Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category
Darko on March 21st, 2008
I 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.
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
Darko on March 12th, 2008
Since 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
Darko on February 29th, 2008
Whenever a web browser is used to connect to a remote web server it includes a User Agent string that contains details about browser and operating system. This tweak allows you to add or remove additional information from this string.
Changing user agent string is needed when online security is a concern or to bypass web services access restriction for certain type of web browser.
For example, Adobe Reader download site will display different download page according to the web browser that visiting the site, limit or auto pick up Adobe Reader version for the OS type in the user agent string, force Adobe Updater to manage Adobe Reader download progress. So, by changing the user agent string, one can directly download any Adobe Reader version of any platforms or languages with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, without using the Adobe Updater or Opera web browser!
Another use for changing the user agent data is the ability to read restricted websites and forums.
Some websites & forums will not allow you to read their content without registering first. This requirement gets really annoying and frustrating when you go through it over and over again. But you might or might have not noticed is that these pages are being cached by search engines, because they’re specially designed to allow access to specific search engine’s bots. So, all we have to do is get that page to think that you’re a bot and you do that by changing your user agent. Here’s how you do it:
Mozilla Firefox:
For people using Firefox, changing their user agent is very simple. All you have to do is download and install User Agent Switcher add-on. Then you can simply add different user agents and switch between them directly from the browser.
Internet Explore:
Internet Explorer 6 SP2 on Windows 2000 and IE 7 for Windows XP:
Start > Run > Regedit
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent
Create theVersion key of REG_SZ type (string type) or edit it if it already exists. Give it one of the following values: Firefox/2.0.0.4 for Firfox , "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)", without the quotes for Google Bot.
IE7 in Windows Vista
Copy Paste the following code into Vista’s command prompt:
%windir%\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent" /v Version /d "insert user agent here" /f
To revert back to original user agent string value:
%windir%\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent" /v Version /f
Note: Some services may not work correctly by changing your user agent, such as Windows update.
Opera 9.21:
- Type opera:config in the Opera address bar and press ENTER,
- Type Spoof UserAgent ID in the text-box next to Show All
- Change the Spoof User Agent ID to any one of these supported user agent string:
1 = Opera (default user agent string of Opera)
2 = Mozilla
3 = Internet Explorer
4 = Mozilla, Opera not mentioned
5 = Internet Explorer, Opera not mentioned
- Save the change made before exit and restart Opera 9.21
Commonly used user agents
Googlebot 2.1:
* Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
* Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
* Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Slurp, Yahoo Bot:
* Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
* YahooFeedSeeker/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla 4.0; MSIE 5.5; http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers.html)
* Yahoo-MMCrawler/3.x (mms dash mmcrawler dash support at yahoo dash inc dot com)
Firefox:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Opera:
Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)
IE 7:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)
To view your current Agent String click here, you’ll also find a list of all user agents by following that link.
Darko on January 27th, 2008
Truecrypt 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
Darko on January 27th, 2008
After 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.
the next days, we reinstalled the box back in it’s place, everything is working fine, for now…..
Darko on January 24th, 2008
This is a follow up story to the previous article.
After my normal internet connection was lost due to a malfunctioning Ethernet adapter (Damn you SMC), I had to resort to other means in order to stay plugged in. So I turned to WAP.
For those of you unfamiliar with WAP…what the hell are you doing on a tech blog, just kidding!
WAP is “Wireless Application Protocol”, an emerging standard to allow cellular/wireless devices to access the Internet. In plain English, it’s internet for cell phones.
One of the important things that I gained from this experience is that i had the chance to use WP.com’s mobile website m.wordpress.com designed specifically to offer mobile users easier access and better blogging experience.
Of course, this page cannot replace the WP Dashboard, but nonetheless it offers key elements of it. From there, you can get a quick Stats summary, Add new articles and Add new bookmarks to your blogroll.
One of the problems that I had with posting articles is the absence of the conformity offered by WP rich text editor; witch meant that I had to add my own html tags. So here’s what I did. I have Qumana a blogging tool, installed on my computers. What Qumana offers, is the ability to see the source of the text you wrote in the WYSIWIG panel, just like the Visual and Code panels in the WordPress dashboard. Of course there are a number of programs that has this feature like Dreamweaver and FrontPage. So what I did was that I wrote the text and copy/pasted the code and saved it to file, then I sent the file to my Cell phone witch luckily support copy/pasting, witch enabled me to post the formatted article.
And here’s some more good news, m.wordpress.com can accessed from any normal web browser. At the moment I’m writing this article from it using Mozilla Firefox. This can enable a hell of a lot faster posting then using the real dashboard.
Try it yourself
Darko on January 18th, 2008
I logged into WordPress.com mobile dashboard using my mobile phone, and I’m trying to test if i can blog from here. This way i can write my articles on a pc and copy/paste them here.
Update: it worked, this is great news, i can be more active now from my cell phone, i’ll write a small report about this feature later on
Darko on January 2nd, 2008
I recently set Windows XP SP2 to Auto-update with me selecting witch updates to install. I usually let windows download and install everything on it’s own, but the purpose of my move was so that i can make a backup of all the updates and burn them on a cd, for future use.
Well, today the updater alerted me that there’s 15 new updates ready to be installed, looking through the list i found the package KB905474, witch is the infamous WGA tool used by Microsoft to determine if the copy is genuine or not. I hesitated to install the package, then said what the heck, what harm could it do. BIG MISTAKE!!!!
I use instantly notified that my windows XP copy is not genuine, now remember folks, i’m working on an HP compaq nx9010 with “Designed for Windows XP” sticker on the front and a Windows xp serial number on the back. Well, apparently the serial number has been blacklisted and now i was stuck with this stupid popup offering me to “become genuine”.
At this point i had two options:
1-Right click the WGA tray icon, and select “change notification settings”, then select “Don’t notify me again”, and “Yes I know this voids me from product support”
2-Stop or delete the whole WGA tool
Well, needless to say i opted for the second choice and here’s what i did
Start > Run > regedit > go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify > delete the WGALOGON folder and restart
After restarting everything returned to normal and i’m happy to announce that i’m back downloading updates
Darko on January 2nd, 2008
Have you noticed any of the following symptoms on your computer:
A new toolbars in your Internet Browser that you didn’t install
Your browser has been crashing without any justification
Your browser home page has changed on its own
…Then you most probably have spyware/adware on your PC
Spyware can be easily installed on computer simply by surfing through the web, witch leaves lots of system vulnerable to their attacks. They can be used to track user behavior online, redirect users to specific websites, launch ads directly in the desktop.
Spybot Search & Destroy searches the computer for +100000 different type of adware and spyware that hijacked the system.The application is well supported and updates are constantly available.
In edition to the ability of scanning computers for malware, Spybot has a function called Immunize that will help prevent any future attack by blocking all possible exploits.
Spybot is a dangerous tool, as good as it is, it can have some very destructive side-effect, this tool should be used by people who know what they’re doing, and please don’t take any action that might not fully understand it’s implications. With that being said i believe that this is a very important tool that every real geek and every IT person should have with him at all time
Spybot Search & Destroy: Official Website
Spybot Search & Destroy 1.5.1.15 : Direct Download
Spybot Search & Destroy Latest Update to install Offline : Direct Download
Darko on January 2nd, 2008
Google webmaster tools, is a service provided by Google to give webmasters more information about Google Bot’s behavior towards their website/blogs, how they rank up within the search engine and alert them about the errors that faces the crawler when trying to crawl their pages.
Webmaster Tool requires each user to verify his ownership to each website added to his account.
Google offer two methods of verification:
1-Adding a meta tag to the source of your index page.
2-Uploading an html page to website’s root, with a specific name provided by Google.
Any Wordpress.com user will quickly realize that WP.com does not allow editing source files, or uploading any pages to your blog.
What do you do? How do you verify your blog?
The answer is very simple:
1-Open your Webmaster Tools Dashboard.
2-Select the Wordpress.com blog and click on the Verify option.
3-In the verification list, chose the “Upload an HTML file”, You’ll be asked to upload a page with specific name (ex: googlee09df14b32e62ffc.html) copy the file name.
4-Open your Wordpress.com Blog Dashboard and click the Write button.
5-Select the Page option to create a new page.
6-In the title paste the file name you copied in step 3.
7-Go back to your Webmaster Tools Dashboard again and try to verify your blog again….TATA
