Hosted By:
3rd Rock Hosting - Cheap shared / reseller / master reseller hosting + custom VPS servers

Archive for the ‘Geek’ Category

Simple, Useful and Free Tool: GreatNews RSS Reader

Author Darko on March 21st, 2008

RSS FeedI have used GreatNews: The intelligent RSS reader for over a year, and this application never failed me. GreatNews runs immediately and doesn’t require any special runtime environments.it’s a portable application.

With “Auto-discovery” Adding feeds to GreatNews is very simple, all you need to have is the link to the website and the reader will automatically find all the feeds offered by the website and give you the option to choose your preferred one.

GreatNews

Here’s a list of GreatNews Features(from the official website):

* Channel Statistics shows your top 10 most or least visited channels.
* Use labels to organize your articles. With just a single click, all items with the same label can be listed as if they are under the same folder. You can also use labelsto customize article exports.
* With Search Channels, you can type in stock symbol to track the latest news about the company via Yahoo Company News. Or use keywords to monitor latest blog comments via Feedster, MSN and Flickr
* Support all major feed formats, including RSS 0.9x, 1.0(rdf), 2.0, Atom 0.30 and 1.0. Support popular extensions like dublin core, content:encoding etc.
* Integrated internet browser, with tabs and popup blocking. Working closely with default browser like Firefox.
* With Import/Export wizard, you can import/export all channel subscriptions in a single step.
* Export rss articles to rss 2.0 format. You can also customize the export by selecting channel/group/label, and/or applying filters.
* Bloglines.com integration
Read everywhere at Bloglines.com, but read twice as fast at your desk.
* Full text search with keyword highlights.
* 100% Unicode support. Displays international languages on the same page. Use any languages anywhere in GreatNews, including Search, Label and News watch.
* “Channel Organizer” helps organize channel subscriptions in one place. Use “Find Channel” to locate your subscriptions quickly.
* Support HTTP Conditional GETs and gzip/deflate encoding to reduce bandwidth consumption.
* Track Comment function automatically updates articles with latest comments.
* BlogThis function to post directly to your blogging service. Support popular blogging tools like w.Bloggar, Zoundry and Windows Live Writer.

GreatNews: Official Website -  Direct Download

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatGeek, Internet, Microsoft, Productivity, Software, Tricks & Tips, Windows XP

Geek lists: Free Portable Applications

Author Darko on March 12th, 2008

memory stickSince the moment i got my 1 GB Flash Memory stick, i began to gather all the portable applications i can find. Usually these applications are not marketed as portable, but you can easily figure it out by renaming the installation directory and running the application, if it run properly then it’s a portable application.

Here’s a list of free portable applications that every IT guy should have on his flash memory at all time.

PortableApps.com’s has a very nice list of portable application, here’s my favorite:

DesktopApps’s Simple and portable applications:

  • menuApp - a menu based application launcher.
  • audioApp - for all your one-click muting needs.
  • monitorApp - a small system resource monitor.
  • imageApp - a digital image viewer.

Windows Sysinternals’s (formerly Sysinternals) portable system monitoring software:

  • Process Monitor - real-time monitoring of file system, Registry and process/thread activity
  • RegMon - Sysinternals.com - Monitors all modifications on the registry
  • DiskMon - Monitors all modifications and traffic on the hard drives
  • FileMon - Monitors all modifications and traffic on files
  • TcpView - Monitors all traffic incoming and outcoming from the system

All of the following application are 100% portable:

i will keep updating this list, every time i find a new portable application

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatBlogging, Geek, Internet, Microsoft, Multimedia, Productivity, Software, Technology, Windows XP

Facebook pokes holes in privacy for profits

Author Darko on January 28th, 2008

When it first launched in 2004, Facebook swept across college campuses and became forever embedded in our popular culture.Just two short years later, anyone older than 13 could join, making the social networking site one of the most popular sites on the Internet with 60 million registered users. It became so popular, in fact, that a 2006 study found that college students named the site as the second most “in” thing, tied with beer and sex - losing only to the ubiquitous iPod.

So how could something that became as popular as two of the most common college traditions go so wrong in just a few years after its creation?Even though many of us enjoyed the welcomed distraction of friending, tagging and poking people for countless hours, it soon became apparent that Facebook was going to have to do more than connect us with our friends to hold our attention - and keep turning a profit. And it was downhill from there. Unfortunately, to accomplish its revenue goal, the creator of the billion-dollar Facebook decided it would have to sell our privacy to the highest bidder. And with the extremely profitable market that the site had captured so quickly, it wasn’t unexpected. Sure, students quickly caught on that maybe posting everything on Facebook wasn’t such a good idea. When public scandals involving inappropriate photo postings continued to make the news on campuses across the country, users became more selective about what they were posting on the site. After all, not everyone wanted the world to see documented proof of a typical weekend’s worth of their debauchery. However, the more clandestine, corporate violations of personal privacy that a Facebook account might allow were not so obvious to the millions of the site’s devotees. We can trace the beginning of the end of Facebook as we knew it to Nov. 7. The site introduced Facebook Beacon, a marketing scheme that includes a system to allow users to share information about their activities on other Web sites. When people realized that what they purchased or viewed on these “partner Web sites” was immediately published on Facebook without their permission, red flags went up across cyberspace. Realizing the potential for destructive blows to his company’s net worth, founder Mark Zuckerberg made yet another public apology for the way that a new application was launched. Beacon was later changed to require that any actions transmitted to the site would have to be approved by the user. But, by then, the damage was already done. So, when it was revealed last week that Facebook is now the target of an investigation from the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, it came as no surprise to us. The site is currently facing questions about how it protects users’ data after someone complained that the social network did not fully delete their information even after they had terminated their account. We won’t try to deny the potential benefits of having a Facebook account, which is why we were so infatuated with it in the first place - hell, you can even friend the Alligator if you want. But we continue to be disappointed with the way the site is transforming into another tool for corporate America’s quest to acquire more consumers at the expense of personal privacy. The once genius idea generated from a Harvard student’s dorm room has become a corporate pirate holding hostage something some people would be willing to pay any price to have access to - our information.

Published on The independent Florida Alligator By the Editorial Board

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatCritique, Culture, Geek, Internet, News, Security

DoS attack by 20 years old hacker, puts Estonia-Russia relations in check

Author Darko on January 28th, 2008

Last May, the web sites of a number of high-ranking Estonian politicians and businesses were attacked over a period of several weeks. At the time, relations between Russia and Estonia were chillier than usual, due in part to the Estonian government’s plans to move a World War II-era memorial known as the Bronze Soldier (pictured below at its original location) away from the center of the city and into a cemetery. The country’s plan was controversial, and led to protests that were often led by the country’s ethnic Russian minority. When the cyberattacks occurred, Estonia claimed that Russia was either directly or indirectly involved—an allegation that the Russian government denied. Almost a year later, the Russian government appears to have been telling the truth about its involvement (or lack thereof) in the attacks against Estonia. As InfoWorld reports, an Estonian youth has been arrested for the attacks, and current evidence suggests he was acting independently—prosecutors in Estonia have stated they have no other suspects. Because the attacks were botnet-driven and launched from servers all over the globe, however, it’s impossible to state definitively that only a single individual was involved.

Dmitri Galushkevich, a 20-year-old Estonian student, launched the DoS (denial-of-service) attacks from his own PC last year. Although he’s a native Estonian, Galushkevich was angry over his government’s plans to move the statue, and launched the attack as a means of protesting the decision. The fact that a single angry student was able to impact international relations between two countries is an startling development. Understanding why Estonia and Russia got into a tiff about a war memorial statue in the first place, however, requires that we take a trip down history lane.

American history tends to focus its coverage of World War II on the theaters of combat we participated in. This makes logical sense—but it leaves the story of the eastern front largely untold, and doesn’t begin to explain why the Russians would be upset over Estonia’s movement of a statue nearly 63 years after the war’s end—or why the Estonians would want to move it in the first place.

The Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940 as part of the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Once it held the country (Russia, to this day, insists the USSR was invited into Estonia and did not “occupy” it), extraordinary elections were held with the ballots restricted to pro-Communist choices. The country became a member of the USSR in August 1940—and was promptly invaded and occupied by the Germans in 1941 when that country opened the Eastern Front of the war.

Germany’s eastern front with the USSR was both the longest and the deadliest in worldwide military history. Contemporary estimates on how many Soviet soldiers and civilians died can vary widely, but the median figures suggest that the Red Army lost approximately 10 million men, with an additional 20 million civilian casualties. Soviet casualties and losses dwarfed those of any other nation, and the conflict left an indelible imprint on Russian society.

The war memorials built in Soviet-occupied territories after the war ended weren’t just monuments to the millions of soldiers and civilians killed in the conflict—they were Soviet ideological bulwarks and physical representations of what the Great Patriotic War had cost the motherland.

The majority of Estonians, however, have a different view. To them, the Bronze Soldier was a symbol of 50 years of Soviet and communist oppression—many Estonians, in fact, voluntarily enlisted and fought with the Germans in 1944 once it became apparent that the Soviets were about to reoccupy the country. Combine the two viewpoints with a significant minority of ethnic Russians who still identify with the memorial as a reminder of Soviet sacrifice, and you’ve got a pile of tinder just waiting for a spark.

The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations.

Posted On Arstechnica By Joel Hruska

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatCulture, Geek, Internet, News, Security

Simple, Useful, and Free tool: TrueCrypt, Crypting Software

Author Darko on January 27th, 2008

SecurityTruecrypt is one of the most vital tools that any geek should have.

TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. In plain English, Truecrypt will create encrypted drives that you can mount hide your data and dismount in just a few seconds.

Run the program and click on Create Volume
-Select the “Create a standard TrueCrypt volume”
-Select the path and filename of the new drive
-Selecting the encryption algorithm is a very simple. TrueCrypt Can crypt your data with 8 different algorithms, but any of the algorithms will offer you high level protection. Here’s an interesting excerpt I found about what algorithm to choose:

First of all, if speed is your thing than you need to seriously
consider the container type. File containers will typically be slower
than entire encrypted partitions. A *lot* slower in some cases. This
decision alone will have a much bigger impact on throughput than
algorithm choice.

That said, speed comparisons are going to be system dependant and
arbitrary. Any flat comparison might be misleading. And I think the
differences are going to be so minute in the real world that they’re
insignificant. I’ll offer a specific opinion later on, but first some
examples of why they’re arbitrary.

Key size shouldn’t directly directly impact speed, but it may change
the algorithm’s “rank” among its constituents from a 32 bit to a 64 bit
environment.

Your specific usage can also affect speed. Encryption almost always
takes more clock cycles than decryption. For some algorithms the
difference is more pronounced. If your activity is more “write
oriented” you might want to consider an algorithm with a
better encrypt/decrypt “ratio”.

There’s a lot of other little gotchas that might make one algorithm
perform better than another on your system, and with your usage. But if
you really *must* know which algorithms are considered “faster”…

Rijndael (AES) and Twofish are two of the best performers on a
“standardized” Pentium Pro, in a standardized implementation. Twofish
is slightly faster at encryption, but Rijndael takes the checkered in
key setup. I think overall, Rijndael would be the “winner” in a
standard usage scenario. CAST is not so far behind these two. I’d say
you’d be good with any of the three. On the other end, 3DES is probably
going to be one of the slowest.

FWIW, if you get down to the nitpicking “what if” of the thing, Twofish
is thought to be slightly more secure than Rijndael too.

So select the one you prefer

-Choose the drive size. This depends on the amount of data you want to hold inside the drive. I recommand that before selecting the size, put all the applications and data you want to store on the drive inside a folder and select the size of the drive based on the size of that folder. You might want to have a bit of free space for future modifications. So if the folder size is 20 MB, create a 30 MB drive…..
-Selecting a password is the most important task. You need to have a strong password, that can be immuned to brute force attacks and any kind of decrypting methods. The password should have letters(a b c), characters(!@#) and numbers (1 2 3).
-Now, all you have to do is format the drive

Of course there are many more options you can try but that the quick way to do it.

I should also mention that Truecrypt has lots of command line options and is a completly portable application

TrueCrypt: Official Website

Downloads Page

Direct Links to latest stable version - 4.3a:

Windows Vista/XP/2000/2003

Linux distributions:
OpenSuSE 10.2 x86
OpenSuSE 10.3 x86
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS x86
Ubuntu 7.04 x86
Ubuntu 7.04 x64 (64-bit)
Ubuntu 7.10 x86
Ubuntu 7.10 x64 (64-bit)
Source Code

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatGeek, Microsoft, Productivity, Security, Software

The end justifies the means

Author Darko on January 27th, 2008

WifiAfter my old AP fried to death, I had to buy a new access point. I got an new Edimax EW-7206APg for 80$. Well after installing the hardware on the roof, for better reception it took less then two days for problems to arise. Suddenly the AP wasn’t receiving any signal, I contacted the ISP and he said that the network was up and running. After some digging around, we found out that the problem is in the Network cable. The only thing is that we only figured that out at about 22:00. Witch meant that the cable cannot be replaced or fixed at the moment since the ISP guy didn’t have any plugs. Well, what should I do? Spend the evening without an Internet connection when the AP is perfectly fine? That just seems like a big waste to me. So, we brought the AP down from the roof and installed it on a ladder, and I had to sit in the cold so i can work, since I only had a short network cable that cannot reach were I usually place my laptop.

Edimax AP In action

the next days, we reinstalled the box back in it’s place, everything is working fine, for now…..

Edimax AP In action

Share/Save/Bookmark

permalinkRead More CommentComments (0) CatGeek, Productivity, Random thoughts, Technology

CSS Template by RamblingSoul | Tomodachi theme by Theme Lab