Eclipse

A while back, we published an article chock full of free apps.  There was a lot of stuff that we left out though.  One of the glaring holes was in the Programming/Development section.  We completely left out Eclipse.  One reason for this is that Eclipse isn’t really an app.  It is an entire development environment.  The project is completely open source and it is one of the most powerful resources available to developers…and it’s free!  So, what is Eclipse exactly?

About Eclipse

From their website: Eclipse is an open source community, whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. The Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit, member supported corporation that hosts the Eclipse projects and helps cultivate both an open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products and services.

Where to Download

You can find the Eclipse Project at http://www.eclipse.org.

An example of a botnet used for email spam

I get this question a lot from less technical users.  Why do people make computer viruses?  Well, to start, traditional “viruses” only account for a tiny fraction of malicious software infections.  A good catch-all term to use for malicious software is “malware”.  So, why does malware exist in the first place?  I have found that a lot of people just assume that malware is produced by devious hackers who have nothing better to do than mess people’s stuff up.  It’s often viewed by less technical users as little more than digital vandalism.  It is important to understand why malware is out there.  It does serve a very practical purpose to criminals (and government agencies).

In order to understand the root of the malware problem, a good place to start is with Botnets.  A botnet is a collection of compromised computers connected to the internet and maliciously networked together.  They are then used by the controlling criminal (or government agency) to direct cyber attacks on specific targets.  It helps to think of it like a farm of zombie computers that are controlled by malicious users to do their bidding for them.  This allows the attacker to have a lot more fire power than just one computer could provide.  It also allows the attacker to be masked behind this army of zombie computers and makes it more difficult to identify the guilty parties.

Some of the different attacks that botnets are used for are denial of service (DoS), Email Spamming, click fraud, fast flux attacks, brute force password attacks, online gambling fraud, and many more.  The flexibility and fire power that comes with a botnet makes them incredibly dangerous.

Botnets present a powerful reason for even the most technical users to protect their computers from malware.  Make sure that you have real time malware protection installed on your computer.  As always, the very best form of protection is to browse smart.  Don’t just click on every link that you find…there are a lot of dark alleys on the internet filled with software just waiting for you to become click happy!

June 15 marks the public launch date of the Google Chromebook in the U.S. and U.K. So will this date go down in history, like the Wright Brothers first flight or the Apollo 11 moon landing? Or is it doomed to be a failed attempt to unseat Microsoft (and maybe even Apple) as the reigning champion of the Operating System world?

The Chromebook is different because Google has designed its operating system from the ground up to work as part of the “cloud”-that oh so nebulous term used by informed and uninformed alike to describe what is essentially a terminal. Google is moving forward by looking back to the days when terminals existed for user input, and the mainframe or server did all the work and storage. Now admittedly the Chomebook and Chrome OS are slightly more complex, but at the basic level the machine is a web terminal.

Those of you familiar with the Chrome browser will feel right at home on the Chromebook. It utilizes your Google login to grant you access, and all activities are done within that same Chrome shell. Little to no data is stored locally, and once you logout, no one else can access your profile.

I had an opportunity to sit down with one of the CR48 Beta units, and I must admit it was pretty slick. With its SSD the machine was booted up and I was logged in in under 30 seconds. Of course, you could do the same thing now with Win7 or OSX and an SSD. Chromebook also comes with built in B/G/N Wifi capability, as well as onboard 3G wireless, with 100 MB monthly at no charge through Verizon Wireless. Google has also dumbed down the updating and security processes, making them all automatic on the Chromebook. Chrome also has an increasingly large selection of apps, much like those available in iOS or Android.

Overall, for someone who is already cloud-oriented, and is looking for a moderaterly priced laptop/netbook, the Chromebook would be a decent choice. For now, I’ll chose to stick with something that allows more in the way of customization and local storage until the tech becomes more mature and full-featured.

For more information, check out http://www.google.com/chromebook/

PHP while loop with MySQL

I have been coming across a lot of “Essential Tools For Web Developers” lists lately and I noticed that they are all really extensive.  Some of them have as many as 100 tools listed!  This begs the question, “Do you understand what ‘essential’ means?”.  So here is my EXTENSIVE list of essential tools for web developers.  This is literally every essential tool you will need to develop web applications.

Web Server Software and Extensions

First and foremost, you’re going to need a web server.  If you have a web host, disregard this tool because this is essentially the service that they provide.  If you plan to run your own web server, check out WAMP for Windows and LAMP for Linux.

Text Editor

Notepad will work.  However, I would recommend getting a better one than that since it doesn’t really have any features!  There are a ton of free options.  Some people swear by Eclipse.  I prefer Notepad++ on Windows, TextWrangler on Mac, and VIM on Linux.

FTP Client

After you have created a new script or app using your awesome text editor, you will have to upload it to the web server.  Again, there are several free FTP clients out there.  I prefer FileZilla personally.  It was originally written for Windows, but has since been ported to Mac and Linux.  The Mac version can be a tad buggy from time to time but it’s super fast still and I love it!

Ummmm…yeah…that’s it.  Nothing else is needed to develop web applications.  There are lots of helpful tools out there and they should certainly be used, but they are NOT essential!

Next, enter the following into the command line:

wget http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks

Then enter:

sh winetricks corefonts dotnet20

And finally:

sh winetricks fakeie6

*- If you got an error about c://windows/ does not exist try to mount your drives

Free is an amazing word! I decided to compile a list of 100+ of the very best free apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not all of the free apps listed work on all platforms…so make sure to look into it on your own. This list is broken down into 11 pages. Each page accounts for a software category. Feel free to leave additional free apps that you like in the comments!

Categories:

• Web Browsers
• Anti-Virus/Security
• Graphics/Photos
• Media Players/Converters/Streamers
• Bit Torrent Clients
• Programming/Development
• FTP/SCP/SSH
• System Tools
• Chat/Messengers/Social
• Archive Management
• Productivity

Has this ever happened to you? You go into your favorite cafe (with free wifi of course) and order your coffee. Then, after paying for the coffee and maybe a muffin, you sit down and open up your laptop. To your total disappointment, the wifi connection doesn’t seem to have ANY internet connectivity! BLAST! What a waste of 5 bucks, right? Well, not necessarily…

At this point, you should ask yourself a few questions.

• Am I connected to the Access Point?
• Have I been assigned a private IP address?
• Can I reach the Access Point via web browser?

So, let’s assume the answer to question number 1 is YES…I am connected to the access point with a good signal! Now I need to know if I have an IP address.

In Windows, open a command prompt and type:

ipconfig /a

…In Linux or Mac, open a Terminal and type:

ifconfig

There are other ways to find your IP, but these work just fine. The private IP address will likely look something like 192.168.1.xxx.

Next, take that IP and change the last part (xxx) to 1. For example, if it was 192.168.1.193, change it to 192.168.1.1. This is the gateway address. Now, let’s try entering that gateway address into a web browser. If you are prompted for a username/password that’s good news! That means that the Access Point has port 80 open and is running a web server to allow web based configuration. Look for a model number or company name in the window asking for a password. If it’s something like WRT54G, that is a Linksys and the default username and password are both: admin.

If you can’t get in with a default username/password, you should probably just move on…unless you want to try something more advanced of course. :)

Once you ARE logged in though, you can do some things to get the free wifi working again. Release and renew the public IP…reboot the Access Point. That combination will fix a lot of connectivity issues!

Have Fun!

You will need:

• An SSH server that you can log into.
• An SSH Client on the computer you are using.
• A web browser.

The first thing we will need to do is connect to the SSH server. We will be using a special command flag when logging in in order to set a port and to avoid opening up an interactive shell. The command you will run is:

ssh -ND 9999 you@example.com

Replace “you” with your login name for the server and “example.com” with the address of the server. You will notice that after you enter your password, nothing will happen. It will just sit there. That is exactly what we want. Now, minimize the SSH client or Terminal window. Next, open your browser. I will show you the settings for Firefox, but the setup is more or less the same for other browsers.

In Firefox

Open your Firefox settings. In Windows, it’s in the “Tools” menu. In Linux, it’s in the “Edit” menu. In Apple, it’s in the “Firefox” menu. Once you have the settings window open, click on the “Advanced” section and then the “Network” tab. Next, click the “Settings” button next to where it says, “Configure how Firefox connects to the internet”. Select the option that says “Manual Proxy Configuration”. The only thing we change here is the SOCKS Host and the Port. For the SOCKS Host, enter “localhost” and 9999 for the port number. It should look like this:

This is a very old method for setting up a SOCKS Proxy, but it works quite well. Please feel free to comment!

Did you accidentally erase your hard drive partition containing Windows Vista or XP prior to trying to install Windows 7 Upgrade? Well, it won’t work! Unless you follow some simple instructions! Here you go:

1. First, do a completely clean install of Windows 7 bypassing the activation process.

2. Then, make sure that there aren’t any pending Windows Updates that will require a reboot.

3. Then enter regedit.exe in the Start Menu Search

4. Navigate to the registry key:

HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

5. Change MediaBootInstall from “1″ to “0″ and then close the Registry Editor.

6. Then type cmd into the Start Menu and right click the shortcut and choose “Run as Administrator”.

7. At the prompt type:

slmgr /rearm

8. Close the command line window and reboot.

9. After the computer reboots, run the Windows Activation and enter your Upgrade key.

10. Enjoy Windows 7!