Email Protection using SPF, DKIM, DMARC

Email Protection using SPF, DKIM, DMARC

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Tired of having your emails go into client junk / spam folders? You can increase the deliverability of your emails while protecting your brand and clients using free tools to create SPF, DKIM and DMARC records. With these free records in place, you can help block phishing, ransomware, and spam messages.

Email service providers like Gmail and Office 365 are increasingly sending unauthenticated emails to spam or rejecting them outright. This article will show you how to add an SPF, DKIM and DMARC record to your domain to help prevent this while keeping most malicious actors out. Note, this article is only intended for my personal use and comes with no guarantee of any kind.

However, be aware of the security risks involved with DMARC.

 

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Clear Open Network Stream History VLC Media Player

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This article will show you how to quickly and easily clear out your Open Network Stream history within the VLC Media Player on Windows as well as Ubuntu.

 

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Fix Opening Multiple PDF’s in Adobe Reader

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There appears to be an unresolved bug (as of writing this article) for users using Windows 10 and the free Adobe Reader in which only one PDF can be opened at a time.

Users can open the first PDF normally. However, once the Adobe Reader application is open a second PDF can not be opened. Oddly enough, double clicking on the PDF will add the PDF the to Recent Files within Windows File Explorer but it does not create a new tab or window within the Adobe Reader application.

This article provides a solution to the issue where you can not open multiple PDF’s within Adobe Reader.

 

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Brick Pay Wall

How to Bypass a Paywall

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If you come across an article or website which shows a paywall, the following website will assist you with bypassing the paywall: https://12ft.io

Alternatively, you can simply append the web address to the end of the 12ft.io URL as demonstrated below:

EXAMPLE: https://12ft.io/thewebsite.com/article-with-paywall

 

Conclusion

I hope my article on bypassing any paywall has helped you. I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions regarding this article.

You may support my work and future improvements by sending me a tip using your Brave browser or by sending me a one time donation using your credit card.

Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

 

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Stop Windows from Spying, Collecting Data

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Using a free network monitoring tool such as WireShark we can see that several discrete and background connections are made without our request when simply accessing our computers.

In this article I provide a few simple hosts file entries to help increase our privacy.

 

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How to Verify a File Hash on Windows

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To ensure that a file has not been tempered with or was corrupted during a transfer or download we can verify the checksums with tools built into Windows.

This is a crucially important for security purposes, especially if you install software from a source other than an official site. If the file has been changed it could contain malware that spies on you or takes your data hostage, for instance.

The checksum verification tool you use is also important which is why I recommend using the built in Windows PowerShell and certutil tools.

In this article I provide simple and quick Windows commands to verify MD5 and SHA256 checksums.

 

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Remove Microsoft Authenticator Greyed Out Account

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Recently used my Microsoft Authenticator to access an email address on my mobile phone which I only needed temporary access to. After which I removed the email account from Outlook on my phone only to have it remain (greyed out) within Microsoft Authenticator.

To remove the greyed out account from Microsoft Authenticator I had to go to my phones’ “Settings” then “Accounts and backup” followed by “Manage accounts“. To my surprise, even though I deleted the email address from Outlook, the email account was still there. Once I removed the email address and reloaded Microsoft Authenticator the greyed out account was gone.

Conclusion

I hope sharing my experience on how I successfully removed an unwanted, greyed out account from Microsoft Authenticator has helped you.

You may support my work by sending me a tip using your Brave browser or by sending me a one time donation using your credit card.

Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

 

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Synchronize Microsoft Authenticator Between Devices

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This article provides a step-by-step guide on an attempt to synchronize the Microsoft Authenticator app across multiple devices. Please be aware that the methods outlined here may not be officially supported by Microsoft and could potentially lead to the loss of your stored two-factor authentication codes. Use this information at your own discretion and risk.

WARNING! The instructions herein are for my own personal use to jog my memory since I keep forgetting to take my memory pills. These instructions may be wrong and may cause you to lose all of your stored two factor authentication codes. This will obviously prevent you from accessing your two factor authentication enabled accounts. Do not attempt to synchronize your Microsoft Authenticator between devices using this article. Now back to jogging my memory.

 

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Google Authenticator versus Microsoft Authenticator

Google Authenticator versus Microsoft Authenticator

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Recently switched my 80+ Two Factor Authentication Accounts application from Google Authenticator to Microsoft Authenticator on my Android phone and am very happy with the switch. It may also be worth noting that Microsoft Authenticator currently has a 4.6 star rating whereas Google Authenticator only has a 3.7 rating.

Even with that, I was reluctant to switch over. After all, I have over 80 accounts to manually port over. So I started out with only a few everyday accounts and once I obtained greater confidence I made the full conversion over.

 

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How to Disable Microsoft’s Cortana

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Microsoft has, yet again, proven it has no ability to be original or creative with their integration of a digital personal assistant, called Cortana, into Windows 10.

This new built-in feature is just as unhelpful as it is annoying. It’s like Microsoft doesn’t even use their own products. On top of that, it is yet another invasion of my privacy.

For those of us who just want to search for a file on our PC, and nothing or nowhere else, the following instructions will help you do so. This will help you turn off and disable Microsoft’s Cortana from your Windows 10 computer as well as disable the Bing search results from the Start menu.

 

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