on this video, also making my own RJ45 cable connection for first time.

@scottalanmiller said in Internet Connection Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

Satellites were launched last week

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@scottalanmiller said in Internet Connection Types - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

Satellites were launched last week that should be a total global game changer.

Those 60 are not going to do that. They do not have the point to point lasers for relay. These are all still engineering tests that have to relay all communications through ground stations.

@scottalanmiller said in Using IP Addresses - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@connorsoliver said in Using IP Addresses - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

When using an SSL VPN, if the VPN concentrator decrypts the data being sent, wouldn't it be possible for someone to capture the data and also decrypt it?

Possible, sure. But very, very hard. The VPN concentrator has the keys, someone intercepting the traffic presumably does not. The point of VPN encryption is to make it so hard to decrypt the data that you don't care if they see it. It's about making something safe enough that we assume we will send it in the open and not worry.

So we assume that people capture that data constantly - but we have made it so hard to use, that they can't do it.

We more than assume that - we pretty much know the NSA is doing that after the Snowden leaks.

Cool very interesting!

taking a few mins to watch this!

@scottalanmiller said in Network Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

@valentina said in Network Services - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

are proxy servers used for security purposes? do they have other functions?

Yes, very much so.

They are also very commonly used to allow a single IP address to be used for many services. The most common example... a single proxy server with a single (expensive) public IP address can handle requests for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of websites. Behind the proxy server can be one or one million separate web servers each serving out applications or web sites or whatever and the proxy server can look at the incoming request and determine, based on the URL used, which server and port to send the request to behind itself.

Because of the above, they are often used for load balancing because they can send requests to different servers for the same application or site.

Proxy servers often have caches in them, too. So they quite often store simple, static information "at the edge" to deliver it faster while the application servers behind them do the heavy work for database requests and stuff.

Proxy servers are sometimes used to "hide" the true location of a server. Cloudflare famously does this so that attackers have no idea where a web site actually comes from, all they see is Cloudflare's proxies.

A proxy can also do things like handle SSL security so that web servers behind it (or other servers, proxy doesn't imply web) don't have to do that work, as well.

Hrm, I only have around 20 subdomains pointing to the same IP so far. If my home lab box was a little beefier I'd take this as a challenge. (Scott might as well be describing my home lab environment here.)

Interesting

@Osvaldo said in Wireless Network Technologies - CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Prof Messer:

I wonder if there is a tool for radio hacking zigbee?

Many of the devices that use the protocol are never updated, therefor quite a large target for hacking.

The radio protocol itself I doubt is much use to "hack" (Any cheap software defined radio will be able to imitate a Zigbee device.)