BIJOY TECH BLOG

Remote Control your Android Phone using SMS

2012-06-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

Using simple SMS commands, you can turn on the ringer of your mobile phone from another phone, retrieve the call logs, read the incoming text messages and more.

How do you locate your mobile phone if the ringer is off? Maybe you switched the phone to vibrate mode while you were in a meeting and the device is nowhere to be found.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could borrow your colleague’s phone and use it to turn on the ringer of your missing phone?
Meet Agastya, a new Android app that lets you “remotely” perform various tasks on your phone from any other phone via simple SMS commands. The other phone, that is sending the commands, need not be running Android – even the basic Nokia 1100 would do just fine – and either phones don’t require GPS or data plans (Internet).
The workflow is easy. You send an SMS command from a friend’s phone to your own phone in a given format and the app reacts accordingly. For instance, a command like “ringer” would turn on the ringer while “silent” would put the phone to silent mode.
The app can also help you retrieve your missed calls list or your incoming text messages via, you got it right, SMS. This feature should be handy for people who own multiple phones – you can easily check the call and SMS logs of your secondary phone from the one that’s in your pocket.
Here’s a complete list of SMS commands that you can try on your Android phone:

SILENT – Turn off the phone’s ringer
RINGER – Turn on the ringer
IMEI – Get the IMEI number* of your phone
LAST MESSAGES – Retrieve the last 5 text messages received on your phone
LAST CALLS – Know the last 5 missed/received/dialed numbers
<CONTACT> – Fetch the contact number of a person from the address book.

[*] The IMEI number can help you block a misplaced (or stolen) phone from accessing mobile networks (type *#06# to know the IMEI of your existing phone).Agastay isn’t the first app that offers such features. The more popular Where’s My Droid app can not only turn on the ringer of your phone remotely but will also send you the phone’s current GPS location by SMS. There’s overlap but these apps are more inclined towards locating your lost phone while Agastay is like a command console – you can toggle between phone states or even fetch details of a contact remotely from the phone’s address book. The IMEI feature is also handy for blacklisting your misplaced phone.
In my tests, Agastya did work as advertised and the SMS based commands executed almost instantly though the app did crash in one instance. The company says that Agastay works on Android 2.2 and above.
On a related note, if you aren’t allowed to carry cell phones in your office, you should grab the SMS to Gmail app as it will auto-forward all your incoming text messages and missed calls list to your work email address.

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Things to Know Before you Download Windows 8

2012-06-01T01:32:00.003-07:00

Microsoft today unveiled the “release preview” version of Windows 8 which mostly indicates that the new Windows operating system is feature-complete. Windows 8 Release Preview is available as a free download and it is very likely that your existing system specs are good enough to run Windows 8.

The System Requirements for Windows 8
According to this Windows 8 FAQ, any machine equipped with 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of hard disk space and 1 GHz processor should be able to handle Windows 8. The minimum RAM requirements are 2 GB in case you would like to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8.
Should you download Windows 8 Setup or the ISO Image?
As you may have noticed on the Windows 8 download page, the installation of Windows 8 can be done in two ways.

You can either take the easiest route and download the Windows 8 Setup program – that’s also the default option.
Alternatively, you can download ISO Images of Windows 8.

If you are planning to install Windows 8 on your existing computer, either on a different partition (dual-boot) or just want to upgrade from an older version of Windows to Windows 8, the default Setup program is a good choice.
Please note that that your installed software programs will only be preserved if you are upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your planning to install Windows 8 on top of Windows XP or Vista, only the files will be preserved but not the various software programs that you may have on the disk.
The Windows 8 ISO image may be more handy in other situations like:

Your computer has an x64 processor but is currently running the 32-bit version of Windows. If you want to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8, download the 64-bit ISO.
You want to install Windows 8 on your Mac (iMac or Macbook) using Boot Camp software.
You want to install Windows 8 on multiple computers. In that case, you can download the ISO once, create a bootable DVD and boot the other systems using this newly created Windows 8 disk.
You plan to run Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine inside your existing copy of Windows.
You are running Windows XP.

The universal product key for Windows 8 is TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF.

Will my software programs run inside Windows 8?
Before grabbing the ISO image of Windows 8, quickly run this setup utility and it will show a list of all software programs and hardware drivers on your system that are compatible with Windows 8. Alternatively, you can visit this page to see a list of all known software and hardware devices that are found to be working with Windows 8.

How should I go about installing Windows 8?
You can have Windows 8 on your computer in three ways – you can install Windows 8 side-by-side (also known as dual-boot), as a virtual machine (so that it runs inside your existing Windows just like any other software) or you can have Windows 8 as your primary OS (there’s no going back from here).
If you just want to try out Windows 8 but without modifying any of your existing set-up, the safest bet is to use a Virtual Machine. If you have a vacant disk partition or don’t mind creating one (it’s easy), go for the dual-boot option. Else, if you have a spare computer, you can consider upgrading to Windows 8 overwriting the previous installation of Windows.
Also note that if you are upgrading from Windows 8 Consumer Preview to the new Windows 8 Release Preview, none of your installed programs, files and account settings will be preserved though everything would be moved to the windows.old folder.

Enable Video Thumbnails in your Windows Explorer

2012-06-01T01:08:00.003-07:00

Windows Explorer does not display thumbnail images for unsupported video file formats and thus it is difficult to determine what’s inside a video unless you play the clip in an associated media player.

For instance, here’s a screenshot of my movies folder – Windows Explorer uses the default video icon for all media files that solve no purpose.

There’s however a free utility called Media Preview that will replace these generic icons with image thumbnails generated using the first few frames of the video file.
All you have to do is launch the configuration wizard once and enable video thumbnails.
Windows Explorer can natively handle Windows Media and Quicktime formats only but the Media Preview utility can display video thumbnails for virtually all popular video formats that are out there including 3GP, Flash video, Real Media formats, DVD file and more.
Here’s a second screenshot of the same movies folder in Windows Explorer but with video thumbnails enabled. Much better.

Windows Explorer with Video Thumbnails

Media Preview is available for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The specs say that the utility is also compatible with Windows 8.
If the utility has trouble generating thumbnails for your video files, just launch the Media Preview utility from the Start Menu, switch to the Testing tab and click Clear Thumbnail Cache. [via Snapfiles.com]

How to Secure Your Wireless (Wi-Fi) Home Network

2012-06-01T00:46:00.001-07:00

his article describes how you can secure your Wireless Network from hackers and you’ll also learn about free tools that people generally use to intercept your Wi-Fi signals.
Wireless Networking (Wi-Fi) has made it so easy for you to use the computer, portable media player, mobile phones, video game consoles, and other wireless devices anywhere in the house without the clutter of cables.
With traditional wired networks, it is extremely difficult for someone to steal your bandwidth but the big problem with wireless signals is that others can access the Internet using your broadband connection even while they are in a neighboring building or sitting in a car that’s parked outside your apartment.
This practice, also known as piggybacking, is bad for three reasons:

It will increase your monthly Internet bill especially when you have to pay per byte of data transfer.
It will decrease your Internet access speed since you are now sharing the same internet connection with other users.
It can create a security hazard* as others may hack your computers and access your personal files through your own wireless network.

[*] What do the bad guys use - There have been quite a few instances where innocent Internet users have been arrested for sending hate emails when in reality, their email accounts where hacked though the unsecured Wi-Fi networks that they had at home. Wireshark is a free packet sniffing tool for Linux, Mac and Windows that can scan traffic flowing though a wireless network including cookies, forms and other HTTP requests.

How to Secure Your Wireless Network

The good news is that it is not very hard to make your wireless network secure, which will both prevent others from stealing your internet and will also prevent hackers from taking control of your computers through your own wireless network.
Here a few simple things that you should to secure your wireless network:

Step 1. Open your router settings page

First, you need to know how to access your wireless router’s settings. Usually you can do this by typing in “192.168.1.1” into your web browser, and then enter the correct user name and password for the router. This is different for each router, so first check your router’s user manual.
You can also use Google to find the manuals for most routers online in case you lost the printed manual that came with your router purchase. For your reference, here are direct links to the manufacturer’s site of some popular router brands – Linksys, Cisco, Netgear, Apple AirPort, SMC, D-Link, Buffalo, TP-LINK, 3Com, Belkin.

Step 2. Create a unique password on your router

Once you have logged into your router, the first thing you should do to secure your network is to change the default password* of the router to something more secure.
This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want. You can change the password from the Administration settings on your router’s settings page. The default values are generally admin / password.
[*] What do the bad guys use - This is a public database of default usernames and passwords of wireless routers, modems, switches and other networking equipment. For instance, anyone can easily make out from the database that the factory-default settings for Linksys equipment can be accessed by using admin for both username and password fields.

Step 3. Change your Network’s SSID name

The SSID (or Wireless Network Name) of your Wireless Router is usually pre-defined as “default” or is set as the brand name of the router (e.g., linksys). Although this will not make your network inherently* more secure, changing the SSID name of your network is a good idea as it will make it more obvious for others to know which network they are connecting to.
This setting is usually under the basic wireless settings in your router’s settings page. Once this is set, you will always be sure that you are connecting to the correct Wireless network even if there are multiple wireless networks in your area. Don’t use your name, home address or other personal information in the SSID name.
Also see: Change Network Name to Prevent Wi-Fi Theft
[*] What do the bad guys use - Wi-Fi scanning tools like inSSIDer (Windows) and Kismet (Mac, Linux) are free and they will allow anyone to find all the available Wireless Networks in an area even if the routers are not broadcasting their SSID name.

Step 4. Enable Network Encryption

In order to prevent other computers in the area from using your internet connection, you need to encrypt your wireless signals.
There are several encryption methods for wireless settings, including WEP, WPA (WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2). WEP is basic encryption and therefore least secure (i.e., it can be easily cracked*, but is compatible with a wide range of devices including older hardware, whereas WPA2 is the most secure but is only compatible with hardware manufactured since 2006.
To enable encryption on your Wireless network, open the wireless security settings on your router’s configuration page. This will usually let you select which security method you wish to choose; if you have older devices, choose WEP, otherwise go with WPA2. Enter a passphrase to access the network; make sure to set this to something that would be difficult for others to guess, and consider using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters in the passphrase.
[*] What do the bad guys use - AirCrack and coWPAtty are some free tools that allow even non-hackers to crack the WEP / WPA (PSK) keys using dictionary or brute force techniques. A video on YouTube suggests that AirCrack may be easily used to break WiFi encryption using a jail-broken iPhone or an iPod Touch.

Step 5. Filter MAC addresses

Whether you have a laptop or a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone, all your wireless devices have a unique MAC address (this has nothing to do with an Apple Mac) just like every computer connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. For an added layer of protection, you can add the MAC addresses of all your devices to your wireless router’s settings so that only the specified devices can connect to your Wi-Fi network.
MAC addresses are hard-coded into your networking equipment, so one address will only let that one device on the network. It is, unfortunately, possible to spoof a MAC address*, but an attacker must first know one of the MAC addresses of the computers that are connected to your Wireless network before he can attempt spoofing.
To enable MAC address filtering, first make a list of all your hardware devices that you want to connect to your wireless network**. Find their MAC addresses, and then add them to the MAC address filtering in your router’s administrative settings. You can find the MAC address for your computers by opening Command Prompt and typing in “ipconfig /all”, which will show your MAC address beside the name “Physical Address”. You can find the MAC addresses of Wireless mobile phones and other portable devices under their network settings, though this will vary for each device.
[*] What do the bad guys use - Someone can change the MAC address of his or her own computer and can easily connect to your network since your network allows connection from devices that have that particular MAC address. Anyone can determine the MAC address of your device wireless using a sniffing tool like Nmap and he can then change the MAC address of his own computer using another free tool like MAC Shift.

Step 6. Reduce the Range of the Wireless Signal

If your wireless router has a high range but you are staying in a small studio apartment, you can consider decreasing the signal range by either changing the mode of your router to 802.11g (instead of 802.11n or 802.11b) or use a different wireless channel.
You can also try placing the router under the bed, inside a shoe box or wrap a foil around the router antennas so that you can somewhat restrict the direction of signals.
Apply the Anti-Wi-Fi Paint – Researchers have developed a special Wi-Fi blocking paint that can help you stop neighbors from accessing your home network without you having to set up encryption at the router level. The paint contains chemicals that blocks radio signals by absorbing them. “By coating an entire room, Wi-Fi signals can’t get in and, crucially, can’t get out.”

Step 7. Upgrade your Router’s firmware

You should check the manufacturer’s site occasionally to make sure that your router is running the latest firmware. You can find the existing firmware version of your router using from the router’s dashboard at 192.168.*.

Connect to your Secure Wireless Network

To conclude, MAC Address filtering with WPA2 (AES) encryption (and a really complex passphrase) is probably the best way to secure your wireless network.
Once you have enabled the various security settings in your wireless router, you need to add the new settings to your computers and other wireless devices so that they all can connect to the Wi-Fi network. You can select to have your computer automatically connect to this network, so you won’t have to enter the SSID, passphrase and other information every time you connect to the Internet.
Your wireless network will now be a lot more secure and intruders may have a tough time intercepting your Wi-Fi signals.

Who is Connected to your Wireless Network

If you are worried that an outsider may be connecting to the Internet using your Wireless network, try AirSnare – it’s a free utility that will look for unexpected MAC addresses on your Wireless network as well as to DHCP requests. Another option is that you open your router’s administration page (using the 192.168.* address) and look for the DHCP Clients Table (it’s under Status > Local Network on Linksys routers). Here you will see a list of all computers and wireless devices that are connected to your home network.
*It is also a good idea to turn off the router completely when you are not planning to use the computer for a longer period (like when you are out shopping). You save on electricity and the door remains 100% shut for wireless piggybackers.
**If you ever want to let a new device connect to your network, you will have to find its MAC address and add it to your router. If you simple want to let a friend connect to your wireless network one time, you can remove his MAC address from the router settings when he or she leaves your place.

Hope Now u can make a secure Network.

Latest Android 4.0.4 build for 2011 Xperia devices leaked

2012-05-31T07:18:00.002-07:00

The latest Sony test Android 4.0.4 firmware build for 2011 Xperia devices has leaked over at xda-developers. It is apparently a port of the Xperia pro release and works with the stock kernel and latest baseband. It hopefully suggests that Sony Mobile is working on an Android 4.0.4 update at some point down the road for the 2011 Xperia devices.
The firmware is provided as it is, so you should expect bugs if you decide to use it. The version offered is pre-rooted and includes Busybox. You can find all of the information

More Details Available At
XDA-Devlopers

Detail Of Android Stack

2012-05-31T07:01:00.001-07:00

To begin programing with android all new programers have to know some basic things that will help them for lifetime.

1) Android Stack. Its just a view of how the OS works/build and process all the request. Android is based on linux kernel, so who r familiar with Linux will get a good amount of help. Android uses Linux for the Hardware and security. But if u don't know Linux don't worry, Java is here to help you. All android apps are written in java. So if u wanna start android Programing first learn OOPS basic and JAVA. And for ROM designing, A hardcore knowledge of Linux and ANSI C(In which UNIX) is written. Happy Programing.