Techno-Freek

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Location: Hyderabad, India

4/27/2005

My Best Freeware List

Best Free Software Suite The Open CD site offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC. Many of these substitute admirably for expensive commercial products. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, ThunderBird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZIP are many more. Note: All of the Open CD utilities can be downloaded for free as a CD ISO image. If you have a slow connection you can purchase the CD for a very modest cost. http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/programs/

Best Free Web Browser Internet Explorer has become such a target for malicious exploits that it is now a major security risk. The browser is now looking dated with most alternative products offering tabbed browsing. There are several excellent alternatives but Mozilla FireFox is the stand-out pick. It's much safer than Internet Explorer, so safe in fact that many users have reported no spyware infections since they started using the product. It's also browses faster than Internet Explorer and since the release of version 1.0, it's stable and reliable as well. It loads a little slower than IE but once running, it zips along at lightning speed. With tabbed browsing and more free extensions than you could ever want, it offers a major upgrade in your browsing experience. Unlike IE, it's also standards compliant. FireFox is now my everyday browser . Get Firefox Best Free Anti-Virus Software There are two equal recommendations in this category. First there is AVG Antivirus 7.0 Free Edition. This product has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and now offers very impressive protection capabilities. Additionally, it's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no direct technical support. Even so, it's an impressive package and offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites. Equally impressive is the free Avast! scanner though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does does not http://www.grisoft.com http://www.avast.com Best Free Firewall The number and quality of free products is remarkable. My choice for "best" goes to Kerio Personal Firewall, the product that seems to cause the fewest problems for users. More adventurous users and the technically inclined may however wish to consider ZoneAlarm and Sygate which i am using at present. http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html

Best Free WebMail Accessory Two suggestions: the first is a nifty free product called YPOPs! (formerly YahooPops!) that allows you to collect your Yahoo webmail from within your POP email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Eudora. I use it on multiple Yahoo accounts and it works wonderfully. The second suggestion is an Open Source utility called MrPostman. It's a much more flexible product than YPOPs! and will download HotMail, Lycos, Yahoo and several other webmail services into your POP email client. It can also give you access to email accounts on MS Exchange 5.5. If you only use Yahoo webmail, go with YPOPs! as MrPostman is a more complex program and may need a bit of fiddling to work correctly. You'll find a couple of links below that will help you. Note that MrPostman requires the Java Runtime Environment to be installed on your PC. http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/ http://mrpostman.sourceforge.net/ http://2mod2.com/mohot/ <= Installing Mr Postman http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=68124 <= MrPostman forum

Trust Rank Algorithm

TrustRank is a system for automatically separating "spam" Web pages from "good" ones. Google registered the trademark for TrustRank on March 16 - does this mean we can look forward to less spam in our Google search results? TrustRank can be use to

  • automatically boost pages that have a high probablility of being good, as well as demote the rankings of pages that have a high probability of being bad.
  • help search engines identify what pages should be good canidates for quality review

Some common ideas that TrustRank is based upon:

  • Good pages rarely link to bad ones. Bad pages often link to good ones in an attempt to improve hub scores.
  • The care with which people add links to a page is often inversely proportional to the number of links on the page.
  • Trust score is attenuated as it passes from site to site.
Trust Rank Algorithm explained here.

4/24/2005

Tiger Unleashed

Mac OS X Tiger changes the way we use a computer. Breakthrough search technology, stunning graphics and media, unparalleled connectivity, an intuitive user interface and a virtual toolbox chock full of cleverly integrated features — all atop a rock-solid UNIX foundation — give us the most innovative, stable and compatible desktop operating system on the planet. SpotLight

Spotlight for Mac OS X Tiger lets us blaze through all of your files and applications and see results as soon as you type the very first letter. That’s because Spotlight indexes every file on our computer transparently and in the background, so we never experience lag times or slowdowns. And when we make a change, such as adding a new file, receiving an email or entering a new contact, Spotlight updates its index automatically, so search results are always up-to-the-moment accurate.(I think all the desktop searches must improve in the lines of spotlight). Dashboard
Dashboard is home to widgets: mini-applications that let you perform common tasks and provide you with fast access to information. With a single click, Dashboard appears, complete with widgets that bring you a world of information — real-time weather, stock tickers, flight information and more — instantly. Dashboard disappears just as easily, so we can get back to what we were doing. What’s on Board Tiger includes a suite of widgets to get you started, and we can add more anytime. With so many widgets at your disposal, the Widget Bar comes in handy. Along with the above Dictionary and Address book there are many more widgets. Automator
Automator comes complete with a library of hundreds of Actions. Each Action is designed to perform a single task, such as finding linked images in a web page, renaming a group of files or creating a new event in an iCal calendar. Actions from the Automator library are added in sequence to a Workflow document. Each Action in the Workflow corresponds to an individual step that you would normally do to accomplish your task. The results of one action are seamlessly passed to the next action. For example, we can rename a group of image files so they all share the same base name but are numbered sequentially (ProductShot001.jpg, ProductShot002.jpg, etc.) in seconds. Once they’re renamed, Automator can automatically scale every image, create an archive and then attach it to a new email message and send the message. After you create a Workflow, you execute it by clicking the Run button in the Workflow document window. Automator performs each step in the Workflow in order until your work is done.

4/23/2005

Buffer overflow bug explained

What is a buffer overflow and how does it happen? Why does it seem like almost every virus, spyware or hacking program is taking advantage of this flaw? How did this one problem become so out of control that it can not be fixed? Lingo - The Talk of Broadband For the many of you who don't know the answers to these questions, this article will try to answer them as plain as possible. To understand the idea behind this trick called buffer overflow we must first present some basic rules of program execution and hardware, which a typical computer might be using. For the sake of simplicity we will use a very basic and primitive layout. Memory All programs use specified sections of memory where they are loaded into and run from. Each individual byte of memory represents a single place holder similar to a square found on a chess board. To keep track of each square location they are labeled vertically and horizontally just like letters and numbers on a chess board. However, instead of a traditional labeling system, computer memory is labeled with both letters and numbers for columns and rows which make up the amount of memory your system handles at one time. To give you a better understanding, imagine a chess board the size of 16x16 or 256 bytes of memory for both, horizontal and vertical, labeled 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E and F. This also conveniently enough happens to be the proper hexadecimal system all computer processors use today. Each of the 256 chess board squares is a location called an "address". Value and location Often they can be confused because the same characters are used to represent the very data content which is placed in memory (on the chess board). If our chess board represents locations, chess pieces with characters on them would be data values. The confusion comes from when a value is placed in the same character representation of an address location. For example; 6 stored at address 6 or 2B stored at address 2B. In any case, it is important to keep in mind the difference between what is stored (the value) and where it is stored (the address location). To separate the difference imagine our chess board as a flat 2D surface with location address written on each square and the chess pieces as 3D cubes with data value written on each of the six sides. Program execution The program execution is what all hackers and virus writers are after. It is the sequential reading of data which is stored in memory and passed to the central processor to execute one byte and one address at a single time. An example of this would be following a horizontal line on our chess board, of 3D data cubes and picking up each one in sequence to read the value on the cube and then the value on the board. Reading starts from left to right and wraps around to the next bottom left line just like reading text. Once execution starts, when you double click on a program or trigger an even in an existing program, it follows a critically specified path which was paved at the time when the program was written. Once taken over by the attacker, a new path can be paved to create new actions often unfriendly and damaging. The execution path can have many branches which curve program execution in many different ways depending on what is and what is not happening at a given moment of current condition of a task. Because many of those tasks repeat exactly as they appear, a function to jump out of the path can be used to save on space, and use the same path over and over again until another condition is met. The call The "call" function which jumps out of sequential program execution only to follow another path located somewhere else in memory is the problematic one here. For example when reading lyrics of a song, the chorus often is repeated but written once for that same reason. Once the jump is made and program execution begins in another place, there must be a way to remember where the old path ended. Kind of like remembering which verse to go back to after the chorus is over. A buffer, often called a "stack" is defined to store the address location immediately after a "call" function, and then released after the program returns. However, when the "call" function finishes, the actual data values are not erased from the stack, and instead something called a "stack pointer" keeps track of where the next return address is located at. Unavoidably, the external paths can also have other external paths which the programmer might want to use in another "call" function before the program gets a chance to return. For this reason, the stack buffer is often preset to be large enough to accept many "call" functions immediately one after another. Unfortunately, as you are about to find out, this buffer is not infinite. The overflow As you can already guess, the overflow happens when the stack buffer runs out of room to store all of those address locations for the many "call" functions which are executed. The attacker, who purposely overflows the stack buffer, uses a section of the program which allows for this multiple "call" mechanism as part of a normal program function, which is in many ways overlooked by the programmer and designer of the program. An extensive look in to the workings of a program can reveal many ways of doing this in a poorly created and un-debugged application. But the overflow itself will not let the attacker take over the program execution to form a new path. Because of space limitations and the constant compaction of code by software engineers, it is often the case that the end of the stack buffer is where another program path execution begins. As the buffer overfills, the new address value of the next return address eventually overwrites on top of that path and changes the original code which was once written there. Obviously, that code path will no longer function the same, and if code execution ever reaches that point again it will execute the new path paved by the attacker who forced the code on to the buffer stack. This is where the value and location confusion frequently happens because the location addresses which are being stored on to the stack buffer can also be carefully crafted values which in sequence make up a new path of code execution. Because the values are not erased from the "stack" they will be forming new code and new path for next time the code executes the spilled end of the stack buffer. From this point, a new path can be formed with more code injections into memory. The attacker has control over the execution and has unlimited access to the computer (or other hardware). Whatever the user was able to do; the attacker can do as well and even more. The bug fix There have been many patches and many attempts to fix this problem for every hardware system imaginable. Most of those fixes just stop the current trick to overflow the buffer and a new way to overflow it the same exact way can quickly be found. The proper way to fix the problem is to include a check after every stack buffer function and make sure it is not overfilling. However, most programmers get occupied with their project and sometimes are inexperienced and forget to include those checks in some places. Luckily there have been some improvements and actual fixes of the "call" and other similar functions at their core. Programming languages such as Java, Perl, Python and the new .NET languages such as C# and J# have special compilers which eliminate the problem all together. The programmer doesn't have to remember to put a check in every place and instead, the compiler takes care of the problem in every spot. This simple fix has been often proposed but because it slows down program execution, is hasn't been implemented until recently now that processors are much faster and can handle the extra work. Another fix to this problem, but maybe an attempt at best, was the introduction of the Enhanced Virus Protection in AMD 64 bit processors. With the release of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP a bit can be turned on and not allow for the stack buffer values to be executed. Intel answered this with their own version of Titanium processors with the NX (No eXecution) bit. While this fixes all attacks which took advantage of stack to execute code, it still allows it to be over flown. The code to execute could be forced to overflow further pass the stack buffer and still executed from there. Nevertheless this hardware based solution is a solid improvement over the old buffer overflow security and with the help of new programming languages, which fix the problem at its core, in time we should never hear of another buffer overflow hack again.

My Search History (Beta)

Remember what you saw on Google, no matter where you are. Activating Google's "My Search History" service, unveiled Wednesday afternoon at http://labs.google.com, requires users to create a personal login with a password. Users of Google's e-mail, discussion groups and answer services can simply use their existing log-ins. The service allows users to decide if they want Google to automatically recognize them without having to log in each time they use the same computer. Those who prefer to log in on each visit can use a link that will appear in the right-hand corner of Google's home page. Whenever a user is logged in, Google will provide a detailed look at all their past search activity. The service also includes a "pause" feature that prevents it from being displayed in the index. Check it out here.

4/20/2005

Spammers Mining P2P For Addresses

Spammers are mining peer-to-peer (P2P) networks for addresses, and finding it lucrative work, a security expert said on tuesday.

According to Eran Reshef, the chief executive and co-founder of Blue Security, sophisticated and smart spammers are harvesting e-mail addresses from systems linked to P2P networks via such software as eDonkey 2000 and Gnutella.

"They're going into P2P networks and harvesting addresses accidentally shared, then spamming every address they find," said Reshef.

P2P harvesting is very different from the better-known directory harvest attack (DHA), which is when spammer's flood mail servers with thousands of address variations, hoping to get a response when a valid address is queried. P2P harvesting relies on novice file-sharing users who mistakenly set their software to share more than just one or two directories on their PC.

"All it takes is one person you know, who you've sent an e-mail address," said Reshef. "This friend of yours has your e-mail address somewhere in his files, likely in his Outlook .pst file. He doesn't know P2P, and rather than share just some songs, sets the file-sharing software to share his entire hard drive, including his Outlook .pst file for spammers to find and see."

All a spammer has to do, added Reshef, is connect to a file-sharing network and then search for strings such as "email" or "e-mail" or "Outlook.pst."

That's exactly what Blue Security, which has yet to launch its first service, a "do-not-disturb" anti-spam and anti-antispyware list, did. To scout out the scope of the P2P harvesting problem, Blue Security set up 500 virgin e-mail accounts, listed those addresses in several files on a PC connected to the eDonkey 2000 and Gnutella file-sharing networks, and shared the directories the files were in.

Within a day, those new addresses received more than 100 pieces of spam. Within three days, the number had jumped to over 300 spams. Even two weeks later, those addresses were collecting more than 100 messages per day.

"Addresses found in a P2P harvest are likely to be spammed for a long time as the addresses are harvested and re-harvested by new spammers," said Reshef. "They're likely to stay on the network and simply circulate."

Spammers use this harvesting tactic, said Reshef, because it provides them a clean, reliable list of valid addresses. "P2P is a much better source than, say, a directory harvest attack. They're all real, verified addresses, for one thing, and sometimes there's contextual information elsewhere on the shared drive. We've seen customer information files mistakenly shared via P2P, as well as lists of a university's 'private' e-mail addresses. And Outlook, which spammers are really eager to get a hold of, contains your entire life, everything from addresses and phone numbers to notes and appointments."

Spammers don't stop there with P2P, Reshef went on, but also use file-sharing networks to sell and/or trade their mailing lists and bulk mailing software.

"We were really amazed by the systematic way spammers are using P2P networks," said Reshef. "It's not just one or two spammers, but dozens who are lurking on file-sharing networks."

And this harvesting method is difficult to stymie, said Reshef, since defending yourself doesn't assure that your e-mail address won't leak out and be used by spammers. "You can make sure you don't share private files, and ask friends to do the same," he said, "but at the end of the day, all it takes is one person to put your address out there."

Later this year, said Reshef, Blue Security will unveil a solution that will protect against P2P spam harvesting. Users can register for more information about the upcoming beta on the Blue Security site.

4/19/2005

Elite Hacker Crew

The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapon program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.

The group's existence was revealed during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month. Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, disclosed the existence of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare, or JFCCNW.

In simple terms and sans any military jargon, the unit could best be described as the world's most formidable hacker posse. Ever.

The JFCCNW is charged with defending all Department of Defense networks. The unit is also responsible for the highly classified, evolving mission of Computer Network Attack, or as some military personnel refer to it, CNA.

But aside from that, little else is known. One expert on cyber warfare said considering the unit is a "joint command," it is most likely made up of personnel from the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI, the four military branches, a smattering of civilians and even military representatives from allied nations.

Source

4/18/2005

Microsoft Releases Data Backup Solution

Microsoft announced earlier this week that it had released a public beta version of Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, a near-continuous, disk-based backup and recovery solution for the Microsoft Windows Server System. DPM will be accompanied by two related releases - a software developer kit that helps Microsoft's storage partners develop software for archiving data from DPM, and a Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 pack that facilitates DPM management. Microsoft says DPM delivers faster backup speeds, made possible by near-continuous protection that backs up incremental changes to documents rather than the entire document as a whole. This enables IT managers to protect file servers many times throughout the day, limiting the amount of data a business may lose. DPM also features expanded and faster recovery options and a lower total cost of ownership. "Our whole goal with DPM is to shrink the operational costs associated with IT professionals having to manually recover lost data and manage cumbersome backup and recovery processes," says Ben Matheson, group product manager for DPM at Microsoft. "From what our early-adopter customers are telling us, DPM is doing that very effectively." DPM works exclusively with Microsoft file servers. Future releases of DPM will support the entire Windows Server system, including Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server and others. General availability of DPM is slated for later this year.

4/15/2005

YaGoo! Search

A new search engine has arrived combining the power of google and yahoo. This site maps all most all the searches like Image, News , Directory, Local and Product search. Below is a screen shot of the site. I am happy to say that one of my friends KC designed it. You can visit the site here.

4/14/2005

Microsoft's Really hidden files

Before reading this post I want my readers to know that I am neither a Microsoft hater nor a fan. This post is a part of a tutorial which i have found on the internet.. Read on.. There are folders on your computer that Microsoft has tried hard to keep secret. Within these folders you will find two major things: Microsoft Internet Explorer has not been clearing your browsing history after you have instructed it to do so, and Microsoft's Outlook Express has not been deleting your e-mail correspondence after you've erased them from your Deleted Items bin. (This also includes all incoming and outgoing file attachments.) And believe me, that's not even the half of it.

When I say these files are hidden well, I really mean it. If you don't have any knowledge of DOS then don't plan on finding these files on your own. I say this because these files/folders won't be displayed in Windows Explorer at all -- only DOS. (Even after you have enabled Windows Explorer to "show all files.") And to top it off, the only way to find them in DOS is if you knew the exact location of them. Basically, what I'm saying is if you didn't know the files existed then the chances of you running across them is slim to slimmer.

Enabling Windows Explorer to "show all files" does not show the files in mention. No. DOS does not list the files after receiving a proper directory listing from root. And yes. Microsoft intentionally disabled the "Find" utility from searching through one of the folders.

Oh, but that's not all.

Just from one of these files I would be able to tell you which web sites you previously visited, what types of things you search for in search engines, and probably gather your ethnicity, religion, and your preferences. Needless to say one can build quite a profile on you from these files.

Dear Readers you can get the tutorial on how to access those files here.

4/13/2005

Online 'Phishing'

Computer security is in the spotlight at the world's biggest IT fair, the CeBIT, with software companies touting the latest defenses against ever more devious tricks in Internet fraud. Firms gathered at the event in this northern German city said a technique known as "phishing" -- from the words password and fishing -- was among the most insidious scams operating on the Web. The practice involves e-mails sent to clients from sites imitating the bank sites that asked for personal passwords, security codes as well as bank and credit card numbers. When unsuspecting users click on the links provided, they end up giving away the most sensitive of information to thieves. Often the targets are not even clients of the financial institutions in question but a mass "phishing" expedition can bring in a healthy haul even if only a small percentage falls for the trick. The world leader in Internet security systems, Symantec, said that 33 million "phishing" mails had been sent in the course of just one week, versus nine million six months earlier. "It's a very easy fraud scheme to launch that is not very expensive and can be very lucrative," said Olaf Lindner, director of security services for central and eastern Europe. In that six-month period, Symantec recorded 10,310 different kinds of phishing schemes, Lindner added. The company has developed a personal firewall to help protect clients against such malicious e-mails. Experts also have a number of tips for consumers. Never click on a link in a mail but rather type out the address in the URL field. If the mail appears to be from a bank, check to make sure the address begins with "https" and there is a small padlock in the navigator window at the bottom right of the screen indicating a secure site. Russian Internet security firm Kaspersky said the industry was still playing catch-up in the fight against phishing. "These are organized groups trying to make money," anti-virus expert Eugene Kaspersky said. In 2004, phishing cost Internet users three million euros (four million dollars), according to Kaspersky. A study published in January by the Anti-Phishing Working Group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts found 2,560 phishing Web sites. They masked themselves as 64 different companies, up from 46 in October 2004, and 80 percent of them were trying to pose as a bank or other financial institution. Most of the sites were based in the United States (32 percent), followed by China and Taiwan (13 percent), and South Korea (10 percent).

4/12/2005

Fuell cell battery

IBM and Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd announced plans to create a prototype notebook with computer batteries made out of a fuel cell system.The two companies have joined together to develop a battery that could last up to 8 hours on long-lasting fuel cell technology, unlike the current battery which must be recharged every 2 to 6 hours. The fuel would be a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, which would mix to generate electricity. It is considered to be the next-generation replacement for batteries. "This is quite a new concept that utilizes both micro fuel cells and rechargeable batteries," said Mitsuru Homma, group executive of Sanyo's Power Solutions group. "This hybrid system could enable the user to efficiently operate IBM's ThinkPad notebooks for a longer time compared to systems with only a fuel cell while also providing the convenience of an AC cordless," Homma added. At a joint briefing in Tokyo Monday, the two companies showed off a prototype of hybrid system. Source- Google News

4/11/2005

Welcome Readers

Hello all Today i have a good news for all the faithful readers of my blog. I categorized my blog so that you readers can easily navigate and read the posts. Thank You Techno Freek

What?How?Why?

  1. Bits and Bytes
  2. Trust rank algorithm
  3. Buffer overflow bug explained
  4. Microsoft's Really hidden files
  5. Hard drive Format review
  6. Bios
  7. Operating system processes
  8. File Allocation Table
  9. What are Cookies.html
  10. Computing Cosmos
  11. Search your web history
  12. Share files freely in xp
  13. Undo file deletion

Google

  1. Google unveils personalized search
  2. Google announces personalized home page
  3. google releases web accelerator
  4. My search history
  5. I am Google fan
  6. Google's desktop search
  7. Google is Hiring
  8. Secret of Google Revealed
  9. Flaws in google desktop search
  10. Computers Idle time is precious
  11. Gmail Contest
  12. Google Video
  13. Source of google's power
  14. Plug in enables pdf search
  15. Gmail rocks

Hacks and Alerts

  1. Michael jackson suicide can kill your PC
  2. Bagle resurfaces
  3. Firefox users fight phishing
  4. Online Phishing
  5. Alert all Internet users
  6. 11 signs of spyware
  7. utilitygeek
  8. Fake Microsoft update

Technology

  1. Microsoft revs up windows for cars
  2. Opera incorporates bittorrent
  3. Worlds fastest gaming cpu
  4. Samsung wins latest memory speed race
  5. Microsoft works on own bittorrent
  6. Yahoo launches deep web search
  7. Prototype of HD DVD-R developed
  8. Mindset tool from yahoo
  9. Sony tests cd copy protection
  10. Yahoos photomail
  11. Fuell cell battery
  12. Microprocessor Challenge to Intel
  13. xp goes to 64 bits
  14. Many Processors in one
  15. Snailmail 2.0
  16. Yahoo tests blend of blogging
  17. Intel back with a bang
  18. Microsoft targets skype
  19. Hard disk density doubled

Software

  1. Ibm to bury os2
  2. Microsoft's acrylic
  3. Yahoo-messenger v700242 beta
  4. Do you need MS desktop search
  5. Microsoft launches desktop search
  6. Firefox vulnerabilities patched
  7. Aol previews next gen instant messenger
  8. Tiger unleashed
  9. Microsoft releases data backup Solution.
  10. Auto Animator
  11. Microsoft Anti spyware
  12. Extensions Enhance Firefox
  13. Extremely Critical
  14. Ie is worthless
  15. Winfs on xp
  16. Well Done Microsoft

Miscellaneous

  1. Microsoft's virtual earth
  2. Ibm moves into enterprise blogging
  3. Ibm to bury OS/2
  4. sony unveils playstation 3
  5. xbox 360 unveiled
  6. Laptop for 10000 Rs(200$)
  7. My best freeware list
  8. yagoo search
  9. Breaking News
  10. Exposing Digital Forgeries.html
  11. 3 Laws Unsafe.html
  12. Fastest Super Computer,Hackers Target Mac
  13. NoExcuses
  14. Great Stuff
  15. Interesting Stuff.html
  16. Energy saving Screens
  17. Smart shoes
  18. Yahoo video Search
  19. Autolink stir Debate

4/10/2005

Undo a file deletion

For better or worse, it takes effort to truly delete files from your system. In most cases, files removed from a hard drive actually remain there until new files overwrite them. If a data-recovery program can find the files before they're overwritten, you have an excellent chance of restoring your data. Whether a file was deleted accidentally or is inaccessible because of damage to the drive or its file system, remember the golden rule of data recovery: Act fast! The more you use a hard drive, the more likely the file will be overwritten and lost forever.

Files that have been "permanently" deleted--when you empty the Recycle Bin or press - to bypass the Recycle Bin entirely--aren't really deleted; Windows just alters each file name's first letter in the disk's bookkeeping system so the file will be ignored by the operating system. Windows tags as available all the space each file is using on the disk, designating the file as overwritable. Recovering a deleted file is therefore a matter of having a tool that restores the file's original name and retags the file before Windows or one of your applications overwrites it.

Symantec's SystemWorks 2005 includes an undelete program, and the free trial version of Ontrack's EasyRecovery Lite 6 will tell you whether a file is recoverable. A free alternative is Brian Kato's Restoration utility).

If you use Windows XP or 2000, make sure the program you select supports the file system your hard disk uses, either FAT32 or NTFS (read on for more on Windows file-system differences). If you're not sure which format your hard drive uses, open My Computer, right-click the drive's icon, select Properties, and look to the right of 'File system'.

Important:

1. DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING ONTO THE DRIVE CONTAINING YOUR IMPORTANT DATA THAT YOU HAVE JUST DELETED ACCIDENTALLY! Even data recovery software installation could spoil your sensitive data. If the data is really important to you and you do not have another logical drive to install software to, take the whole hard drive out of the computer and plug it into another computer where data recovery software has been already installed or use recovery software that does not require installation, for example recovery software which is capable to run from bootable floppy.

2. DO NOT TRY TO SAVE ONTO THE SAME DRIVE DATA THAT YOU FOUND AND TRYING TO RECOVER! When saving recovered data onto the same drive where sensitive data is located, you can intrude in process of recovering by overwriting FAT/MFT records for this and other deleted entries. It's better to save data onto another logical, removable, network or floppy drive.

4/09/2005

Fake Microsoft update

A mass e-mail being circulated by hackers purporting to be a Microsoft Windows update alert directs computer users to a fake website where a Trojan virus is installed, security experts said. The security firm Websense said it began receiving reports this week of the e-mail claiming to be from Microsoft, coincidentally after the software giant announced it was making security updates. "This e-mail spoofs users into thinking that they must update their windows software," Websense said yesterday. "Upon clicking on the link, users are forwarded to a fraudulent website. This website is hosted in Australia, and was up at the time of this alert. The website appears very similar to the real windows update site." But when a user attempts to perform the update, a Trojan horse virus is installed that allows hackers access to the infected computers, the company said. Anti-virus experts at Sophos has a set of guidelines which users can follow to help them practice safe computing, which I would recommend all my blog readers take a look at.

Well done Microsoft

Microsoft-funded system to fight child pornography is launched

Canada's Child Exploitation Tracking System was officially launched today, 27 months after a frustrated detective with the Toronto police department sent an E-mail message to Bill Gates requesting help with his department's effort to track down and prosecute child-pornography producers and consumers. Microsoft invested $2 million to develop the system, which is available to 26 law-enforcement agencies in Canada, and has pledged another $2 million to extend it further. Microsoft hopes to propogate more systems like it in other parts of the world.

CETS was developed by Microsoft Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and it's housed at the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. Based on Microsoft software, the system lets investigators share, search, and analyze information across agencies. It makes "connections across millions of data points that no one investigator or team of investigators can do" on their own, says Tim Cranton, a senior attorney and director of Internet safety enforcement at Microsoft.

During beta testing last fall, the tracking system led to the arrest of an alleged child pornographer after Canadian law-enforcement officials matched some of their own data with information from U.S. and U.K. agencies.

CETS is just one of several initiatives at Microsoft aimed at stemming child pornography and promoting online safety for children. Child-protection experts at Microsoft are working with the Windows development team on potential ways of building protective mechanisms directly into the platform. "There is a group within the Windows team that is looking at these issues and making proposals," Cranton says.

4/08/2005

Microsoft Targets Skype

Microsoft released an update to its MSN Messenger application today, offering improved video and voice calls in an effort to catch the eyes and ears of more Internet users. At the same time it launched a finished version of an online scrapbook service it has been testing, MSN Spaces, and rolled out new advertising opportunities.

The MSN updates are aimed at making the company's services more interactive, as it takes on challengers such as Internet telephony startup Skype Technologies. Skype has seen steady growth for its free PC-to-PC voice service, leading it to roll out PC-to-mobile-phone calls and messaging capabilities. Microsoft wants to get one step ahead with the release of its new MSN Messenger 7 instant messaging application, which, in addition to free voice calls, offers free PC-to-PC video calls for users with a Webcam. The video call feature uses technology from Webcam maker Logitech to synchronize audio and video streams. Users can watch a video in the Messenger window or get up close and personal in full-screen mode. Additionally, the company plans to incorporate a feature in coming months that will allow Messenger users to send messages to friends' mobile phones. Messenger 7, which has been in beta since December, also includes the ability to perform a search during a chat session and share photos.
Along with the new Messenger software, Microsoft's web logging service MSN Spaces has finally gone live. MS say more than 4.5 million "Spaces" have been created since its beta launch in late 2004. "People all over the world are spending more of their time communicating online and MSN is providing the services they use," said Blake Irving, corporate vice president for the MSN Communication Services and Member Platform group at Microsoft Corp. "We continue to invest in services that create meaningful, personal and emotional connections for our customers, letting them express themselves in ways that suit them best."

4/06/2005

Hard Disk Density Doubled

Hitachi's hard disk division has pushed a real density to 230Gbit per square inch, which could lead to one inch drives with 230GByte of storage within two years. The trick employed by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is called perpendicular recording, which the company says can increase density by a factor of 10.Using this technique, standard 3.5 inch drives could reach 1Tbyte by 2007, claimed the firm. As its name suggests, perpendicular recording aligns data bits at 90 degrees to the plane of the recording medium. Today's hard drives use longitudinal recording. The inevitable trade-off of packing more data into the available space is that the recording head must be closer to the recording medium. Getting to 230Gbit/in² meant getting to heads within 10nm of the platter. "We are at the cusp of the most significant hard drive technology transition of the past decade, and it's one that holds so much promise for the hard drive and consumer electronics industries," said Jun Naruse, CEO of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

4/02/2005

Gmail Rocks

For the second year in row Google has made a splash on April Fools Day.

Last year, Google announced to the world a free email service called Gmail which included 1 gigabyte of free storage. At the time of last years announcement, many people thought Google's announcement was simply an April Fools' Day joke since the amount of storage space being offered was so much greater than the amount being offered by competitors Yahoo! and Hotmail.

This April 1st, Google is telling its users that the 'G' in Gmail stands for growth so they have rolled out their new "top secret Infinity+1 storage plan". The details of the Infinity +1 plan aren't being released but the company says the first step is to double the amount of storage space available to its users to 2 gigabytes.

They are at this very moment running a counter on their website. The value of the counter is being upgrading the webmail storage of every GMail account around continuously! I expect this counter to last until the time it reaches the 2GB mark. Or maybe not! Maybe Google will just let it continue to fulfill their promise of infinity plus one initiative!

They have surprised us before. This sounds to be another one. Or maybe this one is an April Fools Joke. However, for that Google had Google Gulp Beta!

includes an undelete program, and the free trial version of Ontrack's EasyRecovery Lite 6 will tell you whether a file is recoverable. A free alternative is Brian Kato's Restoration utility).

If you use Windows XP or 2000, make sure the program you select supports the file system your hard disk uses, either FAT32 or NTFS (read on for more on Windows file-system differences). If you're not sure which format your hard drive uses, open My Computer, right-click the drive's icon, select Properties, and look to the right of 'File system'.

Important:

1. DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING ONTO THE DRIVE CONTAINING YOUR IMPORTANT DATA THAT YOU HAVE JUST DELETED ACCIDENTALLY! Even data recovery software installation could spoil your sensitive data. If the data is really important to you and you do not have another logical drive to install software to, take the whole hard drive out of the computer and plug it into another computer where data recovery software has been already installed or use recovery software that does not require installation, for example recovery software which is capable to run from bootable floppy.

2. DO NOT TRY TO SAVE ONTO THE SAME DRIVE DATA THAT YOU FOUND AND TRYING TO RECOVER! When saving recovered data onto the same drive where sensitive data is located, you can intrude in process of recovering by overwriting FAT/MFT records for this and other deleted entries. It's better to save data onto another logical, removable, network or floppy drive.

|W|P|111314488699760221|W|P|Undo a file deletion|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/09/2005 10:17:00 PM|W|P|Phani|W|P|A mass e-mail being circulated by hackers purporting to be a Microsoft Windows update alert directs computer users to a fake website where a Trojan virus is installed, security experts said. The security firm Websense said it began receiving reports this week of the e-mail claiming to be from Microsoft, coincidentally after the software giant announced it was making security updates. "This e-mail spoofs users into thinking that they must update their windows software," Websense said yesterday. "Upon clicking on the link, users are forwarded to a fraudulent website. This website is hosted in Australia, and was up at the time of this alert. The website appears very similar to the real windows update site." But when a user attempts to perform the update, a Trojan horse virus is installed that allows hackers access to the infected computers, the company said. Anti-virus experts at Sophos has a set of guidelines which users can follow to help them practice safe computing, which I would recommend all my blog readers take a look at. |W|P|111306545778517505|W|P|Fake Microsoft update|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/09/2005 12:30:00 PM|W|P|Phani|W|P|Microsoft-funded system to fight child pornography is launched

Canada's Child Exploitation Tracking System was officially launched today, 27 months after a frustrated detective with the Toronto police department sent an E-mail message to Bill Gates requesting help with his department's effort to track down and prosecute child-pornography producers and consumers. Microsoft invested $2 million to develop the system, which is available to 26 law-enforcement agencies in Canada, and has pledged another $2 million to extend it further. Microsoft hopes to propogate more systems like it in other parts of the world.

CETS was developed by Microsoft Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and it's housed at the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. Based on Microsoft software, the system lets investigators share, search, and analyze information across agencies. It makes "connections across millions of data points that no one investigator or team of investigators can do" on their own, says Tim Cranton, a senior attorney and director of Internet safety enforcement at Microsoft.

During beta testing last fall, the tracking system led to the arrest of an alleged child pornographer after Canadian law-enforcement officials matched some of their own data with information from U.S. and U.K. agencies.

CETS is just one of several initiatives at Microsoft aimed at stemming child pornography and promoting online safety for children. Child-protection experts at Microsoft are working with the Windows development team on potential ways of building protective mechanisms directly into the platform. "There is a group within the Windows team that is looking at these issues and making proposals," Cranton says.

|W|P|111303023060487892|W|P|Well done Microsoft|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/08/2005 06:20:00 PM|W|P|Phani|W|P|Microsoft released an update to its MSN Messenger application today, offering improved video and voice calls in an effort to catch the eyes and ears of more Internet users. At the same time it launched a finished version of an online scrapbook service it has been testing, MSN Spaces, and rolled out new advertising opportunities.

The MSN updates are aimed at making the company's services more interactive, as it takes on challengers such as Internet telephony startup Skype Technologies. Skype has seen steady growth for its free PC-to-PC voice service, leading it to roll out PC-to-mobile-phone calls and messaging capabilities. Microsoft wants to get one step ahead with the release of its new MSN Messenger 7 instant messaging application, which, in addition to free voice calls, offers free PC-to-PC video calls for users with a Webcam. The video call feature uses technology from Webcam maker Logitech to synchronize audio and video streams. Users can watch a video in the Messenger window or get up close and personal in full-screen mode. Additionally, the company plans to incorporate a feature in coming months that will allow Messenger users to send messages to friends' mobile phones. Messenger 7, which has been in beta since December, also includes the ability to perform a search during a chat session and share photos.
Along with the new Messenger software, Microsoft's web logging service MSN Spaces has finally gone live. MS say more than 4.5 million "Spaces" have been created since its beta launch in late 2004. "People all over the world are spending more of their time communicating online and MSN is providing the services they use," said Blake Irving, corporate vice president for the MSN Communication Services and Member Platform group at Microsoft Corp. "We continue to invest in services that create meaningful, personal and emotional connections for our customers, letting them express themselves in ways that suit them best."|W|P|111296474751083479|W|P|Microsoft Targets Skype|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/06/2005 10:57:00 PM|W|P|Phani|W|P|Hitachi's hard disk division has pushed a real density to 230Gbit per square inch, which could lead to one inch drives with 230GByte of storage within two years. The trick employed by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is called perpendicular recording, which the company says can increase density by a factor of 10.Using this technique, standard 3.5 inch drives could reach 1Tbyte by 2007, claimed the firm. As its name suggests, perpendicular recording aligns data bits at 90 degrees to the plane of the recording medium. Today's hard drives use longitudinal recording. The inevitable trade-off of packing more data into the available space is that the recording head must be closer to the recording medium. Getting to 230Gbit/in² meant getting to heads within 10nm of the platter. "We are at the cusp of the most significant hard drive technology transition of the past decade, and it's one that holds so much promise for the hard drive and consumer electronics industries," said Jun Naruse, CEO of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.|W|P|111280862072484030|W|P|Hard Disk Density Doubled|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/07/2005 01:34:00 AM|W|P|Blogger sikandar|W|P|vow...seems like your favourite google can still increase the GMail storage space for its users...4/02/2005 07:42:00 AM|W|P|Phani|W|P|

For the second year in row Google has made a splash on April Fools Day.

Last year, Google announced to the world a free email service called Gmail which included 1 gigabyte of free storage. At the time of last years announcement, many people thought Google's announcement was simply an April Fools' Day joke since the amount of storage space being offered was so much greater than the amount being offered by competitors Yahoo! and Hotmail.

This April 1st, Google is telling its users that the 'G' in Gmail stands for growth so they have rolled out their new "top secret Infinity+1 storage plan". The details of the Infinity +1 plan aren't being released but the company says the first step is to double the amount of storage space available to its users to 2 gigabytes.

They are at this very moment running a counter on their website. The value of the counter is being upgrading the webmail storage of every GMail account around continuously! I expect this counter to last until the time it reaches the 2GB mark. Or maybe not! Maybe Google will just let it continue to fulfill their promise of infinity plus one initiative!

They have surprised us before. This sounds to be another one. Or maybe this one is an April Fools Joke. However, for that Google had Google Gulp Beta!

|W|P|111240821673918462|W|P|Gmail Rocks|W|P|gsphanikumar@gmail.com4/07/2005 10:32:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|google is set to change the meaning of april fool4/07/2005 10:42:00 PM|W|P|Anonymous Anonymous|W|P|may be we have to celabrate it as "innovation day"-->