Web Security Trends

Cyber-criminals are developing a new genre of highly sophisticated and evasive attacks designed to bypass signature-based and database-reliant security technology.

The latest Web Security Trends Report (Q2 2007) from security firm Finjan warns of a proliferation of "affiliation networks" based on a "hosted model" for malicious code.

The networks use off-the-shelf malicious code packages to compromise highly popular websites and even government domains.

Finjan's study points to the growing presence of malicious code in online advertising on legitimate websites.

"Recent findings reveal that hackers have created a new class of highly evasive attacks which represent a quantum leap in terms of technological sophistication, going far beyond drive-by downloads and code obfuscation," the report states.

"In order to minimise the malicious code's window of exposure, evasive attacks keep track of the actual IP addresses of visitors to a particular website or web page."

Using this information, the attackers restrict exposure to the malicious code to a single view from each unique IP address.

This means that the second time a given IP address tries to access the malicious page, a benign page will be automatically displayed in its place. All traces of the initial malicious page completely disappear.

"Evasive attack techniques, where malicious code is controlled per IP address, country of origin or number of visits, provide hackers with the ability to minimise the malicious code's exposure, thereby reducing the likelihood of detection," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at Finjan.

"Moreover, evasive attacks can identify the IP addresses of crawlers used by URL filtering, reputation services and search engines, replying to these engines with legitimate content and increasing the chances of mistakenly being classified as a legitimate category.

"The combination of these evasive attacks with code obfuscation techniques significantly enhances the capability of sophisticated hackers to go undetected. "

A follow-up study conducted by Finjan's Malicious Code Research Centre warns of the growing presence of malicious code in online advertising.

As websites depend more on ad revenues, they often display ads from third-party advertising networks over which they may have little or no control.

While legitimate website owners trust advertisers to display non-malicious content, advertisers sometimes "sublet" space to others.

This hierarchy can often comprise several layers, seriously compromising the level of control the website owner has over advertising content.

The report includes an analysis of an innocent blog site that deploys keyword-based advertisements placed automatically from an ad server.

Finjan found that the ad content also included obfuscated references to malicious code on a third site that uses multiple infection techniques to download a Trojan key-logger to the user's machine.

Another recent example was a banner ad hiding code with the ANI exploit that was being hosted unknowingly on one of the most popular techie websites.

Trojan hits Google's text ads

A new Trojan that hijacks Google text ads and replaces them with ads from a different provider has been picked up by BitDefender.

The antivirus company has identified the threat as Trojan.Qhost.WU which modifies the infected computer's host file, a local storage for domain name/IP address mappings.

The infected machine's browser then reads advertisements from a server at the replacement address rather than from Google.

This damages users and webmasters because it takes away viewers and thus a possible money source from their websites.

Users are advised to let antivirus software delete the Trojan.

Orkut hit by Portuguese Worm

fast-moving worm has infected more than 700,000 users on Google's Orkut social network in just 24 hours.

The Portuguese language attack exploited a vulnerability in Orkut's scrapbook feature to post malicious JavaScript code on a user's page.

On viewing the scrapbook post, the code performed the exploit and downloaded a .js file to the user's machine.

The worm then took control of the user's account, sending out copies of itself to all of the user's friends and joining a group called 'Infectados pelo Vírus do Orkut', which translates as 'Infected by Orkut virus'.

The worm does not appear to download any other malicious programs. The malicious code has been removed from users' pages and the worm has been taken offline.

Java Programming Language

Have you ever wondered how computer programs work? Have you ever wanted to learn how to write your own computer programs? Whether you are 14 years old and hoping to learn how to write your first game, or you are 70 years old and have been curious about computer programming for 20 years, this article is for you.

Here are several vocabulary terms that will make things understandable:

• Computer program - A computer program is a set of instructions that tell a computer exactly what to do. The instructions might tell the computer to add up a set of numbers, or compare two numbers and make a decision based on the result, or whatever. But a computer program is simply a set of instructions for the computer, like a recipe is a set of instructions for a cook or musical notes are a set of instructions for a musician. The computer follows your instructions exactly and in the process does something useful -- like balancing a checkbook or displaying a game on the screen or implementing a word processor.

• Programming language - In order for a computer to recognize the instructions you give it, those instructions need to be written in a language the computer understands -- a programming language. There are many computer programming languages -- Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Perl -- just like there are many spoken languages. They all express approximately the same concepts in different ways.

• Compiler - A compiler translates a computer program written in a human-readable computer language (like Java) into a form that a computer can execute. You have probably seen EXE files on your computer. These EXE files are the output of compilers. They contain executables -- machine-readable programs translated from human-readable programs.

In order for you to start writing computer programs in a programming language called Java, you need a compiler for the Java language. The next section guides you through the process of downloading and installing a compiler. Once you have a compiler, we can get started. This process is going to take several hours, much of that time being download time for several large files. You are also going to need about 40 megabytes of free disk space (make sure you have the space available before you get started).


Downloading the Java Compiler

In order to get a Java development environment set up on your machine -- you "develop" (write) computer programs using a "development environment" -- you will have to complete the following steps:

1. Download a large file containing the Java development environment (the compiler and other tools).
2. Download a large file containing the Java documentation.
3. If you do not already have WinZip (or an equivalent) on your machine, you will need to download a large file containing WinZip and install it.
4. Install the Java development environment.
5. Install the documentation.
6. Adjust several environment variables.
7. Test everything out.
   

Before getting started, it would make things easier if you create a new directory in your temp directory to hold the files we are about to download. We will call this the download directory.

Step 1 - Download the Java development environment

Go to the page http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html. Download the SDK software by clicking on the "Download J2SE SDK" link. You will be shown a licensing agreement. Click Accept. Select your operating system and download the file to your download directory. This is a huge file, and it will take several hours to download over a normal phone-line modem. The next two files are also large.

Step 2 - Download the Java documentation

Download the documentation by selecting your operating system and clicking the SDK 1.4.1 documentation link.

Step 3 - Download and install WinZip

If you do not have a version of WinZip or an equivalent on your machine, go to the page http://www.winzip.com/ and download an evaluation copy of WinZip. Run the EXE you get to install it. We will use it in a moment to install the documentation.

Step 4 - Install the development kit

Run the j2sdk-1_4_1-*.exe file that you downloaded in step 1. It will unpack and install the development kit automatically.

Step 5 - Install the documentation

Read the installation instructions for the documentation. They will instruct you to move the documentation file to same directory as that containing the development kit you just installed. Unzip the documentation and it will drop into the proper place.

Step 6 - Adjust your environment

As instructed on this page, you need to change your path variable. This is most easily done by opening an MS-DOS prompt and typing PATH to see what the path is set to currently. Then open autoexec.bat in Notepad and make the changes to PATH specified in the instructions.

Step 7 - Test

Now you should be able to open another MS-DOS window and type javac. If everything is set up properly, then you should see a two-line blob of text come out that tells you how to use javac. That means you are ready to go. If you see the message "Bad Command or File Name" it means you are not ready to go. Figure out what you did wrong by rereading the installation instructions. Make sure the PATH is set properly and working. Go back and reread the Programmer's Creed above and be persistent until the problem is resolved.

You are now the proud owner of a machine that can compile Java programs. You are ready to start writing software!

By the way, one of the things you just unpacked is a demo directory full of neat examples. All of the examples are ready to run, so you might want to find the directory and play with some of the samples. Many of them make sounds, so be sure to turn on your speakers. To run the examples, find pages with names like example1.html and load them into your usual Web browser.

What Is Visual Basic?

What Is Visual Basic?
Visual Basic (VB) - A programming language developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows environment. The current version is Visual Basic 6.0.

Visual Basic can be used in two ways:
1. Writing stand alone applications on Microsoft Windows systems.
2. Writing add-on scripts within Microsoft applications.
To write stand alone applications in VB, you need the Microsoft Visual Basic software, which provides you a development environment for entering, debugging, and compiling your applications.
To write add-on scripts in VB within other Microsoft applications, you need to follow the specifications of the hosting application. Usually, the hosting application will:

Provide you a specific syntax to enter and store your VB scripts.
Provide you an interface to let your scripts to interact with the host application.
Restrict your scripts to access certain operating system resources for security reasons.

Examples of Microsoft applications that supports VB scripts:
Internet Explorer (IE) - Allows you to include VB scripts in HTML documents to be executed while IE rendering HTML documents on the screen. This is also called client side scripting.

Internet Information Services (IIS) - Allows you to include VB scripts in HTML documents to be executed while IIS fetching HTML documents to deliver to the requesting clients. This is also called server side scripting.

Microsoft Access - Allows you to add VB codes to customize forms and reports.

Using Visual Basic within Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (IE) is a Microsoft application that can be used to view HTML documents. IE is one of the Microsoft applications that allows you to write add-on scripts in Visual Basic language in HTML documents.
To add Visual Basic (VB) scripts into your HTML documents, you need to use the "script" tag with the "language=vbscript" attribute. Inside the "script" tag, you can place any number of VB statements. Here is the syntax of adding VB scripts in HTML documents:

The Visual Studio Environment

The Visual Studio Environment
Before using Visual Studio you must understand the VS environment. The environment refers to how VS manages programs and what support tools are found with VS.
When creating a Visual Studio application you will be working with Projects. A Project consists of a collection of files that are contained in a folder that has the project name. For example, if you want to create a Visual Basic application you must first create and name a Project. Within the Project will be contained the files that make up the application. Each file may have it's own name.
When you first start Visual Studio you will see the window like Figure 1.You can create a new project or select an existing project. Some of the previously saved projects are listed and can be directly selected.
When you create a new project you will be asked to assign a project name:
Before selecting a project name and location you should choose the kind of project you want to create. The Project Types area of this dialog box lists the various kinds of Visual Studio projects that can be created and the Templates area list, for each project type, the specific kinds of projects. For example, if you select Visual Basic Projects on the left side of the screen you can then choose the kind of Visual Basic program you want to create in the list on the right hand side of the screen. The most common type selected with be Windows Application.
Select the location of the project (where you want the project folder created) and type a name. When you click OK a folder with the project name is created at the specified location.
If you selected a Windows Application you will see a basic GUI screen:
The screen is divided into three areas. The main area to the left is the GUI design area and is where you design the program GUI elements and write the code. This area will contain a set of tabbed pages with titles across the top. The right side of the screen is divided into two smaller blocks. The top block is the Project Explorer area and lists all the files that makeup the project. When you create new forms or modules they will be created in this area and edited in the main part of the screen. The upper right area can also display help information. The lower block on the right side of the screen displays property information about elements as they are created.
In the far right section of the menu bar at the top of the screen you see five small icons that, when clicked, display the various windows elements. If a window element is closed it can be redisplayed by clicking one of these icons. Moving the mouse over the icon displays what it does.
As you work in the main window, you may have multiple tabbed windows open. If the title bar of a tabbed window contains a * character, this indicates that it needs to be saved. You can select the window and choose File/Save or press Ctrl S to save the window. You can save all the windows at once by choosing File/Save All or pressing Ctrl Shift S.
To the left of the main window you may see the toolbox. If you don't see the toolbox, move the mouse over the toolbox tab and it will pop into the screen. Click the pushpin icon at the top of the toolbox to keep it displayed on the window.
You can choose other toolbox elements by clicking the toolbox name at the top of this window.

Visual Studio NET 2003

What is Visual Studio NET 2003?
Visual Studio is the integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft to support software development using one of the NET languages. Visual Studio 2003 contains a number of very useful development tools that makes it easy to write and debug programs in Visual Basic, Visual C#, C++, and other related Microsoft supported languages.
The various NET compilers (VB, C#, and C++) can all be run from the command prompt. This allows developers to use their own favorite editor to create programs. However, Visual Studio includes a number of very powerful tools that allow programmers to view and control databases (SQL Server), to connect to online resources, and to manage their programming projects. Visual Studio will automatically build code based on selections by the user.
Visual Studio uses a Project based environment where programs are saved inside a folder that has the name of the opened project. When you create a new project, Visual Studio creates a folder with the project name and creates some basic template files. As you create various elements in your application, such as forms or classes, additional files are added to the project.
Visual Studio will compile your program into an EXE file so it can be executed. However, most of the Microsoft Visual languages use NET and so any executable created can only be run in the NET environment.
Visual Studio can be used to manage projects that have modules written in different languages.

Windows Vista

Windows Vista, Microsoft's new OS, brought out in six versions, from Starter to Enterprise editions. All versions are available in both 32 bit (x86) and 64 bit (x86-64) architectures, except Windows Vista Starter (only in 32 bit architecture).

Windows Vista Starter Severely limited for example only allowing a user to launch at most three applications with a user interface at once, will not accept incoming network connections and physical memory is limited to 2 GB. Additionally, only Celeron and Pentium III processors from Intel, and AMD's Duron, Sempron and Geode processors are supported.

Windows Vista Home Basic: Advanced media support is not available, for home use only. Supports up to 8GB of physical memory.


Windows Vista Home Premium: contains all features from Home Basic, this edition will additionally support more advanced features aimed for the home market segment, such as HDTV support and DVD authoring. Extra games, mobile and tablet computer support, file system encryption, and a photo management application are also included and will support up to 16GB of physical memory.

Windows Vista Business: Aimed at business market and does not include the Media Centre features of Home Premium, but does include the IIS Web Server, Fax support, Offline Files, Dual Physical Processor Support capabilities and support for 128GB of memory.

Windows Vista Enterprise: As the name suggests, an Enterprise segment of the market, and is a superset of the Business edition. Single session Version of Virtual PC, Multi-Lingual User Interface support, BitLocker Drive Encryption and UNIX application support. This edition will not be available through retail or OEM channels, but through Microsoft Software Assurance.

Windows Vista Ultimate: This edition combines all the features of Home Premium and Enterprise editions and additionally comes with podcast creation support - which Microsoft has dubbed "blogcasting" - a game performance tweaker (WinSAT), DVD ripping capabilities and special online services for downloadable media, as well as additional customer service options. The Ultimate edition is aimed to be the most impressive edition of Vista, aimed at high-end PC users, gamers, multimedia professionals and PC enthusiasts.

Linux

Linux is a scaled-down UNIX operating system originally developed by Linus Torvalds, then a University student in Finland, now used in everything from PDAs, watches, PCs, Consumer Electronics, Servers and Super Computers.

Beginning: Linux was originally Minix, an educational version of UNIX developed by Andrew Tannenbaum. As an interesting aside, we might be talking about Minix today if not for the licensing that Minix required. Few people have heard about Minix today, far less than have heard about Linux.

Early on, Linux grew as a cheap UNIX that ran on Intel-based PC equipment. At the time, you could purchase UNIX for PCs, but at a high cost (as much as $1500 for a developer's version of interactive UNIX).

Linux Distributions: Technically, Linux is really just an OS Kernel, produced under the direction of Linus Torvalds. But, Linux usually comes with a set of utility, desktop, and Server programs, including networking suites, Web Servers, file systems, compilers and a whole lot more. For example, Linux includes the XFree86 version of the X Window System, the GNU C compiler GCC, and code from quite a lot of other sources. But to make things confusing, there's more than one version of Linux.

A number of organizations, commercial and some volunteer, collect together versions of all these programs with the Linux Kernel, test that everything works together, and then release what is called a distribution of Linux.

The main Linux distributions include: RedHat, Kondara MNU/Linux, SUSE (Self CD loading), Linux Mandrake, Knnopix, Slackware.

The best Linux disttribution to try is the one that is handy or readily available from friends, computer magazines or books etc.

For further reference http://Sourceforge.net

PHP vs CGI

PHP seems very much in vogue now - with an increasingly greater number of web hosts providing support for it. For those who have only vaguely heard of it and are not too sure what it is, this article discusses PHP and informally compares it with writing CGI scripts in Perl.

PHP is a free server side scripting language. It can be built into web servers like Apache and you can use it to generate your pages dynamically. You would probably use it in situations you would have otherwise used a CGI script for. For example, thefreecountry.com's Feedback form (among other things) uses a PHP script to generate the form and send the message to me.

1. The Language
If you are coming from a C, C++, Perl, Java or JavaScript background, learning PHP would probably be a piece of cake. In fact, you probably can get started writing your scripts almost immediately (I did).

It uses typeless variables the way Perl does, prefixed with a "$" sign and holding any data type you wish. For example, $whatever can be a variable that you can use to contain strings, numbers, whatever. If $whatever contained a number, you can increment its value using

$whatever++ ;

or

$whatever += 1 ;

or

$whatever = $whatever + 1 ;

Remind you of Perl, C, C++, Java, JavaScript? See what I mean?

2. Built-in Facilities
Unlike Perl, which is a general purpose scripting language that you can use for a wide variety of purposes (and not just generating web pages), PHP was designed from the ground up to be used for scripting web pages. As a result, it has lots of facilities built into that you may have to write yourself or use some pre-written module if you were using Perl.

For example, do you want to send email to yourself from a form on the web page? In Perl, you probably would have to code something like the following:

open ( MAIL,"|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t");
print MAIL "To: myself\@mydomain.com\n" ;
print MAIL "From: visitor\@hisdomain.com\n" ;
print MAIL "Subject: Comments from Web Form\n\n" ;
print MAIL $mainmessage ;
close ( MAIL ) ;

In PHP, the same thing would be coded as follows:

mail ( "myself@mydomain.com", "Comments from Web Form",
$mainmessage, "From: visitor@hisdomain.com" );

Nifty, huh? The same goes for other facilities like sending or retrieving a document via HTTP or FTP, etc. Since PHP was specially designed for a website, the facilities that web designers typically want in a scripting language are built into it.

Another convenience is its handling of form input. Take for example a form with a field like:



You can immediately access that field with the $dateofbirth variable. No need to parse form inputs and the like. All fields in the form are automatically converted to variables that you can access.

Accessing databases is just as easy. There are built-in facilities in PHP to access MySQL, MSQL, Dbase, Oracle, InterBase, and so on (the list is very long). Need to MIME encode your message? There's a function to do it for you too.

There're lots more. I obviously can't run through the entire list - it would take a whole book to be exhaustive. This is just to whet your appetite.

3. Generating web pages
By default anything you type in your PHP document is given verbatim to the web browser. So a simple PHP script might look like the following:


My First PHP Script

My First PHP Script
<' p>
Welcome, Internet user from IP address
. Hope you like my first
PHP page.




Notice that it looks exactly like a web page, except for the bit, which encloses the PHP script. In this case, all we want is for the script to output the visitor's IP address to the page, hence we use the "echo" function. The web server's environment variable REMOTE_ADDR is automatically made available to the PHP script via a variable of the same name (as are all other environment variables and form inputs).

There are many ways to embed your PHP script into your page, or to design your page itself. But you got the general idea. As I said, PHP was designed for web pages, so the idea of output to the server is built into its design. It makes writing such scripts a very pleasant task.

4. Debugging With PHP Vs Perl CGI

Interestingly, if you're debugging your scripts online, PHP really shines.

Normally, when a Perl CGI script goes awry, you'll get a cryptic error message in your browser: something to the effect of "500 Internal Server Error".

With PHP scripts, you get error messages pinpointing the offending lines in your code to help you locate the error. However, the message is sometimes a cryptic "parse error" or the like, so you still have to crack your head to figure out the problem. But at least you know where it occurred. Contrast that with Perl CGI scripts, where an "Internal Server Error" could have arisen from any number of causes, from a syntax error to a simple case of forgetting to make the file executable or uploading it in text mode.

Debugging offline, however, is another story. Some people have found that the Perl interpreter gives more helpful messages than the PHP interpreter, which tends to label many things as "parse error". This may change, though, as newer versions of the PHP interpreter is released.

4. What's the Catch?
While I obviously enjoy using PHP as my web scripting language, I do not claim that it is the perfect solution for all your website needs.

You might want to consider the following prior to committing yourself ot it. The list, incidentally, is not exhaustive.

a. Not all web hosts provide PHP facilities. While it is true that many also do not provide CGI access, the number providing PHP is even less!

In fact, where free web space providers are concerned, the number providing PHP can probably be counted with one hand. Indeed, even if you manage to find free web hosting with PHP access, you have to ask yourself whether you really want to depend on it for your site. There might be a day when you need to move your site, and you may be hard-pressed to find another free web host that supports PHP.

However, if you host with commercial web hosting companies, you probably will have less problems. It seems to me like the large majority of vendors support PHP, and even those who currently don't provide it plan to support it in the near future.

b. Like all web scripting languages (Perl included), debugging the script can be a pain in the neck unless you download and install your own copy of PHP. Otherwise you might spend many hours online trying to test and debug your script (unless of course it's a trivial script).

Incidentally, you can also operate your own Apache web server at home, so as to mimic the entire environment of your actual site (or as close to it as necessary).

Of course if you have a Linux box around, you're probably all set. Just dig up your installation CDROMs and install the server and PHP module from there if you've not already done so. (Most modern Linux distributions come bundled with the Apache server and PHP Apache module.)

c. It is not a general purpose language. While it has many facilities specifically catered towards web programming, it is not Perl (or C or C++ or Java). I personally however find PHP more than adequate for my web programming needs.

Windows Vista Home Basic Troubleshooting & tips

Enable New windows vista Home Basic Aero Cursors tips.

Troubleshooting tips 1

:Post-beta 2 builds, windows vista has included new Aero cursors that are not turned on by default. To troubleshooting this in vista.Follow the steps below :Right click on your desktop and select Personalize.Click on the Mouse Cursors item to select a Vista graphics different mouse cursor scheme.Change the Scheme from None to Windows vista Aero.Click OK to see the new Aero mouse cursors.

Kill Security center notification problem in Windows Vista Home Basic

Troubleshooting tips 2: windows vista security center remind you all the time about anti virus. Solution guide:- new easy way to disable the security center messages.Click on the Security Center/Windows Security Alerts logo in the system tray.Click Change the way Security Center alerts me.Select I do not want notification messages from Security Center.

Use small icons size tip for Windows vista.

Troubleshooting large Icon

The Windows vista icon size of the recently run programs list on the Start Menu is set to large by default. This is great if you like the large icons but it also cuts down on the number of recently run programs that can be displayed. Follow the steps below to give your Start Menu a cleaner look

disable large icons problem:
Right click on the Start Button and select Properties.
Click on the Customize button.
Scroll to the bottom of the list and remove the check from Use large icons.

You can now also increase the number of recently run programs in vista that are displayed to something larger than 9.

Hit OK when you are finished.

windows Vista adiitional clock

Windows Vista, you can add additional clocks to the system tray. Click the clock, and then click Date and Time Settings. Click the Additional Clocks tab. You can add one or two additional clocks to the tray and select their time zones.

Vista's word and notepad document more secure

You can create XML documents, which are more secure than regular text files or even word processor docs. Just create a document in a word processor, print(not print out ) it via the options menu, and select the XPS printer.Thats it u have secure document.

Vista Home Basic Internet Explorer Problem

If you’re annoyed by Internet Explorer’s incessant barking that you’ve lowered your security settings , launch “gpedit.msc” from either the Run command or Start Search field, navigate through Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Vista Components / Internet Explorer. In the rightmost pane, double-click “Turn off the Security Settings Check feature” and set it to Enabled.

Windows Vista Task manager for troubleshooting

The Windows Task Manager gives you a lot more troubleshooting information in Vista.Click ctr+alt+del, Flip to the Processes tab, and in the View menu, click “Select Columns” and add Description, Command Line, and Image Path Name. Moreover, when you right-click a process, you can select either “Go to Service(s)” or “Open File Location.” These are all long overdue options.

Displaying Run on the vista Desktop

You can create a shortcut for the Run command on your desktopFrom the Start Menu, go to All Programs / AccessoriesDrag a shortcut for Run to the desktop.

vista Displaying Run on the Start Menu

By default, Run is not shown when you open the Start Menu.To enable this:Right click on the taskbarSelect PropertiesClick on the Start Menu tabClick on the Customize buttonScroll down and check Run (it's about 2/3's of the way towards the bottom.

Allowing Network Access with Blank Passwords with Vista

Although you can log in locally without a password, by default, Vista does not allow network users to access the computer without a password. To change this setting in windows vista: Run gpedit.msc Go to Computer Configuration / Windows vista Settings /Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options Double click on Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only Disable this option.

Adding the IE 7 Icon to the desktop

By default, the icon for the Vista graphics Internet Explorer 7 does not show up on the Vista desktopTo add it back in again, a registry edit is needed. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000 Then log off and back on again.

Resizing Partitions Vista .

Vista now has the ability to resize partitions. Right click on my Computer on vista tip desktop Select Manage Click on Disk Management Right click on a partition Select Shrink or Extend depending on what you want to do Note: As with all changes to partition sizes, have a good set of backups beforehand is a good idea.

.Access Denied to Folders

If you are getting Access Denied errors when trying to open folderslike Documents and Settings, Application Data, Local settings: Right click on the Folder Select Properties Click on the Security tab Click on the Advanced button Click on the Owner tab Click on the Edit button In the Change owner to box, highlight your account Check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects Click on Apply Click on Yes to replace all permissions Continue to click on OK until you.

Services You Can Disable with vista

There are several services you can disable to help improve performance.

Desktop Window Manager Session Manager - Provides Desktop Window Manager startup and maintenance services.If you don't plan on using Aero Glass, you can disable this service.

Diagnostic Policy Service - Enables problem detection, troubleshooting and resolution for Windows componentsSet to Disabled

Diagnostic Service Host - Same as above

Diagnostic System Host - Same as above

vista Offline Files - The Offline Files service performs maintenance activities on the Offline Files cache, responds to user logon and logoff events, implements the internals of the public API, and dispatches interesting events to those interested in Offline Files activities and changes in cache state.

vista Terminal Services - Allows users to connect interactively to a remote computer. Remote Desktop and Terminal Server depend on this service. If you don't use either of these, then you can disable the service in vista.

Windows vista Error Reporting Service - Allows errors to be reported when programs stop working or responding and allows existing solutions to be delivered.

Windows vista Search - Formerly this was the Indexing Service. Provides content indexing in vista.

comment: futher tips for microsoft windows vista available in future.

Computer & Less known Technologies

These article are not intended to promote illegal hacking or cracking. This site provides the information for purely academic reason/purpose.


Hacking

In this new world, development is happening in Computer Technologies which is controlling almost all sectors of life. From birth of a child to till the end of life, computer & its programs plays a major role. We can't imagine our life without a computer or programs, when we try to understand it. Most of us are ignorant about the fact. We are using mobiles, new generation cars, security systems, transportation, signal lights, office, airports, ships, nuclear facilities, telecommunication.... you name it. Starting from kitchen you can find it everywhere in your own house itself. Everything is in one way or the other controlled by computer. Internet & emails, web sites, Information at fingertips, huge databases, one cannot think without these in this modern era.

Hacker is the name meant for the people who thinks & develops programs like internet & email. But now when we hear the word, Hacker, we may get annoyed, because the word society considers as the spoiled brains of computer world, who makes distruction. Those who are finding loopholes in useful programs & destroying it. In fact, Hacking & Cracking are very different, one should learn about the difference.

History of Hacking

In 1960 around, the word "Hacker" is formed in Massachusetts Technology Institute in USA. On that time, the word is considered in its positive sense. It is to find out the products which did not get after sales technical support and those who does this is known as Hacker on that time. Richard Stalman, the founder of GNU (a free operating system) is one of the Hacker in MIT on that time. When the multi user Systems came, then also the hacking was useful.

But when some started using the system for making errors in Telephone networks & computer, the word got its present not so pleasant meaning. Disbursing destruction as it rolls on, those innocent popular hackers are also got in between.

In 1985, to differentiate between those who construct & those who destruct, another word emerged, "Cracker". Hacker for those intellectuals who are Making/ building programs in net & Cracker is those who are destructing/ make illegal programs. But the word Hacking still remains in the common people's mind same as Cracking.

At first, around 1970s, one of the known Cracker was Captain Crench, he make use of the loopholes in Inband Signalling Telecommunication, USA's network. He used to make calls of Inband Signalling's frequency.

In 1980, when the personal computer (PC) started became popular, Virus program & Worm program started distributing among PCs. People started watching it as part of Hacking and when the Internet became a public network around the last of 1980, Cracker's started working in Internet.

On that time, popular Bulletin Board System (BBS) service is widely used by Crackers. The popular instrument was telephone & crackers misused the facility through BBS. Government in USA feared that this will throw the economy in jeopardy and they used (Federal Beauro of Investigation, USA) FBI to find the Cracker's & cease the instruments they use. This is considered as first legal action against Crackers.

1990 saw the wide use of World Wide Web (www) and Cracking became common. The number of Crackers are also increased. Those can be categorized as Hobbiest, Professional and Researchers. Those who are cracking computer networks to find the faults for fun comes in first category. The other category, professionals, works for financial gain while Researchers finds the networking loopholes and inform the authorities.

Cracking
Why Cracking
Methods of Cracking
Buffer Overflow
Social Engineering
Trojans
Fishing
Advanced Fee Fraud
Front Door & Bruit Force Attack
Dictionary Program Hacks
Bugs & Back Doors
Denial of Service
Virus
Vulnerability Scanner
Worms
Logic Bombs
Ransom wear
How to prevent Cracking
Intrusion Detection System
Anti Virus Softwares
Encryption
Firewall
Controlling, New Trends
Cracking in real life

NetBeans 5.5

The NetBeans IDE is a free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers. The IDE runs on many platforms including Windows, Linux, Solaris, and the MacOS. It is easy to install and use straight out of the box. The NetBeans IDE provides developers with all the tools they need to create professional cross-platform desktop, enterprise, web and mobile applications.

NetBeans IDE Add-ons

1. Mobility Pack
You can build easy and powerful mobile applications with visual tools.
2. Visual Web Pack
Drag and drop components to visually construct web applications.
3. Enterprise Pack (XML Schema, WSDL, BPEL, Secure Web Services, UML)
Drag and drop components for modelling and SOA application development
4. Profiler
Find bottlenecks and memory leaks in your applications.
5. C/C++ Pack
Create C/C++ applications from within the NetBeans IDE.

JavaScript :: Images fly around

javascript:R=0;x1=.1;y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i}setInterval('A()',5); void(0)

Copy & Paste in your browser address bar & press Enter

JavaScript to Flash a Text Message!

javascript:function reverse(){var inp = "!!koobparcs s`aviS ni ecin gnihtemos etirw dna oG.tol a segassem ruoy sessim aviS";var outp="";for (i = 0; i <= inp.length; i++) {outp=inp.charAt (i) + outp;}alert(outp) ;};reverse();

Copy Paste in your browser's address bar & press enter

Internet Search Engines

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system, such as on the World Wide Web, inside a corporate or proprietary network, or in a personal computer. The search engine allows one to ask for content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of items that match those criteria. This list is often sorted with respect to some measure of relevance of the results. Search engines use regularly updated indexes to operate quickly and efficiently.

Without further qualification, search engine usually refers to a Web search engine, which searches for information on the public Web. Other kinds of search engine are enterprise search engines, which search on intranets, personal search engines, and mobile search engines. Different selection and relevance criteria may apply in different environments, or for different uses.

Some search engines also mine data available in newsgroups, databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input

Yahoo! Search
Yahoo! Search helps users find information, news, images, video, products, local services, and answers from around the Web.search.yahoo.com

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)
Main site for the Google search engine, finding web sites that match a user's query. Also includes Image Search, Local Search, Google News, and Froogle.www.google.com

Dogpile
Dogpile fetches and ranks results from multiple search engines, letting you search for key words, pictures, audio, video, news, or phone numbers from a single page. ...www.dogpile.com

AltaVista
AltaVista provides web and newsgroup search engines, as well as paid submission services.www.altavista.com

WebCrawler
Metasearch results from popular engines and directories.www.webcrawler.com

HotBot
Search engine that offers custom filters, skins, and access various other engines.www.hotbot.com

MetaCrawler
Search service that relies on the databases of other search engines.www.metacrawler.com

AllTheWeb
Search engine which indexes web pages, as well as multimedia, audio, FTP, PDF, and MS Word files from around the world.www.alltheweb.com

Search Engine Watch
Provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry, and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in ...www.searchenginewatch.com

Lycos
Official site for Lycos, the online destination site combining elements of navigation, community, and commerce.www.lycos.com

Ask.com
The Ask.com search engine allows users to find online information by asking a question, entering a phrase, or giving a key word. Formerly Ask Jeeves.www.ask.com

Vivísimo
Offers organized search results with document clustering. Makers of the Clusty search engine.www.vivisimo.com

WiseNut
Employs a context-sensitive ranking algorithm to return search results by degrees of relevance.www.wisenut.com

Critical Update for Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo! Messenger users who inadvertently view malicious HTML code on an attacker's website. If your computer has installed Yahoo! Messenger before June 8, 2007, you should install the update. Those using Yahoo! Messenger knows that some user's just popup & put a Message asking to see their photos in the web link provided. Beware, its the strategy to put your system into security issues, commonly referred to as a buffer overflow, in an ActiveX control. This control is part of the software package downloaded with Yahoo! Messenger.

Some impacts of a buffer overflow might include the introduction of executable code, being involuntarily logged out of a Chat and/or Instant Messaging session, and the crash of an application such as Internet Explorer. For this specific security issue, these impacts could only be possible if an attacker is successful in prompting someone to view malicious HTML code, most likely executed by getting a person to visit their web page.


It's advisable to update your Yahoo! Messenger to avoid any untoward incident to your computer. If you are technical user, to fix this issue, the CLSID and exact version of the control that contains the fix are
There are two CLSID being affected. The first CLSID is DCE2F8B1-A520-11D4-8FD0-00D0B7730277 and the version is 2.0.1.4. The second CLSID is 9D39223E-AE8E-11D4-8FD3-00D0B7730277 and the version is 2.0.1.4.

All New Yahoo! Messenger obtained before June 8, 2007 on a Windows PC are recommended to be updated.

Web Instant Messengers

In many corporate networks, Instant Messengers like MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and AIM are not allowed and ports are disabled. You also need to have these software applications installed in your computer. But in most cases, desktop users are not permitted to install any software, for security reasons.

Now, what is the solution for you to access messenger services and chat with your friends? even in the restricted environment? I am listing some options, which might work for you. If you are caught using these services, do not blame me, ok?

When you are at some internet cafes, you may not have your preferred messenger installed in the desktop! And you do not want to wait to get the software downloadd and installed. The options listed below are going to help you to chat faster.

MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL and ICQ provides their own web messengers. There are other third party web messengers like Meebo, KoolIM, ILoveIM and eBuddy providing integration of various messengers in a single place.

MSN Web Messenger lets you chat online and in real-time with friends and family using just a web browser! Use it on any shared computer - at school, at work, at a friend's house or anywhere you can't install the MSN Messenger software. Popups neds to be enabled for this web site if you are using popup blocker software like the MSN Toolbar.

Yahoo Web Messenger works from any Java enabled browsers.

Google Talk - Web Messenger allows you to chat with your friends from any web broswer having Flash support.

AIM Express® service is convenient whenever you're away from your home computer: at school, the office, or a friend's house. Use it whenever you have to be discreet.

ICQ2Go! is a web-based installation-free ICQ version. With the essential communication tools, it offers a solution for connecting from Internet Cafes and other computers, where download and installation is not an option. There is a Flash based version as well as java based version.

Meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you are at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!

KoolIM.com is a web messenger application that allows you to stay connected with your favorite Instant Messenger almost anywhere. You need a computer with just a browser only.
There is no need to download and install any software or Java plug-ins into your computer to use KoolIM.com Web Instant Messenger. KoolIM.com provides friendly, light and very easy to use web-based interface with almost all core features from the original Instant Messenger.
Another great benefit of our Web Messenger - it works behind a firewall or proxy servers. Use our Web Instant Messenger to chat with your friends everywhere! We support AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber and others on the consumer side. We also support Sametime, Simple, SIP, LCS, and Jabber.

ILoveIM.com is another Web Messenger like KoolIM and Meebo. It supports Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk and AOL.

eBuddy.com is a free web based messenger that enables you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo and AIM buddies.

Data Encryption; Need of the Time

Equipment loss equals security lost
Laptops, smart phones and PDAs get left in cabs. Computers disappear. But the real loss isn’t the money spent to replace a device, or the time spent getting the user back up and running. When unprotected data ends up with criminals or your competitors, that’s a loss you can’t afford.

You could be held liable for identity theft
We’ve seen it all too often – bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and medical records stolen from devices 1) that aren’t encrypted or 2) have encryption that a user has bypassed or disabled. And the cost of complying with privacy notification laws – not to mention lawsuits – is growing every day.

Your trade secrets are vulnerable
How many trade secrets are at rest right now on your laptops or computers? How much intellectual property? And how much damage could be done if a competitor got hold of confidential information about your products, production methods or pricing?

Classified information can’t be left unprotected
Now, more than ever, government secrets need to be kept secret. Leaving that data unprotected could compromise anything from personal privacy to national security.

Don't Let a Windows Update Bring You Down

Put yourself back in the driver's seat by disabling auto installs, updating Microft apps, fixing broken updates, and more.

Windows Update sounds like an excellent idea: Anytime Microsoft has a patch or other improvement for its ever-imperfect operating system, your computer lets you know, and even installs the fix for you. Privacy concerns raised by allowing Windows to make regular and unobtrusive phone calls home to Microsoft erupted into outrage, however, following the discovery that the updates included Windows Genuine Advantage, an antipiracy utility that many recipients deemed outright spyware

But acquiring an unwanted watchdog isn't the only risk associated with Windows updates. I don't have room to cover all of the problems that the many patches and add-ons Microsoft has released for the OS might cause. These tips will give you the upper hand on updates, and help you out when a patch goes bad.

The Fast Track to Your Favorite Files and Folders

Use Windows' Places Bar, My Recent Documents, or the 'File-name' dropdown menu to speed up your access to the file or folder you want.

There you are, rummaging in an 'Open' or 'Save As' dialog box, navigating furiously through a maze of files and folders in search of the one you need. Isn't there a better way? Glad you asked. These tips will get you where you're going faster.

Places Bar: Array the two or three folders that you access most often on the Places Bar on the left side of the dialog box. Lincoln Spector describes how at "Keep Your Secrets: A Safe, Easy Way to Encrypt Files." (Windows' Places Bar is separate from the Places Bar in Office apps, so changes to one won't affect the other.)

Another option: Put shortcuts to the folders and documents you frequently use in a separate folder, and then add a shortcut to this folder o' shortcuts on the Places Bar. You'll have to click at least once more to select the one you want, but it's still faster than digging through layers of folders.
Customize your favorite links in Vista dialog boxes instantly with a simple drag and drop.

In Vista, the Places Bar is called Favorite Links and is located both in Explorer and in most file dialog boxes (applications not designed for Vista being a notable exception). To customize this list, locate the folder you want in the Folders pane (below Favorite Links) on the left, or select a folder or file in the main file window in the center of the dialog box; then drag the item into Favorite Links until a line appears between two existing items (see ). Release the mouse button to create the new shortcut. For a bigger view, click the down arrow next to Folders to collapse the pane. Drag and drop to rearrange items. To eliminate or rename a link, right-click it and choose Remove Link or Rename Link (or simply Rename). Some links (including Desktop and Computer) aren't removable, but you can customize links in the file list by clicking Links in the Folders tree that appears below Favorite Links.

My Recent Documents: Most file dialog boxes have a History (Windows 2000), My Recent Documents (XP), or Recent Places (Vista) shortcut in the Places Bar. Click it to see a list of recently accessed files and folders. In Windows 2000 and XP, you can filter the types of files in this list via the 'Files of type' drop-down menu at the bottom. In Vista, you can remove the current batch of shortcuts in Recent Places by right-clicking the icon and choosing Clear Recent Items List.

'File name' drop-down: A shorter list of recently used files lies in the 'File name' drop-down menu near the bottom of the dialog box. Click the arrow to the right to see the path of recently accessed files. To filter this list by file type, select the type from the 'Files of type' drop-down list (2000 and XP) or from the pop-up menu located to the right of the 'File name' box (Vista).

To open a recently used folder rather than a file, in Windows 2000 and XP, use the 'File name' drop-down menu to select a file located in the folder you need, press the right arrow key once to deselect the text in the 'File name' box, and press as many times as necessary to delete the file name, leaving only the path. Finally, press . The file list above switches to the desired folder. In Vista, the drop-down list at the top of Explorer and most file dialog boxes displays the full path to recently used folders and Web addresses. To return to one of those locations, just select the desired path and away you go.

Yahoo!/ Hotmail Password Hacking

Can your hotmail or yahoo account be hacked? For tens of thousands of people around the world this nightmare has already happened. So yes your hotmail/yahoo account can be hacked into. Just because you have not lost control of your online email account, such as hotmail/yahoo, does not mean it has not been accessed without your permission. Because you have no way of knowing this.


8000 people in the UK found out in late Oct 2006 from a knock on the door from the Police that FBI in America had recovered their private files and data from a raid on a hackers den. The primary means of this loss of files/data by these unaware 8000 UK victims was through the use of hotmail/yahoo instant messengers and their email accounts attached to those messenger services. Therefore, if your hotmail/yahoo account has not been hacked does not mean it has not been accessed without your knowledge. The chances are your email account has been accessed and its email read, just the hacker was kind enough ( or for another reason ) not to change the password to lock you out. One reason why your hacker might have chosen not to change your account password is because that would be the equal of killing the hen that lays the golden eggs. By locking you out, also means that further flow of your personal and confidential information to the hacker will cease once your locked out. The hacker could also be your spouse, girl/boy friend, work colleague or boss. Why would any of them lock you out of your account when they are happy to keep an eye on everything you do ( able to read every email you receive and send).


We use hotmail/yahoo examples since these two services are used by millions of peoples around the World, however techniques used to hack hotmail/yahoo work just as well on other online email services as well as other online accounts. In some cases these techniques work much better on other email services because hotmail/yahoo victims and security experts have nudged improvements in the security of these two services. We can describe to you popular methods/techniques you can fall victim too and lose complete control of your hotmail/yahoo or other email/online accounts or have them accessed unauthorised without your knowledge. Therefore, if you have not already tasted the bitter pill of loss of your hotmail/yahoo or other online accounts we can place you in much better position to avoid it ever happening to you.



I do not endorse you using the information to hack other people's online email accounts. It is lawful for you to read this information to protect yourself. By knowing the tools and techniques you will be better placed to secure your own online communications, and the written explanation does give guidance on how to firm up your own defences. Our sole aim is to stop you from sleep walking into hacker traps and losing your confidential information, like 8000 other Brits did in late 2006.

Password Recovery/ Resetting/ Auditing

Ever curious how professionals and Hackers alike recover/crack/audit Passwords.? We can tell you how and what software they use and sources from the net where you can get it for free. This information will transform your outlook on the use of passwords for data protection in daily use. For example an eight letter alphanumeric password such as "spade938" takes only on average 3.7 seconds to crack. No unlawful activity is involved at any stage of learning to recover/audit/crack passwords.

What is password recovery/ cracking/ resetting/ auditing?

Password Cracking/Recovery: where a person has forgotten or lost his/password, software is used to automate the process of guessing the right "password".

Password Resetting - Where it is not necessary to recover the original forgotten/lost password, a person can chose to have the system disable the original password and ask for the new password to be set. This is what most commercially available Window's Administrator password resetting disks do.

Password Auditing. Auditing is checking the security of the password system (a computer network ) by running automated password guessing software. Essentially the software will reveal passwords in order of password strength. Password auditing is done with the same software used in cracking/recovery.

Password Cracking/ Recovering: the process starts with getting the password hashes. It is from password hashes that the password is recovered/cracked. What is a password hash?. Essentially password hash is 32 byte encrypted form of the password, stored by the system. When you set the password, the system takes your password and runs it through encryption algorithm to produce password hash which is then stored. Password recovery/cracking software essentially duplicates the original encryption process at lightening fast speed until it produces password hash that is identical to the password hash under examination for cracking/recovery. On a home computer up to 10 million tries per minute can be made to crack/recover a password. There are four automated password cracking/recovery techniques;


1.Dictionary attack: Password cracking software will run the entire dictionary through the password encryption algorithm to get the hashes to compare to the hashes of the "unknown" password. If the person has selected any word or slang found in the dictionary, it is not going to take an average home computer more than 10 minutes to crack/recover it. This is the thus the quickest of all techniques.

2.Hybrid attack: deals with passwords which are essentially words with numerals/symbols attached to either end of them i.e. hybrid of word and numbers, e.g. clever88, foolish01, pa$$word, 5ecurity etc. This too does not take more than 10 minutes or so to run through.

3.Brute force attack: if the password survived above two techniques, it will not survive the third i.e. brute force. Brute force will crack any password, if allowed sufficient time and computing power. Brute force essentially takes one character of the password at a time until it gets the whole password.

4.Brute force with precomputed hashes: As mentioned before, password cracking/recovery the software generates hashes to compare to the hashes of the unknown password. If you get the software to generate hashes in advance and then store them, you can make brute force technique lightening fast. For example an eight letter alphanumeric password such as "spade938" takes only on average 3.7 seconds to crack when subjected to brute force with precomputed hashes.

Instant Messenger

In many corporate networks, Instant Messengers like MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and AIM are not allowed and ports are disabled. You also need to have these software applications installed in your computer. But in most cases, desktop users are not permitted to install any software, for security reasons.

Now, what is the solution for you to access messenger services and chat with your friends? even in the restricted environment? I am listing some options, which might work for you. If you are caught using these services, do not blame me, ok?

When you are at some internet cafes, you may not have your preferred messenger installed in the desktop! And you do not want to wait to get the software downloadd and installed. The options listed below are going to help you to chat faster.

MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL and ICQ provides their own web messengers. There are other third party web messengers like Meebo, KoolIM, ILoveIM and eBuddy providing integration of various messengers in a single place.

MSN Web Messenger lets you chat online and in real-time with friends and family using just a web browser! Use it on any shared computer - at school, at work, at a friend's house or anywhere you can't install the MSN Messenger software. Popups neds to be enabled for this web site if you are using popup blocker software like the MSN Toolbar.

Yahoo Web Messenger works from any Java enabled browsers.

Google Talk - Web Messenger allows you to chat with your friends from any web broswer having Flash support.

AIM Express® service is convenient whenever you're away from your home computer: at school, the office, or a friend's house. Use it whenever you have to be discreet.

ICQ2Go! is a web-based installation-free ICQ version. With the essential communication tools, it offers a solution for connecting from Internet Cafes and other computers, where download and installation is not an option. There is a Flash based version as well as java based version.

Meebo.com is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you are at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!

KoolIM.com is a web messenger application that allows you to stay connected with your favorite Instant Messenger almost anywhere. You need a computer with just a browser only.
There is no need to download and install any software or Java plug-ins into your computer to use KoolIM.com Web Instant Messenger. KoolIM.com provides friendly, light and very easy to use web-based interface with almost all core features from the original Instant Messenger.
Another great benefit of our Web Messenger - it works behind a firewall or proxy servers. Use our Web Instant Messenger to chat with your friends everywhere! We support AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber and others on the consumer side. We also support Sametime, Simple, SIP, LCS, and Jabber.

ILoveIM.com is another Web Messenger like KoolIM and Meebo. It supports Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk and AOL.

eBuddy.com is a free web based messenger that enables you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo and AIM buddies.

What are Blog, RSS, Atom, OPML and Podcasting?

I am pretty sure that you know about Blogs, RSS & Atom feeds, etc.. Anyway, here is the summary, in case you want to forward to your friends.

Blog (Weblog)

A Web site that contains dated entries in reverse chronological order (most recent first) about a particular topic. Functioning as an online journal, blogs can be written by one person or a group of contributors. Entries contain commentary and links to other Web sites, and images as well as a search facility may also be included.(from answers.com)

You are reading a blog now!

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

RSS is a Web content syndication XML format. (Syndication is a method of making content available to a range of outlets simultaneously). Most of the RSS feeds have a title, link and description.

RSS specification at RSS at Harvard Law

Atom

Atom is an XML-based document format that describes lists of related information known as "feeds". Feeds are composed of a number of items, known as "entries", each with an extensible set of attached metadata. For example, each entry has a title.

The primary use case that Atom addresses is the syndication of Web content such as Weblogs and news headlines to Web sites as well as directly to user agents.

The Atom Syndication Format Specification

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)

OPML is an XML format for outlines. The OPML specification defines an outline as a hierarchical, ordered list of arbitrary elements. The specification is fairly open which makes it suitable for many types of list data. It is most commonly used to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators or storing playlists.
OPML Spec

Podcasting

Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet. It allows users to subscribe to a feed of new files, usually MP3s. The word "podcasting" combines the words "broadcasting" and "iPod."

The format used is RSS 2.0 with enclosures. Podcasting works like RSS, instead of reading the new content on a computer screen, you listen to the new content on an iPod or iPod-like device.

Like the enclosure of an email message, an RSS item enclosure is something big that may take a long time to download, or something binary that isn't text you read. You can read the text that describes the enclosure, or the enclosure may somehow be related to the item.