Category: Computer

  • myBittorrent.com was Hacked!

    On Saturday 8th April 2006 the myBittorrent.com website was hacked.

    myBittorrent.com hacked!

    If you didn’t know what torrent is, check out the explanation below from Wikipedia.

    BitTorrent is both the name of a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution client application and also the name of the file sharing protocol itself, both of which were created by programmer Bram Cohen. BitTorrent is designed to widely distribute large amounts of data without incurring the corresponding consumption in costly server and bandwidth resources. According to CacheLogic BitTorrent is responsible for 35% of all traffic on the internet.

    The original BitTorrent application was written in Python and its source code has been released under the BitTorrent Open Source License (a modified version of the Jabber Open Source License), as of version 4.0. Sources say the upcoming release will be modified and coded in C++, in order to ensure further compatibility, as well as a bittorrent version for macs. The name “BitTorrent” refers to the distribution protocol, the original client application, and the .torrent file type.

  • mIRC 6.17 has been released!

    mIRC 6.17
    The world’s most famous chat software mIRC has got better with the new version 6.17.
    I still remember those days me and my friend used to write script together. We used to hang out at Austnet a lot. We even had scanners that’s able to decode Austnet’s masked IP address to the real one!
    For some people, they call mIRC lame because they were using xchat in linux. Hey, even xchat is available for Windows now 😉

    What is New in mIRC version 6.17?


    Khaled added support for displaying UTF-8 text as unicode to mIRC. This works in status, channel, query, and other windows, and in nickname listboxes, window titlebars, switchbar, and tooltips. The display of UTF-8 can be enabled by default for all windows in the Options/IRC/Messages dialog, or individually for any window you like via the Fonts dialog. Use the /font command to open the Fonts dialog. Make sure you select a font that contains the characters or script (hebrew, arabic, greek, cyrillic,…) you want to see!

    The Fonts dialog also has an “Encode” option that encodes outgoing text in UTF-8 based on the script/codepage selected for that window. The Encode feature is selective, ie. it only encodes the parts of an outgoing message that are not already in UTF-8 format. It also takes into account if the IRC server is fully UTF-8 enabled or not.

    Various other changes:
    – mIRC now has a ‘check for timed out connections’ option in connect/options dialog. When this is set mIRC pings the server every so often if it hasn’t heard form the server for a while to test your connection.
    – Support for initiating passive dcc send/chat connections has been added.
    – Changing the default font for a window type now affects all open windows of the same type immediately.
    – Most file dialogs are now resizable.
    – You can disable the $decode identifier (and various other “dangerous” commands) in the Lock options dialog. (The $decode is of course disabled by default.)
    – Lots of SSL things have improved and mIRC now also supports SSL connections for sockets

    This new version has extended support for MP3 id3v2 tags, better invite and except lists, and heaps of other little thingies and identifiers like $findfilen/$finddirn, $qt(text)/$noqt(text), $locked and $mouse.key improvements. Of course also some UTF-8 related identifiers like $utfencode(), $utfdecode() and $isutf() have been added.

    [ Download mIRC v6.17 ]

  • Merry Christmas Everyone!

    Merry Christmas 2008

    Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas! Sorry for not posting yesterday and today (most probably tomorrow as well) because I am taking a short break.

    For some of you that still didn’t receive the Christmas giveaway license, rest assured you will get them. I will be sending them to you either tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Those that won BitDefender, RISING, and F-PROT, the company representative will be contacting you, and not me because they did not give me the code to send it to you.

    Only Kaspersky, Dr.Web, IKARUS, Norton, VirusBuster, eScan, BolehVPN license will be sent by me.

  • TM Negligence Exposes Thousands of Malaysia Streamyx Accounts

    Many Malaysians are unhappy with the expensive Streamyx broadband charges offered by TM (Telekom Malaysia) because other countries offers faster connection for a cheaper price. As for me, I am just happy that we have broadband and is fine to me as long as the connection is stable. From time to time we will experience slow browsing while accessing international websites because of some line broke down and they had to reroute all traffic through another link. Another common problem with Streamyx is some users is unable to connect at all which can be either caused by some glitches on their system or probably someone is illegally using your account.

    The fact is a Streamyx account cannot be used simultaneously. So if you are already connected to Streamyx broadband, someone that knows your account username and password won’t be able to connect using your account information. When you are in a situation that you cannot connect, dial 100 from your landline and ask the customer service person to check if the account is currently being used. If yes, I would advice you to change your password at TM’s Selfcare website rather than asking the customer service person to change it for you.


    To change your Streamyx account password:
    1. Visit TM’s Selfcare website at https://tmbill.tm.net.my/
    2. Enter your Streamyx username (without the @streamyx), password, IC number and make sure that Streamyx is selected on the service drop down menu. Click the Login button.
    3. At the Account Management, click Change Password.
    4. Enter your old password, followed by your new password and click the Update button.

    The big question is how did someone got hold of your Streamyx account? Actually it is pretty easy. I am not sure if TM still gives out the default password tmnet123 but they used to do that. Anyone can simply guess a username and use the password tmnet123.

    There is another method which I recently thought of after reading a post by scriptop in forum saying that there are people selling hacked streamyx account. You can read the posts on why the hacked Streamyx accounts are sellable. Basically this method involves accessing the routers provided by TM using the default password and then using a third party tool to reveal the hidden password behind the asterisks. I tried it myself and I am able to obtain a Streamyx account in just less than a minute. No step-by-step tutorial but I’ll just provide a screenshot on how it works.

    Port scan routers
    SoftPerfect Network Scanner looks for possible routers that has open port 80 for web browser management

    Streamyx router default password
    Attempt to login using router’s default password tmadmin, support, tmuser, admin, password etc.

    Streamyx Account Hacked
    BulletsPassView shows the hidden streamyx password behind asterisk

    How many are vulnerable? I tested an IP range (1-255) and there are 82 online hosts. Only 44 with port 80 open, 22 of the routers are using the default password. There are 1.7 million Streamyx subscribers, you do the math.

    There are a few things that TM can do to avoid Streamyx account being stolen so easily. Firstly disable remote router management by default. If they need to have that enabled, then at least include a printed card guiding the user how to change the router password after setting it up. Finally stop being lazy and give unique password instead of a default password. To the person that is selling stolen Streamyx accounts, if the law don’t get you, karma will.

  • Fix No CD or DVD Drive with Error Driver May Be Corrupted or Missing Code 39

    Yesterday was at my customer’s place and the manager reported to me that his laptop’s DVD drive cannot be used. At first I thought that it is the same old complaint on some CD or DVD cannot be read but I was wrong. Once Windows XP has been fully loaded, I opened My Computer and the DVD drive is not there! First thing to check when a CD/DVD drive is not working is to try to eject the drive to see if there’s power. Yeah the drive ejected without problems. Then next step is to check the Device Manager to see if Windows is able to detect the drive in the first place or whether it had any problems with the driver.

    Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing Code 39

    True enough, there’s a yellow exclamation mark for the DVD/CD-ROM drives category telling me that there’s something wrong with it. I double click on the drive at device manager and I saw this error message that says “Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39). Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter for this device.”
    dvd drive missing from my computer error code 39


    Microsoft advises to update the driver by going to the Driver tab, and then click Update Driver to start the Hardware Update Wizard. Follow the instructions to update the driver. I did that but doesn’t fix the problem. I’ve even tried to uninstall the drive and then active the “Scan for hardware changes” to install the drive again.

    Finally I remembered a similar problem which I’ve experienced when I got my new Acer laptop which is the DVD drive missing from My Computer after uninstalling NTI Media Maker 8 and then installing Nero 9. It is actually the same problem which is DVD drive missing from My Computer except previously the device manager didn’t show any errors but now I got error code 39.

    I tried my luck on removing the the UpperFilters and LowerFilters from registry, rebooted the laptop and voila! the DVD drive appears in My Computer!

    Here are the steps to remove the UpperFilters and LowerFilters to fix the code 39 error in device manager:
    1. Go to run (or hit Win+R), type Regedit and click OK.
    2. Expand My Computer in Registry Editor, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
    2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
    3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
    4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
    5. In the details pane of Registry Editor, on the right side, delete UpperFilters and also LowerFilters.

    Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing Code 39

    From the previous case of missing dvd drive and also the unable to install scanner problem, I’ve started to understand that whenever you’ve previously installed and uninstalled any software/driver which later causes an error in Device Manager, you should first try to remove the UpperFilters and LowerFilters. Of course, always backup the original registry key that you’re going to delete using “Export”.

  • Easily Download the Right .NET Framework with Minimal Download

    Last week I’ve shared with you a useful tip on how to check what version of .NET Framework is installed on your computer. I’ve shared on 2 ways to check the .NET Framework installed that is from Add or Remove Programs and ASoft .NET Version Detector 2007. Other readers chipped in by sharing the Microsoft method, Free DotNet VersionCheck Utility and Detect DotNet. What I really like about writing and posting everyday is I learn even more by sharing.

    I discovered another simple yet effective method on checking what’s the “latest” version of .NET Framework is installed on your computer and it tells you the smallest, easiest download you’d need to get the .NET Framework on your system. Amazingly, this is all done without using any third party software. Just make sure you have a working Internet Explorer web browser and internet connection.


    SmallestDotNet.com is a single page site that does one thing. It tells you the smallest, easiest download you’d need to get the .NET Framework on your system. The size of the .NET download is usually WAY smaller than you think it’ll be. There’s no database, no cookies, and nothing about your computer has been stored or kept. The website just look at the information your browser already reports about your computer and make a suggestion as to the best .NET Framework download for you.

    Basically SmallestDotNet site looked at your browser’s “UserAgent” and figured out what version (if any) of the .NET Framework you have (or don’t have) installed, then calculated the total size if you chose to download the .NET Framework.
    Smallest .NET Framework

    I went to Windows Update using my new Acer laptop running Windows Vista Business which has Microsoft .NET Framework version 3 installed by default but it didn’t prompt me to install the latest .NET Framework 3.5… Then I visited SmallestDotNet and it immediately tells me that it has detected .NET version 3.0. That’s a very recent version of the .NET Framework, but you can upgrade fairly easy to the 3.5 version by downloading the 2.8 meg installer for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. The .NET installer is smart enough to look at your system and automatically download the smallest upgrade package possible. For you, it’ll probably be only 10 megabytes total.
    Vista Smallest Dot Net Framework

    Clicking the blue colored Get .NET button directs me to download the latest .NET installer. The installer will then download only the required files to install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. Searching in Microsoft Download site for .NET Framework displays a lot of results and can be very confusing for basic computer users on which one to download. This site will help you to easily download the right .NET Framework with minimal download.

    [ Check Installed .NET Version from SmallestDotNet ]

  • Biggest Christmas Giveaway Ever Worth $5000 at Raymond.CC

    The biggest giveaway I ever did was on October where I gave out 60 Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 license to my subscribers. After that I gave a hint that during Christmas season, I will be giving out even more freebies. I bet some of you all must have been waiting for this day and good news is today is the day where I will be giving out as much as 250 units of software licenses + services worth more than $5000 to my subscribers. Some of the licenses are purchased with my own money, some given by software companies for free and some by an exchange of advertisement.

    This is what I have in hand that will be given away:

  • 1 x VirusBuster Professional v6
  • 1 x 1 Year IKARUS virus.utilities v1
  • 3 x 1 Year F-Prot Antivirus v6
  • 3 x 1 Year BitDefender Total Security 2009
  • 3 x 1 Year BitDefender Internet Security 2009
  • 6 x 1 Year BitDefender Antivirus 2009
  • 5 x 1 Year eScan Internet Security Suite v9
  • 8 x 125 Days BolehVPN Subscription
  • 30 x 1 Year Kaspersky Internet Security 2009
  • 30 x 1 Year Norton Antivirus 2009
  • 10 x 1 Year Norton Internet Security 2009
  • 50 x 1 Year Dr.Web Anti-virus v5
  • 100 x 1 Year RISING Antivirus 2008 + Firewall
  • See anything that you like in the list? If yes, do continue reading because there are terms and requirements that you need to fulfill in order for you to get them.


    1. VirusBuster Professional
    virusbuster christmas giveaway
    VirusBuster Professional provides comprehensive protection for every workstation. Besides the resident file protection, it protects everyday work and e-mails by integrating into Microsoft Office applications and detects removes all harmful programs arriving from the Internet either while browsing or e-mailing. The 1 license of VirusBuster Professional is given by VirusBuster.
    [ More information on VirusBuster Professional ]


    2. IKARUS virus.utilities v1
    Ikarus christmas giveaway
    IKARUS is a pretty new antivirus which is being used at VirusTotal. The company is based in Austria. Their official website is in German, so you may need to use Google Translate to see what it says. They promised to give 3 license, but they only sent 1. If I get the other 2, I will give it away too.
    [
    More information on IKARUS ]


    3. F-Prot Antivirus v6
    F-prot christmas giveaway
    F-Prot is a matured antivirus brand which has been around for a very very long time. I remembered that I had installed it on my cousin’s Pentium 100MHz computer before. All 3 F-Prot Antivirus license are contributed by F-Prot.
    [ More information on F-Prot Antivirus v6 ]


    4. BitDefender Total Security, Internet Security and Antivirus 2009
    Bitdefender christmas giveaway
    BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. One of their new site MalwareCity does it’s best in informing it’s readers of possible and emerging informational threats like, malware, security industry news and security alerts. All 12 BitDefender license are contributed by BitDefender.
    [ Visit MalwareCity ]


    5. eScan Internet Security Suite v9
    escan christmas giveaway
    If you didn’t know, eScan has very good virus detection and tops some of the virus detection tests. Reason is it uses its own virus scanning engine together WITH Kaspersky engine. This Internet Security Suite has Antivirus, Anti Spam, Parental Control and Privacy Protection for your computer. You can click the link below to go to the official website. All 5 license are contributed by Micro World.
    [ More Information on eScan Internet Security v9 ]


    6. BolehVPN
    free bolehvpn
    BolehVPN allows you to download from P2P via Bittorrent without being throttled by your ISP. Here’s my recent review on BolehVPN. Actually BolehVPN isn’t supposed to be in this list of giveaway but I wanted to round up the amount of products to 250. So I am spending an extra $230 to give out 8 BolehVPN accounts valid for 125 days.


    7. Kaspersky Internet Security 2009
    free Kaspersky christmas license
    I believe this one requires no introduction. If this is not your first time here, you’d have known about Kaspersky. If you’ve never heard about it, it is simply one of the best security protection suite for a Windows computer. All 30 license are from Eonline Software.


    8. Norton Antivirus 2009 and Norton Internet Security 2009
    Norton giveaway
    This is probably the next favorite antivirus software if somehow Kaspersky doesn’t play well on the user’s computer. It has very good memory management and comes with really nice features and graphical user interface. Norton Internet Security 2009 is contributed by Symantec and Norton Antivirus 2009 by Eonline Software.


    9. Dr.Web Antivirus v5
    free Dr Web
    The second most license is Dr.Web Antivirus. Just today they’ve released a major update v5 which includes HTTP-monitor and Parental Control. I’ve contacted them to contribute any amount of license they are comfortable with but they’re not willing to do that. However, I managed to get 50 license for you.
    [ More information on Dr.Web Antivirus v5 ]


    10. RISING Antivirus 2008 + Firewall
    Rising antivirus christmas
    The most generous contributor in this giveaway is RISING because they are giving away 100 license without asking anything back! I’ve previously tested their free edition of RISING Antivirus and it is really good (low memory usage and good virus detection). You can read the review here. Some of you might have doubt on this company because it is from China but it has passed VB100 test 3 times and Rising Antivirus has been included into Google Pack China. If Google can trust RISING, there’s no reason why you can’t.
    [ More information on Rising Antivirus 2008 + Firewall ]

    To register yourself for the giveaway to win the license you want, you must be a subscriber to raymond.cc’s daily newsletter. If you haven’t subscribe, you can do it here. Next, write a comment informing me what license you want. You can request only ONE license from the list above. You’ll be automatically removed from the giveaway if I catch you requesting more than once. Please play fair. Please enter your real name and real email address. This is a requirement for some of the software companies that joins this giveaway.

    I will not reveal too much detail on how I will pick the winners. I can only say that it’s via lucky draw but this time I have a system where early commentors will have higher chances of winning. So quickly subscribe and comment before 48 hours. Winners will be announced on Monday.

  • Run Task Manager from Excel with Useful Suspend Process Command

    The Task Manager that is built-in to Windows is one of the most useful tool. Whenever a program crashes and hangs, the easiest way to solve the problem is to forcefully close the program by ending the task in Task Manager. On Windows 95 and 98, the combination shortcut key to bring up the task manager is the famous CTRL + ALT + DEL. However when it came to Windows XP, Vista and 7, it has changed to CTRL + SHIFT + ESC. Since it is so useful, malware creators have also started to block the user from running Task Manager. Some smarter malwares can even block or restrict popular third party task managing software such as Process Explorer, AnVir Task Manager and etc from running…

    When you are stuck with such problem, one easy way to check the processes running on your computer is to use a Task Manager that can be run from MICROSOFT EXCEL! Most if not all of us only know that it is only possible to have such function through executable (.exe), vbscript (.vbs) file but thanks to Macro, it is possible via Microsoft Excel.


    TaskManager.xls created by Didier Stevens is a small (41KB) and simple task manager implemented in Excel/VBA. It can list the running processes; and terminate, suspend or resume selected processes. You will have to first enable the Macro which is disabled by default because of potential Macro viruses. If Macro is disabled, you will ge the error “Cannot run the macro ‘TaskManager.xls!ThisWorkbook.MacroPRocessList’. The macro may not be available in this workbook or all macros may be disabled.”

    There are only 2 buttons on TaskManager.xls. The List processes will show all running and active process on your computer and The Execute commands button will perform tasks such as terminate, suspend or resume processes. The screenshot below shows that I am about to terminate firefox.exe and suspend hkcmd.exe. Clicking the Execute commands button will do just that. Do note that TaskManager.xls is unable to terminate protected processes. For example, nothing will happen if you try to terminate the Client Server Runtime Process (csrss.exe) from TaskManager.xls.

    Task Manager on Excel

    TaskManager.xls is very useful but unfortunately it did not work in OpenOffice 3.3. Clicking the List Processes button will prompt an error saying “A Scripting Framework error occured while running the UNKNOWN script UNKNOWN. Message: Incorrect format for Script URI:”. Even the free Excel Viewer provided by Microsoft also doesn’t work. My guess is it only works on Microsoft Excel. I am listing TaskManager.xls as one of the must have tool for computer technicians.

    [ Download TaskManager.xls ]

  • Final chance to signup at PWTorrents

    PWtorrent - Wrestling torrent
    This is the FINAL call for people who loves wrestling and would like to have access to download the wrestling materials via bittorrent.

    PWTorrent has announced that starting from tomorrow, the free sign-ups will be closed forever! Meaning you could only get to register for an account at PWTorrent if you know someone with Power User status to give you an invite. Power User only has about 3 invites and I don’t think it will be given out without actually knowing the person.

    Pro wrestling torrents provides you with oldest and the latest of Wrestling and Sports Entertainment media.
    This service is to provide people who live in countries without pro wrestling programming to stay up to date and to keep them interested in their favourite Federation.
    Whether it’s TNA, WWE, NOAH, IWA, UFC, CZW, WWA, ROH, OVW, ECW, WCW or old classic WWF, it’s all there.
    Over 600 wrestling torrents ready for you to get your hands on.


    [ Sign up PWTorrents ]
    After signup, use torrent client such as µTorrent to load the .torrent files and continue download your favourite wrestling show.

    P/S: Please seed after you’ve completed downloading. If you do not have high ratios, you will be banned from PWTorrents and it will be hard to get a new account in future. Enjoy, wrestling fans!

  • BitComet 0.65 Stable Released

    The latest stable BitComet 0.65 is released today!
    BitComet 0.65

    What is BitComet (A powerful C++ BitTorrent Client)?
    BitComet is a p2p file-sharing freeware fully compatible with Bittorrent, which is one of the most popular p2p protocol designed for high-speed distribution of 100MB or GB sized files. BitComet is a powerful, clean, fast, and easy-to-use bittorrent client. It supports simultaneous downloads, download queue, selected downloads in torrent package, fast-resume, chatting, disk cache, speed limits, port mapping, proxy, ip-filter, etc.
    In short… It is a freeware to download .torrent files 🙂

    Changes in version 0.65 2006.4.25
    – GUI Improved: add IE favorites list
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that the Goto button on address bar doesn’t work properly
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that the program will crash if any torrent file is opened with the “Can’t listen to port” dialog displayed
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that the program will crash when loading some non-standard rss xml
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug in version 0.64 that the torrent maker dialog doesn’t display the tracker url entered last time
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug in version 0.64 that the task properities dialog can not be opened when the task is paused
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that the media file playback will pause when preview window is minimized
    – GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that the text on switch buttons of channel, search and IE fav doesn’t change when language switched
    – Core Improved: add a new function to add a listenning port of Windows Firewall in Windows XP SP2
    – Core Improved: connect to the previous peers immediately when restarting a task
    – Core Bugfix: fix the bug in version 0.64 that the function to ban user temporarily doesn’t work

    [ Download BitComet 0.65 ]

  • ActiveX Filtering in Internet Explorer 9 Disables Java and Flash

    Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is the latest web browser by Microsoft which was released about 9 months ago. As a general rule we should always keep web browsers up to date unless you have a specific software that you use which requires an older version of the web browser. An updated web browser normally offers faster browsing experience, contains additional features and also more security against web based exploits. Internet Explorer 9 comes with a new feature called ActiveX Filtering which allows you to browse the Web without running any ActiveX controls. ActiveX controls are actually plugins like Adobe Flash Player, Apple Quicktime, Silverlight and Java that enable many rich web experiences but they can cause your computer to get infected if you are using an older version of the plugin that is vulnerable to exploits.

    Hence, the ActiveX Filtering feature which is disabled by default offers you an easy way to help keep your web browsing activity safe. When ActiveX Filtering is turned on, visiting websites such as YouTube that requires Adobe Flash Player will show you a red bar on top saying “You need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player to watch this video. Download it from Adobe” and at the bottom “Upgrade to Flash Player 10 for improved playback performance. Upgrade Now or More Info”. The error message will not go away even if you upgrade to the latest version of Flash Player because ActiveX Filtering is enabled.


    You need to upgrade your Adobe Flash Player to watch this video

    I guess the error message is a bit inaccurate because the user may end up re-installing Adobe Flash Player but the problem still persist. To disable ActiveX Filtering in Internet Explorer 9, click on the Settings icon located at the top right of the browser, go to Safety, and click on ActiveX Filtering to uncheck it.

    Disable ActiveX Filtering IE9

    Even though some of us may not use Internet Explorer 9 at all, it is good that we should at least know ActiveX Filtering can cause such problems. Simply disable ActiveX Filtering from the Tools menubar and install Heimdal Agent to help keep these vital plugins up to date against exploits. It is way more convenient than enabling ActiveX Filtering all the time and manually adding websites to Trusted sites zone for websites that requires activex components.

  • User Friendly Nmap with Zenmap GUI

    Nmap is a very popular and powerful security scanner that can be used to discover hosts and services which has been in development for more than 10 years. It is unlike any simple port scanner where you enter an IP address and it will sweep through 65535 ports to look for any open ports and inform you the common service that is normally running on that open port. Nmap is able to accurately detect the service and version even if the service is running on some obscure port. Another well known feature of Nmap is the ability to tell what operating system is on the machine. It also support scripting allowing users to write (and share) simple scripts (using the Lua programming language, ) to automate a wide variety of networking tasks. One example is a built-in script that is able to detect whether a host is infected with the Stuxnet worm. The current version of Nmap 5.51 contains a total of 178 scripts.

    As good as it sounds, Nmap may not be very user friendly because it is a command line application that requires user to input command line options. If you would like to give Nmap a try, you can use the official graphical user interface frontend and results viewer called Zenmap. Zenmap is already included in the Nmap self-installer and during installation, just make sure that Zenmap (GUI Frontend) is checked.


    Using Nmap will be a piece of cake with Zenmap. Just enter the IP address or hostname at the Target box and select a profile followed by clicking the Scan button. There are 10 built-in profiles and selecting any of them will automatically update the command line options so you don’t need to figure them out through the manual. You can customize or just check the scan profiles by clicking the Profile from menubar and select Edit Selected Profile.

    Nmap GUI Zenmap

    Nmap is free and runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and many UNIX platforms. Other than security analyst and hackers uses Nmap, it also has been used in a couple of movies such as Matrix Reloaded, Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4 (Yippee Ki-Yay!) and a few more.

    Download Nmap

  • TeamViewer 7 Offers Online Meetings with VoIP for FREE

    When discussing a project online, sometimes it is very difficult to explain what needs to be done and providing a screenshot can be tedious because you need to circle the area where you want the attention to be placed on. Other than that, language can be a barrier when either one doesn’t speak fluent English. Probably the best way is to create an online meeting that is able to share your screen while simultaneously chat or talk to the project manager. The ability to record or save the meeting is also very important so that both parties can refer back the agreements and what needs to be done.

    Recently I needed someone to help me work on something and I want the discussion to be completed as soon as possible. I remembered that I reviewed Mikogo before which was pretty good but I needed something more advanced that allows me to record the meeting and also possibly speak to the other parties using a microphone through VoIP. After doing further research, I found out that TeamViewer now offers online meeting!


    First thing I like about TeamViewer is they provide an option to run it without installation. If you prefer a portable ZIP version that can be run directly from a USB stick or a CD, they also have it on the download page but the file size is slightly bigger at 20MB compared to only 5MB installer. All participants must run TeamViewer in order to create and join online meetings.

    TeamViewer Meeting

    The presenter will have to first create a meeting by clicking on the Meeting tab, followed by clicking on the Start instant meeting button. Once the meeting has been created, a bar will appear at the right side of your screen with a Meeting ID which you need to give it to the person to join the meeting. The participant will also run TeamViewer, go to Meeting tab, enter the Meeting ID and their name followed by clicking the Join meeting button. Once connected, the presenter will have a lot of options to play with so let’s check it out.

    TeamViewer Presenter Bar

    1. Participants
    You can mute or unmute and allow or deny your participants to remote control the presenter’s computer. The invite button creates a ready made email message containing the meeting ID and the download link. You can also sent chat messages directly to the user by clicking on the username and then type your message on the Chat box.

    2. Screen sharing
    You can pause presentation or stop screen sharing. Pausing a presentation will only allow the participants to see the the last screen before presentation was paused. When stopped, the whole screen sharing will be removed but it is possible to share the screen again. You can also set which application that you want to share for further privacy. For example, selecting Firefox as the presenting screen will only show Firefox when the window is on top while others will be hidden in black background. By default wallpaper is automatically and temporarily removed when a meeting is created for a faster transfer. You can also set whether to optimize quality or speed and also record a meeting from here. The recordings will be saved in .tvs extension which can be opened with TeamViewer and converted to .AVI format.

    3. File box
    Both presenter and participants can share files by dropping files into the file box area. The files are not automatically downloaded or sent when shared but merely made available to download whenever the participants wants to. The presenter is able to deny participants from sharing files.

    4. Voice over IP
    This is a very useful feature where all participants can talk to each other using the microphone and speaker on their computers. Simply click on the Transmit my audio now link and start talking. You can increase/lower the volume and mute/unmute speakers and microphone.

    5. Conference call
    If the attendees doesn’t have a speaker or microphone but wants to take part in the conversation, they can use their phone to dial the provided number and enter the conference PIN on your telephone keypad.

    6. Whiteboard
    Attendees can draw on screen probably to highlight interesting things. Only the presenter can Save and Clear the drawings.

    7. Chat
    In my opinion, the chatbox is a bit too small. If there are a few people typing at the same time or you don’t read fast enough, you will need to scroll up to read the posted chat messages.

    8. My video
    This will only appear if you click on the first video icon. Basically this feature allows you to transmit the video that is captured from your webcam.

    TeamViewer 7 is free for non-commercial use, runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and even Mobile devices, and most importantly packed with really useful features that blows away their competitors! TeamViewer 7 is definitely my current first choice when it comes to screen sharing or online meetings.

    Download TeamViewer 7

  • SaveGameBackup.net: Backup and Restore Saved Games

    One of the most annoying thing that a computer gamer would have to do when they reformat their hard drive to reinstall a clean Windows is they risk losing their game profiles and saved games. After spending a lot of hours playing the game to reach the level that you are in now, it would not be wise to start all over again. If the game itself provides a method to backup and restore the saved games, then it is all good. However there are still a lot of games out there that doesn’t offer you a convenient way to backup and restore your saved games.

    This is when SaveGameBackup.net comes to play. The main purpose of this free portable tool is to allow you to effortlessly backup and restore game saves with just a couple clicks. Currently the latest database 65 which was released on 12/19/2011 supports up to 1379 games. You can view the complete list at this page.


    To use SaveGameBackup.net to backup a game, download the program from the link at the end of this article, extract it and run sgbnet.exe. The program automatically detects the games that are installed on your computer and shows on the interface. First you must set the path where you want SGB to save the game backup to. After that, check the checkbox for the entry that you want to backup and click the Backup button. The backup will be saved into one single .sgbzip file.

    SaveGameBackup.net

    To restore the backup, select the backup path of where the sgbzip file is and click the Refresh list button. Click the Restore button and it’s done. Make sure you’ve installed the game prior to restoring. Other than that backing up and restoring saved games, you can also use SaveGameBackup.net to share your saves with friends by sending them the .sgbzip file for them to restore on their computer.

    The Options tab contains additional settings such as not overwriting old backups, adding datestamp to filename, detection methods and switching to a different language. SaveGameBackup.net runs on Windows from Windows XP SP3 to Windows 7 and requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile.

    [ Download SaveGameBackup.net ]

  • Winamp v5.2 released!

    Winamp 5.2
    Nullsoft announced that Winamp v5.2 was released on Feb. 23, 2006. I swear that I was on Winamp’s website almost everyday after I heard rumours that the new version is releasing soon but today only I noticed that the new version is out.
    Weird… Anyway, the updated Winamp v5.2 contains a lot of new features, improved features and also fixes with updated codecs.
    So head on to Winamp’s website to get the new updated Winamp version 5.2 😀


    New features
    • New! Portable Device Sync – Supports iPod®, PlaysForSure®, and Creative® Devices
    • New! Enhanced Media Library
    • New! Online Services
    • New! aacPlus High Bitrate encoder available in Pro
    • New! SingingFish Media Search

    Winamp detailed version history from 5.13 to 5.2
    * New: [ml_pmp] Synchronize your Media Library with your portable media player Compatible with iPod®, Creative®, and Microsoft Plays For Sure® devices
    * New: [enc_aacplus] Coding Technologies aacPlus High Bitrate encoder available in Winamp Pro
    * New: [enc_aacplus] Coding Technologies aacPlus (HE-AAC) in MP4 container
    * New: [enc_aacplus] Coding Technologies LC-AAC encoder
    * New: [gen_ml] icons in treeview
    * New: [ml_online] Dynamic AJAX Internet Media Hub
    * New: [in_nsv] Using Coding Technologies AAC playback within NSV container
    * New: [in_mp3] gapless MP3 playback
    * New: [installer] multi-user profile options
    * New: [installer] remembers your previous installer settings
    * New: [in_wave] in_wave 3.0
    * New: right-to-left playlist display
    * Improved: new ATF functions and tags, including:
    $repeat(x, count) – creates a string with x repeated count times
    $lpad() – same as $pad, but adds padding to the left
    $decode(…) – switch/case function. example:
    $decode($fileext(%filename%),MP3,MPEG-1 Layer 3,MP4,MPEG-4 Container,Other)
    $IfStrEqual(string1,string2,result) – if string1 and string2 are equal, displays result. case insensitive
    $IfStrEqual2(string1,string2,result,else) – if string1 and string2 are equal, displays result, otherwise displays else. case insensitive
    %folder% – top level folder name of the file
    * Improved: Stereo beat visualization for modern skins
    * Improved: [gen_ff] new vis modes available to skinners
    * Improved: [gen_ml] CD drive info view (Rip & Burn)
    * Improved: [gen_tray] gen_tray v1.0 (thanks DrO)
    * Improved: [in_midi] provides metadata to media library
    * Improved: [in_mod] provides metadata to media library
    * Improved: [in_mp3] unicode id3 tags
    * Improved: [in_mp3] preliminary id3v2.4 support
    * Fixed: broken playlist sorting
    * Fixed: playlist problems with multi-line tags (e.g. %comment%)
    * Fixed: shuffle with only one song in playlist
    * Fixed: ghost seek slider appears if Winamp loses focus during seeking
    * Fixed: video options from video window right-click context menu
    * Fixed: playlist winshade international character support
    * Fixed: fullscreen video display international character support
    * Fixed: m3u playlist handling security vulnerability (thanks to NSFOCUS and Information Risk Management Plc)
    * Fixed: [enc_lame] bit reservoir
    * Fixed: [enc_lame] cutoff of last frame
    * Fixed: [gen_ff] regions on components don’t work
    * Fixed: [gen_ff] playlist & video focus bug
    * Fixed: [gen_ff] playlist winshade memory leak
    * Fixed: [gen_ff] GDI Object leak with Current Skin prefs page
    * Fixed: [in_midi] not following winamp’s title formatting options
    * Fixed: [in_midi] reset button blocks further access to config
    * Fixed: [in_mod] not following winamp’s title formatting options
    * Fixed: [in_mp3] incorrect version identification (showed 5.18 in 5.12)
    * Fixed: [in_mp3] incorrect information shown for AAC+ files
    * Fixed: [in_mp3] reading incorrect id3 comment tag
    * Fixed: [in_mp3] sometimes failing to read last id3 frame
    * Fixed: [in_mp3] id3v2 album art loss when editing tags
    * Fixed: [in_mp4] loss of album art when modifying metadata
    * Fixed: [in_vorbis] not following winamp’s title formatting options
    * Fixed: [in_vorbis] registry usage (now multi-user profile safe)
    * Fixed: [in_wave] 32bit floating point WAV playback distortion
    * Fixed: [in_wm] changes made with Attribute Editor not updating in ML/Playlist
    * Fixed: [vis_milk] missing files from distro (you can stop bugging us now, Rovastar 🙂
    * Fixed: [vis_milk] 100% cpu usage when paused
    * Updated: [enc_lame] LAME 3.97b2
    * Updated: [gen_ff] libpng 1.2.8
    * Updated: [gen_ff] FreeType 2.1.10
    * Updated: [enc_aacplus] Coding Technologies aacPlus encoder v7.2.0a

    [ Download Winamp v5.2 ]