iPodulator Pro

Your iPod rocks.Make it rock more.. Everybody loves their iPod. And now they will love it more. With iPodulator Pro 2, a Mac and PC software program, you can rock your 'Pod with more games, webpages straight off the 'net, and all your personal notes. iPodulator Pro 2 is also light on your wallet, coming in at the price of free. iPodulator Pro 2, can your iPod do this?

The Web, on Your iPod

The web offers unlimited content. The problem: you don't have unlimited time. Your iPod is always with you, and now you can bring the web along with it. iPodulator Pro 2 puts any website or RSS feed you name on your iPod in a text-only version. And it gets better. iPodulator Pro 2 can copy most of the links on webpages to your iPod, so when your reading a page on your iPod you have all the links there, ready for clicking. (RSS feed support limited, if it doesn't work use the website instead)

Your iPod is a Jukebox...and Now Arcade

The games on the iPod are fun and timeless. Parachute never fails to entertain, Brick is a timeless classic, Solitaire is guaranteed to help you pass the time, and the newest addition, music quiz, is a great laugh. But the Apple iPod is powerful thing, and the world's most popular MP3 player can do more than just play music. iPodulator Pro 2 has a top-notch catalog of text-based games, including trivia, choose your own adventure, madlibs, jokes, and more, all ready to be instantly transferred to your iPod. Games are powered by the excellent iPodArcade. Did we mention that the games catalog is ever-changing?

iPodulator Pro 2: iPod Notes Done Right

iPods have built-in support for notes, but they are never used. Why? Because creating and editing them is a major nuisance. Not anymore. With iPodulator Pro 2 you have instant access to all of your notes. Your notes created with iPodulator Pro 2 have absolutely no size limit. Paste an article into a note and read it on your iPod later when your on-the-go. Or type your shopping list into a note and have it instantly synced to your iPod. Create, edit, delete. Made easy with iPodulator Pro 2.

Keeping Up to Speed

Any websites or notes on your iPod will be updated automatically as long as iPodulator Pro 2 is on and your iPod is connected. Now your always in the know.

Bend the Rules

iPods usually have a size limit on text, but not anymore with iPodulator Pro 2. It will bend the rules and give you your text, in full.

Download iPodulator Pro 2 Now

A new way to test your bandwidth

Applications that test bandwidth speeds have been around for years, but Speedtest.net takes the concept a step further.

The site allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.

Finally, Speedtest provides a simple way to share your results with others--taking the practice of monitoring bandwidth into the Web 2.0 realm.

GMail Hacks/Tips

I’ve been using GMail since 2005 and have always thought it was the best email service. With the large amount of space it offers, and the amazing features the possibilities are endless. The filter feature is easily the best feature of GMail. You can use it for its purpose - to filter spam and other unwanted emails. Or use it in some unique ways such as bookmarking, and storing recipes. Here are some nifty hacks/tips that allow you to get the most out of your GMail account.

• GMail based blog - Fix for it This is an awesome idea to allow you to blog via GMail. Who needs an SQL database when you can save your posts to GMail? .
• Encrypt all GMail traffic
  • This is just a simple tip allowing you to encrypt your whole session. When you go to GMail.com only the login is encrypted. When you go to GMail.com. At https://gmail.google.com the whole session is encrypted.
• Make a GMail partition
  • This is a simple yet brilliant idea to make use of that 2.7 gigs and counting of space GMail allows. This will create a new partition� in explorer. You can then save files/folders to your GMail account via the explorer interface. Create one simple filter so none of the files clutter up your inbox and you’re set. I believe this is against the GMail terms of service, but I’ve been using it for a while with no problems.
• Linux on GMail
  • This awesome hack allows you to have a Linux file system installed on your GMail account. It will give you basic *nix commands such as cp mv rm and ls. This is by far the neatest of all these.
• Use GMail as notepad
  • It’s such a simple yet effective idea. Using GMail’s ability to save drafts you can edit and save text just like notepad. There are actually more advantages to using GMail as a simple notepad such as spell check and the fact that you can access the documents from anywhere.
• GMail skins
  • Tired of the same old default GMail theme? Not anymore. Use this simple firefox plugin to change the color and basic layout of your GMail account.
• GMail manager
  • This firefox plugin allows you to manage multiple GMail accounts from firefox. It will give you basic stats about all your GMail accounts, and can check for new mail at a user defined interval.
• GNotify
  • This one is actually by Google. It’s a simple yet totally needed plugin. It tells you when you have mail with a very unobtrusive notify box in the lower right hand corner of your screen. It also opens a new tab in your browser with the email and subject already filled out when you click a mailto: link. This is a must have for people who depend on their email.
• gDisk for Macintosh
  • gDisk is a software that turns your GMail account into a portable hard drive so you can always have your important files accessible accross the Internet.
• GTDGmail
  • GTDGmail is a Firefox extension that integrates the highly effective methodology of “Getting Things Done”� into the popular email service Gmail.
• Mp3 Player
  • GMail actually comes built in with an mp3 player.
• Gmail cryptography plugin
  • FreeEnigma brings cryptography to webmail, with an ingenious set of free and open browser plug-ins that work with Yahoo, Gmail, and others. The plugins implement a version of GPG and scramble and de-scramble the text in your webmail before you send it and after you receive it.

Read Banned Books

Its quite an irony that every year attempts are being made to ban/challenge several of the literary classics. Be it George Orwell's 1984 or J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, or Heller's Catch 22 or Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind - these books are being challenged/banned for several reasons (mostly stupid). And the primary reasons for being challenged/banned are::

• Institutions (Schools/students/community etc.),
• Initiator (Parents/Religious Organizations/Government etc)
• Type (sex/adult content etc.)

For e.g. few of my favorite books being banned for stupid reasons are:

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
• Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language

ALA (American Library Association) is celebrating 25th year of Banned Books Week (Sep 23-30, 2006) and Google Books has joined their hands to bring some of these banned books to people. Get the list of available banned books on Google Books here. Read ALA's president post in Google Blog | Learn more about the banned books here

iLounge Reviews the New iPod Nano

iLounge was quick to snatch up the newest iPod Nanos and pump out a great review. It’s probably the most comprehensive iPod review ever published, with comparison pictures from every angle, pictures of the new software features as well as Nano accessories. The verdict: they love everything about the new Nano and have confidence that it is fairly scratch-resistant. If you still worry about scratches, a new Invisible Shield for the Nano should be in stock this Friday. Update: It seems like iLounge has been busy; they also reviewed the new iPod with video (the so-called 5.5G iPod).

FreeDel 2006, September 16-17,2006

Freedel is back! This years event Freedel 2006 is jointly organized by the Indian Linux User's Group, Delhi Chapter (ILUG-Delhi), and the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The event will be held at the Bio-Informatics Centre, JNU Campus in New Delhi. Mark your dates now, on September 16 and 17, 2006 .

The focus this year is on FOSS in education. Getting schools, colleges and universities to start using FOSS. Not just to teach students, but also as part of the institutes infrastructure. Apart from educational institutes, the talks are also directed at the government, NGOs and small businesses.

Talks shedule http://freedel.in/talks.shtml Registration http://freedel.in/registration.shtml

The All New iPod Shuffle

The world’s smallest digital music player and just $79, the 1GB iPod shuffle lets you wear up to 240 songs⁽¹⁾ on your sleeve. Or your lapel. Or your belt. Clip on iPod shuffle and wear it as a badge of musical devotion.

One size fits all

You know what they say about good things and small packages. But when something 1.62 inches long and about half an ounce holds up to 240 songs, “good” and “small” don’t quite cut it. Especially when you can listen to your music for up to 12 continuous hours.⁽²⁾ In fact, iPod shuffle just may be the biggest thing in small.

Ready to wear

Clip it to your coin pocket. Clip it to your bag. No matter where you clip your skip-free iPod shuffle, you’ll have instant access to music. And iPod shuffle’s anodized aluminum enclosure goes with absolutely everything. Put it on, turn it up, and turn some heads.

Top 15 Security/Hacking Tools & Utilities

1. Nmap

I think everyone has heard of this one, recently evolved into the 4.x series.

Nmap (”Network Mapper”) is a free open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. It was designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Nmap runs on most types of computers and both console and graphical versions are available. Nmap is free and open source.

Can be used by beginners (-sT) or by pros alike (–packet_trace). A very versatile tool, once you fully understand the results.

Get Nmap Here

2. Nessus Remote Security Scanner

Recently went closed source, but is still essentially free. Works with a client-server framework.

Nessus is the world’s most popular vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the world’s largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications.

Get Nessus Here

3. John the Ripper

Yes, JTR 1.7 was recently released!

John the Ripper is a fast password cracker, currently available for many flavors of Unix (11 are officially supported, not counting different architectures), DOS, Win32, BeOS, and OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. Besides several crypt(3) password hash types most commonly found on various Unix flavors, supported out of the box are Kerberos AFS and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hashes, plus several more with contributed patches.

You can get JTR Here

4. Nikto

Nikto is an Open Source (GPL) web server scanner which performs comprehensive tests against web servers for multiple items, including over 3200 potentially dangerous files/CGIs, versions on over 625 servers, and version specific problems on over 230 servers. Scan items and plugins are frequently updated and can be automatically updated (if desired).

Nikto is a good CGI scanner, there are some other tools that go well with Nikto (focus on http fingerprinting or Google hacking/info gathering etc, another article for just those).

Get Nikto Here

5. SuperScan

Powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. SuperScan 4 is an update of the highly popular Windows port scanning tool, SuperScan.

If you need an alternative for nmap on Windows with a decent interface, I suggest you check this out, it’s pretty nice.

Get SuperScan Here

6. p0f

P0f v2 is a versatile passive OS fingerprinting tool. P0f can identify the operating system on:

- machines that connect to your box (SYN mode), - machines you connect to (SYN+ACK mode), - machine you cannot connect to (RST+ mode), - machines whose communications you can observe.

Basically it can fingerprint anything, just by listening, it doesn’t make ANY active connections to the target machine.

Get p0f Here

7. Ethereal

Ethereal is a GTK+-based network protocol analyzer, or sniffer, that lets you capture and interactively browse the contents of network frames. The goal of the project is to create a commercial-quality analyzer for Unix and to give Ethereal features that are missing from closed-source sniffers. Screenshot available here. Windows binaries available here.

Works great on both Linux and Windows (with a GUI), easy to use and can reconstruct TCP/IP Streams! Will do a tutorial on Ethereal later.

Get Ethereal Here

8. Yersinia

Yersinia is a network tool designed to take advantage of some weakeness in different Layer 2 protocols. It pretends to be a solid framework for analyzing and testing the deployed networks and systems. Currently, the following network protocols are implemented: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), IEEE 802.1q, Inter-Switch Link Protocol (ISL), VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP).

The best Layer 2 kit there is.

Get Yersinia Here

9. Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

An excellent tool for keeping your data really safe, if you’ve deleted it..make sure it’s really gone, you don’t want it hanging around to bite you in the ass.

Get Eraser Here.

10. PuTTY

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. A must have for any h4×0r wanting to telnet or SSH from Windows without having to use the crappy default MS command line clients.

Get PuTTY Here.

11. LCP

Main purpose of LCP program is user account passwords auditing and recovery in Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. Accounts information import, Passwords recovery, Brute force session distribution, Hashes computing.

A good free alternative to L0phtcrack.

LCP was briefly mentioned in our well read Rainbow Tables and RainbowCrack article.

Get LCP Here

12. Cain and Abel

My personal favourite for password cracking of any kind.

Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols. The program does not exploit any software vulnerabilities or bugs that could not be fixed with little effort.

Get Cain and Abel Here

13. Kismet

Kismet is an 802.11 layer2 wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring (rfmon) mode, and can sniff 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g traffic.

A good wireless tool as long as your card supports rfmon (look for an orinocco gold).

Get Kismet Here

14. NetStumbler

Yes a decent wireless tool for Windows! Sadly not as powerful as it’s Linux counterparts, but it’s easy to use and has a nice interface, good for the basics of war-driving.

NetStumbler is a tool for Windows that allows you to detect Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) using 802.11b, 802.11a and 802.11g. It has many uses:

• Verify that your network is set up the way you intended.
• Find locations with poor coverage in your WLAN.
• Detect other networks that may be causing interference on your network.
• Detect unauthorized “rogue” access points in your workplace.
• Help aim directional antennas for long-haul WLAN links.
• Use it recreationally for WarDriving.

Get NetStumbler Here

15. hping

To finish off, something a little more advanced if you want to test your TCP/IP packet monkey skills.

hping is a command-line oriented TCP/IP packet assembler/analyzer. The interface is inspired to the ping unix command, but hping isn’t only able to send ICMP echo requests. It supports TCP, UDP, ICMP and RAW-IP protocols, has a traceroute mode, the ability to send files between a covered channel, and many other features.

Get hping HereYa I’ve stayed away from commercial products in this article, perhaps I’ll cover those another day.

Why Windows takes so long to shut down.

We all have been there. It is 4:55 and you want to get out of work...But you want to make sure your system is shutdown for the night. You dutifully close all of your applications and start shutting down 5 minutes later it *finally* powers off It happens to more machines that it should. I decided to see what the problem might be. I searched google, forums, and newsgroups for an answer. The biggest culprit is a problem unloading the current users profile. This can happen when third party, or even Microsoft applications have not properly cleaned up when exiting. Windows will keep trying to unload the profile until Windows finally decides that it can't and should shutdown. Even if you find the application causing the problem - it may be impossible to do anything about it. This is why Microsoft released the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service This free utility automatically cleans up user profiles and prevents you from playing the timeout wait game. Once you run the setup wizard it will look like the installer did nothing. If you open up your services list (Click start, then run and type services.msc now click ok), you will see that a new service is running in the background:The idea of this program is to reclaim resources when a task is finished (memory, handles, etc). It accomplishes this by monitoring for users to log off and verifying that unused resources are reclaimed. This approach is superior as it works for any known reason that profiles do not unload and also will keep working to address new unknown issues. Now when you go to shutdown, logoff or restart it will happen within seconds. Instead of minutes.

Why windows takes so long to start up.

Most of us have had a brand new computer at one time. It's a great feeling. You boot up windows and within 30 seconds you are surfing the net, checking your email, or playing your favorite game. 10 months down the road things aren't so nice anymore. You power up your computer and it seems to take forever to load. Even when you are careful about what you install it seems that each day it takes longer for it to boot. It's not your imagination - and there are a couple of good tips to keep your boot time short and sweet. As always - backup your system before you start any of this. If you make a mistake you might need to restore from backup 1. The prefetch cache The first tip I want to talk about is the windows prefetch. Windows XP has this feature that loads commonly used programs - at boot time. Here is how it works: Yesterday you used MS Word, and Duke Nukem 3D. Today you boot your system to check e-mail. It sees parts of these two programs in the prefetch folder and loads them into memory before windows completes the boot process. The benefit is faster application launch times. If you really wanted to use MS Word, it would pop up really quick when you double clicked on it. The problem is most people have been running windows for years, and the prefetch gets clogged with stuff that you almost never use. Windows takes forever to boot because it is prefetching a 1.0 copy of Napster, and you just want to check your email before you have to go to work. What can be done about it? Well there are a few things we can do to tweak the prefetch cache. One method is to disable it partially, and this can be done quite easily. Simply browse to the windows folder (Ex: C:\Windows) and under there you should see the prefetch folder. Go into the prefetch folder and delete all the files (Careful! It should look like this c:\windows\prefetch) And here is a screenshot of one if you still have questions The first thing to note is the next reboot will be slow. This is because windows needs to relearn the prefetch for system files. Subsequent boots will run much faster since the sludge of programs has been removed, and only new ones are in the cache. The trouble is that it will only help you for a while - until the prefetch gets clogged up again. We need to edit a registry key to tweak it. Open regedit and browse to this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters Under this key you should see a value named: EnablePrefetcher It has 4 possible values: 0 - Disabled : The prefetch system is turned off. 1 - Application : The prefetch only caches applications. 2 - Boot : The prefetch only caches boot system files. 3 - All : The prefetch caches boot, and application files. We don't want to disable it entirely. This would actually make boot times *longer*. This is because this feature is also used to speed up the loading of boot files. That is why we are going to pick the number 2 option. It allows us to keep the advantage of caching system files, without continually clogging the system up with applications. Set the value to 2 and reboot. The 2nd time you boot it should boot much faster. Remember that the side effect is that launching individual applications once windows has loaded will now be slightly slower. 2. Hard drive fragmentation Over time your hard drive will become fragmented. An over simplified explanation of fragmentation is when your files and folders are not all stored in the same spot. For example lets say you had a large movie file. If it were fragmented the first 5 megabytes are at the beginning of the hard drive, and then next 5 are at the end. It takes longer for windows to read the file than it would if it were all in the same spot. The point is that if each file is stored in a linear fashion, and the drive does not have to move all over the place to read it - it will load faster. XP has a built-in defrag tool, and it is simple to run. Open "My Computer" right click on the boot drive, and go to properties. Now click on the tools tab. Click "Defragment Now" and the following window should appear: Before you click on the "Defragment" button you want to close all applications and be aware that it might take hours to complete. If you leave something running it might keep windows from completing the defragment operation. Click on the defragment button and you can walk away. Or you can watch it defrag your hard drive:3. Disconnected network drives I am using networked drives all the time. If you have ever put your machine on a network and connected to a shared drive, this can slow you down too. If you have a drive that is still mapped, but cannot be reached it will slow down windows during boot time. This is because windows will wait...wait...and wait some more for the remote server to respond. To clean these out open "My Computer" and go to the tools menu. Click on "Disconnect Network Drives" It will open a window that looks like this: 4. Spyware & Adware These can have a big impact on your start times. If your PC gets loaded with spyware, it spends a large portion of its boot time making sure those pesky programs are loaded and ready to throw popup adverts at you all day. To check and clean your system of spyware there are three free programs that I highly recommend: 1. Microsoft Windows Defender 2. Ad-Aware 3. SpyBot Search And destroy 5. File and Printer Sharing One other item that can significantly impact is the "File and Printer Sharing" feature within windows. Obviously, if you are sharing your printer, or folders you don't want to disable this - so this tip is not for you. If you never use it, then why waste your time waiting for it to load? Here is how to turn it off: Go into the control panel. Click on "Network Connections"Now right click on "Local Area Connection" and click on properties Uncheck the "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks"Click OK, and reboot. That wraps up our windows startup optimization.

How to Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications

Windows genuine advantage notifications occur when your computer hasn't passed the validation test. The validation test can be failed due to being sold a pirated (non-genuine) copy of XP, or because you have changed your XP product key to a software-generated key. The failed validation installs three types of notifications on your computer: one on the log in screen, one log in timer, and one balloon. It also stops updates from Microsoft and disables your ability to install IE7 and Windows Media Player 11. This solution can get rid of all three notifications, even though you will still not be able to update. Unfortunately, you can only update if you buy a valid Microsoft product key again.

Steps

1. If you have only just installed Windows Genuine Advantage notifications, simply using the system restore function will remove the program. Then refuse to accept the GWA update next time Windows updates... otherwise, proceeed as detailed below.
2. Open System32 by either A or B of the following methods: a) Click "Start", "Run", then type-in "System32". Click "Okay" b) Find System32 manually by clicking "Start" > "My Computer" > "(X:)" (Replacing "X" with the drive letter of the host of Windows) > "Windows" > "System32".
3. In "System32", go to "Tools" > "Folder options" > click on the tab, "View" > Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types". Now you can begin...
4. Check to make sure the window that comes up has a full screen of various files. The files are in alphabetical order, which makes it easier to locate the specific file.
5. Find "WgaLogon.dll" and rename it "WgaLogon.dll.bak".create an empty copy of WgaLogon.dll:

• Right click on a blank space in System32 and select "New" > "Text Document".
• Leave the text document empty and label it "WgaLogon.dll". Press Enter (on your keyboard).
• You may get a warning from the above step that says, "If you change a file name extension, the file may become unusable. Are you sure you want to change it?". Click "Yes" on this warning.

7. Be ready to complete the next two steps very quickly! Find "WgaTray.exe" in "System32" and delete it. You will then have 5 seconds to find "WgaTray.exe" in the Task Manager (the next step). 8. Immediately open Task Manager. You can do this by pressing the Ctrl, Shift, and Esc keys simultaneously or right clicking the Taskbar and selecting "Task Manager". Click on the process tab and end "WgaTray.exe". 9. Restart your computer once you have finished. All the notification messages should be gone.

Check out Blogmusik Before It’s Pulled off the Internet

Blogmusik.net is a site that lets users search for songs and play them (streaming) immediately via a Flash player that looks like an iPod. Use does not require registration. However, if you create an account you can also save songs and create playlists. The library is quite extensive - I was listening to Eminem, R.E.M., Metallica and Frank Sinatra earlier this evening and it seemed to have just about everything I was searching for.

I have the feeling, based on the fact that there is absolutely no information about any licensing deal or even basic company information, that this is an unauthorized use of copyrighted material. I suspect that the library is simply a very large music collection sitting on a server with a nice looking Flash UI tacked on. See the comments below for additional information. It certainly is fun, but I can’t imagine it will be making the RIAA and its worldwide counterparts very happy. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The service has an associated blog here, and Myspace page here.

my upgrade from Pentium 4 to Pentium D

After the launch of dual core 2 by intel i am planning to upgrade my machine just waiting for the right time and the right time is when i have enough money in my pocket to upgrade my P4 machine. So finally the day comes and i changed my whole machine except my old TVSE gold keyboard(becoz that is one who care of my fingers from last 3-4yrs).My new machine configuration is now with 2.66 dual core processor,865 intel main board(i want to buy the 9 series model but most of them are expensive and some dont support dual core),160GB SATA,DVD-RW,17" TFT Samsung,iball cabinet.This all cost me around Rs25,100.00 but sach kahu toh waat lag gayi i dont have a single penny in my wallet. my pc shadow on my old Hdd platter(eheh i dissect the hdd) my old dissected Hdd

Vista Beta 2 Download Available

Microsoft has decided to offer Windows Vista Beta 2 (build 5384.4) to the public for free. I can only assume this is Microsoft’s way of letting everyone know that they have an actual working product and that progress is being made regardless of the delays. This is a great strategy to let people know what to expect in the next version as well as get a sneak peek of what they will be paying so much for. Screenshots show that the beta is of the Windows Vista “Ultimate” type. Microsoft seems to have a knack for releasing betas of upcoming software. Several weeks ago, the Microsoft Office 2007 Beta was released.

Microsoft mentioned last month that Vista will be offered in more flavors than the regular home and professional. There will actually be, get this, seven different kinds of Vistas: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, a Home Premium with MCE, Ultimate, Professional, Small Business and Enterprise Editions. You can find out about the differences between each type of Vista on Softpedia.

Life After Windows Vista

Windows Vienna is the codename for the operating system that comes after Microsoft’s Windows Vista. I’m not yet sure why Microsoft is worrying about the OS after Vista, when Vista isn’t anywhere near getting out the door. This information comes from Neowin.net where they discuss how this info was discovered from famous Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble. Apparently Scoble replied to a thread on Channel 9, an MSDN related site, regarding a Blackcomb video with the following: since this video was shot the codename for Blackcomb has indeed changed to Vienna. I haven’t gotten the story on this yet, though. Windows Vienna used to be codename Blackcomb. Microsoft is still remaining fairly secretive about Vienna and I don’t blame them. Vienna probably won’t come out until 2010. While Windows Vista is intended to be a technologies-based release, with some UI changes (in the form of the Aero set of technologies and guidelines), Vienna is targeted directly at revolutionizing the way we interact with our home and office PCs.

10 Things Every New Mac Owner Should Know

This is a list of 10 things every first time Mac owner, particularly Mac Mini owner, should know about their new computer and operating system. This article should answer some burning questions, enlighten you about some features you did not know about OS X and just all around be helpful. 256 Won’t Cut It Upgrading to 512MB of DDR RAM is suggested and will get you off to using a Mac on the right foot while an upgrade to 1GB will really unleash some speed. More RAM means you can have more applications open at the same time and decreased boot times. I recommend 1GB for photoshop or other intensive application users. Any memory rated DDR333 or higher will suffice. If you can find one with a CAS latency of 2 or 2.5, get that over one with a CAS of 3. If you’re not sure to go Crucial’s Mac section should be just what the doctor ordered. No Need to Defrag Whenever a PC is acting sluggish the first thing you hear people ask is “Have you tried defragging the hard drive?” However, this is not the case with Macs. Based on the proven and reliable Unix architecture with a Mac OS Extended Journaled file system, you don’t have to worry about defragmenting your hard drive to boost access/reading/writing times; it is done for you automatically. (Technically, it is not being defragged but things are just put in their place with journaling) Whenever your mac detects that it is fairly idle or you attempt to use a heavily fragmented file, it will start fixing up your filesystem. This might explain some noises coming from your computer in the middle of the night (assuming you left it on). Closing Unresponsive Applications The Mac equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up a system tasks profiler for force quitting unresponsive tasks is CMD-OPTION-ESC (or Windows-ALT-ESC if you are using a PC keyboard). Just select the frozen application and hit Force Quit. If a program is completely frozen, it will appear in red text. Where Did That Window Go? You will quickly learn that when you minimize your applications, they go to the dock. Specifically the items to the right of the bar in the dock menu are open finder windows or applications. This is similar to the area where minimized applications go in the windows task bar. Also, if a finder window is not minimized, but behind another open window you can bring it up by clicking on the finder icon in the dock. Updates You will want to occasionally check for updates from Apple by accessing the Apple menu and clicking on Software Update. I recommend heading over to Apple > System Preferences > Software Update and setting your Mac to automatically check for software updates weekly and download important updates in the background. System Profiler The System Profiler, accessible via Apple > About This Mac > More Info, is the one stop shop for finding out anything about your Mac. Similar to Windows XP’s Administrative tasks and Device Manager, the System Profiler is easy to navigate and offers you a plethora of system information from application versions to the MAC address of your ethernet card. Expose Apple introduced Expose to OS X to make your life easier, so go ahead and use it to your heart’s content. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Dashboard & Expose and play with some of the settings to make those menial tasks more convienient to execute. My favorite Expose tip is setting an active corner to open up Dashboard. One simple mouse movement and Dashboard launches. Login Items A major annoyance with some applications is that upon installation they will automatically set themselves to run when you boot your computer. For Windows XP, you would usually run msconfig to remedy this problem. However in OS X you can access a similar menu in Apple > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items. From here you can add, remove and hide items that launch when you login. Eject Optical Media This is probably only a problem for those that are using non-Apple keyboards, that lack a CD Eject key. Press and Hold F12 for 2 seconds to eject any CD or DVD. An alternate method is dragging the CD icon on the desktop to the trash. This will not delete it. You can also use the Command-E keystroke. Keyboard Shortcuts If saving time and being productive is the name of the game, then keyboard shortcuts are for you. The next time you are browsing around the menus of your favorite applications, take a glance at the right side of the menu to see if you find any shortcuts that can help you out. Here are a few to get you started. Command-? Mac Help Command-A Select All Command-C Copy Command-D Duplicates current item Command-E Ejects selected volume, media, or server Command-F Find Command-H Hide current application Command-I Opens Get Info dialog for selected item Command-J Toggles View Options Open & Closed Command-K Connect to server Command-L Creates Alias for selected item Command-M Minimize a Finder-folder to Dock Command-Option-M Save as above but minimizes all open Finder-folders Command-N Opens up new Finder window Command-O Opens selected item Command-Q Quits active application Command-V Paste Command-W Closes Finder-folder window Command-Option-W Same as above but closes all Finder-folders Command-X Cut Command-Z Undo Command-Del Moves selected item to Trash Command-Shift-A Opens the applications folder Command-Shift-N Creates a new folder in the selected workspace Command-Shift-Del Empty Trash Command-Tab Rotate through open applications and switch to highlighted app Command-~ Same as above but only flips through open windows in the selected application

Create Cool Apple iPod Ads with Your Photo

Ever thought how Apple creates those impressive iPod People Advertisements as shown in this picture ? The very innovative Apple iPod commercials feature dark black silhouettes against bright-colored animated backgrounds. The people are shown in dancing postures holding and listening to the iPod with white earphones that stand out against the colored background and black silhouettes [download apple ad movie here] Now Jennifer has a very simple tutorial to convert your photograph into an iPod ad using Photoshop. The ad looks best when you are in an action pose like playing a game, dancing or even jogging. Today, Photojojo points to MacMerc which has even more detailed instructions and step-by-step guide for creating iPod people ads with your own pictures. This creates a better version of the iPod since it also shows how to create people shadows on the floor which give that 3D look to the iPod ad. And if you hate Photoshop or don't have the "advanced" skills, just send your picture to ipop my photo and they will "ipodify" it for a fee. The final results are very impressive and they also include the iPod with the white earbuds even if they were not part of your original photograph. Happy iPodding.

Download Mosquitotone: Teenage Repellent turns favorite Ringtone of Students

Technology vs Teenagers - Who is winning ? Mosquito device sends out a high pitched irritating noise that can only be heard by young men as most people over 25 do not hear sound at this frequency range. The purpose of Mosquito is to prevent unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls and around shops or chase them away. Not only shopkeepers, Railway companies have placed the device to discourage youths from spraying graffiti on trains and the walls of railway stations. When Compound Security System developed Mosquito, they would never have imagined that the device would actually help kids and teenagers in their classrooms. The sound emitted by the Mosquito Teens Repellant is now converted into a Cellphone Ringtone. Since adult teachers cannot hear the sound because it's too high-pitched, school children can receive text message alerts and incoming calls on their cell phones without the teacher knowing. Download Mosquito Ringtone | Mosquito Tone Mirror

Top tweaks for a very faster PC

Follow the tips directly after a clean install of Windows XP Defrag the hard drive. Even if XP tells you that it does not need to, do it anyway. It has much tolerance for what "needs" to be done and what should be done. After all, if it was really efficient, there would be no need for you to read this page. Defrag again after installing your applications and games. After that, there should be little need to do it again for awhile unless you delete/uninstall/reinstall a lot of stuff. Read all steps here - Super Tweaks for Windows XP by Black Viper

Free tweaking tool for optimizing Windows system

Fresh UI is a tool for configuring and optimizing Windows. It comes loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows such as: customizing the User Interface (UI), optimizing system settings, optimizing hardware settings, customizing Windows application settings, control user environment with policies. Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and completed with detail description for easy reference. Great tool! Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and completed with detail descriptions for easy reference. Fresh UI: for Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98, 95, NT Download here

Connect Google Talk to AIM, MSN, & Yahoo

Google has opened up their Google Talk servers for federation with other Jabber servers, you can use Google Talk to connect to your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ. Here's how, step-by-step with screenshots. First, download and install the free Jabber client called Psi. It's a fine Jabber client, and you might want to keep it, but you won't need to once you've set everything up. The Psi wiki has a great step-by-step for connecting to Google Talk. Follow their instructions and you'll be able to see your Google Talk contacts. Next, go to Service Discovery and browse the Jabber server ursine.ca and you'll see the transports available. Click on a transport and Psi will gather data. Right-click on a transport to register. Registration involves entering your username and password for the given IM network. Once you do, Psi will connect to that network and retrieve your contacts. You can also add new contacts. Once I had "registered" each of my IM accounts, I had a lot of system messages. Basically it asked me to confirm that I wanted to add each of these contacts. Once I did, they showed up in my Psi contact list. Once you've done so, you can chat with your friends on AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN -- all using Google Talk. You can also add contacts directly within Google Talk. Just use the format [screenname]@[transport.dns.name]. For example, to add my MSN/Hotmail screen name you would enter pankajkala@hotmail.ursine.ca What's the deal with ursine.ca? You can use any Jabber server you'd like -- you'll find a complete list here at www.jabber.org/network/ -- ursine.ca was just the server I used. This process works, although in my experience, the MSN transport has not been reliable. One of my friends reported an weird "echo" effect. Everything she typed was returned back to her as if from me (I saw none of her messages). I've also sent IMs to MSN contacts, only to have them immediately appear "offline." As with any of these kinds of hacks, your mileage may vary. But you've got to admit -- it is very cool to be able to use Google Talk as a universal IM client.

Windows XP Must-Haves

I currently have a dual-boot Linux and Windows XP Professional . I use linux from last 2 year but I was a full-time Windows user for over a decade, so I will discuss some of the applications I have loaded on my new XP installation. Feel free to leave a comment at the end if I am missing some application you can’t live without.

XP Powertoys

Microsoft’s own Powertoys represents one of the few things I cannot live without on a fresh XP install. Powertoys are a collection of small yet helpful tools such as Image Resizer and Tweak UI.

The MCE Theme - XP Energy Blue 2

I was ecstatic when Microsoft released the theme that their Media Center Edition version of Windows uses, XP Energy Blue 2, as I can’t stand the default Windows XP theme. It features a slicker menubar with a seemingly Web 2.0 dual-color glare effect as well as a slightly retooled color scheme for Explorer. It makes the task of computing in Windows much more tolerable.

Adobe Acrobat Enterprise Edition

Everyone knows that the standard version of Adobe Acrobat is pretty much bloatware. It takes a long time to load when opening a PDF and can cause your system to feel like it’s 10 years old. Adobe realized that not everyone fully utilized the extraneous features of Acrobat so they released a lightweight version with the Enterprise Edition suffix. You can download the Enterprise Edition here. Alternatively, you can ditch Adobe’s offerings all together and opt for Foxit Software’s Foxit Reader. It promises to be a small and fast PDF viewer.

Image Editors

Not everyone can justify spending several hundred dollars on a professional image editing application such as Adobe Photoshop when all they want to do is occasionally crop something. There are two free alternatives: the GNU Image Manipulation Program and Paint.NET. If you are familiar with Microsoft Paint, you shouldn’t have much of a problem becoming familiar with Paint.NET’s interface. It is based upon the .NET architecture to provide for a more robust image editing experience. Some Paint.NET highlights include layer support and an unlimited history.

For those pursuing a more feature-rich application, GIMP is the way to go. The only downside to GIMP is that the menu system is nothing like Photoshop or Paint, so it definitely takes some getting used to. GIMP has a nifty feature for taking screenshots which can come in handy.

The capabilities of GIMP are up there with the current Photoshop, although slightly less. However, GIMP is open-source and free making it a massive bargain compared to Photoshop. If you just can’t get anything done in GIMP due to the foreign menus, Scott Moschella has taken the GIMP source code, made the menus more Photoshop-user friendly and released it as GIMPShop. Download GIMPShop for XP.

Productivity Apps

This probably goes without saying but Mozilla Firefox should be your browser of choice.Mozilla Thunderbird makes a great email client and Open Office is a fantastic open-source productivity suite.

As far as simple text editors go, the standard Notepad leaves much to be desired. Some great and free solutions include Notepad 2 and the spiffy Notepad ++. Both offer basic amenities such as line numbering and colored text. Notepad ++ is slightly more advanced with tabs, syntax highlighting and auto-completion. Either of these are fantastic upgrades for those that dabble in HTML all the way to advanced coders that want a simple and lightweight editor. Alternatively, if you like to do a lot of HTML and web coding, the Nvu web authoring suite is for you.

Spyware Removers/System Performance

Since we are talking about Windows here, you will need some form of protection and defense against spyware.Some of the more mainstream spyware removers include AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy and Microsoft AntiSpyware. CCleaner also helps speed up your system by getting rid of superfluous crap as they put it.

The standard defragmenter gets the job done, but it is bereft of features and uncanny. I prefer Power Defragmenter (freeware) or the full-scale Diskeeper application. Power Defragmenter provides a GUI for the Sysinternals defragmentation engine allowing for faster defrags, higher efficiency and increased ease of use.

After you have cleaned up your hard drive, start focusing on running applications and system resource hogs with Sysinternals’ Process Explorer. This application provides you with extensive information that the Task Manager can’t - The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Now it’s time to benchmark your computer to see if your tweaks have done anything. The SiSoft Sandra benchmarking suite is a great way to track system performance and compare it with other computers. Futuremark’s PCMark and 3DMark series of benchmarking applications are slowly becoming the industry standard. AquaMark used to be a great GPU-intensive benchmarking application, and still is, but their publisher isn’t in existence anymore.

Internet Utilities

I’m not one to web develop on my PC but when there comes a time that I need to edit something on my server, I use either WinSCP or FireFTP. Both are small and free FTP clients with FireFTP integrating into Firefox. WinSCP can handle SSH activities but when you really need a terminal, there is no replacement for Putty. WinSCP’s terminal is emulated but Putty’s terminal is the real deal - colors, tab-complete, etcetera.

The ChatZilla Firefox extension lets me hop onto IRC quickly and easily, but if I want a more feature-rich IRC environment it’s always been XChat or mIRC. My other messaging duties are done with Google Talk and Gaim. Gaim is a big step-up from AIM, boasting an ad-free IM client with support for several instant messaging protocols as well as tabs and chat logging.

When thinking about BitTorrent clients for Windows, several come to mind: Azureus, uTorrent, BitComet and BitLord. Azureus has all the features and extensive plugin support but is slowed down considerably by its use of the Java VM. uTorrent is quite the opposite with a lightweight application that doesn’t hog system resources. You can find out more about other BitTorrent clients with this detailed comparison chart on Wikipedia.

File Utilities

WinRAR with its support for folders, unlike WinZIP, is a well-needed upgrade from Windows XP’s compressed folders. UltraISO is also a nifty application strictly for dealing with ISO images. Great if I want to edit or add a file to an ISO image rapidly. WinISO doesn’t seem to have as many features as UltraISO but is still a solid application.

What Else

I know I am leaving some spaces open such as media players, but I would like to hear what you guys can’t live without on Windows. I know I am a big VLC and iTunes proponent when it comes to media.

Boot Camp Installation Tips

Last night, I finally got Apple’s Boot Camp to work properly and dual-boot Windows XP SP2 Professional on my client Intel Mac Mini. I ran into a few problems at first so I’ll go through my whole experience so that the same things don’t happen to you. Overall, my only regret was not giving Windows enough space as I found out it runs pretty darn fast.

Boot Camp Preparation

Before you can attempt Boot Camp you need to update your firmware, as mentioned in the Boot Camp instructional pdf, from apple.com/support/downloads. After installing Boot Camp and flashing the firmware you are going to want to make sure you have sufficient storage space for Windows. Boot Camp won’t even install unless you have 10GB free. I have an 80GB hard drive in my client mini and attempted the Boot Camp process but was given several errors ranging from some files couldn’t be moved (prompting me to backup my client drive, reinstall OS X and restore) to disk errors requiring me to reboot with the OS X disc and perform a disk repair. Lots of Space Before Boot Camp can partition your hard drive to accomodate for Windows, it has to allocate that space by moving all of your OS X files scattered throughout the disk, into one portion of the hard drive. If your hard drive is filled and fragmented, this can be a very challenging task for Boot Camp and will likely result in a few errors the first time around. Here’s what you can do. Delete stuff you don’t need and have more than enough space for your OS X partition and Windows Partition. OS X partition had about 15GB free while the Windows partition was going to use 15GB total. If you really can’t find anything else to delete to make that space, turn to iTunes and look at your podcasts. I had subscribed to many video podcasts taking up gobs of space. I deleted a few, emptied the trash and had about 10 extra gigabytes. I would also recommend defragmenting your hard drive before attempting Boot Camp but that is not yet possible as the defragging application I use, iDefrag, isn’t yet compatible with Intel Macs. If I were able to defrag hard drive before Boot Camp, I would have likely gotten away with smaller partitions and had no errors. Close ALL Apps When you open Boot Camp for the first time there is a small warning saying that you should close all applications. Apple really means it. I thought I could get away with having Adium and Firefox open, but 10 minutes through partitioning hard drive I was given an error stating that some files couldn’t be moved as they were in use. So try to close everything, Quicksilver, Gmail Notifier, Safari, iTunes, things like that.

Windows XP Installation

Once the window above pops up, choose start installation after ensuring you have a working Windows XP SP2 Home or Pro disc with a cd-key, as well as the Macintosh drivers CD that Boot Camp prompted you to burn earlier.Insert the Windows disc and click Start Installation. NTFS versus FAT32 Everything should progress nicely with the Windows installation, I was surprised that even Bluetooth wireless keyboard worked fine during the installation. You don’t need to hit F6 to install any drivers, as is almost per usual with other PC motherboards utilizing non-chipset RAID or SATA controllers. After some of the menus and pressing F8 to agree with the installation terms, you will be given an ultimatum - use the NT filesystem or FAT32. There are some pros and cons for each so I’ll just make a little list.

Pros
• FAT32: You can access your Windows partition from within OS X.
• NTFS: Metadata support and overall speediness.

Cons
• FAT32: It’s not as fast as NTFS and you can’t see OS X in Windows regardless.
• NTFS: Can’t be accessed from within OS X.

I went with a FAT32 filesystem as I found the ability to access the Windows parition in OS X rather attractive. I’m usually in OS X so when I’ve been assigned a programming homework, I’ll download that file and place it on Windows drive, where all coding is done.

Another option you have is to perform a quick format or a full format. A full format takes much longer and 0’s out all of the data on the partition where as a quick format only erases the information on the TOC, or table of contents, at the beginning of the hard drive - not touching any physical data on the partition. If you have the time, a full format is safer and ensures disk health. A quick format relies on the new data overwriting the current data on the disk but this can sometimes cause system instability if it gets confused, which happens.

Done After XP booted for the first time, I put in the Mac drivers disc and let it install. Everything works fine, although Windows doesn’t know what to do with my iSight and the keypad on Apple wireless keyboard isn’t active. The coolest thing, however, is the boot loader. By default OS X will boot up, although this can be changed (look at the Boot Camp pdf). To select another OS, holding down the alt key upon boot, select the OS you wish to use for this session and hit enter. If you’ve attempted a Boot Camp install, leave a comment and let me know how it turned out.

Boot Camp’s nifty boot loader

Apple’s September 12th Surprise

The past few weeks in the Apple community have been chockful of rumors that Apple will hold a special event next Tuesday, September 12th. What they are going to release then is anyone’s guess. However, the special event will almost certainly update some current Macs with the new Intel Core 2 Duo (Merom core) processor and even bring a new Mac as Apple Insider claims.

Apparently, Apple will introduce a massive 23 inch iMac powered by the dual-core mobile Merom chip. You can expect speeds of 2, 2.16 and 2.33GHz to be offered. On the Intel front, this year’s net income was a whopping 57% lower than expected and Intel might cut as many as 10,000 jobs soon.

As far as other Apple rumors are concerned, September 12th might bring the iTunes Movie Store that we’ve all been hearing about. However, if the price per movie is indeed in the neighborhood of $14.99 I won’t be using the service, especially if the movies are DRM-protected. Now if you are feeling ambitious, you can extrapolate that rumor to indicate that a new iPod should be introduced to play these movies.

Speaking of DRM, a recently released Python package dubbed QTFairUse can circumvent DRM in iTunes 6. However, QTFairUse shouldn’t be too much of a threat to Apple as it requires a fairly strong technical know-how to even get it running.

New Get a Mac Ads Hit the Web

Apple has released three more viral advertisements into the wild. The first is entitled Accident and focuses on the magsafe feature in MacBooks. Angel/Devil shows what you can make with iPhoto while Trust Mac emphasizes how Macs aren’t as vulnerable to spyware as PCs.

Firefox 1.5.0.3 Fixes DoS Vulnerability

Update your Firefox with the latest release from Mozilla, version 1.5.0.3. Firefox might even download the update itself and prompt you to restart the browser. This version fixes the widely discussed vulnerability that allows malicious code to, in theory, crash the browser.

Google Talk Update - Easy File Sharing

Google has updated their homemade instant messaging client, Google Talk. The most important feature addition is what I’d like to call smart file sharing. You can drag-and-drop files or folders to share with contacts. For example, if you wanted to share a large picture with someone you can drag it into the chat window and it will send them a small preview. If they want to save the full-size of the picture, they can then click download originals.

It’s also important to note that the new GTalk executes file transfers with a direct connection to your contact’s computer whenever possible; leaving latency at a minimum. Other additions include voicemail which is great for leaving a message to an offline colleague. Download the latest version for your PC.