Successor of Xbox 360

The much awaited next generation gaming console from Microsoft is rumored to be showcased in the month of April. According to a report from Computer and Video Games, Redmond is currently planning to hold a press event in the month of April and the successor of the Xbox 360, which is reportedly named Xbox 720, might be unveiled in the event.

Furthermore, users at NeoGAF have noticed a domain named XboxEvent.com, which has been registered by Eventcore. The agency has handled many of the previous product launch preparations for the Windows giants and it looks like the agency has already started its preparation for a launch event, which is very likely to feature the latest console from Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Sony has unveiled its next generation PlayStation and it’s high time Microsoft answer back to the move of its arch rival.

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countdown to Xbox 720 just begun?

Xbox Live’s head Larry Hyrb otherwise known as Major Nelson, posted a countdown on its blog to E3 2013. It counts the days until June 11 this year when the expo kicks off and the text says: And it’s on…


Since the Xbox 360 is nearing the end of its cycle it just make sense we see the next generation announced this year.
Nintendo already announced and launched its next-gen console – the Wii U. Sony has also spilled the beans on PlayStation 4, although we can only expect it to launch next year.
Unlike previous years, Microsoft seems to push the PR for E3 quite early and I bet we’ll be seeing even more within the next few months. There is one more thing – unlike most past shows, this upcoming one isn’t expected to bring some hot sequels or smashing new IPs to Xbox 360. Halo 4 is out, Gears of War and Mass Effect Trilogies are over, and there are just few announced games that seems to deserve the gamers’ attention. Oh, and none of them is an Xbox 360 exclusive. A new Xbox should definitely be on the cards then.
The rumors from last year also suggested the next Xbox will arrive in time for the holiday season in 2013, which adds more credibility to the current one.
I just have one wish – Microsoft, please don’t name this one Xbox 720, because I don’t want to wait another 8 years just to see how you’ll call the one to follow.

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Skype 2.0 for iPhone now available, brings free voice calls over 3G

It was about time Skype enable their voice calls over 3G in their iPhone app and now the Skype “coverage” on iPhone is extended outside Wi-Fi hotspots.




There is more – all mobile iPhone Skype calls are free until August. After that you’ll need to put some credits on.
You can download the new Skype 2.0 app from the Apple AppStore right away.

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Free Gmail voice calls to US and Canada extended

The web-based VoIP client in Gmail was launched several months ago with free calls to the US and Canada until the end of 2010. Well, it’s either the Christmas mood or something else, I don’t know, but Google decided to extend those free calls through the whole 2011.
Sadly, as before, you’ll be charged when calling outside those two. And even if Google’s rates are pretty reasonable you still need to pay for calls to destinations other than the US and Canada.
By the way, Skype’s counter-offer isn’t too shabby either. The Skype app on my computer greeted me today with a reminder that I could sign up for a cheap monthly SkypeOut subscription and enjoy unlimited calls to way more than just two countries across the globe.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…
Source

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Facebook for iOS updated, now offers free calls to US and Canada

Facebook has just issued an update to its iOS application. Facebook for iOS, which is one of the prominent applications in the App Store now comes with several new features and enhanced user experience.


Facebook 5.5 for iOS offers improved buttons to like, comment and share posts. The share button also allows you to re-post stories to your news feed and is available in all languages. Furthermore, you can now make free calls to US and Canada right from your iOS application. Of course, free calling uses your data plan, so make sure you have one.
You can download the latest version of the application for your iPhones and iPads from the App Store.
Source

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Archive for the ‘HTML’ Category External links and the target attribute

I like external pages to open in a new window. So that my page stays open. But target attribute is deprecated. If you want to validate the XHTML pages, it would result in errors. The thought behind it was to allow the user to decide for himself if he want to open a new tab or if he want to go on in the same tab. Often times users just click on the link without thinking about it.
Sometimes as a web programmer it’s just too convenient to simply add ‘target=”_blank”‘ to external links. Quick and dirty. There is a Javascript-solution, though. The page itself is XHTML valid, but the behavior is the same as with the target attribute.
It scans for any link that starts with “http://” – in cake usually an external link (internal links are absolute to the root, like “/pages/xyz”).

(function() {
    var className = "external";
    var target = "_blank";
 
    var _onload = window.onload;
 
    window.onload = function() {
        var local = new RegExp("^" + window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.hostname, i);
        var links = document.links;
 
        for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
            var link = links[i];
            if (/^https?:\/\//i.test(link.href) && !local.test(link.href)) {   // Not a local link.
                if (link.className && (link.className == 'internal' || link.className.split(" ")[0] == 'internal')) { // enable "override"
                    continue;
                }
                if (link.className && (link.className == 'external' || link.className.split(" ")[0] == 'external')) { // enable "override"
                    // we do not need to add the class again  
                } else {
                    link.className = className + (link.className ? " " : "") + link.className;
                }
                link.target = target;
                link.title = (link.title ? link.title+ " " : "") + "(opens new window)";   // get a title info as well 
            }
        }
 
        if (_onload) _onload();    // Play nice with others.
    }
})();

Of course you can manually override it by using 'class="internal"' for always opening it in the same window or 'class="external"' to always open in a new window.
And for all of our jQuery users :

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("a[href=^http://], a[href=^https://], a.external").attr("target", "_blank");
    $("a.internal").removeAttr("target");
});

Examples:

<a href="/members">opens in the same window</a>
<a href="http://www.domain.e/some_url">opens in a new window/tab</a>
 
<a href="http://www.domain.e/some_url" class="internal">opens the same window</a>
<a href="/members" class="external">opens in a new window/tab</a>

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PHP ERRORS AND Their Solutions

Fatal error: Call to undefined method domdocument::loadHTML()

 

find and comment the line: extension=php_domxml.dll (make it  ;extension=php_domxml.dll   ) in php.ini file(php configuration file) and restart the apache.

How can I get a post by title in Wordpress? or How to get a post by title in Wordpress?

 

get_page_by_title($post_title, OBJECT, 'Post');

the above code returns the object of the post. it will return single post object even if there 

 

 

plain html check box image

for all those people who are looking for plain html check box image .take the above image.

The URL can't be shown" message on iPad and URL includes unwanted tel tag

people see this error while working with html links on iPad.the telephone detection feature in iPad is the reason for this issue.if u don't need this feature on your site
u can fix this issue simply by copy pasting the following html inside your html head section(i.e. before

tag)

Deprecated: Function ........() is deprecated in ...\xampp..htdocs .....php on line 

 

 

The value of this setting (in latest php versions for e.g. php 5.3.5) may look like below:

error_reporting = E_ALL | E_STRICT

E_STRICT warns about the usage of deprecated functions. If you run an old piece of code on a new/ latest version then, you may get the following error.

Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in D:\xampp-1.7.4\htdocs \newfile.php on line 5

{split function is deprecated in latest php versions (5.3.0+)}

To avoid this error change the setting as below

error_reporting = E_ALL

 

 

 

 

Strip additional white spaces

 

With UTF8 the “normal” preg_replace doesn’t really work anymore. For some cases we could use the following trick:

$str = utf8_decode($str);
$str = preg_replace('/\s\s+/', ' ', $str);
$str = utf8_encode($str);

A better solution, though, is:

$str = preg_replace('/\s\s+/u', ' ', $str);

With the param “u” it’s compatible with Unicode.

Sort arrays in natural order

$array = array('1.txt', '20.txt', '2.txt', '21.txt');
natsort($array); # sorts by reference (returns boolean $success)

Condition + assignment

If you want to save the extra line for $pos = $this->calcPos()) you need to be aware that extra brackets might be needed. Wrong (if $pos is supposed to hold the position and not the result of the comparison):

if ($pos = $this->calcPos() > 0 && ...) {...}

Correct:

if (($pos = $this->calcPos()) > 0 && $pos < 100) {
    # doSomething
    $pos++;
    # doSomethingElseWithPos
}

Note the extra brackets around $pos. They are necessary – otherwise it will assign the result of the operation $this->calcPos()) > 0 (which is a boolean).

Comparison (default and strict)

Since PHP isn’t type safe you should use strict comparison (===) wherever possible. "+010" == "10.0" is TRUE (!) only with "+010" === "10.0" you will get FALSE. This might be expected in this case – usually it’s not, though. So it is not if (strpos($str, 'hello') == 0) {} but if (strpos($str, 'hello') === 0) {}, for example! What happens in the == case? It will return true in 2 cases: If “hello” is not in the string at all or if it is at the very beginning. But we would only want the second case (and therefore need ===).

 

 

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Software Run the Trial Program Forever

In this post, I will show you how to hack a Software and run the trial program forever. Most of us are familiar with many software programs that run only for a specified period of time in the trial mode. Once the trial period is expired, these programs stop functioning and demand for a purchase.

However, there is a way to run the software programs so that they function beyond the trial period. Isn’t this interesting?

Well, before I tell you how to hack the software and make it run in the trial mode forever, we will have to first understand how the licensing scheme of these programs work. I’ll try to explain this in brief.

When the software programs are installed for the first time, they make an entry into the Windows Registry with the details such as Installed Date and Time, installed path etc. After the installation, every time you run the program, it compares the current system date and time with the installed date and time. With this, it can make out whether the trial period is expired or not.

So, with this being the case, just manually changing the system date to an earlier date will not solve the problem. For this purpose there is a small tool known as RunAsDate.

RunAsDate is a small utility that allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. This utility doesn’t change the current system date, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application.

RunAsDate intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime), and replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify. It works with Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista and 7.

You can download RunAsDate from the following link:

Download RunAsDate

NOTE: FOLLOW THESE TIPS CAREFULLY:

You will have to follow these tips carefully to successfully hack a software and make it run in it’s trial mode forever:

1. Note down the date and time, when you install the software for the first time.
2. Once the trial period expires, you must always run the software using RunAsDate.
3. After the trial period is expired, do not run the software(program) directly. If you run the software directly even once, this hack may no longer work.
4. It is better and safe to inject the date of the last day in the trial period.

For example, if the trial period expires on jan 30 2009, always inject the date as jan 29 2009 in the RunAsDate. I hope this helps! Please express your experience and opinions through comments.

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C Program to Print it’s Own Source Code

Ever wondered how to write a C program that can print it’s own source code. Well, here is the source code of a C program that when executed will print it’s own source code. In other words, the output of this program is exactly same as it’s source code.

Here’s the program:

#include

char *program=”#include%cchar *program=%c%s%c;%cvoid main()%c{%cprintf(program,10,34,program,34,10, 10,10,10);%c}”;

void main()
{
printf(program,10,34,program,34,10,10,10,10);
}

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How to Protect Domain Name To Be Hijacked

In this post I will tell you about how the domain names are hacked and how they can be protected. The act of hacking domain names is commonly known as Domain Hijacking. For most of you, the term “domain hijacking” may seem to be like an alien. So, let me first tell you what domain hijacking is all about.

Domain hijacking is a process by which Internet Domain Names are stolen from it’s legitimate owners. It is also known as domain theft. Before we can proceed to know how to hijack domain names, it is necessary to understand how the domain names operate and how they get associated with a particular web server (website).

The Operation of a Domain Name is as Follows:

Any website say for example gohacking.com consists of two parts. The domain name (gohacking.com) and the web hosting server where the files of the website are actually hosted. In reality, the domain name and the web hosting server (web server) are two different parts and hence they must be integrated before a website can operate successfully. The integration of domain name with the web hosting server is done as follows:

1. After registering a new domain name, we get a control panel where in we can have a full control of the domain.
2. From this domain control panel, we point our domain name to the web server where the website’s data (web pages, scripts etc.) are actually hosted.

For a clear understanding let me take up a small example:

John registers a new domain called “abc.com” from an X domain registration company. He also purchases a hosting plan from Y hosting company. He uploads all of his files (.html, .php, javascripts etc.) to his web server (at Y). From the domain control panel (of X) he configures his domain name “abc.com” to point to his web server (of Y).

Now, whenever an Internet user types “abc.com”, the domain name “abc.com” is resolved to the target web server and the web page is displayed. This is how a website actually works.

What Happens When a Domain Name is Hijacked?

Now, let us see what happens when a domain name is hijacked. To hijack a domain name, you just need to gain access to the domain control panel and point the domain name to some other web server other than the original one. So, to hijack a domain you need not gain access to the target web server.

For example, a hacker gets access to the domain control panel of  “abc.com”. From here the hacker re-configures the domain name to point it to some other web server (Z). Now whenever an Internet user tries to access “abc.com” he is taken to the hacker’s website (Z) and not to John’s original site (Y).

In this case the John’s domain name (abc.com) is said to be hijacked.

How the Domain Names are Hijacked?

To hijack a domain name, it is necessary to gain access to the domain control panel of the target domain. For this you need the following ingredients:

1. The domain registrar name for the target domain.
2. The administrative email address associated with the target domain.

These information can be obtained by accessing the WHOIS data of the target domain. To get access to the WHOIS data, go to www.whois.domaintools.com, enter the target domain name and click on Lookup. Once the whois data is loaded, scroll down and you’ll see Whois Record. Under this, you’ll get the “Administrative contact email address”.

To get the domain registrar name, look for the words something like: “Registered through:: XYZ Company”. Here XYZ Company is the domain registrar. In case if you do not find this, scroll up and you’ll see ICANN Registrar under the “Registry Data”. In this case, the ICANN registrar is the actual domain registrar.

The administrative email address associated with the domain is the backdoor to hijack the domain name. It is the key to unlock the domain control panel. So, to take full control of the domain, the hacker will have to hack the administrative email associated with it. 

Once the hacker takes full control of this email account, he will visit the domain registrar’s website and click on forgot password in the login page. There, he will be asked to enter either the domain name or the administrative email address to initiate the password reset process. Once this is done, all the details to reset the password will be sent to the administrative email address.

Since the hacker has the access to this email account, he can easily reset the password of domain control panel. After resetting the password, he logs into the control panel with the new password and from there he can hijack the domain within minutes.

How to Protect the Domain Name from Getting Hijacked?

The best way to protect the domain name is to protect the administrative email account associated with the domain. If you loose this email account, you loose your domain. You can read my earlier post on how to protect your email account from being hacked. Another best way to protect your domain is to go for a private domain registration.

When you register a domain name using the private registration option, all your personal details such as your name, address, phone and administrative email address are hidden from the public.

whenever a hacker performs a WHOIS lookup for your domain name, he will not be able to find your name, phone or the administrative email address. Thus, the private registration provides an extra security and protects your privacy. Even though it costs a few extra bucks, is really is worth for it’s advantages.

I hope that this article has helped you. You can express your feedback through comments.

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Common Internet Scams and Frauds

The term Internet Scam or Internet Fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more online services to conduct fraudulent activities. Internet frauds can be conducted using online programs such as chat rooms, e-mails, message boards or Web sites. In this post, I will discuss about some of the commonly conducted scams and frauds across the Internet.

1. Phishing Scam:

This is one of the most commonly used scam to steal bank logins and other types of passwords on the Internet. Phishing is fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging.

Example:You may receive an email which claims to have come from your bank/financial institution/online service provider that asks you to click a link and update your account information. When you click on such a link, it may take you to a fake page which exactly resembles the original one. Here, you’ll be asked to enter your personal details such as username and password. Once you enter your personal details on this page, they will be stolen away.

Such an email is more than likely to be the type of Internet scam known as “phishing”. Phishing is said to be highly effective and has proved to have more success rate. This is because, most Internet users are unaware of this type of attack and hence fail to identify the scam.

Most legitimate companies never request for any kind of personal/sensitive information via email. So, it is highly recommended that you DO NOT respond to such fraudulent emails. For more information on phishing visit my detailed post on How to identify and avoid phishing scams?

2. Nigerian Scams:

This type of scam involves sending emails (spam) to people in bulk seeking their help to access a large amount of money that is held up in a foreign bank account. This email claims that, in return for the help you’ll be rewarded a percentage of the fund that involves in the transaction. Never respond to these emails since it’s none other than a scam.

In case if you respond to these emails you will be asked to deposit a small amount of money (say 1-2% of the whole fund) as an insurance or as an advance payment for the initialization of the deal. However, once you deposit the amount to the scammer’s account you’ll not get any further response from them and you lose your money. In fact, “The large amount of money” never exists and the whole story is a trap for innocent people who are likely to become victims. The scammers use a variety of stories to explain why they need your help to access the funds. The following are some of the examples of them:

Examples:

• They may claim that political climate or legal issues preclude them from accessing funds in a foreign bank account.
• They may claim that the person is a minor and hence needs your help to access the funds.
• They may claim that your last name is the same as that of the deceased person who owned the account and suggest that you act as the Next of Kin of this person in order to gain access to the funds.

3. Lottery Scams:

This type of scam is similar to the one discussed above. In this type, you may receive an email saying that you have won a large sum of money in an online lottery scheme (ex. UK Lottery) even though you have not participated in any such schemes. The message claims that your email ID was selected randomly from a lagre pool of IDs.

When you respond to such emails they initially ask for your complete name and address so that they can mail the cheque accross to you. After getting those details they may also send you an image of the cheque drawn in your name and address so as to confirm the deal. But in order to mail this cheque they demand a small amount of money as insurance/shipping charge/tax in return.

However, if you send the money in a hope to receive the cheque, all you get is nothing. You’re just trapped in a wonderful scam scheme. That’s it.

4. Other General Scams and Frauds

The following are some of the other types of scams that you should be aware of:

In general, be aware of unsolicited emails that:

1. Promise you money, jobs or prizes.
2. Ask you to provide sensitive personal information.
3. Ask you to follow a link to a website and log on to an account.
4. Propose lucrative business deals.

It may seem to be a difficult task for the novice Internet user to identify such online scams. So, here are some of the common signs of such scam emails. By knowing them it may help you to stay away:

• All these scam emails never address you by your name. In turn they commonly address you something like “Dear User” or “Dear Customer” etc. This is a clear indication that the email is a fraudulent one.
• When you observe the email header you may notice in the “TO:” Field that, the same email is forwarded to a large group of people or the “TO:” field appears blank. So, this confirms that the email was not intended particularly for you. It was forwarded for a large group of people and you are one among them.

I hope this post helps. Express your opinions through comments.

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What to Do When Your Email Account is Hacked?

It can be a real nightmare if someone hacks and takes control of your email account as it may contain confidential information like bank logins, credit card details and other sensitive data. If you are one such Internet user whose email account has been compromised, then this post will surely help you out.

In this post, you will find the best possible ways to get back your hacked email account.

For Gmail:

It can be a big disaster if your Gmail account has been compromised as it may be associated with several services like Blogger, Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Orkut etc. Losing access to your Gmail account means losing access to all the services associated it with too. Here is a list of possible recovery actions that you can try.

Step-1: Try resetting your password! This is the first step and probably the easiest way to get your account back in action. In this process, Google may ask you to answer the secret question or may send the password reset details to the secondary email address associated with your compromised account. You can reset you password from the following link

Gmail Password Reset Link

Update:

Gmail has now introduced a new feature wherein it is possible to reset your password using your mobile number. Once the reset process is initiated, Gmail will send new login details to your mobile number itself.

If you cannot find success from the Step-1, then proceed to Step-2.

Step-2: Many times the hacker will change the secret question and the secondary email address right after the account is compromised. This is the reason for the password reset process to fail. If this is the case, then you need to contact the Gmail support team by filling out the account recovery form. This form will ask you to fill out several questions like:

1. Email addresses of up to five frequently emailed contacts
2. Names of any 4 Labels that you may have created in your account
3. List of other services associated with your compromised account
4. Your last successful login date
5. Account created date
6. Last password that you remember and many more…

You need to fill out this form as much accurately as possible. It is obvious to forget the dates of last login, account creation and similar terms. However, you need to figure out the closest possible date/answers and fill out this form. This is your last chance!

The more accurate the information filled out in the recovery form, the more the chances of getting your account back. You may reach the account recovery page form the following link

Account Recovery Form

For Yahoo and Hotmail:

Unfortunately, for Yahoo/Hotmail there is no second option like filling out the form or contacting the support team. All you need to do is either answer the secret questions that you have setup or reset the password using the secondary email option.

To initiate the password reset process just click on the Forgot password link in your login page and proceed as per the screen instructions.

I hope this post will help you recover the lost account. I highly recommend that you also read my post on How to protect your email account from being hacked and Tips to find unauthorized activity on your Gmail account so that you always stay protected!

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Find Unauthorized Activity on Your Email Account

Do you suspect that your email account is under attack? Do you want to maintain the security of your email account and make it 100 percent hack proof? Well, Some times our email account might have got hacked and we may not be aware of that. We may believe that our email account is safe, but in reality our private and confidential information may be falling into the hands of a third person.

In this post, I will you will find information on how to find unauthorized activity on your account if any and how to stop them.

Signs of  Unauthorized Activity on an Email Account:

1. Your new emails are marked as Read even if you’ve not read them.
2. Your emails are moved to Trash or even permanently deleted without your notice.
3. Your emails are being forwarded to a third party email address (check your settings-> forwarding).
4. Your secondary email address or mobile number is changed.

If you come across any of the above activities on your email account, then it is a clear indication that your email account is hacked.

Additional Security Features in Gmail:

Gmail provides an additional security feature to protect your email account through the means of IP address logging. That is, Gmail records your IP address every time you log in to your Gmail account. So, if a third party gets access to your account then even his/her IP is also recorded. To see a list of recorded IP address, scroll down to the bottom of your Gmail account and you’ll see something like this.

You can see from the above figure that Gmail shows the IP address of last login (last account activity). You can click on Details to see the IP address of your last 5 activities. If you find that the IP listed in the logs doesn’t belong to you, then there are chances of unauthorized activity.

Steps to Stop the Unauthorized Activity:

If you feel/suspect that your account is hacked, then you must immediately take the actions mentioned below:

1. Change your Password
2. Change your security question.
3. Remove any third party email address (if any) to which your account is set to forward emails.
4. Make sure that you can access the email account of your secondary email address.
5. Also change your secondary email password and security question.

This ensures that your account is safe from future attacks. But I strongly recommend that you read my other post on How to protect your email account? I hope you liked this post. Please pass your comments.

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How To Protect Your Email and Other Online Accounts from Hackers

In this post I will teach you how to protect your email account from getting hacked, in a very simple and easy to understand manner. The tips provided in this post not only applies to your email account, but can also be used to protect any other online account such as your bank logins, Paypal or your social networking account. Nowadays, I get a lot of emails from people where most of them ask me for help on getting back their email accounts. This is because, they have simply fallen victims and have got their email accounts hacked!

Today, it is a common problem for many Internet users to have their email accounts compromised by hackers. But this arises one BIG question in my mind!

“Is it so easy to hack an email account? OR Is it so difficult for people to protect their email account from getting hacked?”.

The single answer to these two questions is “Absolutely NOT!“. It is neither easy to hack an email nor difficult to protect an email account from being hacked.

If this is the case, then what is the reason for many people to lose their accounts?

The answer is very simple. They do not know how to protect themselves from getting hacked! In fact, most of the people who lose their online accounts to hackers are not the victims of hacking but the victims of trapping. They get hacked not because they are hacked by some expert hackers, but because they are fooled to such an extent that they themselves give away their password.

Are you confused? If so continue reading and you’ll come to know…

Now I will mention some of the most common pitfalls by which people often fall victims and get their accounts compromised. In addition to this, I will also give information on how to avoid these pitfalls and stay protected.

1. Website Spoofing (Phishing Scam)

Website spoofing, also known as phishing is the act of creating a fake website with the intention of misleading the visitors. The website will be created by a different person or organization (other than the original) especially for the purpose of cheating. Normally, the website will adopt the design of the target website and sometimes has a similar URL.

For example a spoofed website of Yahoo.com appears exactly same as Yahoo Website. So, most people would believe this as the original site and lose their passwords. The main intention of spoofed websites is to fool users and take away their login details. For this, the spoofed sites offer fake login pages. These fake login pages resemble the original login pages of sites like Yahoo, Gmail or Facebook. Since they resemble the original login page, people believe that it is true and give away their login details to the hackers by trying to login to their accounts.

Solution:

• Never try to login/access your online account from the sites other than the original site.
• Always type the URL of the site in the address bar to get into the site. Do not click on a hyperlink to enter the site.

2. By using Keylogger (Spyware)

The other commonly used method to steal password is by using a Keylogger. A Keylogger is nothing but a spyware. If you read this post you’ll come to know that it is too easy to steal the password using a keylogger program. This is because the keylogger records each and every keystroke that you type on the computer’s keyboard.

Solution:

Protecting yourselves from a keylogger scam is very easy. Just install a good anti-spyware program and update it regularly. This keeps your PC secure from a keylogger. For more information, you may read my other post on How to Protect your Computer from keyloggers?

3. Accessing your Email from a Public Place

Do you access your email from public places like cyber cafes? If so, you are definitely under the risk of losing your password. In fact, many people lose their email account in cyber cafes. For the owner of the cyber cafe, it is just a cakewalk to steal your password. For this, all he need to do is install a keylogger program on his computers. So, when you login to your email account from this PC, you give away your password to the cafe owner. Also, there are many Remote Administration Tools (RATs) which can be used to monitor your browsing activities in real time.

This doesn’t mean that you should never use cyber cafes for surfing the Internet. I know, not all the cyber cafe owners will be so wicked. However, it is recommended not to use public places for accessing confidential information. If it comes to the matter of security never trust anyone, not even your friend. I always use my own computer to login to my accounts so as to ensure the safety.

So with this I conclude my post and assume that I have helped my readers to protect their online accounts from being hacked. Please pass your comments.

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How to Detect a Web Proxy

Using a web proxy (Anonymous IP) is the simplest and easiest way to conceal the real IP address of an Internet user and maintain the online privacy. However, proxies are more widely used by online fraudsters to hide their actual geolocation such as a city/country through a spoofed IP address.

As the fraudsters are now becoming more sophisticated in bypassing the geolocation controls by using a web proxy, it has become very much necessary to come up with a means for detecting the proxies so that the authenticity of the users can be verified. Following are some of the examples where the fraudsters use a web proxy to hide their actual IP address:

• Credit Card Frauds

  For example, say a Nigerian fraudster tries to purchase goods online with a stolen credit card for which the billing address is associated with New York. Most credit card merchants use geolocation to block orders from countries like Nigeria and other high risk countries.
  So, in order to bypass this restriction, the credit card fraudster uses a proxy to spoof his IP address so that, it appears to have come from New York. The IP address location appears to be a legitimate one as it belongs to the the same city as that of the billing address. In this case, a proxy check would be needed to flag this order.

• Bypass Website Country Restrictions

  Some website services are restricted to users form only a selected list of countries. For example, a paid survey may be restricted only to countries like United States and Canada. So, a user from say China may use a proxy so as to make his IP appear to have come from United States so that he/she can earn from participating in the paid survey.

Proxy Detection Services:

In order to stop such online frauds, Proxy Detection has become a critical component. Today, most of the companies, credit card merchants and websites that deal with e-commerce transactions make use of Proxy Detection Services like MaxMind and FraudLabs to detect the usage of proxy or spoofed IP from users participating online.

Proxy Detection web services allow instant detection of anonymous IP addresses. Even though the use of proxy address by users is not a direct indication of fraudulent behaviour, it can often indicate the intention of the user to hide his or her real IP. In fact, some of the most used ISPs like AOL and MSN are forms of proxies and are used by both good and bad consumers.

How Proxy Detection Works?

Proxy detection services often rely on IP addresses to determine whether or not the IP is a proxy. Merchants can obtain the IP address of the users from the HTTP header on the order that comes into their website. This IP address is sent to the proxy detecting service in real time to confirm it’s authenticity.

The proxy detection services on the other hand compare this IP against a known list of flagged IPs that belong to proxy services. If the IP is not on the list then it is authenticated and the confirmation is sent back to the merchant. Otherwise it is reported to be a suspected proxy. These proxy detection services work continuously to grab a list or range of IPs that are commonly used for proxy services. With this, it would be possible to tell whether or not a given IP address is a proxy or spoofed IP.

How to Check whether a given IP is Real or a Proxy?

There are a few free sites that help you determine whether or not a given IP is hiding behind a proxy. You can use free services like WhatisMyIPAddress to detect IP addresses that are hiding behind a proxy. Just enter the suspected IP in the field and click on “Lookup IP Address” button to check the IP address. If it is a suspected proxy then you will see the results something as follows.

So for all those who think that they can escape by using a web proxy, this post is the answer. I hope this information helps. Pass your comments

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Tips to Avoid Getting Adware

Adware, malware, spyware and viruses can bring your system to its knees. They are detrimental, lowering the performance of your computer and as a result of which you may have to lose some important files. So, here is a way to keep the nasties away from your computer using these ten simple tips.

1. Use Firefox: Internet Explorer is the most popular browser on the market, controlling over 50% of the market share. The virus and adware creators specifically look for exploitable vulnerabilities within IE because they know that they will receive the best return on investment. Your switch to Firefox prevents some adware from infecting your machine.
2. Scan your PC once a week: Sometimes adware programmers take a sneaky approach. They will set up their programs to run quietly in the background to spy upon your activities. This once a week scan is necessary to remove any of those sneaky bugs.
3. Download from known sites: New sites for installing adware are popping up all the time. If you find something that you want to download, make sure that it is from a known site. A company like Amazon will not steer you wrong, but Bob’s House of Wares might be a little less trustable. If you are not sure whether you can trust a site, perform a quick search.
4. Install Adaware: Ad-Aware is the most popular free adware removal program on the market. It detects, quarantines and removes adware. It searches for other programs which may have been installed, highlighting them in an easy to use interface. This program does not have an anti-virus attached.
5. Do not click on unsolicited email: You are constantly receiving offers to increase this or improve that through unsolicited email. Your curiosity may be killing you, but don’t click on these emails. They accept your click as permission to install adware, spyware and malware on your PC.
6. Install Antivirus software: Installing two programs for virus and adware protection is a smart idea. It caters to the strengths of each program, increasing the overall strength of your antiadware and antiviral campaign. Some of the best antivirus software is free, providing real time protection. Programs to look at would be Avast Antivir and AVG.
7. Don’t install toolbars: Even some reputable sites install custom toolbars. They slow your system down and collect information about your surfing habits. While a toolbar might offer some perks, it may also diminish your experience by dragging your system to a halt. Toolbars from less reputable places install adware and sometimes infect your system outright.
8. Look at your task manager: If anything seems out of place with your computer, take a look at your task manager. This tells you about all of the programs and processes which are running on your computer. Examine the processes tab for anything which you don’t immediately recognize. Perform a web search for unfamiliar processes.
9. Do not click on popups: Clicking on a pop-up usually spells certain doom for your computer. It opens the door for the viruses and adware that want to infect your machine, telling these malicious applications to make themselves at home. Stay away from those constantly advertised screensavers and icons.
10. Trust your gut: If you don’t feel right about a site, don’t go there. If you are receiving warnings from the antivirus and antiadware programs which you’ve installed, don’t go there. If you don’t like the layout of a site, don’t go there. Trust your instincts about sites.

Be vigilant: With proper vigilance, you can keep aggravating adware, spyware and malware from your machine. Trust your instincts. Install Ad-Aware and an antivirus program. Play it safe. The care you spend in preventing adware from infecting your machine can save money and time.

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Identify Safe Websites On the Internet

On the whole Internet, there are approximately more than 150 million active websites up and running. As a result, it often becomes a real challenge for the users to identify safe websites that are trustworthy and reputed.

Have you ever wondered to know the reputation of a website before placing the order? Need to know whether a given website is child safe? Well, here are some of the ways to identify safe websites on the Web.

1. WOT or Web Of Trust (www.mywot.com):

WOT is a great place to test the reputation of your favorite website. WOT gives real-time ratings for every website based on the feedback that it gets from millions of trustworthy users across the globe and trusted sources, such as phishing and malware blacklists. Each domain name is evaluated based on this data and ratings are applied to them accordingly.

• Trustworthiness signifies the overall safety of the website. A poor rating may indicate that the site is associated with threats like Internet scams, phishing, identity theft risks and malware. For more information on phishing, you may refer my other post on how to identify and avoid phishing scams.
• Vendor reliability tells you whether a given site is safe for carrying out buy and sell transactions with it. An excellent rating indicates superior customer satisfaction while a poor rating indicates possible scam or bad shopping experience.
• Privacy indicates about “to what extent the site respects the privacy of it’s users and protects their personal identity and data”.
• Child Safety indicates whether the content of a given site is appropriate for children. Site contents like sexual material, nudity and vulgarity will have a poor Child Safety rating.

In most cases, the WOT ratings are found to be highly accurate. To check the reputation of any given website, just visit www.mywot.com type-in the address of your favorite website and click on “Check now”. This tool alone can tell you a lot about the reputation and safety level of a website. However, in addition to this, I am giving you another 3 handy tools to identify safe websites on the Web.

2. McCafee SiteAdvisor:

McCafee SiteAdvisor is a free tool that is available as a browser add-on. It adds safety ratings to your browser and search engine results. You can download it from www.siteadvisor.com.

3. StopBadware:

Using this tool, you can check whether a given site is said to have involved in malware activity in the past. To check this, go to SB Website Clearinghouse and enter the URL or domain name of a website and click on “Search Clearinghouse ”. You will see the result something as shown below:

If you see a Red or Yellow icon (as shown in the above snapshot) next to the search result, that means the site currently involves in some kind of malware activity. If you see an uncolored icon, that means the site was once involved in such activity in the past, but not now.

If the search does not return any result, that means the site was never involved in any of the malware activity in the past.

Even though StopBadware is a great option, this factor alone cannot be taken as a serious indicator to measure the reputation of a website. Many legitimate websites are also found to have been flagged due to hackers uploading malicious scripts and other bad content by compromising the site’s security.

4. Google Pagerank:

Google PageRank is another great tool to check the reputation and popularity of a website. The PageRank tool rates every web page on a scale of 1 to 10 which indicates Google’s view of importance of the page. If a given website has a PageRank of less than 3, then it is said to be less popular among the other sites on the Internet.

However, PageRank will only tell you how much popular a given website is and has nothing to do with the safety level of a website. So, this tool alone cannot be used to evaluate a website’s safety and other factors.

PageRank feature is available as a part of Google Toolbar. You can download the Google Toolbar and install it to avail this feature.

I hope you like this article. Waiting for your comments…

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HOSTS File to Block or Redirect Unwanted Websites

What is a hosts File?

The hosts file is just like any other computer file that is used by the operating system to map hostnames and domain names on to their corresponding IP addresses.

In other words, when you type “google.com” on your browser’s address bar, your computer will look for the hosts file to see if it contains the corresponding IP address for the domain name you typed (google.com). In case if no entry is present in the hosts file, the request is then passed on to the DNS (Domain Name System) server to obtain the IP address.

hosts File vs. DNS

When it comes to resolving the hostnames, the hosts file is given the first priority over the Domain Name System. In most cases, the hosts file remains unconfigured on the operating system and hence the DNS is used by the computer to resolve the domain names to their corresponding IP addresses.

However, if the hosts file is found to contain a valid entry for a given hostname or domain name, then this is picked up and used by the operating system.

Where is the hosts File Located?

Windows: In case of the Windows operating system, the hosts file is located at:

%systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

NOTE: In most cases this should be: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

Unix/Linux: In case of Linux it is located at:

/etc/hosts

How to Block a Website?

To block a specific website, all you have to do is just add a new entry for that site in the hosts file. I would prefer to backup the original file and create a new one instead of modifying it. So, if something goes wrong, you can just delete it and restore the original one! Well, here is a step-by-step procedure on how to create a new hosts file on Windows:

1. Go to “My Computer” and you should see the “Menu bar” on top. In case of Vista and Win 7, just click “Alt” to unhide the “Menu bar”.
2. Now in the menu bar, click on “Tools -> Folder Options”. In the “View” tab uncheck the option that says: “Hide extensions for known file types” and click on “OK”.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Open a new text pad (New Text Document.txt) and rename it to: hosts. You will get a pop-up message with a warning. Just click on “Yes”.
   Please note that the renamed file hosts should not have any extension such as hosts.txt.
4. Open the hosts file using the notepad. Now let us assume that you want to block the sites Facebook and Youtube on your computer. For this all you have to do is add the following lines to your hosts file:
   127.0.0.1       facebook.com
   127.0.0.1       www.facebook.com
   127.0.0.1       youtube.com
   127.0.0.1       www.youtube.com
   
   Each entry should be placed on an individual line. The IP address and the hostname should be separated by a space or a tab. In this way, you can block any given website by just pointing it to the IP address 127.0.0.1.
5. Navigate to %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc. Here you should see the original hosts file, rename it to hosts_bak. Just copy and paste the new hosts file that you have created. That’s it. You’ve now successfully blocked those websites from loading on your computer.
   If you are using Vista/Win 7 you may have to take ownership of the original hosts file before renaming it.

How to Redirect a Website?

Suppose you want to redirect Friendster.com to Google.com, all you have to do is just add the following lines to your hosts file:

74.125.236.72       friendster.com
74.125.236.72       www.friendster.com

Here 74.125.236.72 is the IP address of Google.com. To find out the IP address of any given website, just go to command prompt and ping it. For example: ping google.com. You should get a ping response that displays the IP address as shown below:

From now on, whenever you type “friendster.com” on your browser, you will be redirected to “google.com”.

How does a hosts File work?

Whenever you block a website using the hosts file, you point it to the IP address 127.0.0.1 which in fact is the IP address of your own computer. In other words, the IP 127.0.0.1 points to your own computer and doesn’t exist outside.

So, whenever you type the URL of a website for which an entry is present in the hosts file, your computer will load the IP as 127.0.0.1 instead of the actual one and tries to establish a connection with this IP address (127.0.0.1) but fails. As a result the website doesn’t load at all.

The redirection of the website works by pointing the domain name of one website to the IP address of another website (as configured by the hosts file) instead of it’s original IP address. So, whenever you type friendster.com, it is pointed to Google.com’s IP address and thus, the Google page loads up instead of the actual page from friendster.com.

How to Block the Annoying Ads?

I have found a great solution to keep all the annoying ads, banners, pop-ups and other parasites at bay by using a pre-configured hosts called MVPS hosts file. This hosts file contains a long list of entries to block all those annoying ads and pop-ups that usually load while you are surfing the Internet. You can also receive regular updates on this to stay up-to-date. You can download MVPS hosts file from the link below:

Download MVPS hosts

If you are playing around with the hosts file and something goes wrong, just delete the hosts file itself and rename the original file from hosts_bak to hosts. This should bring back everything to normal. I hope you like my post after a long gap. 

Waiting for your comments.

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