Things that crossed my way!

Hi Guys,

Seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours and hours into days. This transformation happens so quickly. It was as if 2011 bloomed yesterday and one month has gone so fast. We get a lot of experiences as time passes and it is important that we need to learn lessons from our experiences. I would be sharing some experiences of mine.

Nature’s Beauty

This happened 10 days back. My parents were not in home. I was alone and it was Tuesday. I woke up late and as a result I started to college late. I was wearing my shoes when I noted that a pair of eyes was looking at me from one corner of the room. The first thought that came to me was a frog, as frogs are in abundant around my home. On a second look, I knew it was not a frog, because the size of the creature was too small and they eyes were much bigger than a frog’s.

The eyes resembled the eyes of a monster. I was confused and slowly fear was penetrating me. When I went to take a close look, I was relieved. The creature was nothing but a butterfly. It was dark brown in color. It had symmetric designs in its wings. The designs were black in color and they resembled many things when looked closely, but from a distance it was a monster’s eye. A closer look showed that it was much like a coiled ribbon or a cartoon moustache. It was already getting late, so I decided to leave it there.

To my surprise, it was there when I came in the evening too. I thought of snapping it this time, but there was no power in my Camera’s batteries and hence I had to leave it yet again. I have heard of natures’ defence mechanisms, but this is the first time I have seen them really. For an animal looking from a distance it will create the look of a big animal and so the butterfly will survive. Amazing!!!

Hacking at its best

I’m feeling so embarrassed to say this information to you. I behaved so childishly to give away my email ID’s password. It was two days back. I was just viewing my friend’s updates in Facebook. It was then that one of my close friends had made an update. The update was about an application which promised to increase the browser’s speed. The comments were amazing and all the comments were made by my friends. So I believed it and I made the first mistake. A 19 year old boy should have known not to believe it. It took me to the login page of Gmail. There I made the second mistake. I entered my mail ID and password. It took me to the Inbox, but nothing else happened. I was not able to understand. I just logged out.

The next day I went to college as usual. The friend, who had the update, shocked me by saying my password. I was just shocked. It was then that he told by using an application you will be able to steal the passwords. It is an application in Facebook (???). The passwords of your friends (whoever logs in through the app) will be saved in his account. All the friends who gave the comments were people like me who lost their password and started using the app.

Imagine what will happen, if you are a friend of an unknown person and they steal your password. You will end in trouble. Be careful!!!

The Diesel Story (1952)

A few days back, I watched a good 20 minute video about the birth of diesel engines. Released in 1952, it traces back the history of how the engine was developed. It was also shocking to know that the efficiency of a steam engine is just 6%. All the energy sources then had less than 15% efficiency. So it was a breakthrough to find an engine that had 27% efficiency.

That’s it for now.

Happy Reading!!!

A few of my recent experiences!

Hi Guys,

It’s been long since I wrote ‘The First Week of summer’. It’s nice to meet you again through my words.

I was totally engaged in my college works, either writing assignments or drawing machine parts and assembling them in Solidworks. For the past week, I’ve been sleeping by midnight. The only entertainment in between these times was the IPL matches. But sadly, till now I’m not able to watch a full match. Apart from these things, I watched the movie ‘Sherlock Holmes’ yesterday.

A New Browser, A new Experience!

Last week, I downloaded the new Opera 10.5 browser. It was advertised as the World’s Fastest Browser. Earlier I’ve used Opera 9.27, but was not attracted by that. Apart from that I’ve used IE6, Safari browsers and I’m currently using IE8, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox 3.6.

Of these I’m not comfortable with IE8 as it crashes often. I use Google Chrome to check mails and Firefox for extended usage like reading, surfing. I’m most comfortable with Firefox, since it provides a large range of features (add-ons). So, I use Firefox for 90% of my browsing.

Initially I was not interested with the Opera browser. A few days back I used it in my college for surfing and found it impressive. So, I decided to download. In the Opera website, I found that it had some additional facilities like Opera Turbo, Unite and Link. It had independent widgets too.

Opera Turbo increases the speed of the website by a particular factor, normally 2X or 3X. In my short usage, I found that Google and Gmail loaded faster than Chrome or Firefox. But if there were lot of elements in the website, then there was difficulty. For instance, some of the widgets in my blog did not load.

There was lot of Opera Widgets in the website. Some were very useful. I downloaded two of those gadgets. One was the Google gadget that contained all the Google icons like Google, Blogger, Orkut, Gmail, etc. Another one was EBook Reader. A fantastic gadget for a book lover like me! It contains a lot of stored books. We can just download them and read them. I was able to find a lot of famous books like Sherlock Holmes (the complete series), some Augusta Christie Novels, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 days, etc. On the whole I liked the new Opera browser.

Are you a Gmail user? Then Read This

In the recent times, a lot of my friends have lost their Gmail IDs, i.e., they have been hacked. Also, many have received warnings from Gmail to change their password. Gmail has increased it security features. Particularly it has introduced mobile phone recovery. Incase if you forget your password, then Google will send a sms to you. Most of them who lost their IDs had forgotten the answers for recovery questions.

Frustrating Internet Connection

The Internet Speed has been so poor in my home for so long. Even I can manage with the speed, but the connection crashes so often. There was lot of problem from the day we got this connection. Complaints and enquiries don’t help a bit. Last week, mom made a complaint and we were assured we would get a better connection, but there is no improvement. I can’t believe that India’s largest broadband provider’s service is so poor. I’m dead sure that a private sector company will overtake it in a few days.

A lot of things didn’t go well for me this week. But whatever happens happens for a reason and life just goes on. Hope to have a very good week ahead.

Happy Reading!!!

How safe r u?

Hi readers,

Hope u enjoy the changes in my blog.

R u a person who set password to the Operating System? Then this is for u.

Recently, my friend met with a trouble. He forgot his operating system password. He is using Windows Vista Basic OS. So, he is not able to work with his system. After a week’s struggle, he found out software from net to reset his password just today. The software’s name is OHP cracker. The software’s space is something around 500 MB. The downloaded file was in ISO format. So he has written it in a CD. Don’t know whether it will crack the password. We have to wait and see.

Not only him, I have seen many people forgetting the Operating System’s password. Most importantly windows don’t let us open if we forgot the password. I know certain easy ways to avoid these troubles.

Set the Hints Properly

While setting the password, windows will ask for a hint. Many users don’t set it properly. They set hints that r not at all related to the password. The main reason why windows ask us to set it is to help us in those hard times.

Have two administrators

While creating user accounts, create two administrators. Administrators have full power to change other’s passwords (including another administrator’s). So, create another administrator account even if u don’t need it. In case, u have forgotten the password, u can log in another administrator’s account and reset ur password.

Create a Password Reset Disk

Windows let u create password reset disks which will remember ur password. I have written the procedure below.

For Windows Vista

1. Click on Start and then Control Panel.
2. Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety link.
3. Click on the User Accounts link.
4. In the task pane on the left, click the Create a password reset disk link.
5. When the Forgotten Password Wizard window appears, click Next

Note: You will need some kind of portable media before being able to create a password reset disk. This means that you will need a USB flash drive or a floppy disk.

6. In the I want to create a password key disk in the following drive: drop down box, choose the portable media drive to create a password reset disk on.

Click Next to continue.

7. With the disk or other media still in the drive, enter your current account password in the text box and click Next.
8. Windows Vista will now create the password reset disk on your chosen media.

When the progress indicator shows 100% complete, click Next and then click Finish in the next window.

9. You can now remove the flash drive or floppy disk from your computer.

For Windows XP

1. Click on Start and then Control Panel.
2. Click on the User Accounts link.
3. In the pick an account to change area of the User Accounts window, click on your Windows XP user name.
4. In the Related Tasks area on the left, click the Prevent a forgotten password link.
5. When the Forgotten Password Wizard window appears, click Next

Note: You will need a floppy disk or USB flash drive.

6. On the next screen, verify that a blank floppy disk is inserted in your floppy disk drive or USB drive is inserted.

Click Next to continue.

7. With the disk still in the drive, enter your current account password in the text box and click Next.
8. Windows XP will now create the password reset disk.

When the progress indicator shows 100% complete, click Next and then click Finish in the next window.

9. You can now remove the floppy disk or USB flash drive from your computer.

Note: Today floppy disks r out of date. So we have to rely on USB drives for this method. To me, using USB drives is quite an expensive option.

Setting Passwords Properly

One reason why my friend forgot his password is he set a very long password that had more number of characters. Due to this, even changing a single alphabet can affect u. To overcome this we can set the long password as a short abbreviation.

For example, if u want to keep “I like Ice Cream very much”, then consider the 1^st letters alone, ILICVM. U can mix up short and capital alphabets, numbers, and special characters. U can make it iLIcVM34&

Tips Given by Ankit Fadia

Ankit Fadia is India’s 1^st Ethical Hacker. At the age of 13 he hacked CHIP magazine’s website to put his photo in it. Later he confessed to the editor that he was the one who did it. Impressed, the editor told him to join when he was 18. He has helped US Government after 11/9 attacks. He has helped Indian Government in 2008 when Pak terrorists hacked our Government website. He says CID and FBI websites r hacked at least once in a month. Bank websites r the least hacked ones, as they r in constant watch.

He gives the following tips,

• Do not use any word that exists in Dictionary.
• Most common passwords contain username followed by his/her birthday. Avoid it.
• Try combination of alphabets, special characters, and numbers. Mix lower and upper cases.
• Do not have same password for all ur accounts.

Don’t think u r safe

Don’t think that u r very safe from hackers. Hackers r everywhere. U won’t believe me. Two of my classmates r well versed in hacking. They hack others mail and social networking accounts just like that.

One of those guys told us that he started hacking two years ago. He has invited his friends to his home one Sunday. When they had come, he has switched on his computer and checked his mail. He has asked his friends whether they would like to check their mails. They have sat one by one and each one of them had checked their mails. The arrangement was that whatever was typed in the check boxes will be copied in a text pad document and will be saved simultaneously. So at the end of the day, all their username and password was in his hand. Just think of, how many times we have sat in a browsing center and checked our mails.

A few months back, one of my friends Gmail account was hacked.  His password was changed. Not only that, the security question was also changed. So he lost his mail id. To worsen it, he had only one mail id, which meant all his contacts were lost. So, have a back up mail id always.

We are very lethargic in setting password. Please be very careful hereafter. Change ur passwords if they r too simple. Better Late than Never.