Reuse your USB Cables

Salam Anak IT.

Do you have an extra of USB extension cable? Yang inda bepakai? Ampai-ampai? Today I will show you one of many ways on how to make use your wasted USB extension cable. I will just let the pictures do the talking after this.

USB Extension Cable

"Pengikat tabir bilik"

Another close-up

Sekian. Until next time.

P/S : For those yang kan share idea lebih bernas untuk re-use any computer parts yang inda bepakai, kindly post it here or you are welcome to be part of Anak IT's contributors =)

Alert - MSN Spammer (Email Version)

Salam'alaikum Anak IT Readers~ Long time no see~ <laugh>yohohoho</laugh>

Last time, I did post an article regarding "MSN Spammer" but that was for MSN Messenger. Today, I would like to share another MSN Spammer di dalam versi "email".

The MSN BOT is way too genius, not only it can nudge your MSN Messenger but also give out an email (if mulut biskita langap2 a.k.a inda paham, please read this article before proceed). Recently, I've got emails from anonymous (MSN BOTs) inviting me on their network and so on. Here are SOME examples...

As you can see, it says "I remember I promised you" but I do not even know who is this Madison. If its from Dayang Lintuk or Awang Kuripik and bakurapak dalam bahasa Brunei maybe masuk akal jua sedikit... Ane lain pisinnya... "Hey babe" lagi tu <laugh>Bwuahuwhuahwa</laugh>

That is an example yang jenis kan "sharing photo album". Now, examine the following screenshots taken from my inbox...

"heyyyyy"

another "heyyyyy"

"heyyyyy" again...

Same "heyyyyy" from different users? Huhuhu so it is obvious that the invitation came from the MSN Spammer...

Again... BE CAREFUL...

Sekian, wassalam...

Defend your drives from AUTORUN.INF Malware

Salam Anak IT.

Today I would like to share some useful information on protecting your any secondary storage drives (pendrive, harddrive) from being infected with malware which uses AUTORUN.INF service.

Sebagai mukaddimah, AUTORUN.INF ialah satu fail yang diberi "permission" secara khas untuk membuka apa saja "executable" files yang tersenarai didalamnya. Autorun.inf sering digunakan untuk membuka program melalui CD ataupun DVD. Biasanya "Installation CD" tedapat ne fail ane...

Masalahnya... Ianya sering dipersalah gunakan oleh sebilangan "kaum" dimana mereka menggunakan "permission" tersebut untuk membuka "virus" mahupun "malware" yang bisdia buat supaya infecting other computers, biasanya melalui PENDRIVE...

Have you ever come across where your friend told you that your pendrive is carrying virus/malware/spyware into it? I am pretty sure you have heard of such things especially in college or university. So... Miana gayanya tue? Dibiarkan saja?... Ofcourse the best way is to have an antivirus/antispyware/antimalware implemented on your system and scan your pendrive regularly but what I am going to write is how to minimise the virus/malware impact on your drive which most of these "liau" uses AUTORUN.INF for their operation.

First, open up the drive's folder

Next, we will be creating new folder by Right-clicking anywhere on the white space, go to "New" and choose "Folder"

Rename the folder to "autorun.inf"

After that try to test it on any infected machines which will transfer the virus/malware into any removable drives. It might still copying certain files but it will not run it AUTOMATICALLY and so you have a control whether to delete the file or just let it be there.

If you see the "autorun.inf" folder's Properties (right click on the folder then click on "Properties"), you will see that the folder is automatically set to "Read-only" by the operating system.

That is it for today. I hope you could gain useful information from it. Until then, Assalamu'alaikum W.B.T... Wassalam...

P/S : Please use only GENUINE antivirus. Bukan antivirus main be"cr4ck3d".

Run anything at Window's Startup

Assalam~

Have you ever wonder how to make your favorite application to run automatically every time you starting up your computer? If you do then you should follow these few easy steps. For this demonstration, I will be using Windows XP Professional but I believe this might also work with other Microsoft's Operating Systems such as Windows Vista/7.

First, go to Start>Programs and then look for "Startup"

Second, right click on the "Startup" and click "Open"

The "startup" folder will appear. This is where you can put any application's shortcut that you want it to run automatically when the windows started up.

As example, I put Mozilla Firefox's shortcut that I copied from desktop

After you are done, restart your computer and see what will happen. Selamat mencuba~

Sekian. Wassalam...

P/S : This method also applies not only to shortcuts but to real file as well. Try to create new text file inside the startup folder and fill the text file with anything you want such as reminder or "To do" list then restart your computer.

FOSS - Notepad++

Assalam~

Today, I will introduce you another useful FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) brought to you by Actifed - Ubat damam warna pink dari Klinik Kesihatan Sg. Hanching.

If biskita selalu deal with text (programming kah or even blogging kah or simply suka taip surat kinta), apa software yang biskita pakai? Notepad? MS Word? Do you really comfortable using it? For those yang ganya menaip cerita atue maybe no problem but for those yang creating programs or developing a site might found them really hard in some cases.

So here... Some of you might already know it but kepada sesiapa yang alum tau atue, today's FOSS ialah Notepad++. Sama macam notepad biasa tapinya ada Plus2x gyahahaha. For further information, you may visit its official site here. Click here to download the software by clicking "Download Now!" button and try it out.

There are wide varieties of language available in Notepad++ such as HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, Java, C++ dan yang sewaktu dengannya.

Apa yang membuatkan software ane "bisai" digunakan, it uses colour codes to represent particular prefixes for each language so that it is easy for us to determine which is which. This software also provides "TAB" feature for multiple files to be opened at the same time.

If you need to open another new window of Notepad++, go to Start>Run or press Window+R on your keyboard and type the following code:

notepad++.exe -multiInst

Then click on "OK" button. Walaaa~

The multiple window could be useful especially when you want to open different program where each program has multiple files.

I think that is all I wanted to share with all of you. If you have any difficulties or questions regarding Notepad++, please let me know by clicking "Miana kan tue?" at the top of this page.

Sekian. Wassalam...

Online Photo Editor

The print screen image you see above this text is from pixlr.com, an online photo editor hosted by netfirms.com. It was suggested to me the other night and I decided to check it out, so now I've decided to give a short review about it. There are some pros and cons of using this online photo editor which I would like to discuss. First of all, the pros of using it:

1. It is pretty user-friendly

2. It's like an online version of Adobe Photoshop

3. Shortcuts that you would normally use for photoshop can be used in here too, e.g. ctrl+z for undoing mistakes or ctrl+m for curve adjustment.

4. You can create your own brush, like such

5. You can change the language to the desired language, except Malay.

6. It has the Tilt-Shift effect which is not included in Adobe Photoshop (I'm not quite sure about the upcoming Adobe Photoshop CS5 though)

7. Every basic function is there and you can just skim through the page to find it.

That's basically all the pros I can figure out for now. The cons, however, are:

1. You MUST have access to the internet to use this online photo editor.

2. The Lasso tool is only limited to two, which are Free-hand and Polygonal Lasso tool

3. There is only a limited number of effects you can use (probably to decrease slow loading of the page)

4. The brush you create is only limited to a number of shapes, unless you can find brushes in .pbr format to load into the editor.

5. The texts are also limited to that offered in the online photo editor text options.

6. If you have slow internet connection, you'll experience some lags in processing the commands you entered.

In conclusion to this short review, I'd just like to state that, with all the pros and cons, I think that it's quite alright to use this online photo editor, especially if you don't want to take up memory space in your laptop/desktop. This would be good practice as well for beginners of photo editing because of user-friendliness. I might be wrong on some points that I've stated earlier, but do try it out and see if you like it.

You won't get anywhere without experimenting in life.

Customising Error Pages

No matter whether you are a geek or simply a normal internet user, there are times when you come across dead links within a website. And that pretty much annoys you. And half of the time you decide to move on and go to other websites.

To the webmaster/web owner, this is a downright frustration as well because you loses traffic. But maybe you do not realise that the reason why your visitor decides to leave your website not because they can't access the page (well, that's half of the reason of course) but because they're being rubbed in the face with the ugly ERROR page. Pokoknya, ilang minat bisdia.

So, to make sure the visitors will still stay on your website, you need to spiff up your error pages supaya inda boring, inda membari meluat. What do we do?

Obviously, we will need to customise the error pages. To do this, you will have to create a file called.htaccess. If you already have this file, you only need to add in a couple of lines.



Anyway, if you hadn't, follow the steps below.

Step 1:

Create two files that serve as your error pages. You can customise it in anyway you like. Add in CSS kah, Flash kah, up to you. Save them as 404.html and 403.html respectively. (You can choose to have them as .php files instead of .html if you like).

Step 2:

Open up your editor (Notepad kah, Wordpad kah) and type in these lines:

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.yourwebsite.com/403.html
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourwebsite.com/404.html


Save the file as htaccess.txt

* If you had chosen to name the files as 404.php and 403.php, make sure in the lines above you use the same extension as well.

Step 3:

Upload all the three files (404.html, 403.html, htaccess.txt) to the root folder of your website and rename htaccess.txt as .htaccess



Test the error pages by typing in your web address URL followed by garbled/random words, for example: yourwebsite.com/antamtiaeh. The error pages that you created just now should be popping up. If it doesn't, do give me a buzz.

Using PHP Includes

Are you tired of having to copy and paste long codes into every single page in your website? For pages that contain short contents, it is alright if you just use HTML. But imagine if you have all those extra codes (for sidebar, advertisements, credits, etc.) wouldn't that be troublesome to include on every single page? And if there is a line of code that you want to change, you will have to change the same code on the other pages too.

Now, wouldn't you want to know how to do it the short and simple way? If you do, here's a tutorial on how to do it. Mind you that this tutorial will only provide the basic of PHP includes usage.

First of all, take a look at this basic HTML coding. Let's say it is the coding for owner.html:

To use PHP includes, basically, you will need to split your HTML codes and put them in separate pages and then join them together with this code:

Step 1:

Open up your text editor and put in your html codes. Remember to paste only the codes that start from <HTML> until <body>. The rest that comes in between the <body></body> tags is the content.

Save this file as header.php

Step 2:
Create a new file and name it footer.php. Paste the bottom part of the HTML into this file:

Step 3:
Paste the contents of your page into a new file and name it owner.php.

Step 4:
Now, it is time to connect the 3 files together.
In the owner.php, paste this code at the very top of the file.

And at the very bottom of the file, paste this code:

Once you have coded that page. Upload the three files to your site and test it out. Go tohttp://yoursite.com/owner.php and see if it works.

Note: Make sure you place the header.php and footer.php in the same folder as the page that you want to connect them to otherwise it will not work.

Easy steps: HDR effects via Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta 2

Easy steps to applying the HDR effects via Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta 2

First of all, the term "HDR" means High Dynamic Range imaging. Most of you would probably be wondering how to apply the HDR effect to an image, like the photo below this text. I shall give you easy steps to applying this effect using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta 2, but you can also use versions of Lightroom older than version 3 beta 2.

I've decided to give you "print-screen" tutorial pictures so it's easier to see what I'm talking about.

So, I hope you understood what I was trying to explain. For more inquiries, dipersilakan menakan "Miana Kan Tue?" on the top of this page. =)

Never be afraid of experimenting.

Hacker vs Cracker

Salam Anak IT.

When you heard of "hacker", apa yang mula-mula terlintas dalam fikiran biskita?

• Urang jahat?
• Pencuri password?
• Anak inda betamadun?
• Suka makan pizza?
• Kuat beribadat?
• None of the above

Alright... What if... "cracker"?

• Inda sama kah tue?

Hahaha when I did my investigation *echewah* rata-rata SEMUA pikir yang hacker ani urang jahat sama macam cracker. Yang teruknya ada yang pikir "biskut" when I asked "What do you know about cracker?" <laugh>dereshishishishishi</laugh>

So... Apa tah yang banar tue?... Today I want to make certain things really clear to all Anak IT readers...

1. Hacker IS NOT Cracker
2. Cracker IS NOT Hacker
3. Hacker != Cracker
4. Cracker != Hacker
5. Cracker may or may not be "biskut"

BUT... Another thing that you should really understand is that, cracker WAS a hacker... Confusing?

Here are points or true facts about "hacker":

• A hacker WAS (or maybe IS) a member of the computer programmer
• Hackers are people who learn how things work (mempelajari bagaimana sesuatu benda berfungsi)
• They also learn things' weaknesses for improvisation (mempelajari kelemahan sesuatu benda untuk digubah menjadi lebih baik)
• Usually they tell people the weaknesses of certain things that they have found out so that the people could avoid any lost or unwanted disaster

Biskita disyorkan untuk membaca laman web ini lebih lanjut. Apa yang membari gagau ati serta menjadikan jiwa bertambah resah lagi padar is that, most people nowadays think that hackers are bad people. Liat saja arah ceta hollywood masa ani. If anything pasal "stealing data" gerenti kana galar "hacker" bukannya "cracker". Even worse, when people buat lambang "hacker" biasanya diselitkan dengan lambang "tengkorak" and ada lagi yang menambah pedang or pisau dua bilah which look exactly the same macam lambang "PIRATE". They don't even bother to learn the origin of "hacker".

How to Hire a Hacker? Masuk pagar urang lain? Penetrating to steal things? So what does a cracker do then? Liat urang main bula?

From there you get a picture how the word "hacker" kana salah gunakan... So now... I would like to explain further on "cracker":

• Former hacker with bad intentions
• Steal valuable data/information
• "Pencuri makanan" in cyberworld
• Usually "tamaha" as in "inda mau share" and will not tell people how they did things
• May or may not makan biskut cacah aing piasau while cracking

I hope you understand the differences between "hacker" and "cracker" by now. If your teacher taught you that "hacker" is bad people who steals data, it is time for you to tell him/her back the differences between "hacker" and "cracker". It is funny how the word "hacker" is stated in secondary schools' computer studies textbook but is not mentioning things about "cracker" at all (i'm not sure if the new textbook is already out mentioning these things).

The moral of the story is:
"You may be a hacker with cracker's mind in order to avoid from being cracked"

Sekian. Harap maklum. Wassalam.

P/S : If biskita pernah melaha radio or laptop untuk meliat cemana ianya berfungsi, then you are a "hacker" =)

Measuring Online Distance

I drive around 26km (ulang alik) nearly everyday each week. How about you? Find it out through this useful site.

Validating Your Website

If you own a website, most probably you have heard of website validating. But if you haven’t, it is time to learn.

Now, apa kah bendanya website validating ani? To put it in simple words, it is basically you make your website to live up to the standard that is accepted by most web designers.

“Why the trouble”, you may ask. “Lawa jua sudah website ku ani.” Well, there are many reasons as to why you should go through all the hassles but here I will just touch one aspect.

By validating your website, you will able to reach more people and spread your influence even further. If you are operating a business, your website will have more potential in pulling in more customers.

How is that possible?
First, you have to know that not all web browsers are the same. Microsoft Internet Explorer is not the same as Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome is not the same as Safari. Even if your website looks fine on your browser, it does not mean it will look the same on somebody else’s browser. Despite all of them serve as the tool to surf the internet, they are built with different mechanisms and capabilities. In shorter words, they will display some the contents of a website slightly differently from each other.

Imagine this scenario: you own a website where you are selling health products. A visitor comes in and starts browsing through your products. Your website contents happen to be not supported by the visitor’s browser, and causing the browser to crash (or hang). Your visitor eventually loses interest in your website and decides to hop to a rival company. Badabing badadum, you have just lost a potential client.

Well, hopefully you will find this article useful. I've only touched the tip of this topic so you are advisable to find more about the topic through online articles.

Below are some useful tools for you to validate your website:

>>W3C Markup Validation: this service will validate your HTML or XHTML markup.
>>W3C CSS Validation: this service will validate your CSS.

Letter is not A4!

Assalam...

Have you ever print out something that you were not expected it to be? For example, menyingit sebalah tia or the last paragraph arah bawah sekali of the page suddenly menyubarang arah next page? sedangkan arah screen inda cematu? Pernah? Puas?...

Yetah yang kan dikongsikan ne... Tapinya sebelum atue bakunyanyang tah dulu tue aa... Al-kisah~ *mau tia jua hahaha*

Pada suatu hari, Awang Pulan bin Paji Pulan meminta tolong kepada saya untuk mem"print" dokumen beliau yang URGENT untuk dihadapkan ke mesyuarat yang bakal berlangsung lebih kurang EMPAT minit lagi. Beliau berasa resah dan juga gagau ati kerana ink printer beliau telah habis dimakan waktu bersama teh hijau panas. Dengan me"lap2" paluh beliau berkata:

"Ji... Tulung ku ah... Print kan ku... Ada ku ngambil karang"

Saya pun dengan senyuman membalas balik permohonan beliau:

"Bah... Print saja ne? Ok dah semua kah? Nada salah? Full cek udah?"

Beliau dengan pantas berkata dengan suara chipmunk:

"Don kawari tue ji... Print saja selajur... Tengkiu ah..."

Dengan pernyataan tersebut, saya pun tanpa membuang masa terus takan CTRL+P dan memprint dokumen beliau yang lebih kurang EMPAT PULUH LEBIH MUKA SURAT... Tidak lama kemudian, Si Pulan datang untuk mengambil dokumen tersebut dan mengembalikan Pengdrive beliau di atas mejanya... Jeng jeng jeng... Selepas beliau habis mesyuarat:

"Jeng... Apa tue ko print ah... Inda beterikah bah usulnya... Belarian bah ayat2 nya... Kana tiup angin pakah printermu atue ji..."

Saya dengan muka eksen2 tercangang berkata:

"Mengapa ya? Ko jua barucap OK udah tadie..."

Semak punya semak akhirnya kedapatan yang ia punya dokumen alum SET ke A4... Masih lagi LETTER... So... Salah siapa?...

For those yang masih "nda paham" or saying "aaapakan...", I will elaborate more for you ESPECIALLY to Awang Pulan.

By default, application such as Microsoft Word will set your paper size to LETTER size. This is because arah United State dan yang sewaktu dengannya menggunakan LETTER size paper for their office's formal use... So I want to ask you... Dimana ada bejual LETTER size paper di Brunei?... Maybe ada but cuba liat paper yang tedapat arah printer kamu... Apa sizenya? LETTER? Cuba cek banar-banar... The standard paper size in Brunei is A4... NOT letter size...

Then... If biskita tau sudah kan di print arah A4 size paper, mengapa set rah computer biskita paper size other than A4?... Atue sama jua macam biskita kan membali Aing Pisau tapi yang biskita ambil Aing Longan... Inda jua "ngam" tue... Paham inda? Mun masih jua inda paham, biskita disyorkan untuk menalipaun Ambulan suruh defragment "harddisk" biskita huhuhu...

Ok... If those yang paham but inda tau miana, I will tell you how to change the paper size in Microsoft Word 2007...

Before biskita start typing arah MS Word 2003/2007, PLEASE MAKE SURE what size paper are you working on... For this article I will only show you how to change the paper size in MS Word 2007. For those yang makai MS Word 2003, maybe other contributors might help you on that soon...

First, open your MS Word 2007, then go to "Page Layout",

Second, look for "Size" on the "Page Setup" ribbons,

Change from Letter to A4 size...

Walaaa~ now you will print out EXACTLY apa yang meluah dari screen monitor... So... Awang Pulan miana?... Ok? Hopefully all readers (especially students yg buat assignments etc.) do take this as a SERIOUS matter... Jangan membuang keratas only for such small mistake... Support GREEN ICT... Not encouraging people to cut more trees... Sekian... Wassalam...

P/S : "Don kawari" = "Don't worry" hahahaha spiking pisin buah Tibadak Nangka Kawin...

Speed On Demand

Salam Anak IT.

Anyone using e-speed? Yes? Brapa kbps? 1MB? Pelahan? Or sadang? huhu worry no more~ pasal now we already have "Speed On Demand" brought to you by TelBru.

Technically what does it do is that, it BOOST up your current e-speed connection ADDING another 1MB or 2MB (selectable) for 60mins a.k.a sejam so for example biskita sudah ada 1MB then biskita kan TOP-UP 2MB, it means you will be surfing internet with 3MB of e-speed connection for about an hour. It may sound "sekajap" but 60mins would give us enough time to download BIG FILES and so only use it when you NEED it. Why? I will tell you later...

So... here are steps to activate "Speed On Demand"...

1. Go to the website
2. Enter username and password
3. Choose whether you want it to boost up adding another 1MB or 2MB
4. Enjoy your connection dengan senyuman lebar for 60mins

"Username and Password ane dimana kan dapat? Google kah?" <laugh>bwauahuwhuahwa</laugh> no... Username is basically your 7-digit phone number... Ukan mobile ah... Line rumah yang kamu pakai untuk e-speed... Password is your e-speed account number... Where to get that? Arah your e-speed's monthly bill...

As I told you, why you only need to use it ONLY when you NEED it is that, BUKANNYA FREE =) hahaha the charges are as follows:

The charges will be accumulated in your e-speed's monthly bill so for those yang bukan membayar sendiri atue jangan lupa minta izin sebelum activate the "Speed On Demand" pasalnya at the end of the month the bill will be increased depending on how often you boost your e-speed connection.

Our default e-speed value surf connection. There is no 512KBPS E-Speed anymore... The minimum is 1MB e-speed connectivity. You may read the latest available e-speed plans here.

That is it for today. Hope it would be benificial to some readers yang makai e-speed. Until next time~

Sekian.

P/S : Anak IT is not responsible if indung kamu marah pasal bill e-speed naik tiap bulan. You are advised to use it wisely.