An open proxy is a proxy server which is accessible by any Internet user. Generally, a proxy server allows users within a network group to store and forward internet services such as DNS or web pages so that the bandwidth used by the group is reduced and controlled. With an “open” proxy, however, any user on the Internet is able to use this forwarding service. Most of the time the owner of the proxy server doesn’t know that he/she is running an “open” proxy because of the proxy software misconfiguration. I still remember that the first IT company that I worked in 10 years ago had a Microsoft Proxy server in the network and it is an open proxy.

Open proxy is most commonly used to mask the user’s IP address. It could be to bypass censorship, privacy, or even to avoid detection. To be able to use the open proxy, a software such as Internet Explorer must support using proxy server. Go to Tools > Internet Options > Connections tab > LAN settings. Check “Use a proxy server for your LAN” and enter the proxy IP address and port. Now when you surf the web, the site can’t see your original IP address. Check out the animation below. I visit www.cmyip.com to view my original IP address. Then I configure Internet Explorer to use an open proxy. Refreshing www.cmyip.com website shows the open proxy instead of my original IP.

Unfortunately not all software supports proxy server. If for some reason you need a software to go through a proxy server, here are some third party software that you can use to tunnel windows applications through proxy servers.


There are some freeware such as FreeCap, Hummingbird and SocksCap which is able to redirect connections from programs through SOCKS or Proxy server. I am not going to talk about the free proxy tunneling software because some of them can be really tough to configure for a basic computer user.

However, the paid ones such as Proxifier, ProxyCap and WideCap are way easier to configure and use. So let’s take a look at it.

1. Proxifier

– Proxifier is a program that allows network applications that do not support working through proxy servers to operate through an HTTPS or SOCKS proxy or a chain of proxy servers. With Proxifier you can easily tunnel all connections on the system or separate applications. By default, Proxifier will tunnel all connections automatically after the installation. No configuration needed, however you’ll need to look for open proxy servers and add them to proxy settings. The latest Proxifier v2.7 cost $39.95 for a single user license, but it has been cracked by MAZE (Proxifier.v2.7.Cracked-MAZE)

[ Download Proxifier ]

2. ProxyCap

– ProxyCap enables you to tunnel Internet applications through HTTP, SOCKS v4, and SOCKS v5 Proxy Servers. You can tell ProxyCap which applications will connect to the Internet through a proxy and under what circumstances. This is done through a user friendly interface, without the need to reconfigure any of your Internet clients. ProxyCap provides flexible rule system and allows you to define your own “tunneling” rules. After installation, you’ll need to add a proxy server and then set a rule whether to allow all or specified programs to tunnel through the proxy server. The latest ProxyCap v3.15 cost $30 for a single user license but has been cracked by NJOY from Revenge Crew (ProxyCap.3.15.Crack-REV)

[ Download ProxyCap ]

3. WideCap

– WideCap is system proxifier. It was created as an extended version of FreeCap program with a fully rewritten proxy engine to handle reloading everything on-the-fly. WideCap is fully functional Winsock Service and Namespace provider. That means simply integration into your network subsystem. FreeCap uses injection technology which could cause errors and incompatible problems with some firewalls and anti-viruses. WideCap acts as virtual network driver covering all your TCP/IP activity. No launchers – just run your program as usual and work via proxy. I spent half an hour trying to get WideCap to work because I was unable to get the rules working. Finally I found out that I need to add ANY for address that should go through Proxy. The latest version of WideCap v1.4 cost $20 for 1 license but also has been cracked by lord_Phoenix from Revenge Crew (widecap.1.4.0.539.read.nfo.cracked.exe-rev).

[ Download WideCap ]

Proxifier is the easiest to use with no configuration needed while WideCap is the most advanced proxy tunneling software if compared with the other two. Do take note that WideCap conflicts with other proxy tunneling software. I had to uninstall Proxifier and ProxyCap to get WideCap working.

John Weis, Software Test Engineer for MSN Messenger, posted an update to the now official 7.5.0322 version.
Build 324 only includes a one-line fix, but if you’re still having problems with 322 you’re advised to try this one.
Important Note: If your 322 is working fine, you don’t have to upgrade.

[ Download MSN Messenger 7.5.0324 (unofficial, English-only build) ]

9 February 2006 Update: 7.5.0.324 is now OFFICIAL! Download the OFFICIAL MSN Messenger 7.5.0.324 at this link.

I personally think that keylogger is the most scariest threat. Imagine all your passwords being captured and the person who installed the keylogger is able to access all your password protected websites such as your emails, paypal, online banking and etc. One of the most effective method to counter keylogger is by using Zemana AntiLogger.

Zemana AntiLogger is one of the security products that I’ve recommended and will continue to recommend to everyone. The last time I tested Zemana AntiLogger and it was able to block virtually ALL keylogging, webcam capture and screenshot capture methods from different trojans. A year has gone by and again I’ve tested Zemana AntiLogger with 2 keyloggers (one of it uses rootkit method and the other advertises that it is completely invisible bypassing antivirus and firewall) and 1 trojan crypted with incognito which by bypassed many antivirus and internet security products. Zemana AntiLogger was able to detect injection on both of the keyloggers and the trojan while successfully blocking the installation of those dangerous files.

Zemana has collaborated with Softpedia to offer everyone FREE license for Zemana AntiLogger ONLY FOR TODAY. Hurry and grab your license as soon as possible.


To get your free Zemana AntiLogger license worth $39.50:
1. Go to this page http://www.zemana.com/softpedia/
2. Click the FREE Full Version Download Now button to download the installer AntiLogger_SOFTPEDIA_1.9.2.185.exe
3. Install and reboot your computer
4. Activate the program by following the on-screen instructions.

Zemana AntiLogger is easy to use. Just install and let it protect your computer. It is made to protect your computer real-time without relying on virus signatures so you won’t find any Scan button. Most if not all injections are threats, so if you get such warnings, make sure you block them first.

I believe the installer that is custom built for Softpedia which has the license number integrated to activate the program. I am not sure whether is it still possible to continue activate the license using the custom installer when this promo is expired. If the activation is limited to only today, that means if we reformat our hard drive we wouldn’t be able to use Zemana AntiLogger for free anymore. I’ve did some tracing and found that the activated license information is stored in C:\Program Files\AntiLogger\config.cfg. You can backup the config.cfg and restore it at a later time IF the online activation blocks the SOFTPEDIA-OEM-12809 license number. If you starting to think about piracy using the config.cfg, you will not succeed because the license is hardware dependent and if you transfer the config.cfg on another computer, it won’t work.

One thing I noticed about Zemana AntiLogger is it doesn’t aggressively checks the current process for threats. One example is, I am using Input Director to share keyboard and mouse between computers and it took a while before Zemana found out that Input Director is capturing the screen. Not to worry because I’ve tried turning off Zemana and then install a keylogger that auto uploads captured data but I’ve waited 30 minutes and still didn’t receive any captured data. I assume that although Zemana AntiLogger haven’t detect the threat, but it can block sensitive data from being transferred.

You can install and run Zemana AntiLogger together with your antivirus. Check here for a list of compatible security products. You have no idea how many undetectable threats out there today and relying solely on just antivirus itself is not enough to keep your personal data safe. Go tell your friends and families about this promotion.

Update: Zemana AntiLogger is only compatible with Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Vista and 7 32 bit ONLY. AntiLogger is not available for 64-bit Windows.

If you go to the official DefenseWall’s website which is at SoftSphere Technologies, you will find DefenseWall HIPS v2.56 but not the Personal Firewall v3 version. That’s because the v2.56 is about to be dropped and replaced with the new DefenseWall Personal Firewall v3. I’ve long heard of DefenseWall but has never given it a try but since I’ve been contacted by people from SoftSphere to do a review on v3, I’ve decided to test it out. DefenseWall claims to protect yourself from malicious software (spyware, botnets, adware, keyloggers, rootkits, etc.) and identification theft, that can not be stopped by your anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, when you surf the Internet.

I’ve been testing a lot on antivirus and this is actually my first time testing a HIPS software. This is nothing like the normal antivirus that you use. Well virus normally comes in to your computer from either the web browser, email, USB drives or network. If you disable all of them, it’s impossible that your computer will be infected by virus but who can live without an internet connection nowadays? So what DefenseWall does is it labels all those applications that comes from location where virus can come in as “Untrusted” and run them in limited rights in a virtual zone that is specially allocated for them.


Here is an example. Lets say you downloaded a file using BitTorrent. Scanned it with your antivirus and it didn’t warn you that it is a threat. Then you run it thinking that its safe and the virus started to modify the system settings such as disabling Windows Task Manager, regedit, adding autostartup to the virus and etc. Well thanks to DefenseWall, you got nothing to be afraid of because all the damages done by the virus only affects the virtual zone and not your real Windows system. With only a reboot, your system is back to normal and the damages done by the virus will be restored. Now this is very different from system snapshot software because a snapshot reverts everything back to a specific date. As for DefenseWall, everything is still intact except for the damages that the virus seems to have done. That is how a HIPS software supposed to work according to the description and manual. I’ve put DefenseWall to the test and it managed to block the threat in some way or another.

Test 1: Install Rootkit based Keylogger
There is a keylogger that goes by the name of All In One Keylogger for Windows by RelyTec. It uses rootkit method to hide itself so that it is harder to detect. When I downloaded it using Firefox, the keylogger installer file automatically being labeled as Untrusted file. Installed it and after a few seconds DefenseWall tells me that it found a process reading keystrokes via GetKeyState method.

I clicked the Terminate button and the keylogger process immediately got terminated. I rebooted the computer and the keylogger is no longer running but the files are still in the computer. As long as the keylogger doesn’t auto load when Windows is booted up, then you’re safe.

Test 2: Install Keylogger that bypasses antivirus and firewall
Probably the most expensive and popular keylogger in the world WebWatcher that cost $169.95 per year claims to bypass antivirus and firewall. There’s no trial for it and I had to pay the full price in order to test this. With DefenseWall running, I couldn’t get WebWatcher keylogger installed until I turn off the HIPS protection. So I turn off the HIPS protection, installed WebWatcher and DefenseWall didn’t detect any process reading keystrokes. I wouldn’t say DefenseWall failed this test because it managed to block WebWatcher from sending the keylogs and screenshot data to WebWatcher’s servers, making the keylogger useless.

Test 3: Install a crypted Bifrost trojan
I wanted to simulate a real scenario where a normal user unknowingly downloads a trojan from a website and then gets infected. I uploaded the Bifrost trojan crypted with Incognito to a website and then download it to my test computer using Firefox which is flagged as Untrusted by DefenseWall. I ran the trojan and DefenseWall managed to block it. I rebooted the computer and no sign of the trojan running in background.

Test 4: Run 20 different type of virus from network share
This is the last hardcore test which I did. I dropped 20 different virus on another computer and shared the folder. Then on my test computer with DefenseWall installed, I access the shared folder that contains 20 different type of virus and ran ALL of them! It created so much havoc on the test computer that it made Windows blue screen and auto reboot. To my surprise, when Windows is booted up, everything is back to normal like nothing ever happened. By default DefenseWall categorize network shared folders as Untrusted.

As long as you run ANY malicious files as Untrusted, your computer will be fine. However when you want to install legitimate software like Kaspersky Anti-Virus, you must remember to run it as “trusted” or else the installation will fail. So if you’re unsure, always run it as Untrusted and see what happens. The feature that I liked most in DefenseWall is the Events Log. I am able to see what the untrusted file is trying to open or do to my computer.

There are some other useful small features which is file and registry rollback which you can easily use to manually cleanup the debris left behind on your hard drive by malware after an infection attempt. The “Go Banking/Shopping” button is a special browser mode that allows safe access to online banking. While in this mode, your information is protected from untrusted computer processes by terminating all untrusted process.

Please be informed that this is NOT meant to be a replacement software for an antivirus but you can run it together. DefenseWall does not protect from file drops as many programs need to drop a file in order to run successfully (such as FireFox) and there is no security risk when a file is dropped (only when it is loaded into memory). Therefore, if the program is prevented from running in the memory, we can classify this as protected. Your antivirus will be useful in detecting these malicious files that has been dropped into your computer. DefenseWall is very light on your computer as it takes up only 14.6MB of memory and its peak is only 17.1MB.

SoftSphere Technologies, the maker of DefenseWall is very generous and kind to offer 75 one year license worth over $2000 to Raymond.CC readers. If you would like to win a license, write a comment at the end of this article and I will pick the 75 winners 24 hours later. Your email will be sent to SoftSphere and they will be contacting you.

[ Visit SoftSphere Technologies ]

Update: 75 lucky winners has been randomly selected. Your email contact has been sent to SoftSphere and they will be contacting you.

We have already covered RegFromApp where you can use it to track real time registry changes by injecting it into the process that you want to trace. Other than tracking what registry changes are being made to a computer, it is also equally important to track the changes on folders. Here is a simple tool called Track Folder Changes which you can use to track real time changes on folders that you specify. By default, Track Folder Changes tracks the whole C:\ drive where normally the operating system is installed. You can easily change the folder that you want to monitor by clicking the browse button. Upon running Track Folder Changes, it instantly displays in real time a tree with the list of created/deleted/changed files in a specific directory and its subdirectories. The coloring on the files helps to easily determine if a file is deleted, modified or created.


Folder monitoring tools can be very useful to track installation or uninstallation changes and etc. In fact it can even be used to detect if there is a keylogger monitoring your keystrokes and saving them to a log file. Remember that Track Folder Changes is able to detect files that are being “modified” which means when the keylogger saves the keystrokes to a log file, Track Folder Changes will be able to catch it. However it will still require human intelligence to determine if the file is indeed used by a keylogger. Below is an example of detecting a DarkComet RAT trojan with keylogging enabled with Track Folder Changes.

A .dc file located in TEMP folder constantly appears to be modified even after clearing the results.

When opened the .dc file with Notepad, it looks like a log file of captured keystrokes.

As useful as it is, Track Folder Changes is not a hardcore tool that is able to work on all situations. I tried uninstalling iTunes and monitor the whole C:\ drive with Track Folder Changes. When iTunes has finished uninstalled, Track Folder Changes stopped responding and Windows Task Manager shows that the process is taking up 100% CPU usage. After waiting a couple of minutes, Track Folder Changes displays the changes and starts to work normally again.

My only gripe is it lacks of a pause button or an option to export it to a log file so that it is easier to analyze the folder changes. If you have a process that is constantly making changes on the files and folders on your Windows computer, there is no way you can track or analyze the changes on files/folders.

Download Track Folder Changes

Previously I’ve shared with you on how to download multiple files from RapidShare automatically using Orbit download manager. If you don’t like to use Orbit, you can use a small DOS tool called gRapid to automate downloading of files without having to attend to them. Both methods requires you to have a premium account. If you don’t have a premium account, you can use third party tools such as Cryptload or (E)lephant to renew your IP address and continue downloading without limits.

Today I will share with you an official tool released by RapidShare.com. Finally RapidShare has their own free download manager to handle all downloads and uploads from RapidShare. This is of course if you have a premium account, you can make full use of the program. If you are a free user or have a collectors account, you can still use RapidShare Manager to upload your files to RapidShare.


The RapidShare Manager (RSM) is a user friendly tool to upload and download files from RapidShare.com. The multiple setting possibility’s allow the professional up- and downloading for beginners and experienced users. Upload is possible for premium, collector’s and free user. As for download, I’m sorry to say that it is only for Premium users UNLESS the file is set to direct-download.

I will show you a short walkthrough on how to use RapidShare Manager to download multiple rapidshare links.

1. Run RapidShare Manager and go to Account/Configuration tab.

2. Click Add button at the login area and enter your login for premium account and password. Check use this account and click OK.

3. Go to Download tab, and click Add button. Paste the rapidshare links at the top box and click Take Links button. You can also set the location where the downloaded files be saved to.

4. Click Download button. You can set the maximum number of parallel downloads running. Maximum is 5. If you’re able to maxed out your download speed, then I’d advice you to set it to 1.

RapidShare Manager requires you to have Microsoft .NET Framework installed. I found a small bug in the program which is you can’t add more than 1 rapidshare premium account. They should also add a feature to auto shutdown computer after finish downloading. From what I see, it’s still a very new download manager for rapidshare that works, but can be improved.

One thing I’m unsure of is the upload limit for premium user. At RapidShare’s website, it stated that premium users can upload files with a file size up to 4000MB but at the program it says up to 2000MB. No matter whether it’s 4000MB or 2000MB, files bigger than 100 MB can only be downloaded by Premium users, unless the files have been a direct download and the traffic is paid by the file holder. I’m pretty sure not many people would actually upload file size that big when you can easily split it.

[ Download RapidShare Manager (RSM) ]

One of my client has asked me if he could check his email when he’s overseas using a USB thumb drive or hard drive.
I believe Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express is not possible because they have loads of entries in the Registry.

Searched for a few third-party software and found quite a few…


1. Portable Thunderbird 1.0.7

2. Tech-Pro POP3 Pal

3. i.Scribe/InScribe

4. JBMail 3.2

5. PocoMail PE

6. Koma-Mail 3.42

I am in the midst of testing it and will post it out which I think it works the best for me 🙂

Mailbombing or e-mail bomb is a form of net abuse consisting of sending huge volumes of e-mail to an address in an attempt to overflow the mailbox or overwhelm the server. This is something that I’ve played around with more than 10 years ago. During that time if you mailbomb someone, their slow computers would even hang when trying to access the inbox because it contains thousands of same or random messages. You can do that and get away with it but if you do that NOW, you can get into trouble with the law and end up in jail.

So instead of doing it from their computer, nowadays people would just install a mass mailing PHP or CGI script to automate mailbombing someone using the server’s resources. There are two things to do when being mailbombed. First is to know how to trace where the email came from via headers and next is to perform an inbox cleanup.

I’ve been mailbombed once from a Sikh guy who resides in India which I managed to trace the origin of the mailbombing activity have that site “SUSPENDED”. Cleaning up the junk mails took only a second. Now, a Spanish speaking person from Argentina is doing the same thing and I’ve already reported the abuse to the webhost.

I am going to show you how I trace the email messages and also how I easily cleanup my inbox after being mailbombed.


Before deleting email bomb messages, you should trace where the email came from. Simply view the email headers to check the origin of the email.

You can refer to this excellent article on how to view the full headers for an email using some popular email clients such as Outlook Express, Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, Thunderbird, Eudora and etc. Once you know how to view the email headers, you should learn how to determine who sent you that email and where are they located. Here is another complete tutorial to help you figure out who sent you that nasty email and report them to the proper authorities!

Once you’ve reported the email bombing activity to the proper authorities, you can go ahead and delete those nasty emails from your inbox. For web based email, you can always save any real mails that you got and delete all the rest (any web-based mail account should have such a feature). Or if you’re using Gmail, it’s even easier. As you can see at the image below, deleting 300 over emails is just a matter of clicking a few check boxes and then click the Delete button.

Now, to delete those hundreds or thousands of useless mails in your POP3 mailbox, you can use Mailbox Exterminator to delete all the mail in your POP account. This program will not filter, but delete ALL mails that it finds. It is useful to clean up and account that you haven`t used in a while and is filled up with spam or similar. Just enter the POP server address, username, password and click the Zap Mailbox button.

Or if you have some important emails that you want to keep in inbox, you can use QuickDelete or pop3clean. QuickDelete only downloads the email header (which is small) and you can easily mark the messages that you want to delete. As for pop3clean, you have to create an auth file (no extension) in the same directory as pop3clean. It contains two lines, namely username and password in that order.

The spanish mailbomber accused me of spamming my blog and he is mailbombing me out of revent. He is wrong! A user would have to subscribe for the newsletter himself and VERIFY the subscription by clicking the verification link in his email. Even if I can enter a person’s email address in Feedburner subscription list, the person would have to confirm the subscription before the daily newsletter email will be sent to him. Finally, he can unsubscribe himself from the newsletter by clicking the unsubscribe link at the end of the newsletter email.

A computer can still work without a mouse but it is very tough to navigate around Windows. You have to know the correct shortcut keys such as Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start Menu, Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Windows Task Manager, Win + R for Run command and etc… Then the Tab key can be used to navigate between options and Shift+Tab to go backwards.

Browsing a webpage on your web browser without a mouse will be a very painful experience or I can say nearly impossible because you’ll have to hit the Tab key a lot of times to get to the link that you want to access. Not to worry because previously I’ve shared with you on how to move or control your mouse cursor with keyboard using mouse emulator software. That should take care of the problem…

Recently I discovered another method which is able to browse the web with your keyboard! So if you don’t have a mouse and for some reason you can’t set up the mouse emulator properly, you can try this. For Firefox browser only!


Mouseless Browsing (MLB) is a Firefox-Extension (Add-On) which enables you to browse the internet with the keyboard. The basic principle is to add small boxes with unique ids behind every link and/or form element. You just have to type in the id and press enter (there is also an automatic mode available) to trigger the corresponding action i.e. following a link, pressing a button or selecting a textfield.

Mouseless Browsing Features:

Supports numeric as well as character ids; character set configurable

Option to show ids before entire page is loaded

Configurable modifiers to open link in new tab/window/Cooliris Previews

Configuration option to use numpad exclusively for Mouseless Browsing

Configuration options to define for which elements ids should be shown (form element, links, pure image links, frames)

Smart positioning of ids: Ids for image links, textfields, selectboxes are placed in the right upper corner to minimize the impact on the page layout.

Possibility to configure URL specific behavior (black/whitelist)

Configurable shortcuts for all Mouseless Browsing actions

After installing the Mouseless Browsing plugin for Firefox, every link or form element will have a unique number attached to it. Let’s take the example image below. Mark wants to click on the Ads by Google link which has a number 13 attached to it. Instead of hitting the tab multiple times to get there, you can just press and hold the CTRL key followed by number 1 and 3. The Firefox browser will immediately and automatically access or click the link that says “Ads by Google” for you… If you want to open the link on a new tab, use the Alt key instead of Ctrl. To enable/disable the numbers, just press the “.” or “Del” key at the numeric keypad. If the keys doesn’t suit you, it can be changed in the configuration window.

Mouseless Browsing plugin is highly configurable to suit your personal needs and preferences. Nearly everything on the plugin can be customize including how the numbers, shortcut keys, URL rules to disable MLB for certain webpages, and etc.

This excellent Firefox plugin is only 71.5KB in size and it doesn’t increase the memory or CPU usage at all. All I can say about this technique is brilliant and this is the first time that I am seeing something like this. I bet soon programmers would create something similar for other browsers such as Opera, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Whether I have a mouse or not, I will definitely use this Firefox plugin so I can keep both of my hands on the keyboard and don’t need to reach for my mouse so often.

[ Download Mouseless Browsing Firefox Add-On ]

There are quite a lot of Windows Vista cracks around the Internet nowadays. You wouldn’t know which one actually works. There’s a crack from DR CHANG and it has screenshot proof that his crack works. However, Microsoft very quickly retaliate by releasing an update on “Windows Update – Vista Validation” which makes DR CHANG’s crack unusable. Here are a few methods of activating Windows Vista based on what I read on forums and websites.

1. Time Stopper
2. Bruteforce Vista Key
3. OEM BIOS Emulation for Windows Vista

Here are my thoughts on the Vista cracks available.


1. Time Stopper. Should work but not very well. Most crackers should be able to locate files that needs to be cracked in order to continue using Windows Vista. No wonder Vista time stopper crack has so many versions!

2. Bruteforce Vista Key. Released by Keznews. This is purely luck and very time consuming. When you start the bruteforce, it’ll take 100% of your CPU usage. Imaging letting your CPU usage running at 100% for days! If your computer does not have proper cooling, chances are you might get a fried CPU. Microsoft confirms this but the chances are very slim.

3. OEM BIOS Emulation Toolkit For Windows Vista x86 released by Team Paradox. In my opinion, this is the best crack for Windows Vista so far. It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn’t require product activation – apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient. I really give my thumbs up to Team Paradox for figuring out this idea and making it to work. This crack is not a one click crack as you need to follow the instructions provided by Team Paradox. I know sooner or later someone will create a “one click” crack to make the crack process easier for everyone. Well, CLoNY did it! CLoNY released a Vista.All.x86.OneClick.Activator.4st.March-CLoNY on 4th March. It uses OEM BIOS Emulation method except you don’t need to do anything other than running the crack.

Compare cracking Windows Vista with Team Paradox method and CLoNY instructions.

Cracking Windows Vista using Team Paradox instructions
1. Install the Windows Vista x86 edition of your choice without entering any product key during setup. Basically any Windows Vista x86 installation media will do, regardless if it’s MSDN/Retail/OEM/… MSDN/Retail are recommended though.

2. Install the emulation driver.

Run OEMTOOL.EXE, select the OEM BIOS information to emulate (ASUS might be a good choice given the fact that it’s the only OEM for which a complete set of product keys is provided ;)) and hit the ‘‘ button.
Alternatively you can just right-click the ROYAL.INF file and chose ‘Install’ from the appearing menu. This only allows for installing the default OEM BIOS information (ASUS) though and is strongly discouraged unless OEMTOOL.EXE fails for some unknown reason.
When prompted about whether to install an unsigned driver, allow it. (For some odd reason Microsoft didn’t wanna sign this one…;))

3. Reboot your machine.

4. Install the OEM certificate matching your OEM selection during driver installation by running SLMGR.VBS -ilc .XRM-MS
(e.g. “SLMGR.VBS -ilc C:\ASUS.XRM-MS” if you chose to install the default driver and extracted the certificate file to C:\)
Note that this operation might take quite a while depending on your system, so be patient.

5. Install an OEM product key matching the installed edition of Windows Vista x86 by running SLMGR.VBS -ipk
(e.g. “SLMGR.VBS -ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX” if you’re running Windows Vista Ultimate using the default emulation driver) Note that this operation might take quite a while depending on your system, so be patient.
See PKEYS.TXT for a list of OEM product keys published by different OEMs.

6. Run ‘SLMGR.VBS -dlv’ or right-click ‘Computer’ and chose ‘Properties’ to verify your licensing status.

Cracking Windows Vista using CLoNY instructions
1. Install RTM or Retail Windows Vista x86 WITHOUT product key.

2. Once Vista is installed extract the zip files.

3. Excute file “VistaActivator” and follow video instructions. (If Windows ask you select “Allow”).

4. AFTER Reboot Windows will be activated.

Now you decide which one is the best and easiest way to crack Windows Vista activation. I believe it’s only the matter of time when crackers find a way to generate Windows Vista legitimate product key without brute forcing. Microsoft did not make cracking Windows Vista IMPOSSIBLE. Perhaps only tough…

Earlier this year I found a tool called WhoCrashed which is sometimes useful in finding out what is the cause of a blue screen crash. A lot of times a blue screen happens very quickly which you can’t even see what are the error messages and your computer got restarted. The annoying part of using WhoCrashed is you need to have Microsoft Debugging Tools installed or else it cannot analyze the mdmp files.

Nir Sofer, a very experienced developer that released many useful utilities for Windows has came up with a new tool called BlueScreenView. Basically it is a new utility that allows you to watch the details of all ‘Blue Screen of Death’ crashes that occurred in your system.


BlueScreenView scans all your minidump files created during ‘blue screen of death’ crashes, and displays the information about all crashes in one table. For each crash, BlueScreenView displays the minidump filename, the date/time of the crash, the basic crash information displayed in the blue screen (Bug Check Code and 4 parameters), and the details of the driver or module that possibly caused the crash (filename, product name, file description, and file version).

For each crash displayed in the upper pane, you can view the details of the device drivers loaded during the crash in the lower pane. BlueScreenView also mark the drivers that their addresses found in the crash stack, so you can easily locate the suspected drivers that possibly caused the crash. For the fun of it, you can even view a demo of the crash by going to Options > Lower Pane Mode > and select Blue Screen in XP Style.

What I like about BlueScreenView is it doesn’t require any installation and the executable can run straight from a USB flash drive. Oh and you don’t even need Microsoft Debugging Tools installed to use this tool. From my experience, most of blue screen crashes are either caused by bad/conflicting drivers or a faulty hardware. An example is some software such as keylogger requires installing badly coded drivers and it can cause blue screen. If you have a bad RAM, you can also get blue screen and random lock ups.

BlueScreenView works with Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, as long as Windows is configured to save minidump files during BSOD crashes. Currently, BlueScreenView can only read minidump files of 32-bit systems, but it cannot read the dump files created by x64 systems. It’s possible that x64 support will be added in future versions.

[ Download BlueScreenView ]

With less than 5 hours to go, the first kick off for UEFA Euro 2008 will commence! It will be a match between Switzerland and Czech Republic at Basel, St. Jakob-Park. I am as excited as you all are! As always 16 teams will be participating, the best countries of Europe. However, I won’t be at home to watch the first match because I have to be at a customer’s office to perform service pack updates on a server as it had to be done on a non-working hours.

I have no choice but to look for a method to watch the first UEFA Euro 2008 match online using the computers there. I do not want to mess up their computers or take any responsibility when something is wrong with the PC after installing third party software such as TV Ants, SopCast or TVU Player. My best choice would be finding a way to watch UEFA Euro 2008 LIVE online without installing any software and also able to bypass firewalls or proxy restrictions.


I could easily find a lot of websites from Google that is offering live streaming UEFA Euro 2008 but most of them charge money! It’s like a pay-per-view site. I wonder why would someone pay money for that when there are ways to watch UEFA Euro 2008 live for FREE?

My favorite online streaming video website is Justin.TV. It is a place to broadcast and watch live video online while chatting with friends. To use Justin.tv you need a PC or a MAC an up-to-date browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari with the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed.

To watch EUFA Euro 2008 Live on PC without installing any software, simply launch your favorite web browser and head on to www.justin.tv. Make sure you have the latest Adobe Flash Player installed. At the top bar, click the Sports category and you should see a few live channels that are broadcasting UEFA Euro 2008 live for free. Just click on it, wait for a few minutes and it’ll start streaming. The best part is you can even chat and discuss about the current match that you’re watching with other people who are also connected to the same channel.

If you prefer other alternatives such as TV Ants, TVU Player, SopCast, look no further because the only website that you’ll need to visit is MyP2P. Myp2p is a site specialized in schedules for all kind of Sports. You can watch Live Sports by using their schedules. The information they give is fully free. You only need some clients to download and then you’re ready to go. Prepare to watch every single UEFA Euro 2008 for free from 7th June until the 29th June.

Updates are done on MyP2P every minute and every day. Just the real info to watch it live and free on Myp2p! So which country do you hope to win the EUFA Euro 2008?

[ Euro 2008 Live and Free Streaming Schedules at MyP2P ]

Have you ever found an article that’s very useful and wanted to print a copy of it in case the website is no longer accessible or the page has been removed? Printing a webpage is easy by going to File and select Print in your web browser. However, normally a website contains advertisements, images and fancy designs to attract visitors but it’s not good for printing since you have to waste extra ink and paper to print unnecessary things that you don’t need. If you can save ink and paper, it also helps to save your money and the environment as well.

One method is to copy all the text and paste it to a text editor without any formatting to print. Doing this works but sometimes the formatting of the paragraph is all messed up and it is not the original like what you see on the website. I found a very cool website which offers free service to make a print friendly version of any webpage, as well as allowing you to save it in PDF format. You don’t even need to install any software or plugin for this.


PrintFriendly makes printing on the web better. You’ll save paper and ink, plus get great looking documents. Its special algorithm removes advertisements, navigation, and all the junk you don’t want to print. PrintFriendly use best practices in print Typography to format your document for great readability. You can even customize the page that you want to print by removing paragraphs that you don’t need.

First go to PrintFriendly’s website, enter the URL that you want to make it print friendly and click the Print Preview button. Within a few seconds, the print friendly page will be generated. There is a checkbox to remove images. If you see any paragraph that you don’t need, simply click on the paragraph will delete from the preview. You can also undo any changes by clicking the Undo button.

Once you’re done, you can either click the Print button to open the Print window or click the PDF button to generate a PDF file. If you own a website, you can also add a button to allow your visitors easily print the webpage they are in via PrintFriendly.

[ Visit PrintFriendly ]

Before continue reading today’s article, I’d like to warn you that this is for advanced users and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you CAN damage your DVD drive and will void your warranty. Did you know that it is possible to edit the read and write speed for a certain DVD writers? I didn’t know that it was possible until today.

I found a tool called Media Code Speed Edit (MCSE) which is able to make your DVD writer read and writer faster. For some DVD writers, the read speed can be increased up to 50%-100% with riplock patch. If you have LiteOn, Benq, PHILIPS, HP, LG, NEC, newer PIONEER, Cyberhome, Gigabyte, Samsung and Artec DVD writers, you have a good chance to play with MCSE and speed up your drive.


MediaCodeSpeedEdit allows you to change the write speed for your media and to add new media codes to your firmware by renaming an already available media code. The new media code name can be entered manually or can be imported from the DVD Identifier media code output to be sure that no special characters are lost. This kind of media code renaming will remove the original media code name from the patched firmware, so it is no longer supported by the firmware.

Real adding of additional media code names would mean to shift and extend all internal media code tables or patching all media code scanner for all supported firmwares, which would be a quite complex task. So don’t do it if you don’t know what you’re doing.

MCSE basically hack or edit the firmware for your DVD writer and then you flash the hacked firmware to update your DVD writer to support faster read or write speed. If you don’t know where to get your DVD writer’s firmware, you can search in Google or head to Media Code Speed Edit forum to get help. The below steps would give you an idea how MCSE works.

1. Download the firmware you want to modify

2. Start MCSE

3. Load the firmware file by clicking the load button

4. To increase the read speed, simply click the increase read speed checkbox. A greyed out checkbox means this feature is not available for your firmware

5. To increase the write speed, double click the media code you want to change and select the write strategy you want to use instead. This is a bit of trial and error

6. To teach the firmware a new media code name, select an unused media code of the same media type from the list, e.g. a -R media name if your new disk is a -R media, and rename it by modifying the Media Name/Ext/Rev fields on the right. Instead of manually renaming, you can also import the media name by clicking the import button and following the displayed instructions. Click the set button when done. The original media code will not be supported by the firmware anymore

7. With some firmwares you can directly modify the write speeds using the write speed checkboxes and clicking the Set Speed button. Greyed out checkboxes mean this feature is not available

8. Save the firmware

9. Flash the modified firmware as usual

10. Reboot

If you want to buy a new DVD writer, it’s no longer necessary to pay more money to get a faster reading and writing speed. Just refer to the list of supported DVD writers, buy one of the cheap one and increase the read & write speed with MCSE! How geeky is that?

P/S: Using patched firmware might damage your drive and will void your warranty. The use of MediaCodeSpeedEdit is at your own risk. Although MCSE supports a lot of DVD writers, I did not have the chance to test this because both of my QSI and PIONEER DVR-108 DVD writers are not supported by MCSE. If it could, I’d have tested it as I have full faith in this program because it is constantly being updated since November 2004.

[ Download Media Code Speed Edit | MCSE Website ]