Posts by konradwalsh-admin:

Make Your Own TV Show [Video]

May 15th, 2010

I know it has been a while since I posted. I went from 8 posts a week to 0 for the last three weeks. Anyway.. back to posting…




I dont have “TV” like most. Yes I have a three TV’s in the house but I have no outside signal. I do everything myself from the net. I have every TV show and Movie up to date and ripped to my server. However, imagine if I could broadcast my line up. Well now that digital tv is taking over, the old analog signals are becoming for useable. Here is a video I found that shows how to exploit that to your advantage.







via Tinkernut



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Upgrading Your Netbook To Windows 7 Home Premium

April 22nd, 2010

Would you like more features and flash in Windows on your netbook?  Here’s how you can easily upgrade your netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium the easy way.

Most new netbooks today ship with Windows 7 Starter, which is the cheapest edition of Windows 7.  It is fine for many computing tasks, and will run all your favorite programs great, but it lacks many customization, multimedia, and business features found in higher editions.  Here we’ll show you how you can quickly upgrade your netbook to more full-featured edition of Windows 7 using Windows Anytime Upgrade.  Also, if you want to upgrade your laptop or desktop to another edition of Windows 7, say Professional, you can follow these same steps to upgrade it, too.

Please note: This is only for computers already running Windows 7.  If your netbook is running XP or Vista, you will have to run a traditional upgrade to install Windows 7.

Upgrade Advisor

First, let’s make sure your netbook can support the extra features, such as Aero Glass, in Windows 7 Home Premium.  Most modern netbooks that ship with Windows 7 Starter can run the advanced features in Windows 7 Home Premium, but let’s check just in case.  Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (link below), and install as normal.



Once it’s installed, run it and click Start Check.



Make sure you’re connected to the internet before you run the check, or otherwise you may see this error message.  If you see it, click Ok and then connect to the internet and start the check again.



It will now scan all of your programs and hardware to make sure they’re compatible with Windows 7.  Since you’re already running Windows 7 Starter, it will also tell you if your computer will support the features in other editions of Windows 7.



After a few moments, the Upgrade Advisor will show you want it found.  Here we see that our netbook, a Samsung N150, can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate. We also see that we had one issue, but this was because a driver we had installed was not recognized.  Click “See all system requirements” to see what your netbook can do with the new edition.



This shows you which of the requirements, including support for Windows Aero, your netbook meets.  Here our netbook supports Aero, so we’re ready to go upgrade.



For more, check out our article on how to make sure your computer can run Windows 7 with Upgrade Advisor.

Upgrade with Anytime Upgrade

Now, we’re ready to upgrade our netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium.  Enter “Anytime Upgrade” in the Start menu search,and select Windows Anytime Upgrade.



Windows Anytime Upgrade lets you upgrade using product key you already have or one you purchase during the upgrade process.  And, it installs without any downloads or Windows disks, so it works great even for netbooks without DVD drives.

Anytime Upgrades are cheaper than a standard upgrade, and for a limited time, select retailers in the US are offering Anytime Upgrades to Windows 7 Home Premium for only $49.99 if purchased with a new netbook.  If you already have a netbook running Windows 7 Starter, you can either purchase an Anytime Upgrade package at a retail store or purchase a key online during the upgrade process for $79.95.  Or, if you have a standard Windows 7 product key (full or upgrade), you can use it in Anytime upgrade.  This is especially nice if you can purchase Windows 7 cheaper through your school, university, or office.

Purchase an upgrade online

To purchase an upgrade online, click “Go online to choose the edition of Windows 7 that’s best for you”.



Here you can see a comparison of the features of each edition of Windows 7.  Note that you can upgrade to either Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate.  We chose home Premium because it has most of the features that home users want, including Media Center and Aero Glass effects.  Also note that the price of each upgrade is cheaper than the respective upgrade from Windows XP or Vista.  Click buy under the edition you want.



Enter your billing information, then your payment information.  Once you confirm your purchase, you will directly be taken to the Upgrade screen.  Make sure to save your receipt, as you will need the product key if you ever need to reinstall Windows on your computer.



Upgrade with an existing product key

If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit from a retailer, or already have a Full or Upgrade key for another edition of Windows 7, choose “Enter an upgrade key”.



Enter your product key, and click Next.  If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit, the product key will be located on the inside of the case on a yellow sticker.



The key will be verified as a valid key, and Anytime Upgrade will automatically choose the correct edition of Windows 7 based on your product key.  Click Next when this is finished.



Continuing the Upgrade process

Whether you entered a key or purchased a key online, the process is the same from here on.  Click “I accept” to accept the license agreement.



Now, you’re ready to install your upgrade.  Make sure to save all open files and close any programs, and then click Upgrade.



The upgrade only takes about 10 minutes in our experience but your mileage may vary.  Any available Microsoft updates, including ones for Office, Security Essentials, and other products, will be installed before the upgrade takes place.



After a couple minutes, your computer will automatically reboot and finish the installation.  It will then reboot once more, and your computer will be ready to use!  Welcome to your new edition of Windows 7!



Here’s a before and after shot of our desktop.  When you do an Anytime Upgrade, all of your programs, files, and settings will be just as they were before you upgraded.  The only change we noticed was that our pinned taskbar icons were slightly rearranged to the default order of Internet Explorer, Explorer, and Media Player.  Here’s a shot of our desktop before the upgrade.  Notice that all of our pinned programs and desktop icons are still there, as well as our taskbar customization (we are using small icons on the taskbar instead of the default large icons).

Before, with the Windows 7 Starter background and the Aero Basic theme:



And after, with Aero Glass and the more colorful default Windows 7 background.



All of the features of Windows 7 Home Premium are now ready to use.  The Aero theme was activate by default, but you can now customize your netbook theme, background, and more with the Personalization pane.  To open it, right-click on your desktop and select Personalize.



You can also now use Windows Media Center, and can play-back DVD movies using an external drive.



One of our favorite tools, the Snipping Tool, is also now available for easy screenshots and clips.



Activating you new edition of Windows 7

You will still need to activate your new edition of Windows 7.  To do this right away, open the start menu, right-click on Computer, and select Properties.



Scroll to the bottom, and click “Activate Windows Now”.



Make sure you’re connected to the internet, and then select “Activate Windows online now”.



Activation may take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection speed.



When it is done, the Activation wizard will let you know that Windows is activated and genuine.  Your upgrade is all finished!



Conclusion

Windows Anytime Upgrade makes it easy, and somewhat cheaper, to upgrade to another edition of Windows 7.  It’s useful for desktop and laptop owners who want to upgrade to Professional or Ultimate, but many more netbook owners will want to upgrade from Starter to Home Premium or another edition.

Links

Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Windows Team Blog:

Anytime Upgrade Special with new PC purchase



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The Easy Way To Change Windows 7 Network Name

April 19th, 2010
How to Change the Network Name and Icon in Windows 7




Information
This will show you how to change the network name and icon in the Network and Sharing Center.




1. Click or right click on the Network icon in the notification area, then click on Open Network and Sharing Center. (See screenshot below)




OR

2. Open the Control Panel (All items view), and click on the Network and Sharing Center icon.


3. Click on the network icon. (See screenshot below)




4. This will open the Set Network Properties window. (See screenshot below)




5. To Change the Network Name -

A) In the Network name field, type the new name you want for your network. (See screenshot above)


6. To Change the Network Icon -

A) Click on the Change button. (See screenshot below step 4)

B) Select a icon, or browse to the location of a icon, for your network and click on OK.




7. Click on OK to apply your settings. (See screenshot below)




8. The Network name and/or icon are now changed. (See screenshot below)





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Safely Destroy Hard Drive Data With Ubuntu Live Cds

April 19th, 2010

Deleting files or quickly formatting a drive isn’t enough for sensitive personal information. We’ll show you how to get rid of it for good using a Ubuntu Live CD.



When you delete a file in Windows, Ubuntu, or any other operating system, it doesn’t actually destroy the data stored on your hard drive, it just marks that data as “deleted.” If you overwrite it later, then that data is generally unrecoverable, but if the operating system don’t happen to overwrite it, then your data is still stored on your hard drive, recoverable by anyone who has the right software.

By securely delete files or entire hard drives, your data will be gone for good.

Note: Modern hard drives are extremely sophisticated, as are the experts who recover data for a living. There is no guarantee that the methods covered in this article will make your data completely unrecoverable; however, they will make your data unrecoverable to the majority of recovery methods, and all methods that are readily available to the general public.

Shred individual files

Most of the data stored on your hard drive is harmless, and doesn’t reveal anything about you. If there are just a few files that you know you don’t want someone else to see, then the easiest way to get rid of them is a built-in Linux utility called shred.

Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications at the top-left of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal.



Navigate to the file that you want to delete using cd to change directories and ls to list the files and folders in the current directory.

As an example, we’ve got a file called BankInfo.txt on a Windows NTFS-formatted hard drive.



We want to delete it securely, so we’ll call shred by entering the following in the terminal window:

shred <file>

which is, in our example:

shred BankInfo.txt



Notice that our BankInfo.txt file still exists, even though we’ve shredded it. A quick look at the contents of BankInfo.txt make it obvious that the file has indeed been securely overwritten.



We can use some command-line arguments to make shred delete the file from the hard drive as well. We can also be extra-careful about the shredding process by upping the number of times shred overwrites the original file.

To do this, in the terminal, type in:

shred –remove –iterations=<num> <file>

By default, shred overwrites the file 25 times. We’ll double this, giving us the following command:

shred –remove –iterations=50 BankInfo.txt



BankInfo.txt has now been securely wiped on the physical disk, and also no longer shows up in the directory listing.

Repeat this process for any sensitive files on your hard drive!

Wipe entire hard drives

If you’re disposing of an old hard drive, or giving it to someone else, then you might instead want to wipe your entire hard drive. shred can be invoked on hard drives, but on modern file systems, the shred process may be reversible. We’ll use the program wipe to securely delete all of the data on a hard drive.

Unlike shred, wipe is not included in Ubuntu by default, so we have to install it. Open up the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on System in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Administration folder and clicking on Synaptic Package Manager.



wipe is part of the Universe repository, which is not enabled by default. We’ll enable it by clicking on Settings > Repositories in the Synaptic Package Manager window.



Check the checkbox next to “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click Close.



You’ll need to reload Synaptic’s package list. Click on the Reload button in the main Synaptic Package Manager window.



Once the package list has been reloaded, the text over the search field will change to “Rebuilding search index”.



Wait until it reads “Quick search,” and then type “wipe” into the search field. The wipe package should come up, along with some other packages that perform similar functions.

Click on the checkbox to the left of the label “wipe” and select “Mark for Installation”.



Click on the Apply button to start the installation process. Click the Apply button on the Summary window that pops up.



Once the installation is done, click the Close button and close the Synaptic Package Manager window.



Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left of the screen, then Accessories > Terminal.



You need to figure our the correct hard drive to wipe. If you wipe the wrong hard drive, that data will not be recoverable, so exercise caution!

In the terminal window, type in:

sudo fdisk -l

A list of your hard drives will show up. A few factors will help you identify the right hard drive. One is the file system, found in the System column of  the list – Windows hard drives are usually formatted as NTFS (which shows up as HPFS/NTFS). Another good identifier is the size of the hard drive, which appears after its identifier (highlighted in the following screenshot).



In our case, the hard drive we want to wipe is only around 1 GB large, and is formatted as NTFS. We make a note of the label found under the the Device column heading. If you have multiple partitions on this hard drive, then there will be more than one device in this list.

The wipe developers recommend wiping each partition separately.

To start the wiping process, type the following into the terminal:

sudo wipe <device label>

In our case, this is:

sudo wipe /dev/sda1

Again, exercise caution – this is the point of no return!



Your hard drive will be completely wiped. It may take some time to complete, depending on the size of the drive you’re wiping.

Conclusion

If you have sensitive information on your hard drive – and chances are you probably do – then it’s a good idea to securely delete sensitive files before you give away or dispose of your hard drive. The most secure way to delete your data is with a few swings of a hammer, but shred and wipe from a Ubuntu Live CD is a good alternative!






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Save A Corrupted Word Document

April 16th, 2010

Like any other file on your computer, Microsoft Word documents can get corrupted. Sometimes the damage manifests in obvious ways, like with formatting issues. A corrupt Word document can cause application crashes, system hangs, and many other annoyances that hamper your productivity.

Every new Microsoft Word release introduces new types of file corruption, and can also cause new and different types of problems. There are a few techniques that you can use to repair damaged Word documents, or damaged areas in Word documents, that are quick and easy. None of these fixes work 100% of the time, but these techniques have been proven time and time again.

Document Crashes Repeatedly

This is one of the worst types of document corruption, but it is also one of the most common. You open a document and you’re working in it for a while, and then Word suddenly comes to a halt and shuts down. You re-open the document, and a few minutes later the same thing happens.

Once you’ve determined that the problem is limited to one document and not a larger system or Microsoft Word problem, you can easily fix IT. Open a new blank document, and then open the damaged document. Copy the entire contents of the damaged document and paste it into the new blank document.

Save the new document with a new name in another place (as a precaution incase the problem involves where you were saving the original file). Make sure that the new file has all of the formatting and elements (pictures, tables, etc.) that appeared in the original.

Once you have confirmed that the new copy of the document contains the full contents and formatting of the original document, you can continue working from the new document. This will fix a lot of corrupt documents, but if the problem is linked to a corrupt element in the document (picture, embedded Microsoft Office file, etc.), it is possible that the crashes and application halts will continue.

If that is the case, try removing some of the larger elements from the document and see if it fixes the issue.

Formatting Will Not Change

If you have a document that is heavily formatted, you may encounter issues removing or replacing existing formatting. This frequently happens in Office 2003 and Office 2007 Word documents that have a lot of styles.

We’ve personally experienced this particular issue extensively when editing documents. If you remove a few lines from a document that are formatted in a particular way (e.g., a bulleted list), sometimes the next line will either take the formatting of the lines you removed, or will refuse to take the formatting of the line you removed.

Another good example of this is when you use a Header 1 style to start a chapter after a page break, but after you move items around in the document, the chapter number in the Header 1 style disappears. We’ve all encountered issues like this, and most of us use a trial and error strategy to fix it. Here are some things you should try first.

1. Remove the formatting using Clear All from the Styles sidebar menu.



2. Remove the text that is giving problems (CTRL+X) and paste it back into the document as plain text. Try reformatting it after you do this.

3 . Insert a blank page in the document close to the area that has formatting issues, and move all of the text and document elements to the new blank page. Delete the page that was having formatting issues.

These techniques will not fix every instance of formatting problems, but they will help. If you see this happening throughout your document, consider copying the contents of the document to a new blank document.






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Which OS Should You Install On A Netbook? Xp vs 7

April 15th, 2010

Positioned as companions to either desktop or laptop computers, netbooks are small, light, convenient devices that allow for most of the basic computing functions found in larger systems. One of the most important decisions you will have to make when buying a netbook is whether to buy Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter for your operating system.



Windows XP had a long and fruitful life as the operating system of choice for almost a decade. Although it would seem that with the release of Windows Vista and 7, XP would fade from memory, it remains an excellent choice for netbooks and other applications where a fast, small-footprint O/S is needed.

Alternatively, you could opt for Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter, essentially a stripped down version of Windows 7 Home Premium specially designed for netbooks and mini laptops. If you are confused about which operating system to choose, read on to learn the pros and cons of using Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter as your netbook’s O/S.

Windows XP Pros

Full Operating System – If you want a full O/S that doesn’t seem to be a watered down solution, XP is the better choice. Without any programs running, XP takes up only about 250MB of RAM vs about 1200MB with Windows 7 Home Premium. If hardware is a concern, XP just may make netbooks a possibility,

Stability – There’s no denying that Windows XP is a stable computing platform. Well, it should be after a decade of service packs, patches, and upgrades. If you are comfortable with XP as a desktop or laptop O/S, it will likely serve you well on a netbook.

Support – Going back to the 10 years of XP thing, no other operating has more support available on the web. If you have a problem, a quick Google search returns thousands of pages ready to help you with free tech support. No such luck for Windows 7 Starter given that it is new and not many people run it as an O/S.



Windows XP Cons

Old – As stated above, Windows XP is about 10 years old even though it enjoyed a long life. Still, if you use your netbook for 3 years, your O/S of choice will be 13 years old when you finally junk it. That fact doesn’t sit well with some netbook buyers.

Limited Future Support – No matter how long its life, even XP’s support will be limited in the future. Although you are covered for old issues, good luck finding support for new ones, especially those that include new hardware.

No 64-bit Option – Although there was a 64-bit edition of Windows XP (x64 edition), no current manufacturer offers it as an O/S for netbooks. Although Windows 7 Starter is also only available as a 32-bit O/S, at least with XP there was a possibility. As the software industry moves on to produce 64-bit versions of its software, you may be left behind no matter which of the two operating systems you choose.

Windows 7 Starter Pros

Latest Operating System – Although a stripped down version, at least Windows 7 Starter is based on the most current O/S from Microsoft. At the very least, you can expect the same kind of support you would expect from a current desktop or laptop O/S.

Streamlined – Although technically stripped down, some people prefer to consider Windows 7 Starter as streamlined for netbooks. Rather than install Home Premium and cut out everything unnecessary in order to deliver a pleasant computing experience, Microsoft has already done the work for you – it’s called Windows 7 Starter.

Anytime Upgrade Available – If you do decide to take the plunge and run Windows 7 Home Premium on your netbook, you can use Windows Anytime Upgrade to make the switch for about $80. At least this way you have the option if you think the investment is worth it.



Windows 7 Starter Cons

Limited Functionality – Let’s be honest, Windows 7 Starter really is a stripped down version of its bigger brothers Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate Edition. Although one thing the software giant got right was to allow you to run as many programs at one time as you want (well, at least as many as your RAM and processor can handle). Previous versions of Starter allowed a maximum of three programs to run simultaneously.

No Aero – If you got used to the Aero Desktop in Vista and 7, you may be in for a shock when you realize that the pretty desktop you have in those operating systems isn’t available in Windows 7 Starter. Don’t look for Aero Glass or Peek in this stripped down O/S because you won’t find them.

Preinstalled Only – Windows 7 Starter is only available preinstalled on a netbook or similar device. If you choose Windows XP, you may not be able to switch to Windows 7 Starter even if you are willing to pay for it. Make your decisions now because you may not be able to change it later.

Conclusion

Although a stripped down version of the other editions of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7 Starter is a competent alternative when choosing an O/S for a netbook. Still, Windows XP just may have some more life left in her if you want a full-fledged operating system and want to enjoy the free support available on the web.

If you generally like the features of Windows 7 and don’t mind that it doesn’t quite look or feel like its big brothers, Windows 7 Starter may be a good choice for you. If you want the tried and true stability and usability of an O/S with a long, successful history, Windows XP may be the better choice.

Whatever you choose, think of how you intend to use your netbook and make the decision from that information rather than the list of features each choice offers.





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Free Your PDF Files From Restrictive Passwords

April 15th, 2010

Many students these days buy their textbooks in electronic, PDF format. The main advantage of this, besides price, is that the PDF can be carried on iPhones and laptops so we have less junk to carry throughout the day.

Unfortunately, most of these e-books have restrictions on how many pages from the PDF, if any, can be printed, and forget copying any text from the PDF. So, no real studying, with a highlighter and notes in the margins, can ever occur. At least, not without breaking the restrictions on the PDF.

A Web site exists to break all the restrictions—from print limits to passwords—imposed on PDFs: FreeMyPDF.com.



First, click the Choose File button and select the PDF from which you want to remove restrictions.



Then, click the Do It button.



You are then prompted to save the new, free-of-restrictions PDF to your computer. Choose a location for your new file, then open it and use it however you like!

There are a few restrictions for FreeMyPDF.com. First, you must be able to view the PDF without entering a password for it to help you.

Second, there is a file size limit of 7MB.  Finally, they ask that you not use the site to do anything illegal. They do not elaborate on what they define as illegal (or immoral), but they do not take any responsibility for your PDF-freeing activities.

For the documents we tried, FreeMyPDF.com worked like a charm. The file size restriction was our only real complaint.

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Another Way To Save Your Windows Install Using Linux/Ubuntu On A Thumb Drive

April 12th, 2010






When Windows goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Worse: Often it’s extremely difficult to save your system from Windows itself. Here’s how to use a simple USB drive to free space, remove viruses, rescue passwords, and more from crunked Windows setups.

What You Can Fix with this Method

If you or your in-need friends or relatives can’t boot into your Windows desktop, or you can’t actually do anything once you’re into it, booting up a live Ubuntu system from a USB thumb drive, or off a burned CD, can save your system, recover files, and pull off other miracles. Here’s the short list of things we’ll cover here:

• Clean a virus with a Linux-based anti-virus app.
• Recover files and save them onto that same thumb drive, to a web storage spot like Dropbox, or to another USB drive.
• Change your login password if you’ve forgotten it, or someone’s changed it on you.
• Analyze your hard drive to figure out what’s filled it, and resize partitions if you’re dual booting and need to free up more space.

What you’ll need



• Empty USB drive: Sometimes called a “thumb” drive, a “flash” drive, or a USB “stick.” It’s a tiny little piece of plastic that usually holds at least 1 GB, and that’s the minimum size you’ll need. If you’re looking to recover files, you’ll need to use a separate USB drive, blank CDs or DVDs, or an online backup service. The drive you intend to install Ubuntu on should be empty, because it will get cleared out when we make it boot-able.

  Alternate: CD-R Using a USB drive gives you faster performance when booting a system like Ubuntu without installing it. If you don’t have a large enough drive to spare, or you’d like to save your USB drive space for backing up your much-needed files, you can still grab a recordable CD and create a “Live CD” to boot from. If that’s the case, skip the section about making a USB stick and head right to the “Boot Up and Get Started” section.

• A working Windows computer with a decent net connection Because you’ll need to download a 700 MB file to install onto your USB stick, and a 4.3 MB application to make it work. That application, though, doesn’t have to be installed, so you can easily clean up after yourself if you’re using a friend’s computer.

  Alternate: Mac options: You can create an Ubuntu USB stick from a Mac, but it requires both tricky, theoretically harmful Terminal commands and administrator access. If that’s not your thing, you can simply burn a live CD from a Mac.

Make Your Live CD or USB Stick

Turn on your working Windows computer, make sure it’s connected to the internet, and open up a browser. Head to UNetbootin’s home page. Click on the Windows icon at the top to download the latest version of UNetbootin—here’s a direct link for those following this guide on their monitor.

Once you’ve downloaded the file (unetbootin-windows-latest.exe), find it and double-click it. Windows will likely confirm that you want to do that, and you should say it’s “OK.” You’ll see this when UNetbootin opens:



What UNetbootin was made to do was automate the process of downloading an Ubuntu CD image, convert it for your USB thumb drive, find that drive, and install that image on there, without you having to do much of anything. It does this job well, and doesn’t make you worry about accidentally wiping out some other drive. Still, when you’re about to run UNetbootin, you should make sure no other USB drives are plugged in, except the one you want to turn into a system rescue stick. That said, make sure your USB stick is plugged in, and soldier on.

Click on the drop-down menu in the “Distribution” category at the top, which should also have a filled-in point to the left to indicate it’s selected. Scroll down in that menu and click on “Ubuntu.” To the right of that menu, there’s another where you can choose the version of Ubuntu you want to download. At the time of this post, 9.10 Desktop is the latest stable version of Ubuntu that’s released, just above “Daily Build” options for 10.04. In any case, you should select the “Desktop” version that’s highest in number, without choosing a “Daily Build” that will likely have missing features or unfamiliar aspects. With that distribution and version selected, UNetbootin will get to work downloading, right after we’ve confirmed the USB drive and hit OK.

Alternate option: BitTorrent: If you’re savvy in the ways of torrent downloading, you can likely get a faster download, and relieve Ubuntu’s servers, by grabbing a desktop ISO file over an official torrent, then setting UNetbootin to use that ISO file by selecting the radio button next to “Disk Image,” hitting the “…”/browse button to the right of that option, and pointing at the ISO file when it’s finished downloading.

Before you click OK and let UNetbootin set up your USB drive, triple-check that it knows which drive to transform. You’ll see which drive it wants to format to the right of “Drive:” at the bottom of UNetbootin’s window. Hit your Start menu, click Computer in the right-hand menu, and ensure that the letter your computer has given your temporary USB drive is the same letter that UNetbootin wants to use. If the two are matched up, you can head back to UNetbootin and click OK.






Alternate: Usbuntu Live Creator: Usbuntu is a similarly easy to grasp USB creator, made particularly for Ubuntu USB creation, and lets you create USB disks with persistent storage—meaning you can keep files on your system that stick around the next time you boot up, so you can use a very large USB drive as an actual backup location.

Nine times out of 10, UNetbootin won’t need any help or spit any errors. If it does, it’s likely because a download connection isn’t available, the file that did download became corrupted, or your USB drive has a quirky boot/format problem. I’ve covered at least one common fix for USB stick booting issues under the “Fix booting problems” header in a previous Linux-on-USB feature. If your error falls outside of that, try searching out the specific text in the error message on Google.

Once it’s done, UNetbootin will ask you to restart your system. You don’t really need to do that—you want to save your non-booting or crippled computer, not this one.

Boot Up and Set Up Ubuntu

Assuming all went well with UNetbootin’s USB formatting, you can pull out the USB stick (or CD-R) from the working computer, load it into the busted computer, and fire it up. If you’re lucky, the system was set up to automatically look for bootable USB devices and load them up, and you’ll see a screen that asks you, in old-school, lo-res computer graphics, if you want to boot “Default” or otherwise. Go ahead and hit Enter, and you’ll start booting into the Ubuntu desktop.

Nothing happening? Does your system just roll right into its busted Windows desktop? You’ll likely need to head into your BIOS settings and ensure that USB booting is enabled, and/or “ranked” above the hard drive as a boot option. When your computer boots up, there will likely be text on the screen stating that hitting F2, the Delete key, or another button will let you enter “system setup,” BIOS, or something similar. Hit that key when you first boot up, dig around in the menus, and change your setup so that your computer searches out USB drives before heading to the hard drive.

Your system should boot into an Ubuntu desktop, where you’ll see one or two icons, two toolbars, and not much else. The first thing you want to do is give Ubuntu an internet connection, so we can grab programs and files we need for our fixes. If you’re using a physical ethernet cable, or even most cellular 3G modems, ensure they are plugged into your laptop or desktop, and you should be good to go. If you’re using a wireless network, click on the tower/broadcast-looking icon in the upper-right corner.






Choose your Wi-Fi network, enter your password, if there is one, and you should see your system connect. If you’ve got a hidden network that doesn’t broadcast its name, there’s an option for accessing that, too, below your neighbor’s Wi-Fi names.



One last thing you must do before venturing forth is tell Ubuntu that it’s okay to download applications that aren’t entirely “free” in the software/copyright sense. Annoying, yes, but that’s how a free-as-in-speech desktop works. Click on the System menu in the upper-left corner, mouse down to the Administration section, and then mouse over and down to the “Software Sources” option.



When it opens up, you’ll see that all the options in the first tab, Software Sources, aren’t checked. Go ahead and check them, then hit the Close button. You’ll be prompted to Reload your sources, so go ahead and hit the button to do so. Ubuntu now has access to a lot more software, including some applications we’ll want access to.

Now you’re ready to get started backing up, scanning, freeing up space, and resizing your Windows installation.

Make Your Fixes

Retrieve and back up files: We’ve hit on the idea of Ubuntu as a Windows file saver before, in a guide to fixing your relatives’ terrible computer, and the practice remains the same. With Ubuntu loaded as a “live” system, you should see your Windows partition listed under the “Places” menu—perhaps as “120 GB system,” but it’s still there. Click on it, and Ubuntu will load up access to that drive, and you should see a window with the usual Windows files—Program Files, Windows, Users, etc. Plug in a USB drive, or load in a blank CD or DVD, and it’s a simple drag-and-drop matter to get your files onto those backup mediums. Be sure to hit the “Burn to Disc” button when you’re done backing up to physical discs.

Want to use an online service like Dropbox? You can do that, but make sure you’ve got a broadband connection—uploading on most residential accounts can be a long wait, especially with big batches of files. You can upload files to Dropbox’s web interface using the Firefox browser built into Ubuntu, but without Flash installed, you can only do one file at a time. To get around that, you can click-and-hold to select multiple files on your Windows system with the mouse, or hold the Control key to click and select folders and files. When you’ve got them all picked out, right-click on any one of the selected files and select “Compress.” Click the file type selector to the right in the dialog box that pops up, and change the compression from a .tar.gz file to .zip, and save it to the Desktop. Now you can select the “Basic Uploader” in Dropbox, or most other online sites, and upload those files as one big, slightly smaller package, to be unpacked back into Windows later.

Scan and fix viruses: Ubuntu doesn’t have a built-in tool for scanning Windows drives for viruses—and why would it, really?—but they are available for installing. Since we’re running a live session of Ubuntu, “installing” just means downloading and saving to temporary space on our USB drive, leaving your Windows drive untouched, and preventing viruses from interfering with the scan-and-fix process.

Head to your System menu, mouse down to Administration, and select the Synaptic Package Manager. Hit the Search button on the far right, type in clamtk, and then check the box to the left of the result that comes up. This is the Linux version of Clam AntiVirus, or ClamAV, that’s a popular, free virus scanner, and clamtk puts a graphical face on ClamAV, rather than making you learn how to use it from the command line. Even if Clam can’t fix your particular Windows virus from Ubuntu, it will at least identify it, and give you the means to Google that specific bug and see if there’s a fix.

Hit the Apply button after confirming that you want to install clamtk and all its “dependencies.” Close down Synaptic when it’s done installing, then head to your Applications menu in the upper-right corner of your Ubuntu desktop. Mouse down to the System Tools menu, where Clam should appear as an option. When it first starts, it will ask you how you want to apply signature updates—ignore the complexity of all that text, hit “Single User,” then hit Quit to move on.


When Clam loads, you’ll see options for scanning a File or Directory. Check the box to the left of the “Recursive” option, so that Clam will dig into all the sub-folders of your Windows drive. Now hit the Directory button. In the file chooser that pops up, look for your Windows system in the left-hand sidebar and click it. If you see your familiar Windows folders in the right-hand pane, you’ve got the right one. Hit “Open,” and, honestly, expect your system to hang for a bit.


Your system will hang because, basically, an operating system running off a thumb drive is using all its might to scan your entire Windows hard drive space and figure out what needs to be scanned. The freeze-out and lag should only last a few minutes on a modern system—if you see error messages, or nothing’s happened for 20 minutes, you might have to give it another go, or try a different anti-virus app—the gHacks blog has a few recommendations, including Avira. Otherwise, you can make yourself a sandwich, and probably crack a beer/soda, as Clam runs through your Windows files and checks for viruses. As mentioned above, it might not always be able to fix or properly quarantine your files, but you’ll at least know exactly which virus you’re dealing with, and can Google steps on fixing it manually—right from Ubuntu, actually.

Change or wipe a Windows password: Just like you installed Clam to scan for viruses, you can install a little open-source utility, chntpw (as in Change NT Password) to clear out a Windows password you can’t remember, or change a password you feel is insecure. After searching and installing chntpw from Synaptic, open up the Places menu from your left-hand menus. Head into Windows, and navigate to Windows\System32\config—where the SAM file is kept. Hold down your Shift key and right-click somewhere inside that config folder, then select “Open Terminal Here.” From that terminal, you can type in this command to change the main administrator’s password:

sudo chntpw SAM

If you’re looking to change Samantha’s password instead, type something like:

sudo chntpw -u Samantha SAM

You’ll see some options you can type in, from 1-4, but you’ll generally want to stick with “clearing” the password, then changing it when you head back into Windows. It’s been reported to work with XP and Vista, and I tested it out on Windows 7 and had success clearing a standard user’s password.

Shrink or create new partitions: Gina’s already covered the ins and outs of GParted, which you can get to in your live Ubuntu system by hitting up the System menu, the Administration option, and then clicking “Partition Editor.” Adam’s also shown his GParted skills, using a similar live CD, in his guide to dual-booting Windows 7 with XP or Vista. Don’t commit anything you’re not sure of, but know that you can pull off most anything you need from GParted.

Visualize your hard drive and clean it out: Under the Accessories menu, beneath Applications, you’ll find Disk Usage Analyzer, an awesome program that you can use to see where all the space on your Windows drive is being taken up. I needed this tool recently when Windows 7 had become so stuffed (with a failed DVD rip) that it was almost inoperable. To use it on a Windows installation, click the “directory” button in the middle row, and in the file browser that pops up, click on your Windows drive/partition in the left-hand column and hit “Open.” Give it a few minutes, and you’ll get both a spiral chart and nested lists of what’s taking up space. Right-clicking any folder or files gives you the opportunity to open them up in a file browser, or delete them directly. As you might guess, you should be careful with Windows and Program Files stuff, but the rest is up to you.

All done? Simply shut down your system from the “ubuntu” user menu in the upper-right corner. Nothing was actually touched on your system, unless you specifically deleted or changed files, and when you reboot, you’ll have a chance to get reacquainted with your hopefully fixed system. Remember to remove your USB drive from its port before rebooting.



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Easily Check If Someone Has Been On Your Computer

April 10th, 2010

It is a well known fact that a high percentage of identity thefts are done by family, friends (I use this word loosely) and acquaintances.  We’ve all heard the cases where someone who the victim knows gets a hold of their personal information somehow and wreaks havoc with their credit.  This can be done several ways including getting a hold of credit card offers (or other personal mail), snooping in purses or wallets, and even snooping on the victim’s computer.

A lot of those incidents can be avoided simply by taking care of your personal items.  Computers are no exception.

There are ways how to tell if someone has been on your computer and to keep prying eyes away from your computer in your home.  You can secure it with a USB drive, Windows logon password, or even a BIOS password.  You can also lock programs and even word documents.  However, as with most security attempts, there’s usually a way around them.  Security is basically a deterrent and the more work you make for a snoop, the less likely you are to become a victim.

OK, so you’ve taken precautions, to the best of your ability, to keep snooping people off your home computer but for some reason you believe someone’s been on there anyhow.  Did you know there are ways to tell if someone’s been on there and, to an extent, what they’ve been up to?  Your job of snooping on this snoop can be either difficult or easy, depending on how well they cover their tracks.  Let’s go through some methods of snooping on a snoop.

Check Recent Items Opened



Depending on your Windows version, you have a menu item named something similar to “Recent Items.”  This is a quick and easy way to tell what files have been opened recently.  Be aware that if the snoop has his head on straight, he could clear this.  However, if it’s cleared, you know someone has been on there, too.

Check Recently Modified Files

You can search for recently modified files in the advanced search window.  Just set the location to search (all hard drives might be a good start) and the date you want to search back to.



Make sure you set it to search for “Date modified.”

Check Which Programs Have Been Opened Recently

Some Windows versions give you a list of recently used programs as soon as you click on the Start button (meant to make them more accessible).



You can also use the Event Viewer for some recent activity, including programs opened and the last time the computer was booted up.  Go to the start menu and click “Run” and type “eventvwr.msc” and click “OK.”



For more help figuring out how to use the Event Viewer, check out this article by Saikat which explains how to use it to solve Windows problems.  It’ll help you get a handle on the viewer which will help you in finding out what a snoop could have been up to.

Check Internet Browsing Histories

What browsers do you have on your computer?  Check them all for Internet activity to see if someone’s been going online with it.  In Firefox, there is a History menu item.



In Google Chrome you click on the picture of the wrench at the top-right corner of the screen and click History in the dropdown menu.



In Internet Explorer, click the yellow star and choose the History tab.



Many snoops are smart enough to clear the browsing history.  Nowadays on some browsers they can choose which history to delete or go completely incognito and browse privately altogether.  It is for these reasons that this method will work only for the careless snoop.

Install Tracking Software



If you are wondering if there is an ongoing problem, install tracking software.  Varun mentions visikid in an article about parental control software.  You can also use other software such as K9 Web Protection to see a log of internet activity and even turn off the internet during specified times.  Then there is the infamous keylogger (which often gets a bad rap because hackers often use them for gathering information) for keeping up with snoops on your personal computer.

So if you are suspecting that a visitor (or even a current resident) of your home is snooping and you are fearing something bad (like your ID being stolen) is going to happen, now you have 5 routes to take to make sure nothing wrong is going on.  This way you can curtail it before the bad stuff happens.







via MakeUseOf






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Getting To Know: How Hackers Use The HTTP Protocol To Hack Your Website

April 8th, 2010

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the how computers on the World Wide Web communicate with each other.  It is used by all of today’s websites.  Although it is not constrained to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol Suite is its most popular implementation.  However, HTTP’s emphasis on reliable communication means it can be used on any other protocol or network.

HTTP uses a message-based model where a client sends a request message and the server returns a response message.  HTTP uses the TCP protocol as its transport mechanism.

Both HTTP request and response messages consist of one or more headers each on a separate line.  A typical HTTP request is shown below.

GET /home/course1  HTTP/1.1

Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg,

application/xshockwaveflash , application/msword, */*

Referer: http://twitter.com/365security

Accept-Language: en-gb, en-us

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0)

Host: www.365computersecuritytraining.com

Cookie: lang=en; JSESSIONID=0000123456789ABCD

The first line of every HTTP request consists of three items:

• The HTTP method:  The most commonly used method is GET and POST.  Though there are numerous methods these two are the most commonly used by attackers.  The GET method request resources from the server.
• The requested URL:  Resources to be accessed by HTTP are identified using Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).  In this case the client wishes to go to /home/course1.
• The HTTP version used:  The only versions in common use are 1.0 and 1.1.

Other interesting items in the HTTP request include:

• The Accept header, used to tell the server what types of files the browser will accept.
• The Referer header indicates the URL from which the request originated.
• The User-Agent header provides information about the browser or software that generated the request.
• The Host header specifies the hostname being accessed.
• The Cookie header submits additionally parameters that the server has issued the client.

In addition to the GET and POST methods, the HTTP protocols supports other methods that are useful to a potential attacker.  These include:

• HEAD – functions similar to a GET request and can be used for check whether a resource is present.

• TRACE- can be used to detect the effect of any proxies between the client and server that may manipulate the request and can sometimes be used as part of attack against other website users.

• PUT – if enabled, attackers may be able to upload malicious programs that can be executed on the server.

Using tools readily available an attacker can manipulate the contents of an HTTP request or response in order to trick the server into performing unwanted actions or hijack the session of an authorized user’s cookies.

The HTTP response from the server is similar in structure to the HTTP request but includes additional instructions, like cookie parameters, and an actual message body that contains the requested files, such as HTML documents.

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol
2. http://www.http.header.free.fr/http.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_headers
4. Discovering and Exploiting Security Holes, Wiley Publishing
5. Network Security Fundamentals, Cenage Learning, M. Ciampa


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