Internet Explorer 7 'Tips and Tricks'

This document is designed to help IT administrators and developers evaluating Internet Explorer 7 understand some of the common issues seen with application compatibility. The examples provided in this document will help IT administrators and developers understand the issues involved, why they occur and how to workaround them with Internet Explorer 7 in your environment.

Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...

Create Your Own Social Network with Ning

Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.

Link:
http://www.ning.com/

Google turns the lights out

Google is now blacked out for Earth Hour.

(picture posted incase the lights get turned back on)

Photoshop Express (Online version of Photoshop) in Beta

This is the main interface of the online version of Adobe Photoshop called Photoshop Express. Once you have uploaded an image, through the My Gallery manager, you can access and modify your images. What Adobe has done is make this as dead simple as possible. Nothing too complex, but still pretty powerful.


The menu of options seems limiting at first but when you get into modifying your image you will see it covers pretty much everything need to do (at least for the person using an online version of Photoshop). What they have done that is very cool is when you apply or use one of the menu items it becomes checked and that option is applied. You can simply uncheck the item to see your original image.

Everything is done through an AJAX, interactive, interface which means things are done without having to refresh or reload pages.

I changed the color of the corvette in the image with two clicks: select Pop Color from the menu and then select one of the preset choices.



Did I mention all menu items, when selected, give you 6 or 7 choices to try so you don't have to worry about figuring out what the settings should be.

Link:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/...

Free online virus scanner with Virustotal

Virustotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines.

Link:
http://www.virustotal.com/

(found through DonationCoder.com)

Car company family tree

Link:
http://jalopnik.com/...

Turn Your PC into a DVD Ripping Monster

Commercial DVDs are far too expensive to let scratches turn your video into a glorified coaster, but most people still don't back up their DVD collection. Once upon a time, the four to eight gigabyte footprint of a DVD on your hard drive was prohibitively large. But since the price of a gigabyte has plummeted, ripping your entire DVD collection to your computer is not just possible, it's prudent—and it's easy. Let's take a look at the best ways to back up and play any DVD rip on your home computer, along with how to burn a DVD rip back to a playable DVD.

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/371636/...

All about URL rewriting

A few sources for good information and help on rewriting URLs.

• Mod_Rewrite Wizard: Using this tool you can transform long dynamic URLs into short static URLs. Enter your dynamic URL and click Start.
• An Introduction to Rewriting: The Apache server’s mod_rewrite module gives you the ability to transparently redirect one URL to another, without the user’s knowledge. This opens up all sorts of possibilities, from simply redirecting old URLs to new addresses, to cleaning up the ‘dirty’ URLs coming from a poor publishing system — giving you URLs that are friendlier to both readers and search engines.
• mod_rewrite Tips and Tricks for Apache .htaccess: A nicely compiled list of tips and tricks.

Also check out my blog post 'See what htaccess can do for you'

Top 10 Software Easter Eggs

Sure we like our chocolate bunny ears, but around these parts the best easter eggs aren't painted pink and stuffed with jelly beans—they're the undocumented and unexpected fun features hidden deep inside various software apps. While new software Easter eggs don't come around often, there's still a basket full of classics we love. After the jump, get roundup of our favorite software Easter eggs.

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/...

One site, all jobs searched

Indeed is a search engine for jobs - with a radically different approach to job search. In one simple search, Indeed gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Indeed.com includes all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages - and we continue to add new sites every day.

Link:
http://www.indeed.com

Suite of hacker tools with no install Linux distro

Knoppix STD is a Linux-based Security Tool. Actually, it is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of open source security tools. It's a Live Linux Distro, which means it runs from a bootable CD in memory without changing the native operating system of the host computer. Its sole purpose in life is to put as many security tools at your disposal with as slick an interface as it can.

Knoppix STD doesn't even have to be installed. Just burn it to a CD, place it in your CD drive, reboot the computer and let it boot from the CD. Knoppix STD will be setup for you. Couldn't be easier to play around with a Linux distro or in this case test out some hacker tools. (built ontop of Knoppix)

Link:
http://www.knoppix-std.org/


Other distros to check out:

• Slax - Some cool custom distros, each for a certain purpose (all fits on a single CD)
• Helix - Used for computer forensics (built on Knoppix)

Doh

Homer, as a real person. Scary...

Link:
http://bp2.blogger.com/...

theBroken - How to hack a wireless network

Was going to embed it here but they made it too wide for a standard Blogger template.

Link:
http://revision3.com/thebroken/ep1/

Self Publishing with LuLu

Just upload your manuscript, photos or digital files, use our formatting tools to get everything set up just the way you want, from size to binding to cover art, and... well, that's it. You're the proud parent of a brand new digital creation, ready to publish and cherish. The publishing process couldn't be easier.

Link:
http://www.lulu.com

Free 3D Engine with Panda3D

Panda3D is a 3D engine: a library of subroutines for 3D rendering and game development.

Link:
http://panda3d.net/

Windows Vista SP1 problems

A day after it was released for public download, Windows Vista SP1 is drawing barbs from some computer users who say the software wrecked their systems..

Rule of thumb for me with major service packs (like this one and the XP SP3 coming soon) is to give it at least 6 months before installing. Let everyone else work out the issues.

Microsoft on Tuesday made Vista SP1 widely available for the first time. The company has admitted it's still not perfect.

Does that scare you?

Link:
http://...windows-vista-sp1-wreaks-havoc-on-some-pcs

IE fails with a download in PHP (seen when generating a CSV file)

Instead of prompting me with a dialog box to determine if I wanted to open the file or save, IE simply came back and indicated that it couldn’t save the file and presented with me with one option, ‘OK’. Of course ‘OK’ isn’t really ‘OK’, because it terminated the download and dropped me back into the website.

Very strange issue that happens on some systems but not others. The above blog post offers the most comprehensive discussion of this issue.

Link:
http://.../making-ie-accept-file-downloads/

10 AJAX Effects to Boost Your Website’s Fanciness Factor

Here’s a collection of 10 powerful – yet easy-to-implement — AJAX effects to supplement your web page’s interface. These were picked using a “bang for your buck” methodology; meaning that these effects were chosen specifically because they provide high-impact effects with very little effort in installing and using them.

Link:
http://sixrevisions.com/rapid-development/...

Video: Robots are becoming amazing

(watch through the second half)

Get a free PC safety scan

Windows Live OneCare safety scanner is a free service designed to help ensure the health of your PC.

• Check for and remove viruses
• Get rid of junk on your hard disk
• Improve your PC's performance

Ran a full scan in a Virtual PC and it mainly found registry problems. Ran the fixes and really can't tell anything - which I expect from the registry problems tools like this find.

Link:
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

JobberBase - Open source job board software

Feature:

• Post jobs without an account.
• Search for jobs.
• Apply to interesting jobs.
• RSS feeds.
• Site-widget to show jobs on other sites

Link:
http://www.jobberbase.com/

Cartoon yourself with Funky Ways

Cartoonizer is where the user re-creates images/videos by turning into digital paintings, cartoons and comics in just a few seconds without downloading any tool.

Link:
http://www.befunky.com/

Leaked Google Document will change the game for SEO?

Do you believe that this internal document to Google is real? A lot of SEO experts seem to think so. Whether you do or your don't is does give some pretty good information and is worth a glance.

What is interesting is, if this document is true, how much more humans have an affect on the SERPs.

Link:
http://.../quality-rater-guidelines-2007.pdf

(download it while you can as it may not last long)

Ultimate PC

Ultimate PC is Microsoft's latest attempt to get users more interested in the Vista operating system by providing 'blueprints' to ultimate pc setups.

Blueprints available:

• Photography
• Home Theater
• Gaming

Link:
http://ultimatepc.com

What makes a good teacher

I think this MIT teacher does what more teachers should do. Make learning fun and captivate the students.

Here's a bunch of his lectures if you're interested:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/...

Firefox Addon: Tab Mix Plus

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager...

Link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

How Search Engines Work

Exploit-Me lets you test the security of your website

Unsure if your website is as secure as it should be? Then check out the Exploit-Me suite to test the two most common, and well known, forms of attack; Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and SQL Injection.

XSS

XSS-Me is the Exploit-Me tool used to test for reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.

SQL Injection

SQL Inject-Me is the Exploit-Me tool used to test for SQL Injection vulnerabilities.

Link:
http://www.securitycompass.com/exploitme.shtml

WirelessKeyView lets you recover lost WiFi passwords

Freeware application WirelessKeyView recovers the wireless network keys saved to your computer by the Windows Wireless Zero Configuration service of XP or the WLAN AutoConfig service in Vista. As with any password-finding tool...

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/366649/...

Microsoft Seadragon

Seadragon is an incubation project resulting from the acquisition of Seadragon Software in February. Its aim is nothing less than to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network.

If you missed the seadragon/photosynth demo then make sure you check out how cool this technology actually is or could be.

This goes on the list with Microsoft Surface as some very cool technologies being developed by Microsoft.

Link:
http://labs.live.com/Seadragon.aspx

How They Hack Your Website: Overview of Common Techniques

When you consider that you can go to Google right now and enter a search string which will return you thousands of usernames and passwords to websites, you realize that this dark science is really no mystery at all. You’ll react similarly when you see just how simple a concept SQL Injection is, and how it can be automated with simple tools. Read on, to learn the basics of how sites and web content management systems are most often hacked, and what you can do to reduce the risk of it happening to you.

Methods Discussed:

• SQL Injection
• Cross Site Scripting (XSS)
• Authorization Bypass
• Google Hacking
• Password Cracking

Link:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-cms/...

10 broken technology ideas

Sometimes a technology idea is too good to be true. A flexible keyboard, Internet voting and watching feature films on your smart phone are examples. Today, these concepts are still evolving, but they're broken right now. I'll tell you why and what could be done to fix them once and for all.

Link:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...

How to get Vista fonts in XP

Windows only: If there's only a few things most Microsoft Vista upgraders and nay-sayers can agree upon, one likely talking point is that Vista's fonts are generally clean, smooth, and a step up from XP. Getting the newer fonts in XP doesn't have to involve illegal downloads and system tweaking, however—as the gHacks tech blog points out, simply installing Microsoft's PowerPoint Viewer 2007 installs a bundle of Vista fonts in XP that you can use as your system defaults.

Link:
http://lifehacker.com/...

Amazing Photosynth Demo built on Seadragon

The US Highway system simplified

Link:
http://www.chrisyates.net/...

How GoogleBot interacts with your website

If I'm [googlebot] indexing for regular web search, and I see links to MP3s and videos, I probably won't download those. Similarly, if I see a JPG, I will treat it differently than an HTML or PDF link. For instance, JPG is much less likely to change frequently than HTML, so I will check the JPG for changes less often to save bandwidth. Meanwhile, if I'm looking for links as Google Scholar, I'm going to be far more interested in the PDF article than the JPG file. Downloading doodles (like JPGs) and videos of skateboarding dogs is distracting for a scholar—do you agree?
---
After actually downloading a file, I use the Content-Type header to check whether it really is HTML, an image, text, or something else. If it's a special data type like a PDF file, Word document, or Excel spreadsheet, I'll make sure it's in the valid format and extract the text content. Maybe it has a virus; you never know. If the document or data type is really garbled, there's usually not much to do besides discard the content.

Very interesting read on how and what GoogleBot will do when accessing your website.

Link:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/...

Excel as a 3D Game Engine?

Cutting-edge computer games use different graphics subsystems -- so-called 3D graphics engines. Source (used in Half Life 2), Unreal Engine (Unreal Tournament), idTech 4 (Doom 3), CryENGINE2 (Crysis) or Clever's Paradox engine are well-known among the players and the game industry experts.

It's time to learn a new 3D game engine name: Microsoft Excel.

Link:
http://www.gamasutra.com/...

Google releases new Search in Website feature

If you do a search some results will contain a 'Search [website]' form right inline with the SERP result. A neat little feature that could making searching that much easier.

Give it a try by searching for Amazon:
http://www.google.com/...

Give IE8 a test drive

Whats New:

• Activities
• WebSlices
• Favorites Bar
• Automatic Crash Recovery
• Improved Phishing Filter

Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/...

Step by Step: Configuring SSL Under Apache

With a secure web server, clients can connect to your server secure in the knowledge both that it is who it claims to be and that the transaction is well-encrypted so their data is safe. The best way of doing this is with Apache 2, the leading Linux web server software, and Secure Sockets Layer, a secure communication protocol. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the successor to SSL, but they work in basically the same way. I'll refer from here on just to SSL.

Link:
http://www.onlamp.com/...

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 Manager

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 Manager is an administration UI that provides end users and administrators with a way to remotely manage IIS 7.0 servers.

Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...