FISMA is the Federal Information Security Management Act. The FISMA Implementation Project was established during early 2003 in order to develop a range of crucial security guidelines and standards as required by Congressional legislation. Such publications constitute FIPS 200 and FIPS 199 together with the NIST Special Publications 800-59, 800-53, and 800-60. The development of security guidance materials support the actual project, but this is not directly required through the FISMA legislation. These publications constitute the NIST Special Publications 800-53, 800-53A, and 800-37. The actual Computer Security Division constantly produces Read More

In order to grow a bacterial culture in a lab, a growth medium has to be used to provide the right environment. Mannitol salt agar is a popular bacterial growth medium that biologists use to grow halphile bacteria (these grow fast in high salt concentrations) and can tell the difference between non-pathogenic and pathogenic Staphylococcus (ie parasitic to humans). Why Are Growth Media Important? Biologists use growth media in order to raise millions of bacteria in a colony. Some media are liquid – similar to a soup or broth, while Read More

In order to burn an AVI file to a DVD, the file must often be converted to a proper DVD format. This can be done with the use of file converters and/or DVD burning software. File converters are often able to convert many different formats into any of the other formats that they support. Some DVD burners have built-in file converters while others are designed to encode all files in the same manner so that file format is irrelevant. AVI is a very popular format, however, and most DVD burners Read More

A computer cluster refers to a group or collection of computers – connected by a local area network (LAN) – that are working extremely well together that one can think of them as being a single computer. Computer clusters were created to improve performance. An office network can be considered a cluster since multiple computers and users are tied in to a server to exchange information or data in order to perform their assigned tasks or roles and to ensure availability of service by having a fallback computer(s) ready to Read More

One way to modify a Windows desktop’s look is to auto-hide the taskbar. The auto-hide option modifies a desktop by giving the user some extra space. When using the auto-hide taskbar option, the taskbar disappears when it is not being used. However, whenever it is required, simply place the cursor at the bottom of the screen (where the taskbar would normally be) and it will appear. There are two main ways to auto-hide a taskbar, one is by using the registry and the other is to make changes to the Read More

Windows Media Player develops a variety of errors when invalid changes are made to the program itself or the computer system in use. The Error code “0xc00d1199 – Cannot Play File” is a common error that occurs for a variety of reasons. Note: Clicking on “More Information” provides details about the error code. Installing Codec Information One of the reasons that a file may not be playable is the lack of the proper codec to decode the information in the file. The appropriate remedy is to install the correct codec Read More

Long term evolution (LTE) is a project name that is given to the next generation of mobile phone speed otherwise known as 4G. Specifically, LTE is the last step that mobile phone companies have made to increase the speed and efficiency of their mobile phone devices. While LTE has been marketed as 4G, it doesn't quite comply with all the rules of IMT Advanced 4G requirements. Regardless, many companies across the world have announced that they are going to be pushing for 4G over the coming years starting in 2009. Read More

UNIX is one of the most important operating systems ever developed. What made Unix stand out in the crowd of countless other operating systems is that it was a competent operating system that was extremely affordable and worked on low cost hardware. Economics definitely played a large part in UNIX’s popularity and today it is still known as a low cost solution to running personal computers, network servers or large commercial servers. UNIX was originally created in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs by Ken Thompson, Douglas Ritchie and Douglas Mcllroy. Read More

Screen captures are, literally, ‘captures’ of the images on a computer’s screen. This is necessary when one needs troubleshooting help for an unexpected system error, in which case it would help if an image of the error message can be procured and sent to the technical support personnel. It can also be used to capture images embedded in web pages or PDF files. Taking Screen Captures To take screen captures, one has to use the “Print Screen” (or oft-abbreviated ‘PrtSc’ button that is usually found at the upper right portion Read More

Active Directory (AD) is a structure used on computers and servers running the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS). AD is used to store network, domain, and user information and was originally created by Microsoft in 1996. It was first deployed on Microsoft Windows 2000. Active directories provide a number of functions to include providing information regarding objects optimized for fast access and / or retrieval. This allows administrators to setup security, push computer updates, and acts as a hierarchical structure. The structure is normally configured in three categories to include: Read More