Saturday, August 29, 2009

Qumana – Blog Editor

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I haven't used any blog editor other than the default editor in blogger and MS Word. I had done a search for a blog editor a while ago, but never came across Qumana, until yesterday. Qumana needs Java Runtime Environment installed before you consider installing Qumana. I wanted a editor which would help me post the blog-post without having to sign up at blogger using a browser and editing it over there, (this happens to me at month ends when I desperately try to save some bandwidth), I also wanted a spell checker for proof reading my post. Qumana satisfies all requirements and as an added benefit, it can even integrate AdGenta adverts into your blog-post.

Features:

  • Supports a lot of blog providers including Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, DairyLand, SquareSpace, Drupal, MSN Space, LiveJournal, etc.
  • Qumana supports AdGenta adverts, which can be inserted by you into your post while editing the post itself.
  • Can manage multiple blogs from the same provider or by multiple providers.
  • Allows editing in multiple modes, i.e. the WYSIWYG mode or the HTML mode.
  • Inserting images and videos is made very simple.
  • Can insert tags and track backs, allow or disallow trackbacks or comments.
  • Has a spell check utility, so that you can correct your mistakes before publishing.
  • One click publish.
  • It can also set the time of posting.

Bummer:

I agree this is a pretty good blog-editor but I loved a feature in MS Word where simple mistakes like capitalization gets corrected automatically, Qumana with its 'spell check as you type' feature comes very close.


 

Get Qumana at http://www.qumana.com/

Thursday, August 27, 2009

AutoIt Scripting

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A freeware scripting language for the Microsoft Windows platform, which uses keystrokes, mouse movements, window manipulation among others to automate tasks in the windows. This little handy tool does not require any runtimes and will run on most machines without much hardware requirements.

Some of the notable features of AutoIt are:

  • Very easy to learn and understand syntax.
  • Scripts can be compiled into standalone executables.
  • Creation of GUI is very easy.
  • Direct call to DLL functions and windows API.
  • Supports Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, VISTA.
  • Detailed help file with examples of code.

If you can't find a use for AutoIt scripts, then I'd like to tell you to go and get a brain.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Nmap-online.com – Nmap on the internet

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I had installed Nmap yesterday to scan a particular target of interest to me, but unfortunately I was getting certain errors about Nmap being unable to find the network adaptor, and I couldn't find a way to make it work. A quick Google search revealed this wonderful online Nmap port scanner, www.nmap-online.com

The interface is intuitive, the default option when the website loads is to quick scan your own computer, full Nmap scans of your own system and custom scans, which allow you to scan custom targets with your own parameters are also included, it keeps your scan requests on queue and lets you know the number of requests before it on queue. When I used it last night, there weren't any other requests so I got my results pretty fast and even if there are many requests it has the option of e-mailing the results of the scan to your own e-mail id.

Whats more is, this service may keep your scan anonymous from the target, if he has surveillance installed.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Google Analytics – A Web Masters’ Swiss Army Knife

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Why I have called Google Analytics as a Swiss army knife, is the amount of information it gives you about your website or blog, which helps you understand your visitors needs and trends. Frankly speaking, I myself haven't tried any other web statistics service; because after I saw one report of Analytics, I was pretty sure I won't need anything else.

It's not possible for me to go into every aspect of Analytics in just one post, so here is the overview.


 

The Dashboard View:

This is a basic description of most data compressed for a 'one look' understanding of stats like site usage (which consists of visits, page views, pages / visit, bounce rate, avg. time on site, % of new visits), visitor overview, map overlay, traffic sources, content overview. You can chose to view data specific to any of the stats specified from the sidebar on the left, some of them are specified below.


 

Visitor overview:

Displays a graph showing the visitors to your domain, with technical information like the browser used by the visitors and their connection speeds, which web-masters find very useful when writing scripts or html code for specific browsers as different browsers have some difference in the way they render a particular code.

Traffic sources overview:

Displays a graph showing visits to your domain, along with information of the top traffic sources, top referring sites and top keywords which connect to your site.

Map overlay:

Shows a world map with indications which allow you to find the country and region in the country in which your visitors live. It also has a table with columns like country, visits, pages/visit, average time on site, % new visits, bounce rate; and also the site average for all these stats.

Content overview:

Content overview, shows you the top contents in your site, tell you how many times a particular content has been viewed, tell you the top landing and leaving pages for your domain.


 

There is just too much for me to try and explain in a post, and you will understand that when you sign up for Google Analytics. As is with all of Google Products, it's perfectly free.


 

Bummer:

There's only one feature that I wished were present here; real-time statistics. I guess all the other features do more than covering up for this.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Greedy Torrent

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This tool considered by many as the savior of leechers on the bit-torrent protocol, helps them from getting banned on trackers which demand a 1:1 transfer ratio. The communication between your bit-torrent client and the tracker is modified, by telling the tracker that you upload is actually high; even if you aren't uploading.


Features:


Greedy torrent only needs to be configured once during install and never again. The configuration also can be done by a newbie, the upload can be set up to 5 times your download, best factor is that you don't need to change your favorite bit-torrent client.

Fav Icon & the Blogger Nav bar

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You might want to bookmark this page if you plan to start a blog or a website, or this might be already be useful if you are having one.


1] Favorite Icon:


Check out the tiny image of my Unicorn logo, on the left corner of the tab and also on the left part of the address bar. By default when you create a blog or a website, the favorite icon or fav-icon is mostly the logo of the hosting company, for blogger accounts it's the blogger logo which is the default fav-icon.


So, how is this changed ?

Finally it's a pretty simple one line code


<link href='url of your image in png or gif format' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/png'/>

[paste the above line immediately after the <head> tag] [if using .GIF instead of .PNG image, replace png with gif in type='image/gif']

Note: Any image should not be used for the fav-icon. Take care of two basic rules.

  • Keep the format as .PNG or .GIF, these formats keep the image size small.
  • A image of resolution 16x16 or 32x32 is preferred.

If you are creative enough, you could even create an animated GIF to be used as a fav-icon, but the only problem in this approach is that the animation is visible only in Firefox browsers. In most other browsers only the first image in the animated GIF is shown.


2] The Blogger Navigation Bar (nav-bar)


So you have made a blog with blogger.com, you made your first post. Everything is working fine, but you don't like the navigation bar that blogger.com has provided, you feel no need for it.

There is a simple CSS for achieving that.

<style type='text/css'>#navbar-iframe { display:block }</style>

<style id='page-skin-1' type='text/css'>

#navbar-iframe {

height:0px;

visibility:hidden;

display:none;

}

</style>

[place the above code in the <head> section of you blogger layout-html]

I am not sure whether removing the Navigation bar is against blogger rules, be sure to read them before you do anything, don't do anything stupid if the rules do say that the navigation bar may not be removed.

Anatomy of a simple IP logger in php

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<?php

// IP logger, place file at yourdomain.com/log.php

//This picture variable defines which image to show
$picture = "http://img.infotropic.com/w/w060529_2.jpg";

//Visitor's IP address is stored in the variable '$ip'
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

//this line tells the logger the name you want to use for the log file.
// if log.txt doesn't already exist, it will be created automatically
$logs = "log.txt";

//here, we open the log.txt for writing to. The 'a' means append to the EOF
$fh = fopen($logs, 'a') or die(" ");

//here we put the ip address into a variable called 'string data'
// the backslash-n starts a new line in the text file, to make it easier to read
$stringData = "$ip \n";

//here we write to the text file what is in the stringdata variable
fwrite($fh, $stringData);

//now we close the file
fclose($fh);


//and finally we echo some html back to the user's browser so they see an image
echo "<img src='$picture'>";

?>


Note:

If you want to learn web technologies, www.w3schools.com is a pretty good website.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Windows Explorer Shell Replacements

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Have you ever tried using any shells other than the native Explorer? There are a lot of options that are available to you, with some of them free while others cost a bit. Here are some of the most popular ones.

Talisman Desktop by Lighttek Software

Talisman Desktop is a desktop alternative and shell-replacement for Windows 9x/ME and NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista, capable of transforming your desktop into an interface organized as you like. The program's basic purpose: Launch other applications in a new interface, instead of the standard Windows desktop but the opportunities presented by Talisman are much broader.

Special Features

Talisman Desktop has the ability to switch the default shell from Explorer to Talisman, or it can be run as a native program inside Explorer.

Bummer

This is not free software; also the configurations for some themes are confusing.

Home Page

http://www.lighttek.com/


SharpE by Low Dimension International

Sometimes shortened as #E, is an open source shell replacement for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP, released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). SharpE is near the end of a major rewrite, which greatly simplifies and cleans up both the source code and the end user experience. The end result is a much better, but somewhat experimental shell.

Special Features

As part of this rewrite, all configuration is now stored for each user in editable XML files as opposed to the registry or "resource files".

Bummer

Not much of an eye-candy.

Home Page

http://www.sharpe-shell.org/


GeoShell

GeoShell is a replacement shell for Windows™ to replace the standard desktop interface. In other words, you trade your start menu, taskbar, system tray and desktop in, and you get our versions, featuring slick, skinnable geoBars which can be placed anywhere and alpha blended into your background.

Special Features

GeoShell has plugins that add additional functionality like RSS readers, weather forecasts, mail checkers, web search bars, virtual desktops and more. In its default installation geoShell also uses fewer resources than Windows Explorer, and is particularly effective when combined with third-party web browsers and file managers to completely upgrade your basic Windows interface.

Bummer

There seems to be limited development going on over this one.

Home Page

http://www.geoshell.org/


Aston Shell

Aston shell is an original replacement for the Windows user environment, allowing users to modify and redesign their entire desktop environment, from the start menu and taskbar to new elements for the desktop, toolbars, etc. The desktop and taskbar environment allows control of appearance of the PC by utilizing the variety of existing themes and skins.

Special Features

Aston may be run on older hardware configurations without any performance penalty, and for more modern hardware setup (but not for 64-bit systems). Customizing Aston interface is somewhat easier than most other shell replacements, as it uses a paged configuration dialog rather than forcing the user to edit hidden scripts. Basic functions can be enhanced by using various plugins which are freely available on official site.

Bummer

This is not free software.

Home Page

http://www.astonshell.com

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Email spoofing

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Email spoofing is a term used for an activity when you send a email, which has certain information which has been modified. It certainly will be a good prank to send spoofed mails to your friends from people they admire, (like celebs) or may be something like a mail from god@heaven.com telling them that their behavior has not been up to mark recently.

How is email spoofing done?

Spoofing an email is pretty simple; all you need to have is a mail server and a mail client which will let you edit the headers of the mail. The mail client can be skipped if you know how to connect and interact with a mail server through a terminal.

I'd suggest MiniRelay from Netvicious you can download it from here; or Free SMTP server by Softstack from here.

You could use Quick Mailer as you email client, download quick mailer from here.

Now start Minirelay, minimize it to the taskbar, start Quick Mailer and configure it from the preferences menu under File, to use 'localhost' as outgoing server port number '25' and no authentication. Now type in the required fields, i.e. the 'to' field (compulsory), the 'from' field (compulsory), the 'subject' field (optional), and attach any files (optional), and now send this mail.

To the receiver the senders email will look just as you typed, regardless of the ownership of the email address.

Bummer

Sometimes the recipients email provider refuses to accept emails originating from dynamic IP addresses, if this is the case you can try to use free proxies found on the net, but make sure that they support SMTP proxy and not just HTTP proxy. Or you could try by using Proxy Helpers



Friday, August 21, 2009

Wikipedia hits 3 Million

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Wikipedia, the successor of Nupedia, a free online English language encyclopedia project, has finally hit 3 million articles (in the English language section). It has taken more than 8 years from its launch in January 15, 2001.

The growth on the English Wikipedia has been steady after the 3 years since its inception when it exploded with articles. It has not been devoid of controversy, when it was found that corporate houses modified content to please certain operatives, amid claims by the science journal Nature that it was about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.

Proxy Helpers

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Sometimes we come across applications or games which have no native support for proxy settings in it, which many of us find annoying. Sometimes we desperately need that proxy support, may be to run a game which doesn't have one.

Is there a solution?

Of course, Proxy Helpers or 'socksifier' will allow any application which doesn't have proxy support to run via the Your Freedom proxy network instead of connecting directly. Proxy Helpers have cross platform support. Currently there are versions available for Windows 2000 and above, MAC OS X, and a java application which can be used in Linux. Even multiple executable applications can be 'socksified' with Proxy Helpers. You can download the application from your-freedom.net

Installation and usage details can be found on the Docs page.




Bummer:

This service requires that you register at your-freedom.net, though they do have a free service that lets you use it with a 64kbps speed cap, for 1 hour continuously, up to 6 hours in any 24 hour interval, up to 18 hours in any week interval.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Software review - Digeus Registry Cleaner

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Over a period of time after installing Windows on our computers, we find that the loading time of windows has increased, copying a movie takes more time than drinking tea, most of these problems have their origins in the registry.

We install a lot of softwares after formatting and uninstall them when we don't need it, this process makes the registry filled with junk or invalid values which were not removed during the uninstall. These affect the performance of your computer, often drastically. All you need to boost your computers performance is a utility to remove these errors.





Digeus boasts of some features that are not available with most other registry service tools.
Features of Digeus Registry Cleaner

  • Slow Boot up
  • Longer Machine Response Time
  • Unexpected System Crashes
  • BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) - My personal favorite
  • Unresponsive System
  • Slower Internet Browser Response
  • Slow Start Up of Your Favorite Software



Digeus Registry Cleaner scans, locates, cleans and optimizes the following registry entries:
  • Missing shared dlls, unused file extensions, files and folders that no longer point to the correct objects
  • Invalid application paths, start-up programs or missing shortcut references that take time when start-up or shutdown PC
  • Invalid ActiveX & COM that no longer point to the correct controls
  • Invalid installer references that are no longer used or have been moved.

It also has an option to backup registry before a scan, and restore it at some other time if need be. The user interface is simple and straight forward, there aren't any confusing options. One of the feature I loved in this tool was the ability to prevent BSOD.

If you are someone who regularly downloads and installs softwares for checking them out, or for temporary use, or you are just a casual computer user, this product will be useful to you as long as you have a computer.

Interested in Digeus Registry Cleaner ??

Head over to the WebSite at http://www.digeus.com/

or simply click here

SysMetrix

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For all of you looking for some more eye-candy for your Windows desktop, here another cool product SysMetrix. It is a rather skinnable clock that has much more features than you can think of, and these features or system statistics are displayed in pretty cool ways.



Following are some of the statistics it can monitor

Date Time CPU Usage
User Name IP Address
Machine Name Windows Uptime Phys. Mem Total
Phys. Mem Used Phys. Mem Free
Phys. Mem %Used Phys. Mem %Free Swap Mem Total
Swap Mem Used Swap Mem Free
Swap Mem %Used Swap Mem %Free Virt. Mem Total
Virt. Mem Used Virt. Mem Free
Virt. Mem %Used Virt. Mem %Free TCP Bytes In
TCP Bytes Out Tot. TCP In
Tot. TCP Out Ave. TCP In Ave. TCP Out
TCP Bytes Out Tot. Unread Email
Tot. Email Size Rotating Email Stats Recycle Bin Files
Recycle Bin Size Drive Vol Label
Drive Total Space Drive Free Space Drive Used Space
Drive %Used Drive %Free
Generic Text Mouse position Active Window
System Mute state System Volume
Microphone Volume Wave Volume MIDI Volume
CD Volume Line Volume
Pixel color Media State Media Artist
Media Track Media Track #
Media Track len Media Track pos Media Track %
Media Track remain Media Bitrate
Media Samplerate Media Channels OS Name
OS Build OS Version Info
GMT-based Times Timezone Desc. CAPS Lock
Num Lock Scroll Lock
Number of CPUs Network Connected Weather Description
Outside Temperature Dew Point
Relative Humidity Heat Index Barometric Pressure
Pressure Trend Wind Speed
Wind Direction Wind Chill Visibility
Registry Value Power Source
Battery State Battery %Used Battery %Free
Battery Time Used Battery Time Left
Battery Time Total CPU #1 MHz CPU Description
Wireless Strength Wireless SSID


Further you can skin it as you like, with lots of skins available on the SysMetrix website and also some others available on third party sites.

Where do I get this ?
SysMetrix can be downloaded form http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/
SysMetrix skins can be downloaded from the Xymantics website or from http://www.skinbase.org/Skins/SysMetrix

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Hack the most out of Sify Broadband

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Sify Broadband customers, this post is for you.

Most of Sify Broadband customers are on a switched network, making MITM attacks very much possible, some network admins have secured their networks against this kind of attacks, but there still exists the main Flaw in Sify.


(NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS MEANT FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY. I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY HARM DONE BY YOU TO YOURSELF OR ANYONE.)

Main flaw in Sify : Their authentication system.

How does Sify authentication system work ?

Sify authenticates a client by checking the following parameters.

1] Username
2] Password
3] IP address
4] MAC address

If any of the above is not matching with the records in their database, you are not logged on.

So whats the flaw ? Everything seems so perfect.
Well suppose Mr. X and Mr. P are friends who have a sify connection, but Mr. P's prepaid account has expired. All he has to do is find out when Mr. X is online and change his IP and MAC address to that of Mr. X. That will get him online on Mr. X's broadband account.

The above means that, if you can find someone who is logged into his Sify Account then you can piggyback on his session and access the Internet. This is also termed as session hijacking. All you need is a IP and MAC address. Username and password are not exactly required if you want to use someone else's connection provided that he/she is logged on.

Method 1:
Search on Google for IP and MAC scanners, I'm sure there are plenty of them out there. A good MAC changer would be Technitium MAC Changer, and you could use Angry IP scanner for getting MAC address and IP address.

Method 2:
Another way to get the IP and MAC is to get control of your switch.

How do I do that ?
Note that your switch is always located at your gateway IP address.
Connect to the switch by typing "telnet 10.xxx.xxx.1" (replace this with IP Address of your switch)
The switch will now ask for a password, go to Governmentsecurity.org for a list of default login and passwords.

Look around the switch to search for the command where all the IP and corresponding MAC are listed.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Give Away Of The Day

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Getting a paid software legally without paying. You might think this is not possible. Head over to Giveawayoftheday.com. These folks at Giveawayoftheday have taken a unique initiative in the software distribution world, and offer free licensed software, that you'd have to buy otherwise.

Everyday a software title is nominated and that will be the Giveaway title of the day, this software will be available for download for 24hrs atleast, and will be given in its complete functionality, i.e. It won't be a trial version or a limited version.

Giveaway of the Day

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Bhuvan - A Desi Version Of Google Earth By Isro

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Imagery of Indian terrain have not been very satisfying when viewing from Google Earth. It only covered the Metros and other main cities with somewhat decent resolution of imagery, the rest is not worth mentioning.

Now the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed it's own 'desi' version of Google Earth called Bhuvan



The website can be accessed on http://www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in. Download the client from the above link. This ISRO provided website has been perpetually busy since Wednesday.

I'm providing alternate links to the Terra Explorer required for Bhuvan.

Download Terra Explorer - http://www.skylinesoft.com/SkylineGlobe/Corporate/Download/TerraExplorerDownload.aspx

  • The requirements for Bhuvan are
  • Operating System: Windows XP/Vista
  • CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
  • System Memory (RAM): 512MB
  • Hard Disk: 2GB free space
  • Network Speed: 768 Kbits/sec
  • Graphics Card: 3D-capable with 32MB of VRAM
  • Screen: 1280x1024, "32-bit True Color"


Even thought the minimum required is 512 MB, its advisable to atleast have 1 or 2 GB of RAM, along with the other requirements.

It was said that ‘Bhuvan’ maps up to 10 metres compared to Google Earth’s 200 metres and Wikemapia’s 50 metres.According to me, Bhuvan does not come anywhere close to competing with wikimapia.org with respect to clarity.

Following is the aerial view of the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai, taken with approximately same resolution from www.wikimapia.org and Bhuvan. You can see for yourself which service delivers more clarity.




By wikimapia.org




By Bhuvan

ISRO may not be the best in PC technology compared to giants like Google, but it has certainly taken a big leap forward in embracing current technology.

Friday, August 14, 2009

USB Hacks ( Hardware )

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Have you ever thought of making a night lamp or a simple table fan powered by a USB port?

By taking some scrap and little bit of work, numerous useful objects can be made, but firstly you need a usb cable.
These come pretty cheap at your local computer hardware store, getting a 5 meter wire will be more than enough. Check if the USB pins are provided, most of the times it is there but sometimes due to some defect it is possible that a pin might be missing. If there are missing pins, get the cable replaced, or buy some pins.

Now lets get started.

1. Cut the USB cable into half.
2. With a wire stripper, take out the insulation, and foil wrap to expose the four internal wires, it will be something like the image shown below.



We are only concerned with the red and the black wires, the other two are data wires. Use the wires and connect them to an array of LED's for a lamp or connect to a motor and use old CD's to make blades for a Fan.

Invent your very own devices, use your creativity to do stuff.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Twitter with SMS

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To update Twitter via SMS, you'll need to add your phone number to your Twitter account, and verify it.

1. Go to http://twitter.com/devices (you'll need to log in)
2. Add your phone number in the form provided.
3. Follow the instructions provided to verify your phone.

Once your phone is verified, you send updates via sms by sending your 140-character message to Twitter's SMS number.
- If you're in the US, send to 40404
- If you're in Canada, send to 21212
- If you're in India, send to 5566511
- If you're not in any of the three above, send to the UK long code +447624801423

Twitter doesn't charge anything for this, but standard text messaging rates or bundles may apply from your carrier. If you use your mobile in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or New Zealand you can also receive tweets via SMS. You can text "OFF" to stop receiving and "ON" to start again.

Remote commands via TweetMyPC

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For some reason you have stepped away from the workstation, or let us say you are AFK (Away From Keyboard) and you suddenly remember that some of the windows currently open contain confidential information which you don't want to share with anyone at all. What do you do now ? Going back is not an option.

This kind of situation might put us in a bad corner sometimes, but now we have a solution, TweetMyPC.



This handy app is connected to you twitter.com account and keeps checking for status updates on twitter every minute. TweetMyPC required credentials to a gmail account as well, to send you file list, process list, etc.

Following are the commands that can be typed at the twitter status:
  • shutdown: Shuts down your PC
  • reboot: Reboots PC
  • lock: Lock PC
  • standby: PC on standby mode.
  • hibernate: PC on hibernate mode
  • screenshot: Take screen shot and send link
  • getprocesslist: Send process list to gmail
  • kill : Kill process
  • download : Download url
  • getfilelist : Get list of files from drive
  • getfile : Send specified file to gmail

You may think if you have access to another computer to do all this, then might as well use one of those remote desktop tools. Well, I'd say you are not wrong TweetMyPC may not be able to accomplish certain things that might be done by remote desktop, like watching a movie that's stored on your computer while you are away (beats me why anyone would do this kind of stuff). My point here is you could use a 64kbps connection with TweetMyPC.

But what if you can't find a machine?

Twitter allows commands to be sent by mail or SMS to change your status, which means you don't need a computer, even a cell phone will do the trick.

I'll make a post on how to update twitter by SMS soon.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Repair your Windows XP system online with Reimage

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Most of us who use Windows XP, often find that compared to when we had just installed Windows XP, after a period of time the system tends to get slower. This slowdown is often attributed to missing or damaged system files, another cause might be virus infections. There are many tools out there which allow you to enhance the system after such a slowdown, Reimage is one of them, but whats unique about this is, its completely online.



How does it work ?
Reimage works by downloading a client with your permission and scanning the system by certain predefined parameters, when it finds something like missing or damaged system files, it downloads system files from its server and replaces the damaged ones. A virus check is also done and necessary changes are done to undo the damage done by the virus. This process may be compared to the System Restore function in Windows XP, barring the user settings or applications are not affected.



Reimage comes bundled with another application called Reimage PC Booster, which tracks the applications you are currently working with and speeds them up. A system tray tooltip informs which application is being currently boosted. It also tracks the mouse movements, predicting the next application you will you and boosts it.

Where do I get Reimage?
You can download the Reimage client at http://www.reimage.com/

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

DDNS

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DDNS is a very useful service which allows us to get a domain name mapped to our dynamic IP provided by the ISP. These days ISPs don’t provide static IP to residential homes unless demanded, and even when they do provide they do so at seriously crap rates which not many people might afford. That is where these ‘Dynamic DNS’ services come into picture.

A simple client at the server will allow the system to be mapped to a domain name, given that the server runs the software client provided by the ‘Dynamic DNS’ service provider. This has now been taken to the next step, where the Dynamic DNS account information can be provided in the router settings and it will run the client software removing the need for the server to run additional software.

This tutorial will show you how to integrate ‘Dynamic DNS’ capabilities onto a iBall Baton ADSL2+ router (iB-RL6111A).

Firstly the prerequisites, a ‘Dynamic DNS’ account with one of the many providers. I’d suggest www.dyndns.com. Register with the provider. Traditionally what you would have done is, download their client and run it every time at start up so that your IP is updated. Here we will bypass that additional step.

Navigate to your iBall Baton web interface



The ‘Dynamic DNS’ settings is in DDNS under Access management, here you enter you host-name that you have chosen while registering, your email address, the user-name and password for the ‘DynDns’ account, finally save. The dynamic IP is now automatically updated by the router itself.

When having a website or similar service running it is advised that some firewalls or intrusion detection systems are in place.