Damn tiny computers for developers and geeks.

We are living in a very blessed age, with information super highways and terabytes of data at our finger tips. Tablets, laptops and smart phones are cool, but geeks with innovative ideas and lust for entertainment and control would love plug computers.
Plug computers are tiny computers mostly running Linux operating system. Features and components vary from device to device. Some of the plug computers have HDMI ports, USB ports, Ethernet ports, Wifi and expansion card slots. You can connect a portable hard disk to one of the USB ports and use the device as a DLNA server which streams audio and video to supported devices.

There are hundreds of uses including Security surveillance, web hosting, Media streaming etc.
A good practical use would be developing and deploying an IM bot which executes certain tasks such as updating your Facebook status, Sending an SMS etc, when you message the IM bot. Cool huh! All you need to do is command the bot through your favorite chat application.

What about running Smoothwall on the device? Smoothwall is a powerful open source firewall for the Linux OS. If your router's built-in firewall isn't enough for you, then Smoothwall is the answer.

In fact some of these devices are a development platform, on which you can deploy various applications. Its definitely a must have gadget for the geeky Geeks. Enjoy!

Keep track of your online life.

With dozens of social networking services, micro blogging and location aware services etc, it can get a lot confusing. Fortunately a group of tech enthusiasts had come up with an idea, on which they build the "Memolane". It is a service which integrates your online networks such as Facebook, twitter, Google services, etc. Later on you can view all your online activities in a neat time line.

However I was concerned about privacy here. Their terms and conditions say that they will fully co-operate with any authority and hand over the personal data if deemed necessary.

To add up, its a very nice service. Checkout the CEO/ Co Founder's Memolane http://bit.ly/pc82T2
And the following video from the site may convice you to sign up for the service which is  free.

Memolane - See, Search & Share from Memolane on Vimeo.

How to get your Google+ (Google lus) invite!

Update: Google+ invites working normally.

Google+ is the Google version of Facebook with better privacy and features. The top story on twitter and web is Google+ and the top search terms include "Google+ invitations". Google+ is still in the Beta, so only few people who are lucky, are allowed to peek a look at the service. My sister (unica princesa) sent me an Google+ invite. According to Lifehacker traditional invitaitons doesn't work anymore.
 So how did  unica princesa succeeded in  inviting me. Ok, here is what she did.

1. First,create a new Circle  then  add a new friend to that circle by email —the person you want to invite to Google+.
2. Then post to your stream and mention your friend in that post.
3. Ask your friend to check their email.

This method may or may not work, but there isn't any harm in doing so.. Go ahead, tell a friend already on Google+ how t give you an invite.

One of the coolest features of Google+ is the voice and video chat feature. No wonder why FB was hasty to introduce this feature. In my short experience I feel that Google+ is way better than Facebook.

Are you interested? I can try to invite a few guys, so that you can too have a peek at the Google+ before everyone does.

Crack your own Windows7 Password! Break into the Windows system.

Hi guys, good day to you.
Before we break into the Windows system lets prepare for the final challenge.
Most of us use Microsoft Windows in our daily office tasks. If you are a gamer, programmer or a journalist you are most likely be using Windows. Of course you can do without Windows, but it has become a sort of culture to use it, because majority of the users seek simplicity.

For geeks and Linux fans, running a smart OS like Linux from a flash drive would be more than fun. There are tons of possibilities such as running BackTrack, GParted, Ubuntu and other Linux flavors each of which is designed for special purposes. BackTrack is a security testing and assessment tool built n top of Linux kernel while GParted is designed for disk management. Ubuntu is a full featured operating system.

Preparation

Download your flavor of Linux from these download links.
GParted       - Disk Management
BackTrack   -Security Assessment and Testing
Ubuntu        -Full featured OS.
Xubuntu      -Full featured OS.

Download a Live USB creator tool.
UNebootin                     - Available for Mac, Windows and Linux
Live USB Install           -  Available for Windows and Linux
Universal USB Installer - Available for Windows
FUSBi                         - Available for Windows and Linux
YUMI                          - A multi boot installer (Windows only).

Installation

After downloading your favorite flavor of Linux and live USB creator tool, lets jump head first into installing Linux.

Run and install the live USB creator tool. In this case I am going to use UNebootin to install GParted (Disk Management Linux).

Firefox running on GParted (USB boot).

Automate your digital life, be the smarter guy who is always a step ahead..

Back in the stone age communication was so difficult that it may take more than a year to send a message from Asia to America. Only the people of that time can truly value the ease of communication today. However it came with a side effect. Our real life interaction is being replaced by virtual interaction through social media sites such as Facebook, Google+, MySpace etc.

COmmunication has developed to such an extent that our digital life is becoming a mere mess. Suppose you write a post on your blog,and you tweeted the link. And you also realized that you should share the link with your friends on Facebook,MySpace etc. However doing all those tasks manually and repetitively everyday can become a boring and difficult task. Thats where IfThisThenThat (ifttt) comes in.

You can create Triggers which will automatically tweet your link and share with your Facebook friends. You can even create a trigger which will SMS you if you recieve a new email. There are many possibilities. This is truly an amazing service.

ifttt is still in Beta and you will need an invitation code to join.
Use the invitation code CNETHOWTOALLSTARS to sign up for the service.

Enjoy!

Boost Router Wifi Signal With Poweful Custom Firmware.

I live in a fairly large house. Recently I setup wireless internet at my home. It is cool because you don't have to play around with the messy cables. However when I am in my room the signal strength decreases gradually. Of course the obvious solution was to buy a much powerful (and expensive!) wireless router. Luckily a friend suggested me to flash my router with a more powerful and customiazble firmware.He suggsted DD-WRT. I did some research on this firmware before I rushed into playing with my router. As it turns out DR-WRT is the most reliable and powerful router firware available - for free!

One of the great features of DD-WRT is the ability to update DNS-O-Matic service, which updates dyndns,

opendns and more servers with my current IP. If you are using your PC as a webserver or if you are using openDNS service you will probably need this feature, since most of the ISPS give dynamic IPS.  So every time you connect to the internet you are given a new IP address. This is just one of the many great features of DD-WRT.
There are more features like Wifi Hotspot, VPN, SSH access, Telnet access etc. And anyway after being convinced of the reliability of DD-WRT firmware I flashed my router, and behold, it was up and running in less than three minutes.

I looked around and saw Tx Power (transmit signal strength)  adjustments. I put in the value seventy two in the input box and applied the settings. It significantly boosted the WiFi signal strength. Afterall my day was saved, and I saved huge bucks! Its time for a casual coffee with my friend :)

DD-WRT supports almost all routers out there. So turning a cheap router into an expensive and feature rich router for free is real.

Premium access to Megaupload, Rapidshare for free leagally.

Talking about file sharing, it has always been cumbersome to deal with large files. Suppose you want to share a very large file such as a video you first think of raidshare, megaupload, hotfile, fileserve etc. After uploading you give your friend on the other side of the world the link to the file. It's fine if he/she happens to have a premium account which costs a lot of money, but what if she doesn't have a premium account. Of course Rapidshare, Megaupload and other services allow you to download the file, but without support for download resuming, and at a much slower speed.

Then the guy would google using keywords like "free premium megaupload accounts", "hacking rapidshare" etc. only to discover phishing sites.  I hope this post shows up on his / her google results.

Watch the video to learn how to access the mega file sharing services for free legally!

Make the wild internet safe for children.

Internet is a wild place indeed. It's wise to close all the paths to the wrong dens and caves, for the protection of our children. Then again some people may call this censorship, while the reality is quite the opposite. For those people arguing about censorship I like to say that there are ethical standards in every culture, tribe and community. For example would you call it censorship because we are wearing clothes?

Setting Up Filtering.
There is absolutely no need to buy and install parental control software, unless you specifically need to record and monitor what your kids or employees are up to. The solution to closing all the caves and dens you need to sign u for a FREE account at openDNS. They have a very user friendly documentation to setup their service.

For geeks it would suffice to say that you only need to configure your router / PC to use the following DNS servers.

Primary:               208.67.222.222
Alternate DNS:    208.67.220.220

You may also neet to filter all DNS traffic by using a firewall rule. For Dynamic IP addresses a light  weight tool is provided by openDNS to update your openDNS account with your currrent IP address which is needed by the openDNS server in order to apply the filters you specified in your account. By using openDNS you can filter access to all illegal websites.

 I did write about web filtering a while ago, but I thought I should refresh the article.

Go ahead and give it a try.