Saturday, August 30, 2008
How to Hack Windows XP Admin Password or any other password
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Must Have Firefox Extensions
#1: Morning Coffee
This extension allows you to set a group of Web sites that will open (each in its own tab) with the click of a button. I use this extension to open up all the Web-based admin tools for sites I administer. You can even set sites up to open only on certain days (or every day). So news junkies or overworked administrators rejoice: This extension will make your browsing life a little easier.
#2: NoScript
This is one of the best tools for making sure your browsing experience is secure. With NoScript, you can disable active content from any site you don’t trust. Unless you configure it to allow JaveaScript, Java, and other executable scripting to run from a site, NoScript will completely block the script, keeping you browser safe from known and unknown exploits. And don’t think because you are using FireFox in Linux that you’re perfectly safe! Use this extension regardless of platform.
#3: ColorfulTabs
If you’re like me, you generally have a LOT of tabs open in Firefox. Sometimes this isn’t a problem. But there are times when the tabs can get a bit overwhelming and need a bit of organization. To help with this, ColorfulTabs gives each open tab a different color, making it easier to distinguish between them. With this simple extension, you can color-code tabs either randomly or according to URL. You can also set tabs to fade. Another fun feature is that you can set a background image for tabs.
#4: BBCode
This helpful extension adds BBCode, HTML, and XHTML symbols and formatting to the context menu. BBCode also allows you to add up to 10 custom tags to your menu. This extension shows itself when you’re in a forum and you right-click a text area where you can select the tag you want to add from the menu. This extension will make your forum work quite a bit easier, as well as faster.
#5: Buggybar
This extension is invaluable to Bugzilla power users. With this extension, you will have a Bugzilla Chrome sidebar available which will readily show all bugs that relate to a bug list you have created. As of version 0.2, Buggybar works with all instances of Bugzilla.
#6: Clear Cache Button
I don’t know about you, but I always set up my browsers to clear their cache at exit. But what about those times you want to clear the cache but not exit the browser? Instead of navigating through the menu structure, you can add this simple extension. It provides a button that gives you complete cache clearing with a single click.
#7: TimeTracker
Okay, this is not really a tool that will aid or better your browsing experience. In fact, this little extension will remind you how much time you spend browsing. I have found this little gem useful in a number of circumstances. Whether you are in need of a quick five-minute break from number crunching or you just need to know how much time you spend on a specific Web site, TimeTracker will keep track of how long you browse. What is nice about this is that the tool times across sessions. So when you close the browser, the timer stops, and when you open the browser back up, the timer starts again. You can reset the timer by right-clicking the status bar timer and selecting Reset.
#8: iMacros
This extension automates pretty much anything you do in Firefox. From opening up sites to filling out forms and even administration work — you can automate it with iMacros. The iMacros extension has a sidebar that shows favorite macros. It also has a record feature that allows you to create macros by simply clicking Record, going through the motions of the macro to be created, and clicking Save. These macros can be as complex as you need them to be. When you want to run them, you simply navigate to the macro in the iMacros sidebar and click the Play button. The only downfall I have found with this tool is that you can’t assign key combinations to run macros. Other than that, this extension is a must-have for power browsers.
#9: Fasterfox
This extension does one thing: It makes Firefox load pages faster. Speed of page loading can be increased by allowing simultaneous connections and prefetching. This extension is currently in the experimental stage because of the release of Firefox 3. To install it, you have to log into a Firefox account to download. The extension is worth the hassle. The speed increase is noticeable.
#10: BlogRovR
We all read blogs. From my aurosblog, aurolive, GoGetAuro or your loved one Blog4aurobindo to the countless other blogs available, we all read them daily. And this takes time. Instead of wasting time going to the blogs, let this handy extension fetch them for you. You do have to sign up for an account using this extension (they promise they won’t spam you.) and you will be asked to install another sidebar (Stickies), which is not necessary. Once you have this installed, you just enter the blog URL, and BlogRovR will begin fetching the information for you. Warning: If you have NoScript installed, you have to allow the BlogRovR page to run scripts or it won’t be able to fetch pages for you.
11: BugZilla
If you are into web development then this is one thing you can like the most. With this you can do amazing things like editing, debugging, and monitoring CSS, HTML, and JavaScript of your live websites. Isn't it amazing!!!
With this i also use S3Fox for my Amazon S3(Simple Storage Service) account to access my data and Google Gears to offline editing my files.
Share your experience what are the extensions you are using.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Mistakes to Avoid while installing softwares in your Linux distros
#1: Installing from source when your system is primarily an .rpm or .deb system
Many new Linux users don’t understand that both rpm and apt (or dkpg) keep track of everything installed on the system. However, those systems (rpm, apt, and dkpg) can keep track only of packages they install. So when you find that obscure package that comes only in source and you compile it yourself, your package management system will not know what to do with it. Instead, create either an .rpm or .deb file from the source and install the package with the package management system so that system will be aware of everything you have installed.
#2: Neglecting the many graphical front-end package management applications
Most people don’t even realize that there are graphical front ends that take a lot of the guesswork out of installing packages in Linux. For yum (the command-line package management system for rpm), you can use Yumex for yum (installed with yum install yumex); you can use Synaptic or Adept for apt (installed with apt-get install synaptic or apt-get install adept).
#3: Forgetting to update the list of available packages
When using apt-get or yum, make sure you’re updating the list of available packages. Otherwise, your system will not remain updated with the latest releases of installed packages. To update with apt-get, you issue the command apt-get update. To update with yum, issue yum check-update.
#4: Not adding repositories for yum or apt-get
Both yum and apt-get use a listing of repositories that tell them where to locate available packages. But the default repositories (often called “repos”) do not include every Linux package known to Linuxkind. So if you run the command to install an application, and yum (or apt-get) can’t find the package, most likely you’ll have to add a repo to your sources listing. For yum, the sources are in /etc/yum.conf. For apt-get, they are placed in /etc/apt/sources.list. Once you have added a new repo, make sure you run the update so either apt or rpm is made aware of the new source.
5#: Not taking advantage of installing from a browser
Just as with Windows, when your system sees you are attempting to download an installable application, you’ll be asked whether you would like the package management system to attempt to install the file or just save it to disk. In both instances, you will be asked for the root password (so you must have access to said password for this to even work). One thing I’ve always like about this method (be it in a yum-based or dpkg-based system) is that it has almost always been good about locating and adding dependencies.
Naturally, this method works only when you are downloading a file that’s applicable to your system. If you attempt to download an rpm file on a Debian-based system, you won’t have the option of installing the file.
You can take this one step further and select the Always Do This… check box in the Firefox popup so that every time you download a file associated with your package management system, it will automatically prompt you for your root password and continue to install the package. This streamlines the process quite a bit.
#6: Forgetting the command line
Let’s say you’ve installed a headless server using Ubuntu or Debian (a common setup for Linux servers) and haven’t installed any of the graphical interfaces or desktops. To do any maintenance, you have to log in via ssh (because no admin would log in via telnet) and are limited to the command line only. Even so, your ability to keep your system updated or install new applications is not limited. You can still use yum or apt-get to manage your packages.
With a Debian-based system, you have another option: Aptitude. From the command line, issue the command aptitude and you will be greeted with a nice curses-based interface for apt. This system is easy to use and gives you an outstanding option for maintaining a gui-less server without losing functionality. Aptitude lists Security Updates, Upgradeable Packages, New Packages, Not Installed Packages, Obsolete Packages, Virtual Packages, and Tasks. As you scroll through the list, you will not only get the installed vs. the new package release numbers but also a description of the package. After using Aptitude, you will quickly see how simple updating Linux packages can be, even from the command line.
#7: Blindly unpacking tar files
I can’t tell you how many times I have downloaded a source package and without thinking, untarred the package not knowing its contents. Most times this works out fine. But there are a few times when the package creator/maintainer has failed to mention that the entire contents of the package are not housed in a parent directory. So instead of having a newly created directory housing the contents of the tar file (which can contain hundreds of files/directories), those files are blown up into the directory you unpacked them into.
To avoid this, I always create a temporary directory and move the tar file into it. Then, when I unpack the tar file, it doesn’t matter if the contents are contained within their own directory or not. Using this method will save you a LOT of cleanup in those cases where the creator didn’t pack everything in its own neat directory.
#8: Deleting those make files
When you’re installing from source, you’ll probably run make clean to get rid of all of those unneeded source files. But if you get rid of the Makefile, uninstalling will be a hassle. If you keep it, you can usually uninstall the program simply by issuing make uninstall from the directory housing the Makefile. A word of warning: Don’t dump all your Makefiles into one directory. First rename them so you know which application they belong to. When you want to uninstall the application, move the Makefile to another directory, rename it to its original name, and then run the uninstall command. Once you’ve uninstalled the application, you can delete the Makefile.
#9: Installing for the wrong architecture
You might notice that many rpm files will have an i386, i586, i686, PPC, 64, etc. There is a reason for this. Unless the rpm file has noarch included in the filename, that rpm file was created for a specific architecture. And when those files were created for that architecture, they were optimized for it, so they’ll will run better. Does that mean you can’t install an i586 on a standard 386 machine? Of course not. But it will not run as efficiently as it will on the indicated architecture. Now, you can’t install a PPC rpm on an x86 architecture. The PPC architecture is for the Motorola chipset. Nor can you install the 64 bit on a 32 bit. You can, however, install the 32 bit on a 64 bit (as in the case when you want to get Firefox running with Flash on a 64-bit machine).
#10: Failing to address problems with kernel updates
It used to be that updating kernels was a task left to the silverback geeks. No more. With the new package management systems, anyone can update a kernel. But there are some gotchas you should know about. One issue is that of space. With every update of a kernel, your old kernel is retained. If you continually update kernels, your system storage can quickly fill up. It’s always a good idea to check to see what older kernels you can get rid of. If you’re using rpm, issue the command rpm -qa | grep kernel to see what you have installed. You can remove all but the last two installed. It’s always best to keep two in case the one you are running gets fubar’d.
So guys who are using Ubuntu or any other distros please keep this things in mind while installing anything in your distros and you will never be in any problem.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Video recording comes to iPhone
iSmashphone posted a review of the two video recording apps, Cycorder (free) and Video Recorder (US$20).
Cycorder features real-time compression but doesn’t have audio recording. Video Recorder features audio, portrait mode and YouTube sharing but no real-time compression (”it took over 2 minutes to encode a 30-second video.”)
Screen shots and video samples are at iSmashphone.com.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Your E-Mail address says a lot about you
If you happen to be iamthegreatest@gmail.com, for example, will people think you a narcissist? And if they do, will they be right? People really do judge others based on the e-mail addresses they choose. What's more interesting, however, is that these judgments tend to be right.
In a research paper published recently in the Journal of Research in Personality, the scientists took a look at just under 600 e-mail addresses and had the people who created them fill out a brief personality questionnaire. Then, they asked 100 students to rate these same addresses to find out if the e-mail names seemed to be neurotic, open, agreeable, conscientious, narcissistic or extroverted. The first thing they discovered is that the students tended to judge people based on their addresses. For example, people who used words like "little" or "sweet" or "baby" combined with cute animal names like "mousie" or "bunny" were thought to be more agreeable ... and neurotic. On the other hand, words like "King" or "thebest" were linked to narcissism. Even more interesting, these judgments tended to be right in five of the six personality categories they measured. Openness was the easiest thing to correctly gauge, but when it came to extroversion, the students' assessments tended to miss the mark. Study participants had strong opinions about whether e-mail addresses were owned by extroverts -- they just didn't happen to be particularly accurate.
As per the researchers say it's astonishing that the sliver of information that you pass on in your e-mail address can be enough for people to get a valid read on your personality. So what if you don't want people to judge you based on your Gmail account? No way, say the researchers. Even if you choose a totally neutral address, you're still giving away information about yourself. Their advice is simple: Choose an address you like. After all, is it really such a bad thing for others to see you the way you are?
So next time you want to sign up for a new mail account please be sure about this. Please choose a separate email address always for your job search purposes. In this way you can beat others and make an impression on the employees. So never be late in that or maybe you just loose a job to a other guy who used my advice.
Best Of luck.