gHacks technology news » admin

Remove Windows Components in Vista

admin — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:46:47 +0000

Microsoft seems to be under the impression that change is good and will not confuse users of a previous versions of their Windows operating system. It is interesting that they decided to change on elementary function in Windows Vista if you compare it to Windows XP: the Add/Remove Windows Components.

If you go into the Control Panel in Windows Vista you will not find Add / Remove Programs like in Windows XP and there is also no SYSOC.INF file where you can remove the HIDE parameter to add more windows components to the Add / Remove Programs menu.

The function in Windows Vista is called Turn Windows Features on or off and is available in the Programs and Features menu. There is however a huge difference. You might have noticed the on or off phrase and that is exactly what is happening. The component is not uninstalled and still on the hard drive if you select to turn a feature off.

There is only one known way to remove Windows components permanently and that would mean to prepare a special installation DVD with vlite. This means lots of work however and most users will not feal it is worth it.

You can however remove lots of Windows components this way including the Windows Firewall, Windows Media Player and Windows Mail.

Tags: remove programs, vlite, windows tips, windows-vista

Sony’s first PC Blue-Ray drive won’t play Blue-Ray Movies

admin — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:01:27 +0000

This sounds a little strange at first, don’t you think ? I really had to investigate the matter further, let us check out what this is all about. The Australian PC World revealed the new Blue-Ray drive about three weeks ago on their website.

“Sony cautions that additional software and hardware is required for playback of commercial movies on Blu-ray Disc (BD-ROM) but the company didn’t specify exactly what is required.”

No one was sure what that ment at that time – until today. Cdfreaks report that Sony’s BWU-100A Blu-ray drive will not play Blu-ray movies which is exactly what Sony ment when they gave this statement to PC World.

“While the drive would be more than capable of reading Blu-ray discs for the playback of HD video content, the problem is due to the main issue that plagues all next generation formats for movies: The Infamous Copy protection. With the lack of PCs available that have HDCP enabled graphics cards and playback software still in its development, Sony has decided to leave out support for commercial BD movies altogether. However, the drive will still be able to play back user-created HD content, such as from a high definition camcorder, where no copy protection is required.“

PC World Australia asked Sony’s product manager Vincent Bautista for data storage about this matter, he explained..

“..that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.

Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn’t yet possible.

The second reason, according to Bautista, is that BD playback software that can decrypt HDCP isn’t “released as a saleable item yet“.

This means in other words that people who are actually buying this Blue-Ray drive are not getting what they bargained for. A Blue-Ray drive that is not playing copy-protected movies ? C’mon who needs such a drive ? It is capable of writing disks which could be a good argument for a purchase.

Looking at the prices for Blue-Ray discs makes me wonder how many users will use this feature instead of using a different method to backup their data. The price of ten Blue-Ray discs is greater than that of a large external hard drive for example. Oh, I forgot, the Blue-Ray drive itself will cost around 750$. Pretty expensive for something that has a limited functionality, don’t you think ?

Tags: blu-ray, Hardware, sony

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RAPIDSHARE HACKS, Downloads, Tools and Searches

admin — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:52:00 +0000

Rapidshare hacks, downloaders for rapidshare, no timelimit, unlimited downloads, free premium accounts. Those are some of the keywords that users are looking for. I thought it would be nice to write a definite guide about rapidshare. Which rapidshare hacks, tools and tricks are working, which are not. Rapidshare imposes a download and timelimit on non premium users of their service. Downloading from Rapidshare is only possible with one connection at a time and rapidshare limits the size of the files that you download to 30 megabytes every hour.

Rapidshare Hacks:

Speaking of Rapidshare Hacks: There is one little rapidshare hack available which sets the timelimit you have to wait to 0. Clear your address bar and add the following line to it “javascript:alert(c=0)”. This sets the rapidshare timelimit to 0 but does not change the download limit. The only way to reset the rapidshare download limit is to make rapidshare.de believe you are a new user. This can be done by either reconnecting to your ISP or by using proxys.
Reconnecting to your ISP is only working if they give out dynamic (changing) IPs to their users, if you have a static IP you will have to use proxies. You can check your ip here. Rapidshare sets a cookie which you will have to delete as well. (In Firefox go to Tools, Options. Select Privacy, Cookies, View Cookies and delete all rapidshare cookies.)

You can try the following commands instead of reconnecting. Open the windows command line (Start, Run, enter cmd, hit enter). Type the following commands, hit enter after each line:

Windows	Mac	Linux
ipconfig /flushdns	let me know	restart nscd daemon
ipconfig /release	let me know	sudo ifconfig en0 down
ipconfig /renew	let me know	sudo ifconfig en0 down;sudo ifconfig en0 up

If your IP remains the same you probably have a static IP that does not change at all. Your only option to avoid the rapidshare download limit is to use proxies and still clear the cookies in the browser that you are using. Do a search on google for “proxy lists” and you will find heaps of websites that offer proxies. Not all of them are working and you will have to verify that the proxy is a) fast enough and b) does not spill your real IP.

To do that you can simply add the proxy to your connections menu and try it out. Lookup your ip and see if the page loads fast. If you recieve errors or you see your real IP you have to find another proxy.

Rapidshare Tools:

Tools provide some additional features like managing the downloads, changing proxies, simultanious downloads by using more than one proxy and much more. Let us take a look at some of the rapidshare tools:

Rapidshare Link Grab Helper, the password for the rar file is “webxposed.de”. A pretty basic rapidshare tool. Add a rapidshare link, add a proxy, click grab, enter the image verification code, sent the rapidhare direct link to flashget.

Rapget, supports not only rapidshare.de but many other file hosting services like megaupload.com for example. The program has more options, it allows you to select a proxy list that it uses automatically while downloading from rapidshare or the other services. It offers simultanious rapidshare downloads, you can set timeouts, schedule downloads and paste links from files or the clipboard.

Grabber, looks similar to the rapidshare link grab helper with some additional options such as proxy and link checking.

Rapidleecher, offers basic functionality. Copy links, use proxies, enter image verification, get real download link and download the file.

Rapidshare Searches:

You need links to download files from rapidshare. One common method is to use google to search rapidshare.de by using googles site search command.

site:rapidshare.de RAR

This would search rapidshare.de for every link / page that includes the word rar.

You can also search google for sites that index rapidshare downloads, I won´t get into detail about those sites because they mostly link to illegal downloads. Try the search string “rapidshare links” for example.

Rapidshare Free Premium Accounts:

Rapidshare sometimes promotes free premium accounts. Head over to this rapidshare link to check if they currently offer free premium accounts.

Check out this Rapidshare hack for additional information.

Tags: rapidshare, rapidshare hack, rapidshare hacks

Windows shut down takes ages ? Try Profile Hive

admin — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 12:01:21 +0000

Are you experiencing long shut down times ? Is it taken some minutes after you click on shut down before windows finally shuts down your computer ? This problem could be caused by unloading the current user 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.

Microsoft released the tool profile hive cleanup because of this. When you install the tool you will find a new service which is called profile hive cleanup service. This service automatically cleans up user profiles when it is running and this should have the result that the shutdown of the system does not take minutes but seconds.

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.

Tags: profile hive, shutdown, Windows, windows tips

Auto Copy Firefox Extension

admin — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:59:24 +0000

I don´t like the normal way to copy text. Mark a text area, hit CTRL + C or right click and select copy to copy that text area to the clipboard. I´am lazy I know but I was always looking for a faster way to copy a text area. The firefox extension Auto Copy is the answer to my prayers. It auto copies, hence the name, every marked text automatically to the clipboard.

Works with latest firefox, mozilla and thunderbird.

Tags: auto-copy, firefox-extensions, mozilla

Quicklaunch for Tools with keyboard shortcuts

admin — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:29:35 +0000

Quicklauncher is a freeware application for Windows that gives you fast access to selected programs either by clicking on them or defining keyboard shortcuts for them. The tool itself is entirely in German, I´am not sure if there is an english version available as well. Right click on the upper drop down menu to add categories to quicklauncher. You can use the same way to add additional categories to quicklauncher.

Once you´ve finished adding categories you can add programs to them. Right click somewhere in the list below the category name and select “Dateipfad/Befehl hinzufügen” to add a program or “Ordnerpfad hinzufügen” to add a folder for faster access. If you have troubles finding out what to do let me know and I will try my best to help you figure out what to do.

Tags: keyboard shortcuts, quicklaunch, software, Windows

Play Bust a Move online

admin — Sat, 20 May 2006 14:01:44 +0000

Bust a Move or Puzzle Bobble is a nice little game that has made it´s way to almost every console system that has been released in the last ten years. You task is to clear a stage that consists of colored bubbles on the top of every screen and two little dragons at the bottom who shot colored bubbles at the ceiling. If three or more bubbles of the same color come into contact they disappear. The screen gets smaller from time to time means you will have to hurry to get rid of all the bubbles before the screen reaches your little dragons at the bottom.

You can play the game either in 640*480 or 320*240 resolution. Looks and plays much like the original. Great for a little break.

Tags: bust a move, flash games, Games

Wireless Security: Attacks and Defenses

admin — Wed, 17 May 2006 08:06:41 +0000

The article wireless security attacks and defenses begins with a example how people who are new to the wireless world run their wireless devices carelessly and thus invite others (with more knowledge) to exploit this weakness. Those people run for example wireless routers at factory defaults because they don´t know better, they think the device is safe the way it´s preconfigured.

My personal advice would be to avoid using something that you don´t know enough about. You should read at least the instructions which should help you setup a relative secure system but that´s of course not sufficient. You should do some research on the internet and articles like the one mentioned above help you understand the concepts and secure your wireless connection.

You could hope of course that nothing will go bad, that no one will get access to your computer, find out about your private files, share child pornography with it, download music from it aso. But I would not take any chances.

Back to the article: It lists Vulnerabilities and Attack Methods (Human Error, Rogue Access Points, Warchalking, MAC Address Spoofing, Noisy Neighbors, Improper Design and Man-In-The-Middle Attacks). You get a good basic understanding of those vulnerabilities and attack methods. This is of course no in depth knowledge but solid beginners knowledge. As always, if you want to know more you have to research.

After explaining the attack methods the article lists defense measures starting with basic defense methods. (WEP, MAC Address Blocking, Ditch the Defaults, Beacon Intervals, Access Lists, Controlling Reset and Disable DHCP)

The article gives a basic overview, you will have to find out how to setup your wireless router properly, that´s something the article won´t mention. Mainly because there are hundreds of different routers out there and it would be impossible to give configuration advices for all of them. Read the manual of your router and I suggest you visit the manufacturer homepage and see if there are updates for it available (firmware for instance). Maybe the manufacturer has a forum where users post their experience, this are always valuable sources for information.

Tags: disable dhcp, wireless, wireless devices, wireless security

Listen to Pandora in Winamp

admin — Sat, 13 May 2006 10:50:20 +0000

Pandora is a online service that finds similar music to an artist, album or genre that you specify and which creates your unique radio station that plays the related titles. Unfortunatly it´s only available on their website and not in music players like winamp. Until now, that is.

You need the latest version of Winamp (5.21 at the moment). All you need to do is browse to the winamp directory, enter the plugins/ml/ folder and edit the file “ml_online.ini”. Find the line that contains “ElementID7=-1” and replace it with the following lines:

ElementID7=7000
ElementIcon7=11003
ElementSubbed7=1
ElementName7=Pandora
ElementURL7=http://www.pandora.com/?cmd=tunermini
ElementID8=-1

Open Winamp again and head to Media Library/Online Services/Pandora. You will need an account with pandora to make this work. If you have one you are ready to enjoy it in winamp.

via: googlesystems

Tags: music, pandora, winamp

Secure Passwords Manager PINs

admin — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 09:12:39 +0000

Users have many passwords that they have to remember, not only for website logins but also for credit cards, bank cards and the like. Many of them force you to use a different password because they have certain restrictions how the password has to look like. (for example 6 digits, a minimum of 8 chars aso.) That means, the trick to have only one password for everything is not working that well, besides being really insecure.

The secure passwords manager PINs stores all your passwords and other vital information like account data using a 448 bit Blowfish algorithm. PINs can be run directly from any device including USB or Floppy making it a great tool for everyone who is not accessing a computer exclusively from home. It supports multiple accounts, safe file wiping, supports an unlimited number of text and data and is open source.

[tags]freeware, password, open source, tool, windows, blowfish, encrypt, secure[/tags]

Tags: password manager, pins, secure passwords

Read Linux Files in Windows

admin — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:34:36 +0000

If you have linux and windows installed on your pc you might have experienced that it is no problem to read windows files and access windows hard drives (partitions) in linux but that it is indeed a problem to access linux files, hard drives and partitions in windows. The freeware application Explore2fs that lets you do this. It´s handy if you don´t like switching between those operating systems. Features inlcude:

ext2 and ext3 support
Drag and drop
Export file(s)
View / Execute file
View Symbolic links

Tags: linux files, linux in windows, linux partition, software, Windows

How to increase download speeds with Azureus and uTorrent

admin — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 06:26:45 +0000

I´am using Bitcomet and love it but Azureus and uTorrent are two great bittorrent clients as well and I know that a lot of people are using them. The AureusWiki site has an entry that tries to help you to download your torrents faster. They post some interesting links in that article that deal with common problems and settings that slow down downloads. They provide a chart for example that take different upload speeds and define other settings that are optimal for good download speeds.

JohnTp published an article that tries to explain how to increase download speeds with uTorrent, another popular client. This article is really helpful, besides a step by step walkthrough John added screenshots as well to visualise everything even more.

Just a sidenote, you will never be able to download at greater speed than your connection is capable of, that means: If you already have near to max speeds it is not necessary to tweak the settings even more. It´s great for everyone else who is having troubles.

Tags: azureus, bittorrent, bittorrent tips, utorrent

Top 15 Security and Hacking Tools & Utilities

admin — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:35:03 +0000

Finally a great darknet.org.uk article that lists 15 Security and Hacking Tools & Utilities. Users who are working in the security field will recognize many if not all of them and beginners will have a great list of tools with explanation that they can work with. You find for instance the telnet and ssh tool putty in the list next to the tool Eraser which overwrites files on your windows system more than once to make sure it can´t be restored that easily.

Here is a short list of all the other tools mentioned: Nmap, Nessus Remote Security Scanner, John the Ripper, Nikto, Superscan, pof, Ethereal, Yersinia, LCP, Cain and Abel, Kismet, Netstumbler and hping. Make sure you check the tools that you do not know about yet, it might be worth it.

Tags: ethereal, freeware, Hacking, jtr, password, ping, port, Security, sniff, ssh, telnet, Tools, utilities

Another World 2006

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:40:16 +0000

Some of you probably remember the 1991 classic Another World which was released on the Amiga system among others. I loved the game, it had fantastic animation and graphics for the time and it played just fine. Was pretty hard as well but I probably was not that good at playing games at that time.

The game was using vector graphics and someone decided that it would be a nice idea to scale the vectors to offer a high res version of the game. You can see and download the results at the another world fanpage. Downloads are only available for pc but that should not be a problem for most. (with the Amiga system being nearly dead and all)

Tags: amiga, another world, Cool, Entertainment, fun, Games, pc

Anonym.OS LiveCD

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:26:19 +0000

Kaos.theory’s Anonym.OS LiveCD is a bootable live cd based on OpenBSD that provides a hardened operating environment whereby all ingress traffic is denied and all egress traffic is automatically and transparently encrypted and/or anonymized. The size of the live cd is 575 megabytes which makes it almost only available for broadband users. Still it´s a good way to surf “relatively” anonymous and leave no traces on the computer that you are using.

Tags: anonym.os, anonymizer, linux anonymous, live cd

LINUX Guide for newbies

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 08:50:13 +0000

I found a sweet little linux guide for newbies. It´s basically a collection of 27 questions and their answers and starts of with general questions about linux, like “what is linux” and “What distribution of Linux should I install?”

After that we come to the helpful stuff, you are told how to add and delete users and change passwords. The biggest part deals with filesystem navigation which gives you answers to questions like “How do I change directories?“, “How do I delete directories?” and “How do I install a program?“. This is a great easy read if you never worked with linux before. If you are already using linux this should be common knowledge already.

Tags: Linux, linux guide

fitography – ripped images from p2p networks

admin — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 07:23:25 +0000

The fitography website offers pictures that have been intentionally or unintentionally been shared by their owners through peer to peer networks. I have not seen any nude content at first glance and if thats what you´re looking for you should probably visit whatboyswant.com instead.

For everyone else with a slight voyeuristic touch: Go there, take a look at the pictures and enjoy. Its worth a visit.

No tag for this post.

Five freeware tools everyone should try out

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 16:31:51 +0000

I´d like to present five freeware tools that everyone should at least take a look at and try out. They are not the “normal” freeware applications that you find in every top ten list like firefox and open office. I write about tools that many users don´t know but would be grateful if they knew they existed. Please be aware that this is my top ten list and that your´s most likely would have different applications in it.

1. Sound Recorder / Editor: Audacity

Audacity is an open source software for editing and recording sounds. It´s available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux and has a great list of features and supported formats. If you ever need an audio editor / recorder you should take a look at audacity.

2. Ftp Client / Server: Filezila

Filezilla is a powerful ftp client for windows. Every webmaster for instance needs an ftp client to transfer the updated files of his website to the webserver. Filezilla also offers a server version which would mean you can host your own ftp server and let friends and others download download and upload files from it. Fast and easy to use, recommended for everyone who is looking for a ftp client or server.

3. Image Manipulation: Gimp

Gimp is an image manipulation application like photoshop and paint shop professional. Unlike the latter two its complete free. Its available for windows, macintosh and *nix and offers a wide variety of features. The gimp homepage has an extensive list of tutorials and documentations in many languages. If you need an image manipulation tool try gimp.

4. Encryption: True Crypt

I´ve already written a large article about true crypt and can recommend it fully. I´am using it at home where I encrypted my entire external hard drive using true crypt. It´s running fine and the read / write speed does not differ a lot from my unencrypted drives.

5. Text Editor: PsPad

Ps Pad is an enhanced texteditor for windows with multi-language support. The text editor supports projects, syntax highlighting and templates. There are more features, just take a look at the applications homepage.

Tags: freeware tools, software, Windows

How to fix a dead pixel on a lcd monitor

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:18:19 +0000

I don´t have a lcd monitor yet but this might be useful to some of you who already own one. This is not supposed to be working for every flat screen out there but I think its nevertheless worth a try. Take a look at the following site and decide for yourself if you want to try this method.

You simply apply pressure to the dead pixel and remove it at a certain time. Sounds easy ? well try it out and tell me if it worked.

Tags: dead pixel, flatscreen, Hardware, lcd, monitor, pixel

System Safety Monitor 2

admin — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:06:39 +0000

System Safety Monitor (SSM) allows you to track down Microsoft Windows operating system activity in real-time and to prevent undesirable actions from various malware and spyware programs. SSM’s main goal is to discover and block malicious actions of any application.

features:

SSM keeps track of the activity of all applications already started or being started and allows you to control:
-which application can be started;
-which child application can be started by a selected one;
-which parent applications are allowed to start a selected one;
-whether a selected application is allowed to start if it was modified;
-whether a selected application is allowed to install a driver;
-whether a selected application is allowed to perform code-injection or DLL-injection;
-create/terminate a process (application);
-suspend a process and resume it afterwards;
-watch the list of DLLs loaded by a selected application.

Tracking and blocking changes in the following important operating system parts:
-Windows registry;
-drivers and services state;
-INI-files;
-”Startup” item of Start menu;
-Microsoft Internet Explorer settings.

Window management:
-watches running applications windows;
-runs “black list” of applications windows, closes “unwanted” applications windows automatically;
-browses the list of applications windows created in the system;
-shows invisible applications windows, hides visible ones, enables user input for “locked down” applications windows.

homepage link

Tags: malware, monitor, Spyware, System Safety Monitor