10 yrs of Live Msngr, Download free gift pack

Windows Live Messenger turns 10 year old yesterday on 10 on July 22, 2009. Windows Live team made the announcement at official Windows Live Blog:

Ten years ago tomorrow, Microsoft launched one of its most innovative communication services – Windows Live Messenger (then known as MSN Messenger). Throughout its many stages of evolution over the years, Windows Live Messenger – with 330 million users – has become the most widely used free instant messaging service in the world. To celebrate ten fantastic years, we asked Danny Glasser (Partner Development Manager, Windows Live), one of the founding members of the Windows Live Messenger team to share how Microsoft decided to launch Windows Live Messenger.

So for us there is a gift pack by Windows Live Messenger Team to download it follow the link. Download Gift pack

READ MORE - 10 yrs of Live Msngr, Download free gift pack

How To: Make A Wireless Keylogger

Familiar with the concept of hardware keylogging? A hardware keylogger is a perfect solution for monitoring user activity, at very low risk of disclosure. A hardware keylogger is a purely electronic device, so no access to the operating system is required, no traces are left, and software has no possibility of detecting such a device. However, the hardware keylogger concept inherits one weakness: physical access to the keylogger is required for retrieving captured data. This problem has finally found it's solution: a Wireless Keylogger.

This is actually one step ahead of normal key loggers, I have posted article on how to bypass key loggers some day before now this is actually a limitation of that post.

The Wireless Keylogger consists of two main building blocks: the transmitter, and the receiver. The actual keylogging takes place in the transmitter, which is in fact a PS/2 hardware keylogger, with a built-in 2.4GHz wireless module. Captured keystroke data is transmitted through the radio-link in real-time, rather than getting stored. The receiver on the other hand, is a wireless acquisition unit with a USB interface. All keystroke data received from the transmitter is sent to the host computer via USB. From the software side, this data is available through a virtual COM port, allowing any terminal client to be used for visualizing keystroke data.

Read What component are used and how to build
Image Credits: http://blog.makezine.com/

READ MORE - How To: Make A Wireless Keylogger

Bing vs Google

Its a long debate to know which one is best google or bing. as we think more we get some more. this is why some people get togather and created a website where you can see the search results og google and bing side by side. have a look at the site Bing-vs-Google

READ MORE - Bing vs Google

Ultimate windows tweaker 2.0 released

So wait is over, Ultimate Windows Tweaker v2.0 is available. It is a freeware Tweak UI Utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows 7 & Windows Vista, all editions. You can simply download and use as a portable application. With judicious tweaking, it makes your system faster, more stable, and more secure with just a few mouse clicks.

It is a 345KB executable, that doesn't require installation and can be carried out in USB removable device/pen drive. This time, it covers more than 150 tweaks and settings.




# Support Windows 7
# Display tweak and settings according to Windows version.
# Revamped UI similar to Windows 7/Vista UI controls
# IMPROVED: Optimize services, enable/disable services and start/stop as well instantly
# FIXED: Apply button is activated only and only, when changes are done.
# FIXED: Left pane overlapped far left controls with higher DPI setting
# FIXED: Ultimate Windows Tweaker is crashed every time on 64 bit Windows OS, when Apply button clicked
# FIXED: Hangs when external commands are executed like Reset IE, Launch System Properties etc.
# FIXED: Crashing on System Performance page, on Windows 7/Vista non-English editions.

- On System Information page
+ Version with build no (removed in Beta build)
+ System Rating
+ Computer description

- On Personalization page
+ Disable Aero shake
+ Disable Aero Snap
+ Enable Jump list and nos. of jump list items
+ Sorted Start menu with all Windows 7 items
+ Bing Search replaced Live Search in Custom Start Search
+ Use large icons on Taskbar
+ Disable Aero Peek preview
+ Group when Taskbar full is added

- User Accounts & UAC
+ Welcome screen text and buttons' effects
+ Set custom background on Welcome screen (OEM Background)

- System Performance page
+ Track bars' Tooltip shows actual value in milliseconds
+ Improved "Menu action"
+ Improved "Enable support for 4GB of RAM on 32bit Windows"
+ Disable Windows Security Center service

- Security Settings
+ Disable System Restore settings
+ Disable Change Color and Appearance
+ Disable to skip starting programs by pressing Shift key

- Internet Explorer
+ Reset IE to factory default button added
-Additional Tweaks
+ Disable Windows Startup sound
+ Disable page file (Virtual Memory)
+ Enable Large System cache
+ Delete page file during shutdown process

Don’t detach empty.ico file, otherwise a tweak entitled Remove arrows from shortcut icons won’t work.

Download

Source: http://www.merawindows.com/Forums/tabid/324/forumid/-1/threadid/43382/scope/posts/Default.aspx

READ MORE - Ultimate windows tweaker 2.0 released

How To: Use your USB as additional RAM

Yes you read that right, you can use your USB stick as an additional RAM and it really boosts up your PC performance. Before going into deep let start from some year back when Microsoft launches Microsoft ReadyBoost technology for Windows VISTA for upgrading the performance of your PC without upgrading its components.

If there is any way that you can speed up the performance of your system that it is through upgrading your memory.Adding more RAM speeds up Windows and applications, allowing the system to access the hard disk less often. But upgrading system components is costly and is not always possible. Buying and plugging a USB flash memory stick, on the other hand, is neither expensive nor complicated. That is why Microsoft developed a new technology called ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost uses flash memory plugged into a computer to enhance operating system responsiveness, decrease loading time, and improve computer performance.


Unfortunately, Microsoft ReadyBoost is only available in Windows Vista. Since the day Microsoft announced its ReadyBoost technology for Windows Vista, the company made it clear that no ReadyBoost upgrade will be released to support Windows XP and older operating systems.

Based on the same technology comes eBooster, which to works on technology using flash drives to increase responsiveness and performance of a Windows computer. eBooster improves performance of your PC without requiring any other component but only your flash drive.

No ReadyBoost Limitations
1. It does not support more than one USB or card.
2. It requires fast flash memory that can be more expensive than the typical flash drive.
3. Lastly, it is only good for those who has small amount of RAm like 256MB and 512MB, but do nothing for users having more memory like 2GB or more.

eBoostr is made to overcome all these limitations. While it works great with ReadyBoost Certified devices, eBoostr also supports slower, less expensive flash memory sticks and cards, allowing for a really inexpensive way to improve your computer performance. eBoostr is not limited to a single stick or card, and supports up to four flash units simultaneously. Finally, unlike ReadyBoost, eBoostr provides noticeable performance benefits even to PCs that are stuffed with RAM sticks to the max.

Highlights

• Vista’s ReadyBoost and SuperFetch benefits on your Windows XP PCs;
• Smart caching of frequently used applications and files for maximum performance;
• Supports both USB and non-USB removable media devices (CF, SD/SDHC, MMC, xD and other memory cards), as well as additional hard disks;
• Allows up to 4 devices for simultaneous smart caching;
• Cache file size of up to 4GB on each device (NTFS has no limit on the size);
• Compatible with all “Enhanced for ReadyBoost” devices.

Download: Download eBoostr Trial Version

source: eboostr.com, indosourcecode.blogspot.com

READ MORE - How To: Use your USB as additional RAM

22 best Oneliners

Not Goons but some are funny never the less.


1. I was so poor growing up ... if I wasn't a boy... I'd have had nothing to play with.

2. A girl phoned me the other day and said, "Come on over; nobody's home. I went over. Nobody was home.

3. During sex, my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel .

4. One day I came home early from work ... I saw a guy jogging naked. I said to the guy, "Hey buddy, why are you doing that?"
He said "Because you came home early."

5. It's been a rough day. I got up this morning ... put a shirt on and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom.

6. I was such an ugly kid...When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.

7. I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.



8. I was such an ugly baby...My mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.

9. I'm so ugly...My father carried around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet.

10. When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through."

11. I'm so ugly...My mother had morning sickness...AFTER I was born.

12. I remember the time that I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.

13. Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, "Do you think we'll ever find them?" He said, "I don't know kid. There's so many places they can hide."

14. My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.

15. I'm so ugly...I worked in a pet shop, and people kept asking how big I'd get.

16. I w ent to see my doctor. "Doctor, every morning when I get up and I look in the mirror...I feel like throwing up; What's wrong with me?" He said..."I don't know but your eyesight is perfect."

17. I went to the doctor because I'd swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.

18. With my old man I got no respect. I asked him, "How can I get my kite in the air?" He told me to run off a cliff.

19. Some dog I got. We call him Egypt because in every room he leaves a pyramid. His favorite bone is in my arm. Last night he went on the paper four times - three of those times I was reading it.

20. One year they wanted to make me poster boy for birth control.

21. My uncle's dying wish was to have me sitting in his lap; he was in the electric chair.

READ MORE - 22 best Oneliners

How To: Load programs at Startup

You can load any program at startup from various places in your system. Here are the places from where you can load any program automatically at system startup, lets begin with the easiest one.

1.) THE STARTUP FOLDER

This folder is located at X:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup in Windows XP. Where is X is replaced by your OS drive. You can view the Startup folder by clicking Start > Programs > StartUp.

Any program whether exe, vbs, bat any one that you will place in this folder will get automatically executed at system startup.




2.) THE REGEDIT

This is the second most easier and quite hidden way to make program load at startup. The following Registry keys helps you to execute [programs at system startup.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx (in XP)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce\Setup

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce

Also there is one more key which also executes provided program at system startup, I found this key while i was trying to remove some viruses in my computer.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon here go to Userint normally this key is used to run C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe program but we can launch other programs too by appending them at the end of the value data, separated by a comma.

For eg:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe, Calc.exe


3.) THE CONFIG.SYS & AUTOEXEC.BAT FILES

QUIRKS by QUIRKE: South African Windows watchdog, Chris Quirke, has alerted me to a strange Windows quirk I never knew about. In Win95/98, COMMAND.COM launches not “Autoexec.bat” per se but, rather, the simple command AUTOEXEC. This means that the usual command line launching rules apply so that a .BAT file is first sought (AUTOEXEC.BAT) but, if one isn’t found, the OS next will look for AUTOEXEC.COM and, thereafter, AUTOEXEC.EXE! On the one hand, this is a useful trick; on the other hand, it’s an especially useful trick for malware designers!

READ MORE - How To: Load programs at Startup

Know Processes runing in Taskmanager

Service Control Manager - services.exe
The Windows Service Control Manager (SCM) (SERVICES.EXE) is a remote procedure call (RPC) server that manages creating, deleting, starting and stopping of Windows services. It is started at system boot.

The service functions provide an interface for the following tasks performed by the SCM:
* Maintaining the database of installed services.
* Starting services and driver services either upon system startup or upon demand
* Enumerating installed services and driver services.
* Maintaining status information for running services and driver services.
* Transmitting control requests to running services.
* Locking and unlocking the service database.
For more visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Control_Manager





Session Manager Subsystem - smss.exe
Session Manager Subsystem, or smss.exe, is a component of the Microsoft Windows NT operating system, more exactly a system process. It is responsible for Starting winlogon.exe, the Windows logon manager.
For more visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Manager_Subsystem


spoolsv.exe
The spooler service is responsible for managing spooled print/fax jobs.


System Idle Process
In Windows NT operating systems, the System Idle Process contains one or more kernel threads which run when no other runnable thread can be scheduled on a CPU. The CPU time consumed by the System Idle Process is commonly of interest for end users, as it is a measure of the CPU utilization in their system which is easily accessible through Windows' Task Manager program.
For more visit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Idle_Process



Winlogon
In computing, Winlogon is the component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that is responsible for handling the secure attention sequence, loading the user profile on logon, and optionally locking the computer when a screensaver is running (requiring another authentication step). Winlogon handles interface functions that are independent of authentication policy.
For more visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winlogon

READ MORE - Know Processes runing in Taskmanager

Google to launch Google Chrome OS

After web browser from Google now it’s the time for OS from Google named as Google Chrome OS.The Open Source OS from Google is targeted at Internet-centric computers such as netbooks and will release it later this year and would begin appearing on netbooks in the second half of 2010. Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as on ARM chips.

Here is the extract from the official Google blogpost

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

READ MORE - Google to launch Google Chrome OS

Bypassing Keyloggers

There is no need to tell what a keylogger is but for some n00bs a keylogger can be some kind of mechanism to create a log file of all the keystrokes you made. Keyloggers are of different variety some even offers tracking mouse clicks, takes screenshots periodically. Keyloggers can be software based or hardware based. Software based keyloggers can be remotely activated on a computer by a Trojan. By carefully reading the log file created by keylogger anyone can sieve out the useful information.

Hardware based keyloggers, uses a small socket in the keyboard, which is impossible to bypass. To know if a computer has a hardware keylogger or not look at the keyboard wire at the CPU port if it is connected normally than every thing is fine, but if it is connected to CPU via some other socket or hardware equipment than you must be aware that a Hardware keylogger is working on the computer.

Cybercafés and other PCs are possible threat as you don't know if a keylogger is running on it or not, you even can't find it on Add/Remove programs or in Task Manager as these programs has the ability to hide them. So you should be careful of specific and targeted attacks. Here I am listing some of the techniques/tricks that you can use to avoid being in such conditions.

• A simple Trick

This is a simple trick which I use this most often whenever I uses computer in college or in cybercafés. This is a simple trick which is used to bypass or we can say to fool a keylogger, let takes an example that I have to enter a Password. Let say my password is SPOOLSV. If you type the password as it is than keylogger track you password so I enter my password as follows

First I enter P then O then S i.e. I get POS then I use my mouse to click before P and then type S then again use my mouse to click after P and then type O and so on, this will help you a lot.

• On-Screen Keyboard

The simplest and the easiest method to bypass a keylogger is to use a On-Screen Keyboard (Go to Start > Programs > accessories > Accessibility > On-Screen keyboard). It is virtual keyboard that will be shown at bottom of your screen and you can use mouse to key in any sensitive information. You can use this tool to enter sensitive information like Credit card details, passwords, account name etc. Well in most of the cases it works well, but if a keylogger has mouse click tracking system than again you will be in difficulty.

• Carry browser with you

Portable browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Opera are the browser that you can take with you on the USB to Cybercafés. A simple way to bypass the process of entering email information's and passwords etc is to select "remember me" option on a secure computer. In this case browser does not save any information on the host machine, and all the information is stored in your USB only. Also it will help save your time since you carry all your favorites and bookmarks with you.

• Deep freeze

Ahh! You must be thinking how Deepfreeze by Faronics can be used to protect your sensitive information, but yes it is a great tool and mine favorite to use. As you already know when you use deepfreeze it saves the state of machine anything you do after installing deepfreeze are temporary after you shutdown your computer your system will again come back in the previous state. We will use deepfreeze this feature to bypass keyloggers. Whenever you access a public computer first install deepfreeze on it and freeze all hard drives and then use the system. What it will do is it will allow keylogger to log all your keystroke but as soon as you shutdown all the log information get wiped off and the system will remain as it was before. Using deepfreeze with any of the above given method will surely protect you.

• By Software

I am not discussing how to use it but KeyPass is the best software I know to bypass any kind of keyloggers. It is also Open Source software thus trustworthy.

The above discussed ways can be used bypass software based keyloggers, as well as hardware based keyloggers. But in hardware based keyloggers it will safer if you don't use keyboard at all. In spite you can use on-screen keyboard.

Apart from this securely delete all your data from the public PC so that no trace of your activities can be traced. Don't think that [SHIFT] + [DELETE] will help, since the data is still in hard disk to delete your data securely use programs like Free Commander and Eraser.

NOTE: Though I have made all my effort to make this article short as possible and to provide all methods but if someone knows any other method better than these please let me know.

image credits: http://www.amitbhawani.com/

READ MORE - Bypassing Keyloggers