Reinstalling windows is not only a tedious task, but a time-consuming one too. After going through the installation process which usually takes about one hour (one a medium-budget computer), you have to install all the programs you use and get the latest update packages (takes a lot of time on slow connections) and remove all these pointless components you never asked for. (more…)

This is a CSRF (cross site request forgery) that only works if your router has the default password and/or is always logged on.

Solution: (more…)

1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.5.10.1 (for 5.10 users)
1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.9-0ubuntu0.6.06.1 (for 6.06 LTS users)

Issues corrected by the update:

- Remote code execution with user privileges, by opening a malicious web page containing JavaScript or SVG.

- bypassing of Firefox’s internal XSS protections by tricking the user into opening a
malicious web page containing JavaScript. (more…)

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QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator that lets you emulate a .ISO

1. Check QEMU’s homepage.
2. Download QEMU
3. If you’re on windows, make sure to get QEMU-win
5. Search for the existing .iso and replace it with the one you want to test.

The paid way:

The are a variety of paid programs (shareware) that does the work for you, the two most popular ones are Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools.

The “free” Microsoft way:

Microsoft has a free ~60KB program that does the job. But it is unsupported (surprise, surprise!). It’s called Windows XP Virtual CD Control Panel and you can get it here

Here’s the README to get it working:

Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORT BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES

System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
6. Click OK
7. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

So, how do YOU test your ISOs ?

Today I had to install Ubuntu on one of the older machines in the computer room. It’s a 1U server without CDROM drive. Ubuntu doesn’t seem to ship any floppy images. It does ship a utility to boot from IDE CDROM drives in the case where the BIOS is too old or full of bugs preventing it to boot from the CDROM.

Ubuntu Networking for Basic and Advanced Users

By Default most of the users configure their network card during the installation of Ubuntu. You can however, use the ifconfig command at the shell prompt or Ubuntu’s graphical network configuration tools, such as network-admin, to edit your system’s network device information or to add or remove network devices on your system

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Dave Taylor outlines the top ten mistakes when buying laptops as gifts and gives many heads-up to ensure maximum success for your holiday shopping venture

Here are the ones I found interesting: (more…)

Secrets of Computer Espionage: by Joel McNamara is a must for any PC user. Staffed with so many examples (with a conversational funny tone) the book does a really good job. The book stresses the vulnerabilities and threats, explains in details the evolution of spy tactics, network eavesdropping and provide countermeasures as well.

My Rating: * * * * (4/5).

Personally, I was impressed with what UTK has to offer (despite their ugly, table-infested design). Make sure to check out all the list here.

On Saturday he told Reuters mobile phones are becoming hand held computers. He went on to say, “Your mobile phone should be free.” Schmidt later in the conversation acknowledged that cell phones may never be “totally” free, but they could follow a similar trend to newspapers and become much less expensive. (more…)

They don’t really have a name for it the official page says “Get Gmail on your mobile phone”. Some of its features are: (more…)

CustomizeGoogle enhances your Google experience by adding extra information and removing unwanted things from your search results. Among the dozen of features you can use, here are the ones I found interesting: (more…)

What? : the Art-O-Meter is a device that scores works of art based on the ratio of the length of time people spend in front of artwork to the duration of the exhibition. (more…)