Achute Tech

Analyze Twitter Tweets Using Hadoop , HIve - Part 1

2015-07-03T19:21:00.000+05:30

We will be looking at how to analyze your own tweets from twitter and find out interesting facts and information about your tweets as well as learn about how to do so in a step wise step guide.

Technologies That we will be using

We will be using the following technologies/software :

Hadoop ( HDFS - to store the database )
Hive ( to perform Queries on the data )
Java ( To develop the software that will access the data using JDBC and plot charts )
Eclipse ( IDE to make the development process easier )
Python (To properly parse the input )

What will our Final output look like:

as you can see we in the end we will be able to create a Java Program that will have a GUI that can be used to show us various plots and pie charts after analyzing the tweets.

Prerequisites :

Well , I hope that Hadoop and Hive are running already in your system. If not please do that first as the project wont work if you don't have those, And if they are installed and you are able to use them then you can carry one reading this tutorial series. I can do a tutorial on how to install and configure Hadoop and hive in a single cluster system ( on a single PC ) but lots of tutorial are already available in the internet so you can just Google it. ( If I get enough request I will do a step by step Installation Instruction in the future , for now Google it. )

To cut the long story short you should have Hive and Hadoop Running on your system.

Here is a list of tutorials you can follow to install and configure hive and Hadoop in your system

So if you are all set and confident lets do this to confirm at least we are on the right track and we can proceed further.

start the hadoop server using the command start-all.sh and then open up terminal and type

hive

you should get a console like

hive>

type show tables;

you should see Ok or the list of tables that are there.

If its all set and done we can proceed to the second part of the tutorial series.

P.S : I had done this as part of the Industrial Training In Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, and I was a member of a team which consisted of Prince Kumar and Payash Pradhan and myself. I would like to thank Amrit Chhetri Sir for training us on Big Data and helping us with the project.

Cracking WIFI Passwords with just the client

2013-07-19T16:40:00.000+05:30

Well , I got the Idea for this script from Security Tube Episode 26 , In which Vivek Ramachandran sir explains the idea behind cracking wifi passwords with just the client. Be sure to check that out .

Here I will be posting my own script which I wrote this morning to automate the process , It's bit naive but I will certainly add stuffs to it like specifying the wordlist file for aircrack-ng or even if new techniques come up for cracking wifi with just the client , I will update the script if I find any more info on it ..

Well you are free to do whatever you want with the script , But please note its only for educational purposes..

any way the script can be found here .

More info will be updated soon ..

Stay Safe .. Happy Hacking

MITM - WIFI HONEPOT - Part 2

2013-07-18T13:41:00.002+05:30

In this post we will see what are the thing we can do with the clients who have connected to us via the Fake Ap ..

Note if you haven't read and followed what we did in our previous post I recommend you check that first .

MITM Wifi Honeypot - part 1

Ok.. so we have created the Fake AP , our client is connected to us and we have supplied them with our dhcp pool of address .. With this all done lets begin the FUN part..

What we will be doing ?

We will be doing dns spoofing that is we will forward all our client's request to our own computer so that we can monitor the request and even modify them if we want to and get all those details like the sites visited , sites user name and password ..and even modify those request and response .. sounds lot of fun lets get going ..

DNS spoofing

to do dns spoofing type

dnsspoof -i at0

what we are doing is that we are forwarding all the dns request of our client to our own ip address .. we should be able to see something like this

now thats done we have dns spoofing running and every client request is being forwarded to our own ip address now we will bind a proxy to our ip address so that we can intercept and create a transparent proxy so that the client may be able to connect to the Internet.

Note : we must be connected to the Internet for the client to be able to connect to the Internet .

ok lets start burpsuite

Now go to the Proxy Tab and to the Options tab of it click on Add

Type In 80 In the bind to port box
and select your router address or your at0 address in our case it is 192.168.0.1
And click on request handling tab and check the tick box for support Invisible proxying
click on ok and we are done ..

Repeat the same with port no 443 to handle HTTPS requests :P

Now you can see any request the client makes in the intercept tab and you can tamper with it monitor it forward it or even drop it .. You are the BOSS now :D .. you can even get login id and passwords of different site the client uses .. but while using https site the client will get a warning ..which most of the time they ignore :D

If you have any queries feel free to ask ..

Happy Hacking .. Stay SAFE

MITM - WIFI HONEYPOT

2013-07-18T13:06:00.001+05:30

Well ..today after a long time I am writing an tutorial .. I had even bought www.achutetech.com and for a year but I didn't post any thing there so it just got lapsed , I am sorry for not keeping up..but now I am trying to continue this blog by posting about the tings that I am trying these days...

Lets cut the crap .. and start of with our hacking .. :D

What are we doing today ?

Today we will create a fake wifi hotspot so that clients may connect to it and we can see what they are up to even log their facebook , or any web service passwords if they happen to browse them on our hotspot.

Where can we use this ?

Well you can use it any where where there are lots of wifi users around i.e laptops , smart phones .. who have their wifi on and are searching for wifi networks. I would recommend places like college campus .. well I use them there :D

Um... So What the tech behind it ?

You will act as a valid wifi hotspot provider .. Providing free Internet access to everyone :) . Those who connect to it you will monitor all their data and then forward it to the real server you will be acting like a man in the middle.
Intercepting every data , Even changing them to suit your needs and forwarding them to the real server and forwarding the replies back to the client.

[CLIENT] <-------------> [ YOU ] <------------> [INTERNET]

What are the tools required ?

I use Linux and I suggest you should also , So I will be using Kali Linux . Its a Linux Distribution with all the tools required for hacking are usually pre installed .

Linux OS
Wifi Adapter which supports creating hosted network
Internet Connection
a little bit of Patience
And this site of course, to guide you ;)

If you have all this tools of trade lets get started ..

Software Required

If you have Kali Linux or even Backtrack or any distribution which has aircrack-ng suite of tools then you are good .. Else you need to install it from here - http://www.aircrack-ng.org/ or you can start your terminal / console and type

apt-get update
apt-get install aircrack-ng

NOTE: even kali and backtrack users I suggest you use dnsmasq [instead of dhcpserver3 or dhcpd ]and install it once again even if its already installed.

Next you need to have dnsmasq to get it type

apt-get install dnsmasq

Now you are ready .. Lets start ..

Setting Up

First we need to gather some information ..plug in your usb wifi adapter if you have one and in terminal / console type

ifconfig

You should see something like this on your screen

There you will see wlan0 or even wlan1 [If you have extra wifi adapter ] . Take a note of what you have and then type

airmon-ng start wlan0
or
airmon-ng start wlan1

depending on what you have You should be able to see (monitor mode enabled on mon0)

Now thats done .. lets proceed ..
Next we need to monitor the airwaves to get the names of the wifi access point the clients are trying to connect to do that type

airodumpn-ng mon0

You should be able to see a few clients and under probe you will find the name of the Access Point the client is trying to connect to in this example we see that the client is searching for the wifi access point named achutetech

So we will create a Fake Ap with the name of achutetech and try to make the client connect to us . To do this we type ..

airbase-ng --essid achutetech mon0

In our example we see this

That we have successfully managed to create a fake AP and a client with an client also was successfully associated with our fake AP. But the client will still not be fully connected to our AP since we haven't provided it with any IP address . To do so we use dnsmasq

Note : I have tried using dhcpd or dnsserver3 but they seem to be error prone while configuring them and it was getting errors like Interface name is too long and all so I switched to dnsmasq and it seems to work great :D

To verify that we have dnsmasq type

whereis dnsmasq

and to see whether we have the configuration file or not [I have noticed that even tough dnsmasq was installed on Kali Os it didnt have the dnsmasq.conf file so to get it type apt-get install dnsmasq ]

and to verify that we have the config file type

ls /etc/ | grep dnsmasq

if dnsmasq.conf file is returned then its well and good But if not try

apt-get install dnsmasq

Ok now we have the dnsmasq we need to configure a few things type

vim /etc/dnsmasq.conf

[How to use vim - I will be writing a quick tutorial on it soon ]
now scroll down to line 90 or around you should see

# interface=

change it to

interface=at0

// at0 is the interface in which our FAKE AP lies

now scroll down even more to line 141 you should see

#dhcp-range=192.168.0.50,192.168.0.150,12h

just remove the #

and you are good to go :D

Now we have to supply an ip address to your router [i.e the fake ap ]

to do so type

ifconfig at0 192.168.0.1 up

and to start the dhcp service type

dnsmasq

Now your clients should be able to get an ip address for themselves.

We have Finished the configuration part for now .. The Fun Part will be in the next post :D

The Part two is ready - here is the link

MITM - WIFI Honeypot part 2

If you have any problems till now do comment below I will try my best to reply thanks ..

Tech Geek Tricks is now Achute Tech

2012-07-17T12:14:00.000+05:30

Hi , every one . I take this opportunity to welcome you all to a new domain name for techgeektricks
As you may have noticed that Techgeektricks has become Achute Tech . |

I have just joined college and today was my first day in college . I will not be able to give time to this Blog / Site for few days .. But Sure I will try my best to keep you guys updated on The latest Happenings in the Tech World And of course in my life .

I would like to begin a new journey with this blog and with you all and so that we may all learn with me . As I travel through this huge tech world and learn.

Facebook Security And Privacy Tips

2012-07-08T22:05:00.003+05:30

Facebook the worlds most popular social network.
Most people use it .. but they still dont know many features which is hidden inside Facebook and how to be secure in this digital age : Here we will provide few quick tips to protect your Facebook Account to make it more secure

SECURITY TIPS

Here is a list of Few Security Tips which we follow and we recommend it to you as well. To follow these tips you need to click on the drop down arrow icon near your Home button and click on Account Settings - Check the image for more info

First and foremost Thing you need to update your password often :D well I guess every one knows that but most don't follow it

Now Go to the security tab located on the left hand side as Shown in the figure
There you will see a few settings which can be configured like
Secure Browsing , Login Notification and all as shown in the image below

[RECOMMENDED] Now , If your secure browsing is turned off than there is a huge risk of your Facebook account getting hacked , thorough Facesniff , and other sniffer applications, may it be on phone or in PC Therefore its is MUST that you activate this Secure browsing . It will make use of Secure protocol instead of normal protocol. In simple words it will use https:// instead of http:// Which is more safe
[RECOMMENDED] Next thing you need to do is Activate Login Notification. What it does is it sends you SMS or email or both when some one logs into your Facebook account including You.
This is a great way to know if anyone else accessed your Facebook account

If You use Facebook via SMS , or if you reply or add friends to your Facebook account using SMS Then This Security Tip is very important to you. That is to activate mobile pin settings. To do so Click on the mobile tab as shown in the figure before or you can click on this link www.facebook.com/settings?tab=mobile

Here is whats written in Facebook about it

If you enable this feature, you need to prefix every status changing and friend adding text you send to Facebook with your selected PIN. This is to make sure that others will not have access to your account by spoofing your phone number or borrowing your phone.

PRIVACY TIPS

Have You always wanted to hide your status updates your wall photos and other thing from few people or just make it visible to some people and hide it from the rest Or to control what people tag you and Control it then here is how to do it.

Who Can See You ?

If you want to Hide your status update and all from many people then follow the following steps else ignore the list creating step

List Creating Step :

To put it in simple words you don't require to specify the individual by his name while setting your privacy , You can just use the list name and all the members of the list will be selected at once which saves time.

Go to www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists
Now click on +Create List
Specify the list name in my case it is Protect and add the members in the list
Click create and you are done

Setting the privacy option:

Now go to privacy settings from the drop down beside the home button or go to this link www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy
Under Control Your default privacy click on custom
You Should see a pop up as shown >>
Now you need to type the name of the list as mentioned above or name the person from whom you want to hide your wall activities
In my case it is Protect
Now click on Save Changes and you are done

Now your wall activity will only be visible to your friends except the people you choose to hide from.

You can also configure these settings for individual post by clicking on the butoon just beside POST as shown in the image

And If you always wanted to secure your profile then here is how to do it - From Facebook itself
www.facebook.com/about/control/

Controlling the Tags

Now the Next setting is very important . As you see now days that unknown people or people from your friend list tag you in pics which you don't like or don't want. Some people tag you in very explicit pics and all your friends can see that you are tagged in those things . Here is how to control what other people tag you , And its very much recommended for girls to follow this

To control what happens when friends tag you or your content, or post on your timeline go to Privacy settings And click on edit settings under the Timeline and Tagging label A pop up should appear as shown >>

Now click on Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline and enable it.

So when any one tags you in a picture or a wall post you need to approve it before it appears on your timeline . Isn't that great.

Of course I haven't mentioned all the privacy settings you can do, If I did that then this post would be very boring and well you can explore on your own self thw privacy settings facebook offers and customize them according to your privacy needs by going here www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy

What I have mentioned in this Blog Post are the tips and settings I feel which is a must , You are free to check out the rest.

Stay Tuned as my next post will focus on the Hidden Facebook Tricks .. Till then take care.

Top 10 Hacking , Cracking Forums

2012-04-24T16:10:00.000+05:30

Do you want to learn hacking , cracking and don't know the right place to start then don't worry.
As we all know Forums are a great place to learn about stuffs .
Interested In Top 10 Computer Technology forums - Read this post
Therefore, without beating much around the bush let me come directly to the topic - TOP 10 Hacking / Cracking Forums - Ranked according to no of post,users and topics.

1- Hackforums[dot]net

With over 1,69,60,562 posts , 17,25,076 threads 2,74,438 members registered and with 2,404 Most users online This is definitely one of the Forums which You gotta signup if you wanna learn Hacking ;)

Here's more stats

Posts per day: 7,787.99
Threads per day: 792.09
Members per day: 126.2
Posts per member: 61.71
Replies per thread: 8.83

2- Crackingforum[dot]com

With over 38,93,861 posts 2,00,155 Threads 2,36,529 members registered and 15,828 Most users online.

This Forum ranks 2nd position in top 10 hacking / Cracking forums

3- Crackhackforum[dot]com

This forum has more than 318,583 posts in 148,954 threads. They currently have 74,966 members registered And the most users online at one time was 2,433 makes this forum the 3^rd forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums .

Here are More Stats

Posts per day: 406.13
Threads per day: 189.88
Members per day: 95.69
Posts per member: 4.24
Replies per thread: 1.14

4- hackerthreads[dot]org

This forum has more than1,12,748 posts in 13,865 threads. They currently have 20,664 members registered And the most users online at one time was 149.

This stats makes this forum the 4^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

5- hackcommunity[dot]com

With over 63,436 posts in 11,281threads , 22,210 members registered and with 3,100 Most users online This is definitely one of the Forums which you wouldn’t mind signing up for :)

Here are more stats

Posts per day: 124.05
Threads per day: 22.06
Members per day: 43.37
Posts per member: 2.86
Replies per thread: 4.62

6- l33thackers[dot]com

This forum has more than 51,090 posts in 28,997 threads. They currently have 10,063 members registered And the most users online at one time was 473 makes this forum the 6^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

Here are more stats

Posts per day: 81.37
Threads per day: 46.13
Members per day: 16.03
Posts per member: 5.08
Replies per thread: 0.76

7- Andhrahackers[dot]com

This forum has more than 19,538 posts in 5,318 threads. They currently have 24,610 members registered And the most users online at one time was 3687 makes this forum the 7^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

8- hacker[dot]org

This forum has more than 18,480 posts in 2,016 threads. They currently have 26,967 members registered And the most users online at one time was 793 makes this forum the 8^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

9- evilzone[dot]org

This forum has more than 16,626 posts in 2,552 threads. They currently have 5,453 members registered And the most users online at one time was 907 makes this forum the 9^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

10- worldofhacker[dot]com

This forum has more than 11,434 posts in 2,739 threads. They currently have 17,383 members registered And the most users online at one time was 439 makes this forum the 10^th forum in our list of top 10 hacking / cracking forums.

More Stats on this Forum

Posts per day: 20.62
Threads per day: 4.94
Members per day: 31.36
Posts per member: 0.66
Replies per thread: 3.17

BONUS

My friends recently created a forum dedicated to hacking @cyberwizards.org its sure worth a visit do check it out :)

Hide Your Secret Files With Our Secret

2012-04-21T23:23:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wanted to hide your important , Secret Files .. If yes then what can be a better option then Hiding the file right inside other file ( this is also known as Steganography )and securing them with password.
Wikipedia describes Steganography as :

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity.

Well enough of those definitions lets start the real stuff:-
You want to :

Hide a Secret file inside another file
Share that secret file with someone else with a password then read on..

Steps to Hide / Protect your Secret File :

Download Our Secret ( 1.63 MB)
Install It ;) and then open OurSecret
To hide a file we need to select a carrier file

Carrier Files are those file which Contains the hidden file plus the file itself . In simple words it carries the hidden file

Select a file (any file ) as carrier file
Next step click on ADD
Now we can either add a file or a message . If you want to hide a file select file else select message
Click on next and select the file you want to hide or type in the secret message
Now to protect it with a password type in the password and click on Hide :)

Hear is a great example on how to hide files with our secret (GUIDE)

Steps to Unhide the files

Open Our Secret
In the UNHIDE section Open the carrier file which contains the hidden file or message
Enter the password and click on UNHIDE
Double click to same the hidden file or to view the Secret Message :)

Hope You Enjoyed reading this article , and be safe always :)

Root Galaxy Mini

2012-04-19T11:53:00.000+05:30

What is Rooting ?

According to Wikipedia:

Rooting is a process allowing users of mobile phones, tablet PCs, and other devices running the Android operating system to attain privileged control (known as "root access") within Android's subsystem. Rooting is often performed with the goal of overcoming limitations that carriers and hardware manufacturers put on some devices, resulting in the ability to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialized apps that require administrator-level permissions, or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user.

So without beating much around the bush lets get started on How to Root Galaxy Mini Running Android 2.2.1 .

Requirements To Root Galaxy Mini:

Latest Samsung Kies ( For Drivers ) - DOWNLOAD
Super One Click ( Software For Rooting ) - DOWNLOAD

Important Information Before Rooting Galaxy Mini

Rooting Voids Your Phone Warranty
You may Brick Your Phone

Please Turn off any Antivirus Software installed in your computer .

Unmount Your SD Card Before Rooting

To do so go to Settings in your phone > SD Card and Phone Storage > Unmount SD Card

Now you are ready to root your Galaxy Mini :)

Rooting Your Galaxy Mini

Install Samsung Kies - For Drivers
Enable USB Debugging in your phone (Go to Settings > Manage Applications > Development > USB debugging )
Connect the phone via the USB cable
Open SuperOneClick.exe
Click On Root
Wait for some time
After Finishing Reboot Your Phone

Windows Xp Games Cheats

2012-04-09T14:09:00.001+05:30

Well I don't think I need to introduce you all to the most popular games of windows XP.

Yep you have guessed it right I am talking about all that inbuilt games which Windows XP has in store for us. Today we will look at all the cheat codes associated with those games. Lets start

FREE CELL

There are two ester eggs in this one:-

One will let you instantly win the game while the other will unlock the Hidden Game Modes

For Instant Win

Open FreeCell.
Hold down Ctrl+Shift+F10 during game play.
Then you will be prompted up with a dialog box asking you to Abort, Retry or Ignore.
Choose Abort, now move any card and BINGO!! INSTANT WIN

For Hidden Game Modes

Open FreeCell.
Go to Game
Then on to Select Game or directly press F3.
In the Dialog Box “Game Number” Enter either -1 or -2 to activate the hidden mode.

Now onto the next game that is

HEARTS

Well , In this game you can See all the cards .

For that we need to do a bit of registry tweaking ..

Firstly head over to START
Then onto RUN.
Now type regedit and then hit enter .

Registry Editor will open up... Now head over to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Hearts

Right click on the Hearts folder, select New, String Value and name it ZB. Right-click on ZB, select Modify and enter a Value Data of 42, OK and close Regedit.

Start Hearts . Now Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F12 to show all the cards.

Background - This secret is a reference to Douglas Adams' book the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 'ZB' is the initials of the character Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Galactic President. '42' is the answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Minesweeper

Well In this game you can reveal the mines and you can even stop the timer.

To reveal the mines

To do so minimize or close all running applications. Launch Minesweeper, and type xyzzy Now hold down shift key for one second. Now when you move the mouse cursor over a Minesweeper square you will see a tiny white pixel in the top left corner of your desktop screen. This pixel will change to black when your mouse moves over a mine.

TIP: Change your desktop background to a solid color other than black and white.

To Stop the Timer

Launch Minesweeper and start a game so the timer starts counting, then press the
Windows Key + D to show the desktop. Now when you select minesweeper from the taskbar you can continue playing with the timer stopped.

Pinball

Well, here there are lots of tricks,cheats which is possible

Type each of these codes at the start of a new game

For:

Extra Balls : Type 1max at the start of a new ball to get extra balls.

Gravity Well : Type gmax at the start of a new game to activate the Gravity Well.

Instant Promotion : Type rmax at the start of a new game to go up in ranks.

FOR Skill Shot:

Launch the ball partially up the so it falls back down after just crossing the yellow light bars. There are six yellow light bars that are worth a varying amount of points:

First: 15,000 points
Second: 30,000 points
Third: 75,000 points
Fourth: 30,000 points
Fifth: 15,000 points
Sixth: 7,500 points

GOD mode or Test Mode

Type hidden test at the start of a new ball to activate Test Mode. No notification will be given that this is activated but you can now left-click the mouse button and drag the ball around. While in test mode press the following keys for more secrets:

H - Get a 1,000,000,000 High Score

M - Shows the amount of system memory

R - Increases your rank in game

Y - Shows the Frames/sec rate

BONOUS

Unlimited Balls

Type bmax at the start of a new ball. No notification will be given that this is activated but when a ball is lost a new ball will appear from the yellow wormhole indefinitely. Once this is activated you will be unable to activate other secrets without restarting the game.

Solitaire

For Instant Win

Press Alt + Shift + 2 during game play to instantly win.

Draw single cards in a Draw Three game

Hold down CTRL + ALT + SHIFT while drawing a new card. Instead of drawing three cards you will only draw one.

Spider Solitaire

In this game you can edit your scores and all

Go to Run then onto regedit then go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER and then to Microsoft.
Now go to Spider. The following is displayed:

a) HighScore_()=Set the value to set your high scores.

b) StreakCurrent, StreakLosses and StreakWins= edit your streak records.

c) Wins_()= Edits your winning records.

That's all, Now you are ready to trick your friends. Did I miss any trick do drop a comment . Did you like my post please feel free to comment. Thanks for reading.

What Do People Do on the Internet?

2011-01-19T21:46:00.001+05:30

It’s everywhere, it has invaded every aspect of our lives, and it has brought about a great many changes to the way we live. Simply put, it’s impossible to even consider a world without the Internet today. It may not all be good, but the fact is that it’s here to stay. The web helps us keep in touch with people in other ends of the world; it provides us with new experiences and encounters; and it is entertaining to say the least. So what do most of the billions of people who use the Internet do online?

According to USA Today, the average American spends around 25 percent of their time online, and the top activities on the web in order of decreasing importance are social networking, online gaming, and emailing. Also, the time spent on email and instant messengers has come down (email and instant chat have been rolled into Facebook and other social networks which seem to have become all-in-one platforms for communication) while that spent on watching videos and movies online has gone up (thanks to the advent of torrent file shares and faster Internet speeds).

Some people do a major part of or all their work online, and for them, the biggest hurdle to achieving their target or getting things done is to ignore the lure of the web. It’s tempting to check mail every few minutes, see if someone has left a comment on your Facebook status or responded to your tweet, play a quick game online in the short break you have, or shoot off a reply to the chat message your friend left seeing you online. The problem with doing all these and much more on the web when you’re at work is that the few minutes you allow yourself often turn into hours, and before you realize it, the whole day has gone by and you haven’t
been productive at all.

Considering the fact that people work and spend time for their personal and social lives, spending 25 percent online on activities that are mostly entertainment-related says something about the irresistible nature of the web. It has us in some kind of a hold, one that we’re unable to extricate ourselves from without suffering withdrawal symptoms and giving in the craving that gnaws at us. Technology today is pervasive, and even if we stay away from our computers, our smartphones lure us to the web with their sleek looks and do-it-all capabilities.

Also, it’s pretty much impossible to isolate yourself from the Internet because if you do, it’s like you’ve cut yourself off from the rest of the world. So the key to making the most of this technology is to use it in moderation, especially for activities that are not really productive and which end up wasting your time and energy without giving you anything in return except a guilty conscience. If you’re able to balance your real life with your virtual one without letting the latter take over the former, that’s when you get the most out of the Internet and its associated technology.
______________________

This guest post is contributed by Cathy Thomas, she writes on the topic of Online Computer Technician Schools . She welcomes your comments at her email id: cathy83.thomas<@>gmail<.>com.

Top 10 Technology,Computer Forum

2010-12-08T20:14:00.001+05:30

As the title says , Today we will look at the webs top 10 Technology, Computer, Internet related forums. A forum is a place where we can openly discuss things, therefore it provides us a helping hand to our problems, We can read the latest news or latest reviews or it is a place where we can just discuss. So, here are the top 10 technology forums, Where you can find the maximum no of users, topics and post.

1. Anandtech Forum
This forum, with over 284,46 members, 30,897,923 Post and 2,122,658 Threads, is the largest Tech Forum, It is definitely one of those forums , which you wont regret signing up. So head over to Anandtech forum and sign up now.

2. Whirlpool Forum
It is an Australian Internet and technology discussion forum, But still it is opened to users all around the globe, It is one of the best place to look for help. Tough this site is mainly for Broadband and such stuffs, you always get help here in other matters to. With 1,426,764 topics , 27,106,732 post and 397,200 members, This site is a Must for anyone interested in Tech stuffs.

3. Tech Support Guy
In the Third position we have Tech Support Guy , with over 900,058 topics , 7,544,119 post and 574,689 members, This forum is an ideal place for anyone, searching for a great tech forum.

4. Tech Support Forum
With over 507,194 Threads, 2,981,882 Post and 723,500 members the Fourth position goes to Tech Support Forum.

5.Neowin Forums
With over 628,471 Topics, 9,789,416 Post and 256,479 Members Neowin Forums takes the 5th place, In this top ten list.

6. BleepingComputer

In the sixth position we have BleepingComputer.com , with over 268,103 threads, 2,007,686 posts and 424,369 members. The Discussion ranging from Operating Systems ,Hardware , Software , Internet and Networking to Security and lots more.

7. Geeks to Go Forums

In the Seventh Position We have Geeks to Go Forums,They have over 242,544 Topics, 1,911,079 Post and 333,681 Members. If you are new Geeks to Go then here is an introduction (learn how it works)

8. TechArena Community

In the 8th position we have TechArena Community With over 150,347 Topics, 762,518 Post and 215,687 Members , TechArenaCommunity truly deserves the 8th Position. Here is a screenshot of it.

9. TechSpot

The 2nd last position of the top ten goes to TechSpot, With over 145,871 Topics, 940,477 post and 178,326 Members , it is surely one of the best tech Forums out there.

10. Cyber Tech Help Support Forums

Last but not the least we have the Cyber Tech Help Support Forums at the 10th position, of our webs top 10 technology and computer related forums.

-: Bonus :-

Thinkdigit , Tough its not in the top ten list, its one of ma personal favorites, I hope you too will like this forum as i do. With 1,123,800 post with only 29,821 Members , I couldn't ignore it ;)

________

I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this post as much as i enjoyed writing it, Please do comment on what you feel about the top ten Forums.

Customise Google Search page

2010-12-07T23:22:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wanted to have your name instead of Google. Well if you are a hacker then surely you would be able to change it for every one, But lets not talk about every one, Here are services that let you change it for your computer only. Here are some of the screen shots.

Well you can create your own from these sites:

Shiny Search : Its the best so far, with customisation option to change the style and text.
GoogleMyWay: Another Service which allows you to change the "Google" text into sumthing else.
Ugoogle : Its same as above but has lot of stylish fonts.

You can then set them as your homepage. ;)
These have there own advantages and disadvantages tough. The disadvantage being that you will not get your custom searchengine when you hit www.google.com Therefore I suggest you to use these:

If You are a Firefox user then, I suggest you to use a greasemonkey script . Greasemonkey can be found here and the script here.
The other option is to sign into your google account, Then go to www.google.com and click on the bottom conner of the screen " Add a background image" and then you can either use the images listed or upload your own my homepage basically looks like this:

The best mp3 search engine in the web.

2010-12-07T18:38:00.000+05:30

Today we will look at a service, well most of you may already be using this service ,but I am sure someone may find this article useful.A search engine to be precise, which will allow us to download free mp3 from the internet. BeeMp3 as the name of the search engine goes, is the best music search engine I have used till now.
Here is what it says about its service:

BeeMP3 is a music search engine for locating an mp3-audio files over the Internet.
We don't host any files - our crawler searches through the Net and indexes all the brand new and popular songs for Your comfortable and fast search.
Today we have 800 000 mp3 files in our search database and approximately 10 000 files are added daily.

We can search for All or a Song or an Album or an Artist. Its homepage also features top 30 mp3dowloads. Downloading a file is simple as searching for it and entering a validation code( to check whether you are a human or not ;) ) and clicking on dowload. Visit this site now to check all its features and do drop a comment here on what you think about this site.

What happened on the year you were born

2010-12-07T11:07:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wondered what had happened on the year you were born and did you every try to find out?
If yes then i am quite sure that you had to go through a tedious process to get the required information. But not anymore while I was browsing the net I stumbled upon this website which lets you see what had happend on your birthday year.

Moreover the way the content is presented its verygood. It begins with a countdown. With a bit of humorous touch and emphasis on the main events, this site is worth a visit. I Won't spoil your fun, by telling you everything here why don't you visit this site. I hope it will be a fun and informative experience. Do comment about your opinion about this site. Till then keep browsing.

Keep Your self out from a Website -KeepMeOut

2009-10-20T23:16:00.000+05:30

Today we will look at a service which will allow us to keep us away from a site which we visit often or keep us away from a site with whom we are addicted to.

Well to start lets go to . www.keepmeout.com . On the home page you will see :-

Are you addicted to a website?
Enter the address of the website you visit too often.
Bookmark the KeepMeOut alias and use the bookmark to navigate to the website instead.
Reclaim your life!

Now On the site address type the address of the site which you visit too often and set the time and click on submit. And Your alias for the site which you have requested will be created. Now bookmark the alias and whenever you want to visit the site open it through this bookmark.And when you Try to visit the site more than once the time is specified you will be shown an message :-

See the lyrics while playing the music.

2009-10-01T16:55:00.004+05:30

Today,I am going to tell you about a plugin for windows media player and Winamp

that will enable you to see the lyrics of the song which you are playing.

Wouldnt it be nice, If we can see the lyrics while listening to the music without opening the

browser and googling for the music.Well today we will look at a plugin called LyricsPlugin

which will enable you to do just that.

The Lyrics Plugin work's with Windows Media Player and Winamp.

Here is a screen shot of what it looked like in my computer.

Here's what the LyricsPlugin site says :

"Lyrics Plugin is a piece of software tailored for music fans.
To put it simply - it is an add-on to view lyrics in WinAmp or Windows Media Player.
No more searching for lyrics.
Just start listening to your favourite songs and lyrics will be displayed automatically.
Oh, and if lyrics is not found, you can add it yourself :)"

So what are you wating for head over to Lyrics Plugin and dowload the plugin.
After installing just open media player,open any song. Right click on view and plug-ins and select Lyrics plugin.Oh yeah,Don't forget to drop a comment on this service here.

How to download videos from youtube without using any service or software.

2009-09-28T17:13:00.005+05:30

Today, we will see how we can download videos from youtube without using any service i.e softwares or any website. All we will need to download a video is a browser ;) . With out beating around the bush let me start directly with the process to download the video. I have tried this trick with google chrome.I have used : Google Chrome as an Browser. Youtube as a site to download videos.

NOTE: In onder to avoid confusion later, perform this step .When in google chrome press ctrl+shift+del - to clear your
browsing data or press the wrench sign in the topright conner of google chrome and select Clear Browsing Data.

Firstly, We need to open youtube , and play the video you want to download. Now y

ou just watch your video after it's complete.minimize your browser [note : DON'T CLOSE YOUR BROWSER].

Then go to-

If you are using :

Google Chrome : C:\Documents and Settings\techgeektricks\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache

Firefox : C:\Documents and Settings\techgeektricks\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.udq\Cache

Internet Explorer: C:\Documents and Settings\techgeektricks\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

Where C is the drive which contains windows. i.e the system -operating system
and techgeektricks is the name of the user.

After reaching the directory mentioned above.Right click and make sure that the view of the files is in tiles. Now look for a file size larger than 3 mb .( Because I Don't think any video will be less than 3 mb ).

After finding the file copy it and paste it in another folder say 'My Documents' now rename that file with an extension of .flv let's say tgt.flv Now open this file with your favorite media player.I personally would suggest you to use VLC Media Player.

NOTE : Some times the file that you have copied is not the video you want to download. Then you have to do is trail and error method.I.E. You need to search for another file which is larger than 3 mb or has an size of an videoand then you need to copy it into another folder and change it's extension to flv as mentioned above and try to play it.

Good LUCK

If you are facing any problems or if you have any doubt or just know some another method then you might want to drop a comment down here.

Create Shortcuts to change wallpapers,run screensavers and more

2009-02-03T20:09:00.001+05:30

Today we will look at an Free application to change wallpapers ,Open/Close CD-ROM and much more.

Shortcuts or hotkeys are simple keyboard based combinations to perform a specific operations . like – ctrl +alt +del to open task manager and so on. It saves a lot of time .

This Software , Swift Keyboard can create hotkeys to.

-Change wallpaper
- Clear menu Documents
- Empty recycle bin
- Group hot key
- Hide active window in tray
- Minimize all window
- Open a folder

- Open/Close CD-ROM

- Paste text

- paste date & time.

-paste text from file

- Restart computer

- Run Screensaver

- Sound volume control

- Start desired program

- Turn off computer

- URL command

- Control Winamp

- Windows cascade,Windows tile horizontally ,Windows tile vertically

To Download this software visit here:- Download Swift Keyboard

To Know More about the Above described Facilities Visit here : Documentations

Visualize your history & personalize your search.

2009-01-22T21:59:00.001+05:30

Personalize your search. Visualize your history with WebMynd a plug-in for Firefox.

According to WebMynd.

It makes Google better by personalizing it with the information sources that you most value. You can embed different search tools, search your WebMynd browsing history and your most frequently visited sites.It saves and records the pages you see online so you can find what you have seen before faster.

WebMynd is quite an interesting plug-in for Firefox.

Personalized Search

WebMynd presents personalized, configurable search results on the right-hand side of the Google results page unless you have configured it not to show.

More info Here.

You can also view your web history .

After opening the WebMynd playback by clicking on the WebMynd icon in Firefox, you can view your web history either as a film reel or in a grid. You can select these modes by clicking the links in the top left of the playback mode.

More Info Here.

Over to you

Do you use services like WebMynd ? if so do drop us a line.

Lock your notepad notes with password.

2009-01-22T16:22:00.001+05:30

As security threats increase you can't just distribute your important text documents [written in notepad ] in the Internet or off line.

I used to type my e-mail passwords and other important info in Note pad[.txt file]. Increasing the threat of data theft, Till I discovered a free and open source software called LockNote to protect my files with .

I could have used Microsoft word – to save a doc file with password, But it is not standalone program . I need to have Microsoft word for it to run. But Locknote doesn't require installation , it is a standalone application and free too.

With LockNote your information's will be encrypted using a password and AES 256bit encryption technology.

Features.

No installation required

Move LockNotes wherever you want, as often as you want. A LockNote document does not require much more hard drive space than an unencrypted document.
Encrypt existing text files by just drag and drop.

Simply drag and drop existing text files on a LockNote window: they will be encrypted automatically.
Open and free

LockNote is open source and is based upon open source technologies, e.g. the certified CryptoPP program library for strong encryption.
Source- Locknote official site

Using it:-

Type in your information in the text field or just drag and drop you text files, after that click on File>SaveAs and specify the location where you want to save it. And type in your file name and hit save.

Now you are promoted with a Dialog box. Type in your password and hit ok. Now distribute your secure file on line or off line .

Making It more Secure.

While saving it I noticed that it could be made more secure and undetectable.

But for that you need to do a small change in your folder option .
Open my computer click on Tools>Folder Option now select the view tab and un tick the Hide extension for known file types.

Now click on apply and on OK.

Now go back to the location where you have saved your locked file.

Note:- Copy that file name and give it a another name. Creating a backup is always good if you are doing this for the first time.

Right click on it and click on Rename and rename it to filename.dll

[ you can use .zip,.txt,.mp3 and so on instead of .dll ]

You will receive a message like this. Without fear click on ok.

Now to Get it back just rename it to filename.exe

Over to You:-

Do you use Software's like Locknote, or have any thing to say about locknote please leave us a comment below. thanks.

Convert your recent twitter status to an image

2009-01-17T22:33:00.001+05:30

Have you ever wanted to convert your recent twitter status to an image so that you can display it in blogs, bb , forums, Web site and so on.. then head over to twitstamp.com and create a free twitter stamp [image for you ] But Wait before you go look below to see what you will need to get one and what types of style you will get there.

How do I get one ?

You can get images like this [shown right. This is my favorite though they are many other designs].

You will notice that the current status get updated as soon as I update a new tweet and my friends images keep on changing that makes this app quite attractive.

It shows you, current no of followers and friend with images and you don't have to worry about no html, css codes, just an image link.

To create an image go to Twit Stamp and enter your twitter username and click on generate

See the image below for more details

Over to you

Do you use Service like Twitstamps if so please drop us a line or if you have some thing to say about twitstamp. thanks

You can view twitstamp here . or read there faq here.

Translate Your Tweets to different language by Human Translators

2009-01-17T21:30:00.002+05:30

Another twit app created recently, Hit my Rss feed via [Techcrunch] .With this app you can translate your tweets to Arabic,Chinese,Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

What Exactly is it?

If this is your question then . It is a free service run by human beings not BOTS! to translate your tweet to different languages as specified above.

How do I do it ?

Well type @twitrans orginallanguage2newlanguage your tweet

what are the codes for languages?

Well, the Available language codes are Arabic-ar, Chinese-zh, Dutch-nl, English-en, French-fr, German-de, Greek-el, Hebrew-he, Hindi-hi, Italian-it, Japanese-jp, Portuguese-pt, Russian-ru, Spanish-es

You have to use the codes not the full name of the language

for example ; if you want to translate" hi how are you "from English to Japanese then you have to type

@twitrans en2jp hi how are you

More Info Here

Over to you

Do you know any Translators like twitrans or do you have to say any thing about twittrans then feel free to drop us your comment below thanks.

Track Trends across twitter with Tweetfu

2009-01-17T20:46:00.001+05:30

Today we will look at a app to track trends across twitter. You could use this tool to see/compare different types of service like Blogger vs WordPress you can also use this tool to find a popular niche on twitter.Eg :- Make money online vs Technology. And so on

Here is a screen shot below to get you attracted to this app :

Here is a fight Between Windows and Linux :

Another fight between Blogger and WordPress :

To create a fight for yourself click here.

To visit Tweetfu click here.

Note you can also vied the fights created by you ;

http://www.tweetfu.com/search/creator/twitterUsername

like my is

http://www.tweetfu.com/search/creator/achute

Wordpress Themes to Blogger templates FREE.

2009-01-15T16:10:00.001+05:30

Well, I am quite busy these days because I have Created a site to offer Free Blogger Templates, Conversion of WordPress themes and CSS templates to Blogger templates for free.Well I will not be updating these days because I will need to produce 10 high quality blogger templates and then I will get back here at Tech Geek Tricks And continue with my Internet and tech articles , till then visit my Templates Blog. thanks.

If you do know any WordPress theme out there and want to have it converted to blogger for free then please contact me.thanks.