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How To: Scan for Viruses in Windows Using a Linux Live CD/USB

Many windows users, if not all, run into a virus infection once in a while. This is unavoidable when using Microsoft's operating system. Without digressing too much, the fact that Windows is such a popular OS with no controlled software sources makes it easy for viruses and malware to spread. And while there's a plethora of antivirus tools for Windows, sometimes infections (such as certain scareware) can disable the install and/or use of antivirus systems and render your OS unusable until cle...

How To: Send SMS Messages with Python

In this article, I'll show you how to send SMS messages with Python. You'll need Python 2.7 or later, urllib and urllib2. The code basically uses an online text messaging service to "POST" html data, as if a person was entering the data themselves. The uses for something like this are unlimited. For example, I modified the basic code so I would receive a text message letting me know every time someone rang my doorbell. The program could interface with Arduino through a serial port, and send d...

Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 3 - Legal Hacker Training

Welcome to the Goodnight Byte for HackThisSite, Basic Mission 4. In Friday's session, we tackled some coding in Gobby. Nothing special, just a few modifications to the NullBot script we made a few session ago, and some education on regular expressions. Apart from coding, we did our scheduled HackThisSite mission. We had to take on some JavaScript, which was a new thing for Null Byte. This mission taught us about client-side HTML manipulation through JavaScript injections. This just means that...

Secure Your Computer, Part 4: Use Encryption to Make a Hidden Operating System

This is Null Byte's fourth part in a series about fully securing our computers (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). In our last Null Byte, we went over how to encrypt an entire operating system to protect our data, however, this doesn't fully protect us. In the case of legal extortion, the government can actually make you give up your cryptographic key to your computer so that they can look through it.

News: Math Craft Inspiration of the Week: Electrically Generated Fractal Branching Patterns

Natural processes often create objects that have a fractal quality. Fractal branching patterns occur in plants, blood vessel networks, rivers, fault lines, and in several electrical phenomena. Many of these processes take lifetimes, or even occur on geological timescales. But this is not the case for electrical phenomena. They often occur near instantaneously. One example would be the branching patterns that sometimes occur in lightning.

How To: Extract Images and Text From PDF Files

Since PDF files are so popular in both our daily life and work, we see them everywhere. And sometimes we find there are terrfic images or text in the PDF files and we want to save them as seperate files for future use, such as in a presentation or post. Here's the question: how can we save those elements from the non-editable file formats?

How To: Do the Land O'Lakes Indian Butter (Boob) Trick

The artwork for Minnesota's Land O' Lakes butter packaging is classic, dating back to 1928 when it was first created by Brown & Bigelow illustrator Arthur C. Hanson. The logo was updated ("modernized") once in 1939, again in the '50s, and has undergone minor modifications here and there since. The legendary packaging is good for two rather nerdy tricks: A) a very trippy optical illusion and B) a very infantile boob illusion.

How To: Get Rid of Promoted Tweets in Your Twitter Timeline

More than a year ago, Twitter rolled out the first phase of its Promoted Tweets ad service, which consisted of selected tweets from advertising partners like Best Buy and Sony Pictures receiving "promoted" exposure in the search results pages on Twitter and in the trends lists. These ads were clearly labeled as such, so it was never any real bother to Twitter users.

News: Is Open Source Really Insecure?

To go Open Source or go proprietary? There is a common conception that open-source is unsafe and insecure and therefore companies should rather go for proprietary solutions. They think that because software is termed "open-source", that the world can see the vulnerabilities of the software and might exploit it, and less informed people tend to think that open-source software can be modified while it is running.

How Do You Create Your Own Job: An Example

On Thursday, March 9, there was a news story on the evening news about Khan Academy (NBC News). The story began when Sal Khan started tutoring his cousin in 2004. Since he was in Boston and she was in a different city, he decided to make and post videos on YouTube so anyone could watch the videos. Later he added videos for her brothers and for people that contacted him with requests for other videos. During this time Sal had a job that he later replaced with another job. Today Sal has 2010 vi...

News: Final Fantasy 14 First Impressions

These impressions are coming from a person completely new to the Final Fantasy Online world. Never played FF 11 or the FF 14 Beta. This game is not friendly to new people. The account creation is a Kafka like experience in things that don't make sense. For the game itself, the beginning tutorial is awful and does not really teach you the basics of combat. Here is a small breakdown of my opinions, with the good points first so that they don't get overshadowed by the negatives.

News: Microsoft Ribbon Hero

Microsoft Ribbon hero is an application that turns the office into game. It is designed to boost skill and knowledge in Microsoft Office’s latest version. It is released with office 2007 as a social game for increases productivity in office applications. It is compatible with Microsoft Excel 2007, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 as well as those three programs in Microsoft Office 2010, available as a beta download.

How To: Remove The Farmville Application On Facebook

Help your non-active friends remove the FarmVille application. We all have friends who have installed Farmville at one time or another and then end up quitting the game. But since they might be real life friends, we do not want to delete them from our friend list. Here are some directions to remove the application.

How To: Join Second Life and Create Your Own Avatar

On June 23, 2003, Linden labs created a free client program known as Second Life. This program allows users, or residents, to interact with each other in a virtual world by using avatars. Thanks to this program, residents are able to explore, socialize, and create and trade virtual property, and services with each other. Second Life has become one of the most popular programs used by various age ranges from 16 to 60, but how do you enter this world and get your own avatar?

Tor vs. I2P: The Great Onion Debate

In my recent Darknet series, I attempted to connect the dots on the Deep Web. I covered the two largest anonymity networks on the Internet today, Tor and I2P. While my initial four articles were meant as an introduction, I ended up receiving a lot of interesting comments and messages asking the technical differences between the two. I'd like to thank all of you for letting me know what was on your minds, as you should always!

News: The Basics Of SEO

Since the internet is becoming more and more important all the time in regards to overall marketing plans for many companies, it’s imperative that the company website be up to the task of attracting visitors and converting them into customers. There are many methods and techniques to do this and for that reason it’s usually preferable to hire a company that focuses on online marketing or search engine optimization (SEO) to do this work.

News: Netflix DVD Rentals Becomes Qwikster… Now What Are Your Alternatives?

It's been a long journey for Netflix users. At first, it was a rough ride as Netflix struggled to find its place in the homes and hearts of movie watchers everywhere. Once monthly subscriptions bumped off the pay-per-rental charges, Netflix soared to great heights, known for their flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, or shipping and handling fees. And it was smooth sailing when streaming services were incorporated into monthly plans, with customers being able to rent DVDs ...

News: Foreign Countries

International Pet Travel: Taking Your Pet Animal to a Foreign Country If you are taking a pet to another country (permanently or for a visit), contact that country's consulate or embassy for information about any requirements that you must meet. A list of consulates can be found at Foreign Consular Offices in the United States

How To: Do the Two Needle Cast On Knitting

There are so many different ways to cast on knitting. I have my own favorite. It's the way I learned when I first started knitting. My way is called TWO NEEDLE CAST ON. I like this 2 needle method because you don't have to guess how much you need to measure out a length of yarn at the beginning. I also think it makes a tighter and straighter edge.