gHacks technology news » web http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Log in to websites with your site’s URL as your OpenID http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/17/log-into-websites-with-your-sites-url-and-openid/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/17/log-into-websites-with-your-sites-url-and-openid/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:12:56 +0000 Joe http://www.ghacks.net/?p=14457 OpenIDA few years ago, Martin covered OpenID, an open authentication system. Since then, it has become increasingly popular and a wide range of sites, from AOL to LiveJournal provide OpenIDs, and OpenID login is also quite common. OpenID is particularly popular for blog comments, with Blogger now integrating support for it.

An OpenID is an URL. However, using an URL like http://computerjoe.myopenid.com/ to log-in and post comments with just doesn’t look sophisticated. I much prefer to use my own blog’s URL to post comments and log-in; it pumps traffic to my blog and frankly just looks better.

Whilst you could run your own OpenID identity server to do this, this takes quite a bit of expertise to set-up and whilst it is probably more secure, it isn’t needed in my opinion.

It is possible to use a any identity server with your website’s URL. I personally use MyOpenID, but I log in to sites with joeanderson.co.uk/blog; not with computerjoe.myopenid.com.

This can be done by simply adding a few lines of HTML to your website’s <head>.

For example, I put

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”http://www.myopenid.com/server” />
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://computerjoe.myopenid.com” />

Naturally, these have to be modified depending on your username and server, but the provider should provider the information.

There are several benefits using this type of OpenID identificatin. The main one is that it just looks better but the most practical one is probably that it allows you to change provider whilst keeping the same log on. So, if I suddenly decide not to use MyOpenID, I can change to any other provider but my URL remains the same.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/17/log-into-websites-with-your-sites-url-and-openid/feed/ 4 20 More Online Desktops http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/08/20-more-online-desktops/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/08/20-more-online-desktops/#comments Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:31:38 +0000 joshua http://www.ghacks.net/?p=4901 I wrote wrote a post last week about online desktops and gave what was in my opinion, the best three of the bunch.

Some of you where pretty interested in the topic and there where a few debates in the comments over which was the best, so I’ve decided I’ll share a list of every online OS that I have found up to now.

Enjoy.

Since last week I have discovered one Webtop which is worthy of a special mention- iCloud. You’ll need an invite to access the iCloud beta, but apply and it’s likely you’ll receive it within a couple hours.iCloud comes with a UI that is well designed and varies a little more then the other Windows clones. It also comes with some very handy applications, check it out.

G.ho.st
DesktopTwo
myGoya
Ulteo
GlideOS
Jooce
iCUBE
youOS
Starforce
Purefect Desktop
ZimDesk
Online Operating System
CosmoPOD
Webdesk.in
MyBooo
goPC
Psych Desktop
AstranOS
SSOE

If I have missed any let me know.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/08/20-more-online-desktops/feed/ 4 Play your MP3 collection remotely http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/25/play-your-mp3-collection-remotely/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/25/play-your-mp3-collection-remotely/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2007 08:46:42 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/25/play-your-mp3-collection-remotely/ If you are using different computers to work with you might have experienced the problem that you can’t listen to your mp3 collection on all of them. I have my mp3 files on my computer at home and not on my notebook for instance unless I would copy all the music to the hard drive of the notebook or find a online solution to store my mp3 files. (like mp3tunes)

AjooBlast is a freeware application for Microsoft Windows that works as a server and player at the same time. You would add your mp3 folders to the server and set a secure password for the server. The player would then be able to connect to the server over the internet or lan providing such a connection would exist. It is important to have the IP address of the server at hand because you will need it if you connect to the server over internet.

You need to be able to install the software on the other computers as well which is rather unfortunate because I’m not able to install software on my work pc. It offers a great feature nevertheless which makes it easy to share the music with your friends. They only need the software, your IP and password and are able to connect to your server and play the music.

I think it is really astonishing what some coders can do with some kilobytes. Great application. The software is missing a web client which would make it even greater

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/25/play-your-mp3-collection-remotely/feed/ 0 Paste and Go in Firefox http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/05/paste-and-go-in-firefox/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/05/paste-and-go-in-firefox/#comments Tue, 05 Dec 2006 12:56:36 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/05/paste-and-go-in-firefox/ Among other features that Opera has is the right-click Paste and Go option when you paste a link into the address bar. Firefox does not have this feature and I missed it dearly. I’m lazy and I think it’s to much work to paste the link into the address bar and hit enter or push a button afterwards to load the new site.

Paste and Go is a simple Firefox add-on which adds the functionality know from Opera to Firefox. It adds the paste and go function to the right-click menu when your mouse hovers above the address bar. It adds similar functionality to the search bar where the right-click menu entry is called paste and search.

Last but not least you can use a keyboard shortcut for the same effect. In Windows and Unix it is Control + SHIFT + V, on Mac COMMAND + SHIFT + V.

Some users are reporting that the newest version of the plugin caused errors while using the keyboard navigation. This is no problem for me because I’m not using keyboard navigation at all but it might be for some of you who do. You better don’t install the extension if you use or need the feature.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/05/paste-and-go-in-firefox/feed/ 2 How to surf anonymously on the internet http://www.ghacks.net/2006/03/19/how-to-surf-anonymously-on-the-internet/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/03/19/how-to-surf-anonymously-on-the-internet/#comments Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:44:11 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=359 The question that many people ask is why would someone want to surf anonymously in the first place. Why would someone who does not do something illegal want to surf anonymously at all ? I can think of lots of reasons, here are a few:

    You come from a country where free speech is only a theory. Countries include china, north korea, most islamic countries, germany and france for instance.

    You work in an environment that prohibits access to parts of the internet.

    You write about a certain situation and want to make sure no one knows that it´s you, for instance you blog about your current job or the situation in your home town.

    You dislike that the government tries to track everyone and everything on the internet.

    You are paranoid

Hope that´s settled now. Let us start with the methods and technology to stay anonymous.

Before I start I would like to remind you to use common sense as well. It does not help you if you use a proxy to post on a message board but use your real identity there. The same principle is valid for all other means of communication. Don´t mention your real data if you want to remain anonymous.

I will discuss the following methods to stay anonymous on the internet: a) webproxies, b) proxies, c) tunneling software, d) cookies, spyware and the like.

Webproxies:

Webproxies are a great way to stay anonymous with almost no work required on your site. You open the url of the webproxy, enter the url you want to visit and visit the site you want to visit using the ip of the webproxy. Easy and fast method that has some problems as well. First, it might not support all scripts that the site you want to visit uses. This could be a problem, maybe it has only the effect that the design does not look as usual, maybe functions of the website do not work. If thats the case try different webproxy server.

The servers can easily be blocked by a firewall or other means of blocking scripts / urls. If that is the case you could try and setup your own webproxy. All you need is webspace that supports php / cgi. You then have the advantage that only you or a few people know about this proxy and it´s less likely that it will be banned.

You can try cgi proxy or php proxy or search the web for more scripts.

A word of advice. Don´t pay for a webproxy service. Most payments can be tracked. Good lists of webproxies can be found at ghacks.net and proxy.org

Proxies:

Unlike webproxies proxies are mere ip addresses that route your request to the destination. The important factor if a proxy can be used to hide your identity is if it spills your ip. It does not make sense to use a proxy to stay anonymous if the destination sees your ip and not the one from the proxy.

That means you will have to check proxies before you are using them. A program that does this is charon by my friend rhino. It checks the proxies for speed and anonymity. Now, all is left is to add the proxy to your browser and check a whatismyip.com site for your ip. If it shows the ip of the proxy you are surfing anonymously. Beware that certain languages like java are still able to reveal your real ip on a website even though you are using a proxy.

Firefox has some great proxy extensions like the switch proxy tool. You probably would like to know where you get the proxies that you check in charon ? You can perform searches for proxy lists, visit irc or scan for yourself for example.

Tunneling software

Proxies have a big problem. If one monitors the proxy one does know what everyone who uses the proxy is doing. It´s a good idea to use a proxy server that is not located in your home country. The US government will have problems asking a north korean proxy server owner for their server log or access to it. It´s not likely that this is going to happen.

But, the possibility exists and it´s a good way to be on the safe site. Tunneling tools allow you to use software on your computer that does not support proxies in first place to be used with proxies. Some simply require you to enter a proxy in the tunneling software and you are free to go, others encrypt your data transfer and route if through several servers to make sure no one is able to find out about the source and destination and the data itself.

Tor is one of those products and it could be a good idea to take a look at the software which is hosted at the eff website. Jap anonymity and privacy is another tool that might be worth looking at

Cookies, spyware and the like

This should be common sense but I thought I add it anyway to the article. There are different methods that are able to track you that do not rely on your ip address. Those are cookies for instance, take a look at the excellent wikipedia article about cookies if you don´t know about cookies.

Spyware is another threat that is able to track your movement and action on the internet. Make sure you run a clean system by using tools like spybot. You should also be sure that no rootkits, virii, trojans, worms and the like are already installed on your computer.

[tags]spyware, anonymous, anonymity, proxy, proxies, cgi, php, eff, privacy[/tags]

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