After easily jailbreaking my wife’s iPad running iOS 4.3.3 from JailBreakMe website, I’ve never updated to any new version of iOS because there wasn’t any untethered jailbreaks after that. Recently I found out that pod2g has created an untethered 5.0.1 jailbreak for non-A5 devices which means my wife’s iPad is supported. So I upgraded the iPad to iOS 5.0.1 from iTunes, ran the latest redsn0w 0.9.10b3 for Windows and followed the simple instructions. At first I got stuck at exploiting with limera1n window then I found out I did not correctly enter into DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode. I tried again and this time the whole jailbreaking iOS 5.0.1 process went without a hitch.

After rebooting the iPad for the first time after jailbreaking, I noticed that some of the icons such as Contacts, Notes, Maps, Game Center and Mail at the Springboard or Home Screen became white in color. I am still able to launch the application without any problems though.

I tried rebooting by powering off and then turn it on again but the icons are still in white color. Then I read about Respring and gave it a try. All I needed to do is install an app called Respring from Cydia and then open the application which will automatically respring the iPad to the lock screen. After unlocking the screen, I noticed that all the white icons are restored to the default icons. Basically respring means killing the Springboard.app application that handles the user interface on top of the iOS.

The antivirus benchmark report has been stagnant for a while because I am planning to migrate the current flash based FusionCharts to an attractive Javascript plotting for jQuery called flot. Currently FusionCharts data is on a static XML file and that makes the chart static as well. I wanted to utilize the MySQL database so that we have more flexibility on what we want to see in the chart. For example, instead of listing ALL antivirus in one chart, I can select whether to display only 2011 products, sort in alphabetical order or the highest/lowest numbers and etc.

On the last antivirus benchmark 18, I used Heaven Benchmark to test the 3D graphics performance when an antivirus is active on a Windows system. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine. Currently there are over 70 clients that uses the Unigine engine and one of the upcoming game is Oil Rush, a naval strategy game developed by Unigine Corp.


On 2007, Unigine released Sanctuary Benchmark to support DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and OpenGL. Then on 2008, Tropics Benchmark was released to support of DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL. A year later on 2009, Unigine introduced Heaven DX11 Benchmark which was the first DirectX 11 benchmark in the world.

There are 2 versions of Heaven Benchmark, the free and professional version. The Heaven DX11 Benchmark Pro cost a whopping $495 and has additional features such as command line support, reporting, benchmark looping, technical support and licensed for commercial use. The free version is good enough for any home user to benchmark DirectX 11 on their computers.

Heaven Benchmark is easy to configure and use. All you need to do is download the Windows/Linux setup at 228MB in size, install and run it. You will be presented with a front-end user interface to select the options that you want to test. For example, at the API drop down menu you are able to select DirectX 9, 10, 11 or OpenGL. Another important option is the Tessellation where a scalable technology aimed to automatically subdivide polygons into smaller and finer pieces, which brings drastically more detailed and elaborated look to games. If you have monster gaming machine, you should try the Extreme Mode. Finally click the Run button and the Unigine engine will start to load.

Once the Unigine engine has been loaded, click on the Benchmark button or hit F9 on your keyboard will start the 26 stages benchmark process that takes nearly 5 minutes to complete. It will then show a report on the average, minimum and maximum FPS, score, your computer’s hardware and settings used on Heaven Benchmark.

OK don’t laugh at the crappy FPS 10.8 that I got on my computer with the Heaven Benchmark. It’s not even a gaming machine 😛

[ Download Heaven DX11 Benchmark ]

The 20 winners of WinBootInfo has been chosen. Please refer to the screenshot below for the list of winners. WinBootInfo license is attached to a computer based on hardware ID, so you will have to install WinBootInfo first, run it and select “Click here to enter the key you already purchased…”. A new window will open that shows your hardware fingerprint. Note it down and wait for WinBootInfo management to contact you first. Then only send them the hardware fingerprint when asked to so that they can generate your unique key.

Thanks to MagicAndre1981, I found out that Windows 7 has a tool called Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit which is included in Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Windows Performance Tools are designed for analysis of a wide range of performance problems including application start times, boot issues, deferred procedure calls and interrupt activity, system responsiveness issues, application resource usage and interrupt storms. This is something similar to WinBootInfo but basic computer users will find that it not as easy to use and understand.


To get the free Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit, you will have to download Windows 7 SDK which is quite big. You can download the web setup, select custom during installation and only select the “Win32 Development Tools” from the list of programs to install. After installation, go to X:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\bin and look for the 3 following files:

wpt_ia64.msi – To be used in Itanium Windows
wpt_x64.msi – To be used in 64Bit Windows Vista/7/Server 2008 (R2)
wpt_x86.msi – To be used in 32Bit Vista/7/Server 2008

So if you’re running a 32bit of Windows 7, just run wpt_x86.msi to install the Windows Performance Toolkit. For your convenience, I’ve uploaded the 32 and 64 bit version of WPT to RapidShare to you can directly test them out without downloading the Windows 7 SDK.

Download wpt_x86.msi for Windows 7 32 bit
Download wpt_x64.msi for Windows 7 64 bit

After installing Windows Performance Tookit, open a command prompt with administrative rights. To do that, go to Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.

To trace Windows bootup, type the following command in the command prompt.
xbootmgr -trace boot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For shutdown tracing:
xbootmgr -trace shutdown -noPrepReboot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For Standby+Resume:
xbootmgr -trace standby -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For Hibernate+Resume:
xbootmgr -trace hibernate -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

You can replace the C:\TEMP with any directory of your choice in your computer. This is where the toolkit will save and store the output (.cab .etl and .log) files. When the trace is done, it the Windows Performance Analyzer will automatic run and show you the trace results.

You can always re-open your trace results by going to the output folder which is at C:\TEMP if you didn’t change the command line, and run the .etl file which is normally over 100MB in size.

If you’re sharing computer with your family or friends, most likely you’ll have a conflict of favorite default web browser problem. Let’s say you like to use Firefox and you’ve set it as your default browser. When your brother logs in to his user account and runs Internet Explorer, he’ll get a prompt that says “Internet Explorer is not currently your default browser. Would you like to make it your default browser?”

Hitting the enter key or selecting Yes will change the default web browser to Internet Explorer and this effects all other users in the same computer. This is a never ending battle of setting the default web browser. Windows XP’s user interface does not provide you an option to set a per-user default web browser. One setting affects all users, machine-wide. Here’s a solution to this annoying default web browser problem.


DefaultBrowser allows you set the default web browser for your user profile in Windows XP, without affecting the other users. The list of browsers you see in the Presets are tested and working flawlessly as user defaults. Note that the user interface in Windows XP does not provide an option for setting the default browser for each user.

Apart from the Presets list, there is an option at the bottom which allows you choose the Web Browser program file and set it as the default. You may use this section if your favorite browser is not listed under Presets. As you read in the dialog, this method does not work with all the browsers. If the results are not satisfactory using this method, you can undo the configuration by clicking the Reset button.

Currently DefaultBrowser supports Avant Browser, Deepnet Explorer, Maxthon, SlimBrowser, CrazyBrowser, GreenBrowser, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition and Opera.

This tool requires Administrator or Limited User account and it does not work under Guest account. To successfully apply the per-user setting, choose No when your Web browser prompts to make itself the default, as it might affect all the user profiles. I’d also advice you to disable checking of default web browser on startup so you won’t get the prompt everything you launch the browser. This tool is a freeware and designed to use for Windows XP system only.

Now everyone can use their favorite web browser as default without making any changes on other user accounts.

[ Download DefaultBrowser ]

Manually downloading from RapidShare as a free user is a pain. Click this, wait, and click that, wait. When finished downloading the first part, go back to the clicking and waiting game. Fortunately there are many ways to automate downloading from RapidShare. You can either use a download manager that is meant to download from one-click hosters such as jDownloader, CryptLoad, or if you have a website with a lot of bandwidth, you can install RapidLeech script to make your server get the file from RapidShare and you can download from your server. I used jDownloader a lot in the past but have stopped using it because I always get very slow download speed even with my premium account. So now I am using RapidLeech to make my server hosted locally in Malaysia the middle man to grab all the files from RapidShare at a very fast speed. Then I can download from my server at full speed.

Today I will be covering another method on how to automate downloading from RapidShare as a free user using Firefox web browser! All you need to do is to open all rapidshare links in the Firefox tabs and go do something else. If you don’t like using jDownloader because it needs Java, Cryptload because it needs .NET framework, or you don’t have a website, then give this a try.


First method is to use an add-on called SkipScreen. It is a free Firefox add-on that lets you skip all the clicking and waiting on sites like RapidShare, Zshare, MegaUpload, and Sharebee. Your downloads start instantly. All you need to do is to install the add-on, and open all the rapidshare links on a new tab. You will notice that SkipScreen tries to download all of the links but only 1 will get through and the rest will say that you are already downloading a file. Once the first file has finished downloading, SkipScreen will automatically starts to download the other parts…

Second method is to use a Greasemonkey script called RapidShare AutoWait. This script only works on RapidShare and it even hides the advertisements in RapidShare. First make sure you have Greasemonkey add-on installed, then click here to install the RapidShare AutoWait script.

Both methods above will still need to wait all those timeouts and countdowns, but you won’t have to sit in front of your computer to do that. During testing, I found that RapidShare AutoWait works better than SkipScreen. When I canceled the first download, RapidShare AutoWait is able to automatically download the second part from RapidShare. It continues until all the rapidshare links has been downloaded. As for SkipScreen, when I canceled the first download, it doesn’t download the second part. I’ve tested three times and it failed all.

If you did not set Firefox to auto save the downloaded files, you will get full of download windows asking you where you’d like to save your files. Do take note that the files has finished downloading, so all you need to do is to just save it. If you don’t want all that annoying windows, just set the default location where Firefox should save your downloaded files.

Magazine CD covers are really great because it usually has a lot of freebies! However these promotions are not meant for everyone and is only for people who has purchased the magazine. So if you use them without buying the magazine, you’re actually CHEATING these giant companies but I don’t think they even give a hoot about since they still makes a lot of money. The reason for these free offers are obviously for PROMOTIONS. Think about this, when these companies give out 6 months license and when the licensed period is up, the user will either end up spending their money in extending the license or uninstall it and use AVG. However, when the user felt that their computer slows down a lot and got infected by a few undetected trojans after installing AVG, what would they do? Yes ladies and gentleman, they ditch AVG, reinstall Kaspersky and ended up giving money to Kaspersky.

If you’ve studied marketing, I am sure you know it’s a win-win situation and only the small timers would think that it’s cheating. I’ve personally given out a lot of free licenses worth thousands of dollars. I could sell them in eBay, but why didn’t I do that? Well enough for the rant. Today we shall take a look at the free 6 months license offer given by Kaspersky Poland to CHIP readers.


It seems that Kaspersky Poland is making a very big promotion by offering 6 months licenses to PC World and CHIP readers. The promotion page are VERY similar and you could use the same method which I posted yesterday to get the license but we’ll try something different today since there are people who doesn’t know about using proxies. I am not sure what range of IP address is being blocked by Kaspersky Poland because so far I found out that IPs Poland, US, Germany and Ukraine works.

We’ll need Firefox, GreaseMonkey add-on, a modified GreaseMonkey script and UltraSurf. Please be informed that a few antivirus detects UltraSurf as a suspicious file. This is a false detection.

1. Open Firefox and install GreaseMonkey add-on.

2. Install a modified version of Kaspersky.pl Captcha Killer for GreaseMonkey.

3. Download UltraSurf, extract and run u94.exe. You will notice that your Internet Explorer automatically opens. You can close the Internet Explorer.

4. On your Firefox browser, go to Tools > Options > Advanced > Network tab and click the Settings button. Select “Manual proxy configuration” and enter the HTTP Proxy as 127.0.0.1 and Port 9666. Check “Use this proxy server for all protocols” and click OK.

5. Go to http://www.kaspersky.pl/mag/chip/kav2009.html

6. Enter your name, email-address and click Register button. You don’t need to change the code because it has been automatically inserted for you. If not, enter KAV2009-377333.

7. Check your email and you should get an email from Kaspersky Lab Polska ([email protected]). The 20 digit number that is separated by 4 dashes is your 6 months license key!

Make sure you’ve installed the modified version of userscript because the one for PC World won’t work for Kaspersky Poland Chip promotion page. After you got your kaspersky key, make sure you configure Firefox settings to use “No proxy” or else next time you’ll have problems accessing to websites when UltraSurf is not running.

There is no point for you to abuse this by generating thousands of keys because all Kaspersky keys has shelf life and will automatically activates itself if you don’t use it within 1-3 months. So the most you can do is use one license until it expires, then only use the second key which should still have 1-2 months period remaining.

Windows Live SkyDrive (initially Windows Live Folders) is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services. SkyDrive is a file storage and sharing service that allows users to upload files to the computing cloud, then access them from a web browser. It uses Windows Live ID to control access to the user’s files, allowing them to keep the files private, share with contacts, or make the files public. Publicly-shared files do not require a Windows Live ID to access. So as long as you have a Hotmail or MSN email account, you have a SkyDrive. The service currently offers 25 GB of free personal storage, with individual files limited to 50 MB.

Recently I discovered SkyDrive Explorer, a very useful extension that allows you to access SkyDrive files from My Computer. The concept is exactly the same as GMail Drive Extension which turns your Google email into a virtual file system. SkyDrive would be a better option compared to Gmail because Gmail is an email service and not meant to be a file storage. It can be a little risky if one day Google decides to delete files that are uploaded using GMail Drive Extension or suspend your Google account.


SkyDrive Explorer is a free, easy-to-use, but very powerful extension for Windows Explorer. With SkyDrive Explorer you can make any every-day operations with your documents from Microsoft Live SkyDrive service using Windows Explorer, as if they were on your computer. Moreover you don’t need to install and configure any additional programs or ActiveX components. SkyDrive Explorer will organize the interaction with the online storage itself. With the current beta version of SkyDrive Explorer v1.1 you can enjoy the following functionality:

View the structure and contents of folders in SkyDrive

View files information (type, size, creation date in GMT format)

Create new root folders and subfolders

Copy files into the storage

Delete files and folders

Copy files from the storage to the computer

Copy folders and subfolders from the storage to the computer saving their structure

Use Drag & Drop for files operations

Rename files and folders

Create links to SkyDrive folders

After installing SkyDrive Explorer which is only 1.17MB in size, you will see an additional icon in My Computer called SkyDrive Explorer. Double clicking on that icon will prompt you to enter your Windows Live ID. The login form looks very much like Windows Live Messenger 2009.

After a successful login, you’ll be presented with a few folders like you normally see on your computer. My internet connection upload speed is 384Kbps (48KBps) and I was able to upload at 46KBps.

You do not have to worry about people snooping on your connection because it is protected with HTTPS protocol. SkyDrive Explorer is free and works both in 32- and 64-bit version Windows starting from XP to 7.

[ Download SkyDrive Explorer ]

I love to use the computer after I’ve done a fresh Windows installation on my computer. It is fast and there’s no problem at all! Windows system stability is the most important. Whenever Windows got infected by a destructive virus such as JambanMu, the best thing to do is to format the hard disk and reinstall Windows. There is around nearly 1000 executable (.exe) files inside Windows folder and if most of them are being infected by virus, I guarantee that Windows won’t be stable anymore. Sometimes after all executable files are disinfected by antivirus, you can’t run it anymore due to corruption. Even after installing and uninstalling many programs, Windows stability and performance will also drop.

So, protecting Windows operating system files and also some common known folder in Program Files is very important in order to maintain stability. I stumbled on a free security program that is able to keep your operating system stable and protect important programs, documents and files from deletion.


System Protect is free, easy-to-use software that helps keep your operating system stable and protect important programs, documents and files from deletion caused by viruses, other users on your computer such as your kids, or even by your own mistake.

After installing System Protect, it automatically protects so-called “system files”. System files in its database include all files included in Windows XP, and Windows Vista operating systems, plus all their updates and service packs. But System Protect does not only protect your operating system; it also protects the most common programs. Currently, its system files database includes almost 40,000 items, with specialized team of software analysts extending it every day. Other than protecting system files, you can define the files and folders that you want System Protect to protect. When it’s protected, it can’t be modified, deleted or moved.

The good thing about System Protect is it only protects known system files. You can move or delete files in Windows such as winhelp.exe, hh.exe and etc that won’t affect it’s stability. But if you try to do the same for explorer.exe, regedit.exe, twain.dll and etc, it’ll be blocked and a notification window will appear.

When you need to install Windows Update or any legitimate software that affects system files, you’d have to temporarily turn off the protection or run System Protect in Install/Modify Mode(protection disabled). Do take note that if you have System Protect installed, it doesn’t mean you don’t need a real-time antivirus. System Protect only protects Windows files from being infected or modified by virus but it if a RAT (remote administration tool) trojan copies itself to Windows folder and set it to autorun, your computer is still compromised and can be accessed by the hacker anytime.

Having System Protect gives you additional protection for your Windows system which most antivirus program doesn’t offer. If your computer has enough memory to cater for antivirus and System Protect, I can say that it’s one of the best combination to protect your computer and maintain its stability. Oh, and if you’ve set a password and forgotten the password, simply uninstall and reinstall will reset it.

[ Download System Protect ]

When you have finished updating your Firefox web browser, you should see a Firefox Updated tab automatically opens informing you that you’ve been updated to the latest version of Firefox and this update will make you safer on the web. Yeah it’s nice getting a confirmation on that and normally this tab will only come up for the first time you open Firefox after an updated. However, it can be really annoying when you that Firefox Updated tab keeps on opening by itself together with the default Google tab whenever you start Firefox.

The latest version of Firefox web browser v3.0.7 was released a few days ago. JC updated it and unfortunately he was one of the victim of the tab that opens by itself whenever he starts Firefox. At first I thought maybe he had IP Hider installed because I remembered that this happened to my computer right after I’ve installed it but he didn’t have that on his computer. He checked his Firefox’s Startup homepage and it is only showing the Google page. Here are a few solutions that could help him fix this annoying problem.


According to Mozilla’s Knowledge Base, Firefox changes a setting in its preferences file to determine whether you’ve seen the “Firefox Updated” tab. If you are having problems with that file then Firefox will be unable to save this information and will show you the “Firefox Updated” tab each time you start it. You can visit this page for the solutions.

JC followed the steps in that Mozila Knowledge’s Base but it did not solve the problem. Here’s another solution to reset your Firefox profile.

1. Download MozBackup to make a backup of your necessary components such as Bookmark, saved passwords and etc. Make sure you DON’T backup General Settings because that will keep your preferences an you’ll end up with the same problem after restoring your backup.

2. Go to Run and type %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

3. Rename profiles.ini file to another name let’s say profiles.ini.bak

4. Run Firefox and it will automatically recreate a new profile for you.

5. Run MozBackup to restore back your bookmarks and etc.

You should see the page that thank you for installing the safest, fastest and most customization version of Firefox yet. Now try closing Firefox and click the Quit button when prompted to save your tabs for the next time it starts. Run Firefox again and you shouldn’t be bugged by the “Firefox Updated” tab until your next update.

I constantly need to reformat my hard drive to reinstall Windows. This is because I do a lot of software testing. After many installation and uninstallation of softwares, Windows will start to have weird errors and it’s performing very slowly. It’s nearly impossible to fix and the only way to have a fast system is to perform a clean Windows installation.

Before reformatting my hard drive, the most important task I need to perform is BACKUP. I need to backup my files and email. One thing a lot of people missed backing up is “bookmarks” or “favorites”. I browse a lot of websites a day and I bookmark interesting or useful websites for future references. There was once I forgot to backup my bookmarks and it was disastrous! I couldn’t find back the websites. Now, I ALWAYS remember to backup my bookmarks. To be on the safe side, here’s a good way to AUTOMATICALLY backup your Firefox bookmarks.



The Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer is a Firefox extension which automatically synchronizes your bookmarks with foxmark’s server. Then Foxmarks works silently in the background to keep your bookmarks up-to-date on all your computers. You only need to install the extension, create an account, and by default it will automatically synchronizes your bookmark whenever you shutdown Firefox. This way, you’ll never lose your Firefox bookmarks ever again!

After you’ve installed Foxmarks, you can access the Foxmarks configuration from Firefox Bookmarks menu. Nothing much to do there because the default settings is perfect.

A very good feature of Foxmarks that is you can access your bookmarks from any computer anytime via http://my.foxmarks.com/.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer slogan is “Simple. Solid. Free. And ready to use” which is very true. Truly a very simple yet powerful extension for Firefox.

[ Install Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer ]

I was excited when I got to know that Apple Safari browser is available for Windows.

It’s in Public Beta, meaning anyone can download and test it but it’s not 100% stable. Apple claims that Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform. Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. On the comparison chart, Safari 3 is the fastest in terms of HTML Performance, Javascript Performance and Application Launch compared to Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9. I’ve tested it and I liked the way Safari loads the website while it’s still downloading the site. It makes you feel that it’s already loaded and it’s fast.

We all know Apple develops very stable and easy to maintain products. However, it won’t be easy to beat Firefox 2 because of the vast amount of add-ons/plugins currently available. Nowadays you can do almost anything on Firefox 2 browser. I did find plug-ins for Safari 3 but there’s only Adobe Flash Player, Java, Adobe Reader, Real Player, QuickTime and Windows Media Player. Mostly used for a richer browsing experience and not extra functionality.


Safari 3 for Windows only runs on Windows XP or Vista with at least 256MB of RAM and 500Mhz Pentium-class processor or better. Windows 98 user would have to miss this great release. One thing I noticed about Safari 3 is it doesn’t use as much Memory as Firefox 2 does.

Some of the shortcut keys available in Safari 3 is standard. Here’s some of basic shortcut keys that we normally use:
CTRL + T: Opens a new tab
CTRL + N: Opens new Safari Window
CTRL + W: Close current tab
CTRL + Q: Quit Safari
CTRL + [: Back
CTRL + ]: Forward
CTRL + .: Stop
CTRL + D: Add to Safari Bookmark
CTRL + R: Reload page
CTRL + M: Minimize Safari
CTRL + P: Print page
CTRL + ALT + L: Open Downloads Window

Download Safari 3 for Windows below and try it yourself. You’ll love it!

[ Download Safari 3 Public Beta ]

MSN Messenger 7.5.0322 full install is out!
This update is considered important because of the sign in fixes, if you have been getting error 80048820 since updating to MSN Messenger 7.5, give this one a try and see if it works!

I’ve installed it and everything works fine.

[ Download MSN Messenger 7.5.0322 from MSN website (English) ]

31 January 2006 Update: For those who have problems after installing the 7.5.0322, please try installing the latest unofficial 7.5.0324.

If you’ve heard of Nmap, it’s a very powerful, and in my opinion the best security scanner available. Last time, it used to only run on Linux, but now it is available for Windows as well except no graphical interface is included, so you need to run nmap.exe from a DOS/command window. Everything is in command line and there’s a long list of command lines available for you to use. Can be quite tough and confusing to use if you’re a newbie.

There used to be Nmapwin and also eEye NmapNT that provides the graphical user interface for Nmap. All you need to do is just click the checkbox available and enter the hostname or IP address. However, both GUI for Nmap is obsolete and no longer works with the latest Nmap. Thankfully there’s another one that keeps its free Nmap frontend up to date with Nmap….


NmapView is a Windows frontend for Nmap the free security scanner made by Fyodor.

Dedicated to all those that, like the author of NmapView, love Nmap and use Microsoft Windows. NmapView works with Nmap version 4.x and is compatible with Windows 2000, XP , 2003 and Vista.

Features of NmapView