Raymond.CC Blog

Author: raymond

  • Activate Free 6 Months Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 Chinese Key Code on English Setup

    A week ago Kino, a member of the forum from China shared a tip on how to obtain a free 6 months Kaspersky Antivirus 2009 key. Honestly I didn’t know how I missed that thread but I got to know about it when someone posted a comment on this blog. The deal is Kaspersky is giving out 50000 license key everyday and you’ll have to activate the license before 1st of April 2009.

    The steps to get the activation code is very simple. Just enter your email address in the form, click submit and the code will be instantly delivered to your email. Problem is the code can only be used on Chinese version of Kaspersky AntiVirus 2009 (kav8.0.0.506sch.exe or KAV8.0.0.506sch.zip). If you try to activate the code on the English version of KAV 2009, you’ll get an error saying “Activation code is not compatible with this application. It is impossible to activate Kaspersky Anti-Virus using the activation code for another application. Please, check your product.”
    Activation code is not compatible with this application. It is impossible to activate Kaspersky Anti-Virus using the activation code for another application. Please, check your product

    You can of course download the Chinese language of Kaspersky and hit Shift + F12 to change the interface to English (which will be reverted back to Chinese after reboot) but today I will show you how to get the genuine kaspersky key, and how easy it is to do the “impossible” by activating any language of KAV 2009 using the activation code that is meant for Chinese version.


    Follow the steps below to get your free 6 months Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 activation code:

    1. Go to http://li.kaba365.com/

    2. Enter your email at the form and click the button.
    Kaspersky Key 6 Months

    3. Type the exact verification code that you see and click the button on the bottom left.
    Kaspersky Key Verification Code

    4. Click Cancel if you receive a popup that looks like the image below.
    Kaspersky Key Cancel Button

    5. Check your email address that you’ve entered in step 2. You should receive an email from [email protected] with the subject 赠送给您的卡巴斯基反病毒2009（半年卡）‏. Note down the 25 digit Kaspersky activation code.
    Kaspersky Activation Code

    If you haven’t install Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009, you download it from here. After installation, make sure you select “Activate later” when asked to activate the application. Finish up the configuration and restart your computer.

    To activate the chinese activation code on English version of Kaspersky Antivirus 2009.

    1. Right click at Kaspersky icon at the icon at the notification area and select Settings.
    Right Click Kaspersky Tray Icon

    2. Go to Options and “uncheck” Enable Self-Defense. Click OK to close the settings window.
    Disable Kaspersky Self Defense

    3. Right click at Kaspersky icon at the notification area and select Exit.

    4. Go to C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009\Skin\loc and rename the folder from en to sch.

    5. Go to Start > Run , type regedit and click OK.

    6. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\KasperskyLab\protected\AVP8\environment

    7. Look for the Localization name and double click on it. Change the value data from en to sch. Close the Registry Editor.
    Kaspersky Localization

    8. Run Kaspersky Antivirus either from desktop or start menu and you’ll be prompted to activate the application.

    9. Select Activate online and enter the 25 digit activation code that you got earlier.

    10. Voila! You should see that it’s sending the data to Kaspersky server and will then tell you that the key is successfully installed with the expiration date 6 months ahead.
    Activated Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009

    Well, it is amazing that Kaspersky is giving out 50,000 activation codes everyday but unfortunately those keys are “trial” keys and not commercial. There is one drawback on trial key which is IF you’ve previously activated the 30 days trial or other promotional trial license, you won’t be able to use this license. Kaspersky application only allows you to activate the trial license ONCE. Uninstalling and reinstalling won’t allow you to activate trial license more than once unless you know how to do kaspersky trial reset by deleting some registry keys which won’t be discussed here.

  • Monitoring Vista ReadyBoost Read and Write Speed Effeciency

    Windows Vista includes a new feature called ReadyBoost that allows you to use a USB key as virtual memory in order to enhance performance. Most of the new desktop today comes with a lot of RAM and also a standard 7200RPM hard drive and you wouldn’t really see any speed improvements after enabling ReadyBoost. However for laptops, the laptop memory are being priced relatively higher than the for desktop systems and many laptops are still using the slow 4200RPM or 5200RPM hard drives. I’ve also read that ReadyBoost can increase laptop battery life by reducing hard drive access, allowing the hard drive to spin down.

    Enable ReadyBoost in Vista

    To speed up Vista system using ReadyBoost, all you need to do is to plug in your USB flash drive that is ReadyBoost capable, select “Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost” from the autoplay window and you’re all set. You can then go to the drive’s properties where a ReadyBoost tab will be made available for you to configure the available space to use for ReadyBoost. Matt Ayers, who is the Program Manager in the Microsoft Windows Client Performance group and basically owns the ReadyBoost feature recommends a 1:1 ratio of flash to system memory at the low end and as high as 2.5:1 flash to system memory. Higher than that and you won’t see much benefit.

    After enabling ReadyBoost, all we see is the LED light at USB flash drive blinking all the time and how do you know if it is working or not? Well here are 2 tools that you can use to monitor the read and write cache which gives you an idea of how well ReadyBoost is working.


    The first one that I found was ReadyBoost Monitor by Area 71.
    Monitor ReadyBoost read and write
    It is only a 56KB free portable tool that you can use to monitor the ReadyBoost read and write speed, the cache and compressed size. This tool can be minimized to the notification area (system tray) and moving your mouse cursor over the icon will conveniently show you a popup on the current read and write speed. It also has a nice small graph to show you the activity of the ReadyBoost.

    [ Download ReadyBoost Monitor ]

    The second one is also called ReadyBoost Monitor and it is created by the developers of popular “The Cleaner”.
    ReadyBoost Monitor Moosoft
    About 10 years ago when antivirus could only detect virus but not trojans, The Cleaner was very popular and is the only tool that could detect and clean trojans. Their free ReadyBoost monitoring tool is able to show ReadyBoost Hits, ReadyBoost Reads, Physical disk and the efficiency in percentage. This tool is free, portable, only 24KB and they even provide the complete source code for the ReadyBoost Monitor.

    [ Download ReadyBoost Monitor by MooSoft ]

    After enabling ReadyBoost on my laptop running Vista Business for about 10 minutes, I could already feel that the USB flash drive is getting pretty hot and thought that this could shorten the life span of my pen drive. Microsoft is aware of the lifecycle issues with flash drives and are smart about how and when they do their writes to the device. According to Microsoft, the drive should be able to operate for at least ten years. I guess I will be using ReadyBoost from today onwards until I add in another 2GB DDR3 RAM.

    If you have any questions regarding ReadyBoost or to know more about it, please read the Q&A interview with Matt Ayers.

  • List of Google Search Strings for Finding MP3

    This How-To will teach you how to use Google to find mp3s. This How-To will be highly pragmatic and will focus on the hows and not the wherefores of the various search strings. This info is taken from a website hosted in Geocities. I really liked the knowledge and information being shared. Since it is hosted on Geocities for free, I’m just afraid that one day this website will be gone and the whole article won’t exist for reference anymore! Moreover, free Geocities account only allow 3GB transfer per month. So if the website exceeds 3GB data transfer, the website will be inaccessible.

    Note: This info works just great for ebooks as well just change mp3 to pdf, djvu, ps, etc…


    ———————————————————————-
    = Index
    ———————————————————————-
    0) Key
    1) Directories
    2) Xitami Servers
    3) Directory Listing
    4) Andromeda Servers (depricated)
    5) Zina Artists (depricated)
    6) Apache mp3 Servers
    7) Individual Songs
    8 ) Saving Shoutcasts
    9) Social Bookmarking

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 0 – KEY
    ———————————————————————-
    This are just some definitions I will use below.

    [Directory String] can be any of the following :
    1) “index of”
    2) “last modified”
    3) “parent of”

    [file type] can be any of the following :
    1) “mp3″
    2) “shn”
    3) “wma”

    [mp3 name] can be any of the following :
    1) the name of the album in quotes
    2) the name of the artist in quotes
    3) be daring and leave it blank and have lots of links
    4) be creative!

    [limitors]
    1) -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls

    (inurl:) is optional and may be omitted and in fact most be omitted if not using a search tool other than google.

    (intitle:) can be used in place of (inurl:) and has a similar effect again you must be useing google.

    (-filetype:txt) adding this to the end of your search string can filter some false positives.

    (-playlist) adding this to the end of your search string can filter some false positives.

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 1 – Directories
    ———————————————————————-
    These are the most common way that mp3s are stored on the www, you should try these strings first.

    String Format :
    Type 1 : [Directory String] + (inurl:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 2 : [Directory String] + (intitle:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 3 : [Directory String] + [file type] + [mp3 name] + [limitors]

    Example Strings :
    – intitle:index.of + mp3 + “grandaddy” -html -htm -php -asp -txt -pls
    – “index of” + “mp3″ + “radiohead” -html -htm -php
    – “index of” + mp3 + “grandaddy”
    – “index of” + inurl:mp3 + “beatles” -txt -pls
    – “index of” + intitle:mp3 + beatles
    – “last modified” + “shn” + “dylan”
    – “last modified” + inurl:shn + “bob dylan”
    – “parent of” + inurl:wma + “grandaddy”

    Suggestions :
    – Try (intitle:index.of + “mp3″ + “band name” -htm -html -php -asp) first it is usually the most effective.

    Another Little Trick:
    – If you have been getting alot of results on google but the pages don’t seem to be there try adding dates and the “apache” string to your search i.e.

    – intitle:index.of + mp3 + “grandaddy” -html -htm -php -asp apache feb-2005
    – intitle:index.of + mp3 + “grandaddy” -html -htm -php -asp apache 2005

    or if you just want a big list of mp3′ doing a search like this every month
    – intitle:index.of + mp3 + -html -htm -php -asp apache mar

    or if you want to condense the search try
    – intitle:index.of + (mp3|ogg) + “grandaddy” -(html|php|asp) +apache mar-2007

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 2 – Xitami Servers
    ———————————————————————-
    String Format :
    Type 1 : “xitami web server” + (inurl:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 2 : “xitami web server” + (intitle:)[file type] + [mp3 name]

    Example Strings :
    – “xitami web server” + “mp3″ + “radiohead”
    – “xitami web server” + intitle:shn + “beatles”
    – “xitami web server” + inurl:mp3 + “magnetic fields”

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 3 – Directory Listing
    ———————————————————————-
    String Format :
    Type 1 : “directory listings” + (inurl:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 2 : “directory listings” + (intitle:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 3 : “directory listings of” + (inurl:)[file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 4 : “directory listings of” + (intitle:)[file type] + [mp3 name]

    Example Strings
    – “directory listings” + “mp3″ + “radiohead”
    – “directory listings” + intitle:shn + “beatles”
    – “directory listings” + inurl:mp3 + “magnetic fields”
    – “directory listings of” + “mp3″ + “radiohead”
    – “directory listings of” + intitle:shn + “beatles”
    – “directory listings of” + inurl:mp3 + “magnetic fields”

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 4 – Andromeda Servers
    ———————————————————————-
    String Format :
    Type 1 : “scott matthews” + andromeda + [mp3 name]
    Type 2 : “scott matthews” + andromeda + [file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 3 : “powered by andromeda” + [mp3 name]
    Type 4 : “powered by andromeda” + [file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 5 : inurl:andromeda.php + [mp3 name]
    Type 6 : inurl:anromeda.php + [file type] + [mp3 name]
    Type 7 : “scott matthews”
    Type 8 : “powered by andromeda”
    Type 9 : inurl:andromeda.php

    Examples :
    – “scott matthews” + andromeda + “radiohead”
    – “scott matthews” + andromeda + “mp3″ + “fitter”
    – “powered by andromeda” + “gradaddy”
    – “powered by andromeda” + “mp3″ + “just like women”
    – inurl:andromeda.php + “shn”
    – inurl:anromeda.php + “wma” + “dylan”
    – “scott matthews”
    – “powered by andromeda”
    – inurl:andromeda.php

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 5 – Zina Artists
    ———————————————————————-
    String Format :
    Type 1 : “zina artists”

    Examples :
    – “zina artists”

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 6 – Apache mp3 Servers
    ———————————————————————-
    String Format :
    Type 1 : “stream all” + apache + [mp3 name]
    Type 2 : “stream all” + apache
    Type 3 : “shuffle all” + apache + [mp3 name]
    Type 4 : “shuffle all” + apache

    Examples :
    – “stream all” + apache
    – “stream all” “shuffle all” mp3
    – “stream all” + apache + radiohead
    – “shuffle all” + beatles

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 7 – Individual Songs
    ———————————————————————-
    Format : [mp3 name].mp3 -playlist -filetype:txt

    Examples :
    – “ok_computer_live.mp3″ -playlist -filetype:txt
    – “*ok_computer*.mp3″ -playlist -filetype:txt
    – kid*a.mp3 -playlist -filetype:txt

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 8 – Shoutcasts
    ———————————————————————-
    0) Streamripper is a free shoutcast recorder

    1) Find a shoutcast that you would like to save.

    2) Download and open the .pls file, to discover the stream url
    File1=http://example.site:80/stream/1074

    3) Open up a terminal (DOS or xterm)

    4) break up the url into its parts (site,port,locations) so here we have
    site: example.com
    port: 80
    location: /stream/1074

    5) Uset telnet to Send HTTP GET message and redirect output. The request is

    prompt$ telnet site port > output.mp3
    GET location HTTP/1.0
    PRESS_ENTER_KEY PRESS_ENTER_KEY

    so in the example above

    prompt$ telnet example.site 80 > output.mp3
    GET /stream/1074 HTTP/1.0

    ———————————————————————-
    = Section 9 – Social Bookmarking
    ———————————————————————-
    Social Bookmarks sites, are site where people can leave links to other interesting sites given a certain “tag.” Tags are sort of like search terms and categories combined. Searching anyone of these bookmark sites for the type or music or band you like is almost sure to bring up lots of links to free mp3s. There are two links at the top of this page digg and del.ici.us, I use and there are others. If you do join a site make sure to give me a thanks by adding a link to this site!

    Source: http://www.geocities.com/my_haz_runs/

  • Free Remote Computer Control Solution

    Here are a few question you need to answer before you proceed reading this post. If any of the answer is “YES“, then continue reading… Well, not really, if you’re interested to learn more about computer, please continue reading as well…

  • Need access to your computer from a restrictive work internet connection?
  • Tired of drawn out phone calls helping people with computer problems?
  • Need a remote conferencing and demonstration platform that doesn’t cost the earth?
  • Find other remote control solutions clumsy and slow?
  • Want a no-ads, no-spyware FREE solution to all of the above?



    • SimpleDesktop by Moog Software has developed and generously offered a genuinely free, no ads, no spyware, no time limits, no feature limits remote computer control software!
    Free remote computer control with SimpleDesktop

    SimpleDesktop Features:
    * Revolutionary interface makes navigating a remote computer completely natural
    * Cross Platform – works on Windows, MacOS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris … and many others
    * Secure – up to 576 bit strong encryption of the entire session
    * Seamlessly serves clients connecting through an HTTP proxy
    * Scheduled upload of local machine IP address or Router IP
    * Multi-Platform Client Download (1.2M) from your SimpleDesktop server via any standard web browser
    * View the remote computer in a window or full screen
    * Secure background FTP file and clipboard transfer
    * Easily manage user accounts with rich permissions
    * Chat to other connected users and to the server host
    * Share whiteboards with other users
    * Draw on the whiteboard or directly on to the remote screen
    * Server side filtering by hostname or ip address
    * Unlimited TCP port ranges served by a single server
    * No monthly subscription
    * Can be optimised for LAN , ASDL/Cable , Modem Dialup or any other network
    * Stable, robust and secure server
    * Full Featured Browser Web Client (no client download required)

    This is so worth it! I know there are many free remote control softwares developed using open source VNC. This is another alternative which offers extra functionality such as whiteboard and file transfer. Most VNC doesn’t support file transfer and whiteboard. You can even suggest new features you’d like to see in SimpleDesktop via their Feedback Form. Who knows one day their remote computer control software will be very complete and stable, then they’ll start charging for it.

    [ Download SimpleDesktop ]

  • Encrypt Files and Folders With Pictures and Not Passwords

    Encryption is a method which allows information to be hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge or tools. To encrypt a file, you’ll usually need a software that is able to encrypt the file and then you’ll also need to create a key which only you and the person who needs to decode the file will know. Just like you putting important documents or money in a safe box which is then locked with a key or secret code. You can never let other people have the key or the secret code because that will allow other people to open your safe and steal whatever its in there.

    Same with computer. Today I found a very interesting encryption software which is able to encrypt files and folders without using password. Instead, it uses pictures or images as the key to perform encryption and decryption. Very innovative! Using pictures or images as key might be a good idea because nowadays people have not one, but dozens of passwords. It can be hard to remember them, and you might lose precious data when you forget them.


    PixelCryptor lets you choose a picture and use it to combine your files into a package. The pixel data is used to encrypt your data. The combinations are endless and hard to break. Currently there is no backdoor or workarounds. Once encrypted, it cannot be unlocked without the correct picture file.

    To encrypt a file with PixelCryptor:

    1. Download and install PixelCryptor.

    2. Click Encode Files button.
    Encode files with PixelCryptor

    3. You can click Add Folder or Add File to add the files that you want to encrypt. Drag and drop is also possible.
    Add file or folder to encrypt

    4. Click at the place where it says “Click here to select an image”, and browse the picture that you would like to use as a key.
    Select picture as encryption key

    5. Click on the small browse icon to select where you’d like to save the CGP encrypt file. Once the encryption is done, all files and folders that you selected just now will be packed into one CGP file.

    That was really easy! What I really like about PixelCryptor is it’s very user friendly. PixelCryptor is portable. You can copy PixelCryptor folder from C:\Program Files\CodeGazer\ to your USB flash drive and run it on another computer. However, PixelCryptor requires Microsoft .NET 2.0 or newer to be installed in order to run. As for the picture file, I’d advice that you use the picture that you upload yourself and not from some website. Reason is if the website is down, you won’t be able to decode your file. Or maybe the website decided to enhance the picture, it can’t be used to decrypt your file too.

    There are even more powerful, proven to be strong encryption tool than PixelCryptor, but it’s a good alternative for basic users who just want to encrypt files without using passwords.

    [ Download PixelCryptor ]

  • Changing Remote Desktop Listening Port Updates

    Nearly 5 months ago, I posted a tip on how to change the listening port of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection.
    This tip involves changing some values in your registry. Beginners can find it hard to mess with their Registry because one wrong modification, you won’t be able to boot up your Windows.

    Here’s a much easier way on how you can change the listening port for Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection.


    Again, IntelliAdmin has released a free tool where you can easily change the Remote Desktop listening port on your local computer and also on another computer across the LAN.
    Change Remote Desktop port

    As you can see, it’s so easy to use. Just select Local System if you’re changing the listening port on your own computer, and set the port number you desire at where it says Port Number and click Submit button. If you want to change the listening port on a computer in a LAN, just select Remote Computer, type in the computer name/ip address or you can click on the “…” button to browse for the computer. For some computer, you’ll need to authenticate using another account.

    One small thing which I don’t understand about this tool is I see a small text saying “Upgrade To Pro” at the bottom left. I clicked on it but couldn’t find anything about Pro version for this tool. Perhaps there will be one at a later time.

    [ Download IntelliAdmin Remote Desktop Port Change ]

  • Easy access to information on network with Free LAN Remote Administration

    Local and wide area networks are difficult and stressful to manage, especially in organizations that have practically non-existent IT support. Even there’s an IT support, it’s not easy for him alone to manage hundreds of computers in terms of getting to know if the user has installed any pirated softwares, running any spywares or trojans in services that could jeopardize the whole network by spreading it and etc…

    N37dev has developed a freeware that could be the answer to your network administration needs. Designed to make remote administration a breeze, it is ideally suited for implementations which require remote network administration such as corporate networks, cyber cafés, exhibition centres, hotels and many other types of network.


    LanTool Remote Administration Suite is an advanced network administration environment that incorporates a compact design, yielding a low memory footprint, for unmatched speed and performance. It allows easy access to information on your network which consists of Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 computers.
    LanTool Remote Administration

    You can restart, shutdown, hibernate, suspend and lock any computer on your network, without the need to physically be there. LanTool reduces the time you spend walking around, and increases your productivity. In seconds, you can ascertain which hardware is connected to a particular machine, how long the computer has been running for, or who’s connected without having to yell or pick up the phone. Detailed information, on any machine running on your network, is just a click away.

    Features and benefits of LanTool:

  • Remotely power-on, shutdown or power-off remote computers
  • Remotely lock a session or log-off users
  • Check if a computer is still on the network by monitoring its ‘heartbeat’, a regular signal sent by the remote computer.
  • Send files to remote computers, bypassing the operating system’s default methods, allowing faster transfer initializations, higher throughput due to on-the-fly compression, more accurate estimates for transfer time, error recovery and other programming tricks to ensure reliability and usability
  • Determine network issues using the Network bandwidth test feature, ascertaining the line speed between two points on the network and pinpointing any issues with the network.
  • Test the quality of a network connection by running TCP or UDP line tests to determine if there’s a problem with transfer rates.
    Kill processes remotely or change process priority remotely.
  • Dual core ready – due to the heavily multi-threaded design, which not only improves response times on single core CPUs (due to less wait states), but will also utilize the extra hardware of newer generation of microprocessors.

    • Other great benefits of employing LanTool include lowering the sound volume of a remote computer. This is especially useful in cases where the user is playing music that is disrupting other users and simple verbal requests are not achieving peace and tranquillity.

    This remote administration tool is like the smaller brother of the popular “DameWare NT Utilities“. Compared to the big brother, its still lacking a lot of remote features but it’s FREE and perhaps could help you easily access information remotely on your network. So it’s worth trying it if you have a network to maintain.

    [ Download LanTool v0.2.1 ]

  • Testing, Decoding and Analyzing Regular Expressions or RegEx

    Have you ever wonder how does people easily extract emails or some part of information from a file or website? An example is whenever I organize a software giveaway, one email is considered as one entry. I can’t be copying and pasting thousand over emails one by one, so what I did was use regular expressions to search for an email string and extract it to a file.

    A regular expression (regex or regexp for short) is a special text string for describing a search pattern. You can think of regular expressions as wildcards on steroids. You are probably familiar with wildcard notations such as *.txt to find all text files in a file manager. The regex equivalent is .*\.txt$.

    Regular expressions can be also used in online forms to make sure you submit the correct information. You can write a regular expressions to check for the correct email format, phone number where it uses all digits/numbers and etc. I was trying to fill up a form but no matter how I tried, the form wouldn’t accept the phone number format. When I viewed the HTML source code, I found that it uses regular expressions to check for the valid phone number format. Sounds easy but analyzing how regular expression works is not easy. After a little research, I found 2 ways that is able to decode and explain the analyzed regular expressions.


    Below is an example of regular expressions. I am sure you are now scratching your head like what I did when I saw this. I couldn’t understand a thing about regex syntax below. I didn’t want to waste my time in learning about regular expressions syntax because I seldom use it and I will end up forgetting them some day.

    ^0(6[\\s-]?[1-9]\\d{7}|[1-9]\\d[\\s-]?[1-9]\\d{6}|[1-9]\\d{2}[\\s-]?[1-9]\\d{5})$

    What I need is an analyzer that is able to analyze regular expressions and let the computer decode the expression to display its elements in plain English. You can either use the online Regular Expressions Analyzer which don’t require downloading or installing any software. Just paste the regular expression syntax to the box and click Parse. The parser will parse it on the fly and produce a tree like representation.

    online regular expressions analyzer

    Another method is to use Expresso, a free regular expression development tool that includes an Analyzer. Expresso displays this analysis in the Regex Analyzer as an expandable tree structure. The Analyzer updates automatically whenever the Regex changes. By selecting a node in the tree, you will highlight that portion of the regular expression. In addition to helping you understand the expression, this can be used to highlight text that you want to modify with the Builder or to run a Partial Match.

    Expresso Regular Expression Analyzer

    Expresso is free but you’ll have to register in order to remove the reminders to register your copy. Registration is free. Just enter your name and email and you’ll get your personalized User Name and Registration Code. I am sure you will now be able to understand the regular expressions more easily with Expresso and online regular expression analyzer without actually learning it.

    [ Download Expresso v3.0 ]

  • Raymond.CC website inaccessible – Migration

    Raymond.CC site was inaccessible for nearly 6 hours due to my current hosting Integricity can no longer able to support it.
    I host raymond.cc website on a shared hosting which is very cheap but quite fast. However, the activity and bandwidth was too high for their servers to manage in a shared environment resulting them freezing this site.

    I’ve now transferred this site to a server in United States, WebhostingBuzz and hopefully it is able to support this site. WebHostingBuzz is one of the highest rated web host in US. They claim to provide top-notch customer support and competitive pricing.. I do agree on the competitive pricing and as for customer support, so far so good. They did helped me with the transfer in just a few hours eventhough our timezone are so far apart.

    Migrating wordpress blog sites can be very easy if you have shell access. You need to backup all your files and folders while retaining the permissions and also your database.
    This is how I migrated raymond.cc to a new web host within an hour.


    1. Backup files and folders while retaining permissions.
    SSH to your current web host and run the following tar command from your website root.
    tar -cpzf filename.tar.gz *
    You should now have the file called filename.tar.gz on your website root.
    Download and upload filename.tar.gz to your new webhost. You can connect to your new webhost FTP by their IP address. Consult your webhost about the IP address.
    SSH to your NEW web host and run the following command to extract the tarball.
    tar -xzf filename.tar.gz
    Now you have all your files and folders with permissions on your new webhost.

    2. Backup MySQL database.
    Again, SSH to your old web host and run the following command
    mysqldump –opt -u dbusername -p dbname > dbname.bak.dump
    Download dbname.bak.dump to your computer from your website.
    You can use phpMyAdmin that use to administer MySQL database to restore the database.
    Before restoring the database, you need to create the exact same database name and user for MySQL.
    After doing that, on phpMyAdmin, click on the database name that you’ve just created on the left hand side and then click on SQL tab on top.
    backup and restore mysql database using phpMyAdmin
    You will just need to click on the Browse… button to locate the dump file which you downloaded to my computer.
    Click Go, wait for a few minutes to upload and restore the database and it’s done migrating!

  • Link Exchange with Raymond.CC

    Actually I’ve installed an automated link exchange script – LinkMan when I started this website.
    However, I never really got it to work properly. I’ve always wanted my Links page to automatically update and display the new links added but I didn’t know how to integrate LinkMan’s PHP code into WordPress.

    Even asking help from LiewCF and Kahsoon was being ignored! Hmmph! Perhaps they are too busy earning their money from blogging eh? Thanks to PHPJunkYard author, Klemen Stirn for helping me integrating the LinkMan PHP codes into my WordPress. I will soon post out the method I use to integrate LinkMan to my WordPress.

    Anyway, if you’d like to submit your website/link to my website, please do so at my Links page.

    Please add a link to http://www.raymond.cc before you submit your website address.
    Thank you.

    My site is now PR3 and I strongly believe it will increase in near future 😉

  • Zero Configuration Remote Access for Dummies

    3 days ago I wrote a tutorial on how to remote access with reverse connection. You have to do a little configuration on your side such as port forwarding and creating the server. As for your customer’s side, they only require 2 steps which is to run the file that you created and then add a new client which is your IP address. I think it’s more secure this way because your customer is the one that decides to let who control their computer.

    Today I am going to show you how you can actually skip the part where your customer needs to enter your IP address. So they only require to run the server which you created. It’s the easiest way already and there is no other shorter way than this one.


    Remote Access through firewall and router
    PCHelpWare is a free alternative to the various paying remote assistance services that can be found on the net. PCHelpWare is a powerful remote support software that allows you to control (right from your own PC) a distant PC connected to the internet. It is the ideal solution to provide quick remote assistance and help your customers, colleagues, friends and family members, even if they are on the other side of the world. Best part about PCHelpWare is, it’s customizable: you can create your own server package with your logo and -company- name. The individual you want to remotely assist only has to download and execute your customized package. No router/modem/firewall configuration is needed to access a remote PC even when it’s standing on a protected network behind a NAT If your PC is also behind Firewall/NAT routers, PCHelpware has the solution that makes everything simple anyway.

    Using the provided Repeater service, no router configuration is needed at all.

    Key features of PCHelpWare:
    * Security: Build-in communication encryption (TWF 256) and DH key exchange (using a 512 prime)
    * File transfer (using clipboard style Copy/Paste : ctr-alt-c, ctrl-alt-v)
    * Text Chat
    * Clipboard transfer (Text, RTF, HTML, pictures)
    * Scalable and easy to use Viewer. Various color modes to fit bandwidth at best
    * International keyboard support
    * Additional password if wanted

    Since PCHelpWare is very powerful tool and highly customizable, I will only show how to create the server package so that your friend, family or customer doesn’t need to mess around with anything other than running the server.
    1. Download PCHelpWare
    2. Extract and you’ll see 6 folders, 2 DLLs, 1 execuable and 1 readme text file.
    PCHelpWare files
    3. Run PcHelpWare_viewer.exe and configure it by referring the the image below.
    Remote Control through Firewall
    Notes: Alias is the name that you want to connect to. Password should be 7 characters of LESS. ID must be something unique. AVOID using numbers such as 1234 or 9999. This is because you’re using uvnc’s repeater and chances are, there are people listening to the same ID as you configured. The UPnP doesn’t work for me as PCHelpWare did not automatically add/register the port to Internet Gateway Device. So I had to manually map the port on my router.

    4. Click Save. After saving, a PHW-file will show up in the list box called Repeater.phw.
    5) Click Create Server.
    5a) Select “No” to Does the user need to enter the ID?.
    5b) Select “No” to Does the user need to enter the password?.
    This will create a PcHelpWare_server.exe in the PcHelpWare\myservers\Repeater directory. This is the file you need to get to those you wish to support.

    You can either send the PcHelpWare_server.exe to your customer by email or host it on a file sharing website.
    To start connecting:
    1) Open PcHelpWare_viewer, select Repeater.phw and click Start.
    b) Your customer only needs to download the PcHelpWare_server, run it and then simply need to click Connect.
    Connecting PCHelpWare

    This page keeps an a list of alive uvnc hosted Repeater servers: http://repeaters.ultravnc.info/
    I hope this will solve all your remote access problems and also hope that I’ve explained it well enough for you to understand. I was having problems understanding PCHelpWare at first. So if you’re stuck, just leave a comment and I’ll try to explain it in a simpler term to you.

    [ Download PCHelpWare ]

  • Auto Randomize Browser User Agent String for Privacy

    As far as I know, there are 4 things that we’ll need to take care of in order to stay totally anonymous during surfing the web. First is whenever we’re connected to the Internet, our Internet connection is assigned with a unique IP address. Search engines and websites that has statistical software installed, your IP address will be recorded together with the time you access the site. This can easily be changed by either using VPN such as Hotspot Shield and UltraVPN or an open proxy. The difference between VPN and proxy is VPN routes all internet traffic through the VPN service automatically and as for proxy, you will need to configure it on the application to use it. Proxy is normally slow and unstable but VPN is the opposite where it is faster and stable.

    Next comes to Javascript, Java or Flash which can be used to extract more detailed information about your computer. BrowserSpy.dk shows exactly how it can be done and fortunately this can be blocked by using NoScript which I’ve posted earlier this week. Third, is by removing browser cookies. Finally, the fourth one is the user-agent where NoScript cannot block and it is able to identify your browser and provide certain system details to servers hosting the Web sites you visit.


    To check your user agent string, use your web browser and go to http://www.useragentstring.com/.

    The user agent string that is gotten from my latest Firefox 3.6.11 browser is the following:

    Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101012 Firefox/3.6.11

    Quite a lot of information is revealed from that short line. It shows Mozilla version, platform, security values, operating system, language tag, version of Gecko, build date, and version of Firefox.

    If you’re a firefox user, there’s a very useful extension called Proxy Tool where you can set it to randomly change your user-agent string whenever a page is refreshed. No configuration is needed except the only gripe I have on this extension is you need to always enable the Randomize ALL feature whenever you open Firefox because it seems that the settings are not saved.

    User Agent Switcher

    Other than that, Proxy Tool extension also has other useful feature such as changing the Referrer (where you came from) and also using of free HTTP proxies which I do not recommend because it’s slow, unstable and you never know if the other side is actually sniffing your internet traffic. By default this plugin also automatically deletes your Firefox cookies.

    With a combination of NoScript to block untrusted Javascripts, Java and flash, VPN to hide your IP address, and Proxy Tool to spoof your user-agent string together with auto cookies removal, maybe even the almighty Google who keeps their logs of what you searched for cannot identify that it is you.

  • How To Disable Microsoft Update and Use Windows Update

    I was at my clients place yesterday for weekly computer maintenance. Things I usually do is scan for virus/spyware, install Windows updates, remove temporary files, defrag and etc. While I was trying to check for Windows update, I got this error “The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view” with the error code 0x8DDD0009.

    Windows Update 0x8DDD0009 error fix

    Many steps were taken to try to fix this problem but to no avail. Before I gave up, I remembered that many years ago I was using Windows Update instead of Microsoft Update. Perhaps switching to Windows Update would work. I manually entered the URL http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ but it redirects me to Microsoft Update. Here’s how I disable Microsoft Update and use Windows Update.


    The difference between Windows and Microsoft Update is Windows Update provides updates for the operating system and related components, such as definition updates to the Windows Defender antispyware product and Junk Mail filter updates for Windows Mail. As for Microsoft Update, it provides updates not only for the operating system, but also certain Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, Windows Live applications, Microsoft Expression and some server products.

    Just follow the few simple steps below to stop Windows Update website from automatically redirecting to Microsoft Update.

    1. Go to Windows Update or Microsoft Update site

    2. When you see the page asking you to click either Express or Custom, DO NOT click either one. At the left hand sidebar, click Change settings.

    Microsoft Update Change Settings

    3. Scroll right to the bottom of the page and you’ll see an option to disable Microsoft Update. Check “Disable Microsoft Update software and let me use Windows Update only” and click Apply changes now button. Click Yes to continue.

    Stop using Microsoft Update

    4. You should get a confirmation page stating “You have successfully disabled the Microsoft Update software on your computer. To keep your computer up to date, make sure you have turned on Automatic Updates in Control Panel. You can also visit the Windows Update website at any time.”

    Since my client doesn’t have other Microsoft software such as Office, it’s OK to turn off Microsoft Update and use Windows Update. Even if they have Microsoft office installed, I can use Microsoft Office Update. What I am suggesting here is a workaround, not to fix the problem.

    Note: You can’t revert back to Microsoft Update from Change Settings page. You’ll need to follow this link to enable it back.

  • How To Identify Fonts Being Used In Images

    Identify a FontHave you ever encountered problems in identifying what fonts is being used in an image? Of course fonts being used in popular movie banners can be found easily because you have the keyword but what if you found a free template and the font is not included? You either recreate the buttons with your own fonts replacing the original, or try posting in forums and hope that someone would have seen that font before and let you know what is the font name. There are so many fonts, maybe hundred of thousands fonts available on the internet and to identify an unknown font is definitely NOT an easy task!

    If you need to identify a font, don’t despair. I have found 2 methods that is able to help you identify an unknown font. If it is not able to help you identify the font, it will at least help you narrow down to the closest ones.


    Identifont, a free service offered to help you identify fonts by answering a series of simple questions about its appearance.
    Know what font being used
    You can identify fonts using a set of restricted letters because sometimes you won’t have A-Z alphabets in an image. Identifont uses a patented expert system containing information about a large number of typefaces, and from this asks a series of questions about key features of the typeface. The system is adaptive, so at each stage the sequence of questions is chosen to identify the font in the smallest number of steps. A typical identification takes about 15 steps, after which it shows the matching font or fonts, together with character-set samples to allow the user to check the answers. Identifont also includes links to the main vendors of each typeface, so the user can order the typeface once they have identified it.

    [ Identify Unknown Fonts with Identifont ]

    Next is, WTF. WhatTheFont offers different font identifying technology than Identifont. WhatTheFont system accepts image files uploaded by us, then analyzes them and finds the closest match on WhatTheFont site.
    Find fonts being used
    Images can be color or black & white, and they don’t have to be very high quality (although that helps). Even a digital photograph of some lettering you like can be accepted. Accuracy of results is unprecedented by previous automatic systems.

    [ Identify Unknown Fonts with WhatTheFont ]

    Finally, if WhatTheFont system is unable to give you a good match of the font you’re looking for, you can then submit your image to WhatTheFont Forum to have your image viewed by font geeks the world over.

  • Easily Create Charts Online Without Using Excel or Any Software

    The best way to visualize statistical information is by using charts. If you present an audience with raw figures, people’s eyes may glaze over. But if you present data visually such as when you need to show how sales of your product have grown, then more people will follow your main points. Microsoft Excel provides a pretty easy way to create charts based on the data in the worksheet but there are times when I do not have Microsoft Excel installed and I really need to create a chart.
    create free chart without excel
    Not to panic because as long as you have a web browser and an internet connection, you can easily create Bar, Pie, Line Plots, Gauge, Map, Ring, Cartesian, Candle, TimeSeries, Diagram, Radar type of charts. All you need to do is visit the online chart creator website, specify the size of the graph, graph type, color, X and Y data, and you’re set. Some websites requires you to create an account for free so you can actually save your graph and then modify it at a later time.


    I’ve found 10 websites that offers free online chart creation, but only the top 4 which I personally felt that its easier to use because it has the ability to import data from text or excel file.

    1. ChartGizmo
    2. ChartGo
    3. Chartle
    4. DIY Chart

    Although the 4 websites above should be enough for me to create my own free graphs, but I’m just listing the others that I’ve found.

    5. Chart Tool
    6. BARCHART
    7. Create A Graph
    8. CSS Chart Generator
    9. Google Chart Creator
    10. Hohli Online Charts Builder

    For those people like me that doesn’t know how to use Excel at all, creating a chart from it is going to take some learning. But when I use ChartGizmo or ChartGo, it’s so simple and straight forward that I can just enter the data, select the options and I get a nice looking graph. Can’t get any easier than that.
    create free chart graphs