techbyte4u

Automate Repetitive tasks using Mouse/Macro Recorders

Surbhi Verma — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 19:08:00 +0000

Through out a day, almost all computer user do many repetitive tasks on computer and internet. If you are one of them, then Macro recorders can help you to reduce the stress of repetitive tasks from your hands and wrists by automating the repetitive tasks for you.
Using Macro recorders you can record all your frequently used or repetitive sequences of keystrokes and mouse movements and later you can play your recording to automatically do the same tasks for you. Even you can create auto bots Macro also using such softwares.

Some possible repetitive tasks can be the following:
1. Taking backup of your files
2. Opening the browser, login or opening all your favorite websites / web pages.
3. Follow/unfollow your followers in bulk on twitter
4. Like/Dislike FB pages in bulk

Though there are many Macro records available on web, I have tested only a few and found JitBit Macro recorder best among them. It is easy to record and play keystrokes and mouse clicks using Jitbit. It also have many predefined commands too, to make your task easier.

How to Use Macro recorders (JitBit):
The procedure of recording sequence of operations is almost same for all Macro recorder, you can download and use any of your choice.But here I am the idea to record and play repetitive operations using JitBit.
1. Download 40 days Trial version of JitBit and install it on your computer.

2. After installation, click on the RECORD button at top left and start performing the operations you want to record.

3. Click on stop button when you finish your work. It will record everything you did from the start to the end of recording.

4. Once you stop, you can see the complete list of all tasks you performed with the mouse coordinates under the command section. You can delete any or can insert any other too.

5. Now whenever you want to automate the recorded repetitive tasks, press the play button. And it will do all work for you.

6. Shortcuts are very important to record/play/pause or stop any recording. Some shortcuts are:

ctrl+R to start a new recording
ctrl + P to play/pause a recording
ctrl+ Q to stop

7. In the left pannel you can see many buttons, you can make use them too in your recording to perform some useful operations.

**You can schedule your recording time to automatic play/perform any operations even when you are away from your computer.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

How To Get Full Version of WinRAR For Free

Surbhi Verma — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:02:00 +0000

Free winrar, Full version Winrar, Winrar Serial key

I guess everyone know what is Winrar, and what it works. So without going into that deep, directly going to tell an easy procedure to convert Winrar trial version into full version.

Steps to follow:
1. Download and Install trial version of Winrar
2. Now copy everything given below and paste it in Notepad.

RAR registration data
DigitalConduct
Unlimited Company License
UID=50ffc598a5a2f6862abb 64122122502abbc84c39c3419cc42c830c7918bd06eb387ba39db0 c2e20d6aee1b3d045ed860fce6cb5ffde62890079861be57638717 7131ced835ed65cc743d9777f2ea71a8e32c7e593cf66794343565 b41bcf56929486b8bcdac33d50ecf7739960a8bc2f89179193e346 00ba2270daa5b65a7909ecfb8130b60452eabf07f1a805749a4b6b 1571bc8a47789bc120ff2b6ae77e980ce8b5af8cd45d8be260f16e 3df7bf450991bde61f43b36a2096f010e0d232d4331c1958956325

3. Now save the notepad file with name 'rarreg.key' at location C:\Program Files\WinRAR
Note: You have to have Admin authority to save the file in this folder, if you dont have permissions then check the following link to grant permission. http://www.techbyte4u.com/2011/12/how-to-grant-permissions-in-windows-7.html .

And its done !!

I tested it successfully for Winrar Version 4.0.1. Tell us is it work for you or not?

Check out other posts under category Serial keys and Cracks.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

How to hack/Bypass windows logon password [VIDEO]

Surbhi Verma — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:13:00 +0000

In response to query asked by Ameer Hasan Malik

Did you forget your windows login password? or want to access Admin account in school or colleges?

Whatever the reason is, this article can help you to get into the Admin account of your Windows computer system even without knowing its password.

For this purpose we will use here a small utility called "Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor".

Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor

This is a utility to reset the password of any user of your Windows system.
Supports all Windows from NT3.5 to Win7, also 64 bit and also the Server versions (like 2003 and 2008)
You do not need to know the old password to set a new one.
It works offline, that is, you have to shutdown your computer and boot off a CD or USB disk to do the password reset.

Requirements:

Blank CD / USB Drive

Follow the procedure below to reset/remove password

1. Preparing a bootable "Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor" CD/USB

For CD:

Download this utility from here. You will get a zip file > extract it.
In the extracted folder you will get an iso image file named 'cd110511.iso'. Using any image burning software burn it on a blank CD.

For USB:

Download this utility from here. You will get a zip file > extract it.
Copy everything what is there in extracted folder and paste in your USB drive.
Now open command prompt as administrator(write cmd in search at start menu > right click on cmd.exe > run as administrator).
In the command prompt write the following and press enter.

f:\syslinux.exe -ma f:
Note: In above command, replace both f (marked red)with your USB drive's letter.

Now, your CD/USB is ready for use. You can now proceed with this media to the computer of which password you want to reset.

2. Resetting Password Using Bootable CD/USB

Insert CD/USB in the computer whose password to be reset.
Now you need to boot your system from CD/USB. For that restart your computer, then if it ask automatically to boot from CD then press enter. If it does not ask automatically then after restarting your system, when you see the logo of your computer manufacturer, press esc or F10 just after that. It will take you to boot device option screen, select the USB and press enter.

After booting from USB, first it will stop at the screen as shown below > press enter.

Now, it will ask you to for the drive in which your windows is installed. Check the options thoroughly, and choose the correct one.(note: You can recognize it by the size of your drives)

Now, it will ask you for the path of registry, write down the following:

windows/system32/config

Then in next two stops write 1 and press enter.

Then it shows you all the user account on your windows system, write down the name of the user whose password you want to remove.

In next step, write 1 if you want to remove password or write 2 if you want to reset.

When you are done with password resetting or removing press '!' to get out of this, then press 'q'.

Important Step: When it ask you to save back press 'y'.

In next stops, press 'n' then press ctrl+ alt+ delete, it will take you out from this, and will restart your computer.

Watch Video:

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Trick to identify the celebrity without staring and blinking eyes

Surbhi Verma — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Have you seen the illusion pictures that ask you to stare on the picture for some seconds and then blink your eyes to see the celebrity? Images below are the examples of such kind of illusion.
Stare at the image for 20 seconds, then look at the wall, blink your eyes fast and try to identify the celebrity.

Well and good if you successfully identified, you have very sharp eyes ;)

Anyways, here in this post, I am going to tell about a trick , so that you can see the celebrity in the picture without bothering your eyes much.

1. Whenever you see such picture, Press Windows logo key with Plus Sign or Minus Sign. It will open magnifier application.

2. Now Press ctrl+ alt+ I and voila, the celebrity of picture will become visible to you now. ctrl+alt+I is the shortcut for inverting the colors of photo.

3. In end, press Window key+ Esc to close the magnifier.

Read How you can create your own 'stare and blink illusion picture'

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Advantage of Chrome's Multi-Process Performance

Surbhi Verma — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:20:00 +0000

Google Chrome was one of the first browsers to have multiple processes. If you are a frequent Google Chrome user, then you probabely have seen sometimes, multiple “chrome.exe” processes running in your task manager, with multiple times memory uses. This is beacause, Chrome creates separate process for each tab, extensions and plugins installed. For example if you have 5 tabs opened, 9 extensions and 2 plugins installed, then you will find 17 processes(5 tabs + 9 extensions + 2 plugins + Chrome itself = 17 processes) in task manager.
This is unlike, Firefox and Opera, which creates only one process in task manager, no matter how many tabs are opened.

Many people think it is bad, and ask for something tricky that can switch chrome to single process mode. They might not have idea about the benifits of Chrome's multi-processes feacher.

Cons of Multiprocessing in browsers:
Multiprocessing is good due to many reasons. Chrome isolates many of the components from each other which improves performance and memory management and help it be more robust, responsive, and secure than single process browsers.Some examples:

If an attacker succeeds in accessing one application, he/she is not able to access the other applications.
If one tab stops responding, then it won't affect other tabs. But in case of single process browser like firefox, whole browser stops responding. This applies for extensions and plugins also. Crashing a single extension or plugin will not affect other plugins or tabs or the main process itself.
Chrome automatically sets higher priority for the tab you are working upon, and sets lower priority for all other remaining background tabs.Higher priority will never slow down your foreground work, and lower priority of unused tabs will not become the reson for slowing down other application running on your system. It makes your system faster. Other single process browsers can’t set the priority and slow down complete system, also reduce your foreground application performance by as much as 50%.
Startup performance is also enhanced with this feature – especially when you startup with multiple tabs. In this case, Chrome will lower the priority of the background tabs, and only the foreground tab will have high priority. You get the foreground tab first, an the secondary tabs fill in as CPU becomes available.

You can check all the processes through the task manager of your system or using the built-in task manager for Chrome. Using chrome's built in task manager, you can clearly see that which process is running for which tab/extension/ pugin (not like computer's task manager which only says chrome.exe for all processes) and may end processes if one's not responding. To access it, Press Shift+Esc or "right click on title bar -> Task Manager".

You would also like this: Reduce memory uses in chrome using the extension TooManyTabs

Check out other posts under category Chrome.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Reduce Chrome Memory usage using TooManyTabs extension

Surbhi Verma — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 07:20:00 +0000

Google Chrome was one of the first browsers to have multiple processes, which creates a separate process for each tab. That means , if you have 5 tabs opened on your Chrome browser, then you can see minimum 6 processes running in the task manager with the name of chrome.exe (5 for tabs and 1 for whole chrome). If you have installed extensions and plugins then they also have separate process for each of them.

Chrome's this feature occupies a lot of memory and hence might degrade the performance of your browser or your whole system. So there is an extension named 'TooManyTabs' which can help to reduce chrome's memory usage.

Using TooManyTabs extension you can selectively choose inactive tabs to be suspended so that they do not occupy any memory space. Suspending a tab/link is similar to bookmarking, which store the tab in TooManyTab, but also closes the tab from your browser.

Read the Benefits of Chrome's Multi-processes feature.

How to use TooManyTabs:

1. Download and install TooManyTabs .

2. Once you installed it, you you can see its icon in top right, displaying the no. of currently open tabs.

3. When you click this icon, you see all the opened tabs. To suspend and send any less important tab into TooManyTabs, you can click on the yellow icon at the top right of tabs showing in TooManyTabs list.

You can suspend any tab without entering into TooManyTabs window. For that simply go to the tab you want to suspend, then right click > Send tab to TooManyTabs.

4. To see suspended tab list, click on the icon on TooManyTabs. There in right side of opened window you can see all suspended tabs. To restore a suspended tab, just click on that respective tab in the Suspended tabs list.

Check out other posts under category Chrome.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Transform your Windows7 laptop into a Wi-Fi hotspot

Surbhi Verma — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:04:00 +0000

In today's time, not even every home has a laptop or computer, but every member of family also own separate laptops or any other device with internet connection. And everyone want to use internet, prefect if you have a Wi-Fi at home, but what if you have an Ethernet?
For the same purpose, I remember the time when we bought a Ethernet switch to that every laptop connects using a cord, which solved the problem of connection laptops and computer. Luckily, my windows phone also connects to internet just by using a data cable plugged to a system with internet.
But now when I have a iPad, i wanted an another solution as it does not have Ethernet port, through data cable also, it does not connect to Internet. So i was searching on web for some hardwares or softwares to get Wi-Fi hotspot in my home , and found a very awesome, easy and free way to do so, using the softwares Connectify. Thanks to connectify, Now I dont get bore anymore while cooking ;)

Connectify:

Connectify is a software, that transform your laptop into a Wi-Fi- Hotespot and enables to share your internet for other laptops, smartphones, PDAs, Ipods, tablet-pcs, Ipads, gameboids and every wifi enabled devices through wifi. The best thing is, it require No router or external hardware for this purpose.But, it do works on Windows 7 only.

How to use connectify:
1. Download connectify lite and install it on your windows 7 system.

2. Run connectify, fill Hotspot Name, password, Internet connection and then click on Start Hotspot. Now Wi-Fi hotspot is ready, you can connect other devices with it.

3. Now from other devices search for wi-Fi, it will show your newly created Wi-Fi's name, you can connect to it as usual you connect to any other Wi-Fi network.

4. You can also check the name and list of devices connected and disconnected recetly to your Wi-Fi hotspot from the client tab in connectify.

Other Similar Software:

mhotspot

I have not tried mhotspot, so don't know the performance of this app. Give it a try, and leave ur review in comment.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Sql Injection For Beginners: Tutorial 1

Surbhi Verma — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:45:00 +0000

Many times my readers have asked me to write about SQL Injection, but i always used to consider that its pretty easy way of hacking and may be everyone already know about it.
But now after years I think that, no, i was wrong.Still even many of web developers dont know about sql injection, still I can see many poorly designed websites which are prone to sql injection, one can easily beark into such websites using a simple SQL statement.

So my this post is dedicated to those web developers who leave this hole in their projects, and also to those who want to learn hacking, this is the easiest thing that anyone can do without any, any experience.

What is SQL Injection:

SQL Injection is one of the many web attack mechanisms used by hackers to steal data from organizations. It is the type of attack that takes advantage of improper coding of a website by injecting/inserting SQL commands to gain access to the data held within your website.
SQL Injection arises because the fields available for user input allow SQL statements to pass through and query the database directly.

SQL Injection, In simple terms:

On websites having a login form, a user need to input username/password to login. When the user press enter after filling the details, the webpage ask to the database if the username and password exists?, if they match? etc. And if the username and password found and matched then it let you enter into the site.

But on the SQL injection vulnerable Webpage, one can enter into even without knowing the username or password. The database passes the query and let the user enter even without knowing the correct username and password.

This technique is mainly used to break into any website to steal the secret information. but once any one enters into the site, then he/she can do many harmful things too. Think, if a hacker login into a website as ADMIN then he/she can get permission to do many very bad things with that website.

How to Use SQL Injection:

To Use SQL Injection is very easy. In a SQL injection vulnerable login form instead of true username and password, you can enter the following SQL statement.

' or '1'='1

Or,

If you know the Username then fill this code in password field, to enter into the website by pretending to be anyone else.
Mostly websites have some common users with the username like 'Admin' or 'Administrator' for Administrator login. Other possible username includes 'Employee' , 'Student' etc. Enter into a website with different usernames can give different permission and can display different information too.

Not even this you can do many more things using SQL Injection thing, wait and watch for my next post about SQL injection for More details.
Till then Enjoy and Be safe.

Check out other posts under category hacking.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Recover accidentally deleted data from your Computer, digital camera, or flash drive

Surbhi Verma — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:08:00 +0000

This is the most common issue, that you have deleted some important files from your system, that you didnt actually want to.

Don't get nerves in such situation, coz It is easy to recover deleted files. You can undelete files with almost guaranteed success. The most important thing is to act as soon as you realize that the files are lost.

Because the operating system doesn't immediately re-use space from deleted files, a file can be recovered or unerased right after it has gone and for a considerable time afterwards. The sooner you try to recover your deleted files, the greater your chances of success. The longer you leave it the less chance you have of getting the data back because eventually some or all of the space that held your lost data will be re-used by another file.
The chances of recovery also depend on how full your computer's hard drive is. Windows tries to avoid re-using disk space that has recently been freed, to give recovery software a better chance of working. But the fuller a drive is, the sooner the free space is going to be used by other files.
If you have defragmented the hard drive since the file was deleted then this will severely harm the chances of a successful recovery. Current files will have been moved into the free space left by deleted files in order to reduce fragmentation, making it much less likely that undelete software will be able to find anything useful.

How to recover deleted data:-
you can find many softwares of web claiming to recover data. Here is a list of some of the Freewares:

Files, you can restore:-

Lost files can occur because of many possibilities, using these softwares you can restore files which are:

accidentally deleted from your PC or other media
deleted by viruses
too large to fit in the recycle bin
deleted from a USB Memory Stick
deleted when you press "Shift+Delete" keys
deleted from the command line

How to use Data recovery software:-

Data recovery is very easy and almost same for any of the above listed software. First, the program will detect the deleted data that can be restored, and then in next step it will save the files you select to restore.

Here, I am telling the procedure for Undelete360 from the above list to give you an idea that how it works.

Undelete 360 is one of the best Freeware software to restore your files that were accidentally deleted from your computer. It is built on fast and efficient algorithm that browse, search and recover files lost due to a different factors like accidental deleting, viruses, software and computer failures. Its the easiest software to use.

Using Undelete 360, you can restore files from Hard drives, Digital cameras, Floppy drives, USB flash drives.

How to use Undelete 360 to restore files:-

1. Download and install desktop version of Undelete360, or you can use portable version also.

Download Undelete 360 (Desktop Version)

Download Undelete 360 (Portable Version)

2. Now open Undelete360, click on Search botton >> select the drive for which you want to recover deleted data >> click on start. Then you will see the process bar at top right, which shows the the number of files found and proportion of search remaining.

3. After complete processing of finding deleted data, you will see files grouped by file type in the left hand column, you can check file name and location and can select the files you want to restore.

4. Now to restore selected files click the Recover button at top, now it will restore deleted data back. : )

Check out other posts under category Computer Tips.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Youtube Feather: Lighter youtube beta version for slow Internet connections

Surbhi Verma — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Does your YouTube video buffer and pause multiple times while playing ? Frustrated watching those stuttering videos ? Even seconds of loading time feel like ages ? Then you have landed in the right place. This article is just for you.

If you have a slow internet connection then video buffering takes lots of time that you cant watch the video fluently. But Youtube has an alternative version known as 'Youtube Feather' which increases the loading time of any Youtube page and reduces the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser so that the videos can be load with the lowest latency possible and can run smoothly.

To achieve faster speed Youtube, Youtube feather limited many not so useful features like suggestions, posting comments and the couple of other things.

You can easily notice the difference between the regular YouTube videos and YouTube Feather. Not only in terms of faster streaming without buffering but also in terms of the amount of data downloaded by the browser. For instance, the browser downloaded only 52 Kilobytes of data for a video in 'YouTube Feather' while 391 Kilobytes in the standard YouTube page.

How to switch to YouTube Feather?
Switching to YouTube Feather is simple and takes just a few clicks.
1, Visit YouTube Feather Beta page here .
2. Click on the link that says Join the “Feather” Beta and you are done.

How to switch back to standard YouTube ?
You can switch back any time to standard youtube by clicking the given link in lower right of the page.
It shows two options: 'Just This once' and 'Permanently' .

Just this once: To watch that particular opened video in regular mode
Permanently: To switch back to the regular mode Permanently.

or, you can go to YouTube Feather Beta page main page from here and click on the link that says Leave the Feather Beta.

Youtube feather is not only useful for slow internet connections but I, with the fast internet, also like to use feather version because of its neatness. I feel, its a good choice for the ones who dont do comments on videos. What do you think about youtube feather, dont forget to leave your review below ;)

TC

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Get Paid By Google For Browsing the Internet

Surbhi Verma — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:14:00 +0000

Google is starting a new project called Screenwise, to learn more about how everyday people use the Internet so that they can improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone. In this way, Many third-party companies track your online presence and activities via ad, social networking and many more such scripts.

As a panelist, you'll add a browser extension that will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them.

Reward? As a thanks, you will get gift cards from Amazon, up to $25 in.

So if you want to help google, and want to earn some money, then sign up here...http://www.google.com/landing/screenwisepanel/

But the question arrises, would you give away your internet privacy for only $25 and let them spy on you? What you think, dont forget to leave your comment below.

Check out other posts under category

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her

Number of DDos attacks on the rise

Surbhi Verma — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:31:00 +0000

Both the number and volume of distributed denial-of-service attacks are increasing, according to new reports from DDoS mitigation companies Prolexic and Arbor Networks.

During the fourth quarter of last year, Prolexic detected 45 percent more DDoS attacks compared to the similar period of 2010 and more than twice the number of attacks observed during the third quarter of 2011.

There's a trend toward a shorter attack duration, but a bigger packet-per-second attack volume, said Paul Sop, Prolexic's chief technology officer.

The average attack bandwidth registered in the fourth quarter of 2011 was 5.2G bps (bits per second), 148 percent higher than what it was during the third quarter. The year over year increase for attack bandwidth in 2011 was 136 percent.

This trend is also reflected in a new report from Arbor Networks which surveyed 114 representatives of different market segments about their experience with DDoS attacks in 2011. Over 40 percent of respondents said they experienced attacks that exceeded 1G bps in bandwidth last year, while 13 percent said they were the target of at least one attack that exceeded 10G bps.

Based on the Prolexic's statistics for the last quarter of 2011, Paul Sop believes that 2012 will be one of the most challenging years for online businesses, because they are one of the primary targets of DDoS attacks.

Both Prolexic and Arbor Networks recorded an increase in the number of so-called layer-7 DDoS attacks, which target particular Internet facing applications rather than load balancers or Internet gateways.

DDoS attacks on applications focus on sending bad traffic using those applications' protocols, said Darren Anstee, solutions architect for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Arbor Networks. The attacks are very effective using relatively low bandwidth and just a few hosts, he said.

The number one motivation for DDoS attacks in 2011 was rooted around political and ideological conflicts, said Roland Dobbins, an Arbor solutions architect for Asia and co-author of the company's report.

Japan was the primary source of DDoS attack traffic for the last quarter of 2011, according to Prolexic. This comes as a surprise because the country rarely even makes it into the top 10 and doesn't have a large concentration of botnets.

Prolexic believes that the surge of DDoS attacks originating in Japan might be the result of local companies setting up impromptu communication networks with lax security in the aftermath of last year's natural disasters. Poor network security could have led to a larger number of botnet-compromised computers in the country.

Source: http://www.computerworlduk.com

India a key source for future growth: Facebook

Surbhi Verma — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:50:00 +0000

Social networking giant Facebook, which plans to raise $ 5 billion through an IPO, has said India is a key source for its future growth and its user base in the country has more than doubled in the past one year.The growth of 132 per cent in India has been higher than many other countries, including the home market of the US.

It has also acknowledges that Facebook platform faces competition from internet giant Google's social media platform Orkut in India, among other rivals in different countries.

The company plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange after its Initial Public Offer (IPO), which could value the company as high as USD 100 billion.

Facebook monitors its user base through the number of Monthly Active Users (MAUs), among other metrics. An MAU is a registered Facebook user who logs in and visits Facebook, shares content or indulges in other activities in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement.

"As of December 31, 2011, we had 845 million MAUs, an increase of 39 per cent from December 31, 2010," Facebook said in the regulatory documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its IPO.

"We experienced growth across different geographies, with users in Brazil and India representing a key source of growth," it said.

"... we had 46 million MAUs in India as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 132 per cent from the prior year," Facebook said, while adding that the growth in the US was 16 per cent and 268 per cent in Brazil for the same period.

It had 161 million MAUs in the US and 37 million in Brazil as of December 31, 2011.

Listing out its strategy, Facebook said it would "continue to focus on growing our user base across all geographies, including relatively less-penetrated, large markets such as Brazil, Germany India, Japan , Russia, and South Korea."

"We compete broadly with Google's social networking offerings, including Google+, and also with other, largely regional, social networks that have strong positions in particular countries, including Cyworld in Korea, Mixi in Japan, Orkut (owned by Google) in Brazil and India..."

It said there are estimated to be over two billion global Internet users and Facebook aimed to connect all of them.

"We have achieved varying levels of penetration within the population of Internet users in different countries," it said, while noting that its penetration rate in India was estimated to be 20-30 per cent.

"... in China, where Facebook access is restricted, we have near zero penetration. We continue to invest in growing our user base, particularly in markets where we are relatively less penetrated," it added.

Facebook said it has operations teams to provide support for users, developers, and advertisers in four regional centers, including one at Hyderabad in India.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/business/report/india-a-key-source-for-future-growth-facebook/20120202.htm

Beware: Bug in Apple iMessage allows others to spy on your convorsation

Surbhi Verma — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

For iPhone users, the iMessage platform is quite a popular alternative to traditional SMS text messaging. But did you know there’s a glitch that allows a third party to sneak in, view, and even participate in your iMessage conversations? It doesn’t matter if you reset your password, disable your iMessages app, or even perform a remote wipe of your phone. On the flip side, though, it also isn’t exactly an easy glitch to exploit.

Okay, so here’s the deal. When you register your iMessages app, it look at the phone number on your SIM card and then apparently never looks at your SIM card again. It never ties this information to your Apple ID or anything else that registers the app to your actual phone. As such, some iPhone users have found out that if you use iMessages from one iPhone, and then put the SIM card in another iPhone, the same iMessages account appears in both phones.

That’s right. Even the original phone, without a SIM card, still has an active iMessages app. And even if the SIM card finds its way back to the original iPhone, any other iPhone it had contact with will have access to the same iMessages conversations. So if you let your friend borrow your iPhone, or you happen to lose it, or you take it in for repairs at a shady store, anyone who had access to your SIM card can infiltrate your iMessages account.

Even if you perform a remote wipe, it won’t change the fact that the third-party iPhones have registered your SIM card. The only way to cut off access to those “spying” iPhones is to call your carrier and completely deactivate your SIM card. The third-party phones see everything, including message you send and messages you receive. And they can even pretend to be you and send out messages of their own. Now of course, this requires someone else to physically have access to your SIM card and have an extra iPhone lying around without its own SIM card. Chances are that won’t happen to the average iPhone owners. But it is a glitch, and something as private as text messaging conversations will always be a hot button issue. For now, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of software fix on the way.

Source: http://www.slashgear.com/

Software to identify if a photo has been altered/ photoshopped

Surbhi Verma — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:27:00 +0000

Some months before a L'Oreal beauty product ad featured Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington was banned in UK, because of highly photo-shopped. And many times you have seen some pictures claiming something paranormal or a picture of ghost, which has proved just a hoax later.

But did you ever thought how the computer forensics dept. or any other federal agencies analyze if a photo is original or has been altered using any image editing software.

There is a software named 'JPEGSnoop' that uses one of the all techniques implemented in computer forensics that compares the JPEG quantification table to determine if any change has been made in a photo using any image editing software.

Different cameras use different quantization tables. Adobe Photoshop and other image editing software also have their own distinct quantization tables. When a photo is opened up in an editing program, photoshop for instance, it re-codes the original quantization table into its own. This enables you to work with the image and alter it. However, when the image is saved, it is saved with the quantization table of the image editing program. As a result, software can tell if a photo has been run through Photoshop or came from a source other than claimed.

This technique has some limitation that it does not tell anything about the changes made in detail, but it only tells if the photo is directly coming from a camera or has been passed through any image editing software. If a photo is only cropped or bordered then also it will consider the photo as an edited photo.

Anyways, here is the process to use the software:

1. Download JPEGsnoop , extract the zip file, here you will see an executable file named JPEGsnoop.exe, it is a portable software, so it does not have to be installed. So to start the software you need to click on JPEGsnoop.exe

2. When you use this software first time, you will see a licence agreement window, check “I have read the terms” box and click OK.

3. Now a window like following will appear. Drag the image to this window and wait for the report to generate.

4. When the report is generated, scroll down to the last paragraph of this report and look for the word "assessment". Here if it says “Image is processed/edited”, then the image is surly been passed through the image editing software.

Written by:Surbhi

Surbhi is Founder of Techbyte4u.com. Follow her on Twitter or email her