Chat without Yahoo Messenger or Gtalk

Can we chat without Yahoo messenger? Most of us are familiar with the most widely used applications such as Yahoo messenger and Gtalk to carry out chatting with our friends.But here I’ll show how to chat without Yahoo messenger or Gtalk.As we all know the information we exchange with their servers(Yahoo or Gtalk) are recorded and stored along with the corresponding IP addresses.This may hurt our privacy since all the information we exchange while chatting has to pass through a third party server.




Moreover if the matter is highly confidential, then it is necessary to have a totally private chat where the messages are exchanged only between the people involved in the chat and not with any other third party servers.At these situations, it is better to chat without Yahoo messenger.

So, how to carry out a private chat without Yahoo messenger or Gtalk?

For this purpose there exists many softwares that support’s you to host a web-based chat system without any additional software or services.So with these softwares the exchange of messages takes place directly between the two persons engaging in the chat and will not pass through any other third party server.This ensures 100% privacy and eliminates the desperate need to chat with Yahoo messenger.

One of my favorite program for private chat is Easy Chat Server
Easy Chat Server is a Windows program that allows you to host a web-based chat system without any additional software or services. Unlike other chat server, you do not need to install Java. It allows you to build one or more web-based chat rooms on your machine, and provides advanced chat functionalities aiming to offer discussion space for your users, customers and partners.

Here are some of the screenshots of Easy Chat Server.

Key Features of Easy Chat Server:

■Easy to use, Simple installation that will have you up and running in minutes.

■128-Bit Security Socket Layer(SSL) support. support for server level certificate creation.

■Instantly runs a complete chat server on your PCs – does not need to install any Web Server.

■Supports full private messaging and One to One private chat.

■Support of images, smileys, avatar icons.

■Full chat and access logs are available within the chat server.

■Have a built-in IP Filter, supports banning/unbanning IP address, securely.

■Multiple styles available for the user to customize rooms.

■Unlimited rooms and users, no any annual, per-user, or maintenance fees.

■No spyware, adware or other unwanted extra programs.

Display Legal Notice on Startup of your Windows

If your PC has multiple users then you can now display legal notice to every user before they login to your PC. This legal notice will be displayed at every startup just before the Desktop is loaded. Using this you can tell your friends about the do’s and dont’s in your computer when they login in your absence. Well you can do this pretty easily. For this there is one small registry hack. Here is the step-by-step instruction to do this.



1. Go to Start->Run, type regedit and hit ENTER

2. Navigate to the following key in the registry


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system

On the right side pane look for “legalnoticecaption“, double click on it and enter the desired Legal Notice Caption.

3. Next below this look for “legalnoticetext” and enter the desired Legal Notice Text. The legal notice text can be up to a page in it’s size so that it can include a set of do’s and dont’s for your computer.

4. After you do this just restart your computer and upon the next startup you can see the legal notice information for your computer. This trick works on both XP and Vista. You can also try it on Windows 7 and should work with no problems.



Hope you like this post. Pass your comments.

Domain Hijacking – How to Hijack a Domain

In this post I will tell you about how the domain names are hacked and how they can be protected. The act of hacking domain names is commonly known as Domain Hijacking. For most of you, the term “domain hijacking” may seem to be like an alien. So let me first tell you what domain hijacking is all about.

Domain hijacking is a process by which Internet Domain Names are stolen from it’s legitimate owners. Domain hijacking is also known as domain theft. Before we can proceed to know how to hijack domain names, it is necessary to understand how the domain names operate and how they get associated with a particular web server (website).



The operation of domain name is as follows



Any website say for example gohacking.com consists of two parts. The domain name (downarchivestuff.blogspot.com) and the web hosting server where the files of the website are actually hosted. In reality, the domain name and the web hosting server (web server) are two different parts and hence they must be integrated before a website can operate successfully. The integration of domain name with the web hosting server is done as follows.



1. After registering a new domain name, we get a control panel where in we can have a full control of the domain.

2. From this domain control panel, we point our domain name to the web server where the website’s files are actually hosted.

For a clear understanding let me take up a small example.


John registers a new domain “abc.com” from an X domain registration company. He also purchases a hosting plan from Y hosting company. He uploads all of his files (.html, .php, javascripts etc.) to his web server (at Y). From the domain control panel (of X) he configures his domain name “abc.com” to point to his web server (of Y). Now whenever an Internet user types “abc.com”, the domain name “abc.com” is resolved to the target web server and the web page is displayed. This is how a website actually works.



What happens when a domain is hijacked



Now let’s see what happens when a domain name is hijacked. To hijack a domain name you just need to get access to the domain control panel and point the domain name to some other web server other than the original one. So to hijack a domain you need not gain access to the target web server.



For example, a hacker gets access to the domain control panel of “abc.com”. From here the hacker re-configures the domain name to point it to some other web server (Z). Now whenever an Internet user tries to access “abc.com” he is taken to the hacker’s website (Z) and not to John’s original site (Y).



In this case the John’s domain name (abc.com) is said to be hijacked.



How the domain names are hijacked



To hijack a domain name, it’s necessary to gain access to the domain control panel of the target domain. For this you need the following ingredients



1. The domain registrar name for the target domain.



2. The administrative email address associated with the target domain.



These information can be obtained by accessing the WHOIS data of the target domain. To get access the WHOIS data, goto whois.domaintools.com, enter the target domain name and click on Lookup. Once the whois data is loaded, scroll down and you’ll see Whois Record. Under this you’ll get the “Administrative contact email address”.



To get the domain registrar name, look for something like this under the Whois Record. “Registration Service Provided By: XYZ Company”. Here XYZ Company is the domain registrar. In case if you don’t find this, then scroll up and you’ll see ICANN Registrar under the “Registry Data”. In this case, the ICANN registrar is the actual domain registrar.



The administrative email address associated with the domain is the backdoor to hijack the domain name. It is the key to unlock the domain control panel. So to take full control of the domain, the hacker will hack the administrative email associated with it. Email hacking has been discussed in my previous post how to hack an email account.



Once the hacker take full control of this email account, he will visit the domain registrar’s website and click on forgot password in the login page. There he will be asked to enter either the domain name or the administrative email address to initiate the password reset process. Once this is done all the details to reset the password will be sent to the administrative email address. Since the hacker has the access to this email account he can easily reset the password of domain control panel. After resetting the password, he logs into the control panel with the new password and from there he can hijack the domain within minutes.



How to protect the domain name from being hijacked



The best way to protect the domain name is to protect the administrative email account associated with the domain. If you loose this email account, you loose your domain. So refer my previous post on how to protect your email account from being hacked. Another best way to protect your domain is to go for private domain registration. When you register a domain name using the private registration option, all your personal details such as your name, address, phone and administrative email address are hidden from the public. So when a hacker performs a WHOIS lookup for you domain name, he will not be able to find your name, phone and administrative email address. So the private registration provides an extra security and protects your privacy. Private domain registration costs a bit extra amount but is really worth for it’s advantages. Every domain registrar provides an option to go for private registration, so when you purchase a new domain make sure that you select the private registration option

How to Make Invisible Password Protected Folder

Do you want to password protect your folder? Do you want to make it invisible so that it remains unnoticed by the normal users? Well here is a way to do that. In this post I will show you how to make a password protected folder in Windows without using any additional software. Here is is step by step procedure to create a password protected folder.



How to create a Password Protected Folder



Step-1: Create a new folder (Right-click -> New -> Folder) and give it any name of your choice. For instance I name it as ABC.

Step-2: Now in this folder place all the important files, documents or any folders that you want to password protect.

Step-3: Now Right-click on this folder (ABC) and select the option Send To -> Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Step-4: Now a new compressed zipped folder gets created next this folder (ABC) with the same name.

Step-5: Double-click on this compressed zipped folder and you should see your original folder (ABC) here.

Step-6: Now goto the File menu and select the option Add a password.



ie: File -> Add a password



Now a small window will pop up and here you can set your desired password. Once the password is set, the folder will ask for the password every time it is opened. Thus you have now created the password protected folder.


How to make it Invisible

Step-1: Now Right-click on this password protected folder and select Properties.

Step-2: At the bottom select the option Hidden and press OK. Now your folder gets invisible (hidden).

Step-3: In order to unhide this folder go to My Computer – >Tools -> Folder options. Switch to View tab, scroll down and under Hidden files and folders you’ll see the following two options



■Do not show hidden files and folders

■Show hidden files and folders

Now select the second option and press OK. Now the invisible folder becomes visible in it’s location. To access it you need the password. To make it invisible again repeat step -1 through step-3 and select the first option and click OK. Now the folder becomes invisible once again.



I hope you like this post. Pass your comments!! Cheers

A Virus Program to Disable USB Ports

In this post I will show how to create a simple virus that disables/blocks the USB ports on the computer (PC). As usual I use my favorite C programming language to create this virus. Anyone with a basic knowledge of C language should be able to understand the working of this virus program.



Once this virus is executed it will immediately disable all the USB ports on the computer. As a result the you’ll will not be able to use your pen drive or any other USB peripheral on the computer. The source code for this virus is available for download. You can test this virus on your own computer without any worries since I have also given a program to re-enable all the USB ports.



1. Download the USB_Block.rar file on to your computer.

2. It contains the following 4 files.


■block_usb.c (source code)

■unblock_usb.c (source code)

3. You need to compile them before you can run it. A step-by-step procedure to compile C programs is given in my post - How to Compile C Programs.

3. Upon compilation of block_usb.c you get block_usb.exe which is a simple virus that will block (disable) all the USB ports on the computer upon execution (double click).

4. To test this virus, just run the block_usb.exe file and insert a USB pen drive (thumb drive). Now you can see that your pen drive will never get detected. To re-enable the USB ports just run the unblock_usb.exe (you need to compile unblock_usb.c) file. Now insert the pen drive and it should get detected.

5. You can also change the icon of this file to make it look like a legitimate program. For more details on this refer my post – How to Change the ICON of an EXE file (This step is also optional).



I hope you like this post. Please pass your comments

Speed Up PC – How to Boost your PC Speed

Are you fed up with your slow PC? Well you can Speed Up your PC by 3 times. In this post you’ll find some of the most significant ways to speed up your PC. For your convenience, I ’ll split this post into 2 parts.



1. Automatic Ways to Speed Up PC (Using PC Speed Up Softwares)

2. Manual Ways to Speed Up PC


Automatic Ways to Speed Up PC

You can use a PC Optimizer Tool to automatically boost the Speed of your PC without the need to worry about the manual ways of doing it. These tools will automatically find and fix upto 99% of your PC errors by optimizing the Windows registry, cleaning up junk files, removing unwanted items from the start up etc. This can speed up your PC and Internet speed by upto 3 times. Here are some of the best PC Optimizer Programs that I recommend.


1. Perfect Optimizer
2. Registry Easy

Using a PC Optimizer is the easiest way to speed up your PC. This is because, most of the performance tweaks such as Registry Cleanup cannot be done manually.

Manual Ways to Speed Up Your PC

1. Free Up Disk Space to increase the speed of your PC


■Remove temporary Internet files.

■Empty the Recycle Bin.

■Remove Windows temporary files.

■Uninstall Programs that you no longer use.

2. Periodically Perform Hard Disk Defragment. This can Speed Up your PC significantly.
3. Clean Up your Registry (Highly Recommended)

Cleaning Up your Windows Registry is very much necessary to speed up your PC. Unfortunately you cannot do this manually. You have to use a Registry Cleaner to do this. Here is the best registry cleaner on the web.



Registry Easy

A complete review of registry cleaners can be found at Registry Cleaner Comparison

4. Clean Up the browser cache to Speed Up your Internet.

5. Install a good Antispyware software

Spywares can really hurt the performance of your PC. So, install a good anti-spyware to protect your PC from spywares and improve the speed of your PC. I recommend the following Antispywares to protect your PC.


1. Spyware Cease
2. Nodware Anti-Spyware

Which is the Best Way to Speed Up my PC? (Auto or Manual)

The best way to speed Up your PC is by using a PC Optimizer such as Perfect Optimizer or Registry Easy. This is because, manual ways can only perform 30-40% of the tweaks to improve the speed of your PC, but the most important aspect of the Speed Up process such as Registry clean Up and other advanced performance tweaks can only be done using a PC Optimizer software. So if you are serious about improving the speed of your PC, then you need to use a PC Optimizer.

How to Repair Registry of Windows PC

Registry Repair Tips

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article explains how to inspect and repair registry errors to improve the performance of your PC. If you are a Windows user then you will most probably be aware of the fact that the registry gets corrupted over time resulting in an overall decreased performance of your computer. At times registry errors can also make your PC to freeze down and hang up every now and then causing a serious annoyance to the user. At this point, the registry needs a serious repair to bring your PC back to it’s life. Well before I tell you how to repair the registry lets see what causes registry to get corrupted.



Registry errors may occur due to installing too many applications/softwares from time to time without verifying the publishers. This may create invalid entries in the registry hive leading to errors. With the Internet boom and the era of freeware with free downloads, people often install programs from untrusted sources which results in serious damage to the registry. Since the registry is a crucial component of the Windows operating system, damage to this registry can cause system performance to drop down considerably.

How to Repair the Registry?

The best and the easiest way to repair your registry is by using a Registry Repair Tool (Registry Cleaner) which will automatically scan the registry to find invalid entries and will repair it by removing the errors with in no time. A registry cleaner is the simple and safest solution to repair registry and bring your PC back to it’s life without the need to re-install the Windows. We recommend the following registry cleaner to repair the Windows registry

Perfect Optimizer


Perfect Optimizer is one of the best and award winning registry cleaner that repairs registry to avoid PC errors such as unwanted shutdown, freezing, crashing and more. Perfect optimizer will


■Repair registry and increases your PC performance by upto 70%

■Repair registry to fix DLL errors and invalid shortcuts

■Free up virtual memory to avoid error messages

■Performs Defragmentation and Compression of the registry

■Repair registry to fix blue screen errors, system crashes, startup errors and more…

Visit Perfect Optimizer Homepage for more information on this program.

Can I Manually Repair the Registry?

Windows registry has a very complex structure with hundreds of thousands of entries embedded in it. A corrupt registry may contain thousands of invalid entries and errors in it and hence it is impractical and almost impossible to manually inspect, find and repair those errors. Also manual registry repair involves serious risk and can lead to a total system break down if done improperly. Except you are a highly experienced Windows user or a Windows expert, users are not encouraged to tamper with the registry.



Hence using a registry repair tool is the safest and easiest way to repair the registry and improve the overall performance of your PC. Registry repair tools will not only repair the registry but also maintains it’s health in a good condition so as to avoid any future damage to it. It is recommended that you periodically (daily or weekly) perform registry scans using these tools to repair the errors as and when they come up and keep your PC’s health at it’s best. Repair the registry and make your PC blazing fast like never before

Alienware Curved Monitors-The Next Technology?

A resolution of 2880×900. Dimensions equivalent to two 24″ widescreen monitors standing end-to-end. DLP rear projection on a curved screen, with OLED illumination. An insignificant .02ms response time.



Alienware’s new curved monitor caused quite a stir when it was revealed here at CES. It seemed like the natural evolution of monitor technology had finally arrived. After all, the human eye is curved, so why shouldn’t our monitors curve too? What a great idea.


So is it that great? Well, it’s as quick as curved. Not that any of that means much right now, because this monitor has major problems.


One of the more intriguing technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) being held this week is a 42-inch-long, curved monitor. Made by Alienware, the monitor is supposed to simulate peripheral vision. The sci-fi-like screen is aimed at gamers for a more immersive experience, although it might not be as suitable for design or text work.


If 42 inches is still not big enough for you, it’s possible to put two of these monitors side-by-side for a dual monitor configuration.

Another issue is the image quality. While the picture seemed sharp, it lacked color depth, appearing altogether faded. And ultimately, I care far more about image quality than the shape of the box.

CES was dominated by another display technology–3D glasses. Yes, the technology that has moved from gimmick to money-maker in the movie industry is still being pushed on the PC. And though it has progressed since the 90s, 3D gaming monitors and glasses still haven’t gotten to the point of usefulness. Every pair I tried left me disappointed and cross-eyed.

In the same way, I’m not sure this monitor is ready. It will surely be too expensive to even contemplate, requiring an even costlier PC to run a game at such a massive resolution. Beyond the obvious flaws that need to be addressed, it’s just plain bulky–and while I wouldn’t place the curving monitor into the realm of pure gimmick, in person, it only really qualifies as “neat.”

If you want one anyway, I can’t blame you. My shelves are full of neat, expensive, and obsolete technology too. Keep your eyes open late into this year.

Beware of Common Internet Scams and Frauds

The term Internet Scam or Internet Fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more online services to conduct fraudulent activities. Internet fraud can take place on computer programs such as chat rooms, e-mail, message boards, or Web sites. In this post I will discuss about some of the commonly conducted scams and frauds across the Internet.



1. Phishing Scam

This is one of the most commonly used scam to steal bank logins and other types of passwords on the Internet. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging.


Example:You may receive an email which claims to have come from your bank/financial institution/online service provider that asks you to click a link and update your account information. When you click such a link it will take you to a fake page which exactly resembles the original ones. Here you’ll be asked to enter your personal details such as username and password. Once you enter your personal details they will be stolen away. Such an email is more than likely the type of Internet scam known as “phishing”. Phishing is said to be highly effective and has proved to have more success rate since most of the common people fail to identify the scam.


Most legitimate companies never request any kind of personal/sensitive information via email. So it is highly recommended that you DO NOT respond to such fraudulent emails. For more information on phishing visit my detailed post What is Phishing?


2. Nigerian Scams

This type of scam involves sending emails (spam) to people in bulk seeking their help to access large amount of money that is held up in a foreign bank account. This email claims that in return for the help you’ll be rewarded a percentage of the fund that involves in the transaction. Never respond to these emails since it’s none other than a scam.
In case if you respond to these emails you will be asked to deposit a small amount of money (say 1-2% of the whole fund) as an insurance or as an advance payment for the initialization of deal. However once you deposit the amount to the scammer’s account you’ll not get any further response from them and you lose your money. In fact “The large amount of money” never exists and the whole story is a trap for innocent people who are likely to become victims. The scammers use a variety of stories to explain why they need your help to access the funds. The following are some of the examples of them.


Examples:


■They may claim that political climate or legal issues preclude them from accessing funds in a foreign bank account

■They may claim that the person is a minor and hence needs your help to access the funds

■They may claim that your last name is the same as that of the deceased person who owned the account and suggest that you act as the Next of Kin of this person in order to gain access to the funds

3. Lottery Scams

This type of scam is similar to the one discussed above. In this type you may receive an email saying that you have won a large sum of money in online lottery scheme (ex. UK Lottery) even though you have not participated in any such schemes. The message claims that your email ID was selected randomly from a lagre pool of IDs. When you respond to such emails they initially ask for your complete name and address so that they can mail the cheque accross to you. After getting those details they may also send you an image of the cheque drawn in your name and address so as to confirm the deal. But in order to mail this cheque they demand a small amount of money as insurance/shipping charge/tax in return. However if you send the amount in hope to receive the cheque all you get is nothing. You’re just trapped in a wonderful scam scheme. Thats it.


4. Other General Scams and Frauds

The following are some of the other types of scams that you should be aware of.

In general, be aware of unsolicited emails that:

1.Promise you money, jobs or prizes

2.Ask you to provide sensitive personal information

3.Ask you to follow a link to a website and log on to an account.

4.Propose lucrative business deals

However it may seem to be a difficult task for novice Internet users to identify such online scams. Here are some of the common signs of such scam emails. By knowing them it may help you to stay away.



■All these scam emails never address you by your name. In turn they commonly address you something like “Dear User” or “Dear Customer” etc. This is a clear indication that the email is a fraudulent one

■When you observe the email header you may notice in the “TO:” Field that, the same email is forwarded to a large group of people or the “TO:” field appears blank. So this confirms that the email was not intended particularly for you. It was forwarded for a large group of people and you are one among them

I hope this post helps. Express your opinions through comments.

How to Hack Windows Administrator Password

This hack will show you how to reset Windows administrator password (for Win 2000, XP, Vista and Win 7) at times when you forget it or when you want to gain access to a computer for which you do not know the password.



Most of us have experienced a situation where in we need to gain access to a computer which is password protected or at times we may forget the administrator password without which it becomes impossible to login to the computer. So here is an excellent hack using which you can reset the password or make the password empty (remove the password) so that you can gain administrator access to the computer. You can do this with a small tool called Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. This utility works offline, that means you need to shut down your computer and boot off your using a floppy disk, CD or USB device (such as pen drive). The tool has the following features.


■You do not need to know the old password to set a new one
■Will detect and offer to unlock locked or disabled out user accounts!
■There is also a registry editor and other registry utilities that works under linux/unix, and can be used for other things than password editing.


How it works?

Most Windows operating systems stores the login passwords and other encrypted passwords in a file called sam (Security Accounts Manager). This file can be usually found in \windows\system32\config. This file is a part of Windows registry and remains inaccessible as long as the OS is active. Hence it is necessary that you need to boot off your computer and access this sam file via boot. This tool intelligently gains access to this file and will reset/remove the password associated with administrator or any other account.


The download link for both CD and floppy drives along with the complete instructions is given below

Offline NT Password & Reg Editor Download

It is recommended that you download the CD version of the tool since floppy drive is outdated and doesn’t exist in today’s computer. Once you download you’ll get a bootable image which you need to burn it onto your CD. Now boot your computer from this CD and follow the screen instructions to reset the password.



Another simple way to reset non-administrator account passwords

Here is another simple way through which you can reset the password of any non-administrator accounts. The only requirement for this is that you need to have administrator privileges. Here is a step-by-step instruction to accomplish this task.


1. Open the command prompt (Start->Run->type cmd->Enter)

2. Now type net user and hit Enter

3. Now the system will show you a list of user accounts on the computer. Say for example you need to reset the password of the account by name John, then do as follows

4. Type net user John * and hit Enter. Now the system will ask you to enter the new password for the account. That’s it. Now you’ve successfully reset the password for John without knowing his old password.


So in this way you can reset the password of any Windows account at times when you forget it so that you need not re-install your OS for any reason. I hope this helps

How to Copy Locked Photos from Orkut

Recently Orkut updated it’s security feature and disabled Right-click on photos of friend’s album. So this makes it difficult to copy photos from Orkut. It’s a new security update made by Orkut to prevent people from copying photos from Orkut and misusing it. This may be annoying most of you! Then…



How To Copy Locked Photos From Orkut?
Yes it’s still possible to copy the photos from Orkut.Here’s a step-by-step procedure to copy the photo.
1. Login into your Orkut Account.
2. Goto your friend’s album and open the photo that you need to copy.
3. Once the photo is loaded to it’s full size just place the mouse cursor on the photo.
4. Press the left click button and drag and drop the photo onto the ADDRESS BAR. I think this trick is no longer working. So I have a new trick….


Just DRAG and DROP the PHOTO onto the current/new TAB (If you have IE 7). Alternatively you can also Drag and Drop the photo onto the Desktop. That’s it. This trick is working now!!


4. Now the photo gets displayed seperately on your browser.
5. You can Right-Click and select the Save As option to save the photo onto your PC.

The browser also displays the direct link to the photo. This link can be used to share the Orkut photos with your friends without the need to login to your Orkut account to access photos.



Please express your opinions through comments. Cheer Up..



Happy Orkut Hacking.