LifeLan

HOW TO: Monitor your computer’s hardware temperature?!

Ted — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:56:45 +0000

So, You bought a new computer or probably having some sort of hardware issues or just want to make sure that your hardware temperature is not going any high, AND without restarting and checking the temperature from the Bios.

How to keep your computer’s hardware temperature monitored?

There are a lot of applications that monitors your hardware’s temperature, But this one I’m about to tell you about is the best I’ve came across so far; It is HWMonitor from CPUID. Here’s a screenshot of it…

As you can see, It shows the temperature of each core in your CPU, GPU and HDD along with the voltages and power consumption.

It it portable and works on Windows 64 and 32-bit. If you’re running Linux you may use lm-sensors or computertemp.

How to resolve internet explorer script error?

How to: List Firefox’s addons, plugins and themes

Ted — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 07:15:37 +0000

Today I’ll be teaching you how to make a list of all Firefox’s plugins, addons, extensions and themes with AND without using any third party applications!
So you can share the list anytime you want with your friends, or when reporting a bug or a conflict about Firefox. It is very simple and easy…

How to list Firefox addons without any third party applications:

To list all your addons just start Firefox and type the following line in the address bar and hit Enter…
about:support

This will basically show you troubleshooting information about Firefox including the current version of your browser, The modified preferences and also a list of the addons you have!
Just hold down Ctrl key and quickly select all cells under the “Name” column in the addons table, Then copy them to wherever you want!

How to list Firefox plugins without any third party applications:

Again, just like the one above, But you’ll type a different line in the address bar…
about:plugins
This will show you a list of all the installed plugins you have along with some information about them.

How to list Firefox plugins, addons, extensions using a Firefox extension:

This extension is called Extension List Dumper, and can be downloaded from here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3746/

This extension adds a button (“Dump list”) to the Addons window. When this button is clicked, a new window pops up with the list of installed addons extensions, themes and plugins. It also shows the current version of Firefox and the operating system.

How to decode encoded themes / templates?

Ted — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:36:42 +0000

Did you ever had a theme or a template that you really liked but it contained hidden links that you couldn’t remove? Or maybe the footer was stuffed with unwanted links and when you wanted to remove them, You found out that the footer file is encrypted or encoded!

The solution is very simple!
I’m not going to go thought how the actual decryption can be done, I’ll just keep it simple. You don’t have to be a PHP geek or a developer of any kind.

1. Just go to your footer.php file (or whatever file it is), It should look something like that like this…
<?php eval(base64_decode("4c2JHeHNiR3hzYkNnMk1Da3VJajhpTmFsKCRsb4c2J HeHNiR3hzYkNnMk1Da3VJajhpTmFsKCRsbGxsbGxsbGw==")) ?>

2. Now add the following line at the very beginning of the file, before anything.

3. And another line at the end of the file…

4. Save the file and upload it to your server.

5. Go to your web site, You may want to press (Ctrl+F5) if you’re using Firefox to avoid viewing the page from the cache.

6. Go to View menu and View source (Ctrl+U)
Scroll down and you’ll see the output HTML of the encrypted file, It will be between the two lines that we just added.

7. Copy this piece of HTML and paste it in the encrypted file and save it. You’ll replace the old encrypted code with another HTML code that you can read and edit!
(Beware not to infringe someone’s copyright, That’s not good!)

Now you’re probably wondering about how you didn’t think about that before!
Good luck.

The anatomy of a video file

Ted — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:10:12 +0000

The title of the post seems to be a bit nerdy, But trust me, Its not and I’ll keep this as simple as possible.

The container:

This specifies how the information is stored in the video file. Different containers can store different kinds of data. The container has no effect on CPU usage, just on what kinds of things can be saved in the file.

The video:

This is what the picture is stored in. It is what affects the CPU usage the most. Common formats are DivX and XviD (medium CPU, medium quality) and H.264 (high CPU, high quality).

The audio:

This can be either stereo or surround. The format of the audio depends on what the container can store. Common formats include MP3, Vorbits, AC3 and AAC.

The subtitles:

Not every video file has this part. Many times the subtitles are stored as a part of the video (hardsub). Sometimes subtitles are also stored in a separate file. (ASS, SSA, SRT, SUB + IDX)

How can I play all of this?

There are many variations of media players and codec packs
1. VLC media player. – http://videolan.org
2. K-Lite codec pack. – http://bit.ly/LifeLan-klite
3. CCCP – Combined Community Codec Pack (Out of date) – http://cccp-project.net

My processor is so lame that I have trouble playing HD material?

Use CoreAVC codec with Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC)
Minimum requirements:
800 MHz Intel Pentium class or equivalent AMD processor.
256 MB of RAM.

How reCAPTCHA works and how to mess with it!

Ted — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:09:49 +0000

The fault of reCAPTCHA lies in the fact that it is used to digitize non-digital texts maybe to OCR the web, as well as stop spam. What this means is that in every captcha, there will be two words: One that the computer knows is right and will compare and check your text against and one that it hopes to use to digitize text. In other words, reCAPTCHA only needs one word of your captcha to be correct for your captcha to be accepted.

You will be given two words: [Real, Fake] or [Fake, Real]. The fake word is unknown to the computer and can be replaced with anything.

Let me show you few examples of how ALWAYS FAKE words look like:

Numbers:

Symbols:

Words with accents or punctuation:

Indecipherable text:

Almost always fake:

Words with the following are usually fake with few exceptions. Sometimes you will get surprises, however.

Inverted colors:

Odd or non-matching fonts:

Deformation caused by scanning:

Things to remember:

1. The fake word is usually the one which is blurrier and harder to read, even if by a little. However, sometimes it is the one which is unusually clean and easy to read though the quality of the scanned words varies greatly.

2. Real words usually use the same type of font throughout as they are computer generated, while the appearance and font for fake words can vary greatly as they are scanned from multiple sources. See the “Odd or non-matching fonts” above for examples.

3. The fake word is usually thicker, bolder, and blacker. But sometimes it is also thin and long.

4. A fake word’s alignment of letters are more likely to be in a straighter line or a smoother curve as it is scanned from a printed material. A real word’s alignment of letters are more likely to be wavy and a bit jumbled up due to being distorted by a computer.

5. You’ll sometimes get words with lots of noticeable dots around them. They are obviously scanned from books and therefore, fake.

6. Practice! Once you start out, You’ll have difficulty identifying which captcha is real, But after doing a few dozen, You’ll be proficient in picking out fakes and this will be such a great time saver for you.

Update: I’ve been seeing a lot of comments like… “Yeah, How noble! screwing over a worth project. What a time saver!”
Guys, I’m not asking you to do that everytime you see a recaptcha. If you do have the time to read indecipherable text and fill it in then great, Thank you. But think about if you’re probably late for something and you have to download a file or leave a comment before you go, Will you keep refreshing the recaptcha until you find a word that you can read?
You get my point.

How to: Remove Youtube’s new subscription / autoplay gray bar

Ted — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:45:15 +0000

Few days ago YouTube became more ‘bloated’ with a new feature. The gray autoplay bar!

Most of you guys must have noticed it, It is horrible and set Autoplay to “ON” by default; You have to turn it off everytime.
I like to drop a comment sometimes after watching a video, Now I don’t even read comments as it jumps to the next video which I don’t want to watch!

So, Here’s few ways and tips to get rid of that bar…

1. GreaseMoney script (Firefox)
Install GreaseMoney plugin for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/748
Then load this user scripts in it: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/82587
The bar is now gone.

2. Youtube Subscription Bar And Autoplay Remover (Google Chrome)
This one is a Google Chrome extensions that you can get from here:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jpajpedkdbbffnpjopibeolebkjdiikp

Just hit Install and you’re done.

3. AdBlock Plus
AdBlock Plus is a browser extension that works on both Firefox, Chrome and Safari Here’s the download like:

http://adblockplus.org/en/installation

After installing it go to Tools > Adblock Plus > and click “Add filter” > Paste in the following lines
youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-tray youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-bar-container youtube.com##DIV#quicklist-bar

Now hit Save and the bar should stop appearing.

4. Removing URL extra parameters
This one isn’t permanent, In the URL of the video, delete everything from “&playnext=....” onward. So that the new URL should look like youtube.com/watch?v=LiFElaNc0m , Then hit enter!

How to: watch youtube flagged videos without a youtube account

Ted — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:40:20 +0000

Have you ever wanted to watch a YouTube video that turned out to be flagged??

“This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.
To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by signing in or signing up.”

Today’s post is about watching youtube flagged videos if you’re underaged, without signing in, or even having a youtube account!

It’s pretty simple, First you need to know what youtube’s video ID is.
The basic YouTube videos’ URL structure looks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiFElaNc0m
LiFElaNc0m is the Video’s ID. Got that?

So all what you have to do when you want to watch a flagged video is copying the video’s ID and paste it here..
http://www.youtube.com/v/“Video’s ID here” (i.e. http://www.youtube.com/v/LiFElaNc0m

Notes:
1. This trick sometimes work when the video is not available in your country. (If not, You can use TOR)
2. For this trick to work you the uploader of the video must have enabled video embedding (Don’t worry; Almost all the videos on youtube have embedding enabled)

How to: Make even more from tech support!

Ted — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:04:32 +0000

Hello folks,

Its been a whiles since I last made a blog post, I’ve been busy with a lot of things. But from now on I promise that I’ll be posting on regular basis again

Today’s post is inspired from one of my friends who is a computer technician, It is about how to make even more from technical support when the client’s computer is being slow, virus infected, or just not working as it should be.

So here are the detailed steps:

1. Tell the client to back up any important files.

2. Take the computer from the client to your house/workspace (Somewhere the client can’t see what you’re doing).

3. Wait 24 hours and don’t even touch it. If the client calls, tell them that you’re running diagnostics.

4. Copy the contents of the client’s HDD to yoru NAS (Preferably in a folder named like that “July-05-2010 Steve’s Laptop”)

5. DBAN (dban.org), Format and install Windows (Window 7 should be cool)

6. Clean out the dust if you feel like it.

Give the computer back and tell the client that it was badly compromised to save. Charge the client for your services (1 day of work + format, cleaning & reinstall fee)

They’ll be ecstatic about how fast the machine is! But invariably they will have forgotten to back up some stupid files. Tell them that data recovery is hard and isn’t cheap. (Since you DBAN’d the drive, there’s no chance of them going to anyone but you, but you’re not gonna tell them that).

Once they see how much professional data recovery can be, Your prices will seem relatively cheap. I know people making more money from “data recovery” than the actual repair!

That’s it, So… What do you think? Are you going to do that? or you’ll stick to another ‘tech‘niques?
Or maybe you’re a client who was in the same situation one day?!

HOW TO: Make a list of your files or folders quickly

Ted — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:30:13 +0000

Ever wanted to send a list of the movies you have to one of your friends? Or maybe wanted print a list of MP3 files that you have, Or share a list of albums with your friends on the internet? But copying the file or folder names one by one would take so much time, and it is boring!

So here’s the easy and quick way to do it on Windows and Linux OS…
To make a list of files and folders in a directory simply follow these steps:

Windows

Start
Run
Type “cmd” without quotes and hit enter

Now you need to navigate to the directory you wish to print the contents of. Type the letter of the partition where your folder is e.g. “D:” Now you’re in partition D. Simply use the “cd” command to reach the folder you want then enter the following command..
dir -o -b > list.txt

Now you’ll find a new file “list.txt” created in the directory and has a list of files and folders name in this directory.

Let me explain what this command means, You can skip that part if you’re not interested.

1. dir is the command used to list the contents of a directory
2. -o to sort the files in the list by name. Use -s to sort them by size and -e to sort them by extension.
3. -b this means you want only the files or folders names without any other infomation.
4. > list.txt This indicates the name of the new text file you want to the list to be generated into. In this case the generated file name will be “list.txt” and this file will be generated in the directory you’re creating the list from.

Tips for advanced users:
You can create a batch file “.bat” with the command above and save it in your windows folder, Then in Windows Expolorer go to Tools > Folder Options > Types tab > then click Folder.
Click the Advanced, Then “New” like in this image..

Now when you right-click on directory you should see a new option “Create File Listing”. Piece of cake, Isn’t it?

Linux

Go to the directory you wish to list the contents of. If you’re new to Linux, you will need to learn about the “cd” command and the “ls” command.
Once in the directory you wish to print the contents of, simply type that command
ls > list.txt

That will print or list the files and folders in the current directory to a new file named “list.txt” file.
Good luck.

What is a Yottabyte, How big is it?

Ted — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:06:34 +0000

In technology fields things are developed and improved more and faster than anything else. It even doubles every 1.5 years or so.
In 2040 everyone will be a total nerd!

Recently, I’ve heard about a computer storage measurement unit called “Yottabyte”. To tell you how big a Yottabyte is and how much data it can hold, I have to start from the beginning…

Bit

The smallest unit of data that a computer uses. It can be used to represent two states of information, such as Yes or No.

Byte

It is an ordered collection of 8 bits, in which each bit denotes the binary value of 1 or 0.

Kilobyte “KB”

A kilobyte is approximately 1,000 Bytes, actually 1,024 Bytes. 1 Kilobyte could be the size of text in the paragraphs you’re currently reading now.

Megabyte “MB”

A Megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, That’s about a minute of MP3 or a pic taken from a camera.
Long time ago, A megabyte was considred to be a large amount of data, Floppy disk could hold 1.44 megabytes.

Gigabyte “GB”

A Gigabyte is approximately 1,000 Megabytes. The gigabyte is almost the most common space, storage and memory term these days.
1 Gigabyte can contain about 10 meters of book on a shelf.

Terabyte “TB”

A tera byte will fit 200,000 photos or MP3 songs on a single 1 terabyte hard drive.
1,024 GBs.

Petabyte

A Petabyte = 1,024 Terabytes, Which are 1,048,576 GBs
That will fit on 16 Backblaze storage pods racked in two datacenter cabinets.

Exabyte

A Exabyte = 1,024 Petabytes, or 1,073,741,824 GBs
That will fit 2,000 cabinets and fill a 4 story datacenter that takes up a city block.

Zettabyte

A Zettabyte = 1,024 Exabytes, or 1,099,511,627,776 GBs
That will fill 1,000 datacenters of about 20% of Manhattan, New York.

Yottabyte

The largest unit of computer data, storages or spaces that I know.
A Yottabytes = 1,024 Zettabytes, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 GBs!
That will fill the states of daleware and Phode Islan with a million datacenters!

What is after or bigger than Yottabyte?

Until now, There is no agreed name on what comes after a yottabyte.

So… When do you think normal people will have that kind of… storage er in their homes?
And How much do you think that will cost??