Posts

Hiding Content in an Image

Recently on two separate TV shows I saw an image file used to hide other data (one was text and one was another image). Wouldn't you know, I then ran across ZomgStuff and a post from UgLy NeRd , which has an article on how to hide a text file in a .jpg. It is actually quite easy: use RAR to merge the two files, giving it a .jpg extension ( copy /b secret.jpg + meeting.txt.rar lizard.jpg ). When you want to retrieve the text, open the .jpg with WinRAR. Check the posting on ZombStuff to see a few screen shots.

AT&T Closer to Supporting Net Neutrality

For nearly a year, the FCC has not approved the AT&T / BellSouth merger -- more specifically commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein . In order to break the deadlock, AT&T has put forth provisions to make the merger look more favorable to consumers. This is the second set of conditions that AT&T has put forth in order to get the merger through -- the first being in October . The most exciting part of the provisions this time around is AT&T's partial support of Net Neutrality. According to Nate Anderson of ArsTechnica , this provision means that all content of a particular type will receive equal bandwidth. What it does not provide is equal bandwidth across different content types. For example, AT&T could throttle back all VoIP, and give more bandwidth to video. The good news is that companies cannot pay AT&T money to deliver their content faster than another content provider. Other provisions include returning 3,000 BellSouth outsourced job

Alt Key + Calculator Number = Symbol

I ran across this simple page from a link on Digg . It is shortcuts for symbols that you cannot normally type in directly. For example: © = Alt + 0169 ® = Alt + 0174

Activate Windows Vista for Free

Vista has not even been released to the consumers, and already there is a work-around to keep you from having to activate your copy. As you may recall, if you do not activate your copy of Vista within Microsoft's specified time, you will be reduced to an OS that lets you access the Internet for an hour at a time. On December 20, 2006, KezNews posted an article on how to fool the activation clock, and therefore allowing you to run Vista without activation indefinitely. If that is not enough, KezNews has a synopsis of the eWeek article on how hackers can buy Vista exploits for $50,000. I am not suggesting you steal or try to hack Vista; rather, I am suggesting you be careful in seriously consider before upgrading to Vista. With a completely new platform, Microsoft can claim that Vista is the most secure Windows platform ever (the same claim they made about XP), but the fact is, Microsoft has no idea how Vista will stand up to hackers -- only time will tell.

Santa Uses Science and Techhology to Deliver Presents to Millions of Homes

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Most adults do not believe in Santa, because they do not understand how he can deliver presents to so many homes, all in one night. That's because most of us are not as smart as Santa and Dr. Larry Silverberg of North Carolina State University. Mick Kulikowski released an article earlier in the month, after speaking with Dr. Silverberg, that attempts to explain the science and technology behind Santa Claus' travels to the layman. "...Santa has a personal pipeline to children’s thoughts – via a listening antenna that combines technologies currently used in cell phones and EKGs..." Santa uses this information on his sleigh, so that he has up-to-the-minute information just before he builds a present for a child. Yes, Santa uses just-in-time manufacturing with nanotechnology to build the toys once he is in the home of each and every child. Of course that does not explain how Santa Claus can complete this all in a single night. That fact is, Santa's knowledge of the

Read Your WebMail with Thunderbird

The popular, safer alternative to the Outlook Express mail client Thunderbird , from the Mozilla folks, can be used for more than just POP3 / SMTP mail. If you did not know, Google provides POP3 access access, but all the other popular WebMail platforms do not. Lucky for us, Mozilla has developed Extensions to support the other popular WebMail formats from Yahoo to HotMail to AIM/AOL. Mozilla has made it fairly easy to setup too. First, you download their base WebMail Extension, and then individual Extensions for only the services you have. After the Extensions are installed, you have a new option, WebMail, in the Add Account interface, which takes you through a Wizard to configure. That's it!. I setup and tested both Yahoo and AIM/AOL. The only thing to watch for is that you enter your complete email address for the username (i.e. yourname@yourservice.com not yourname ). If you have not made the switch to Thunderbird yet, this is the time. In addition to the WebMail Extensions,

Firefox Doesn't Work on Vista

The new release of Firefox, version 2.0.0.1, which was released December 19th, still has problems running on Vista . The biggest problem is that it cannot be set as the default browser. It almost seems as if Microsoft purposefully changed things to make it more difficult for Firefox. According to W3Schools , Firefox had nearly a 30% market share in November, number two after IE 6's 50% share.