What is CDAC11BA.exe?

CDAC11BA.exe is a process that runs as part of the Macrovision Real Time Streaming (RTS) service. It’s used by several software applications to defeat piracy.

Why does CDAC11BA.exe run?

Your computer could run CDAC11BA.exe if you recently installed AutoCAD 2004, 3DS Max, Adobe CS or other similar software. CDAC11BA.exe was bundled with Intuit’s TurboTax application. In short, this Safe Cast process makes sure that only users with a valid license run the software application.

Is CDAC11BA.exe spyware?

No, it is not spyware but there have been controversies surrounding its actual working. The associated software’s license key is saved in split locations, making it tough to actually retrieve the key and install the software in other computers. There have been reports that CDAC11BA.exe interrupts the working of your CD burner, but they’ve been confirmed to be false.

If you are still apprehensive, you can click here to run a free registry scan to scan for problems and fix them immediately.

Is it CDAC11BA.exe really needed?

Yes, you need to keep it running if you want the software associated with it to run (probably AutoCAD, 3Ds Max or an Adobe application). It’s not advisable to end the process or delete it.

How to remove CDAC11BA.exe?

CDAC11BA.exe can’t be removed in a click. There’s a WikiHow article on how to do it. Try it at your own disk.

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What is CDAC11BA.exe?

Zoho Challenge is a nifty web application that will let you generate tests online in a breeze. Zoho Challenge’s test generator helps teachers by letting them create tests online. They just need to add questions in the question bank, and at the click of a few buttons, they can create tests and assign them to students.

Zoho Challenge has also been adapted by businesses to evaluate candidates for job selection. Zoho Challenge takes all the pain away from the test generation process – teachers only feed the questions, and Zoho Challenge takes care of everything else you can think of – evaluation, results generation and more.

Here’s a quick walk-through showing how to create tests using Zoho Challenge:

Go to http://challenge.zoho.com and login. There’s OpenID support, that means you can also login with your usernames elsewhere. The author used his Google identity to sign in.

After logging in, a question bank can be created by hitting the ‘New Question Bank’ button.  Give a question bank name, and description and hit ‘Create’.

A WYSIWYG editor makes adding questions quite easy – you can choose between several types – multiple choice, true or false, fill in the blanks or descriptive answers. There’s also support for comprehension – which means you can give candidates a passage or a case study and question them on it – pretty cool, isn’t it? You can assign points, tag questions and hit save.

Once you’ve added all the questions you wanted, just click the green ‘Create Test’ button on the right panel. Hit ‘New Test’ in the page that appears, and you can name the test.

Once that’s done, you can pick questions manually, or have Zoho Challenge fill up questions randomly.

After the questions have been chosen, you can assign the test to candidates. The test can be open, or it can be restricted by email addresses or specific IPs (the latter two are available in the premium version). You can even create a coded tests. That means, candidates can take a test only if they type the right code that you sent them.

(click the image for a bigger version)

Tests can be made available for a specific duration, or indefinitely. A pass percentage can be set, and questions and answer options can be randomized as well. Finally, you can also add instructions for test takers.

When you hit ‘Save Assignment’, the test will  be available in a URL similar to http://challenge.zoho.com/yourname. The candidates can take the test from there.

Check out Zoho Challenge’s Test Maker. If you’re a teacher, and if you’re changing classroom dynamics by using web based tools, let us know in the comments.

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Creating Tests Online Made Easy With Zoho Challenge

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Download Google Pacman

The five random winners are:

1. Michael
2. thetechmonkey
3. Abhishek
4. ArpitNext
5. mijka

All winners will be contacted via email shortly.

The winners were picked randomly using random.org. Screencast of how the winners were chosen:

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Winners of the OmniHide Giveaway

OmniHide is a cool little tool that will let you hide files within other files – the Pro version can hide files inside an image file, a video, an audio file like an MP3 or any text document. What’s more – you can password protect files for that extra safety.

Hiding a file within another file is quite a piece of cake if you’ve got OmniHide. Just download the app, install and run it.

Now, choose the mask file inside which the file to be hidden will be placed. Then, choose the file that will be hidden inside this file.

If you hit the small link called ‘Options’ you’ll find two modes to choose from – the ‘Portable Hide’ mode, or the ‘Secure Hide’ mode.

If you choose the ‘Portable Hide’ mode, the file is just plain hidden and there’s no added security – Winzip or WinRAR can be used to view the hidden content. Alternatively, you can download the free Omnihide extractor to extract the hidden file.

If you choose the ‘Secure Hide’ mode, OmniHide will encrypt the file. You can further add a password which needs to be keyed in at the time of recovering the hidden file. The receiver needn’t necessarily have OmniHide installed on his computer. He just needs to use the free extractor available for download on the OmniHide site to extract the hidden file (after specifying the password, of course).

The free version of OmniHide has restrictions on file formats and there’s no password protection, but the Pro version doesn’t have any limits on formats or file sizes or whatever. OmniHide Pro costs $29.95 a copy.

The guys at OmniHide were kind enough to offer five copies to giveaway to you. If you need to grab one, this is the right time. Tweet the following message and make sure you leave a comment here with a link to the tweet.

wanna hide files inside files? @killertechtips is giving away $29 worth @omnihide pro for free. you want one? http://bit.ly/a6kQBZ

The five winners will be chosen randomly in a week’s time and will be given a copy of OmniHide Pro each to play with.

Update: The giveaway is closed. Winners have been announced.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Hide Secret Files Inside Pictures and Other Files With OmniHide; Giveaway

If you got a warning from Avast’s Network Shield indicating that it has blocked a DCOM Exploit attack from an IP address, you’ve come to the right place. Continue reading to know more about the Network Shield DCOM Exploit warning and what to do about it.

What is DCOM?

DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) is a mechanism that allows software on your Windows computer to communicate over a network.

Does DCOM make my Windows computer vulnerable?

It does. It is enabled by default in every Windows installation, and very often, it is exploited by viruses and worms. The loophole could be used by any attacker to gain control over your system.

Is there a patch that solves this vulnerability?

Yes, there are two. First, download DCOMbobulator to see if you need to apply the patch. If yes, install this and then this.

Can DCOM be disabled on Windows?

Yes, it can be. You can use the aforementioned DCOMbobulator to disable DCOM on your Windows computer.

Otherwise, you’ll have to follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Go to Start > Run, type ‘regedit’ and hit Enter
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\OLE
3. Change the value of EnableDCOM from Y to N
4. Restart Windows

You can also disable DCOM in Windows by following these steps:

1. Go to Start > Run and type dcomcnfg.exe
2. Expand ‘Component Services’ which can be seen under ‘Console Root’
3. Open ‘Computer’
4. Right click on ‘My Computer’ and choose ‘Properties’
5. Click the ‘Default Properties’ tab
6. Uncheck the option ‘Enable Distributed COM on this Computer’
7. Restart Windows

That’s it. You’ve disabled DCOM on your computer.

What about Avast’s “Network Shield: Blocked DCOM Exploit attack” warning? How to get rid of it?

There’s probably a virus or worm that’s lurking around in your computer. Do a full scan. That should solve the issue.

Also, install a free firewall software which could prevent all such communications in the first place. That would do. If you’ve got any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Avast Network Shield: Blocked DCOM Exploit

First, go to this page and fill your email and name in the form that appears.

You’ll receive an email containing a legitimate and working key for Uniblue DiskRescue 2009.

Download DiskRescue from here and install it. 

Click the ‘Register Now’ button that appears when you first run the application.

Just copy the key you received via email and paste it in the box that appears in Step 3 of the wizard.

Hit ‘Activate Now’ and the program should get itself registered. Hit ‘Finish’.

You’ll now be able to use all its functions without any limitations.

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions.

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Get a free license key for Uniblue DiskRescue

Check out NightTunes, a system tray application for Windows that automatically turns your PC off when an iTunes playlist has finished playing. You can alternatively configure it to put the computer in hibernation/standby mode.

Start iTunes and NightTunes will start automatically. Check the ‘Active’ button in the window that appears and specify what should be done when the playback is finished. Choose your playlist in iTunes and start the playback. When all the songs in the playlist have finished playing, NightTunes will execute the specified action.

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Shutdown Your Computer At The End Of iTunes Playlists

It’s a very barebones anonymous BitTorrent client –it doesn’t even show the number of seeds/peers. Nobody except the central tracker will be able to know who’s downloading what. That is exactly what an anonymous torrent client should provide, and that’s what Anomos does well.

The developers are constantly working on it to make it better. Download Anomos from here. It’s currently available for Linux and Windows.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Download Anomos – Anonymous BitTorrent Client

Once you’ve done that, login to your addons.mozilla.org account from the addons window and then you’ll be able to create so-called ‘collections’ and put your favourite Firefox addons in them.

You can add extensions to your collection directly from the Addons window as you can see in the screenshot below. For instance, I’ve created an addon pack with extensions that help in gaining more viewing area in Firefox. You can get the pack at https://addons.mozilla.org/collection/maxviewingarea

You can make your addon collection public and allow others add to your pack. You can subscribe to others’ collections as well.

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Create and Share Firefox Addon Collections