Windows Tweak: Hide Drives January 23, 2006
Posted by iespresso in Extreme Tech.add a comment
Ever wish you could make one of your computer’s drives invisible to anyone snooping around on your system? Well, happy days are here my friend! Whether you have sensitive docs, pictures, or any other private data, this is one of the easiest ways to keep them safe. Keep in mind that you’ll still be able to access your hidden drives; you just won’t see that they exist in Windows Explorer or the My Computer folder. Back up your registry before you start!
1. Open Regedit.
2. Navigate to one of these strings:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer – this only changes the settings for the current logged in user
HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer – this changes the settings for all users on the machine. You may have to create the key folder “Explorer” manually.
3. In the Explorer key folder, create a new DWORD value by right-clicking Explorer, then choosing New DWORD value. Name the value “NoDrives” (without the quotes). This value defines local and network drive visibility for each logical drive on the computer. All drives will be visible as long as this value’s data is set to 0.
4. Following the table below, enter the decimal number corresponding to the drive(s) you want to hide as NoDrives value data. When you right-click on NoDrives and choose Modify, make sure you select Decimal base, not Hexadecimal.
Drive Number to hide
A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
All drives 67108863
If you want to hide more than one drive, you simply add the drive amounts together for a combined total.
For example, to hide the D:/ and T:/ drives, add the decimal value for the D:/ drive to the decimal value to the T:/ drive.
8 (D) + 524288 (T) = 524296
To disable all of your visible drives, set the value to 67108863.
You must reboot your PC to see your changes. Have fun!
Fire Up your own Linux Server January 23, 2006
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2006 is the Year of the Penguin! So if you’ve been toying with the idea of running your own server, now’s the time. This comprehensive guide shows you how to get started – from installing Linux, to using the command line, setting automatic tasks to run, and securing the beast! Begin >>
In Google vs Government, It’s Not About Child Porn January 23, 2006
Posted by iespresso in News.add a comment
It’s interesting to see how many news sources mistakenly report that the current government vs Google case is about child porn. It’s not. If anything, it’s about children looking at pornography – i.e. webmasters not ensuring their sites are sufficiently blocking minors from viewing harmful content. Or more specifically, it’s about a proposed law requiring those sites to restrict access to minors, the Child Online Protection Act, which just didn’t get through in the past, and which the Bush administration now wants to revive (and for that reason, asked different search engines to hand over search logs and indexed URLs to prove the law is needed).
I wrote to the author of the original article at the Mercury News while preparing and editing my first blog post on this, realizing this isn’t about child porn – indeed the error is quick to make, and I was confused too at first – but the Merc’s error was never corrected. From there, it spread like wildfire into blogs and mainstream news sources alike. Following are some of the statements that are making their rounds (my emphasis):
“The Justice Department is asking Internet search giant Google to turn over search records in an effort to defend a child pornography law”
– CNN
“The company has refused to turn over the data, which the Bush Administration claims it will use in its fight against child pornography.”
– Forbes
“The US Department of Justice wants the information to help it to establish how much child pornography is available on the internet”
– Times Online
“However, the Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.”
– Mercury News
“The government doesn’t need Google’s data to go after child porn (KP) sites.”
– Make You Go Hmm.com
“The Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.”
– Slashdot (itself citing Mercury News)
“Trolling through two month’s worth of random results at the world’s leading search engine, as the government’s original subpoena requested, presumably would give Justice Department investigators a good read on what percentage of those searches were for child porn.”
– MarketWatch
by Philipp Lenssen | http://blog.outer-court.com/
Adding Paypal to your site with PHP January 22, 2006
Posted by iespresso in Website.add a comment
This tutorial is intended for PHP programmers of all levels, who wish to add Paypal functionality to their website. The programmer needs only a PHP enabled website and Paypal account. Click here
Geek to Live: Lifehacker Pack January 22, 2006
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Recently Google released a collection of free software for Windows called Google Pack. The big G made some good applications choices for the Pack and a couple of atrocious ones (RealPlayer *cough* Norton *cough*).
Productivity
- OpenOffice
OpenOffice offers Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents that are fully compatible with the Microsoft file formats and make you wonder why you ever sweated not having M$ Office installed on your home computer. - Google Desktop Search
Search your hard drive like you search the Web. Google Desktop indexes song data and email and comes with a handy Sidebar great for wide-screeners sick of all the whitespace on the right side of Lifehacker. - Google Earth
Someday I want to be a licensed airplane pilot. Google Earth lets me pretend from my desk at home in between Lifehacker posts. Now available for Mac, too.
Communication
- Trillian
I admit Google Talk’s turned my head a coupla times, but Trillian still has my heart. Tabbed multi-protocol mult-name instant messaging with Wikipedia integration is simply yummy. - Thunderbird
I know this web-based email thing is all the rage with the kids, but T-bird lets you manage email offline, spell-check inline as-you-type, and respond personally to hundreds of repetitive messages with a couple of clicks. Take that, Gmail. - Skype
It’s not just for talking to the computer with a headset anymore. Word on the street has it that with a Skype USB phone and some cheapy-cheap SkypeOut credits, VOIP can be yours.
Spyware Protection
- Ad-Aware
If it weren’t for Ad-Aware, I’d be trying to stomp on the roach in a full-screen IE pop-up window right now while someone bought imported child porn from the Netherlands with my stolen credit card number and a Nigerian drained my checking account. Thank you, Ad-Aware. - ZoneAlarm
Every once in awhile for fun I check the number of high-risk intrusions that ZoneAlarm has blocked on my always-on broadband connection, and I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Media
- VLC
Both Windows Media Player and Quicktime went “Buh?” when you tried to play that video file. Trust me – VLC will play it. - iTunes
Some quickly-addressed yet shady privacy issues with the new release aside, iTunes still handles my 55 gigabyte music collection like a champ. - Picasa
First thing I install for family members when they get their first digital camera. - Audacity
Wanna record a song being played on an Internet radio station? How about clip a tune down to 20 seconds to make it your cell phone’s ringtone? Audacity will do ya right.
Utilities
- FoxIt PDF Reader
In the time it takes for Adobe Acrobat Reader to launch and then load up that PDF, you could download, install and open it with FoxIt with time to spare. Ditch Adobe for FoxIt’s leaner, meaner PDF browsing. - 7-Zip
When WinZip started refusing to open certain necessary file formats, I switched to 7-Zip and never looked back. ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM and DEB, oh my! - SyncBack
Protect your data with SyncBack, which supports backup and synchronization across local disks, network drives and FTP servers. Check out my recent bout of SyncBack love and backup scheme goodness here.
Web
- Firefox
The “duh” choice, of course. But once you download, don’t forget to drive with the keyboard, set up 15 useful search shortcuts, get the Greasemonkey extension installed and running some great user scripts, and to check out the ever-growing list of our favorite extensions. Oh, and Mac users? Get yourself a Firefox build optimized for you.
I know y’all are serious about your free software, and that’s why I like you so much. Anything you’d include or exclude on this list? Let us know in the comments
KDE flaws put Linux, Unix systems at risk January 22, 2006
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A serious vulnerability has been found in the popular KDE open-source software bundle. The flaw, deemed “critical” by the research outfit the French Security Incident Response Team, could allow a remote attacker to gain control over vulnerable systems.
A serious vulnerability has been found in the popular KDE open-source software bundle. The flaw, deemed “critical” by the research outfit the French Security Incident Response Team, could allow a remote attacker to gain control over vulnerable systems. KDE is a desktop software package for Linux and Unix systems and includes the Konqueror Web browser and other applications.
The vulnerability lies in the JavaScript interpreter engine used by Konqueror and other parts of KDE, according to a security advisory posted Thursday. An attacker could craft a special UTF-8 encoded URI sequence to exploit the flaw, according to the advisory. For an attack to be successful, a person would have to visit the attacker’s Web page using Konqueror, the FrSIRT said in its alert. Affected are KDE 3.2.0 up to and including KDE 3.5.0. Fixes are available.
New critical flaw in the 5G iPod — destroys earbuds! January 22, 2006
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When my right earbud started making an annoying crackling sound I thought it was just the earbuds fault. But recently on iLounge it appears that a bunch of other iPod users have also had the problem, and with third party headphones as well! So, if you’re using an expensive pair of earbuds with your 5G — Check Out!
