Protect your Personal Computer (PC)

Antivirus Software - An Overview
We strongly recommend that you help protect your computer from viruses by installing and using an antivirus program. The Internet is full of fun places and vast amounts of information, but also some dangers. Your computer can be damaged by a computer virus sent through e-mail or through a program downloaded from the Web. If you do not use antivirus software, you run the risk of passing viruses along to other computers as well. If you administer a network without virus protection software, all of the computers on your network might be vulnerable.


Virus

A virus is a program that can copy itself and infect various parts of your computer, such as documents, programs, and parts of your operating system. Most viruses attach themselves to a file or part of your hard disk and then copy themselves to other places within the operating system. Some viruses contain code that inflicts extra damage by deleting files or lowering your security settings, inviting further attacks.


Worm

different from viruses in that they copy themselves from system toA worm is a program that makes copies of itself and can spread outside your operating system; it can copy itself from one computer to another by using e-mail or another transport mechanism. Worms can damage computer data and security in much the same ways as viruses, but are system.


Trojan Horse

A Trojan horse is a harmless-looking program designed to trick you into thinking it is something you want, but which performs harmful acts when it runs. It is typically received through downloads from the Internet. Trojan horses do not spread by themselves like viruses and worms. Most virus protection programs only detect a limited number of Trojan horses. A good way to help protect your computer from Trojan horses is to visit only Web sites you trust, and avoid downloading things unless you trust the source as well.


How do antivirus programs help protect your computer?
horses. If a virus, worm, or Trojan horse is found, the antivirus program either quarantines it or deletes it entirely before it damages yourAntivirus programs scan e-mail and other files on your computer for viruses, worms, and Trojan computer and files.

antivirus programs have an automatic update capability. When your antivirus software is updaSome companies that make antivirus programs provide regular updates for viruses. Manyted, new viruses are added to a list of viruses to check for, protecting your computer from new attacks. If your antivirus updates are not automatic, we recommend that you check for updates on viruses are identified every day. If a frequent basis because new the antivirus program you are using requires a subscription, we strongly recommended that you keep the subscription current to receive regular updates. If your list of viruses is out of date, your computer is vulnerable to new threats.

Where can I get an antivirus program?
There are many antivirus programs on the market.

Some of the companies which sell Antivirus softwares are listed above.

Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4 - the War begins

Mozilla's Firefox 3 is ready to challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which won't be updated until later this year. Firefox has 18 percent of the global browser market and has been made faster, more secure and customizable. Mozilla's Firefox 3 also comes with malware and forgery protection.

Just more than 10 years ago, Mozilla threw its open-source code into the public domain. Today, its browser -- Firefox -- is preparing to launch its third major release in hopes of continuing to eat away at Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's Internet Explorer.

Firefox already has more than 18 percent of the global market, according to Net Applications. With the release of Firefox 3, Mozilla could see a boost in downloads and market share. Microsoft's next version of Internet Explorer won't come to market until later this year.

On June 17, Mozilla will release Firefox 3. After more than 34 months of active development and the contributions of thousands of people, Firefox 3 will be downloadable free from the Mozilla Web site. Mozilla is promising this is the best browser -- period.

"Firefox 3 is a very nice browser. It's still going to have to go up against Internet Explorer [Windows] and Safari [Mac], which have the home court advantage on their operating systems," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "It shows that the browser market is anything but stagnant."


A Focus on Security Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 15,000 updates, including some major re-architecting for improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. The result, Mozilla said, is a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer Web-site and Firefox add-on developers.

Mozilla begins with a focus on security. Users can click a Web site's favicon [icon] in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if the connection is secure. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand, Mozilla said. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site's favicon will turn green and show the name of the company.

Firefox 3 also has malware protection to warn users when they arrive at sites known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or the like. And a new Web Forgery Protection service blocks the content of pages suspected as Web forgeries. New SSL error pages, Mozilla said, are clearer and stricter, and Firefox automatically disables old and insecure add-on and plug-in versions.

Add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will also be disabled. Firefox will inform antivirus software when downloading executables and the browser respects the Vista parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

Easier, More Personal
Mozilla also concentrated on making Firefox easier to use and more personalized. In terms of password management, that means an information bar replaces the old password dialog so users can save passwords after a successful login. The add-on whitelist has been removed, making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks. And a new download manager aims to makes it much easier to locate downloaded files. Users can also see and search the Web site where a file came from.

Firefox 3 allows users to add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click and associate keywords with bookmarks to sort them. Web applications, such as a favorite Webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications to handle Web-site mail links. The Add-ons Manager can be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of add-ons available from Mozilla's Web site.

Gartenberg expects the competition to dominate browsing will continue. Even now, Microsoft is working on the release of IE 8 and Apple is seeding Safari 4. "Clearly, Web browsers are still very important, as important as they were 10 years ago, but just in a different way," he said. "The bottom line is no one is actually paying for a browser any more. A browser is free. It's something you give away in order to make money elsewhere."

Universal Serial Bus (USB)

USB

Anyone who has been around computers for more that two or three years knows the problem that the Universal Serial Bus is trying to solve -- in the past, connecting devices to computers has been a real headache!

• Printers connected to parallel printer ports, and most computers only came with one. Things like Zip drives, which need a high-speed connection into the computer, would use the parallel port as well, often with limited success and not much speed.
• Modems used the serial port, but so did some printers and a variety of odd things like Palm Pilots and digital cameras. Most computers have at most two serial ports, and they are very slow in most cases.
• Devices that needed faster connections came with their own cards, which had to fit in a card slot inside the computer's case. Unfortunately, the number of card slots is limited and you needed a Ph.D. to install the software for some of the cards.

The goal of USB is to end all of these headaches. The Universal Serial Bus gives you a single, standardized, easy-to-use way to connect up to 127 devices to a computer. Each device can consume up to a maximum of 6 megabits per second (Mbps) of bandwidth, which is fast enough for the vast majority of peripheral devices that most people want to connect to their machines.

USB Ports

Just about any computer that you buy today comes with one or more Universal Serial Bus connectors on the back. These USB connectors let you attach everything from mice to printers to your computer quickly and easily. The operating system supports USB as well, so the installation of the device drivers is quick and easy, too. Compared to other ways of connecting devices to your computer (including parallel ports, serial ports and special cards that you install inside the computer's case), USB devices are incredibly simple!

Now, we will look at USB ports from both a user and a technical standpoint. You will learn why the USB system is so flexible and how it is able to support so many devices so easily -- it's truly an amazing system!

USB Devices

Just about every peripheral made now comes in a USB version. A sample list of USB devices that you can buy today includes:

• Printers
• Scanners
• Mouse
• Joysticks
• Flight yokes
• Digital cameras
• Webcams
• Scientific data acquisition devices
• Modems
• Speakers
• Telephones
• Video phones
• Storage devices such as Zip drives
• Network connections

Computer Hard Disk Drive

Hard Disk
Hard disks were invented in the 1950s. They started as large disks up to 20 inches in diameter holding just a few megabytes. They were originally called "fixed disks" or "Winchesters" (a code name used for a popular IBM product). They later became known as "hard disks" to distinguish them from "floppy disks." Hard disks have a hard platter that holds the magnetic medium, as opposed to the flexible plastic film found in tapes and floppies.

At the simplest level, a hard disk is not that different from a cassette tape. Both hard disks and cassette tapes use the same magnetic recording techniques described in how tape recorders work. Hard disks and cassette tapes also share the major benefits of magnetic storage -- the magnetic medium can be easily erased and rewritten, and it will "remember" the magnetic flux patterns stored onto the medium for many years.


How it works

Nearly every desktop computer and server in use today contains one or more hard-disk drives. Every mainframe and supercomputers is normally connected to hundreds of them. You can even find VCR-type devices and camcorders that use hard disks instead of tape. These billions of hard disks do one thing well -- they store changing digital information in a relatively permanent form. They give computers the ability to remember things when the power goes out.

In this article, we'll take apart a hard disk so that you can see what's inside, and also discuss how they organize the gigabytes of information they hold in files!

Open Source Software Codes

If you are an end user and wants to know about a computer program & its codes, it may not be easy, specially in the making of a monopoly over software by giant software firm.

and if you are a beginner in programming & wants to see & experiment some codes, may not be an easy one as the programmers usually were busy & getting reliable codes are also a dream for many.

last but not least, if you are a programmer looking for a platform to publish your project work, discuss issues with similar minded persons & publish codes, there is a centralized resource site which will satisfy all the needs of the above said category, its SourceForge.net.

It is said to be the world's largest Open Source software development web site. SourceForge.net provides free hosting to Open Source software development projects with a centralized resource for managing projects, issues, communications, and code.

So, finding the open source programs & codes are now easy.

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