Is Windows 7 secure enough?

it's an little embarrassing to discover that a dumbfoundingly simple method for forcing Windows to accept keypresses from a script as though they'd been pressed by a human being, is the focus of a proof-of-concept macro capable of disengaging User Account Control in Windows 7.

Link:
http://www.betanews.com/...

Convert VB to C# or C# to VB

I really don't have much need for this anymore as most of my time is spent developing in PHP but figured someone out there may need it or find it useful.

If you use it leave a comment on how well it worked for you.

Link:
http://converter.telerik.com/

Microsoft Adds Clickjacking Protection to IE8

Protection against malicious Web attacks and tweaks to a feature that lets users browse the Internet privately are among updates Internet Explorer users can test in the first release candidate for IE8, which Microsoft made available Monday.

As first reported by the IDG News Service Friday, Microsoft released the feature-complete version of IE8 to the Web Monday. Microsoft added performance tweaks to existing features and one major security update to block Web attacks known as "clickjacking" that the company said makes IE8 the only Web browser to offer such protection.

Clickjacking lets hackers put a transparent filter on sites so they can view what information a user is accessing and what activities that user is doing, said James Pratt, an IE senior product manager at Microsoft. For example, if someone is on a bank Web site, attackers can use clickjacking to see the user's bank information and acquire passwords, and the user will not know the information is being viewed remotely, he said.

Link:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/...

Display folder sizes in Explorer in Vista

In response to a question someone asked me. Here is some information I had found.

Non-software option:

Just point to the folder and the size should show up in a tooltip. If it doesn't, click Organize, choose Folder and Search Options, click the View tab, select "Display file size information in folder tips" and click OK.

Software options:

ViewFolderSize Pro:
http://www.moveax.com/en/software/viewfoldersizepro.html

Folder Size for Windows (open source):
http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/

WinDirStat:
http://windirstat.info/

10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress

The administration area of a Web application is a favorite target of hackers and thus particularly well protected. The same goes for WordPress: when creating a blog, the system creates an administrative user with a perfectly secure password and blocks public access to the settings area with a log-in page. This is the cornerstone of its protection. Let’s dig deeper!

This article focuses on defending the administration area of WordPress, meaning all those pages in the wp-admin folder (or http://www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/) that are displayed after a user a verified. We bolded the phrase “after a user is verified” deliberately: it should be explicitly understood that only a simple query stands in the way of an evil hacker and the powerful admin area of your whole blog. The latter is only as strong as the passwords that are generated.

Link:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/...

Windows XP services explained

Windows XP is made up of a bunch of different applications running side by side. These applications are broken down into services, DLL files, and registry entries. Before I get a bunch emails, I know it’s far more complex than this but I am trying to keep it simple. Today we are going to focus in on some default XP services that are completely useless, or close to it. These services run in the background and take up memory, so disabling some of them will increase the amount of available memory in your system.

Link:
http://www.devotedgeek.com/...

Microsoft axes Flight Sim

Redmond, Washington-based ACES Studio, the Microsoft-owned internal group behind the venerable Microsoft Flight Simulator series, has been heavily affected by Microsoft’s ongoing job cuts.

Development sources have told Gamasutra that a large portion of the dev house’s staff has been let go - with multiple reports indicating that the entire Flight Simulator team has been axed.

Link:
http://www.steve-lacey.com/...

Microsoft cuts 1400 jobs today

Wonder what departments within Microsoft are being trimmed today to the tune of 1400 total jobs. 5000 jobs will be cut in total. Will this delay the release of the new OS, Windows 7?

Super 2009 Multimedia Encoder

SUPER is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click. If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file, without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER is all you need. SUPER does NOT require any additional external codec to be installed, absolutely nothing. Necessary codecs are built in!

Link:
http://www.freewaregeeks.com/...

50 Extremely Useful PHP Tools

This post presents 50 useful PHP tools that can significantly improve your programming workflow. Among other things, you’ll find a plethora of libraries and classes that aid in debugging, testing, profiling and code-authoring in PHP.

Link:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/...

Great Firefox Addon for keyboard shortcut users

SiteLauncher is an add-on for Firefox that gives you a super-quick way to to open your favorite websites using only your keyboard. One special hotkey brings up the 'Launcher', followed by a unique key to launch a site.

Link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10127

Get a forum on a Wordpress blog with bbPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. We’re focused on keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system.

Link:
http://bbpress.org/

Firefox's warning when changing settings

When you type 'about:config' in the address bar the above error message is what you'll see. Cute.

Prevent websites from blocking the right-click menu in Firefox 3

Tools -> Options -> Content -> Advanced (top area)

Now just uncheck the Disable or replace context menus (highlighted above). It should be noted that some online applications attempt to replace the right click menu with a menu that is useful within the context of what you are doing (like Google Spreadsheets).

Browser Market Share

So close to not having to support FireFox 2.0 in web designs. Every time I get to drop a browser from support its a glorious day. My general rule of thumb is once browser usage dips below 1% or security patches are no longer issued than I drop support.

IE6 is the browser I am most looking forward to dropping.

Link:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/...

Looking to clone a popular website?

Then check out the large collection of PHP clones of popular websites. This is a great collection of some of the best clones around mixed in with some of the worst so make sure you read up before installing and going live.

Link:
http://www.scriptcopy.com/

A phone that scans business cards to a contact

The Samsung Omnia has a feature I have not seen, or even heard about, in any other cell phone - business card scanning with OCR. What is does is allow you to take a picture of a business card and it reads the information into a contact by pre-filling in information.

Thanx to Erb for showing me this phone and the feature. It just tells me that my cell phone is a dinosaur and needs to be upgraded.

Link:
http://www.samsung.com/au/omnia/

Only 7 hours to install Windows 7 beta

Currently running in a Virtual PC environment.

More posts coming on what I find when poking around the Windows 7 Beta. Want to see something specific? Leave a comment.

Microsoft Tag

Microsoft Tag creates unlimited possibilities for making interactive communications an instant, entertaining part of life. They tranform physical media (print advertising, billboards,product packages, information signs, in-store merchandising, or even video images)—into live links for accessing information and entertainment online.

With the Microsoft Tag application, just aim your camera phone at a Tag and instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, and more. Nothing to type, no browsers to launch!

The above tag is one I created quickly through Microsoft's tag manager.

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

How fast did Walmart grow in the US

Faster than you would probably think. Check out this video on the growth of Walmart across the US.

Link:
http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

Facebook Reaches 150 Million Users Worldwide

Wow. Since they just reached the 140 Million mark back on Dec 18th (or around) means that Facebook is growing at 500,000 new users per day. I am amazed at that rate of growth.

Some fascinating stats:

• 500,000 new users per day
• 13 Million users update their profiles once a day
• 700 Million photos uploaded per month
• 52,000 application using the Facebook platform
• 2.6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
  

Want more stats? Then check out the Facebook Demographic Statistics where you can generate your own growth chart.

Read more about their growth:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_growth_explodes.php

Looking for logos?

Logo Instant is a collection of logos you can use and hack-up for your own needs. The collection isn't huge but its a good start and the logos they do have are of good quality.

Link:
http://www.logoinstant.com/

Joomla Developer’s Toolbox

Joomla is a popular free and open-source content management system (CMS) that can be used to power all kinds of websites. After we published developer’s toolboxes for a variety of other CMS’, many readers requested a collection of resources for Joomla users and developers, so here it is. Joomla grew out of the Mambo CMS and has since built a large and loyal group of users, much like the other popular open-source options. What this means for users and developers is that there is a wealth of information and resources available, and in this post we’ll take a look at many of the best.

Link:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/...

How I found Hulu

Looking around for some complete movie and TV episodes on video hosting websites I stumbled across Hulu. Glad I did as they have an HD quality The Office episode that I had missed and even more important, they have past It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes. If you haven't heard or watched It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia check it out on Hulu. Watching in Full Screen works well and the videos stay buffered nicely so there is very little, if any, delays.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/2768/...

The Office in HD:
http://www.hulu.com/hd/45918

Find something good on Hulu? Leave a comment.

Free Computer Science Classes from Stanford

For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection are all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience.

SEE programming includes one of Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.

Also, if you didn't know MIT opened up over 1800 of their courses through a program called OpenCourseWare

Link:
http://see.stanford.edu/

Welcome 2009

Happy New Year to all!