Jhepoy's Technology Journal

Top 100 Technology Products

2006-06-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Top 100 technology products as listed by PCWorld.com

Intel Core Duo Notebook/Desktop CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Desktop CPU
Craigslist.org Web Classifieds
Apple iPod Nano Digital Audio Player
Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive Portable Hard Drive
Google Earth Satellite Imagery
Adobe Premiere Elements 2 Video Editor
Canon EOS 30D Digital SLR Camera
YouTube.com Video-Sharing Site
Apple Boot Camp Mac Dual-Booter
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Image Editor
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Web Browser
Engadget.com Gadget Blog
Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player
Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 Power Notebook Computer
nVidia GeForce 7600 GT Graphics Card Chip Set
Google Search Engine
Sonos ZonePlayer 80 Digital Audio Streamer
RedOctane Guitar Hero Video Game
Yamaha RX-V4600 Home-Theater Receiver
Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray Drive
Adobe Photoshop CS2 Image Editor
Citrix GoToMyPC 5 Remote Access
Dealnews.com Online Bargain Tracker
Palm GPS Navigator GPS
MioNet Remote Access
Ubuntu Linux Distribution
Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 E-Mail Application
Canon Pixma MP950 Multifunction Printer
Yahoo Mail (Beta) Web-Based E-Mail
TiVo Digital Video Recorder
Avvenu Remote File Access
Blogger Blogging Service
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 Advanced Digital Camera
Apple Mac Mini Value Desktop Computer
Apple iPod Digital Audio/Video Player
Lenovo ThinkPad X60s Ultralight Notebook
SideStep.com Travel Site
Windows Live Local Online Mapping
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Sound Card
Alienware Aurora 7500 Power Desktop Computer
NEC MultiSync LCD 2180WG-LED Flat-Panel Monitor
Apple iTunes Digital Audio Software
Olympus Evolt E-330 Digital SLR Camera
Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro Earphones
Creative Zen Vision:M Digital Audio/Video Player
Google Desktop Desktop Search
Opera 9 (Beta) Browser
Mitsubishi XD460U Projector
Vonage VoIP Service
StumbleUpon Browser Add-On
NoScript 1.1.4 Browser Add-On
Webroot Spy Sweeper 4.5 Antispyware
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 Keyboard
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive
Yahoo Maps (Beta) Online Mapping
Intuit Quicken Premier 2006 Personal Finance
ATI Radeon X1900 XTX Graphics Board
Javacool EULAlyzer Personal 1.1 License Analyzer
Eizo FlexScan S2410W 24-Inch Wide-Screen LCD Monitor
Kosmix.com Search Engine
T-Mobile SDA Cellular Phone
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP 30-Inch Wide-Screen LCD Monitor
Meebo (alpha) Instant Messaging
Corel Painter IX.5 Graphics Software
Samsung LN-S3251D LCD TV
Cerulean Studios Trillian 3.1 Instant Messaging Client
Rhapsody Online Music
In2M Mvelopes Personal 3 Online Budgeting
Canon Pixma IP6600D Photo Printer
EMC Retrospect Professional 7.5 Backup Software
Yahoo Music Engine 1.1 Digital Audio Site/Software
Network Magic Home Networking
Z-Wave Home Automation
BitDefender 9 Standard Antivirus
Sage Software Simply Accounting Basic 13 Small-Business Finance
Flickr Photo-Sharing Site
Nero 7 Ultra Edition CD/DVD Burning
Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Voice Recognition
Kodak EasyShare Gallery Photo Printing Service
EvDO Wireless Broadband
LaCie d2 Hard Drive Serial ATA External Hard Drive
HP Md5880n DLP TV
Qnext 2 P-to-P Communications
Salling Clicker 3 Presentation Remote
Epson Perfection V700 Photo Scanner
Mindjet MindManager Pro 6 Data-Organizing Software
Microsoft Xbox 360 Game Console
iRiver Clix Digital Audio/Video Player
Fujifilm FinePix E900 Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera
nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX GPU
Del.icio.us Social Networking
Serious Magic Ovation PowerPoint Add-On
WordPress Blogging Tool
Amazon A9 Toolbar Search Toolbar
ThinkFree Office Online Online Office Suite
Greasemonkey Firefox Extension
NewsGator FeedDemon 2 RSS Reader
Sysinternals Rootkit Revealer 1.7 Antispyware

Reliable Public Nameservers

2006-05-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

Public (Level3) Nameservers (these are OC192's)
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2 (fast)
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6 (fast)

Open to the Public
# ns1.la.us.opennic.glue (New Orleans, LA, US) - 68.15.165.12
# ns1.phx.us.opennic.glue (Phoenix, AZ, US) - 63.226.12.96
# ns1.sfo.us.opennic.glue (San Francisco, CA, US) - 64.151.103.120 (fast)
# ns1.co.us.opennic.glue (Longmont, CO, US) - 216.87.84.209

SpeakEasy Nameservers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

Sprintlink General DNS
204.117.214.10
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10

Cisco
128.107.241.185
192.135.250.69

Blogger deleted my blog

2006-05-16T01:26:00.000-07:00

Blogger just recently deleted my other blog, saying that it was spam, when in fact I update it every week. They asked for confirmations to restore my blog, bur after several confirmations that I've made, they just deleted it. Shame on their system..

Choosing File Systems: NTFS vs FAT

2006-01-09T03:13:00.000-08:00

Using the crappy Windows operating system? Then you may have encountered the different file systems Windows has to offer. But before installing Windows, do you really know what file system to use and why? Here are some comparisons to help you choose the right file system for you..

NTFS vs FAT

Criteria	NTFS5	NTFS	FAT32	FAT16
Operting System	Windows 2000 Windows XP	Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP	Windows 98 Windows ME Windows 2000 Windows XP	DOS All versions of Microsoft Windows

Limitations
Max Volume Size	2TB	2TB	2TB	2GB
Max Files on Volume	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	~65000
Max File Size	Limit Only by Volume Size	Limit Only by Volume Size	4GB	2GB
Max Clusters Number	Nearly Unlimited	Nearly Unlimited	268435456	65535
Max File Name Length	Up to 255	Up to 255	Up to 255	Standard - 8.3 Extended - up to 255

File System Features
Unicode File Names	Unicode Character Set	Unicode Character Set	System Character Set	System Character Set
System Records Mirror	MFT Mirror File	MFT Mirror File	Second Copy of FAT	Second Copy of FAT
Boot Sector Location	First and Last Sectors	First and Last Sectors	First Sector	First Sector
File Attributes	Standard and Custom	Standard and Custom	Standard Set	Standard Set
Alternate Streams	Yes	Yes	No	No
Compression	Yes	Yes	No	No
Encryption	Yes	No	No	No
Object Permissions	Yes	Yes	No	No
Disk Quotas	Yes	No	No	No
Sparse Files	Yes	No	No	No
Reparse Points	Yes	No	No	No
Volume Mount Points	Yes	No	No	No

Overall Performance
Built-In Security	Yes	Yes	No	No
Recoverability	Yes	Yes	No	No
Performance	Low on small volumes High on Large	Low on small volumes High on Large	High on small volumes Low on large	Highest on small volumes Low on large
Disk Space Economy	Max	Max	Average	Minimal on large volumes
Fault Tolerance	Max	Max	Minimal	Average

Tabulated by: NTFS.com

OEM vs RETAIL

2006-01-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

Most computers today come with a massive collection of software, most of which you don't need; which you'll never use. Beware those fancy ads screaming that you get £1,000 of FREE software with every system. Usually, what you get are OEM equivalents of that software, or cut down versions of the software. Our suspicions are that some software is priced so high that it'll never sell off the shelf. That's possibly intentional, but it is not a problem to the manufacturer. The software that's just not selling is often bundled with computer systems. The manufacturer gets a lot of marketing mileage from saying how much the "free" software is worth.

Can I get programs like Windows free whenI buy a computer?

No you can't. And no, they are NOT giving you a free copy of Windows with that new computer.

The programs that you get with a new machine, whether Windows or MSOffice, are OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) Programs. Manufacturers of the software provide it to computer builders at a concessionary price BUT there are some trade-offs. We list some of the common differences between a program bought off the shelf (retail) and an OEM copy of the same program:

OEM:

You don't always get the installation CD or disks.
Usually received along with computer
Basic packing, maybe just a disk on its own
Cheap
Can be bought only with a computer
Possible support problems

RETAIL:

You always get the installation CDs and disks.
Usually bought on its own
In fancy packaging with maybe some extras like manuals, add-ons, stickers
Expensive
Can be bought on its own
Support usually from people who designed the software

So when you get "free" software with a computer you are usually getting "paid for" software, the cost of which has been built into the price for the computer. But is it as good as the retail version of the same software?

OEM software is just as legal and performs the same as the equivalent retail version but it does have some major differences. Firstly, it is a lot cheaper than the retail version. Secondly, it is not to be sold on its own. It is supplied only to computer manufacturers on the condition that they sell it bundled together with the sale of a computer. (Therefore when you see an advertisement for £800 worth of free software that price is in fact the price the software would have cost you if you bought the retail version. The OEM version that you are getting could be worth as little as £100). The third and most important factor is that software manufacturers are usually reluctant to provide you with any support on an OEM version. They'll usually refer you to the person you bought it from who may or may not be qualified to give you the technical help you need.

Note also that OEM software may not come with the installation CDs, so if you wish to re-install the software you are stuck.

On OEM software the understanding is that the retailer of the package is responsible for providing you with software support on the package. Does your retailer have the facilities and trained staff to do that? What about when you upgrade to a newer version? Will he still support you? Can he still support you?

Most people underestimate the need for software support. At some point you WILL need help with your operating system. Be prepared.

Commercial Software:

Commercial software includes programs like CorelDraw, Adobe, Norton, Sage and practically anything Microsoft (MS Office, Windows95, and Windows 98 to name a few). These are programs that you pay for and you are given a registration number for each one to ensure that your copy is genuine. Commercial software can be bought in a box from most computer superstores, over the phone, or from a shop. However this retail version is a lot more expensive than the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) version but it usually comes with a lot more support.

Can I really get free software?

You can get some programs free. Some of the best programs are completely free. The two main types of programs that come free are the shareware and freeware programs. (Shareware is free to try out as explained below)

Shareware:

Programs like Windows are NOT free. When you get Windows with a computer you are getting the OEM version. However, there are many useful programs that do pretty much the same stuff that commercial programs do and they cost nothing to try out. You can download them off the net or you can get them on the free CDs that accompany computer magazines. Do remember that these programs are free just for you to try out. If you like them and want to continue using them you are honour bound to pay the author a small registration fee.

Freeware

These are similar to shareware programs but the use of these programs is completely free. Some of the most useful utilities like PKZip have always been freeware.

Shareware and freeware are not the only programs that you can get for little or nothing. With new versions of software coming out all the time the older versions are sold off dirt cheap. Do you really need the very latest copy of MS Office or CorelDraw?

Yet more ways to save on software

Pirated software: You can buy pirated copies of most major software programs for £5 - £10. In fact there's a brand of pirated CDs called Cappuccino (among others) that condenses several top programs into just one CD which sells for about £20, saving you approximately £3500. A lot of people pick these CDs up when they go on holidays abroad. You can also find these CDs advertised in places like the software section of Bargain papers (Loot, Buy & Sell, Friday-Ad, Diamond Free Ads, Nottingham Free Ads etc) or your local paper. You can sometimes find them in boot sales, and very occasionally in small computer fairs. The advertisers may not use any specific name, they may not say it's pirated, but you can usually identify them by the ridiculously cheap prices they charge and the fact that their contact number will usually be a mobile phone. Again we strongly advise that making or using pirated software is a crime.

If we don't want you using pirated software then why all the information above? We've put in this information because that's how the real world is, and we trust people to make the right call. Also, we believe you need to know what to avoid. As a business we ALWAYS make sure that any software we use is licensed to us. We advise you do the same.

Why don't you consider the shareware and freeware programs above?

Look also for taster offers. Companies sometimes give out lite versions of their software for free in the hope that you'll like it so much you'll buy the full version with more features.

Source: http://www.bestpricecomputers.ltd.uk

Running your Favorite Linux (or Mac, Windows, FreeBSD) OS in Windows Using Qemu

2005-12-25T03:19:00.000-08:00

If you have read my last guide on Running an OS, particularly Linux, inside another OS, particularly Windows; then you know you will need a program called Qemu. Qemu, for those that don't know, is a platform emulator that can do just that. It enables you to emulate a system while still running another system. This can mean, in most cases, running a ditro of Linux inside Windows. The site lists quite a selection of supported OS's you might want to check out.

Qemu can emulate many things including Windows operating systems. However, being that it must boot from an ISO image or CD, it needs to be a Live CD. It is possible to boot from a Windows Setup disc, but it is difficult to get through the setup completely. The best choice when using Qemu is to download/rip the ISO image of your favorite Live CD. I will explain how to set this up and get yourself emulating.

I am going to run Knoppix 3.7 through Qemu. I will share other OS's that I have run and tried and what my take is on using them.

You will need to download a Windows installer version of Qemu. I am using 0.7.2. Version 0.8 was released on December 19th, but currently there is no Windows version supporting that update yet. Go ahead and install that.

Once completed, you should have a Shortcut in your start menu called QemuMenu. Go ahead and open that. The first thing you need to do is set the amount of memory that Qemu is allowed to use. Hit M and enter. Now it asks you how much in MB you would like to use.I recommend at least 256 MB. It defaults to 128 and there is a noticeable difference when you add even a little bit. If you have 768 MB or more, I suggest giving it a good 512 MB. This will reduce hangs and gliches alot more. Type in your choice and hit enter. This brings you back to main screen.

I am assuming that you have an ISO of a LiveCD already on your computer. If not, you can rip the ISO from a CD you have using a trial of Alcohol 120%. If you have no CDs to rip, you can download an ISO from a number of different sites based on your choice of distrobution. Here are links to a few you may want to try.

Ubuntu Linux
Knoppix (use version 3.9 or earlier)
PCLinuxOS
Damn Small Linux (just use the embedded version, read this article)
PuppyLinux (site is hard to reach, look for a mirror)

If you are not happy with those, check out FrozenTech's LiveCD List or DistroWatch.

Back in Qemu, you will need to create an image file. Well, wait! Isn't the ISO that I just downloaded the image file? No. The image file is like a virtual harddrive that Qemu uses. Since this is a LiveCD, theoretically no harddrive is even required, right? Right. But, in order for Qemu to boot from a LiveCD, you must assign it to an image file. To create an image file, type c in Qemu. Give it a name (I use 'linux') and a size in MB. Being that this a LiveCD, we need no harddrive space, so make it 1MB in size just so Qemu recognizes it. Choose the raw compression format.

Now you should be back at the main menu. We need to assign the ISO file to the image. Type I and hit enter. It will ask you to drag and drop the ISO file onto the Qemu window. Go ahead and do that. Hit enter, then Y.

Back at the menu again, it is time to boot. Type in the number of your image you created. Usually 1. Hit enter and your LiveCD should start booting. Congrats! You can now run Linux within Windows in a quick and easy way.

As of now, I have tried running Ubuntu Live, Kubuntu Live, Knoppix 3.7 and Knoppix 4.0. I only had a problem with Knoppix 4.0. For some reason it would hang at the first line of text.

Article by: Colin

TechSupport: Best Free Software Utilities

2005-12-22T03:23:00.000-08:00

Now here is some 46 best free software for M$ Windows.

1 Best Free Web Browser Updated October 20, 2005
Internet Explorer is a good browser but it has become such a target for malicious exploits that it is now a major security risk. Quite separately, the browser itself is now looking dated with most alternative products offering tabbed browsing and other productivity enhancements. There are several excellent alternatives but Mozilla Firefox is the stand-out pick. It's safer than Internet Explorer, so safe in fact that many users have reported no spyware infections since they started using the product. It's also browses faster than Internet Explorer and is stable and reliable as well. It loads a little slower than IE but once running, it zips along at lightning speed. With tabbed browsing and more free extensions than you could ever want, it offers a major upgrade in your browsing experience. Unlike IE, it's also standards compliant. The 600+ free extensions available are a huge plus, allowing you to totally customize your browsing experience. Firefox is now my everyday browser though occasionally I have to fire up IE to browse a site designed around IE's non-standard features. If you don't like Firefox then you should check out Opera. It's always been a great browser but until recently was only available as shareware or in advertising-supported versions. Now though, it's free. There's much to like about Opera but I do miss all those Firefox extensions.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ (4.7MB)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/firefox.htm <= Free Firefox migration guide
http://www.opera.com/ (3.7MB)

2 Best Free Anti-Virus Software
There are two equal recommendations in this category. First there is AVG Antivirus 7.0 Free Edition. This product [1] has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and now offers very impressive protection capabilities. Additionally, it's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no direct technical support. Even so, it's an impressive package and offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites. Equally impressive is the free Avast! scanner [2] though its funky media player style interface is not to everyone's taste. Avast! also required periodic re-registration while AVG does not. A possible third option is AntiVir [3]. It offers slightly better detection rates than either AVG or Avast! but the lack of email scanning precludes general recommendation. However it's the perfect choice as a second on-demand scanner. If you use it in this role, make sure you disable its resident virus guard during installation to prevent it interfering with your main AV scanner.
[1] http://free.grisoft.com
[2] http://www.avast.com (5MB)
[3] http://www.free-av.com (6.8MB)
[4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/free-vs-paid-av.htm <= review of the effectiveness of free security software

3 Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
My top recommendation is Microsoft's Antispyware program [1] which is currently available as a free beta to users of Windows 2000 and later. The Microsoft program is based on the Giant Antispyware product that Microsoft purchased late in 2004. I used Giant for some time and found it to offer outstanding detection and real time protection against the current plague of scumware products. The only minus being that it uses a fair slab of processing power and that could can slow down older PCs. The free Microsoft version is very similar to the previous commercial Giant version. I just hope Microsoft doesn't mess around too much with this excellent product however Microsoft's track record in this area has not been good. It's something I'll be keeping a close eye on; so far, so good. Microsoft has announced that the product will remain free even when out of beta so, subject to my previous reservations, it's a good long term choice. For Windows 9x and ME users I suggest two free products: Ad-Aware SE V1.6 [2] and SpyBot Search and Destroy V1.4 [3]. Both work well together and between them you'll get excellent protection. If you have a relatively fast PC, I suggest you turn on the TeaTimer option when you install SpyBot. It will give you reasonable active protection but at the cost of eating up some of your processing power. The active protection offered by TeaTimer is not as comprehensive as the Microsoft product but Internet Explorer users can augment it by using SpywareBlaster (see next item)
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx ( 6.4MB)
[2] http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ (1.7MB)
[3] http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html (4.6MB)

4 Best Free Browser Protection Utility Updated October 20, 2005
There's a scumware plague at the moment. All it takes is a visit to a pushy web site or a loaded shareware install and next minute your Internet Explorer homepage has been changed, your default search setting altered, unwanted ads pop up on your screen and worse. You can help protect Internet Explorer against these attacks by using SpywareBlaster [1]. It's is not a system scanner rather it is monitor that's designed to prevent an initial infection. It provides active protection for Internet Explorer users against thousands of malevolent products that use ActiveX based exploits and offers defenses against hostile sites and unwanted cookies as well. SpywareBlaster can be used with Firefox but there's not much point as Firefox doesn't need to be protected against ActiveX exploits. SpywareBlaster is free but the automatic update service costs $9.95 annually. A companion program to SpywareBlaster is SpywareGuard [2]. It is also a protective program that checks programs before they are run for malware behavior and also does some signature checking as well. However of late SpywareGuard seems to have been rather neglected with no new updates for more than a year so I can only give it a qualified recommendation. SpywareBlaster though, is a terrific product and a must-have for Internet Explorer users who also use the free version of Ad-Aware. If you are using Microsoft Antispyware, Ad-Aware Pro or other anti-spyware utility with a real-time monitor, you don't really need it.
[1] http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html (2.2MB)
[2] http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html (1.96MB)

5 Best Free Firewall Updated November 18, 2005
No other single product class seems to cause as much angst to average users in their installation and day-to-day use as Firewalls. That's why my choice for "best" goes to Kerio Personal Firewall [1], the product that seems to cause the fewest problems for users yet manages first rate protection as well. However it looks like Kerio will be discontinuing this product by the end of 2005 so hop in and get a copy while it is still available. The latest free version (V6) of the ZoneAlarm firewall [2] comes in a a good second choice though there have been considerable teething problems with the new version. Also the current free ZoneAlarm has become a true bare bones version of that company's class-leading commercial firewall. Such is life. More adventurous users and the technically inclined may however wish to consider Sygate [3]. It offers more control and more information but is not the easiest to setup and use. You had better grab it by the 30th of November as Symantec, the new owner of Sygate, has announced the product will be discontinued by that date. Even more difficult to install than Sygate is the NetVeda Safety.Net firewall [4]. However its performance is quite outstanding and it offers application control and content filtering as well. This highly capable product deserves to be better known and experienced users should definitely put it on their short list. Note: The free and paid versions of Kerio and Sygate are the same. If you don't buy the product some advanced features are automatically turned off after 30 days.
[1] http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html (7.3MB)
[2] http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp (9.0MB)
[3] http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf/summary_spf.htm (8.8MB)
[4] http://www.netveda.com/consumer/safetynet.htm (6.3MB)

6 Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover
Ewido is the best of a new crop of anti-Trojan programs. On my recent tests over at www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com it emerged as was one of the few products that could reliably detect polymorphic and process injecting Trojans that were totally missed by anti-virus products like Norton and AVG. Unfortunately the free version of Ewido doesn’t have a memory monitor and this omission significantly reduces the level of active protection provided. However the on-demand scanner is excellent. I recommend that all average PC users who don't have an anti-trojan scanner download Ewido and scan their PCs weekly. I suspect you may be surprised at what you will find. Ewido is also pretty good at removing some spyware infections so bear that in mind next time you encounter a spyware product you can't remove with normal anti-spyware products like Ad-Aware. Note that Ewido only works with Windows 2000 and later so Win 9X users should consider the free version of a2 (a-squared) anti-trojan as an alternative. It's not quite as effective as Ewido but is still an excellent product. High risk PC users such as P2P file sharers and frequenters of hack sites, should however consider the industrial strength protection of Trojan Hunter or the full version of Ewido both of which offer the active protection they need. Note: The free version of Ewido is actually the same as the paid version but after 14 days the active protection (i.e. memory monitor) becomes non-functional.
http://www.ewido.net/en/ (2.2MB)
http://www.anti-trojan-software-reviews.com/review-ewido.htm <= review of Ewido

7 Best Free Rootkit Scanner/Remover Updated November 18, 2005
Rootkits are a special kind of software tool used to hide trojans, viruses and other malware from your anti-virus scanner and other security products. Unfortunately, they are extremely effective which means that some of you reading this will be infected even though you believe your PC to be totally clean. Thankfully there is a new class of security product now available called rootkit detectors that use specialized techniques to detect these dangerous intruders. Most of these detectors require quite a bit of technical skill to interpret the results but one of the simplest to use and most effective is also free. It's called BlackLight [1] and is currently available as a free beta from F-Secure until the 1st of January 2006. I suggest everyone download this product and scan their PC. The chances of you being infected are small but for five minutes work it's not worth taking the risk. BlackLight will detect most rootkits missed by AV scanners but can still be fooled by state-of-the-art rootkits like some of the custom versions of Hacker Defender. To detect this and a few other insidious rootkits, you need heavier artillery. Currently the biggest gun in the rootkit detection war is a free Chinese product called IceSword. It will reveal just about everything running on your PC. Usage, however, requires considerable technical skill together with the patience to work out the program. It was originally only documented in Chinese but an English version [2] has now appeared. In the hands of an skilled user, its an amazing tool. The reality is that at the present time full protection against rootkits requires the use of multiple products. For details see my article on rootkits below [3].
[1] http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/cure.shtml Windows 2000 and later, 911KB.
[2] http://www.xfocus.net/tools/200509/IceSword_en1.12.rar <= slow Chinese site, 565KB [3] http://www.techsupportalert.com/rootkits.htm <= How to deal with the threat of rootkits

8 Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use
These days all users face a real risk of malicious programs secretly installing themselves on your computer. Anti-virus and anti-spyware products dramatically reduce the chance of infection but you can enhance your protection further by installing an additional layer of defense with an intrusion detection program. For advanced users Prevx is a stand out recommendation. It's so good I made it my Free Product of the Year for 2004. However it's talkative nature and sometimes cryptic messages make it only suitable for experienced users. For other users (but not beginners) I recommend the free version of WinPatrol. Like Prevx it provides a vital "last ditch" defense layer by telling you when a product is trying to change any of the critical settings on your PC such as the registry and auto-start areas. WinPatrol simply throws up a dialog asking whether you want to allow the change or not. Of course being warned is useless unless you have some idea how to respond to the warning. That's why neither Prevx nor WinPatrol is suited to inexperienced users. If you are a beginner you should seriously consider the $29.95 Plus version of WinPatrol which provides lots of guidance to help you make sense of any warning messages. As a bonus it offers better protection as well.
http://www.prevx.com/prevxhome.asp (7.5MB)
http://www.winpatrol.com/ (880KB)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/intrusion-detection.htm <= Brief survey of IDS software

9 Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service
There are lots of reasons folks have for wanting to surf anonymously, ranging from simple paranoia to possibly being murdered by a malevolent foreign government. Whatever the reasons, commercial services that offer anonymity are doing real well. However one of the best services JAP, is totally free. In fact JAP is perhaps a little too good. That's why the German Police insisted in 2004 that a backdoor be put into the product to allow interception of child pornographers. This was done but subsequently removed as a result of court action by JAP. An alternative to JAP is another system called Tor. It not only allows anonymous browsing but anonymous email, IM, and IRC chat as well. Given the US Navy origin of Tor, the suspicion arises that this system may indeed have a permanent backdoor. However the source code is now publicly available so that suspicion can be set aside. Whatever, both JAP and Tor offer a level of secrecy that is better than many commercial systems. However expect your surfing to slow down as you'll be relayed through a chain of servers. You'll also need to change your browser settings to work through a proxy. Note: the latest V5 release of JAP now allows Tor users to use JAP as a software access point.
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html
http://tor.eff.org/

10 Best Free Software Suite Updated November 18, 2005
The Open CD site [1] offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC including the latest version of OpenOffice. Many of these freebies substitute admirably for expensive commercial products. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, Thunderbird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZip and many more. If you then add to this collection some of the other utilities from my "46 Best-ever Utilities" collection you will have all the software you'll ever need without spending a cent. Note: All of the Open CD utilities can be downloaded for free as a CD ISO image. If you have a slow connection you can purchase the CD for a as little as $1.99. In addition to the Windows versions, the CD also contains the same collection of programs implemented under a version of Linux called Ubuntu that can be booted and run directly from the CD. That way you not only get to try all these great programs you can try Linux as well, without interfering in any way with your current Windows installation. Update: the folks at Ubuntu [2] are now giving away free CDs containing the latest version of Ubuntu Linux together with most of the programs on the Open CD. They will send you the full Ubuntu installation CDs plus a live CD where you can run Ubuntu directly from the CD. You can order as many CDs as you want and you don't even have to pay the mailing costs! When you get your CDs read this this simple introduction to Linux [3] before starting.
[1] http://theopencd.org
[2] http://www.ubuntu.com/download/support/documentation/faq/shipit/
[3] http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/10/24/how-to-ubuntu-linux-for-novices/

11 Best Free File Manager
Windows Explorer is fine for simple file management activities but when you have some serious work to do, you need a two pane file manager. I use Directory Opus which is without doubt the best product in this class but costs $59. Recently I discovered xplorer². It offers a good part of the functionality of Directory Opus and is totally free. As a bonus, its user interface is very similar to Windows Explorer, so most users will find this tool easy to learn and use.(575KB)
http://www.netez.com/xplorer2/x2lite.htm

12 Best Free Email Client Updated October 20, 2005
Thunderbird is a free open source POP and IMAP email client developed by Mozilla.org, the same folks who brought you Firefox. Feature-wise it sits somewhere between Outlook Express and Outlook which means that it offers an upgrade to Express users and a downgrade to those who use the more advanced PIM features of Outlook. All Outlook Express users should seriously consider switching. You’ll be rewarded with a more advanced product including built- in spam filtering, built-in RSS reader, better security, message color coding, fast email search and the ability to view your mail in conversational threads. On top of that, the product is more secure than OE and unlike the latter, is still being actively developed. The transition is made easier by the fact that Thunderbird looks and works similar to OE. Tools within Thunderbird also allow you to easily import OE account settings and stored email. Outlook users who aren’t reliant on calendaring, Microsoft Exchange or Outlook plug-ins should also consider switching. Thunderbird email files can be indexed by the Google, Yahoo! and Copernic desktop search programs.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird
http://www.nidelven-it.no/articles/introduction_to_thunderbird

13 Best Free Web Mail Accessory
Two suggestions: the first is a nifty free product called YPOPs! (formerly YahooPops!) that allows you to collect your Yahoo webmail from within your POP email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Eudora. I use it on multiple Yahoo accounts and it works wonderfully. The second suggestion is an Open Source utility called MrPostman. It's a much more flexible product than YPOPs! and will download HotMail, Lycos, Yahoo and several other webmail services into your POP email client. It can also give you access to email accounts on MS Exchange 5.5. If you only use Yahoo webmail, go with YPOPs! as MrPostman is a more complex program and can need a bit of fiddling to work correctly. You'll find a couple of links below that will help you. Note that MrPostman requires the Java Runtime Environment to be installed on your PC.
http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/ (1.3MB)
http://mrpostman.sourceforge.net/ (1.5MB)
http://2mod2.com/mohot/ <= Installing Mr Postman http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=68124 <= MrPostman forum

14 Best Free Clipboard Replacement Utility
The regular clipboard in Windows has limitations – one item at a time and no retention after logging off. Clipboard replacement utilities provide the ability to hold multiple items and store them for future use, even after logging off. There are many free clipboard replacement utilities available, including CLCL,
Clipboard Magic, Clipboard Recorder, Clippy 2001, Ditto, DzSoft Paste & Save, and Yankee Clipper III. While none of these have the very extensive set of features of the class-leading shareware product ClipMate 6 ($29.95), they all offer the basic clipboard replacement features that 95% of us really want and
need. If you just need a basic clipboard replacement utility, look no further than Clipboard Recorder [1]. It will store up to 99 items that can be easily selected and pasted from the popup history list by pressing the shortcut key (Ctrl-Alt-V by default). It supports a variety of formats (text, RTF, HTML, CSV, Bitmap, etc.) and has the ability to transfer copied items between computers. In addition, it is a very small program and uses very little resources. Clipboard Recorder is what the regular clipboard in Windows should have been! However, if you need advanced features such as the ability to support additional item types, create groups of items, search previous items, and synchronize clipboards across multiple computers, then I would recommend trying Ditto [2]. In addition to its extended feature set, its user interface is very clean, easy to use, and has many configurable options that you can configure to meet your needs. Note that Ditto requires DAO to be installed [3].
[1] http://www.lw-works.com/ Windows 98 and later, 382 KB
[2] http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/ Windows 95 and later, 422KB
[3] http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/dao_setup.exe .3MB

15 Best Free HTML Editor
This is one of my most requested items but up until now I've not been able to give any product my hearty endorsement. There have been any number of contenders: Amaya for example, impressed with its standards compliance but was incomplete while Selida looked slick but had too many bugs. Finally a worthy contender has arrived on the scene in the form of the Open Source Nvu. In reality Nvu is nothing new but rather a reworking of the old Netscape Composer. Composer was always a solid product and the revamp has lifted the product into another class. Here is an HTML editor and site manager that's easy enough for beginners to use but powerful enough to build large sites. It's closer in concept to Microsoft's FrontPage more than any other product but unlike FrontPage it, thankfully, produces standards compliant code. Its easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor will delight HTML newbies while HTML honchos can simply click a tab to switch to code view. Multiple tabs can be kept open to allow simultaneous editing and there is excellent support for forms, tables and templates. An internal spell-checker is included. CSS is handled through the CaScadeS editor from Mozilla Composer. Nvu also has the handy ability to call W3C's HTML validator from within the product. It's also extensible via XUL. Nvu can upload files to your site via FTP and has some basic site management features but this is not its strength. Overall it's an impressive product; no, it's not a replacement for DreamWeaver but those looking for a competent, free HTML editor that's easy to use need look no further. Free Open Source, Windows 98 and later plus Linux, 6.57MB
http://www.nvu.com/

16 Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User
This is a difficult category as ordinary users need products that are easy to use and frankly, most free spam filters are way too complex to set up and use. The best products in this class are in fact, shareware not free. That said, MailWasher is for most folks, the best free option. MailWasher is an email preview utility that allows you to check your email on your mail server before you download it to your PC. The advantage of this approach is that you can kill unwanted messages including spam, viruses and large attachments before they get anywhere near your computer. MailWasher flags for you any messages containing possible spam and viruses for you to quickly check. It's a simple idea but quite effective and one which average users find easy to understand. The last free version of MailWasher [2] before it went commercial is still floating around the web. It lacks many of the advanced spam detection features of the current commercial version but is still quite effective. Alternatively, try XTerminator [3] which works much the same way as MailWasher and is totally free. I must say though, I prefer MailWasher's user interface
[1] http://www.mailwasher.net ( 3.05MB)
[2] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page2.html#Mailwasher (1.57MB)
[3] http://www.artplus.hr/adapps/eng/xterminator.htm (1.87MB)
[4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-antispam.htm <=brief review of the best spam blockers

17 Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users
There are many different spam filters available employing lots of different techniques. In my experience "learning" spam filters that use the Bayesian statistical approach out-perform most other types of filters I've tried. Not only are they better at detecting spam they are also less liable to classify your real mail as spam. This effectiveness takes a little time to develop as the filter has to be trained to recognize your spam from your normal mail. It takes a week or so before results start becoming accurate and best results may take a month or more. POPFile, a free, open source spam filter, was one of the first Bayesian filters and is still one of the best. It works as a proxy mail server so that means that it can be used with any POP email client. Setup is reasonably straightforward for experienced users but beginners may be better off with Mailwasher. If you use Outlook there are several excellent free Bayesian spam filters available including SpamBayes and K9. Both are simple to install though, like all statistical filters, they need to go through a training phase before they reach full effectiveness.
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/old_index.html (4.3MB)
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/ (3.6MB)
http://www.keir.net/k9.html (113KB)

18 Best Free Popup Stopper
The need for popup stopper utilities has fallen away in recent months as many browsers such as Firefox now have this function built in. If you need a separate popup stopper and have good PC skills I suggest you try The Proxomitron. It operates by filtering and transforming all your Web pages on the fly. As a result you can not only stop pop-ups but pop-unders, ads, flash animations, status bar scrollers and just about anything else. Besides, next time you are asked what pop-up stopper you use, you can answer; "why, I use The Proxomitron" and how cool is that. The first link below is to version 4.5, the last and final version of this superb utility. The following two links offer useful setup and usage tips. Note: For Novice PC users I suggest you try the Google toolbar rather than The Proxomitron. It's free as well and has an excellent popup filter built in. It's nowhere near as flexible as as The Proxomitron, but it requires no setup. As a bonus it also makes Google searches easier.
http://computercops.biz/files/ProxN45.exe
http://accs-net.com/smallfish/prox.htm
http://www.sankey.ws/proxomitron.html
http://toolbar.google.com/

19 Best Free Desktop Search Utility Updated October 20, 2005
In early 2004 there were no contenders for this title. Today we have a wealth of choices. In a close race I would have to say the Free Desktop Search from Yahoo! comes out in front because of the clear way it presents search results. It's powered by the well established X1 local search engine and can index the contents of 300 different file types including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Outlook, Outlook Express, HTML, text, ZIP and Adobe PhotoShop though at the moment it will only handle email files from Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird. It will index html files but can't index your web browsing history. If the later is important to you, you may want to look at Version 2 of Google desktop search. It not only will search your web history but offers an Outlook toolbar, integrated Gmail search and a novel desktop sidebar that allows personalized search, news, weather, photos and more. The Sidebar also includes a quite effective application launcher. Some folks love the Sidebar others, me included, find it intrusive. Unfortunately though, to run either the Yahoo! or Google DTS you'll need Windows 2000 or later. If you are stuck with earlier version of Windows then try the free Copernic Desktop Search. It offers many of the key features as the others though the presentation of search results is not quite as elegant as Yahoo! DTS.
http://desktop.yahoo.com
http://desktop.google.com (1.4MB)
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/download.html (2.3MB)

20 Best Free Digital Image Viewer Updated November 18, 2005
Three good choices here. First there's the classic IrfanView. Irfan [1] is a first class product but one for which I have mixed feelings. That's why it's been in and out of my "46 Best Freeware" list several times. It's an amazingly capable product but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Other users though, just love it. A product I feel more comfortable with is XNView [2]. Like Irfan it is very versatile; it can read and display nearly 400 types of graphic files and convert any of these to over 50 formats. It displays pictures very quickly and these may be viewed full screen, as slideshows or thumbnails. It's quite capable at processing images, too; you can adjust brightness, color, apply filters or effects, crop photos, re-size, convert format and more. These operations can also be carried out from a batch file, which makes it ideal for converting large digital photos to smaller sizes for the web or emailing. It supports drop and drag, has many plug-ins, is available in 44 languages and has full cross-platform support including Mac. XNView has a lot of similarities with IrfanView, so many in fact, that it comes perilously close to plagiarism. Put positively, one may say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery however the developer of IrfanView must feel more than a little miffed. XNView is free for non-commercial use, all Windows versions plus many other platforms. The standard version for Windows is 3.3MB but I suggest you download the complete version with all plug-ins which weighs in at 6.8MB. My third choice and personal favorite is FastStone Image Viewer [3]. This is a speed demon with a zippiness in displaying images that's reminiscent of the old ACDSee before it suffered feature bloat. It supports all major graphic formats and popular digital camera RAW formats as well. It's also got good basic image editing facilities, a great slide show and a very cute interface. Much to like here. Free for personal use, Windows 98 and later.
[1] http://www.irfanview.com/ (874KB)
[2] http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/endownloadwin32.html (3.3MB)
[3] http://www.faststone.org (3.0MB)

21 Best Free Digital Image Editor Updated October, 2005
I use to recommend The Gimp but after dozens of letters from newbies who couldn't manage to install it or work out the idiosyncratic user interface, I've decided to confine that recommendation to more experienced users. If that's you and you patient enough to learn the product's sometimes quaint ways then you have no need to consider anything else. If you are used to Photoshop you might like to look at GIMPShop, which changes the user interface of GIMP to something more familiar though frankly, I prefer the original. For other less experienced users I have two recommendations: First there is Paint.net, an amazingly sophisticated piece of work from computer science students at Washington State University. It's not quite as powerful as The Gimp but a lot easier to use and install. It's also getting better; the new V2.5 continues this product's impressive development record. It is however only for Windows 2000 and later and you'll need Microsoft's bulky .NET framework installed on your PC. My second choice is PhotoPlus 6.0 from a company called Serif. It's an impressive piece of work; again it installs easily and it's loaded with features including layer support. In fact, it looks and feels like a "lite" version of Adobe PhotoShop except that it is relatively easy to use. I say "relatively" because graphics editing is by its nature, not simple. Both Paint.net and PhotoPlus are outstanding free products. Which is the best? Easy, the answer is ... your call ;>)
http://www.gimp.org/windows/ (7.07MB)
http://www.gimpshop.net/ (7.4MB)
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/ (1.1MB)
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp (19.4MB)

22 Best Free Digital Photo Organizer
It’s rare for me to be utterly wowed by a product but this one certainly did it. When you first run Picasa it offers to scan your whole hard drive (or designated locations) for photos and videos. Scanning is surprisingly quick and when finished you’ll have all your shots neatly organized into folders on a time line basis. Now you can view you shots one at a time, in slideshow or traversing the time line. The editing features are limited compared to professional image editors yet they provide you with every function amateur photographers need including one click red eye reduction. Similarly adding labels to photos is a cinch while a simple but effective star rating system allows you to flag favorite snaps. Individual folders can also be password protected. Facilities are provided to import your images from your camera in multiple formats including RAW. You can send photos to your choice of web printing service, cut a CD, print to a local printer or share with others via your own blog or instant messaging. Simply sensational. Windows 98 or later, 300MHz Pentium with 128MB memory or better, 3.2MB.
http://www.picasa.com/

23 Best Free Notepad Replacement Updated 20th October, 2005
There are lots of text editors and Notepad replacements. Some of these aspire to be programming editors while others try to be word processors. What I love about EditPad is that, unlike the others, it concentrates on simply being a better plain text editor and in that role, it succeeds brilliantly. It has a Notepad-like interface combined with tabbed document windows, the ability to open as many documents as you like, no file size limitations and unlimited un-do capability. If however you are looking for something that will also serve as a programming editor you might like to check out Notepad++. It's not only great for programming but can be used as a Notepad replacement as well. It also supports plug-ins, themes and has multi-language support. Note that I'm not saying that Notepad++ is the best programming editor available, that's too controversial a category even for me ;>)
http://www.editpadlite.com/editpadlite.html (973KB)
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm (807KB)

24 The Best File Archiver/Zip Utility Updated October 20, 2005
I checked out six utilities: QuickZip, ICEOWS, IZArc, TUGZip, ZipGenius and 7-Zip. The product that impressed me the most was the Open Source program 7-Zip. It was the only product in the group that could unpack a multi-part RAR volume embedded in a ZIP archive and the only product to give a meaningful error message when an attempt was made to unpack a 256bit encrypted WinZip archive. My only reservation is that it handles fewer archive types than some of the other products; it only supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB . If that's really important to you than I'd recommend IZArc. It can read nearly 50 archive types including media formats like ISO, BIN and IMG and can write (and convert) to 12. You couldn't go wrong with either product. 7-Zip is a little more robust while IZArc is a little more flexible. If you already use WinZip you'll find either 7-Zip or IZArc make excellent companion products. They can can read just about all the major archive formats WinZip can't, including the widely used RAR.
http://www.izarc.org/download.html Windows 9x and later, 3.1MB
http://www.7-zip.org/ Windows 9x and later, 1.05MB

25 Best Free Hotkey Utility Updated November 18, 2005
PS Hot Launch VVL [1] is a free utility that allows you to define your own hotkeys so that a single key press can launch an application, insert commonly used text, change your volume, or just about anything else. Hotkeycontrol works on all versions of Windows and is an excellent performer even on slow machines. A second alternative is the qliner's free Open Source "hotkeys" utility [2]. It's strength is its wide support for international keyboard layouts plus a handy reminder key that flashes up your current hotkey assignments. On the minus side, it's not quite as flexible as PS Hot Launch and it's only available for Windows XP. A final option is not really a hotkey utility at all but achieves the same result by using "magic words." SlickRun [3] places a tiny text box on your screen and when you type specially assigned words into the box, it will launch a program, go to a web site or whatever. For example if you type "mail" it can launch your mail reader. Type in "46" and it can take you to the web page of the "46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities." Of course, it's up to you to define these magic words and you can have as many as you want. It all works very neatly with some really nice touches like auto-complete for your magic words which means you only have to type in two or three letters and SlickRun will complete the rest. Nice too, is an eyedropper tool that allows you to identify a program you want to "hotkey" just by clicking in its application window. There's also a built-in note jotter and a calendar date display. It requires Win 98 or later.
[1] http://www.pssoftlab.com/pshl_info.phtml (743KB)
[2] http://qliner.com/hotkeys/ (804KB
[3] http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/ (168KB)

26 Best Free Registry Cleaner Updated November 18, 2005
To keep the registries on my PCs in top running order I use the the registry cleaner "SystemRegistry" in the Fix-It Utilities though many folks swear by the Registry Cleaner in jv16 PowerTools. Both of these are commercial products though you can still find the last free version of jv16 [1] on the web. In my mind the best registry cleaner is one which reliably fixes problem entries but doesn't itself cause problems in the process. The products most likely to possess these qualities are those that are conservative in operation and confine their cleaning to removing definite and unambiguous errors. I say this because I have seen as many problems created by registry cleaners as problems solved. This view flies in the face of many who consider, for whatever reason, that the best registry cleaner is the one that finds the most problems. To me such products can be dangerous and not worth owning. That said, my recommendation is Toni Helenius' free EasyCleaner. It's a good reliable, conservative performer that will fix all major problem without creating problems of its own As a bonus, it will also detect duplicate files and help you clean up temp files to make more disk space. Remember though, as with every Registry cleaner, to back up your Windows Registry before use. (2.64MB)
[1] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/
[2] http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

27 Best Free BitTorrent Client Updated November 18, 2005
It's amazing how quickly BitTorrent has become one of the major download formats. With good reason, too: it's fast, equitable and efficient. If you haven't yet installed a BitTorrent client on your PC, you should as there are some great free clients available. I recommend the Open Source program Azureus. It's beautifully implemented, well supported and, being Java based, is available for multiple platforms. It also features an embedded tracker so you can host your own torrents and DHT (Distributed Hash Table) which distributes indexing responsibility across multiple clients rather than relying on a single web-based tracker. With BitTorrent sites coming and going regularly DHT is definitely a plus. One downside with Azureus is that the Java code will eat up your CPU cycles so you need a reasonably fast PC. Those with older machines should check out BitTornado. It's also cross platform and is fast and highly configurable as well. Both products are adware and spyware free. An interesting new contender is μTorrent which comes in at a tiny 105KB. It's fast, lean on resources, easy to use and requires no installation. It support trackerless downloads, , multiple simultaneous downloads and UPnP. An impressive achievement for such a tiny package.
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ (6.4MB)
http://bittornado.com/ (3.3MB)
http://www.utorrent.com/ (105KB)

28 The Best Free FTP Client
I used WS_FTP Pro as my principal FTP client for years. What started out as simple and effective product gradually with each new version became more feature-bloated and less effective for routine tasks. With the release of Version 9 it was clear to me that the product had totally lost its way so I started looking for an alternative. After trying seven different FTP clients I decided that the best for me was the Open Source utility FileZilla. It uses a simple layout based on a two pane interface that looks a bit like the early versions of WS_FTP. But this simplicity is deceptive, it is actually a quite powerful product There's a full featured site manager, firewall and proxy support, SSL and Kerberos GSS security, restart, drop and drag and a lot more. The only significant feature that's missing is site-to-site transfer but that's of no importance to me. What is of importance is that FileZilla is fast, totally reliable, secure and and very easy to use. There's also a free FileZilla FTP server which I haven't used but I hear that it's just as good as the client. (4.5MB)
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

29 Best Free Bookmark Cleaner
AM-DeadLink scans your bookmark file for dead links or duplicate links. When I tried it on my huge favorites file I discovered 17% of my links were dead. I've now got a much leaner set of favorites and the comfort of knowing that the links actually work. (546KB)
http://aignes.com/press/deadlink140.htm

30 Best Free Folder Synchronization Utility New! Added October 20, 2005
This is getting scary. First I recommend Microsoft Antispyware as the best free spyware scanner and now I'm going to recommend another Microsoft product as the best in this category. Well, equal best. It's called SyncToy v1.0 for Windows XP [1] and, as the name implies, is only for XP - SP2. This program is more than a syncing program; it can copy, move, rename, and delete files between any number of folders and even computers. The program operates on the principal of pre-defined folder pairs. You define and name these pairs and then when you want to perform a sync or other task, you recall one of these pairs and carry out the operation. Syncing can be in either direction and covers all options from complete sync to updating newer files only. The handling of files with changed file names is exceptional as is the backup of overwritten files. Overall, pretty well everything you ever wanted in a sync utility. Also highly recommended is 2brightspark's SyncBack. It works for Windows 98 and later and has a number of features that SyncToy lacks such as the ability to back up using FTP. It's now a shareware product but the last freeware version is still available from a number of sites including the second link below.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-
CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en (844KB)
[2] http://www.snapfiles.com/get/SyncBack.html (1.9MB)

31 Best Free Screen Capture Utility
Two recommendations here: The first is PrintScreen. It does exactly what I want, in the way I want and furthermore avoids the trap of providing lots of useless and confusing features. It's the little things that count like making the hot key PrtSc so I don't have to remember it, and automatically sequentially naming the output files for multiple screen shots. A second recommendation is Screen Hunter. It's a commercial product but the "lite" free version is excellent, offering more features than Gadwin at the cost of a little added complexity. Both products work with Win 98 and later.
http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/?prnscr (976KB)
http://www.wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter.htm (381KB)

32 Best Free Search Toolbar
Search toolbars allow users to do web searches without having to go first to the home page of a search engine. This really saves a lot of time. In the last year search toolbars have become a hotly competed product class and as result, users now have an excellent choice. The "best" in terms of features is probably Yahoo's Toolbar whose features include anti-spyware capabilities as well as popup blocking. It's for Internet Explorer but they are currently offering a beta version for Firefox. My only beef with the Yahoo product is that I prefer to use Google for my web searches rather than Yahoo and that's why I use the Google Toolbar which also offers popup blocking though no anti-spyware features. On the other hand it includes a useful web form spell-checker and a few other goodies not found in the Yahoo product. Google also offers a full Firefox version as well as the standard IE version. Some folks still like Dave’s Quick Search Bar because it gives access to multiple search engines. Another advantage is that it resides in your task bar rather than your browser so it's easily accessible from any application. Other Dave's features include a dictionary, thesaurus, calculator and a lot of customizability.
http://toolbar.yahoo.com/ie (3MB)
http://www.dqsd.net/ (327KB)
http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/ (447KB)

33 Best Free Download Manager Updated November 18, 2005
For some time I've been recommending Star Downloader but the freeware version has been effectively frozen at version 1.44 with future enhancements restricted to the shareware version. It is however, still a fine choice. After trying half a dozen other products, I've settled on "Free Downloader" as my new selection. It's fast, stable and integrates well into both Internet Explorer and Firefox though the later will require the installation of the free FlashGot extension. With "Free Downloader" there is no embedded adware or nag screen and after using it for a couple of weeks, I've decided that it's actually just as good as Star Downloader with the advantage that it's still being actively developed. (1.31MB).
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm

34 Best Free Web Site Ripper
HTTrack is one impressive product: it's easy to use, has an excellent user interface, offers every feature you could want, is blindingly fast and free of any adware as well. If you like to download web sites so that you can "browse them offline", this is the product to get. ( 3.23MB)
http://www.httrack.com/

35 Best Free Download/Upload Meter Updated November 18, 2005
NetMeter [1] shows upload and download speeds, along with cumulative weekly and monthly volumes and projected values. The program reminds me in many ways of Hagel's excellent $20 shareware product "DU Meter." It's freeware and works with all Windows versions. In essence, everything you really need for nix. A good second choice if you have the Microsoft .NET package already installed on your PC is BitMeter II from Codebox Software [2] . It's a little more feature rich than NetMeter but uses a tad more of your PCs resources to deliver those features.
[1] http://readerror.gmxhome.de/ (601KB)
[2] http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2 (806KB)

36 Best Free TCP Settings Tweaker
Whether you use a modem or broadband, you'll get a faster connection if you tweak your connection's TCP parameters. Among the most important of these is MaxMTU which, in simple terms, needs to be set to the largest value possible without your data being broken up into smaller chunks en-route. Most techies determine MaxMTU by trial and error pinging using different packet sizes but it's a tedious procedure and definitely not for beginners. TCPOptimizer from SpeedGuide.net is a free utility that will do the job for you automatically. Furthermore, it will use this value to advise you on your other TCP settings and then apply these values at the press of the button. There are commercial programs that will do much the same thing but TCPOptimizer does it just as well and is totally free. The only minus is the lack of in-program help. However you'll find a useful FAQ at the SpeedGuide site. (225KB)
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in.php?category=100

37 Best Free File Cleaner
I've tried quite a few commercial products designed to clean unused, temporary and unnecessary files off your hard disk but must say that the free utility "Empty Temp Folders" [1] ranks with the best. It takes a few minutes to set up but after that, just press a button to recover many megabytes of disk space. An equally attractive alternative is CCleaner [2]. It's a tad easier to use though not quite as effective in removing temporary files. Its default settings are also quite aggressive so check the options carefully before running for the first time. Both products may be used together for maximum cleaning. Between them you may be surprise how much disk space you will free up.
[1] http://www.danish-shareware.dk/soft/emptemp (667KB)
[2] http://www.ccleaner.com/ (403KB)

38 Best Free Resource Meter Updated November 18 2005
This is cute. TinyResMeter is an itsy-bitsy system monitor. Unlike many other monitors, it doesn't consume a lot of CPU utilization in order to tell you your CPU utilization. In addition to CPU usage, you can optionally monitor cache, RAM, page file and swap file usage, running processes and threads, disk space utilization and a number of other parameters as well. Also built-in, is a screen grabber that saves the current screen to disk when you press PrintScreen. How the author fits all this into 92KB beats me. A new version is on the way offering even more functionality. If you are like something a little fancier than TinyResMeter then check out StatBar. It's got more features than you could ever want though but at the cost of a higher resource overhead needed to run the program. Nice product though and easy to try out as the program doesn't require installation.
http://perso.accelance.net/~pesoft/trm/us_trm.html (92KB)
http://www.statbar.nl/ (1.65MB)

39 Best Free Sticky Notes Utility Updated November 18 2005
Some people hate these programs others swear they can't work effectively without them. I used to be in the first category but with so many things on my plate these days, I'm slowly being converted. The function that I find really useful is the reminder that pops up at a designated time and date. I use it for simple things like "put up the latest issue on the web site." ATnotes is a neat implementation that features configurable alarms, resizable windows, variable fonts and a host of other useful features. The product is remarkably similar to the class-leading commercial sticky notes utility called, TurboNotes, a case perhaps of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. NOTE: As of the 30th of May 2005, development work has ceased and the author's site pulled down. However someone has built a mirror of the author's site [1] where you can read about ATnotes and download the final version. You can also download ATNotes from the a number of other sites including the second link below. If you want an alternative that is still being developed try StickyPad. Some folks actually prefer it to ATnotes and I must admit the interface is very slick but I find the alarm function to be rather inflexible. It cannot for example handle recurring events such as birthdays. If you want that functionality you are better of with another sticky note program called "Stickies" from Zhorn Software. It's not quite as svelte as the other two programs I've mentioned but it's very effective in operation
[1] http://atnotes.free.fr/news.html (723KB)
[2] http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,17660,00.asp
[3] http://www.greeneclipsesoftware.com/stickypad.html (550KB)
[4] http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/ (596KB)

40 Best Free Secure Erase Utility Updated November 18 2005
Eraser [1] is a free, GNU license utility that will securely erase files, folders or even whole disks from any Windows or DOS PC. Eraser overwrites data area with selectable random data patterns and also wipes data in the paging file, Internet cache, temporary files, Internet cookies, unused disk space and a number of other places where data can secretly lurk. It handles FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS partitions as well. Erasing files with high security will always be a difficult and time consuming task and can never offer absolute 100% safety. However Eraser makes the task about as easy as it be, with a security level beyond most conceivable requirements. Another rather different alternative is Darik's Boot and Nuke [2]. Its an Open Source program that's used to construct a floppy disk or CD that will automatically wipe the all hard drives of any PC booted from the disk. It's great for bulk disk cleaning of PCs and is useful too as an emergency tool for quickly removing sensitive information. However this power makes it a dangerous tool in the hands of beginners.
[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser (2.8MB)
[2] http://dban.sourceforge.net/ (1.6MB)

41 Best Free Registry Editor
I've used the full version of Resplendent Registry Editor for years and have never had any reason to look for an alternative. Recently a subscriber asked me what was the best free registry editor and that made me realize I've never looked at that particular product category. The first product I checked out was Registrar Lite, the free version of Resplendent Registry Editor and I'd have to say it's an impressive freebie. To start with, it works totally reliably - an essential feature for any registry editor. On top of that, the user interface is simple, the functionality excellent and, perhaps most importantly, it has a really fast search. I did, however, miss a "search and delete" option - that's unfortunately only available on the full product. That said, it leaves Regedit for dead. If you know a better free registry editor, drop me an email. (2.0MB).
http://www.resplendence.com/reglite

42 Best Free Process Viewer
PrcView has long been my personal choice but Process Explorer has pushed it aside. The reason? A better display setup coupled with more features and even more information. Process Explorer uses two vertical panes. The top contains all active processes while the second shows either all the handles opened by a selected process or, optimally, a list of DLLs and memory mapped files. A very handy search feature allows you to work backwards from named DLLs or handles to the owning process. A gem. Freeware, 230KB.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

43 Best Free PC Inventory Tool Updated November 18, 2005
The freeware utility AIDA32 was the best system inventorying tool ever, regardless of price. It documented just about every aspect of your hardware and software configuration as well as checking networks and providing memory benchmarks. However the developer announced in March 2004 that the free product had been frozen. Development work shifted to a commercial organization called Lavalys and AIDA32 was re-launched as Everest. Lavalys now provides a commercial "professional" version of Everest as well as a free home version [1]. The free version is not as full featured as the old AIDA32 but it is still impressive. You can however still find the old AIDA32 at the second link below[2]. If you only need to inventory a single PC then you should also check out Belarc Advisor [3]. It's free for non commercial use and while not quite as thorough as AIDA32, it has the advantage of being actively developed.
[1] http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en (4.0MB)
[2] http://www.soft32.com/download_9181.html (5MB)
[3] http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html (830KB)

44 Best Free Search and Replace Utility
There are several contenders for this title but HandyFile's excellent Find and Replace program is my favorite. It's fast, has a simple but effective user interface and some nice features including support for regular expressions. It started life as a free product before going commercial however the free version is still floating around and can be downloaded from a number of sites including the one below. (361KB)
http://www.pcsupportadvisor.com/downloads/HFFRSetup.exe

45 Best Free Outliner Updated November 18, 2005
I'm not a great fan of outliners - my brain doesn't work that way. Some folks however, swear by them and if that includes you, then you should check out Keynote, an Open Source freeware program that has a dedicated band of followers. Its major design attribute is its ease of use. Words like "natural" and "seamless" come close to the mark but really don't capture the essence of what is really a great design. What do you do with it? Well to quote the web site “KeyNote is used by screenwriters to draft screenplays, by medical doctors to keep patient databases, by developers to store source code snippets - and to everyone it serves as a place to put all the random pieces of information that have no particular structure of relationship to other data, and do not fit easily in task-specific applications such as word-processors, databases or spreadsheets.” Unfortunately the program is no longer being developed but is totally usable in its current form. If you find that a turn-off you might like to consider NeoMem as an alternative. It's another Open Source program but is not really a dedicated outliner rather more of a general purpose program that can be used as an outliner. It's a kind of hybrid of a database and word processor that's designed to allow you to organize, store, hyperlink and search information. That bland description totally under-sells the product. It's one of those programs that you really need to use in order to understand the potential. It works with all Windows versions so try it.
[1] http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html (1.7MB)
[2] http://www.neomem.org/neomem.htm (640KB)

46 Best Free Rename Utility
If you want industrial strength file renaming there are two great choices: First there's Lupas Rename 2000. This is a small utility for Win 98 and later that globally renames all the files in a directory and its subdirectories. It can convert names to upper/lower case, change the case of the first letter, add text, left crop, right crop and just about anything else you can think of. And unlike DOS based utilities, it will work on hidden files as well. Add in a nice GUI interface, an undo feature, full preview of changes, MP3 tag renaming, support for regular expressions and the fact that it's free and you have an outstanding product. The second and equally attractive option is Flexible Renamer. It's quite similar to Lupas and choosing between them is not easy. Lupas seems to me to be easier to use for simply renaming files while Flexible Renamer has the edge with tags. Flexible Renamer can also can bulk change file attributes while Lupas can't. It also runs without installation, a definite plus. However if you only need a re-namer for re-labeling digital photos and MP3 files you might like instead to looked at a program called "THE Rename" (sic)." that's better suited to these tasks. It's freeware and works on all versions of Windows though usage is not very intuitive.
[1] http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/download.php (742KB)
[2] http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014830/english/FlexRena/ (648KB)
[3] http://www.herve-thouzard.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=1 (2.8MB)

Originally listed at: TechSupport

Some Top Paying Adsense Keywords

2005-12-20T03:26:00.000-08:00

If you want more revenue from your Adsense or YPN, have these topics in your site.

mesothelioma $84.08
mesothelioma attorneys $80.93
mesothelioma lawyers $69.04
malignant pleural mesothelioma $55.95
Asbestos Cancer $54.17
mesothelioma symptoms $53.66
peritoneal mesothelioma $52.27
trans union $51.91
lung cancer $43.12
search engine optimization $30.19
mesothelioma diagnosis $28.70
home equity loans $20.06
Baines and Ernst $18.47
consolidate loans $17.74
Lexington law $17.68
Lexington law firm $16.81
debt problems $16.28
register domain $15.74
home equity line of credit $15.61
affiliate programs $14.33
refinance $14.21
video conferencing $13.63
payday loans $13.21
credit counseling $13.02
asbestos $12.79
debt solutions $12.64
cash loans $12.13
refinancing $12.09
broadband phone $12.08
debt management $11.86
fast loans $11.81
credit card processing $11.75
credit reports $11.59
making money on the internet $11.58
merchant account $11.46
line of credit $11.42
money magazine $11.27
Adsense $11.13
credit counselors $11.02
identity theft $11.00
make money at home $10.84
free credit $10.76
cash advance $10.64
consumer credit counseling $10.63
freecreditreport $10.61
make money from home $10.35
free credit reports $10.26
make extra money $10.21
domain registration $10.19
adwords $10.08
citifinancial $10.06
my fico score $10.01
web hosting $09.88
American express credit $09.71
airlines credit card $09.52
credit report $09.52
earn money $09.51
hard drive recovery $09.49
hard money lenders $09.44
credit counseling service $09.44
consolidate $09.41
claims $09.20
debt consolidation $09.10
poor credit $09.09
low interest $08.89
web host $08.64
student credit cards $08.63
secured $08.60
merchant account application $08.59
loans $08.57
send money to India $08.43
discover credit $08.40
merchant accounts $08.39
hosting $08.35
money on the internet $08.34
credit loans $08.33
consumer credit $08.32
money making ideas $08.26
credit card applications $08.23
money lenders $08.10
discover credit card $08.09
money loans $08.08
dept help $08.01
credit card services $08.01
consolidation $07.94
ways to make money $07.84
student credit $07.73
online credit report $07.66
how to make money $07.51
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accept credit cards $07.43
student loan $07.43
internet money $07.39
credit repair $07.32
free credit check $07.28
bad credit $07.26
money making $07.21
SEO $07.18
University Degrees Online $07.16
credit card application $07.05
consolidating $07.05
people with bad credit $07.05
car loans $07.05
money fast $07.03
money now $06.88
household automotive $06.76
personal credit $06.73
money at home $06.72
bad debt $06.69
lenders $06.68
auto loans $06.63
making money online $06.61
Point of sale software $06.55
interest credit cards $06.53
credit history $06.53
lending $06.39
business credit $06.32
money to India $06.31
debt $06.17
online credit $06.15
student credit card $06.14
hard money $06.10
webhosting $06.06
credit cards $06.04
make money $05.97
credit application $05.96
online credit card $05.96
chase credit $05.90
interest credit $05.89
Equifax credit $05.89
video conference $05.88
credit card offers $05.88
American credit $05.86
credit card fraud $05.82
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money market account $05.55
mbna credit $05.54
for credit $05.48
webhost $05.48
pengar $05.47
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money market accounts $05.43
best credit cards $05.40
credit reporting agency $05.39
credit card debt $05.36
credit checks $05.36
visa credit $05.36
credit check $05.29
secured credit cards $05.26
one credit card $05.25
Credit report $05.24
i need money $05.16
low interest credit $05.15
credit services $05.08
credit reporting $05.06
preapproved $05.04
online approval $05.04
credit card rates $05.02
credit score $05.00

Use Google as your free proxy

2005-12-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

Access restricted web sites, using Google language tools service as a proxy.

by: bigthistle

Ok, let's start from the beginning. We all know that Google is more than a search engine; we do use it as provider for email, mapping, news and many other services. Google is now also a free proxy service. Proxy is a device that stands between a PC and the internet, providing all the connections to the world wide web. What a proxy does is to receive all data from a requested site, so when you access web pages all data come from proxy.

What's the purpose for Google as a proxy? We often use office/school/university connections, usually those services are set to provide more safety, blocking the access to undesidered web sites (the "black list"). What you can do now is use Google translator service (language tools) as a proxy to bypass the restrictions set for our connection!

You just need to type the following URL:

http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.forbiddensite.com
(www.forbiddensite.com stands for the URL you need to go to...)

What you'll get is the translation (english to english!) of the page you want to see... your connection is directed to a google.com page so this page won't be blocked (would be blocked only with google.com on the black list), no matter what's the content.

Notice that the URL has been a little hacked because the parameter "langpair"⁽¹⁾ is set to "en|en" (english/english) so the page is processed by Google but you can keep the original language of the page (no need to translate!). If you need another language (e.g. french) you just need to set the parameter langpair to "fr|fr" and you'll be able to read french pages in french!

A couple of examples:

english... http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=jheps.blogspot.com

Last but not least: if you use this trick, you're not sure to protect your privacy, this kind of connection lets you see blacklisted pages but doesn't hide your IP address. Just go to http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.whatismyip.com to see your IP is not hidden...

That's all, bye.

Turn the looks of your Windows XP into a Mac

2005-12-19T03:33:00.000-08:00

WinOSX 2

WinOSX is an installer which can customize your whole system very easily : windows, controls, Finder, Dock, shadows, and many other features. If you don't like some features or the complete pack, you can uninstall some components or the full software safely.

So, if you are a Mac user who recently switched to Windows, or if you just think that Macs have a far better look than Windows, WinOSX is for you ! Change easiely the interface of Windows XP into a Mac OS X one !

Download the WinOSX 2 here.

FlyakiteOSX

FlyakiteOSX is a transformation pack. It will transform the look of an ordinary Windows XP+ system to resemble the look of Mac OS X. The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc. FlyakiteOSX DOES NOT contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. All files needed for FlyakiteOSX are stored in the Windows directory in a folder named 'FlyakiteOSX' that is hidden by default. All registry values for FlyakiteOSX are written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FlyakiteOSX.

Download FlyakiteOSX here.

Top Internet Keywords

2005-12-18T03:35:00.000-08:00

The most searched words on the internet

Ok, so maybe you'll ask, "what is it to me to know the top internet keywords?".. well, a lot.. if you are an advertiser or a subscriber of Google Adwords, you would wan't to know the top words that are searched for in the internet. By having these keywords in your content or meta tags, you have a higher chance of being on top of the results from the search engines. This mean that you will drive more traffic to your site and more page impressions on your ads.

So, here it is:

A
Academy Awards, All your base are belong to us, Alltheweb, Altavista, Alyssa Milano, Amateur, Amazon, American Express, American Music Awards, Ampland, Andrea Thompson, Angelia Jolie, Animated Graphics, Anna K Virus, Anna Kournikova, AOL, Appartments, Applet, Assian, Atkins Diet, Attila the Hun, Auctions, Austin Powers, Australian Open, Automobiles, AVI

B
Backstreet Boys, Bands, Barbie, Baseball, Beach, Beanie Babies, Beatles, Bible, Big Brother, Bikinis, Black and White, Black History Month, Blair Witch Project, Blink 182, Blink-182, BMW, Books, Brad Pitt, Bradley Chait, Britney Spears, Brooke Burke, Bruce Lee, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bussiness

C
Capital Punishment, Carmen Electra, Cars, Casinos, Cats, CD Roms, Celebrity, Census, Charlie's Angels, Chat, Cheats, Chinesse New Year, Christina Aguilera, Christmas, Chrono Cross, Chyna, Cindy Crawford, Cindy Margolis, Claire Swire, Classified, Cliff Notes, Clip Art, Coca Cola, Codes, College Football, Colleges, Compaq, Computers, Cookie Recipes, Costumes, Coyote Ugly

D
Dale Earnhardt, Darva Conger, David Blaine, Day of the Dead, Daytona 500, Dean Kamen, Death Penalty, Denisse Richards, Destiny's Child, Detroit Auto Show, Diablo 2, Diet, Digimon, Digital Cameras, Disney, Diwali, DMX, Dogs, Domains, Download, Dr. Dree, Dragonball, Dreamcast, Drudge Report, DVD

E
E Cards, Easter, EBay, Election 2000, Ellis Island, Eminem, Emmy Awards, Entertainment, Excite

F
Family, Fans, Fast Search, Father's Day, Female, Final Fantasy, Firestone Tires, Flowers, Fonts, Food, Foot and Mouth Desease, Football, Ford, Free, Free Games, Freebies, FreeNet, Freeware, Friends, FTP, Fun, Funny

G
Games, Geena Davis, Genealogy, Getaway, Gladiator, Gnutella, Go, Golden Globes, Golf, Golf Clubs, Google, GoTo, Graduation, Grammy Awards, Greek Mithology, Greeting Cards, Grinch, Groundhog Day, Gundam Wing, Guns

H
Half Life Counter Strike, Halloween, Hannibal, Harley Davidson, Harry Potter, Health, Hewlett Packard, History, Holocaust, Honda, Horoscopes, HotBot, Hotels, Hotmail, Houses, Howard Stern, Humor

I
Ian Thorpe, Icons, ICQ, Ifoseek, iMesh, Internet, Internet Explorer, IRS, Israel & Palestine, IT/Ginger

J
Java, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Alba, Jewerly, Jobs, Joey Ramone, Jokes, Justin Timberlake

K
Kid Rock, Korn

L
Lara Kroft, Las Vegas, Leonardo Di Caprio, Limp Bizkit, Lingerie, Links, Linux, Loft Story, Look Smart, Lord of the Rings, Love Poems, Love Stories, Lycos, Lyrics

M
Mac, Mad Cow Disease, Madonna, Magazines, Majora's Mask, Male, Maps, Mardi Gras, Mariah Carey, Marijuana, Marketing, Martha Stewart, Martin Luther King Jr., Matrix, Mcafee, Melboune Cup, Men, Mercedes Benz, Metallica, Metasearch, MGM, Michael Jordan, Microsoft, Microsoft XBox, Midi, MIR, MIRC, Miss World, Moon Landing, Mortage Rates, Mother's Day, Movies, MP3, MSN, MTV Awards, Music, Music Videos,

N
'N Sync, Napster, NASA, Nascar, NBA, NCAA Basketball, NEAR-Shoemaker, Nelly, Net, Netscape, New Year, New York Mets, New York Times, News, Newspapers, NFL, Nicole Kidman, Niki Taylor, Nintendo, Nostradamus, NY Yankees

O
Olympics, Online, Open Directory, Oprah Winfrey, Oscar, O-Town, Outlaw Star, Outlook Express

P
Paint Shop, Pam Anderson, Pamela Anderson, Panasonic, Paranormal, Paris, Passwords, Paula Jones, Pearl Harbor, Penelope Cruz, Penthouse, People, Pepsi Cola. Periodic Table, Personal Homepages, Personals, Photos, Pictures, PlayBoy, Playstation 2, Poetry, Pokemon, Pokemon Gold, Pop Music, Portalmix, Powerball, Pregnancy, Programs, Prom Dresses, Prom Hairstyles, Publishers Clearing House

Q
Quotes, Quotation

R
Radio, Ralph Nader, Ramadan, Rap Lyrics, Real Audio, Recipes, Ricky Martin, Robert Blake, Rock Music, Rosh Hashana, Russell Crowe

S
Sable, Sailor Moon, Samsung, Santa Claus, Scholarships, Science Fair Projects, Scooters, Screensavers, Search Engines, Shakespeare, Shania Twain, Shannon Elisabeth, Shopping, SI Swimsuit Issue, Simpsons, Sims, Sites, Skateboarding, Snowboarding, Soccer, Software, Solar Eclipse, Songs, Sony, South Park, Spice Girls, Sports, Sports Illustrated, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stars, Stephen King, Sterling Marlin, Stock Quotes, SULFNBK Virus, Summer Olympics, Sun, Super Bowl, Super Bowl Commercials, Surfing, Survivor, Swimming Pools, Swimsuits

T
Tatiana Grigorieva, Tattoos, Taxes, Technology, Teen, Teletubbies, Television, Temptation Island, Tenchi Muyo, Tennis, Terra, Textbooks, Thaksgiving, The Beatles, The Bible, The British Open, The Census, The Death Penalty, The Grinch, The Holocaust, The IRS, The NFL, The Olympics, The Perfect Storm, The Rock, The Simpsons, The Sims, The US Open, The WWF, The X-Files, The X-Men, Titanic, Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, Tool, Tour de France, Toys, Travel, Tupac Sharuk, TV

U
U.S. Postal Service, U2, UFOS, Universal Pictures, USA

V
Vacation, Valetine's Day, Verizon Strike, Videos, Vietnam War, Virtual, Virus

W
Wallpapers, Warner Bross, Weather, Web, WebCrawler, Webs, Websites, Wimbledon, Winamp, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Winzip, Witchcraft, Women, World War I, World War II, Wrestling

X
X Files, X Men, XFL, XFL Cheerleaders

Y
Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Young

Z
Zelda

GHACKS: How to Secure your Wireless Network

2005-12-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

By: Martin in GHACKS Security

A friend of mine moved to a new house and had to change his internet provider as well. The room with the computer and the one with the phone line were not close to each other and he decided to buy a wireless lan router and use it to connect to the internet.

We had to do a scan of the surroundings of course and found lots of unsecured wireless lan networks. I don´t know why people keep these unsecured, maybe its laziness, maybe they simply don´t know the risks involved. Its like leaving your doors open when you leave your house. Lots of things can happen..

Others could use your internet connection to surf the web, to spam, download copyrighted files or hack other servers, and do even worse stuff. All using your connection. Guess on whose door the police will be knocking ?

Router / Access Point

This is your main configuration unit. If someone gets access to it he will be able to change lots of preferences like passwords, encryption and mac address. Most routers have default passwords and SSID´s which have to be changed by their owner to make the entire system more secure.

1. Default Login

Your first task is to change the default user login to something else. Routers normally have default usernames and passwords like admin / 0000 or similar. You normally configure your wlan router using a web browser and the routers ip. Those are the username and password you enter when you want to change the configuration.

2. Updates

Visit the manufactures website and look for updates for your router / access point. Often those updates include security updates as well, recommended to to every once in a while.

3. Infrastructure / Ad-Hoc

With infrastructure mode enabled all deviced connected to the wireless lan communicate through the access point / router while the Ad-Hoc mode allows for direct communication. Disable Ad-Hoc mode if available.

4. SSID

The SSID, Service Set Identifier, identifies your router. Companies use default ones like wireless or wlan which are easy to guess. Choose a more secure password, best is a combination of letters and numbers.

Disable the SSID Broadcasting, which transmits its name to everyone in range.Wireless stations searching for a network connection can ‘discover’ it automatically, not needed if you know the SSID and configure your computers the way. It does not make sense to change the name but leave broadcasting on.

Note its still possible to sniff the SSID, its still send in clear text when a client associates with the router / access point.

5. Pings

Turn of Broadcast pings on the access point / router this makes it invisible to 802.11b analysis tools.

6. Mac Address Filtering

Every network device has in theory a unique MAC address. You can configure your access point / router the way that it only accepts connections from the mac address(es) you specify. Its possible to sniff your mac addresses and fake them, don´t rely on this alone.

On windows open the command prompt and enter ipconfig /all

The Physical Address is your MAC address, make sure you selected the right device, a wlan pci card for example.

If you are not using windows go to this website, it explains how you find it on your operating system.

7. Remote Management

Disable if not needed.

8. WPA, WPA2 or WEP

If your access point offers WPA2 encryption use it. WPA2 uses AES encryption. If you have an older access point use WPA and as last resort use WEP. Make sure you chose passwords that are more or less immune against dictionary attacks and chose the highest available encryption option (232 ->104 -> 40)

9. Wlan Coverage

It does not make sense most of the time to provide wlan coverage for a wider area than your own appartment. You can experiment with lowering the transmit level and the use of directional antennas to reduce the area your wlan covers.

Its a good idea to change the encryption keys and the SSID every now and then. The best protection is of course to turn your wireless network off if you don´t need it.

Ravi's Top 10 Linux Ubuntu Sites

2005-12-10T03:46:00.000-08:00

I'm a Linux SUSE user, but somehow I also use Ubuntu a lot of times on my other machines... you may ask why I haven't migrate totally to SUSE? Well, Ubuntu is such a great distribution and I myself also recommends this distro to friends. I like SUSE because of its almost perfect integration to KDE, but when it comes to GNOME, Ubuntu has done a very good job, is very easy to use and stable.. I've been visiting several help sites for Ubuntu and below is a list originally collected at All About Linux Blog. I totally agree with Ravi that these sites are great Ubuntu help sites...

1) ubuntulinux.org - This is the official site of Ubuntu Linux. All Ubuntu enthusiasts should make this the starting point of their journey towards embracing Ubuntu. On this site, you can get the latest official news related to this project, place orders for your free Ubuntu Cd's and search or browse for a particular package for your version of Ubuntu among other things.

2) help.ubuntu.com - This is the official documentation site for Ubuntu Linux developed and maintained by the Ubuntu documentation project. This is the first place any Ubuntu user must go to get his problem solved. While you are here, do not forget to visit the FAQ Section on this site.

3) wiki.ubuntu.com - This is a part of the official Ubuntu project and as you can see is a wiki. A wiki can be edited by anybody a good example of a wiki being the wikipedia project. On the Ubuntu wiki, you can get a wealth of information about configuring this distribution. First time visitors to this site may be interested in checking the Help Contents page. A section which is specially interesting is the Restricted Formats section which gives tips on getting support for proprietary file formats in Ubuntu.

4) ubuntuforums.org - This is a high traffic web forum where you can post queries you have and get your doubts clarified. You need to first register to post in this forum. But just searching this forum will throw up a wealth of information a.k.a the issues that others faced and the solutions to these issues.

5) ubuntuguide.org - This guide is not affiliated with the official Ubuntu project but claims to be an unofficial FAQ where you can find solutions to getting your problems solved in Ubuntu. This site takes a How-To approach in giving the answers. Though recently, this site has become a bit outdated as I ran into some problem while configuring Ubuntu Breezy according to their directions. Nevertheless a very good site.

6) doc.gwos.org - This is a site which hosts the documentation for all flavours of Ubuntu. This site is maintained by the ubuntuforumn.org guys themselves and contains information in a more structured format. One page which might interest the Ubuntu users while on this site could be the Hardware Compatibility Guide.

7) Ubuntu Blog - This is a very good blog maintained by a Ubuntu enthusiast and as the name of the blog indicates, exclusively caters to all things related to the Ubuntu distribution. Here you can get latest news, links to popular sites and experiences of the blog author in getting things done in Ubuntu Linux.

8) fridge.ubuntu.com - This site claims to be an information hub for the Ubuntu community bringing together news, grassroots marketing, advocacy, team collaboration, and great original content. This is a site you can enter in your watch list if you are interested in knowing about the happenings in the Ubuntu world.

Automate all the Ubuntu housekeeping tasks

The next two sites list scripts which can be downloaded and used on your system to get support for a lot of proprietary features in Ubuntu without any (or very little ) user intervention.

9) Automatix - This is a script which can be used to get mp3, wmv, quick time, encrypted DVD support and more on Ubuntu and all this as the name indicates rather automatically. All the user has to do is run the script. Unfortunately, this project is not supported any longer but the users can still download the script and use it.

10) Easy Breezy - On this site you can get another script which helps in automating the tasks of getting proprietary file support in Ubuntu Breezy v5.10. The author claims it to be a safer alternative to another well known project.

Boost Your Windows PC and Internet

2005-12-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

Boosting up ur CPU really do affects the speed of your internet connection. You may follow these steps:

PLEASE!!! ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR SYSTEM FIRST BEFORE U CHANGE ANYTHING AND USE THE GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK, thanks (to do this click start and click RUN then type "regedit" w/o " " the click EXPORT then type a file name or just put regbackup) just in case u messed up, just double click the regbackup file were u saved it.

To increase system performance

Right click my computer. Click properties.
Click advanced.
Click settings (under performance).
Click Adjust for best performance.
Scroll to the bottom and check the last one “use visual styles on windows and buttons”.

These Settings will fine tune your systems memory

You need at least 256MB of ram to do this:

Go to start\run\regedit -and then to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive yeilds faster performance.

2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory and improves system performance a lot.

3.Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set the value in hex - 4000 if you have 128MB of ram or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB set it to 40000 if you have more than 512MB of ram -this tweak will speed up your disckcache.

Reboot

Tweak The Swap File

For Users with 256 MB RAM or more this tweak will boost their Windows- and Game-Performance.
What it does: It tells Windows not to use any Swap File until there is really no more free RAM left.

Open the System Configuration Utility by typing msconfig.exe in the RUN command. There in your System.ini you have to add "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" under the 386enh section.

Restart your Windows and enjoy better Game performance

Disable Services

XP Pro runs a lot of services by default that are pointless if your not on a corporate network, the following services are ones that I safely disable thereby freeing up memory but check what each one does first to make sure your not using it for something:

Go to Run and type services.msc, right click on each service, properties and choose disable.

Alerter
Application Management
Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

Speed Up The File System

NTFS is a great file system, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost in performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:

* By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenever a directory is traversed. This isn't a necessary feature, and it slows down large volumes. Disable it by going to Run and type regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and set 'DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate' to 1.

* NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting aside a little space, MFT's can grow without becoming fragmented.

In the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new DWORD value called 'NtfsMftZoneReservation' and set it to 2.

Disable DLL Caching

Windows Explorer caches DLLs (Dynamic-Link Libraries) in memory for a period of time after the application using them has been closed. This can be an inefficient use of memory.

1. Find the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer].

2. Create a new DWORD sub-key named 'AlwaysUnloadDLL' and set the default value to equal '1' to disable Windows caching the DLL in memory.

3. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Tweak The Prefetch

1. Run "Regedit"
2. Goto [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher]

3. Set the value to either 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is recommended).

4. Reboot.

It will decrease the boot time but double and increase the performance of your XP.

SpeedUp Your Connection By 20% (Cable/DSL Users Only)
1.Log on as "Administrator".
2. Run - gpedit.msc
3. Expand the "Local Computer Policy" branch.
4. Then expand the "Administrative Templates" branch.
5. Expand the "Network" branch.
6. Highlight the "QoS Packet Scheduler" in left pane.
7. In the right window pane double-click the "Limit Reservable Bandwidth" setting.
8. On the settings tab check the "Enabled" item.
9. Change "Bandwidth limit %" to read 0.
10. Then go to your Network connections Start=>Control Panel>Network & Internet connections>Network Connections and right-click on your connection. Then under the General or the Networking tab, (where it lists your protocols) make sure QoS packet scheduler is enabled.

It may take effect immediately on some systems. To be sure, just re-boot.

Some Top Paying Google Adsense Keywords

2005-12-05T03:14:00.000-08:00

Google Adsense has become a major money source for webmasters. By displaying Ads from Google to any webpage, the webmaster is paid per click on the ads. But before an ad could be clicked, the webmaster should find a way to drive traffic to their site, therefore, playing with keywords is a vital technique in order to drive traffic to their site. Some top Google Adsense keywords are enumerated below, with some advertisers willing to pay as much as $49.00 per click! The keywords below are grouped according to category and the numbers on the right are the amount an advertiser is willing to pay per click. Happy Googling! =)

Health and Life

peritoneal mesothelioma 48.38
mesothelioma 33.83
mesothelioma symptoms 31.41
mesothelioma info 25.79
asbestos cancer 19.34
asbestos mesothelioma 19.06
prostate cancer treatment 17.20
malignant pleural mesothelioma 16.30
asbestos 11.55
prostate cancer 11.07
lexapro and alcohol 10.27
asbestos lung cancer 10.12

Loans

eloan 33.27
eloan com 28.47
equity line of credit 23.46
consolidate loans 21.03
home equity loans 20.98
home equity line of credit 18.65
credit repair 14.76
chase credit 14.12
credit counseling 13.98
consumer credit counseling 11.68
line of credit 11.12
capital one credit 11.07

Insurance

cheap term life insurance 20.10
home insurance quote 16.18
home owner insurance 15.65
group health insurance 14.10
health insurance cost 13.89
auto cheap insurance 12.90
american general life insurance 12.74
life insurance broker 11.73
direct car insurance 11.12
cheap health insurance 8.62
cheap insurance 8.07
insurances 6.70

Law

mesothelioma lawyers 48.61
vioxx attorney 37.22
lexington law firm 33.91
lexington law 31.43
texas lemon law 19.68
car lemon law 19.26
find a lawyer 14.18
accident lawyer 11.50
find an attorney 9.58
bankruptcy attorney 8.58
seattle personal injury attorney 7.36
florida medical malpractice lawyer 5.80

Car Hire

alicante car hire 27.24
alicante airport car hire 22.65
car hire malaga 17.31
car hire in malaga 15.39
car hire florida 13.74
rental car in costa rica 13.06
car hire spain 11.81
budget car hire 11.67
car hire in spain 11.43
car hire malaga airport 10.90
car hire malaga spain 19.49
cyprus car hire 9.25

Domain

domain name search 27.24
domain name lookup 22.65
purchase domain name 17.31
cheap domain names 15.39
internet domain registration 13.74
register internet name 13.06
cheap domain 11.81
registering domain name 11.67
domain search 11.43
registering domain 10.90
register domain names 19.49
domain name 9.25

Web Hosting

dedicated hosting 15.34
ecommerce hosting 12.13
best hosting 11.26
register web page 11.24
cheap hosting 11.11
cheap web hosting 9.57
hosting reviews 8.94
cheap asp hosting 8.86
domain hosting 8.85
linux hosting 8.83
web hosting 8.59
register a web site 8.12

Computer

computer rental uk 13.71
projector rental 12.83
computer rental 11.00
hard drive recovery 8.24
microsoft certification 8.20
wireless security camera 6.12
online computer science degree 5.64
dell computer 5.50
gateway computer 5.42
computer phone system 5.36
computer leasing 5.28
computer based training 4.27

Software

anti spam software 13.71
medical billing software 12.83
help desk software 11.00
debt solutions 8.24
email marketing software 8.20
call center software 6.12
survey software 5.64
crm software 5.50
scheduling software 5.42
nursing pda software 5.36
mlm software 5.28
pda medical software 4.27

Anti-Spam

anti spam software 12.25
spam 12.06
anti virus protection 5.50
spy software 5.50
anti virus 5.42
anti virus software 4.89
anti virus downloads 3.90
free anti spy ware 3.76
spyware blocker 3.06
removing spyware 3.05
adware spyware removal 3.04
anti virus download 3.02

Webmaster

affiliate marketing 12.90
payperclick 11.05
adwords 8.97
search engine marketing company 8.91
affiliate programs 8.77
per click 8.18
sponsored links 7.70
pay per click 6.38
making money on the internet 6.32
email marketing 6.25
make money on the internet 5.35
pay for click 4.88

Money

money exchange rates 8.58
make extra money 7.91
make money fast and easy 7.85
make money quick 7.44
ways to make money fast 7.13
hard money lenders 6.70
money at home 6.57
making money on the internet 6.32
make money from home 6.21
make money at home 6.12
money making ideas 6.00
money lenders 5.71

VoIP

voip canada 11.40
voip test 9.69
att voip 8.94
voip testing 8.22
lingo voip 7.81
vonage voip 7.38
voip service 6.87
voip equipment 6.75
home voip 5.83
residential voip 5.80
voip training 5.52
business voip 5.45

Debt

debt problems 11.69
debt consolidation services 11.44
consolidate credit card debt 11.34
debt solutions 10.43
online debt consolidation 9.19
debt consolidation 8.86
debt 8.48
debt management 8.38
credit and debt counseling 8.03
debt consolidation information 7.27
bad debt 4.51
debt free management 3.04

Credit Card

capital one credit card 11.42
student credit cards 11.21
low interest credit card 10.51
accept credit cards 10.46
airlines credit card 10.38
visa gift card 10.33
student credit card 9.41
credit card processing 8.72
credit card applications 8.14
credit card services 7.66
visa cards 7.36
one credit card 7.32

Finance

lendingtree 18.50
fha refinance 12.27
ocean finance 12.12
budget rental 11.94
refinance second mortgage 11.60
incorporate in arizona 11.20
should i refinance 10.46
consolidate 10.39
merchant account 10.17
current mortgage rate 9.84
why incorporate 9.51
online future trading 9.22

Telephone

at t phone 14.95
voip phone service 10.52
voip phone system 8.19
att cellular phone 7.94
broadband phone 7.27
satellite phone rental 7.20
satellite phone 6.87
cingular cellular phone 6.82
internet phone 6.36
voip phone 4.82
phone system 4.73
cingular cell phone 4.68

Degree

online degree 13.22
education degree online 12.56
criminal justice degree online 11.48
degree education on line 10.71
online accounting degree 9.92
online paralegal degree 9.41
online nursing degree 8.59
mba degree online 8.06
online psychology degree 8.01
master degree on line 7.64
online master degree 7.20
degree at home 6.25

Dating

adult friend finder 11.16
her first lesbian sex 8.01
friend finder 7.52
adult friend 7.19
adultfriendfinder 5.92
datingagency 4.60
free online dating 3.72
dating 2.61
datingservice 2.37
friend 2.08
datingsites 2.01
datingsite 1.68

Technology

video conferencing 9.01
att wireless ringtone 8.40
data recovery los angeles 8.31
data recovery service 7.93
hard drive recovery 7.75
online data backup 7.75
cheap conference call 6.84
cable company 6.50
dsl provider 6.26
high speed satellite internet 6.21
dsl internet 5.78
fax services 5.21

Steps To Deface A Webpage (About Defacers)

2005-12-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

by: b0iler

First of all, I do not deface, I never have (besides friends sites as jokes and all in good fun), and never will. So how do I know how to deface? I guess I just picked it up on the way, so I am no expert in this. If I get a thing or two wrong I apoligize. It is pretty simple when you think that defacing is just replacing a file on a computer. Now, finding the exploit in the first place, that takes skill, that takes knowledge, that is what real hackers are made of. I don't encourage that you deface any sites, as this can be used get credit cards, get passwords, get source code, billing info, email databases, etc.. (it is only right to put up some kind of warning. now go have fun ;)

This tutorial will be broken down into 3 main sections, they are as followed:
1. Finding Vuln Hosts.
2. Getting In.
3. Covering Your Tracks

It really is easy, and I will show you how easy it is.

1. Finding Vuln Hosts
This section needs to be further broken down into two catigories of script kiddies: ones who scan the net for a host that is vuln to a certain exploit and ones who search a certain site for any exploit. The ones you see on alldas are the first kind, they scan thousands of sites for a specific exploit. They do not care who they hack, anyone will do. They have no set target and not much of a purpose. In my opinion these people should either have a cause behind what they are doing, ie. "I make sure people keep up to date with security, I am a messanger" or "I am spreading a political message, I use defacments to get media attention". People who deface to get famous or to show off their skills need to grow up and relize there is a better way of going about this (not that I support the ones with other reasons ether). Anyways, the two kinds and what you need to know about them:

Scanning Script Kiddie: You need to know what signs of the hole are, is it a service? A certain OS? A CGI file? How can you tell if they are vuln? What version(s) are vuln? You need to know how to search the net to find targets which are running whatever is vuln. Use altavista.com or google.com for web based exploits. Using a script to scan ip ranges for a certain port that runs the vuln service. Or using netcraft.com to find out what kind of server they are running and what extras it runs (frontpage, php, etc..) nmap and other port scanners allow quick scans of thousands of ips for open ports. This is a favorate technique of those guys you see with mass hacks on alldas.

Targetted Site Script Kiddie: More respectable then the script kiddies who hack any old site. The main step here is gathering as much information about a site as possible. Find out what OS they run at netcraft or by using: telnet www.site.com 80 then GET / HTTP/1.1 Find out what services they run by doing a port scan. Find out the specifics on the services by telnetting to them. Find any cgi script, or other files which could allow access to the server if exploited by checking /cgi /cgi-bin and browsing around the site (remember to index browse)

Wasn't so hard to get the info was it? It may take awhile, but go through the site slowly and get all the information you can.

2. Getting In
Now that we got the info on the site we can find the exploit(s) we can use to get access. If you were a scanning script kiddie you would know the exploit ahead of time. A couple of great places to look for exploits are Security Focus and packetstorm. Once you get the exploit check and make sure that the exploit is for the same version as the service, OS, script, etc.. Exploits mainly come in two languages, the most used are C and perl. Perl scripts will end in .pl or .cgi, while C will end in .c To compile a C file (on *nix systems) do gcc -o exploit12 file.c then: ./exploit12 For perl just do: chmod 700 file.pl (not really needed) then: perl file.pl. If it is not a script it might be a very simple exploit, or just a theory of a possible exploit. Just do alittle research into how to use it. Another thing you need to check is weither the exploit is remote or local. If it is local you must have an account or physical access to the computer. If it is remote you can do it over a network (internet).

Don't go compiling exploits just yet, there is one more important thing you need to know

Covering Your Tracks
So by now you have gotten the info on the host inorder to find an exploit that will allow you to get access. So why not do it? The problem with covering your tracks isn't that it is hard, rather that it is unpredictable. just because you killed the sys logging doesn't mean that they don't have another logger or IDS running somewhere else. (even on another box). Since most script kiddies don't know the skill of the admin they are targetting they have no way of knowing if they have additional loggers or what. Instead the script kiddie makes it very hard (next to impossible) for the admin to track them down. Many use a stolden or second isp account to begin with, so even if they get tracked they won't get caught. If you don't have the luxery of this then you MUST use multiple wingates, shell accounts, or trojans to bounce off of. Linking them together will make it very hard for someone to track you down. Logs on the wingates and shells will most likely be erased after like 2-7 days. That is if logs are kept at all. It is hard enough to even get ahold of one admin in a week, let alone further tracking the script kiddie down to the next wingate or shell and then getting ahold of that admin all before the logs of any are erased. And it is rare for an admin to even notice an attack, even a smaller percent will actively pursue the attacker at all and will just secure their box and forget it ever happend. For the sake of arugment lets just say if you use wingates and shells, don't do anything to piss the admin off too much (which will get them to call authoritizes or try to track you down) and you deleting logs you will be safe. So how do you do it?

We will keep this very short and too the point, so we'll need to get a few wingates. Wingates by nature tend to change IPs or shutdown all the time, so you need an updated list or program to scan the net for them. You can get a list of wingates that is well updated at http://www.cyberarmy.com/lists/wingate/ and you can also get a program called winscan there. Now lets say we have 3 wingates:

212.96.195.33 port 23
202.134.244.215 port 1080
203.87.131.9 port 23

to use them we go to telnet and connect to them on port 23. we should get a responce like this:

CSM Proxy Server >

to connect to the next wingate we just type in it's ip:port

CSM Proxy Server >202.134.244.215:1080
If you get an error it is most likely to be that the proxy you are trying to connect to isn't up, or that you need to login to the proxy. If all goes well you will get the 3 chained together and have a shell account you are able to connect to. Once you are in your shell account you can link shells together by:

[j00@server j00]$ ssh 212.23.53.74

You can get free shells to work with until you get some hacked shells, here is a list of free shell accounts. And please remember to sign up with false information and from a wingate if possible.

SDF (freeshell.org) - http://sdf.lonestar.org
GREX (cyberspace.org) - http://www.grex.org
NYX - http://www.nxy.net
ShellYeah - http://www.shellyeah.org
HOBBITON.org - http://www.hobbiton.org
FreeShells - http://www.freeshells.net
DucTape - http://www.ductape.net
Free.Net.Pl (Polish server) - http://www.free.net.pl
XOX.pl (Polish server) - http://www.xox.pl
IProtection - http://www.iprotection.com
CORONUS - http://www.coronus.com
ODD.org - http://www.odd.org
MARMOSET - http://www.marmoset.net
flame.org - http://www.flame.org
freeshells - http://freeshells.net.pk
LinuxShell - http://www.linuxshell.org
takiweb - http://www.takiweb.com
FreePort - http://freeport.xenos.net
BSDSHELL - http://free.bsdshell.net
ROOTshell.be - http://www.rootshell.be
shellasylum.com - http://www.shellasylum.com
Daforest - http://www.daforest.org
FreedomShell.com - http://www.freedomshell.com
LuxAdmin - http://www.luxadmin.org
shellweb - http://shellweb.net
blekko - http://blekko.net

once you get on your last shell you can compile the exploit, and you should be safe from being tracked. But lets be even more sure and delete the evidence that we were there.

Alright, there are a few things on the server side that all script kiddies need to be aware of. Mostly these are logs that you must delete or edit. The real script kiddies might even use a rootkit to automaticly delete the logs. Although lets assume you aren't that lame. There are two main logging daemons which I will cover, klogd which is the kernel logs, and syslogd which is the system logs. First step is to kill the daemons so they don't log anymore of your actions.

[root@hacked root]# ps -def | grep syslogd
[root@hacked root]# kill -9 pid_of_syslogd

in the first line we are finding the pid of the syslogd, in the second we are killing the daemon. You can also use /etc/syslog.pid to find the pid of syslogd.

[root@hacked root]# ps -def | grep klogd
[root@hacked root]# kill -9 pid_of_klogd

Same thing happening here with klogd as we did with syslogd.

now that killed the default loggers the script kiddie needs to delete themself from the logs. To find where syslogd puts it's logs check the /etc/syslog.conf file. Of course if you don't care if the admin knows you were there you can delete the logs completely. Lets say you are the lamest of the script kiddies, a defacer, the admin would know that the box has been comprimised since the website was defaced. So there is no point in appending the logs, they would just delete them. The reason we are appending them is so that the admin will not even know a break in has accurd. I'll go over the main reasons people break into a box:

To deface the website. - this is really lame, since it has no point and just damages the system.

To sniff for other network passwords. - there are programs which allow you to sniff other passwords sent from and to the box. If this box is on an ethernet network then you can even sniff packets (which contain passwords) that are destine to any box in that segment.

To mount a DDoS attack. - another lame reason, the admin has a high chance of noticing that you comprimised him once you start sending hundreds of MBs through his connection.

To mount another attack on a box. - this and sniffing is the most commonly used, not lame, reason for exploiting something. Since you now how a rootshell you can mount your attack from this box instead of those crappy freeshells. And you now have control over the logging of the shell.

To get sensitive info. - some corperate boxes have alot of valueable info on them. Credit card databases, source code for software, user/password lists, and other top secret info that a hacker may want to have.

To learn and have fun. - many people do it for the thrill of hacking, and the knowledge you gain. I don't see this as horrible a crime as defacing. as long as you don't destroy anything I don't think this is very bad. Infact some people will even help the admin patch the hole. Still illegal though, and best not to break into anyone's box.

I'll go over the basic log files: utmp, wtmp, lastlog, and .bash_history
These files are usually in /var/log/ but I have heard of them being in /etc/ /usr/bin/ and other places. Since it is different on alot of boxes it is best to just do a find / -iname 'utmp'|find / -iname 'wtmp'|find / -iname 'lastlog'. and also search threw the /usr/ /var/ and /etc/ directories for other logs. Now for the explanation of these 3.

utmp is the log file for who is on the system, I think you can see why this log should be appended. Because you do not want to let anyone know you are in the system. wtmp logs the logins and logouts as well as other info you want to keep away from the admin. Should be appended to show that you never logged in or out. and lastlog is a file which keeps records of all logins. Your shell's history is another file that keeps a log of all the commands you issued, you should look for it in your $ HOME directory and edit it, .sh_history, .history, and .bash_history are the common names. you should only append these log files, not delete them. if you delete them it will be like holding a big sign infront of the admin saying "You've been hacked". Newbie script kiddies often deface and then rm -rf / to be safe. I would avoid this unless you are really freaking out. In this case I would suggest that you never try to exploit a box again. Another way to find log files is to run a script to check for open files (and then manually look at them to determine if they are logs) or do a find for files which have been editted, this command would be: find / -ctime 0 -print

A few popular scripts which can hide your presence from logs include: zap, clear and cloak. Zap will replace your presence in the logs with 0's, clear will clear the logs of your presence, and cloak will replace your presence with different information. acct-cleaner is the only heavily used script in deleting account logging from my experience. Most rootkits have a log cleaning script, and once you installed it logs are not kept of you anyways. If you are on NT the logs are at C:\winNT\system32\LogFiles\, just delete them, nt admins most likely don't check them or don't know what it means if they are deleted.

One final thing about covering your tracks, I won't go to into detail about this because it would require a tutorial all to itself. I am talking about rootkits. What are rootkits? They are a very widely used tool used to cover your tracks once you get into a box. They will make staying hidden painfree and very easy. What they do is replace the binaries like login, ps, and who to not show your presence, ever. They will allow you to login without a password, without being logged by wtmp or lastlog and without even being in the /etc/passwd file. They also make commands like ps not show your processes, so no one knows what programs you are running. They send out fake reports on netstat, ls, and w so that everything looks the way it normally would, except anything you do is missing. But there are some flaws in rootkits, for one some commands produce strange effects because the binary was not made correctly. They also leave fingerprints (ways to tell that the file is from a rootkit). Only smart/good admins check for rootkits, so this isn't the biggest threat, but it should be concidered. Rootkits that come with a LKM (loadable kernel module) are usually the best as they can pretty much make you totally invisible to all others and most admins wouldn't be able to tell they were comprimised.

In writting this tutorial I have mixed feelings. I do not want more script kiddies out their scanning hundreds of sites for the next exploit. And I don't want my name on any shouts. I rather would like to have people say "mmm, that defacing crap is pretty lame" especially when people with no lives scan for exploits everyday just to get their name on a site for a few minutes. I feel alot of people are learning everything but what they need to know inorder to break into boxes. Maybe this tutorial cut to the chase alittle and helps people with some knowledge see how simple it is and hopefully make them see that getting into a system is not all it's hyped up to be. It is not by any means a full guide, I did not cover alot of things. I hope admins found this tutorial helpful aswell, learning that no matter what site you run you should always keep on top of the latest exploits and patch them. Protect yourself with IDS and try finding holes on your own system (both with vuln scanners and by hand). Also setting up an external box to log is not a bad idea. Admins should have also seen alittle bit into the mind of a script kiddie and learned a few things he does.. this should help you catch one if they break into your systems.

On one final note, defacing is lame. I know many people who have defaced in the past and regret it now. You will be labeled a script kiddie and a lamer for a long, long time.