Hack a Windows Password In Minutes

How to hack a Windows Password

How to hack a Windows password
I've written about securing windows passwords before, but here's a video for those who are yet unaware of how windows computers are often compromised due to lack of knowledge on the user's side. Although the video exaggerates the fact that the password can be found quickly, in reality it takes a bit more time, although ultimately the password will most likely be cracked.

The same thing can happen to your wireless network, which can compromise the security of every single computer on your network. An attacker can even steal all your private information (passwords to online banking accounts, internet chats.. you name it) if you use a computer that is not connected to the network through a cable. So take my word for it and protect your wireless network before attempting to increase the speed of your wireless network.

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Back up your blogger / blogspot posts and blog

Blogger gives you a great free blog hosting facility, but unfortunately if something were to happen their servers, all the your carefully composed posts will perish along with it. Along with that, when something is offered free you never know when they are going to stop giving it away for free, so its best to always back up your blog - no matter which blogging/CMS system you use!

Hopefully since blogger is now owned by Google they'll continue to provide this service for blogging enthusiasts like me who like to share their knowledge and ask people questions. So how exactly can you back-up your blogger posts to your computer or may be even Gmail account?

The answer is quite simple. You can either copy every single blog post and save in a text file or word file (as cumbersome as it may seem this might actually work if you're like many who use word or text files to initially compose the rough draft of a post) or use an application like the blogger backup utility from CodePlex.

Just download the zip file, extract all the files inside it, install the application and start backing up the contents of your blog regularly. You can even save all the comments in your blog and specify the posts you want to back up. It'll save all the posts to your hard drive in XML format and restoring every single post in your blog is as easy as clicking the restore posts button.

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How to immitate the immaculate desktop on a Mac

Having a immaculately super clean desktop for me means that I can concentrate on the task at hand without being distracted by the little icons and links that I constantly keep adding to my desktop.

Of course, taking all these links and documents and placing them in a folder makes as much sense as taking the book you are reading and putting it in a drawer and removing it out again when you fell like reading it doesn't really work. Instead it causes the 'out of sight is out of mind phenomena to occur' – not a good thing.

So after a bit of searching and pondering I think I've found the perfect application to help me focus on one thing at a time and no, it's not WriteRoom, since tasks also deal with creating presentations and designing graphics (did I mention editing movies?).

When I was reading an article on how to take great screenshots on a mac (I tend to forget the keyboard shortcuts quite often) I came across this gem of a application called backdrop. All this app does is puts a layer of colour on top of your desktop so that you can take screenshots more easily and effeciently. However, it can also be used to make the desktop look more clean for a short amount of time. I think its a great way to only keep the application you are working with active and at the same time not get distracted by the oh so interesting webclips/files/pictures and other stuff that I tend to keep on my desktop.

Oh and another tip if you're on Leopard and find the shiny... oohh shinny.. did I mention its very reflective too.. my icons look so glossy... dock really distracting. Just press Command+Option+D and the dock will automatically hide itself. Or if you're too lazy to locate the command key you can just right click on the dock and click hide. Pretty neat huh? (pun intended)

Heres a screenshot of my extremely clean desktop. Not bad, if I can say so myself.

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Make Firefox Start-Up Faster

Is it just me or does it take a while for Firefox to start-up? I'm experiencing this on windows and on mac. Both Internet Explorer and Safari seem to beat Firefox by about 2 whole seconds. I'm not sure about the solution for OS X, but I did figure out how to reduce the start up time Firefox on a Windows based computer. Actually it's pretty easy.

All you do is download Firefox preloader, and it loads up Firefox every time you start-up or restart your computer. So Firefox is always loaded in your memory, ready to spring into action. Although, you need to keep in mind that having Firefox running in the background might deteriorate the performance of your PC as it is still a memory hog. So, I only recommend you use Firefox preloader if your computer is loaded with extra ram.

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Minimize any application to system tray

Here's a little gem of a tool I found in order to help you minimize any application to the system tray so that you can easily access it later, without it cluttering up your taskbar. It's called PowerMenu, and to be honest, it is quite powerful. Apart from just minimizing any window to the taskbar, it can also do many other things.

It can also change the transparency of the window, and make sure that a program stays on top of all other programs. This can be especially helpful when you are chatting with someone, and you always need to keep an eye on the conversation.

I also use it on Windows Vista to minimze Windows Mail to the system tray, so that I can check my e-mail regularly, just like how outlook can be minimized to the system tray.

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Stop the Yahoo Messenger Spam!

If you too use Yahoo! Messenger like me, you've probably received an awful lot of IM spam from random people on yahoo messenger. Turns out, I'm not the only one. A lot of other people are having the same problem. Why is the Yahoo network so prone to random messages from spammers? Probably because the spammer doesn't have to be on your contact list in order to spam you, any random person can send you a message without your approval. And although this feature might be a pain in the neck, it's not hard to use it to your advantage. Here's how.

The solution to the problem is simply allowing only the people you know to reach you. Sadly, its a feature that only Yahoo Messenger (for now anyway) has because the Yahoo network (well AIM and other networks also have this feature, but Yahoo's the only one that seems to suffering the fury of the spammers right now) allows anyone to communicate with everyone on the network. So once a spammer has your Yahoo address, this is pretty much your only option.

How to ignore people you don't know in Yahoo Messenger

1. Click on Messenger after you open Yahoo Messenger
2. Click on Preferences
3. Click on Ignore List in the left column (this is the Privacy tab if you're using Yahoo Messenger on a Mac)
4. Then select the option 'Ignore Anyone who is not on my messaging list'
   
5. Click OK
   

The only downside here is that you have to add people to your contact list, and approve them before you can chat with them. But that's a small price to pay for being spam free.

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How to use Hotmail with Apple Mail

Update: If you're using HTTPMail with Leopard 10.5.6 - You'll have to upgrade to HTTPMail 1.53 for it to work! Click here to download HTTPMail 1.53. No wonder, my hotmail stopped working on Apple Mail after I upgraded to 10.5.6 =( ... But its all fixed now... =)

I absolutely love Apple Mail because of its simplicity and to an extent it's robustness (the To-Dos and Notes) and use it all the time when possible. I find that Entourage is a bit too bloated, and the same goes for Thunderbird. Plus, other applications don't have iCal integration, which is another application I have come to love. However, one big problem is that by default Apple Mail does not support Http accounts, so it's impossible to use mail if you use Hotmail or MSN (now apparently called Windows Live Mail). The solution was created by Daniel Parnell fit the bill. It's called HTTPMail. You can find it over at the Automagic Software downloads page.

Once you download and install the plugin, you should be good to go. Simple enough? Not really, it's Microsoft stuff, and as I've come to find out, Microsoft stuff isn't exactly simple. Yet. When I tried to send an e-mail through my Hotmail account in Leopard, I got an " *** -[NSURL initWithString:relativeToURL:]: nil string parameter" error. But, using Microsoft software for so long has taught me something - never give up. So I set out to find a solution, and finally after a couple of minutes of thinking I figured, it must be the URL, since the error had URL in it. Turns out, that you need to use some other URL to send the mail. The steps I took to solve the problem were as follows:

How to stop *** -[NSURL initWithString:relativeToURL:]: nil string parameter error

1. Open Mail
2. Click on Mail (in the menubar) > Preferences. Alternatively, you can press Cmd + , to open the preferences dialog
3. Click on Accounts and select your Hotmail Account
   
4. Where it says Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) click on the drop down menu. Then click Edit Server List...
5. Create a new entry as shown in the picture below. Make sure to use the server name oe.msn.msnmail.hotmail.com

1. Switch to the Advanced tab for a sec and make sure it says port 25
2. Then Click on OK
3. I recommend you check the box that says Use only this server under the Outgoing Mail Server drop down Box
4. Close the preferences dialog box. If you asks you if you want to save your settings, make sure you say save
5. Send your Mail (I'm guessing you already have mail in your outbox, or else you wouldn't know about the error) through the Hotmail (or whatever description you put in) server you just created.

Hopefully, you'll now be able to send your e-mails through Apple Mail. Now you'll be able to send and receive e-mails through your Hotmail account without having to use the inelegant web-mail interface.

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